47. End of Summer (1)
[Episode. 10]
[The Truth of Morf]
[Complete the perfect story and receive a promise of additional rewards from the ‘Constellatio Project’.]
…One Main Episode he hadn’t even realized had begun was now complete. In his hazy state of consciousness, the system message of the Constellatio Project felt nothing but distant.
The Truth of Morf.
What kind of episode was that again?
He couldn’t remember very well.
“Phew……”
[The skill ‘Spirit’s Breath’ has been released, and the rate of divine erosion rises significantly.]
[Your body has been overloaded by the excessive use of the item ‘Wheel of Dawn’.]
He had heard people say that the muscles of the whole body could scream. He hadn’t known what that meant before, but now he thought he did.
This wasn’t merely screaming.
It would be more accurate to say they were begging to be saved.
He hurriedly drank every kind of potion he could get his hands on, but the pain did not fade.
‘I’m seriously going to die……’
He slowly drew in a breath and leaned back. He had hidden himself truly far from the battlefield, high among the thick branches of a tall, overgrown tree, and judged that no one would be able to see him, so he even tore off and threw away his mask.
Dududududu!!
From far away came the loud thunder of hoofbeats. The Magic Warrior Corps was arriving one after another.
Without even knowing that everything was already over.
It was easy to spot the magic warriors who had already arrived and grasped the situation, staring in stunned disbelief at the fallen Hwa-ryeong, the White Demon Fox Spirit, and Isaac Morf.
How, exactly, were they supposed to accept this situation?
It was unbelievable enough that a 9-Risk demonic beast had appeared, but for Grand Duke Isaac Morf, who had protected the continent, to betray the world of magic and become a dark mage—
And yet, before long,
the mages joined together and began shouting with one voice.
“Grand Duke Isaac Morf has fallen into black magic!”
“However, Princess Hong Si-hwa successfully defeated him!”
“Ohh! Look upon his corpse! What a heroic feat!”
“I can’t believe it. That Grand Duke Isaac Morf betrayed the world of magic….”
The mages surrounding Hong Si-hwa praised her accomplishment.
In truth, they all knew.
Why Isaac Morf had fallen into black magic.
Wasn’t it possible to understand well enough just by looking at the circumstances?
The seal on Hwa-ryeong, the White Demon Fox Spirit, had been undone.
In order to bring it down……
he chose a noble sacrifice of his own accord.
But what did such a “truth” matter?
The living had to go on living.
So now that the head of the Morf Grand Ducal House, one of the two great pillars, had died, siding with Adolevit was the wiser choice.
That scene being the last thing he saw, he closed his eyes. Hong Si-hwa Adolevit would accept the praise of the mages and conceal the existence of Hwa-ryeong, the White Demon Fox Spirit.
Because she understood all too well that if it were revealed to the public, it would only increase the number of people trying to guess at the truth.
Even the achievement of defeating Hwa-ryeong, the White Demon Fox Spirit, was extraordinary, but she gave even that up in order to erase all lingering rumors cleanly.
A wise woman.
And a vicious one.
“Ugh…”
As if a machine had been forced into motion with the wrong parts jammed inside it, his whole body creaked. At this rate, it seemed he would have to recuperate here for quite some time……
More than that, though, there was one problem.
‘……How am I supposed to get back now?’
The day he returned to the past ten years ago.
Silver Age November had engraved into his mind the path back to the original timeline. In truth, though, calling it a “path” was generous. There was nothing he himself had to do…
all he had to do was wait.
‘When the time comes, I will open the path for your return. Until then, never interfere with the timeline of the past, and quietly wait!’
In the end, he had interfered with the timeline of the past to an absurd degree…
but even so, according to his expectations, the future probably hadn’t changed at all.
……Probably.
‘Did something go wrong?’
By now, Silver Age November should have thrown him a lifeline, so why was there no sign of anything?
It felt as though quite a lot of time had already passed, and with no response whatsoever, uneasy thoughts began to creep in.
What if his actions really had caused something to go wrong, and the connection to the Silver Age November of the present had been severed?
What if, because of that, the Silver Age November of the future no longer remembered that he even existed?
“……How am I supposed to get back?”
All at once, the road ahead of him went dark.
Swaaaaa—!!
The monsoon of the Hawol Plains lasts throughout the summer. They said it was especially severe this year, but it had reached the point where the trade routes were on the verge of being cut off entirely, and so merchants’ wallets did nothing but fill with worry.
The same was true for the Starcloud Merchant Company. This summer had been a rather difficult season for them as well. While Melian, the master of the merchant company, remained missing for an extended time, Zeliel had likewise put down all her duties in order to search for him, so how could the company possibly have been operating properly?
In the first half of this year, Stella’s students had announced one new-concept magic after another, and because the company had failed to properly jump into the already rapidly moving market, Starcloud was now suffering from an unexpected and massive confusion.
Tap! Tap!
Listening to the rain striking the window, Zeliel sat blankly, lost in thought.
“You really can’t focus these days.”
A week had already passed since Melian had been rescued safely, and fortunately there was nothing seriously wrong with his health, so he had returned to his original work almost immediately.
He had run around so busily dealing with the backlog that even deep dark circles had settled beneath the eyes of a man who always maintained a neat and polished impression.
“……I’m sorry, Father.”
“No. It’s understandable.”
Drinking cheap coffee, Melian looked at his daughter with concern.
Even after he returned, the child had hardly ever shown any sign of joy.
It wasn’t as though she had always been the sort of child who lived cheerfully with a bright smile, but even so, she had never shown this much gloom before.
Come to think of it, hadn’t he recently received a message from Hae Seongwol, the Master of the Full Moon Tower?
He had thought it was meant to ask after his well-being, but strangely enough, the man had been especially curious about Zeliel’s condition.
“Zeliel.”
“…Yes. Please speak, Father.”
He took a deep breath.
Even when dealing with the world’s most distinguished figures, he had never once felt nervous, yet now that he stood in the position of a father speaking to his daughter, even a single sentence had to be chosen with care.
“Could it be… because of that boy?”
He had heard the full account of the incident from Hae Seongwol. His disappearance had begun from Zeliel’s mistake, and though she had done everything in her power to set it right herself, she had been unable to.
Then, like a miracle, the boy who had appeared and restored him was said to be none other than Baek Yuseol.
But……
tragically, in exchange for saving him, the boy had vanished into a crack in space-time, and even Hae Seongwol had shaken his head and said he likely would never be found again.
“No, Father. It’s not like that, so please don’t worry.”
He had gathered his courage to ask, but Zeliel merely forced a smile so obvious it hurt and shook her head.
“……All right. I understand.”
Melian hurriedly concealed his bitter expression and left the office. He was worried about his daughter, of course, but so much work had piled up that he could not afford to spare attention elsewhere.
Click!
Swaaaaa! Tap, drip!
In the silent office where Zeliel was left alone, only the loud sound of rain striking the window remained.
Scratch, scratch—
Using a quill pen made through alchemy, one that naturally leaked ink on its own, Zeliel scribbled across a stack of documents for a long while before finally letting out a sigh.
She couldn’t get a hold of anything.
She felt so empty, as if a hole had opened in her chest and her heart had disappeared.
Drip.
“Ah……”
The blot on the letters she had been writing spread, and Zeliel hurriedly changed the paper.
“Haah……”
By now, she could no longer even understand why she was like this. Had there ever been a time when she had lacked the will to live this much? Why did people live at all? As a high elf, she would live for hundreds of years more. Was there any meaning in such a meaningless life?
Thinking that this could not go on, she rose from her seat and stepped out onto the balcony.
The roof blocked the downpour, but it could not stop the cold droplets carried by the rain and wind from splashing across her face.
Perhaps it was fortunate that at least this much could help clear her head.
Blankly, she leaned against the balcony railing and stared intently at the green horizon stretching far across the Hawol Plains.
It truly was a beautiful place.
……She had never known that before.
This “beautiful scenery” everyone but her always spoke of in one voice.
And yet for some reason, now, she could deeply accept such a thing as beautiful scenery, just like everyone else.
Things she had never known before were beginning to enter her sight.
Beautiful things, ugly things, exciting things, sad things, joyful things, boring things.
These were the emotions ordinary people felt in life.
Now that she could finally feel all of them…
why was it that what she felt instead was nothing but helplessness and despair?
‘……Nothing changes even if I do this.’
Zeliel shook her head to clear it and turned around, about to go back into the office.
But something… something felt strange.
‘Ah?’
The rain-laden wind that had been blowing coolly and making her hair sway suddenly stopped.
‘What is this……’
It felt profoundly unfamiliar, this peculiar shift in emotion where fear came before curiosity, but Zeliel forced herself to turn her head with difficulty and look back out over the balcony.
“……What?”
Water droplets hanging in midair.
……Hundreds of millions of them.
The shower that had been drenching the Hawol Plains had stopped.
The lightning that had been crashing down now decorated the background like a painting.
As if time itself had come to a halt…….
[Read only on MugenCodex.]
Unable to believe her own eyes, Zeliel shut them tightly, then opened them once more.
At the very end of the horizon,
an old man was suspended there.
With a pure white bolt of lightning behind him, one that looked as though it had split the world in two, he quietly gazed at Zeliel.
Splash!
Stepping on the shower itself, the old man walked toward Zeliel.
One step, then another.
And the closer the distance became……
ironically, before fear, Zeliel felt something swelling up inside her chest.
She knew.
This was hope.
At last, having come all the way to the balcony,
the old man looked down at Zeliel. Though there was no wind, that mysterious old man’s beard fluttered as he stared straight into her eyes, then suddenly said,
“In this area…… you are the only child bound to Baek Yuseol by the strongest tie of fate.”
“……Is that so?”
At the sound of that name, Zeliel’s heart trembled even more violently.
“Do you wish to bring him back?”
“Yes.”
“If you fail, you may have to offer up your heart as the price. Even so, does it not matter?”
It did not take even one second.
That was all the time it took for Zeliel to nod.
“That was an exaggeration.”
“……Pardon?”
“There is no need to stake your life. I merely wished to know how earnest you are.”
He turned and looked out at the distant horizon. Thinking, as always, that it was truly a beautiful sight, he parted his lips and spoke to Zeliel.
“What you must do is simple. You need only yearn for him… earnestly. I am not bound to that child by fate, so it is impossible for me, and I have no choice but to ask you. Can you do it?”
If it was something like that, then there was no problem at all.
Because……
it was something she had already been doing all this time.
“…I can.”
When Zeliel nodded, her resolve firm, the old man smiled in satisfaction.
……Swaaaaa!!
And then.
As if the old man’s existence had been nothing but a dream, he scattered into the air, and the shower began pouring down once more.
For a moment Zeliel stood still, staring at the place where he had vanished, then, as if entranced by something, gathered her things and ran out of the office.
Flutter….
In the silent office where now no one remained, only a few sheets of paper trembled and danced with the wind and rain.
