Chapter 97
“It’s easier if you think of this place as a dream.”
“A dream...?”
“Yeah. Alchemist is a spell that stores wishes and makes them real.”
So Name had used magic to make a dream come true within a dream?
Yuna still tilted her head in confusion.
Every time she took a step, the dew-laden grass squelched beneath her feet, and the cold air entering and leaving her lungs felt so real that she couldn’t possibly believe it was fake.
“Name, then what are those people over there? Are they magic, too?”
Haru was curious about the blond-haired siblings.
“Yeah, if you want to call it magic. In a way, they’re also people I missed.”
“I still don’t understand what’s going on...”
“You can just think of them as people exactly like us.”
From a distance, the sky and meadow seemed to merge and stretch endlessly into the horizon, and a sense of tranquility filled the place, as though time had stopped.
The distance from where they had been to the hill had certainly looked considerable, but after only a few steps, they had somehow already reached the spot where the picnic mat was spread out.
Was this why she had called it a dream? Haru muttered quietly.
“Hello, kids.”
Name greeted them first, her eyes filled with wistfulness.
The siblings, who had been trying to pin down the mat that kept shifting in the wind, stopped what they were doing.
“You...? The princess?”
“Wow! Esha, Esha! Do you finally feel like coming out of your room? Who are the people beside you? Are they friends? Can’t you introduce me, too?”
To the children making sullen faces, Name offered advice as if it were no big deal.
“You know how to play house, right? From now on, you’re Princess Yuna, and you’re Princess Haru.”
“What? Play house? All of a sudden?”
“Eek, a princess...!”
While Haru looked slightly horrified, Yuna was brimming with anticipation.
Becoming a princess had long been Yuna’s dream, so she had never imagined that Name shared this sort of interest.
“Let me introduce you properly. This is Yuna, and this is Haru, in that order.”
“Ah, um... Hello, Yuna, and Haru.”
“Hello! It’s so nice to meet you! All your names are so pretty!”
This time, Name introduced them in the reverse order.
“The boy is Hyacen, and you can call the younger one Niobe. Those names aren’t too difficult, are they?”
“Ah... Hello, Hyacen oppa?”
“Hello, Niobe unni.”
“Yeah! Nice to meet you!”
They were still awkward around the two blond siblings.
They couldn’t help finding it strange that these people, even more exotic than Han Seori from their class, spoke in their own language.
In particular, their extraordinary beauty must have made them feel even more distant.
Hyacen’s long, drooping lashes twitched faintly as he looked over the three girls.
“Estasha...?”
“Yes, Hyacen.”
“You’ve changed a lot.”
“A lot has happened.”
“You said you wouldn’t come back until you finished everything. Have you achieved all your dreams now?”
“...Yeah.”
“Was I there at the end?”
“You were.”
“That’s a relief... I’m glad the me outside didn’t leave you alone.”
Name’s words were only half true.
It was none other than Emperor Hyacen who had taken Princess Estasha’s final life.
But Name hid that fact, not wanting to ruin the mood for no reason.
“Oh, come on, Big Brother! Why did you suddenly bring up something so strange and kill the mood?”
“Niobe, you’re being a nuisance, so be quiet for a bit.”
“Yeah? And what are you going to do about it? I’m not playing with Big Brother—I’m only playing with Esha!”
Niobe scampered over and linked arms with Name.
“Come sit down! I’ve just finished preparing the picnic. Yuna and Haru, you’re welcome, too!”
Since the gathering had abruptly grown from two people to five, the picnic mat felt a little too small.
But that simply meant Hyacen and Name could sit half on the grass and make room.
“Um... Were you two acquainted with Name before?”
Haru asked. Niobe, who always wore a beaming grin, answered her.
“Of course! Esha is our little sister forever and ever!”
The words came from a girl with platinum-blond hair that kept blowing across her pert mouth and golden eyes nearly buried beneath her prominent under-eye fullness.
It was funny for her to call Name her little sister, but as Name had said beforehand, they decided to go along with it.
The boundary between common sense and nonsense had already collapsed.
“I’d actually like to ask you the same thing. How did you come to know Estasha?”
“We’re classmates in the same class at the academy!”
Yuna answered Hyacen’s question confidently.
“And best friends...!”
She also made sure to add that.
“The academy? Esha, didn’t you drop out?”
“I enrolled again.”
“I see. You’ve always wanted to make friends, after all.”
“I...?”
“Yeah.”
“Hyacen, you’re still talking nonsense.”
“I’m always sincere.”
“Even that way you talk...”
Everything was familiar, and for that very reason, she missed it.
Niobe’s pranks, Hyacen’s sarcasm.
Name’s expression darkened again at these ties she could never meet again.
“Esha, say aaah—”
Having noticed this, Niobe stuffed a cream-filled éclair into her mouth without asking.
“Mmph!”
“Hey, hey, it’s okay to eat it! You won’t gain even a pound! Hee-hee.”
She could barely bite through it with her baby front teeth and finally managed to dislodge the piece of pastry from her mouth.
“I never knew. Name, did you live abroad?”
“You could look at it that way, or you could say you didn’t.”
If Alchemist was magic that materialized dreams, then judging by their conversation, these people had to be acquaintances of Name’s.
Yuna could only find it fascinating that such cool and beautiful people called themselves Name’s older siblings.
After stuffing the entire éclair into her mouth, Name shared her thoughts.
“It’s fascinating. I live in a different world, and even my body is completely different, yet Raul-Sist’s storage remains intact. Is it because the constellations are the same?”
This was also strong evidence that Name’s previous life had not been some mere dream lasting one night.
Hyacen and Niobe were clearly real people, suggesting that her past life had been the same person as Princess Estasha.
Name had cast the spell thinking that, even if it failed, she had nothing to lose.
The magic she had drawn upon whenever things became difficult—the magic that had carried her this far and kept her from succumbing to the sweet temptation of suicide—was exactly as she remembered it.
* * *
It was only natural for people from this world to mistake Alchemist for simple magic that let them look at the stars.
Whenever the magic happened to be cast, all they could encounter was the vast universe, so it must have been difficult to discover its true purpose.
Then again, whether it was Raul Luminos, who first discovered the magic in her previous life, or Hyacen, who taught the magic to her, they had both thought of it merely as magic for viewing the stars.
Alchemist was an illusion spell that reconstructed and materialized the happiest moment.
It presented a realistic, concrete illusion based on the wavelengths of starlight that had reached Earth.
Its significance, in particular, lay in the fact that it built the illusory world from information about the world stored in starlight, rather than relying on an individual’s imperfect memories.
But at the same time, it was a double-edged spell.
The caster could escape harsh reality and enjoy a sweet respite, but the emptiness that awaited upon returning to reality was indescribable.
In other words, the happiest memory meant that reality could never be anything but darker than it.
I used Alchemist (Raul-Sist) only when I wanted to abandon all the tasks I had been given.
I probably used this narcotic-like magic most often during the battle to suppress Sloth.
Because to make the seed of Sloth implanted in my body run wild, there was no other option than the bizarre, irrational method of not sleeping.
All I could do was endure mindlessly, then endure some more.
I repeatedly used magic to replace the function of cerebrospinal fluid, forcibly removing toxins accumulated in my brain, including adenosine and amyloid beta, while relaxing my muscles as much as possible to reduce physical fatigue.
But all of this was ultimately just an artificial substitute for deep sleep; it could never erase my need for sleep entirely.
For a year, Alchemist had been an indispensable spell for maintaining my sanity while I repeated an ordeal more horrific than any torture.
'But I even recited this spell in my sleep. I hope I didn’t make my friends worry for nothing.'
Meanwhile, the fake Hyacen and fake Niobe here were fascinated by the fact that my body had changed.
Naturally, they had reason to be, since I had cast Alchemist more than ten times by now.
No matter how artificial the personalities woven by magic were, they must have retained the memories of my visits as well.
“You said your new name was Name? It’s a shame I can’t call you Shasha anymore.”
“How old-fashioned... And I look so different now.”
“I was a little surprised. I wondered if you’d swallowed the wrong venomous spider again.”
Hyacen said this with a sidelong smile.
“Honestly, I’m not a little kid anymore. I’ve been alive for more than four times as long as you have.”
A venomous spider that turned hair black couldn’t possibly exist in this world.
If one did, its venom would probably be marketed successfully as hair dye to the elderly.
During the walk, Hyacen and I exchanged utterly pointless conversation.
Stories about finally defeating Feiran with a sword, and about Josephine’s fiancé being caught cheating with the daughter of some baron from a remote frontier, leaving the entire family in ruins.
He recounted them so vividly that they sounded like events from yesterday, but they had actually happened more than twenty years ago.
He repeated the same stories every time I came here, and I always enjoyed listening to him.
Because the spell was what it was, I had no choice but to meet Hyacen while he remained fixed at the age of thirteen, but perhaps because he had always been unusually mature for a child, even when we relaxed and talked like this, he felt like a real friend.
After so long, being immersed in the feeling of familiarity wasn’t unpleasant, either.
“This is nice. As expected, talking with you is the easiest, Hyacen. Even if you are rather insolent.”
“I’m young now, you know! You’ve lived outside for several more years, so of course. But did you know? Talking to you was the hardest thing in the world for me.”
“What, are you saying you only put up with me all this time?”
His sudden confession felt like it might wound me.
Was this one of those situations? Someone I thought was my friend had no one else to hang out with, so they had settled for spending time with me?
“No, that’s not what I meant, Esha.”
“Then what did you mean?”
“...I’m never telling you, you know?”
“Honestly, you’re unbelievable.”
Hyacen stuck out his tongue.
“Ah!”
I barely managed to suppress a snort of laughter at how ridiculous it was to see him bite his own tongue.
I wondered if the countless young ladies lovesick over the man who had shaken high society under the title of the handsomest man since the founding of Kaizen knew that he was actually this much of a klutz.
Or would they like him even more for the unexpected charm? Either way, I didn’t care for this blasted lookism. They’d probably adore him even if he pooped.
“You look really ugly when you frown.”
When I added my two cents, Hyacen flushed and abruptly turned his head away.
“I... I’m not ugly, okay?”
Perhaps because he knew he was handsome, whenever I called him ugly like this, he would get indignant and pester me to take it back.
Look at that narcissist, fussing with his flowing curly hair over and over.
If he had been holding a hand mirror, he surely would have spent the entire day fussing over his hair.