Chapter 23
“What’s Father’s favorite food?”
“Cheese-covered potato gratin. And the topping absolutely has to be bacon.”
“Then what’s my favorite food?”
“Roasted chicken legs with spicy sauce.”
“……Then, what’s Evan’s favorite food?”
“A whole roasted suckling pig covered in pepper. Especially the ribs.”
Why was every question about food? It was a little puzzling, but I could answer every question my sister asked without the slightest hesitation.
When my sister paused, Ellie cut in as though she had been waiting for her chance.
“Everything you did in the mountains was exactly like Big Brother Evan. The confident way you spoke, the way you subtly looked after your friends, and everything.”
Ellie took a step toward my sister, who was sitting in a chair as though deep in thought.
“You know better than anyone how I feel about Big Brother Evan, Sister. I can say this with certainty: the person inside Rene’s body is definitely Big Brother Evan.”
‘Ellie….’
It seemed I hadn’t lived my life entirely in vain, after all. Ellie believed in me with such complete conviction.
“Ellie, even if you say that with such certainty….”
But my sister still seemed unable to easily accept the inherently unrealistic situation of our souls having switched places.
After studying her reaction for a moment, I cautiously took a step toward my sister.
“Take me to my room. I’ll disable every magical code there and prove who I am.”
That would expose all the secret diaries and other things I had written until now… but what else could I do? Proving my identity as quickly as possible took priority.
But my sister merely looked back at me with a sharp gaze.
“That can’t prove you’re my little brother. If you somehow stole my brother’s memories, it would be entirely possible for you to do all that.”
“Sis….”
“And if I’m supposed to believe everything, there’s also the way you behaved when I came to the school, isn’t there? You falsely accused Kairos. How do you explain that?”
“Kairos…?”
Ellie stared back at me blankly.
‘Damn….’
My eyes squeezed shut before I knew it. Of course. From my sister’s perspective, there was no way she could easily believe me after I had told such an absurd lie.
“I was… I was so confused then, too.”
I clenched my fists without realizing it, my voice trembling.
It was embarrassing to bring this up in front of Ellie, but I decided to confess everything honestly.
“At first, I really thought Kairos was the culprit. I thought I’d simply been hit by the defensive magic he had set up to protect his room.”
“W-wait, Big Brother. What do you mean, defensive magic to protect his room?”
Ellie asked as though she couldn’t understand at all.
I stopped her with a brief, “I’ll explain that later,” then met my sister’s eyes again.
“That’s why I hid my identity at first. I believed I could return to normal through Kairos. I was more afraid of being found out for sneaking into Kairos’s room.”
If I were caught trespassing in another student’s room, I would receive a five-point penalty. On top of that, I would have to read a written explanation aloud before all the dormitory students and reveal why I had done it.
For Evan Friesna, it was a humiliation I could never accept. I couldn’t give up all the reputation I had built until now.
“Even if that was the case, you didn’t have to lie to me, too. I could understand doing it in front of the principal, but we were alone in the herb garden.”
“Back then… I was so flustered that I couldn’t make a rational judgment.”
“Because you realized that Rene was the real culprit who attacked Evan?”
“That’s right! Until then, I genuinely believed that Kairos had done this to me!”
Looking back, it had been an incredibly foolish and one-sided assumption.
Rather than shake off my fifth-tier mage sister and the fourth-tier mage Gyeran and run away, I would have had a much better chance if I had simply revealed that I was Evan and tried to talk them into believing me.
I lowered my head helplessly and continued.
“And… honestly, I was scared of you, too.”
“Scared of me?”
“Well… honestly, you’re a huge brocon, aren’t you, Sis?”
“……What?”
“I was terrified of telling you that I was actually Evan. You were obviously furious at the time.”
Think about it. Your beloved little brother has fallen into a coma, and then the child identified as the prime suspect suddenly says, ‘I’m actually your little brother~.’
Needless to say, it obviously would have been taken as a horrifying provocation. It wouldn’t have been strange if I had been burned to ashes the moment I said it.
As I cautiously watched my sister’s reaction, Ellie tilted her head and asked,
“What’s a brocon?”
“A brocon is… well, it’s something between siblings….”
“W-wait, stop!”
For the first time since we began talking, my sister looked flustered. Ellie and I both turned toward her.
For some reason, my sister’s face had flushed slightly as she hurriedly continued.
“I have something to discuss with Ellie alone for a moment. Rene, go wait outside.”
“Sis, I….”
“Go wait outside. I’ll be finished soon.”
My sister glared at me with a resolute look.
“Please do that. Trust me.”
Ellie also urged me cautiously.
“……All right.”
There was no point in stubbornly resisting. Besides, if it was Ellie, she would take my side no matter what happened.
I still had a mountain of things to say, but I nodded for the moment and turned around. After letting out a deep sigh, I opened the door and stepped outside.
‘I hope this goes well.’
As soon as I stepped outside and closed the door, I sensed the faint presence of an isolation spell from within, apparently meant to keep me from eavesdropping.
※※
“Ellie, do you really believe that child is Evan?”
Erica asked as soon as she cast the isolation spell. Ellie nodded with a determined expression.
“Yes.”
Her eyes held not the slightest trace of hesitation.
“But you have no conclusive proof.”
Erica was not backing down easily, either. Having completely erased the bewilderment she had shown earlier, she asked in a calm voice,
“Anyone can imitate habits or speech. As for the memories you share, if Rene somehow stole my brother’s memories, she could easily say those things, too.”
“No. The person inside isn’t someone who could be mimicked through acting or trickery. You felt it, too, Sister. The person inside is unequivocally Big Brother Evan himself.”
“But Ellie, you haven’t known Rene for very long.”
“You don’t need to know someone for long to recognize them. Big Brother Evan is Big Brother Evan, and that Big Brother Evan has already been by my side for more than ten years.”
Ellie did not seem to even consider the possibility that Rene was pretending to be Evan. It seemed practically impossible to persuade her otherwise.
Her speech and behavior were astonishingly similar to Evan’s, but Erica bit her lip without realizing it and continued seriously.
“Then what do you think the method was?”
“The method…?”
“Yes, the method. I’m asking how that child named Rene transferred my brother’s soul into her own body.”
To be honest, Erica had not completely ruled out the possibility that their souls had switched places.
‘Advanced detection magic’—the greatest point of doubt—was explained all too easily by the assumption that ‘Rene was actually Evan.’
“Ellie, as you know, soul transfer is impossible without a miracle. The soul-transfer magic registered in the Tower of Tiers is a Tenth-Tier spell belonging to the Miracle class.”
As a secretary of the Ministry of Magic and the eldest daughter of House Friesna, Erica knew better than anyone just how utterly absurd soul transfer was.
Rather than believe that a child named Rene, whom she had never heard of before, had stolen her brother’s soul, it was far more rational to think that she had absorbed Evan’s memories and was imitating him perfectly.
“R-Rene might have used an unknown spell that isn’t registered in the Tower of Tiers.”
“How?”
“By researching it herself….”
“That’s impossible.”
Erica firmly shook her head. She handed Ellie a crisp parchment scroll that had been lying on the desk. The school’s seal was stamped on it.
“This is….”
“It’s Rene La Vellia’s birth record, which the school had been keeping.”
It was the very document Erica had separately asked Vice Principal Verkis for on the day the treasure-hunt exam ended.
Ellie unfolded the parchment with an uneasy expression.
“Huh…?”
Then she looked at Erica with considerable surprise.
“Her mana manifestation date was… only a month before she enrolled?”
“That’s right. And both her parents are Blanks with no mana.”
It wasn’t entirely impossible for a mage to be born to two Blanks, people without mana.
Nor was it impossible for someone to grow enough within a month of manifesting mana to meet Luminus’s admission requirements.
But Erica could confidently state that it was absolutely impossible for a commoner-born novice mage, unable even to receive help from her parents, to independently create a soul-transfer spell estimated to be at least Eighth-Tier.
Erica looked at Ellie with a serious expression.
“The truth is… I sensed it faintly just now, too. The person inside is definitely my little brother Evan. Evan… is still alive.”
Her voice trembled slightly.
But she soon lowered her head helplessly.
“But there are too many questions for me to accept that completely. At least until I properly understand Rene’s identity and the people behind her, I can’t fully acknowledge that child as my brother.”
“B-but nothing would happen right away even if you believed Big Brother. It’s not as though you’re telling anyone else….”
“No. It would cause problems.”
Erica answered firmly. Ellie stared at her blankly.
Soon, Erica’s calm voice continued.
“Rene herself couldn’t have developed that magic. Then how exactly did Rene steal my brother’s soul?”
“……With help from someone else?”
“Correct. More precisely, I suspect that someone installed some kind of magical ‘device’ in Rene’s body.”
Moreover, Rene had the unusual constitution of lacking a mana limiter.
That alone would have been enough to attract someone’s attention.
“So returning my brother to normal is something we do after finding the people behind this. If we fail to eliminate the mastermind, there’s no telling when something this terrible might happen again.”
“In other words… if Big Brother appears to be spending too much time with you, a secretary of the Ministry of Magic, the people behind this will realize that the Ministry has taken notice and will never reveal themselves….”
Ellie struggled to put the situation into words.
“That’s right. And Evan… as you know, Ellie, the moment I acknowledge him as my little brother, he’ll start casually calling me ‘Sis’ again, just like before. That’s too dangerous.”
Erica gave a bitter smile.
“Besides, unless I make it clear that I’m on his side, that boy won’t let down his guard. For Evan’s sake, we need to maintain a reasonable degree of tension for now.”
“Certainly… Big Brother did tend to let his guard down sometimes….”
“He did trust and love his family too much, as well.”
Erica gazed into the distance for a moment, as though remembering something, then composed her expression again.
“So let’s keep things as they are for now. I’ll watch over you both from a distance and help however I can.”
“……Yes. Then we’ll do that.”
Ellie nodded as though she had no choice. She lowered her head and thought for a moment before finally rising from her seat.
“Ellie.”
“Yes, Sister.”
Ellie’s listless gaze met Erica’s.
Erica forced herself to smile brightly as she continued,
“Please take good care of Evan.”
There seemed to be a great many complicated emotions hidden behind that smile.