Chapter 37
The Academy was always bustling at midday, whether it was a weekday or a weekend.
At the very center of the Academy grounds, where the Central Library and Student Hall were located, especially large numbers of people passed by. It was the heart of the Academy, after all, and the Student Hall housed all sorts of shops for students.
The tea I was noisily sipping through a straw had also been purchased from one of those shops. At the small tables set up outside the Student Hall, students gathered in groups and chatted.
During that peaceful interlude, Leto was sitting across from me as usual.
“……So you just left those two there and came here?”
Leto looked thoroughly unimpressed. If things remained as they were, he looked as though he might click his tongue. I sighed and scratched my head vigorously.
“No, what else could I do? They were worked up, and I was getting seriously pissed off too, so that’s how it happened.”
Leto moved his lips as though he were dumbfounded by my words, muttered something, then turned his head away with a look that said he had given up.
The only sound that echoed forlornly was the noise of him sipping his drink through a straw. Soon, Leto raised both hands and lamented.
“Good, good. You’ve graduated now. Go forth into the world.”
“What are you talking about now?”
At my incredulous reaction, Leto looked even more dumbfounded as he spoke to me.
“How can I call you my disciple when the two prettiest flowers in the second-year class are fighting over one man? And you told those two not to come looking for you for a while?”
“Wow,” Leto said, shaking his head as though impressed. Soon, his expression crumpled.
“You’re really playing hard to get. But you bastard, you shouldn’t treat Celine like that, no matter what.”
Maybe I had gone too far. I felt a twinge of regret rising within me.
After returning to the dormitory and thinking it over carefully, I realized that it probably wasn’t enough of a reason to skip breakfast and get angry over. In particular, the sight of Seria fidgeting anxiously still lingered in my mind.
She was especially inexperienced when it came to interpersonal relationships. I was worried that my words might have been taken as something like a declaration that our friendship was over.
I clicked my tongue and noisily sipped my drink through the straw. Its refreshing aroma tickled the tip of my nose. At least, I felt as though my head was clearing a little.
Seeing my troubled expression, Leto let out a deep sigh. He looked as though it was difficult to say anything more. After a brief silence, he seemed to decide to turn his thoughts in a more positive direction.
All of a sudden, he began to chuckle. My questioning gaze turned toward him.
A strange glint appeared in Leto’s green eyes. He had the air of a mischievous troublemaker.
“No, no. Come to think of it, you’ve hardly ever gotten that angry at Celine, have you?”
“Well, that’s true.”
We had fought in the ward last time, but there had ultimately been a minor misunderstanding, and Celine had actually been the one to get angry at the end.
I had never been the one to get angry at Celine like that before. Perhaps that was why I remembered Celine looking at me with a slightly shocked expression.
Thinking of that expression made me feel another pang. Seria was one thing, but Celine was also a friend who had shared life-and-death experiences with me. Since I had fought with her, I couldn’t help worrying about it.
That was what friendship was like. If a relationship was insignificant, one could simply cut it off and move on, but the stronger the bond, the emptier and more uncomfortable it felt when it was severed.
Unlike my complicated feelings, however, Leto was simply delighted.
“Wow, this should be fun to watch.”
“What should?”
Without losing his snickering smile, Leto answered my brief question.
“Obviously, how Celine is going to react! She must be on pins and needles right now. A rival showed up, and she got worked up, picked a fight, and earned your ill will…….”
“How could I hate Celine?”
“That’s what you think, but by now Celine is probably biting her nails anxiously.”
I tried to deny Leto’s words with a small laugh, but his next words forced me to close my mouth again.
Leto was practically like Celine’s real older brother, so he must have known her better than I did.
Even so, I couldn’t readily believe him. Celine was always so bold and sociable. She was anxious?
I couldn’t imagine it. I could only shake my head, still looking unconvinced.
As though he had expected that, Leto did not force me to believe him any further. He merely left me with one request.
“Hey, stick right next to me today. I’m definitely going to see how Celine reacts.”
His voice was as cheerful as could be. It was filled with the desire to tease Celine. For all his teasing, Celine’s misfortune seemed to be his happiness.
Of course, if Celine were truly in a serious situation, his face would be the first to stiffen.
Wasn’t that what family was like? At this point, I decided to change the subject.
“More importantly, Leto.”
“Yeah?”
Leto responded in an equally casual voice to my casually spoken words. But inside, I was becoming somewhat anxious.
I thought the story I was about to bring up would sound absurd. In fact, when I had told Leto about it last time, his reaction had not been favorable.
But it was impossible for me to carry this heavy burden alone. I needed at least one trustworthy companion with whom I could share my worries.
If so, there was only one person I could confide in first.
A close friend who was smarter than me, knew more than I did, and had a broad network that brought him plenty of news.
There was no one else but Leto Einstern.
“What would you think if a letter came from the future?”
“Huh?”
Leto had been holding the straw in his mouth, but he let out a questioning sound as though I had said something strange. Then he frowned and pondered for a while before setting down the drink he had been sipping.
He spoke with an incredulous look in his eyes.
“You mean that thing you mentioned in front of Emma’s bedside last time? You’re still not over the shock?”
“No, Leto. I’m telling you, it’s real. Here, look.”
As I spoke, I took out the love letter I had carefully kept inside my clothes. It was written on old-fashioned stationery in neat handwriting, and clearly appeared to have been written by an educated young noblewoman.
Even if I had wanted to lie, I would have had to go to considerable lengths to recreate something like this. And as Leto knew well, I wasn’t the kind of person who enjoyed pranks to that extent.
Leto frowned and stared at me as though asking what I was doing. I indicated the letter I had held out with my eyes.
“What do you want me to do about it?”
“No, I’m telling you to take a look at this. This is the letter from the future…….”
Leto’s face turned serious. He looked back and forth between my hand and my face, then sighed and leaned against the backrest.
Then he spoke in a voice laced with a sigh.
“There’s nothing there.”
Just as I was about to ask what he meant,
Leto straightened up and leaned his upper body forward. Then he swept his palm back and forth over my outstretched hand.
Leto’s hand passed right through the letter. It was as though he were waving it through empty air. My eyes widened.
It was something I couldn’t understand with the common sense I possessed. An object that had physical substance for me did not have it for someone else?
It was only natural that Leto’s expression hardened. He spoke in a serious voice.
“Hey, don’t you think you should get a psychiatric evaluation? It seems the shock was pretty bad when Emma was attacked…….”
“No, I’m telling you, that’s not it! I—I also subjugated that magical beast according to what was written in this letter. Because it said a magical beast would attack!”
I hurriedly strung together excuses in my panic, but Leto’s expression grew not only serious but sorrowful as well. If this continued, I might be forced to undergo psychological counseling.
I found it frustrating too. Was this really the truth? Or was it a hallucination I had created after the fact? Even I had not completely dispelled those doubts.
But the magical beast’s attack during swordsmanship practice was not the kind of thing I could have predicted. It had not been a coincidence, and I still vividly remembered the nightmare I had dreamed that day.
Those golden eyes drenched in blood.
That gave me a strange certainty. I must not ignore this letter. Yet even the person who could help me most at present did not trust me.
I couldn’t prove anything with what had happened in the past. So I recited the future described in the letter.
“So, Leto. This might be hard to believe right now, but according to this letter, a powerful magical beast is going to appear at this year’s Hunting Festival.”
“The Hunting Festival? Ah, come to think of it, I heard that the fourth-years who went out on assignment are starting to return in preparation for it.”
“……?”
I fell silent again at Leto’s response. When I turned my puzzled gaze toward him, Leto stared at me as though wondering what was wrong.
Unable to bear my frustration, I sprang to my feet and recited the contents of the letter again, this time in a slightly louder voice.
“I’m telling you, a powerful magical beast is going to appear at this year’s Hunting Festival!”
“I’m telling you the Hunting Festival is coming up soon. I know that. Is there an Academy student who doesn’t? What does that have to do with anything?”
I couldn’t believe it. I lost my words and sank back down where I stood.
There was a strange gap between what I said and the story Leto heard. Whenever I tried to convey the information from the letter, it seemed to be replaced with something similar yet completely different.
How was that possible?
The fact that a love letter had come from the future was absurd in itself, but seeing this level of distortion occur before my eyes left me confused.
When I lowered my gaze blankly, Leto swallowed a groan, his expression gradually turning serious. He seemed to be debating whether I had lost my mind or whether he should seriously consider what I was saying.
He soon let out a sigh. As though he had made up his mind, he spoke.
“Look, Ian. If what you’re saying is true…….”
“……I’m telling you, it really is!”
When I retorted in a slightly agitated voice, Leto nodded as though telling me to calm down. Then he continued in a low voice.
“If that’s the case, then there’s a strong possibility that time has been distorted only for you.”
I looked at Leto with incomprehension in my eyes. He clicked his tongue. It was obvious what he was thinking even without his saying it.
‘This is why the Swordsmanship Department is hopeless.’ He began explaining to me in a gentle voice.
“Distorting space-time is difficult even with magic. Maybe only the highest-ranking magic could do it. Even then, its range would be limited. But if a letter came here from the distant future, that means information was transmitted.”
“So what if information was transmitted?”
Leto sipped his drink at that point. He still seemed to be debating whether he should take my story seriously. But since he had come this far, he continued explaining.
He went on.
“The world undergoes an enormous distortion simply from information being transmitted from the future. For example, you said you subjugated the magical beast after seeing what was written in the letter, right?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“Then how was the magical beast subjugated in the future from which the letter came? Did you read the letter then too?”
“I—I suppose so……?”
At my uncertain answer, Leto shook his head. It meant that I was wrong. He opened his mouth again.
“Time isn’t that simple. To begin with, if there were no past in which you read the letter, then there would be no future in which you subjugated the magical beast. And if so, the act of writing the letter in the future and sending it to you wouldn’t happen either, would it? The causal relationship of the event itself becomes trapped. Like a circle.”
“……?”
I could only stare at Leto with an expression that showed I still didn’t understand. Perhaps frustrated, Leto muttered a small curse, then held his head and spoke to me.
“You don’t need to understand. Just think of it simply… So, the point is that even that one piece of information causes an enormous distortion. And the mana required to correct it is even more enormous. So, to minimize the scope of that distortion, the range of the time reversal was limited—and limited to you as an individual.”
“Is that possible?”
“You said a letter came here from the future. Does that make sense?”
My mouth shut at once. Leto still looked doubtful as he stared at me, but he had at least told me what he had inferred through his own reasoning, however briefly.
“So if what you’re saying is true, then no matter how much you want to show me that letter, you can’t. Otherwise, the scale of the distortion would grow, so it was blocked from the outset. Of course, there might be a way to get around it…….”
Leto tapped the tabletop with his index finger as he fell into thought. But that lasted only a moment before he scratched his head and shook it vigorously.
“I can’t think of a way for now. Anyway, that’s how it is. I’ll look into it too, so don’t trouble yourself unnecessarily. Though if I had to bet, I’d bet that you’re crazy.”
“Don’t say that, seriously. I’m serious…….”
In the end, my conversation with Leto that day revealed the following facts.
The love letter had come only to me. No one except me could see it. Conveying the letter’s contents was also impossible, because that would mean transmitting information from the future to the past.
It was a despairing fact. Did that mean I had no choice but to bear the contents of this letter alone?
My thoughts grew tangled, and my shoulders felt heavy. Things had been manageable so far. I might even be able to handle the Hunting Festival somehow if I pushed myself. But what if the contents of the love letter were true?
What if I had to stop the destruction of the world?
Was that even remotely possible? I was nothing more than the second son of a provincial baron. That was the limit of my capabilities, at best.
And now I was suddenly being told to prevent the destruction of the world. I couldn’t even force a hollow laugh.
It was as I trudged along like that.
I suddenly sensed someone nearby. In truth, I had noticed her presence a long time ago, but I couldn’t call out to her while my thoughts were still unsettled.
But now I was in a secluded alley. Perhaps it was time for us to talk.
“……Come out, Seria.”
At that, a girl hesitantly emerged from behind a building some distance away from me.
It was Seria. She was looking at me with a tense expression.
Her eyes were pleading.