Chapter 9
That day, Seria returned looking dejected.
It seemed to have been an entirely unexpected turn of events for her. Even so, I had coldly turned away a junior who had swallowed her pride to ask her senior for guidance.
However, it was an extremely reasonable decision from my perspective.
Was I insane? Objectively speaking, Seria was a superior swordswoman, and there was nothing I could teach her.
There was nothing more foolish than wasting time on something meaningless. If I could have been of any help, I would have made time a few times out of loyalty to a junior at the academy.
Besides, Seria and I were not close enough for me to deliberately search out every lesson I could teach her and guide her through it.
If I spent several days with her, I might have been able to point out problems she had failed to notice herself. However, that would require far too much time.
I was not free enough to sacrifice that much time for a junior I was not even close to. In truth, I was free, but it was obvious that I would enjoy spending that time with close friends like Leto and Selin more.
Still, perhaps because I had rejected her so bluntly, I did not feel entirely at ease watching Seria leave.
With her shoulders drooping as though she were dejected, Seria walked away. The sight felt even more pitiful because it contrasted so sharply with her usual proud and upright image.
It got to the point that even Leto and Selin reproached me.
“Hey, hey… Even so, did you really have to reject her so bluntly? You should have put it more indirectly.”
“Y-Yeah, Ian oppa. Even I thought that was a little harsh.”
I could understand Leto saying that, but it was absurd coming from Selin, who had seemed ready to come to blows with Seria only moments ago.
Looking back, I did think I had been a little too harsh, but I could not help it.
Once words had left my mouth, they could not be taken back. I shook my head repeatedly to clear away my stray thoughts.
“Enough. It’s already over, so what does it matter? More importantly, let’s go get something to eat.”
Since I, the person involved, had said that, Leto and Selin could not bring themselves to scold me any further. In fact, perhaps Selin had thought it over and decided that this was better, because she soon regained her bright smile.
Only Leto shook his head with a haggard face. He lamented in a listless voice.
“No, we don’t even have time for that… I’m so busy I could die.”
“Do you have that many assignments?”
“That’s just how the Department of Magic is. I want to kill all the professors……”
As befitted a student in the Department of Magic during its busiest period, Leto muttered something terrifying, then sighed and let his shoulders droop.
“I have to go to the Department of Alchemy’s lecture building later, too. What am I supposed to do? I don’t even have the energy to move anywhere anymore.”
As he said that, Leto began sneaking glances at me. His intentions could not have been more obvious.
“Ah~ I wonder if someone might go in my place… Come to think of it, Ian, don’t you have a general education lecture near the Department of Alchemy’s lecture building?”
Selin looked incredulous and began to say something, but I readily agreed to do my friend a favor, cutting her off. Having lost her chance to speak, Selin grew sullen.
“All right, all right. I’ll go in your place, so go back and get some rest… Your eyes are practically hollow.”
At my sympathetic acceptance, Leto beamed and pulled a sheet of paper from inside his clothes. Then he began giving me a rough explanation.
“Those are materials I need for my research. I need the help of some students from the Department of Alchemy, you see. Apparently, the professor has already informed a few students, so you should be able to find them if you go to the Department of Alchemy’s lecture building before this evening. Go see Emma.”
“Emma?”
She was a familiar face. She was a third-year in the Department of Alchemy. We were not close enough to be best friends, but we could have a fairly pleasant chat whenever we met.
However, I tilted my head for a moment upon hearing her name because I felt as though I had heard it somewhere recently.
I did not dwell on it for long. There was still some time before I had to find Emma, so I could think about it later. With that in mind, I nodded for now.
“Sure, don’t worry. I’ll deliver it.”
That afternoon, I found myself entering the Department of Alchemy’s lecture building.
The first-floor lobby was lined with all sorts of strange experimental apparatuses. They seemed to be display pieces, but as a student of the Department of Swordsmanship, I could not even guess what they were used for.
Looking at the note Leto had given me, I saw the number ‘506’ written at the very top. I supposed it meant I was to find Room 506 in the Department of Alchemy’s lecture building.
I climbed and climbed the stairs until I reached the fifth floor, then knocked on the door marked ‘506.’ A voice soon called from inside, “Come in.”
It was a familiar voice. Certain that I had come to the right place, I flung the door open.
Inside, a gentle-looking woman with red hair was staring at me with her eyes opened wide. She seemed not to have expected me to visit.
I grinned.
“Emma! Long time no see.”
“……Ian? What brings you here?”
At Emma’s voice, half surprised and half pleased, I took a seat at one of the reception tables arranged in the center of the laboratory.
Then I answered in a relaxed voice.
“I’m running an errand. Leto had a note he wanted me to give you. He said it was needed for some research?”
“Ah, ah! You mean Professor Adriana’s lecture… Yeah, got it. Tell Leto to come find me in three days when you see him.”
As she spoke, Emma obediently accepted the note I handed her. Her green eyes slowly scanned the writing, as though checking which materials she needed to prepare.
Meanwhile, I looked around Emma’s laboratory. It had probably been lent to her by the school, but an alchemist’s laboratory always had a way of stimulating one’s curiosity.
Eyeballs floating in flasks, mysterious silver powder, and even by-products of magical beasts such as claws and hearts.
Just imagining what potions those objects might be reborn as made me feel strangely excited. Of course, Emma had told me that it was actually quite difficult work, since everything had to be prepared flawlessly based on complex formulas and theories.
But imagination was free, so I toured the alchemist’s laboratory with a light heart. By the time Emma had finished reading the note, I asked how she had been.
“Come to think of it, how have you been lately? I think this is the first time I’ve seen you since last semester.”
“Mm-hm, I’m always about the same. These days, I’ve been going back and forth to the forest. There are more materials there than I expected.”
The moment I heard the word ‘forest,’ I felt a tickle at the back of my mind.
It was the sensation of something almost coming to mind. I tilted my head and asked,
“The forest? You mean the one to the south?”
“Yeah, the place where the Hunting Festival is held.”
“Isn’t it dangerous there? Predators must show up, too.”
At my questioning voice, Emma let out a little laugh. She looked at me as though she had just heard an amusing joke.
“Silly, the wild beasts in the forest hardly ever come out to the outskirts. There’s more prey the farther inside you go. Everyone is so worried about the beasts that they do not enter the forest at all, which is great for me because it leaves plenty of materials.”
“……Are you sure?”
There was still a trace of doubt in my question, and Emma nodded firmly.
“Of course. Didn’t you know I come from a family of herbalists? When it comes to the forest, I know it better than anyone. Ian, you pretended otherwise, but you really were a noble young master after all, weren’t you?”
I cleared my throat and looked away at Emma’s words.
I was only the second son of a rural noble family, but I could not compare myself to someone from a commoner background like Emma.
The moment commoners entered the academy, more than half of them received scholarships. Even so, commoners made up only about a third of the academy’s enrolled students.
Nobles did not have to worry about making a living. They only had to spend the entire day training or studying. But most commoners were different.
Except for the children of a few wealthy merchants, most commoners had to save time wherever they could—even time for eating and sleeping—to study and train. Those were the people who had barely managed to enter the academy.
That was why, no matter how harshly I had been trained while growing up, I had no choice but to yield a step before students from commoner backgrounds.
Feeling a little awkward, I began stammering out whatever excuse came to mind.
“No, not every commoner knows the forest well… You know it because you come from a family of herbalists. It’s not that I don’t know the forest because I’m a noble.”
At my embarrassed tone, Emma giggled. It was a clear, gentle laugh that suited her kind nature.
“I know. I only said it because Ian is so unlike a noble. Otherwise, I feel like I might forget that you’re a noble at all.”
“Then forget it. It doesn’t mean anything at the academy anyway.”
I answered Emma’s self-deprecating remark as though it were nothing. However, I also knew that the matter was not so simple.
After all, even I had become the subject of widespread rumors about turning Seria half to death.
That was partly because someone like me, who ranked no higher than the middle-to-lower ranks, had defeated the top student in her year. But it was also because a low-ranking noble of the Empire had beaten a high noble’s child to a pulp.
Although discrimination based on status did not exist within the academy, the outside world was not the same. Once they graduated from the academy, commoners had to return to being commoners, and nobles to being nobles.
Emma was intelligent enough to enter the academy despite being a herbalist’s daughter, so she must also have known that my words were merely meant to lighten the mood.
Even so, she soon gave me a warm smile, along with her heartfelt thanks.
“……Yeah, thank you.”
She was a kind woman. It would have been nice if she had a little more confidence, but we were not close enough for me to pry into such a deep-seated problem, so I held my tongue.
However, talking with Emma brought one memory to mind.
For some reason, the letter said to have flown in from seven years in the future flashed through my mind.
“……Emma, by any chance.”
“Hm? What’s wrong?”
Emma looked at me as though she thought I had something else to say, a little surprised. It was about time for me to leave, after all.
However, Emma was the only person I could ask about the question that had suddenly occurred to me, so I asked her.
“Could a letter fly here from seven years in the future?”
Perhaps Emma found my question out of the blue, because she stared at me in silence and tilted her head.
Then again, it was absurd. A letter flying in from seven years in the future.
The letter must have been passed along as someone’s prank during the week I had lost my memory. As I said that, I shook my head.
“No, no. That was a pointless question. Then I’ll be going……”
“It’s not impossible.”
However, Emma’s answer was so unexpected that I froze halfway through rising from my seat.
My puzzled gaze turned toward Emma. She crossed her arms and hummed thoughtfully.
Then she headed toward the corner of the laboratory. When she pressed a button there, a hemispherical map unfolded in midair.
The Astronomical Chart, a map used by all magic and alchemy based on astrology.
“You know that every star in the sky contains its own mythology and history, right?”
“Uh, I’ve heard that before……”
Before I had even finished answering, Emma waved her hand. With a rushing sound, the seven stars embedded in the center of the heavens enlarged.
“Aside from the sun and moon, these seven stars contain the strongest powers among them all. They are the stars symbolizing Delphirem, the first betrayer of humanity, and the seven sins he committed.”
I froze at the name Delphirem.
In the dream I had that night, a man had spoken to me.
‘Delphirem is coming,’ he had said. But wasn’t that merely a story from mythology?
“You know that the first humans had no concept of death, right? But Delphirem offered seven sacrifices to the evil god, giving rise to sin, and death was born from it.”
“……So?”
My voice had gone stiff without my realizing it. But Emma, lost in thought, seemed not to notice my reaction as she rested her chin in her hand and laid out her hypothesis.
“They are stars with enough power to warp the laws of heaven and earth… With that kind of power, reversing time wouldn’t be impossible. After all, it was an event that gave birth to a concept that had never existed in the Heavenly Gods’ plan, no matter what anyone says.”
Until then, I had been frozen in a half-risen position, but I sank back into my chair.
An ominous premonition swept over me. The dream that night had been far too vivid. And the letter had been prepared with far too much care to dismiss it as a prank.
One of the things written in that letter suddenly came to mind. Right, Emma’s name had appeared in it, too.
It said she would be attacked by magical beasts and fall into a coma. I shot to my feet in alarm.
And just as I was about to leave some sort of warning for Emma,
“Of course, that couldn’t possibly happen. Ahaha……”
At Emma’s playful voice, I could only stare at her blankly, completely dumbfounded.
Perhaps my reaction had surprised her, because Emma giggled. It was as though everything she had said until then had merely been a joke.
“Did I surprise you? But I only mean that it’s theoretically possible. There have been many attempts to wield the power of those stars, but not a single one has ever succeeded.”
“……R-Really?”
Persuaded by the certainty in Emma’s voice, I let out a sigh of relief and sat down again.
Right. That couldn’t possibly be true. A letter from seven years in the future?
Apparently, my head had gone strange from experiencing so many bizarre things lately. I shook my head with a bitter smile.
Let’s put this behind us. Just as I made up my mind, Emma’s words reinforced my decision.
“Don’t worry about it. I don’t know where you heard something like that, but it must be a baseless rumor.”
I sighed and nodded. I had wasted my mental energy on something pointless. At last, I rose from the chair.
As I was about to say goodbye and leave, a thought suddenly occurred to me, so I asked Emma,
“Emma, come to think of it, when are you going to the forest?”
“Hmm, I’m thinking of going once this evening… Why?”
Should I tell her what the letter had said or not?
I hesitated for a moment, but soon gave her a bitter smile and left her with only one remark.
“Just be careful.”
“Goodness, you again… I told you not to worry. Honestly, what am I thinking! Come to think of it, I almost forgot to tell you. I have a secret weapon.”
With a cute little “Ta-da,” Emma pulled out a small potion bottle. The potion had a grayish tint.
"It’s a potion that erases your presence. I succeeded in making it recently. If I start mass-producing it, it should prevent quite a few hunters and herbalists from dying."
Then, like a proud alchemist showing off her research achievement, Emma insisted on placing a bottle of the potion in my hand so I could test it. She wore a face full of pride.
Since her father had been a herbalist, the potion must have contained her long-held dream.
Instead of simply giving it to me, she stubbornly told me to use it when I went to the forest that day. Apparently, it would be meaningless anyway because the materials I would be gathering had such strong odors.
As always, Emma saw me off with a gentle smile. And then.
The next day, Emma was found collapsed in the forest.
She had been attacked by an unidentified magical beast, her intestines spilling from her abdomen.