Chapter 173 - Incomprehensible

A remote village not far from the imperial capital.

The village farmed under the protection of House Rosnova.

Since it was a village within imperial territory rather than on the frontier, it was as peaceful as could be.

BOOM!

That was why it was exceedingly rare for the mansion of that venerable knightly family to be half destroyed.

The source of the explosion was the drawing room.

In the gaping space, a man was on his knees with his head pressed to the floor.

Everything was pointed toward the floor, and the only things raised upward were his two hands.

Those hands were directed toward a young girl, begging for mercy.

"Please... I beg you, spare my life."

The pitiful voice of a middle-aged man pleaded.

"You know."

The girl responsible for half destroying the building did not look the least bit inclined to let go of her anger.

"What was the last thing I said to you?"

The middle-aged man's throat seemed to close, and only thin wheezes escaped through his nose.

"If you don't answer, I'll blow your head off."

"You told me not to stand out and to live as if I were d-dead."

"I told you to live as if you were dead, yes. What do you think that means? It means keep your head down and don't even make a sound when you breathe. Did it not sound that way to you?"

"It did."

"And yet you happily ran to Alexander and told him he was a Dark Mage?"

Blue light wavered in Erdes's eyes.

For Erembalt, it had been unavoidable.

It was true that Alexander's side had pressured him, but he had not been frightened of Alexander.

Because Waldemar stood behind him.

If Waldemar was involved, not only the future prospects of his two sons but even the survival of his family was at stake.

Erembalt had received an offer he could not refuse.

"I never intended to slight the Chairwoman of the Magical Society."

"Eat shit. I saw you stick your head up to fuck me over. Did you think I was blind? Did you think there were only one or two bastards like you?"

Her hand moved as if she might manifest magic at any moment.

Murdering a noble was a serious crime, but Erdes had already executed many nobles with her own hands.

Sweat poured down Erembalt's face.

"I fully understand that this matter must have displeased you. It was entirely my fault. But please give me one chance. I have prepared an item to soothe the Chairwoman's displeasure."

Erdes withdrew the hand in which she had gathered mana and rested her chin on her hand.

"Let's see it, then."

There was not the slightest hint of expectation in Erdes's words.

She merely thought it would not be too late to kill him after seeing him offer up something worthless.

Seizing the opportunity, Erembalt hurriedly ordered a servant to bring the item.

"This is it."

What Erembalt showed her was a wrapping cloth.

"What is this?"

"This is an item connected to Anna, Ferda's mother, whom Lady Erdes has searched for so long."

"What was this cloth used for?"

Even if it was a related object, it was useless unless it had a proper story attached to it.

If mere connection had been enough, they could have brought her a fork the woman had used.

"It is the wrapping cloth she used to bring Ferda... that child."

"Ferda..."

An item connected to both Ferda and his mother at once.

It was the most ideal item Erdes could have hoped for.

"I searched every corner of the house to find this. I had it prepared as it was so I could give it to you when you came, Chairwoman..."

"Hmm..."

The mana gathered in her eyes vanished.

Since she would now be able to carry out an investigation that had made no progress until now, it was only natural for her anger to ease somewhat.

Erdes decided to show magnanimity.

"Fine. I'll forgive you."

"Th-thank y—"

"Choose."

"Pardon?"

"You, or your two sons. Choose one."

One finger on her left hand, two fingers on her right.

"Would you rather have one of your arms completely shattered, or have both your sons' arms half shattered?"

His own pain, or his family's pain.

Erembalt made his choice without any need for deep thought.

"... My arm, please."

He chose his children's future.

As if that choice did not surprise her at all, Erdes said,

"Yes. That's the choice a father should naturally make."

CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!

"Ghhhhh...!"

Erembalt's arm bent and sagged in a zigzag, as if several new joints had been added to it.

The pain went without saying.

Erdes turned and left just like that.

"Huuugh... sob..."

Erembalt shed tears as he watched Erdes move away.

It was not only because of the pain he was feeling now.

Within those tears was also the relief that he had barely managed to protect his family.

After leaving the Rosnova mansion, Erdes immediately prepared a magic circle.

Since it was an item kept in the mansion, it should in any case contain a powerful trace somewhere nearby.

"Marun's Eye."

That magic, known as the eye of the god of knowledge, was among the highest level of search magic.

Erdes threw the wrapping cloth into the magic circle, and soon mana began to envelop it.

It searched for information, tracing each thread woven from each individual particle.

Following the will and obsession of the Great Mage Erdes, it found the information she desired.

What she wanted was a place connected to this object.

As longing and information interlocked, mana drew a signpost.

Erdes moved her steps along that signpost.

The place she arrived at was before the back gate of House Rosnova.

There was no doubt that this was where the first meeting with Erembalt had taken place.

"Then..."

Erdes summoned her magic staff.

It was time to begin the search in earnest.

This was high-level magic on a completely different dimension from when she had used Marun's Eye.

The flow of mana alone was enough to shake the ground and overturn the sky.

To handle this much mana, five 6th Circle mages would have to gather and spend a week to barely manifest it.

But it took only thirty minutes for the magic circle worked by Erdes's hands to be completed.

Lastly, she chanted the name bestowed upon that magic.

"Nostalgia of Schola."

A great wave arose and made the surroundings ripple.

Under her magic power, the surroundings became a gray zone that had lost its color.

It was magic that went beyond simply tracing the past, using the medium as a door to reproduce the state of that past.

Even if someone's face had been wrapped round and round in thick cloth, it became the past itself, where one could simply peel it back.

In other words, it was like crossing time.

In the gray space, the wrapping cloth that had become the medium fluttered in the air as though riding the wind.

Then it formed around a certain shape, as if wrapping it.

A moment later, a woman appeared, holding the wrapped bundle in her arms.

A woman with golden hair and blue eyes.

It had to be Anna Rosnova, Ferda's birth mother.

CREAK.

Then someone opened the door and appeared.

It was Erembalt Rosnova, young and much thinner.

["Excuse me, my lord."]

Anna greeted him first.

["What is the matter? If the servants called me in such a hurry, it must be urgent."]

["It is nothing else. My name is Anna, and I have come here under orders."]

["What orders do you mean?"]

["The orders of the Order of Sierra."]

The woman showed the emblem hanging around her neck.

Erembalt frowned.

["Sierra... I'm sorry, but I am a man of the Empire. If one is an imperial citizen, one belongs to the Order of Altes."]

["Then will you harm me?"]

["If you do not leave, I will have to follow the law, will I not? I am not so cruel as to harm a woman I first met today. Besides, there is a child. I will give you food and clothing, so return quietly."]

["You are a generous man. Unfortunately, I cannot do that."]

["What?"]

["Starting today, I am to become your wife."]

["What nonsense is that? Why must I take you in?"]

["Sadly, you have no choice, dear."]

["Dear? How dare some filth from Sierra come in the dead of night and... Ngh..."]

Erembalt, who had been flying into a rage, clutched his head in pain.

The woman calmly placed a hand on Erembalt's shoulder.

["What is wrong? Are you all right?"]

["Hm? Ah... It is nothing."]

Erembalt stared at her.

The wary look in his eyes became comfortable, as if he were looking at an old acquaintance.

["But why are you out here like this, my lady?"]

The woman smiled and spoke as if nothing had happened.

["Because I enjoy taking walks in the night breeze."]

["What if our child catches a cold... Come inside at once."]

["Yes."]

The woman strode inside so boldly, then stopped.

Because Erdes had frozen in place.

Watching that scene, Erdes said this.

"... What is this?"

She doubted her own eyes.

Carefully twisting her wrist, she rewound the time that had flowed past.

She repeated again and again the moment that woman went from stranger to wife.

Usually, even if it was a scene she did not understand, rewinding it about three times was enough for the outline to become visible.

Because Erdes was the greatest Great Mage on the Serdes Continent.

Even so, she saw nothing.

There were no traces of sorcery or magic, nor any gestures at all.

'I was certain Anna was a demon...'

Erdes had believed Ferda was the child of a demon.

If so, Anna had to be either a demon or a follower of one.

But there were no traces of following demons, and no traces of a demon either.

All she had done was say that it would become so.

'I have no choice but to dig further into this woman's identity...'

It was the moment she tried to lay a hand on Anna.

Erdes felt a chill run through her.

At that chill, she reflexively twisted her wrist to rewind time.

But it did not move.

Time remained stopped, and her wrist likewise stayed still.

The one who should have ruled this space was Erdes.

But instead, she began to become bound to that space.

"Ngh!"

Erdes deployed emergency protective magic to defend herself.

But even though the protective magic unfolded, it could not block the sensation of something swallowing her whole.

Just as Erembalt had become that way.

It seemed Erdes was becoming that way as well.

["Oh?"]

In the frozen space, the woman's voice rang out clearly.

'That can't be...!'

Erdes rolled her eyes and looked at Anna.

Anna, who was holding the baby.

Her eyes should without a doubt have been directed toward Erembalt.

There was no way she should be meeting Erdes's eyes like this.

As if to show her plainly, she mouthed words and smiled.

["We have an unexpected uninvited guest."]

Erdes realized it.

Control had passed to the woman who should have been bound to this space.

She moved freely and approached Erdes.

["Are you the one who hates our Ferda so much?"]

Erdes blamed herself for having taken Anna lightly.

What she was facing was neither a simple woman nor a demon.

She was some transcendent something that could not exist on the Serdes Continent.

["As it happens, there was something I very much wanted to say to you. Since this has worked out so well, be sure to engrave it clearly in your ears."]

Anna leaned close to Erdes's ear and whispered something.

At that moment, Erdes felt her consciousness being sucked somewhere.

The grayness spread around them shattered like a thin pane of glass and disappeared, and Anna disappeared as well.

She had returned to reality, where color existed again.

"Hah... Hah!"

Erdes broke out in a cold sweat and caught her breath.

How had she returned here?

Her body could not move an inch, and she had been unable to use magic power.

No matter how she thought about it, there was no way she could believe she had escaped by her own strength.

Had Anna, that woman, released her?

That felt unnatural too.

Then who on earth had helped her?

"To think there was someone who could trouble the greatest Great Mage on the continent this much. How astonishing."

A childish voice, unlike the mature way of speaking.

Erdes knew that disharmony well.

Only then did she feel the sensation of a hand resting on her back.

"Take your hand off my body!"

Erdes shook off the hand as if having a fit and turned around.

Erdes's staff pointed at a girl of similar build.

She was the Mother of Witches and Big Sister.

Lucy Philiaz.

"Ungrateful thing. I pull you from the water, and instead of thanks, you try to slap me first?"

Lucy said with a relaxed expression, puffing on her pipe.

"What bullshit are you spouting!? What do you mean, you saved me!?"

"From mana exhaustion, I mean. You were about to be trapped in the manifested space and become a cripple, and I saved you, did I not?"

At Lucy's words, Erdes could feel it too.

The mana inside her body was barely remaining.

The mana now filling her like this was likely Lucy Philiaz's mana.

"Your vessel is needlessly large, so this much is not enough. Receive more mana."

"Piss off! Don't touch my body!"

Erdes moved away from her as she tried to reach out again.

Erdes placed a hand on one of the formulas drawn on her staff.

The formula shattered, and she absorbed the massive amount of mana contained within it into her body.

"So you had indeed left yourself such a measure."

Lucy murmured as if relieved.

Erdes glared at Lucy as if she would kill her.

But Lucy merely smiled faintly.

"Will you not thank me, even if you die?"

"You should have just let me die."

"Unfortunately, I could not do that. I must keep the vow I made to myself."

"Keep that for you and your filthy witches. I'm not filthy stock with Red Circles like you lot!"

Though Erdes did not hesitate to insult her, Lucy showed not the slightest sign of offense.

Erdes drew a finger through the air.

A teleportation magic circle was completed, and she threw herself into it.

Lucy quietly watched the place where Erdes had already vanished.

Because this kind of hostility was something she knew well, she was not surprised.

"Foolish child."

Lucy simply pitied her.

"Even if you hate me and curse me... I cannot turn away from you."

Lucy's words reached no one and scattered vainly like gray smoke.

The office of the Chairman of the Serdes Magical Society.

Blue, the chairwoman's secretary, was handling the work Erdes had left behind as usual.

'Why am I the one who has to take all the abuse...?'

Blue lamented her lot.

They were people who would not have made a peep if it had been Erdes, but Blue was different.

She had become the abuse sponge, taking every complaint and protest that the chairwoman of the Magical Society should have heard.

If there was anything strange, it was that Blue's hair follicles were still alive.

'This time, I absolutely won't let it slide!'

Blue sharpened her resolve as she stamped approval seals.

The moment that hellion of a mage returned, she would shriek at her.

Then the gate opened, and the runaway hellion she had waited for so desperately returned.

"Chairwoman!"

Blue burst out with the sorrow she had prepared.

"Where on earth have you been!? Didn't you promise me you would work after that hearing?"

"..."

"The work is piled up terribly too, yes? If this keeps up, we really won't be able to handle it..."

When there was no response despite all her squawking, Blue belatedly looked at Erdes's face.

She was not listening at all.

Instead of her usual arrogant expression, she wore the face of someone possessed by something.

"Chairwoman?"

"..."

Blue placed a hand on her shoulder.

Only then did Erdes turn her head and look at Blue, as if she had regained consciousness.

"Are you all right? Your complexion is..."

Blue asked with sincere concern.

Erdes stared at that face for a long while before answering.

"... I'm fine."

It was only three syllables, but Blue could tell.

That Erdes was dejected, as if she had gone somewhere and been beaten.

"I'm going to be in the meditation room for a while."

"Ah, yes. Please rest..."

Too afraid to say anything more, Blue had no choice but to let her go.

Erdes entered the meditation room and forced herself into a seated posture.

She had to empty her heart, empty her mind, and circulate her Blue Circle.

But Anna still remained inside Erdes's head.

She wondered if she had been struck by magic or some mystical power, but that was not it.

The reason that woman remained in her head was that Erdes could not understand her.

If that person was a mother,

If she was at least someone who ought to take responsibility for her child,

Then she had left behind words she should never have said.

["Do everything in your power to stop my son from becoming happy."]