Chapter 69
Chapter 69
-----------------------------------------------------------------
>Translator: Lord First
>Chapter: 69
>Chapter Title: Saint Yansk University and the Chamber of Secrets (12)
>-----------------------------------------------------------------
*
He sat on the sofa, staring at the bed for a moment.
The bed stirred, and the covers gently slipped away.
A field of golden hair spread out like wheat, with sharp ears peeking through. It was Elfihera.
“Oh? You’re awake? Did you sleep well?”
Ivan quickly scanned Elfihera’s body. She was properly dressed in silk pajamas. Relieved, he set down his dagger.
“Why am I here?”
“Don’t you remember?”
“Mm.”
“Ahem… hehe, is thaaat so? Is that how it is?”
Elfihera giggled and crawled out of bed.
She glanced playfully at the clothes scattered on the floor and said,
“What do you think happened?”
“Nothing.”
Ivan was a trained intelligence agent. This wasn't a matter of trusting his own self-control; it meant he could gather sufficient information just by observing the state of a person's clothes or hair.
If he had done 'something' in his sleep, there was no way Elfihera would be in such a tidy state.
Sensing his gaze, Elfihera pouted and grumbled.
“We didn’t do anything, but it’s not like nothing happened at all.”
“...What?”
“The Saintess came by.”
She grumbled and clapped her hands.
Soon, the door opened, and a servant entered, beginning to arrange refreshments on the table.
With a natural gesture, she dismissed the servant and picked up a teacup filled with black tea.
“Have something to eat. You must be starving.”
“Where are my nutrition bars?”
“Huh? What’s that?”
“The ones in my vest. Tucked into the slit.”
“Oh… you mean the dog chews? I gave one to Sir Montblanc, but he wouldn’t eat it, so I thought it had gone bad and threw it away… W-wait, people eat those?”
“Sir Montblanc…?”
“My dog. He’s adorable. Want to see him?”
Ivan looked at the lavish finger snacks laid out on the table and suppressed a sigh.
Such food, composed entirely of sugar and carbohydrates, was pathetic, offering excessive calories and insufficient nutrition.
He was about to reprimand her for throwing a perfectly balanced nutrition bar to a dog, but he picked up his teacup and collected his thoughts instead.
There were more important things. He could always get more nutrition bars from the director’s office; what mattered now was the current situation.
He was just that rational and magnanimous.
“You said the Saintess came by.”
“Ah, yes. She came to check on your condition. Oh, right! Good heavens, why did you say nothing was wrong?!”
Elfihera slammed her teacup down, her voice laced with anger.
Keeping up with the emotions of an adolescent girl (she wasn't) was a difficult and foolish endeavor, so Ivan simply listened.
“The curse! The Saintess stayed up all night yesterday dispelling it. Good grief, what was all that?”
“Misfortune.”
Ivan shrugged as if it were nothing.
“Did the Saintess say anything?”
“Not in detail… She just came, cried for a long time, prayed all night, and then left. She only asked me to tell you to visit her office three days a week.”
“That was within the expected range of outcomes.”
Ivan took a sip of tea and stood up.
“The creature dealt with the concept of happiness, so the side effects of its death throes were predictable. The absence of happiness is misfortune.”
“Uh… uh-huh, so… to the same degree as ‘that trap’….”
A curse that inflicted a volume of ‘misfortune’ equal to the overwhelming ‘happiness’ that had captivated one’s soul upon sight?
Elfihera recalled Ivan’s state right after he’d emerged from that room and swallowed hard.
“That was the plan anyway. This university has the Saintess, and she is the most skilled person on this continent at dispelling curses.”
“...You... predicted all of this?”
“Mm.”
“You’re… you’re really insane!! Then you should have said something! What if I had waited for you to wake up instead of going to the Saintess right away? What then?!”
“What do you mean, ‘what then’? If the curse had been urgent, I would have spoken up first. A curse that merely inflicts misfortune is not life-threatening, so there was no rush.”
“You…!!”
Elfihera shouted, her eyes wet with tears.
“You’re strange. You’re really strange. I thought maybe it was just because you’re human, but why have you changed so much? You weren’t like this before!”
“Not like this before, you say.”
“Yes! You used to be…!”
“You’re overstepping.”
Ivan gathered his clothes and got ready. He quickly checked his utility vest and sling bag (self-made), then turned his head.
“Elfihera. Your job is not to worry about me.”
“What… did you say?”
“You are a student. Your role is to learn well and occasionally participate in… field trips like this.”
The scions of the Hero’s Party, the next generation who will become the main characters of the future scenario, need nothing but experience and learning.
Therefore, everything else was Ivan's responsibility.
For these kids to reach the ending. For them to push through the scenario safely and perfectly, and finally face the end credits.
That process would be *his* ‘story.’ The final page he would turn would likely, and absolutely, be there.
So his own safety, the safety of the Hero's Party’s children, threats outside the scenario—none of it was a problem for *her* to ponder or worry about.
That was his job. And being a selfish person, he disliked others meddling in his assigned duties.
Ivan gave a short nod to the stunned Elfihera and left the room.
The elven residential district.
Ivan squinted in the bright daylight as he walked.
Just beside the university was an extremely lavish street. This district, generally known as the ‘Elven Dormitory Wing,’ was a residential area where nobles from Kallion lived.
Ignoring the elves who glanced at him, he walked straight toward the university.
Even if he needed rest, the report came first.
He glanced back at Elfihera’s mansion one last time, feeling a momentary pang of regret.
He shouldn't have been so harsh. His words might have been rather aggressive for a kid.
But it wasn't easy. While the curse had likely been fully dispelled, ‘memories’ couldn't be erased even by the Saintess's blessing.
The past memories dredged up by the curse of misfortune had meticulously recalled even the trivial details he had forgotten over the years, forcing raw emotions upon him.
The North Wind and the Sun.
Ivan gave a bitter smile.
It seemed he was a traveler more vulnerable to the North Wind than the Sun.
As he had recalled, all happiness in this world had exhausted its lifespan over the past ages, leaving nothing but duty.
To put it another way, the absence of ‘happiness’ is ‘misfortune.’
In other words, nearly all the pasts he could recall were unhappy.
He had been able to escape only after enduring thirty years of misfortune, alone in that room, ruminating on it all.
The memories, briefly forgotten when he passed out, were resurfacing through their conversation, chewing away at his emotions.
How childish of me.
Ivan decided to apologize to Elfihera someday and turned to leave.
*
-*Clack.*
Staring at the door that had closed with a dry sound, Elfihera sniffled.
The man from that era, changed and unfamiliar.
The fast, and short, lives of humans.
The temptation of happiness and the curse of misfortune.
Kindness and wounds.
The words that had been tangling her thoughts began to fit together like clear puzzle pieces.
She was a mage. And mages, by nature, were a profession that had to view situations with reason rather than emotion.
Therefore, half out of professional calling and half out of a habit ingrained over long years, she regained her composure.
-*Clink.*
She drank the cold tea and narrowed her eyes.
'A trap that tempts the target with what they desire most.'
The trap she had faced in the ruins was one of gold, silver, rare grimoires, and reagents that were difficult to obtain even with a fortune.
And what that man had faced was.
'A comb.'
She wondered how that could be. The conclusion was simple. It meant that, at that moment, a comb was all he desired.
It wasn't that he was bizarrely fond of combs (though that was partly true), but rather that he had so few desires to begin with.
'He has no desire.'
Elfihera's eyes gleamed sharply.
The fact that he thought of a comb, not an aphrodisiac, while Kallion's greatest beauty—an elf of what humans would call 'mythical beauty'—was standing right there, proved it.
Elfihera nodded at this sound conclusion.
'He's broken.'
The fact that it doesn't matter if the reasoning is flawed as long as the conclusion is correct was being proven right here.
Does the Saintess know? What about her father? If his former comrades hadn't noticed, and if she was the only one in the world who knew this fact…
'I have to do it.'
Elves are fundamentally faithful to their desires. This doesn't mean they indulge in base pleasures, but rather it's the natural conclusion of the logic that precious things should belong to elves.
After all, one couldn't entrust a precious object to the hands of a hasty, short-lived species and let it be ruined.
Thus, as a fine elf, Elfihera reached a conclusion.
'There's no one but me.'
Teaching happiness to a man who doesn't know it would be quite an exciting endeavor.
Just as dogs have different lifespans depending on their breed, that man seemed to have been born with an exceptionally short lifespan, even for a human.
First, I'll restore his lifespan to make that haggard face a bit younger, periodically improve his constitution, feed him something better than those dog chews, yes. If I take him in like that, he'll surely feel 'happiness'.
She gently scooped up the small, panting poodle at her feet, stroking it with a smile.
*
“You met what in the ruins?”
“I encountered a being that claimed to be a god. Identifying its true nature was impossible given the circumstances on-site, but I will consult the Saintess on the matter and attach it as an addendum to my report.”
“No, no, no. I don’t understand… A trap? Magic? A two-thousand-year-old seal?”
“Yes.”
Elizaveta clutched her forehead and muttered.
“Why in the world is something like that in the university’s basement… Why was there no mention of it in the royal archives? If something like that was sleeping beneath the capital, shouldn’t I… shouldn’t this country have known….”
“…”
Ivan didn't feel the need to explain 'common sense' to the people of this medieval world.
After all, an ancient evil being sealed beneath the capital was a matter of common sense.
“Right, so… how did you destroy it?”
“All it could do was toy with human desire.”
“Oh, that’s rather… epic. To hear such a tale in an age after the Demon King’s death. Are you all right? You weren’t injured?”
“No, Your Highness.”
Ivan continued, still on one knee.
“It had no ability to exert physical force.”
“I see. Then tell me how you destroyed it.”
“I smashed its head.”
“...???”
*
Isabelle and Esidis sat side-by-side on a bench, staring blankly.
“But why…?”
“Why was the old man…?”
Coming out of an elf’s house, and ‘that girl’s’ house at that?
In the morning, with his hair sticking up and in shabby clothes. Looking for all the world like he’d just spent the night out…?
Like the old friends they were, they reached the same conclusion simultaneously.
“Cheating…?”
The fact that the premise of ‘cheating’ couldn't apply to their relationship held no meaning for the two of them.
What mattered more was that Ivan had emerged from ‘that girl’s’ house.
The two, once again like old friends, came to the same conclusion and silently agreed on a future plan.
This time, it’s an ‘alliance.’
*Ah, of course.*
The formation of a Hero’s Party to stand against the wicked elf witch!
*
EP11. Saint Yansk University and the Chamber of Secrets.