Chapter 230
Chapter 230
Chapter 230
Short Vacation (2)
There was only one elf associated with Gray.
Silpea, the elf from the Great Southern Forest.
Well, he wasn't the type to interfere much in others' romantic affairs, so he had been turning a blind eye to it... but had they unexpectedly been maintaining steady contact all this time?
Rudian cleared his throat slightly and spoke subtly.
"Gray is an adult now. He's at an age where he can freely engage in romance."
Including the time spent with Giovanni on the southern continent, Gray's age was now approaching his thirties.
Of course, he still looked young, appearing to be in his late teens to early twenties, but in reality, he was a full-fledged adult.
However, Sonya didn't seem to think so.
"E-even so...! I haven't acknowledged it yet! I can't just hand over my son to just anyone!"
"......"
The shouting of the severely son-obsessed lady continued.
In fact, at this point, even if Gray were to marry a demon rather than an elf, there was no one who could stop him.
"You need to stop him."
Sonya entrusted that impossible mission to Rudian.
Rudian replied with a dumbfounded expression.
"...Why me?"
"Why?! Aren't you worried about our Gray's future!"
If left alone, he's the type who would grow up well on his own, so there's no need to worry about his future...
...is what he thought, but Rudian slightly changed his mind.
'Gray is currently in a state of defeat by his future self... Even though his confidence must have greatly increased through long years of training, if he still lost, it wouldn't be strange for his mental state to be affected...'
If he goes astray in such a situation, it might become irreversible.
Rudian let out a quiet sigh.
"Haah, I understand. I'll go check on him once."
"Oh! Thank you, my friend!"
Sonya grabbed Rudian's hands in delight.
Anyway, since he had set up a barrier to completely isolate himself from the outside, the only ones who could break through it in the current situation were Rudian and his companions.
'Hmm... I wonder if he won't get angry about privacy invasion.'
There's nothing more embarrassing than being caught by someone else while doing that sort of thing... but still, since his mother is this worried, please forgive me for being a little rude, Gray.
Rudian silently offered his respectful condolences to Gray.
Fortunately or unfortunately, the kind of thing Rudian and Sonya had imagined wasn't happening.
"Oh, you came, brother?"
"...What are all these things?"
The barrier Gray had set up wasn't simply for blocking off the outside.
"These spell formulas are..."
Gray was holed up inside a kind of subspace he had created, like the 'Sands of Time.'
It wasn't as vast an external space as the Sands of Time, but it was spacious enough to fit at least a few buildings.
And inside it... high-dimensional magical spell formulas were lined up so densely that it could be called a library of spells.
"Ah, hello?"
And Silpea, who was expected to be conducting an adult ceremony with Gray, was somehow carving spell formulas in the air with a haggard appearance.
"What are you... doing right now?"
"Training."
Gray also answered simply, rubbing his eyelids as if he was slightly tired.
'At my current level, I can't even understand it.'
Currently, Rudian had reached a level where he could be called a magician through steady acquisition of magical knowledge.
In fact, even that was thanks to Adi's support, and his practical ability was close to zero...
Even so, the fact that Rudian, who was theoretically a magician, couldn't understand those spells meant they were truly high-dimensional magic.
-Space-time series and magic power manipulation series... they're all at the level of the chaos domain, Master.
Still, it couldn't escape Adi's eyes, as the identity of the spell formulas written by Gray and Silpea was immediately exposed.
"Training..."
Looking at the situation, it seemed Silpea's reason for coming here was purely to help Gray.
"Sorry, brother."
"......"
Gray seemed to be absorbed only in the spell formulas without even giving Rudian a glance.
But that was Gray's own way of expressing that he had no face to show Rudian.
"You trusted me and entrusted such a treasure to me, but I got beaten one-sidedly and had it stolen."
"Gray, you..."
Rudian saw something glittering in Gray's eyes as he gritted his teeth.
The type who has such strong pride that when that pride is broken, the backlash comes back greatly.
Rudian let out a quiet sigh.
"Don't worry about it too much."
Losing the Blue World was certainly a fatal blow, but even so, it wasn't to the extent that recovery was impossible.
"That guy is probably... someone you can't handle as you are now. Even Giovanni couldn't do anything about that guy."
"I know. That guy probably obtained divinity through magic. I didn't sense any divine nature, but at least his level was like that."
He would certainly need to be at that level to overwhelm the current Gray.
"So, if i just cry because i got beaten, nothing will happen, right?"
"You're crying right now..."
"Anyway!"
Gray got angry at Rudian's intense backtalk.
Rubbing his eyes to destroy the evidence, Gray spoke with a voice that had a bit more strength than before.
"Anyway, next time I meet that guy, I'll definitely land at least one hit on him no matter what. Right now, I'm in the middle of preliminary work for that."
A will so fierce it was chilling.
Rudian smiled pleasantly at Gray's appearance.
"Yes, you'll be able to do it."
The greatest talent that could be called the God of Magic.
Although the opponent was his future self, completed as that God of Magic, the current Gray would certainly achieve something.
"Lady Sonya was worried, so I opened the door a bit roughly... but I'm relieved. Nothing serious happened."
At those words, Gray nodded his head.
"Miss Silpea is a good assistant. Even if her level itself is low, her capability as support is superior to anyone."
At Gray's praise, Silpea, who had been quietly there until now, slightly blushed.
Rudian scratched the back of his neck and smiled awkwardly.
"Right, right. Since a man and woman were holed up in one room for several days, I thought you were building some kind of fortress."
"......"
"......"
A moment of silence.
In that strange quiet, Rudian's smiling expression froze in place.
"...Gray?"
"......"
"......"
In a completely different sense from before, Gray avoided Rudian's gaze.
And Silpea also turned her head away, her face even redder than before.
Rudian was not someone who wouldn't understand that meaning.
'...No way, these guys?'
Avoiding the shocked Rudian's gaze, they began to continue their work with throat clearing.
Unlike before, Gray's touch seemed artificial... was it just his imagination?
Rudian looked at the back of Gray's head, feeling devastation, shock, and even betrayal.
...What should I tell Lady Sonya?
After that shocking encounter with Gray.
Rudian, who returned to the mansion looking spiritually drained, faced yet another troublesome problem.
"Crux... Crux..."
In front of Rudian's eyes, the corpse of Crux von Richthofen, with his neck and body severed, was placed intact inside a glass tube.
Luciella, who was watching Crux's corpse together, spoke with a complicated expression.
"This fact is still classified. It would cause too much of a stir to hastily announce that a master of Sir Crux's caliber died suddenly."
"...Yes, that would be right."
Rudian fell into thought while looking at Crux's head.
'Reviving him itself isn't difficult.'
In fact, although Crux dies at the Chapter 3 point, the problem was that Chapter 3 was still decades away.
In other words, Crux had now died an unnatural death due to twisted causality, without living his full lifespan.
In such a situation, reviving Crux didn't greatly violate the laws of causality.
Moreover, Rudian was a contractor of the Death King.
He could easily perform the heaven-defying act of properly reviving a person.
"The problem is whether the Death King will readily let go of Crux's soul..."
As a central figure even in the original work, Crux's talent wouldn't fade even as a soul.
From the Death King's perspective, he would most likely try to hold onto Crux's soul and not let it go, as a Death Knight could be anything.
"Haah, I'll need to negotiate with the Death King on this matter."
In fact, unless he planned to keep Crux as a companion, it wasn't really something to worry about whether he lived or died.
But leaving it like this would weigh on his conscience, so it was better to decide in favor of reviving him.
Having decided on Crux's matter, Rudian sank into the living room sofa with a slightly tired expression.
"Here, sisters."
In that situation, Luciella and Maria sat across from Rudian.
"...Thank you, Rebecca."
"......"
The two received cups from Rebecca with reluctant expressions.
At some point, entertaining anyone who arrived at the Belstad mansion had become Rebecca's exclusive responsibility.
'...The atmosphere is somehow heavy.'
Rudian felt a strange current flowing between the three women.
But after receiving their cups, they all became silent.
"......"
A quiet silence flowed for several minutes.
Rudian broke into a slight cold sweat while receiving strange looks from the three.
Especially in Rebecca's case, she was staring directly at Rudian with a quite peculiar expression.
Finally, Rudian, unable to bear it any longer, spoke first.
"Rebecca."
"Yes."
"If you have something to say, say it. Don't send me looks like that for no reason."
"Hmm... then..."
Rebecca suddenly smiled somewhat frivolously, then made a direct statement.
"That shabby woman who attacked me before."
FLINCH!
Rudian's shoulders twitched very slightly.
And accordingly, Maria and Luciella's eyes also began to waver slightly.
"As I thought, that was the future me... right?"
"......"
"No matter how much I think about it, it's hard to believe... but considering the conversations we had and the people who appeared then... and the fact that that woman showed abilities similar to mine..."
In fact, if only that future Rebecca had appeared, she wouldn't have reached this conclusion.
After all, she gets so damaged in the future that there's quite a difference in appearance from now.
But in the cases of Crux and Gray, there was no denying it.
Those two don't have much difference in appearance between now and the future.
Rudian nodded heavily.
"That's right."
"Really? So it really was like that..."
Rebecca nodded with a blank expression, as if she had seen something strange.
"Next time I see her, I'll definitely smash her to pieces."
Rudian was rather flustered by her reaction, which was more bland than expected.
"Is that... the end of your thoughts?"
What purpose they appeared for, what was the original cause of this situation happening.
There were no philosophical or fundamental contemplations that would normally arise when such situations occurred.
She was just simply getting over the problem.
"Not really? It's a bit sad that my future self ends up like that, but somehow that woman seemed not to know Rudian? Then maybe my future appearance won't be like that?"
"...!"
Rudian was quite surprised by Rebecca's words.
While she usually didn't seem to think much, she sometimes had very sharp insights into the truth.
"If that's the case, there's no need to worry about it. No matter if it's my future self, if she interferes with my current daily life, I'll just smash her to pieces. Above all, even though she's my future self, she seemed weaker than my current self."
"...Is that so?"
Rebecca seemed to have already reached a conclusion within herself.
No, to be precise, Maria and Luciella also seemed to have come to their own answers.
"It doesn't particularly matter."
"If they're truly not the future of 'our current selves'..."
The two also said this with peaceful expressions while sipping their tea.
"There's something more important than those guys right now."
CLINK!
Maria put down the teacup she was holding and spoke.
"There's one problem I want to point out about the current situation..."
"Uh, uhm...?"
The companions who came from the future had somehow become secondary to these women.
Maria slowly raised her head and looked directly at Rebecca.
And... she dropped a bombshell that planted the seeds of conflict, completely unexpected.
"Rebecca, in the current situation, you acting as the mistress of this mansion... seems to be somewhat problematic."
"......"
"......"
The moment those words came out.
Rudian felt the illusion that the room's temperature had instantly dropped by more than half.