Chapter 229
Chapter 229
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 229
Chapter Title: Meeting Mother in Disguise
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Heike glanced up at the streetlamp illuminating us, let out a deep breath, and spoke.
“I told you and Narke that after graduation, I wanted to live with Mom. But the chances of that happening are basically zero. It was just… a pipe dream.”
“……”
“I do feel bad that I’m keeping up with you guys despite my lacking skills. But that aside, honestly, I like being in Eschet. Because maybe, just maybe, even if only once by sheer coincidence, I might run into Mom.”
Ever since she came up, this quiet guy wouldn’t stop talking.
I was about to reassure him that he didn’t need to feel guilty about Eschet when Heike muttered.
“If Mom had been an imperial mage, it would’ve been easier to hear about her.”
He was compulsively folding the empty paper bowl in half over and over. I snatched the paper from him and asked.
“So you don’t know anything about your mother?”
“No, I know a little. She’s a teacher at a magic school in the northern capital. She lives in the faculty dorms there.”
He kept going as I just looked at him.
“It’s 10 p.m. now. At this hour, she’s probably reading the evening edition of the Imperial Gazette and an education journal. Around midnight, she’ll go for a walk by the lake in front of the school. She’ll walk again before heading to work tomorrow, and at 7 a.m., she starts morning classes. She doesn’t eat lunch on campus—she always goes out.”
“…Huh? What? How do you know all this so well?”
I figured he’d at least tell me his source…
Is this a delusion? Or did he really hear it from somewhere?
My reaction must’ve thrown him off, because Heike clamped his mouth shut before explaining.
“Earlier this year, I hired someone.”
“……”
I gave him an incredulous smile, and he rolled his eyes.
“…That’s all I know.”
“……”
“…Sorry. Actually, I know she likes beer. And that she doesn’t eat much dinner… But that’s really it. I tried to investigate without going too far, so I couldn’t learn much.”
‘…Well, okay.’
For nobles, tailing someone isn’t that hard.
It’s not right, but investigations like this happen all the time even in the 21st century. Didn’t background checks basically start commercializing around this era?
It’s just hard to gauge how curious Heike must’ve been about his mom to go this far, spending time and money despite his usual apathy.
I gathered my thoughts and said.
“Heike. If you meet your mother, what if she reacts badly to you? Would that be okay?”
Would it really be fine if she was hostile?
The question strayed from the conversation flow and was a bit rude.
But I had to ask. It felt a little dangerous to me.
Even if he thinks it’ll be fine, actually meeting her and having it go wrong could hurt him deeply. Heike’s resolve seems firm, but nothing’s certain until it happens. People don’t know themselves as well as they think.
Heike answered without hesitation.
“It wouldn’t matter. As you know, I already told you I don’t even know why I want to be friends with you. Whether it’s just wanting a friend or actually liking you, I don’t know. Same thing. I’ve imagined the worst-case scenario countless times, and I grew up hearing from my uncle that Mom doesn’t think about me. But it never really hurt.”
“I see.”
“Besides, even if I saw her hating me firsthand and it hurt…”
Heike continued with a blank expression.
“I want that.”
“……”
“I want to be the kind of person who can feel that emotion. And if Mom hates me, it means I, made from her blood, can hate someone like she does. So I’d be someone who can feel clearer emotions.”
I think his approach is wrong.
He doesn’t need to obsess over not feeling emotions properly. As long as that lack doesn’t harm society, he doesn’t have to fix himself.
Plus, his mother and Heike are separate people. Is it healthy to seek validation for himself from others? How much can that borrowed legitimacy sustain him?
“……”
My answer clearly points against what he’s aiming for.
But regardless of my thoughts, Heike wants richer, deeper emotions. And even if it’s not the healthiest way, gaining a foundation for growth through his mother isn’t all bad.
In the end, I have no reason to lecture him to ‘find grounds to affirm yourself within yourself,’ and he hasn’t asked for my help, so no reason to rashly encourage him to try harder to feel emotions.
If it weren’t a proposal, I wouldn’t interfere in Heike’s life in any direction. That’s my stance.
But he’s someone who could become a villain worse than Adelbert in the future, and the system used the ‘proposal’ to steer me toward changing his path.
So…
I’ll meddle in a way I never would have otherwise.
“Heike.”
His half-lidded eyes turned to me. Under the streetlamp, his gray eyes sank into a darker light than usual.
“If I help you now, will you go see your mother?”
Heike’s eyes widened. An indescribable hope flickered across his face before vanishing. A near-resigned blankness settled in, and he replied in a flat, textbook tone.
“It’d violate the contract.”
“What if it doesn’t?”
“…….”
He realized my voice was utterly serious. His eyes narrowed. The smirk he tried to force twisted.
I pulled the necklace chain from inside my shirt, taking out one of the artifacts that came to hand. It was the one from Cherlingen. It didn’t matter which—he didn’t know what they were for.
I couldn’t reveal I could use divine power or mess with his brain, so a little deception was needed. I let a faint trace of divine power flow into my hand holding the artifact.
“…What’s that?”
Heike’s eyes widened. The transformation magic I cast on him had to look like the artifact’s effect, not my own magic. So from now on, this had to seem like divine power from the artifact.
I ignored his question and continued.
“What if you met your mother in my form.”
In other words, borrowing divine transformation magic. He couldn’t go as himself, but if he could stand before her like this and talk?
Heike stared at the white light sparkling like a star in the darkness, then lifted his head.
“…….”
His pupils trembled.
I stared at his pale face and said.
“Would that still violate the contract?”
“…Of course. Even covered in divine power, it’s still me. Of course…”
His voice shook.
A faint smile ghosted across his face, then twisted. It wasn’t rejection—more like fumbling for a reaction to the unexpected.
I smiled, and his face mirrored it with an unreadable expression. He was copying me because he didn’t know what to feel.
His voice grew faint, breathless. A chilling obsession I’d never seen flashed in his eyes.
“…No one would know it’s me, so the contract wouldn’t matter anymore.”
“You get it, Heike.”
“…….”
“Decide. If you want it, I’ll help.”
* * *
“What are we even doing at this hour…?”
Back at school.
Lichtofen, in his dorm clothes with just a robe thrown over, chuckled and shook his head.
We needed spatial magic, so an expert was required. Right now, we stood atop his spatial spell.
I greeted him seriously.
“It’s already 11 p.m. Thanks for helping at such a late hour.”
“Junior, you don’t need to thank me that much. You know why, right?”
“Get used to it.”
“Yeah. Keep making these shameless requests.”
Lichtofen waved dismissively and leaned toward Heike.
More precisely, toward Heike, who wore my face coated in divine power.
Since Heike wanted to see his mother, I’d cast magic on him to change his appearance.
Truthfully, using a complete stranger’s face would be safest—no weight to the name.
But if a stranger suddenly approached her about her child, she’d likely shut it down with ‘I have no such child.’
What about disguising as an imperial mage?
Not bad. Still a stranger, but it’d allow prying information like an interrogation.
But we had a better option, so we skipped that.
‘Disguise as an Eschet team member.’
Far more natural than an imperial mage stranger—easier to get responses when facing her child’s friends. And if disguising as Eschet, better to borrow the vice-leader’s face.
I admired Heike’s pink eyes and said to Lichtofen.
“But we look identical now, and you can still tell us apart.”
I’d even sprayed cologne on Heike on purpose.
Lichtofen stared at me, pointed to my earlobe, then tapped his nose. He must’ve sensed the artifact’s mana.
My expression shifted subtly, and he quickly said.
“It’s fine. Normal people couldn’t tell. Anyway, where to?”
“Northern capital. The faculty dorm at the only boarding magic school there.”
“Oh, that place. What’s the occasion? It’s a decent school—security’s tight.”
This time, Heike answered for me.
“To see my mother. At this hour, she’ll be at the lake out front.”
“…….”
Lichtofen tilted his head and inhaled. He lifted his robe to check my thin dorm clothes.
“Something tells me we can’t show up looking this shabby.”
He wouldn’t appear before Heike’s mother anyway, but he couldn’t go straight from bed out of courtesy.
Lichtofen went back to change. When he returned and saw me, he said.
“That’s why Ainsidel Junior was wearing the Ascanien face earlier.”
He knew Heike was adopted into the direct line.
“So what’s Ascanien Junior turning into? You’re not sending him alone, right?”
“I’ll borrow your face, Senior.”
“Me?”
I casually pulled the necklace from my clothes, pretending to activate the artifact as I invoked divine power.
Lichtofen’s hair darkened too—no change from my view, but apparently my face formed on him. Amusement lit his features.
“Hm… Ahem. Yeah. It suits you.”
“Surprised you’re lending it so readily. Thanks.”
Lichtofen nodded and spun his wand around his finger, turning it into a staff. He grabbed our hands and warped us somewhere in Berlin.
From the brightly lit dorm, we were now in pitch-black outdoors.
A changed wind brushed my cheek. A new park. Beyond the bushes, a massive lake gleamed under moonlight.
Lichtofen slammed his staff down. Spatial magic layered again—the faint ambient noises vanished instantly.
“Now anyone on this path is on the spatial magic. I sense… about six people. All walking.”
A pro indeed. Needing finer control than usual, Lichtofen spread mana so thinly no one would notice.
“One more favor, Senior.”
“Just speak casually. Hearing that from you is awkward.”
Lichtofen grinned lazily, teasing.
I nearly smacked his mouth but confirmed Heike noticed nothing and calmly said.
“Could you check for someone with mana similar to Heike’s? She should be here now, but if not, we’ll have to search elsewhere.”
“Ah, sure. Dogs are best at this.”
Another baffling comment? I glared coldly, but he ignored it, lifting a finger to the air. Mana from his core faded. Instead, he brought his fingertip near his nose and scanned around.
“That end.”
Lichtofen pointed across the lake with his staff.
‘Good.’
Almost there.
We headed that way.
Lichtofen would wait at the opposite side, where we’d arrived.
Here’s what we’d planned for this moment.
What scenario would draw conversation from Heike’s mother?
We’d use the security clearance procedure that the Eschet leader and vice-leader conduct on members.
It’d buy time to resolve what Heike wondered—whether his mother couldn’t feel emotions like him, and what she thought of him.
Security clearance is basically a government/royal reference check. Unlike normal ones, it digs up every detail from birth to now.
Now, why visit her so late?
‘I’d prefer daytime.’
Nearly midnight—what nonsense is this? It’s rude to her, and I’m short on time before meeting the Freiburg archbishop.
But daytime won’t work. It can’t.
Visiting her workplace school daytime makes it official Eschet vice-leader business.
The vice-leader of ‘Heike Ainsidel’s’ group visiting Heike’s mother at work could harm the contract between her and his uncle. It burdens her unduly, and Eschet too.
What about a letter for a private meeting?
Still leaves evidence. We could risk it and prepare leisurely.
‘Not me.’
My proposal ends tomorrow noon…
If I’m helping Heike anyway, let’s do it quickly so I can test my proposal progress without dragging.
After about 15 minutes, Heike stopped abruptly. Mouth slightly open, he stared ahead blankly.
Others might call it scary, but I knew why.
“…….”
I turned.
Another Heike approached from the opposite side. Shadows from the streetlamp hid features, but she matched his height and had dark blonde hair like his—a mage.
I stepped forward in place of the statue-still Heike and raised my voice.
“First time meeting. You’re Helene Ainsidel, right?”
Far off, the mage under the streetlamp halted at the call.
I hurried to stand before her.
Helene Ainsidel.
Heike’s mother. She looked late 20s, but as a newhuman, probably 40s.
She resembled Heike not just in hair but features. Unlike Heike’s bedhead—just wet from water, no wax—hers was impeccably neat.
And far tidier than Heike’s Elias-level sloppy clothes.
“…Ascanien?”
Helene Ainsidel narrowed her eyes and tilted her head.
Not to me—to Heike behind me.
Heike snapped to, staring at Helene Ainsidel.
“…….”
His eyes trembled.
Facing his mother, last seen at five, then only in photos. I couldn’t guess what he wanted to say.
Helene eyed the silence curiously, glancing between us. Her hand drifted to the wand at her right hip.
Tension crackled in the alert standoff as Heike slowly raised his hand, palm up.
Guessing his intent was easy. He was confirming his disguise.
Staring at my hand—less callused than his—he blinked slowly. His gaze fixed on Helene past me.
Soul-drained, he walked slowly to my side. I could almost hear his heartbeat.
‘…Expected, but…’
He’s pretty shocked.
I’d react the same facing someone I’d never see. And seeing her once was his wish.
I could lead the talk, but silence wastes his chance—not a problem for me, but for him.
That worry was unfounded. I’d forgotten he’s strong in the clutch.
Heike smiled softly like I would, casually greeting with my name.
“First time meeting. Eschet Vice-Leader Lucas Ascanien.”