Chapter 59
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 59
Chapter Title: Illness Amidst Fire - 12
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Harman had another dream.
"Dad?"
"Is ■■ still sleeping?"
"Yes. Where's Mom?"
"......"
A boy with an unrecognizable face called out to him as "Dad."
Likewise, the name of a girl he knew nothing about came from his own mouth.
Mariel was not at home.
The him in the dream wrote a letter.
On the most valuable paper among his possessions, with his shabby handwriting, he scribbled down the letters.
Strangely, the characters he had written with his own hand appeared blurry, making it impossible to read the full text.
The only sentence he could barely make out was,
- It's already been ten days since you left.
In the end, he informed her of the fact that Mariel had decided to participate in the demon subjugation.
"Why isn't Mom home today either?"
"If you wait just one more month, she'll come back. Mom's always been busy, hasn't she?"
"How many days is that?"
"30 days. If you sleep exactly thirty times, a month will pass."
In truth, Harman, who was not even a member of the subjugation unit, had no way of knowing when the subjugation would end.
Whether they gave up subjugating the sealed demon and decided to abandon ■■■, or they finally captured the demon.
Mariel would return on the day one of those two things happened.
He let out a deep sigh.
And he filled the remaining blank space on the letter paper.
When he turned his head, something came into view.
Already on one corner of the desk, three or four previously written letters were stacked up.
Equipment was difficult to transport easily, let alone people, so it was only natural that there was no way to deliver even a single letter.
No subjugation unit would waste resources on paper and ink that were utterly useless for capturing the demon.
Still, hoping for the opportunity casually mentioned by the captain who had come looking for Mariel, he was stacking up letters.
On the day the transport arrived for supply delivery, if he gave that person his name and the letter paper, they would deliver it to her.
No one knew when that day would come.
- For your return, I'll prepare a sword to gift you this time too.
The letters always had the most difficult final sentence.
He had no clue how to end them.
He wanted to rush to her side right away, but someone was needed in the house to look after ■■ and ■■.
Just like now.
"Aaah!"
"■■!"
"Dad! ■■ is acting strange again!"
Rushing into the room, ■■ was writhing in pain.
Her body was covered entirely in red spots.
"Ugh! It hurts......"
"■■! Swallow this quick!"
"I don't want to....... I don't want to eat this."
"It's candy. It's okay. It'll definitely be sweet if you eat it."
"Ugh......"
It was neither candy nor a fundamental cure for the illness.
It was a drug that dulled the body's senses, allowing him to endure the pain for a short while.
The pain recurred at irregular intervals, and once this brief time passed, it would calm down again.
But since no one knew when the seizure would strike, it ended up like pouring painkillers only after the pain had already hit.
The reason she hated swallowing it wasn't because of the bitterness.
The pain subsided, but her body lost all its strength.
The sensation that her own body no longer felt like her own.
Living day by day on such blatant lies as "it's candy, swallow it" had already gone on for several years.
Watching this, ■■ was trembling in fear, worrying when her own body might seize.
'If only the subjugation ends, once that's over......'
The him in the dream surely thought that.
After the demon subjugation ended, the medicinal ingredients and treatment methods that would come as a reward.
He was clinging only to that hope.
The captain's words that rewards would be given regardless of the subjugation's success or failure left him unsure whether to feel relieved or worried.
Afterward, he heard many more dream stories.
Most were the moment Mariel decided to participate in the subjugation and left home, looking back at him.
The him in the dream wrote letters while waiting for Mariel, while another him tried to persuade Mariel before she left.
He fed painkillers to his sick children and struck the hammer.
He crafted a sword for the Mariel who would return.
He had realized it from the beginning, but these were not mere dreams.
They matched the information he had heard from Mariel or through Rien.
They were close to reviving Harman's forgotten memories in the form of dreams.
"Do you remember your age at the time?"
"Much younger than now. The children whose names I didn't know were about Sylvia's size."
"Roughly 20 to 30 years ago?"
"Yeah. Probably around then."
If the words heard on the 11th floor were true, the city Mariel had left soon became part of the tower.
In the end, since the world had completely escaped the demon's influence, should it be considered a successful subjugation?
Then, Mariel—who had left for her children's treatment despite the success—along with the numerous mercenaries and the villagers captured by the demon, all ended up unable to escape from there.
They achieved their goal but lost the most important thing.
"So, did you receive the medicinal ingredients?"
"Well, the dream annoyingly didn't show that far."
What happened to Linnet and Theo afterward.
He preferred to imagine that both had fully recovered from their illness, grown up properly, and become fine adults.
It was to accept plausibly the reason he couldn't see them in Luden.
A grown adult leaving their parents for economic activities to live in another village wasn't all that strange.
"Well, that's what happened all this time. Not much to it, right?"
"......"
"So why did you come all the way here? It can't be just to see my face. You must have some business."
Why had I walked to Harman's smithy?
If I had decided against half-hearted efforts, no matter what information I learned, I should have just pretended it never happened and ignored it all.
I didn't need to come to Harman in the first place.
There was no need to investigate Mariel either.
Anyway, the two could never meet, and since I had decided not to make efforts to soothe the longing, I could have just erased Mariel from my mind.
"Harman. You said going mad over a loved one is better than going insanely mad."
"Yeah. Pain from knowing is better than pain from ignorance."
"Can you recall what the result of the demon subjugation was?"
I
wanted to see Harman remember everything.
I couldn't bear to watch Harman living a life fragmented by the tower.
That's why I had been holding onto this pointless lingering attachment.
"Harman. Your children are Linnet and Theo."
"What?"
"Recall it. Why didn't Mariel return?"
Rather than wondering how I knew the children's names, Harman focused on filling the holes in his own memories.
The names Linnet and Theo would serve as hints to find the path.
"Right. Linnet, Theo. Why had I forgotten this?"
"Is there more you remember?"
"The illness was cured. Just as instructed, I gave them the medicinal ingredients, and in just a few days, the illness vanished. They had been sick for years, but it healed completely, as if there had never been any illness."
It was fortunate news while listening.
At least the reason the two children weren't with Harman wasn't death.
"Tell me everything as it comes to mind."
"......The name of the captain who came looking was Karelus."
"Continue."
"......The place where the demon appeared, the place Mariel left for, is called Portam. Definitely."
Even Luden after six years had stopped using its name, so Portam must have too.
It had become known as the 11th floor now.
"Was the subjugation a success? Or a failure?"
"......"
"Harman."
"No. It's not that. It wasn't a subjugation from the start!"
"Not a subjugation?"
"It was a large-scale experiment using the sealed demon."
Experiment.
This was a story he was hearing for the first time.
"It went exactly as they wanted. Those bastards' goal wasn't capturing the demon."
"What kind of experiment? Using the demon, no less."
"An experiment to send desired regions into the tower."
He couldn't quite understand.
Sending to the tower sounded like they could intentionally decide which locations would become part of it.
"By making the sealed demon rampage...... they isolated Portam from the outside! So that only a few wizards could enter or exit!"
"Why do something like that?"
"To turn the inside into something like the tower. They kept manipulating it until it truly became the tower!"
The adventurers from the north and south were wizards meant to assess the internal situation and report it.
Mariel's body hadn't been fixed at the moment she was trapped in Portam because, for most of the time, it wasn't yet the tower, and time had flowed normally.
The over twenty years that passed were merely the time inside, isolated by the sealed demon.
They remembered becoming part of the tower thirty years ago, but in reality, they had entered later than Luden.
The fact he now realized was that the demon had been called the sealed demon even before the subjugation.
Not because the church had bound it with chains, but because the demon's ability was to seal things.
What they thought was sealing the demon was actually the demon sealing Portam.
"They were trying to figure out how to be chosen by the tower, so they used the demon for it. Not some subjugation!"
Yet Portam, which had gone so far as to use the demon, was ignored, while Luden—which they hadn't even paid attention to—was chosen first as the 1st floor.
In the end, Portam became the 11th floor too, so their plan was half successful.
And it meant they knew what the tower was and had moved intentionally to become part of it.
"Wait a moment, Harman. I'm asking because I don't understand. Before the tower's 1st floor was even decided, the concept of the tower already existed there?"
"The tower has always existed. It even had an entrance for us......"
Harman suddenly clutched his head.
"Harman?"
"Ugh, kuh."
I caught him as he collapsed to the floor without finishing his words.
A quest window appeared beside him.
Do Not Interfere with 'Blacksmith Harman' 《COMMON》
📍 Objective: You are an adventurer. Do not linger on the 1st floor—continue challenging the tower. (0/1)
🎁 Reward: Please refrain from unnecessary approaches to 'Blacksmith Harman'. Providing limited information is also inappropriate.
※ Everyone has a predetermined role. If excessive manipulation continues, additional measures may be taken.
Among all the quests he had seen so far, this was the most repulsive one.