Echoes
More than a thousand years ago, when science had not yet taken deep root in this land.
What sustained humanity then, in place of science, was a supernatural force called magic.
Based on the theory that mana—or, in today’s terms, mystery—existed in all things, it was the power to reshape reality through human will.
And those who wielded that power were called mages.
According to the few ancient records that survived, mages could not be trained through any ordinary process. Only the descendants of mages could become mages themselves, and for a common person to awaken as one required an extraordinarily slim chance of perceiving mystery.
So it was only natural that the number of mages remained vanishingly small.
The only reason their numbers could be kept at least somewhat stable was that once a person became a mage, they gained a body close to immortal.
“Then that means...”
“If you’re as sharp as I think you are, you may already have guessed. Your father and I were mages. We’ve lived since the very distant, very ancient past.”
“If time and space allowed, I’d like to tell you how we met, and why we decided to have you, but we don’t have the luxury of time.”
My wide eyes dropped downward.
“After the great catastrophe known as the Fall of Magic, people said magic had vanished from this world. But that wasn’t true. Mages like us didn’t disappear; we simply walked to the far side of the world of our own accord.”
“We had to bear responsibility for the ruin of our own world.”
As one astonishing revelation followed another, my slender body grew heavy with the strain.
Before I knew it, I was drawing only shallow breaths.
I tore my eyes away from the letter for a moment and leaned back against the ceiling, exhausted, forcing myself to breathe deeply.
So magic hadn’t disappeared at all. Its users had simply chosen to retreat into hiding.
“Oh my God.”
The words slipped from my lips in a voice thinner than I had ever heard it.
The Fall of Magic had not been a single event. It had been closer to the outcome of a brutal struggle that lasted a generation.
The Origin Species invasion had come truly, shockingly out of nowhere, and nearly every mage on the continent had poured out all the magic they possessed to stop it.
Even magic that had once been restricted or forbidden—because it ravaged the earth, left pollution in its wake, violated every principle of human decency, or carried dangerous side effects—had been used to seal city-sized Origin Species and strategic-level gates.
The price of using magic without restraint was catastrophic.
It was common for the residual mystery left behind after spellcasting to tangle together and become disaster.
Some places had been contaminated beyond the point where people could live there at all, and even the regions where mystery had been washed away had become wastelands where not even a handful of grasses could grow.
The Mediterranean Sea the continent had once held dried up entirely, exposing its bed and accelerating the desertification of the south.
But above all else, the most devastating blow was that while mana withered away, the number of mages fell to such a degree that extinction itself had to be accepted as a possibility.
It wasn’t simply that the number of people had decreased. The great pillar supporting the nations had collapsed.
The old empire, which had lost mages in huge numbers, was torn apart by political chaos, and for the next five hundred years the continent failed to establish any proper state system.
Countless groups proclaimed themselves nations, only to collapse and fall.
In the midst of that storm, magic was naturally forgotten.
And yet.
“A mage...”
Honestly, I wasn’t sure what to think.
If it had been a field I knew nothing about at all, that would have been one thing. But I had a certain amount of knowledge about it already.
What made it stranger was that I had learned it from old books I’d found in the library that filled one room of my childhood home.
My mother and father must have assumed I couldn’t read a book written in a dead language, so they left me alone. Somehow, though, I could read it. Quite fluently, in fact.
So to me, a mage was not some fictional being. They were people who had truly existed.
When I was little and knew nothing, I had even secretly harbored something close to a desire to become a mage.
No wonder I felt dazed.
I closed my eyes, which had only been staring at the ceiling. Rubbing my face with both hands, I gave myself a dry wash, and my hair, tied up before, fell loose behind me.
“For now, this isn’t what I need to deal with first.”
I took another deep breath and looked back down at the letter.
“But, Justina, we thought you didn’t need to shoulder this responsibility as well. That’s why we tried not to teach you magic. At least, until we saw you reading the magic books.”
“It was the worst thing we ever did, and if I’m being honest, also the best mistake. We thought you wouldn’t be able to read the books, so we didn’t even lock the library door. The moment I saw you devouring those magic books, I felt two conflicting emotions.”
“Sadness, and joy.”
The ink at the end of that final stroke was especially dark, as though my mother had hesitated over the words for a long time.
“After all the years we’ve lived through, it had been so long since I’d felt anything like that that I couldn’t bring myself to stop you. You, as a child, reading the magic books with such delight. In the end, I suppose blood really can’t be denied. But we still couldn’t teach you openly. That would have violated the rule we swore to follow.”
“It’s a little late to say this now, but I think that was the turning point, and the final chance we were given.”
“...Final chance?”
I blinked in confusion at the sudden phrase.
“Justina, we believed your heritage as a mage’s descendant had to be hidden. The world had become far too cruel to accept magic, and on top of that, our own remaining sins had not yet been atoned for. I can admit it now: we also sealed away part of your talent on purpose.”
“And we prayed, with all our hearts, that the day would never come when you’d have to use magic.”
“But in the end, we were wrong.”
A wind from the mountain battered the window with hard, repetitive knocks.
When I looked up for a moment, the evening glow draped over the snowcapped peaks had already thinned to a single fading line.
An ominous violet fringe began to swallow the place where the sunset had been.
“Something huge and terrifying is moving, Justina. We’ve heard that our old comrades are trying to revive magic. And they mean to do it with Yggdrasil, the World Tree that brought about our downfall. They planted Yggdrasil’s seed in secret north of Nordfjord.”
“Because we never revealed our existence, they didn’t know about us for a while. But eventually they found us and told us to choose: cooperate, or die. That part is my fault too. I went inside the barrier they had set up to search for a clue that could destroy Yggdrasil.”
“By the time you read this letter, I think they’ll probably have realized what we’re trying to do. We’ve made something that can destroy Yggdrasil. Crude and imperfect, but the situation is so urgent that this is the only means we could prepare.”
A way to destroy the Gate of Yggdrasil.
A shiver ran down my spine.
Even in my previous world, it had been impossible to completely destroy Yggdrasil.
I hurriedly looked farther down. The rest was brief.
“Open the box. You should be able to figure out how to use it quickly enough.”
“The box...”
Was this what they meant?
I turned away from the letter and looked down at the small box.
It was a box worn smooth by years of handling.
I had only brushed the lock with my fingertips, and it let out a sharp click as the latch released.
The lid of the box rose slowly on its own.
Resting atop luxurious blue silk were two stones, each bearing a single character. One was a red stone that looked as though it could burst into flame at any moment; the other blended orange and blue together, suffused with an indescribable mystery.
For a moment, uncertainly tugged at my memory, and then I found the answer.
I’d seen them in the old books I used to read as a child—the magic books.
“A rune?”
Afraid that touching them might trigger something on their own, the way the box had, I looked back at the letter.
But the letter had ended with the line that I should be able to figure out how to use them.
I did know.
It was the most familiar concept to me of all.
With reluctance, I picked up the rune stone marbled with orange and blue.
I took a breath, searching through memory for the activation words.
“Connect. Synchronize.”
As if reacting to the activation words, the world around me rippled.
The few drops of moisture drifting through the air trembled.
The temperature, lowered by the northern cold, seemed to lift its head.
The slowly floating air mass gathered toward me. The measured movement of the wide land came to a halt, all of it turning its attention here.
It was a sensation I had never felt before. I flailed a little at the strange buoyancy, as though I’d been lifted off the ground.
Suddenly, a voice I missed came echoing through my mind.
『Justina.』
“Father?”
My high-pitched voice called out for him.
Joy surged up my throat, only to sink back down just as quickly. It was a prerecorded voice.
『I wanted to say this myself. I’m sorry for burdening you with something like this. The talent sleeping inside you is truly remarkable, but I never wanted it to be used this way.』
“...”
『Since the day we brought ruin upon ourselves, this is the first time fate has felt so merciless. Your mother and I both know the world is precious, but Justina, you’re precious too. We all know which of the two should be chosen, and yet we still can’t make that choice. We shouldn’t, either. So,』
For a moment, a sigh slipped into the recording. Then, as though regaining its steadiness, the voice asked,
『Justina, can you stop them?』
I held my tongue for a moment. There was no point answering the dead; they would not hear me.
Even now, I still couldn’t understand it.
Why had my parents had to die?
Why had two people who should never have gone back to the grave over something as petty as magic’s revival had to die?
Couldn’t I have returned to an even earlier point?
I clenched the rune stone in my palm with all my strength.
In the end, the answer had already been decided long ago.
“Of course I will.”
Because...
“I came back to do exactly that.”
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