Chapter 62
Chapter 62
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: penny
Chapter: 62
Chapter Title: Meeting and Arrival
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Carnel quickly grew bored with the string art and ended up leaning back against the sofa, silently watching Adel.
In contrast, Adel showed no signs of boredom.
He had been twisting threads of mana into all sorts of shapes for dozens of minutes now.
“…….”
Carnel watched those fingertips in silence for a long while before cautiously opening her mouth.
“…When did you start handling mana like this?”
Adel’s hands paused for a moment.
But then, as if nothing had happened, the threads of mana began weaving again.
[I don’t remember.]
“That’s a lie, right?”
[It’s true.]
Carnel didn’t press him immediately.
Her lips twitched a couple of times before stopping.
And then… she cautiously spoke up.
“Adel… do you remember your past?”
Adel stopped moving his threads and looked up at Carnel.
A pair of golden eyes sparkled as they met each other.
[My past?]
“…Yeah, your past.”
[I don’t really remember anything.]
“…….”
Carnel silently mulled over the words.
No memories… he said.
If Carnel’s suspicions were correct…
Then Delbar had cast Adel out, erased all records of him, and even… wiped his memories clean.
…If Adel had continued growing up in Delbar.
What kind of relationship might this man before her eyes have had with her past self?
The thought flashed through her mind.
[Why do you ask all of a sudden?]
“Just… because.”
Carnel lowered her gaze, lost in thought.
Unsure how to look at Adel, who was quietly twisting his threads.
“Mm…….”
There were several reasons Carnel had brought Adel to her family home, the Delbar Ducal House.
First.
To confirm whether Adel truly was the lost little brother she suspected he was.
And second.
Just.
“…….”
…Really, just that.
Because it felt strange.
From the moment she first met Adel at Yoram’s entrance ceremony.
It felt like reuniting with someone she’d been separated from long ago.
One sudden emotion had lodged itself in her mind and refused to leave.
“Ahem….”
[?]
Of course… that wasn’t the end of it.
Adel’s main strength was magic, so it made rational sense to provide a proper environment at her own home for practice.
But… that couldn’t be all.
She knew that better than anyone.
And she knew that fact was unnecessarily complicating her heart.
‘If….’
If Adel… wasn’t her little brother.
If everything she’d done so far was just a delusion built on misconceptions.
Had she only been a burden to Adel?
Had she been clinging like an unwelcome intruder?
‘……I don’t know.’
She didn’t know.
She didn’t know a thing.
She didn’t even know why it felt so complicated or what emotion it was.
Still…
Even so, she and Adel were senior and junior at Yoram.
At least that relationship… wouldn’t change.
Carnel decided to be content with that.
***
I was passing the time by quietly doing string art.
Threads of mana glowed faintly from my fingertips, drawing stars.
Then…
Carnel, sitting beside me, suddenly asked.
“…When did you start handling mana like this?”
She was asking when I’d begun manipulating natural mana…
‘When, huh….’
I couldn’t answer that question easily.
I’d started handling mana after becoming ‘Adel.’
But before taking the name ‘Adel’—before ‘me,’ the previous ‘Adel’…
Surely had handled mana.
So that was something ‘Adel’ had done, not ‘me.’
[I don’t remember.]
Carnel frowned the moment she heard my response.
“That’s a lie, right?”
[It’s true.]
It was true.
My words were truthful, but I had no way to explain.
I just… felt awkward.
I turned my head to glance at Carnel, who was sitting right next to me.
She hesitated for a moment before cautiously parting her lips.
“Adel… do you remember your past?”
At her words, I stopped my hands and turned to her.
Our golden eyes met.
[My past?]
“…Yeah, your past.”
…I thought for a moment.
My past as ‘me’… had faded long ago.
And ‘Adel’s’ past… didn’t exist at all.
‘Adel’ was an empty shell that never appeared in ‘Aka Calamity,’ not anywhere.
[I don’t really remember anything.]
“…….”
Carnel seemed about to say something at my answer but then closed her mouth.
At this point, it felt like an interrogation.
Why was she so obsessed with my past?
Maybe…
Maybe we’d met somewhere before?
Maybe she remembered, and I’d forgotten… something like that?
Thanks to Carnel’s unusually clingy behavior, I ended up drifting into absurd delusions.
“…….”
Look.
How ridiculous a delusion it was…
Even the Loach, who’d been rolling on its belly atop Carnel’s head…
Was staring at me with eyes full of utter pity.
Hop!
It stealthily crawled from Carnel’s head to mine.
And then, on the forehead of my mask…
Chomp chomp!
‘Why.’
Swipe.
The Loach hung from my head, meeting my eyes with its round ones.
……Its expression was pure ‘idiot.’
Like it wanted to toss that one word at me.
“……Ahem.”
Carnel broke the silence then.
She seemed to be ignoring the Loach wagging its tail all over my head, cautiously speaking up.
“We’ll arrive at a village soon… so let’s rest there.”
At her words, the Loach flipped over and rolled across my head.
Rolling around to block Carnel’s view…
Whoosh!
I seized the moment the Loach let its guard down and grabbed its tail, lifting it up.
“Eeeeng!”
The thing wasn’t even human, yet it yelped like one.
It flailed, trying to wriggle free from my hand.
I simply dropped it onto the sofa.
Then…
“Hmph.”
It smacked the sofa cushion with its fins before turning around, hunching its back in a sulk.
The posture screamed it was pissed.
“We’ve arrived.”
The carriage jolted briefly and stopped.
Carnel rose and checked outside the window…
“Eeeh…? We’re there…?”
Violet rubbed her eyes, lifting only her head from the sofa.
“No, we’re still far from the family home.”
“Aah… Got it. Then… wake me when we arrive….”
Violet burrowed back into the sofa, curling up.
“Then… let’s rest for about 20 minutes and head out again.”
[Okay.]
With that, I opened the carriage door and stepped into the village street.
A small, quiet village.
I strolled slowly between the street stalls scattered around.
Skewers of unknown meat, sweet-scented rice cakes…
But my pockets were empty.
In the end, I just window-shopped and sat on a bench in the village square.
The sky was clear and blue.
And…
“…….”
As always, the world had meetings that arrived without warning, like natural disasters.
No prior alerts, no omens.
Just plopped into reality like foreign objects.
“Want one?”
That voice came truly out of nowhere.
Shattering the quiet of the still village afternoon, without even a breeze.
Swipe.
I turned my head.
…As if he’d been there from the start.
Without any prelude, a man had naturally taken the seat beside me.
‘…What?’
The man wore a mask covering his face, exposing only his eyes.
[Who?]
“Who, you say….”
He pretended to think, gazing into the air, then flashed an arrogant smile.
“Call me Michael.”
Michael.
A name that didn’t match any character I knew.
I mulled over his name, but nothing came up no matter how I racked my brain.
Yet this man spoke to me—a total stranger—as if we were familiar.
With the ease of old acquaintances.
[Danger! Right now■―]
“Shh, don’t interfere. Soul that defies providence.”
A system message had just popped up… but it vanished with a wave of his hand.
Without a trace.
…Was it just my imagination?
“I’m just here to check.”
He spoke.
His voice rang clearly down the street, where even the wind had stilled.
[Check what?]
“Whether an arrogant soul thinks it can defy fate.”
Is he talking about me?
I instinctively scanned our surroundings.
But in this small village… around the bench, there was only me… and this man.
Just the two of us.
“Sadly, not you.”
…So he said.
Then what did he want?
“One who believes it can control everything. A pitiful soul deluded into thinking it can overcome pain, calamity, even fate.”
He looked at me.
Purple eyes beyond the mask.
They were clearly directed at ‘me,’ but I sensed it.
Those eyes weren’t seeing ‘me’ right now.
That gaze was fixed on something inside me, not ‘me.’
✦━━━━━━━━━━━━✦
[ Michael ■#^)_ ]
Favorability: 【■】
Status: 【■】
■□■□■□■□■□ (?/?)
Info:
[■]
✦━━━━━━━━━━━━✦
Even Cupid’s gear couldn’t grasp his identity.
The info was censored, each field smeared into meaninglessness, leaving only pointless symbols floating.
…Michael rose, placing a hand over his mask.
“Hm… How do you wear this every day? It’s unbearably uncomfortable.”
He tossed the mask into the air and didn’t bother putting it back on.
“Then, until next time.”
…He turned his head toward me for one last word.
“Whenever that may be… as human and calamity, or calamity and calamity, at the world’s end.”
An inscrutable arrogant smile still played on his lips.
“Good luck. King of the Abyss.”
He murmured softly… very softly, then vanished.
Just as he’d appeared.
Without a sound, as if he’d never existed.
‘What the hell was that idiot?’
I stared blankly at the spot.
Some nutjob who popped up out of nowhere, spewed creepy nonsense, posed dramatically, and left.
I couldn’t make heads or tails of what he wanted.
‘More importantly… what king?’
Come to think of it, he’d said something about a king at the end…
Honestly, his words got so grandiose midway I tuned half of it out.
‘Was it middle school syndrome?’
Some nobody pulling that crap made my head spin.
And… coming to my senses, the 20-minute break was nearly up.
I hurried back to the carriage.
“Zzz….”
Violet was still buried in the sofa, snoring deeply…
Whoosh!
The Loach whipped around the moment it saw me return, blatantly sulking.
‘Wanna eat this?’
I offered a rice cake from my hand as a peace offering.
Swipe…
It eyed me before tentatively extending a fin to grab it.
And… crunch.
It took a bite.
‘It's a good thing.’
It was from that lunatic, but… at least there was no poison.
***
Clunk.
The carriage stopped.
I opened my half-closed eyes and sat up.
“Eeng….”
The loach, who’d been sleeping belly-up on my lap, wriggled and opened its round eyes.
“Miss, we’ve arrived.”
The coachman’s voice came from outside the door.
“We’re finally here.”
“Yaaawn….”
We’d left Yoram at dawn, but the sun was already setting.
We’d been traveling for half a day at least.
I stretched my tired arms.
The loach mimicked me, extending its tail and fins in a big stretch.
“…….”
Stepping out the open door, a massive mansion came into view.
“Whoa….”
Overwhelming enough to make Loach speak human words.
The Delbar Ducal House.
A place whose silhouette never even appeared in ‘Aka Calamity,’ a sanctuary called an unknown realm.
Carnel’s family home, residence of nobility among nobles.
Me, Carnel, Violet, and… one fish.
The four of us approached the mansion’s main gate.
But…
“Miss….”
Knights guarding the gate rushed over, blocked us.
Skipping even formal greetings, they got straight to the point.
“Outsiders are not permitted entry.”
“Ha… Didn’t I tell you? He’s not just any outsider.”
“Sigh… I knew this would happen.”
Carnel raised her voice, while Violet pressed her forehead beside her, sighing.
“We’re sorry, but we’re just following orders….”
I stood awkwardly among them.
Should I not have come after all?
As I thought that, Carnel’s voice grew louder, the air thickening with tension.
“Huff, huff…!”
A servant came running from afar, panting heavily.
He bent at the waist, catching his breath… and uttered those words.
“The Duke… is coming himself….”
“…Father?”
“Shit… we’re screwed.”
Of course.
Not a single thing was going right.