Before I Knew It, It Was Behind Me

Rucia could not understand her master's behavior.

She had assumed he was going to finish off the boss. Instead, he left it suspended in midair and turned to something else entirely.

...What is he trying to do?

First, he gathered the shredded remains of the cocoon into one place, then restored it to its original state in a matter of minutes.

It was her master doing it, so surely there had to be some profound purpose behind it.

But I can't fathom the intent.

Feeling her own inadequacy, Rucia simply waited in silence.

And so, the moment the boss of the sixth floor was sealed back inside its cocoon—

A blue window appeared before her eyes.

...The timer has been reset.

Rucia couldn't help but marvel at her master.

Did he figure out the tower's structure while I was fighting?

For a structure this vast, something beyond the realm of humanity must have interfered with it.

The place was brimming with elements that could not be explained by magic alone.

Proof of that: Rucia couldn't even sense how the tower's progression worked.

And yet her master had analyzed that structure while simultaneously protecting her.

But then—

Is it actually being driven by mana in the first place?

She felt nothing at all from it, which was precisely why such doubts began to creep in.

Obviously some magical element was involved. She simply had the feeling that there was something more to it.

Rucia concluded that it must be something ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a mere human like her could never detect.

...The elf I met back then, in the misty forest.

For some reason, that memory from before came drifting back.

The elf who had clutched her legs and begged for her life.

That elf had spoken as if there were many beings out there similar to her master.

Could it be... that that being made this tower?

Such a suspicion crossed her mind, but she abandoned it before long.

It did her no good to dig too deeply into her master, or into the beings connected to him.

If he hadn't told her, there had to be a reason.

I'll wait.

Until the day her master chose to tell her the truth, all she had to do was keep trusting him.

Yippee.

I experimented out of pure curiosity, and an unexpected bug popped up.

This is beautiful.

A time-duplication bug, of all things.

From the seventh floor onward, it was nothing but bosses Rucia would have struggled to handle, so this worked out perfectly.

But when I turned to her with that joyful heart—

"..."

She was staring blankly at the cocoon.

Her expression was as blank as ever.

I couldn't have guessed what she was thinking if I tried.

"Master."

She called out to me all of a sudden.

[Hmm?]

Blue eyes looked down at me.

I was sitting on the ground, and Rucia was standing right in front of me.

...This angle is a little dangerous.

I casually put some distance between us first.

I had absolutely no desire to find out what color today's Rucia was.

...Probably.

Anyway.

By the time I'd retreated to a safe distance, she spoke in a small, murmuring voice.

"I just... wanted to say thank you."

Watching Rucia's face as she said it, I got the distinct sense that something was different from usual.

[You don't have to thank me that much. I do this because I want to.]

With that, I fluttered over to her shoulder.

[But Rucia. Let's rest for now.]

From that day on, we started a training camp.

Exactly five days left now, I'd say.

I'd have liked to stay longer, but the Tower of Time itself was set to seven days.

We'd been counting from the moment we entered the tower.

Only five days remained.

It's annoying that there's no timer displayed.

The Sword Saint Sparrow's sense of time was precise, so it wasn't a real problem—but having to keep counting numbers in my head all day was grating.

Worse, every time I woke up, I had to calculate the remaining duration of the magic I'd cast on the tent, which made my head hurt even more.

In the original story, a handy little counter told you exactly how many hours were left. Now that it's reality, it's a genuine inconvenience.

Anyway.

Five days to go.

Let's train hard until Rucia can kill the Chelicerate Sovereign.

Since Rucia mustn't overexert herself, I set up a simple routine this time.

One: dispel the defensive magic wrapped around the web, then agitate it to wake the Chelicerate Sovereign.

Two: Rucia fights.

Each time she fails, I check her mana condition, drop the barrier, and restart the battle.

Three: seal the Chelicerate Sovereign back into its cocoon at least once every four hours.

It wasn't as if I was tormenting the thing for no reason.

Meal breaks and signs of exhaustion from Rucia are unavoidable, you know.

A fine routine.

Either way, that was how we spent our five days.

And the result—

-Kuguuuuung!

Rucia's West Wind punched clean through the Chelicerate Sovereign's body.

Its enormous bulk split down the middle, and—

Kind of anticlimactic, honestly.

It was a hollow fight that hardly deserved a blow-by-blow description.

Once you memorized its patterns, the Chelicerate Sovereign was the biggest piece of garbage boss ever made.

Well, the clear score was a perfect A, at least.

That should be enough to aim for the top-tier reward, I figured.

...Hmm.

But I was getting a little anxious, so I sent a telepathic message.

[Rucia.]

"Yes, Master."

[The Tower of Time closes in two minutes and nineteen seconds.]

Meaning we were about to be ejected from the tower.

"..."

For a split second, Rucia's movements froze.

"I'll hurry."

She immediately sprinted toward the glowing blue portal.

It was because of the reward you received for clearing the tower's full ten floors.

The plan was for Rucia to clear only the sixth floor, and for me to take down the rest so we could collect the reward.

[Rucia. There's no need to rush that much.]

Two minutes? Honestly, I wasn't that pressed.

Besides, if we were in that much of a hurry, I shouldn't have been sitting on her shoulder in the first place.

[I'll lift you with telekinesis. Bear with me a moment.]

I formed a transparent saddle above my head and set her down on it.

This is one seriously broken spell.

Just as I was about to blast off at top speed—

...Transparent? And Rucia is sitting on top of it?

I realized a catastrophic secret, but every second was precious if we wanted to clear the tower.

Two minutes was genuinely not enough time.

Truly against all reason, I flew at full speed in that state.

-Kuuuuung!

We tore across space with a deafening roar of wind.

A blue window appeared the instant we arrived.

Through the portal again.

Then another window, its lines cut off mid-sentence as we blitzed past—

We reached the tenth floor before the blue window could even finish its message.

Took us, what, eight seconds to get here?

First, I scanned our surroundings.

Like the starting point of a maze, four corridors branched out between towering walls.

Utterly different from everything up through the ninth floor.

This is the part that normally eats up hours.

Forget the two minutes we had—people routinely wandered these halls for twenty hours without ever finding the boss.

But I am the Great Mage Bird.

I sensed the boss's mana drifting in from far away.

And then—

Location found.

Fwoooosh!

-KWAAAAAANG!

In that instant, I smashed straight through every wall in my path, charging the boss in a dead line.

Mid-flight, I barreled through a wall that was conspicuously thicker than the rest—

and there it was: a grotesque creature with the head of a bird and the body of a lion.

A griffin.

An elite monster dangerous enough to be called a calamity if it ever appeared near a small city—and among elites, one of the worst.

-BOOOOOM!

Its body detonated in glorious fashion.

By the way—something I'd been ignoring this whole time—but what's the deal with a clear score of S?

In ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the game, A was the maximum.

Do they give this out for clearing things this fast?

Feeling a modest sense of satisfaction, I looked around.

The walls enclosing the boss room had been smashed to utter ruin.

At the center lay the griffin, crushed beyond recognition, and behind it a blue portal had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠activated.

[Rucia. Let's go.]

"...Yes, Master."

Step through that portal, and we'd return to our original location with the clear reward pressed into our hands.

For the record, the reward is random.

[Rucia. You can get up now.]

At my words she rose to her feet, and I dismissed the transparent saddle.

Oof, there we go.

I settled onto her shoulder as usual.

"Master, let's go."

[Yep.]

The moment she reached her hand toward the portal, blue light wrapped around us.

-Shaaaaa.

My vision went dark for an instant—

"...It's the cave."

We were back in the cylindrical cavern.

Nearly a week of grueling preparation for the trial—long, if you wanted to call it long.

I wanted to head straight back to the dormitory, but there was still one thing to check.

[Rucia. What's in your hand?]

The reward for clearing the Tower of Time.

Random rewards are granted in proportion to your clear score, and since this was our first S-rank, I had no idea what it would be.

I was hoping for some overpowered item, but...

"It's a pair of golden earrings."

[What do they do?]

The reward had been granted to her directly, so the blue window must have explained the earrings' ability too.

"...It says they absorb the surrounding mana. Faster, and with priority."

What kind of ability is that?

[Does anything feel different?]

"My mana recovery feels... a little faster, I think."

I already knew that much.

I could see the surrounding mana being sucked toward Rucia's body.

But there's not much of a difference, is there.

Most mages absorb the mana floating around them to recover faster in the first place.

Those earrings just seemed to speed up that absorption rate.

[Your recovery speed feels maybe... twenty percent faster?]

A twenty percent boost to mana regeneration.

Good, I suppose—but disappointing for an S-rank reward.

[Well then. We've checked the ability, so shall we head back?]

"Yes."

As I swallowed my disappointment and turned to leave the cave—

-Ziiiing.

I felt a flow of mana behind us.

And I wasn't the only one who felt it—Rucia turned around too.

We found a purple portal.

What's that?

When you clear the Tower of Time, the portal vanishes.

So why was this one still here?

Or had another portal simply appeared?

"...Master. Shall we take a look inside?"

Rucia turned her head toward me.

She really does read my mind.

[Obviously we go.]

Adventure was always welcome.

...

Humid air.

For a moment I thought another Tower of Time had spawned, but the density of mana here felt different, so no.

Then what on earth is this place?

I opened my eyes and surveyed our surroundings.

A forest shrouded in fog.

For some inexplicable reason, I felt a strange inner familiarity with the place.

"Master. This place is...?"

Perhaps Rucia had noticed it too—she murmured the question under her breath.

[You're awake, Rucia.]

This was the land of the ever-giving elf.

No idea why the portal opened, though.

Either way, it had been a while since my last visit—might as well drop by and say hello?

And if I happened to receive a gift while I was at it, all the better.

[I can sense an aura over that way.]

Just as I was guiding Rucia toward where the elf was—

-Shrrrrrk!

A torrent of mana poured into Rucia's body.

What the—

It wasn't harmful, so I didn't bother blocking it.

If I had to put a number on it, Rucia's maximum mana capacity had just grown by about seventy percent?

So there existed in this world a beautiful donation angel who made your faith in humanity blossom.

Wondering who it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was, I parted the fog, and—

"..."

A golden-haired, green-eyed elf was staring at us.

So it really was the elf from before.

Between the gift she'd given us last time and this wholesale pocket-stuffing now, I could feel an affection I never had suddenly welling up inside me.

[Hello.]

So I greeted her.

And—

"G-k... urk—!"

The elf let out a strange noise and keeled over.

The fog-covered forest.

A golden-haired elf sat atop a tree stump, gazing at the glass bottle in her hand.

"Heh. Heheheh...!"

She let out a laugh brimming with pure happiness.

It's finally over...!

Ever since that sparrow had come and gone, her days had been a living hell.

She had no idea when that thing would return—she hadn't been able to sleep a proper night since.

But then.

There was a sealed portal nearby...!

She had layered the portal leading into the Fog Forest over that strange one.

As long as that portal remained, no one could ever enter this forest.

Thanks to that, she'd been able to gather mana with her heart at ease.

"Heh. Heeh..."

She gazed at the mana-filled bottle with eyes full of tenderness.

Inside it lay the fruits of the past several weeks.

W-With this... I can flee to another continent, and it'll all be over.

If she vacationed for a good five thousand years or so, those ones would surely drift away again.

Since I scraped this mana together so desperately, my power's recovery will slow by another few hundred years... but who cares!

As long as she could escape that sparrow, none of it mattered.

"Now it's finally oooover...!"

And so, the moment she activated the mana she'd hoarded—

-Shrrrrrk!

The mana shot off toward somewhere.

"...Huh?"

Something was wrong.

There was definitely no one else here.

Could it be—that thing had come back?

N-No, it can't be!

She desperately denied the thought as she turned her head—

and met eyes with a yellow sparrow.

[Hello there~?]

The moment that voice rang through her skull—

"G-k... urk—!"

She lost consciousness.