Reunion (2)
Linea's speech ended and a Q&A session followed, but I no longer stayed for any of it.
"Take it easy. Nice and easy."
The emergency assembly point for the Fief Management students was a long way from here. And the Grand Auditorium of the Imperial Royal Academy seated a full fifty thousand people — roughly the size of an Olympic stadium, by modern standards. Waiting until everything was over meant getting swept along in the crush of the crowd.
Crowded places had always put me off, in my past life and in this one. Maybe I had loner DNA stamped into my bones.
Moving at a leisurely pace, a step ahead of everyone else, I found my thoughts drifting back to the scene just moments before.
Linea Judith's speech.
For a second there, I'd had the strange impression that our eyes had met.
Self-importance talking, right?
The Ian Darkest of this life had no connection to her whatsoever. He'd never sponsored her. He'd never even met her privately. There was no reason for a woman whose every memory had been reset by regression to pick me out of a sea of students.
Yeah. Forget about it.
That was what I told myself as I rounded the corner of the corridor.
And then — suddenly, out of nowhere — a flash of pink hair caught my eye in the distance.
Cherry blossoms seemed to scatter through the air, as if spring itself had arrived.
She stood at the far end of the old campus walkway. I kept walking on sheer momentum.
Should I pass her by? Or should I say something?
When the distance between us had closed to about ten paces, I stopped.
I'd felt it during the speech, and I felt it now with absolute certainty — she was looking straight at me.
"I've been looking for you."
She spoke.
Just focusing on her was enough to draw an involuntary breath of admiration. That pink hair, striking even by fantasy standards, and those green eyes that seemed to hold every shade of the living world — they called up the image of her I'd seen countless times through a screen.
Linea Judith.
In his past life, Kim Ian had poured enormous amounts of time and resources into her, struggling through hundreds of regressions just to keep her alive.
But that was a story from inside the game. A story from past cycles.
"I finally found you."
I don't know her.
The Ian Darkest who had lived with his roots planted in this place had no connection to Linea. The woman standing before me, biting her lip with a restless, anxious air, those green eyes trembling — there should have been no thread tying her to me at all.
My mouth opened on pure reflex.
"Linea Judith."
"Y-yes! That's right! Y-you remembered me!"
No.
That was a memory from a different cycle.
"You know who I am?"
"Ah… yes! Of course! Y-you're my sponsor, after all! I… I f-forgot for a little while, but n-now I'm sure!"
Linea stammered, flustered. Sponsor?
At that word from her lips, I frowned inwardly.
Sponsor.
So Linea really did carry the memories of my past self sponsoring her.
"I looked everywhere for you! I even researched forbidden magic…! And then I found out you were somewhere in the western Empire! And… a few days ago, during the Eclipse, I stopped time! Because it seemed like you were in danger!"
She began rambling, gasping for breath between the words. Her speech was a jumble, but I could make out pieces of it.
Hazy memories of me. Forbidden magic researched to find me. And… the time stop at Seorigol.
The timeline's twisted in some strange way, but we still have a connection?
For a moment, greed stirred.
A terminal-tier hero of Theore was acknowledging me. And she still held the memories of my sponsorship.
What if I used that as leverage to recruit her?
Just imagining it was tempting. Her time magic would be an overwhelming asset against the disasters that would come after the Eclipse. But…
That's greed talking.
I shook my head. Recruiting her now was far too dangerous.
First: our memories were unstable. I had spent my time as the lord of Seorigol; she had walked the elite track at the Academy. The mere fact that a connection existed between us was already strange. I could shrug it off as tangled regression cycles — but Linea? Someone as sharp as her would start asking questions.
Second: recruiting and retaining her would demand enormous resources and support. I'd have to pour everything Seorigol had into her. Balanced development would become impossible. I'd grow too dependent on a single person, and if Linea ever left, the damage would be catastrophic.
Trying to bring her in now was overreaching.
The timing wasn't right. Once Seorigol was stronger, once I myself had grown further… then I could revisit the question.
"I'm sorry, Miss Linea."
I kept my tone as gentle as I could manage, but firm.
"I don't clearly remember any of the things you're talking about."
Pretending to know would only force me into endless explanations. I couldn't exactly start talking about games and possession, so this was the only way.
To the me of this life, Linea Judith was a complete blank.
The color drained from Linea's face. Her green eyes trembled wide with disbelief.
"You… don't remember…?"
Right then, the Academy bell rang out from the far end of the corridor — the signal for the Fief Management department's emergency assembly.
"I should be going. There's an emergency assembly for Fief Management."
I gave her a light bow and turned away.
"If the chance comes, we can talk again."
Leaving only those words behind, I walked on.
Linea stared blankly at Ian's retreating back.
…He doesn't remember?
His last words echoed in her ears. All the time we spent together… he truly remembered none of it?
Years of waiting. A desperate search. And at last, a reunion. All of it felt like it was dissolving into foam. Instead of the flood of emotion she had expected — joy crashing over her in a wave — a cold, sharp regret drove itself into her heart.
…You idiot.
She had sworn that the first thing she would do when she found him was apologize. For the selfishness of taking his sponsorship for granted and endlessly demanding more. For the immaturity of throwing tantrums whenever his attention turned to someone else. For the obsession that had worn him down and left him alone.
And she had meant to tell him: that she had survived because of him. That she remembered his sacrifice. That this time, she would be the one to protect him.
But the moment she stood in front of him, nothing but the wrong words had spilled from her mouth. How hard she had searched for him. How extraordinary the magic she had researched for his sake. How much power it had cost to stop time at Seorigol…
Why? Why couldn't she manage a single apology, a single word of thanks?
…I was afraid.
Linea understood it now. The moment she stood before him, she had been terrified that the forgotten fragments of memory would come flooding back. She hadn't been ready to bear the weight of whatever sins she might have committed. And… she had been afraid he might not forgive her. That he might reject her.
So she had gone on the defensive, filling the air with nothing but self-important talk.
…I have to stop him.
She couldn't let him go like this. She had to catch him somehow and talk. She had to help his memories return. If he couldn't remember, then she would tell him everything she still held.
Hadn't her own memories been hazy at first, too?
Linea stretched out a trembling hand toward Ian's receding figure.
"Mage Judith!"
Someone called her name with tremendous energy. It was the dean of the Magic Department, approaching with a fawning smile.
Linea's hand fell limply to her side.
Swallowing her tears, she turned to face him.
"Just as the rumors said — a magnificent speech! Thanks to your insight, our Academy can finally hold on to hope! If you could spare a moment of your time…"
The dean's voice never reached Linea's ears.
Her gaze remained fixed on the far end of the corridor where Ian had vanished. His final image — those cold eyes saying he did not remember her — was all that circled through her mind.
Vermouth Hall.
The grand old building that housed the entire Fief Management department was disgustingly far away.
"Being late would be a problem."
An emergency meeting of the Fief Management department. Given that it gathered the people who actually ran territories, it was less a student assembly and more an extension of real fief governance. And this one was a crisis council convened right after a catastrophe on the scale of the Eclipse.
With every one of my current goals concentrated on growing my territory, this was an event I could not afford to miss.
I arrived at the classroom door at a brisk pace. Beyond it, the murmur of voices was still going strong.
A little late after all, then.
Not that it mattered. My standing here had always hovered somewhere between delinquent and untouchable outcast.
— Creeeak.
I opened the door and stepped inside.
"……."
In an instant, every sound in the classroom died as if someone had flipped a switch.
Dozens of students who had been chattering noisily all turned to look at me at once. Their gazes locked onto me.
These were not the old looks of mockery or contempt. They were complicated, heavy stares — shock, curiosity, and… fear.
…What's with these guys?
Where had all those faces that used to ignore me gone?
I felt like an actor who had just walked alone onto a stage. As if the entire spotlight had been waiting for the protagonist's entrance, every beam of attention swung toward me.
I swallowed once, and stepped into the classroom.