Trash

Trash.

The wall parted between the hanging garments, revealing the hidden passage of the dressing room. The entrance lay so deep inside that the maid never noticed a thing.

The moment I slipped through, the passage sealed itself behind me as if it had been waiting all along. It stretched downward as though connected to the underground, and on either side, golden candlelight flickered — as if in tribute to someone — lighting the way.

Following the glow, I arrived at the passage's end: the secret room. Nothing ornate, and somehow all the more convincing for it. A clean, cozy room greeted me, and atop the glass table sat a small box — rustic, yet finished with surprising care.

"Heh. This sort of thing is old hat for me by now."

Failing to find one little secret passage would be the stranger feat. Granted, Serek had told me where it was, but even on my own, it wouldn't have taken a minute if I'd set my mind to it.

In any case, this was the place presumed to be where Pharaoh had left his legacy. Pure-white divinity burst from my fingertips and ran outward, tracing a magic circle onto the carpet before the cozy two-seater sofa.

Now, whenever I wished, I could return to this very spot. The ravages of war might ruin it and the spell could fail — but I had poured considerable strength into it, so it should hold against anything short of catastrophe. The interference gauge had taken a hefty toll thanks to it, too.

"I've engraved a teleport spell here, so when the next era comes, just travel to this spot. By then, we should be able to meet Scorpio or the Forgotten Emperor."

I climbed back up the passage, shaking my head. "It wouldn't matter even if I'm wrong."

It was, admittedly, only a guess — but the odds were high this was the place. And even if it wasn't, as long as the circle survived intact, there was no problem. By the time the spell was usable, the empire would already have fallen, so after the jump I could simply tear the ruins apart piece by piece and dig out the legacy or its owners.

Demons might still be lurking, of course…

Not likely, though.

An upper demon alive and well on the surface, running off with a legacy buried in the empire's rubble? An ant gouging out a Dragon Lord's eyes to cripple it before looting its nest would be more believable.

"Anyway, there's nothing to worry ab—"

The moment I reached the entrance, I sensed the anomaly and released my interference in an instant, soaring upward as a phantom. Clunk! The door of the secret passage swung open.

"……"

A woman bathed in pure white light, as though a halo shone at her back. Unmistakably blue hair streamed about her as sharp eyes swept the room. A face and powers I knew far too well. Lily Elbrit. She had appeared in a place the Lily of this era should never have come.

"Figures."

This was somewhere my past self had never visited — never even spared a thought. Her showing up here was baffling, on the surface at least, but I knew myself better than anyone. Her senses are razor-sharp right now.

She had noticed me from the mere act of my interfering with this place, then tracked me down with a single spell. From my experiments with interference, unless it was directed at a specific being, it generally went unnoticed. You could interfere with the person right in front of you and the one standing beside them would pass by none the wiser. But Lily — hypersensitive to authorities and any special power — had registered my existence loud and clear. Ability aside, the Lily of this era was more than tense enough for it.

Lily knit her brows and reached out a hand. The radiance of divinity that erupted from her fingertips washed over the secret passage and Serek's private chamber alike. She was far stronger than the current me; she might well have been able to unearth the spell I'd left behind.

Not a chance.

The circle I had drawn was magic far beyond anything an eighteen-year-old Lily could produce. The arts that had advanced by leaps and bounds alongside Rasty had long since transcended their limits, and my magic was nowhere near sloppy enough for this younger Lily to unravel. Even if I fell short in raw power, in knowledge I was overwhelmingly ahead.

In the end, Lily withdrew her power, looking thoroughly displeased. "...Something is definitely hiding in here."

……

"The demon has me stretched thin as it is. …Or maybe not? Might actually work in my favor." She glared fiercely around the chamber, then swept out through the passage.

Because I'd spun the camera away so quickly, the viewers who'd missed the other Lily were in an uproar. I swung the lens back onto myself. "Ah, sorry about that. It seemed someone was coming, so I dodged in a hurry."

"...Good point. I could just release the interference." I'd moved without thinking. I had anticipated that Lily would come looking — just not this soon. And that despite channeling my power into concealment rather than broadcasting it. If an actual fight broke out, there was a good chance she'd sense the anomaly in a heartbeat.

Regardless — everything I needed to do in the first era was done. The teleport spell was set where Pharaoh would leave his legacy, and short of someone kicking up a catastrophe, there was nothing left to accomplish in this time. I could, I suppose, have run to Pharaoh and shouted, 'An upper demon is coming — flee if you value your life!' But he wouldn't have listened. The me of this era had already noticed the demons stirring and dropped a warning — be careful, for the demons might one day reach this continent. And Pharaoh had answered thus:

Short of the entire empire being crushed to dust, he would never abandon it. Even after the demons' assault — when flight was still possible — he clung to his empire to the very end. He abandoned it only because the empire left his hands first. Only after everything but Serek had been annihilated.

"……Hmm."

There was no way to avert the fall. The upper demon's arrival was inevitable. It had swept in like a natural disaster, turned the empire inside out, and raised its own private villa upon the ruins. There was no enmity toward the empire, no grievance against Pharaoh — none at all. It simply needed land, and a serviceable stretch of it happened to be lying there. The ants and pebbles in the way of clearing the terrain? It simply swept them aside. Persuasion was impossible — and even if it weren't, that thing would use you as experiment material, or smile and clear you away with even greater zeal. Filthy trash, the lot of them.

…Trash?

"Since I've come all this way, I might as well go see His Majesty in his golden age." All this talk of trash had reminded me of something.

The Lily of this era is not particularly strong. Formidable by my current standards, perhaps, but measured against her prime, merely middling. Naturally, she had no power to defeat the upper demon that would descend upon Desertum — no more than past me, present me, and Pharaoh combined could.

For a celestial or a demon to ascend to the rank of 'Upper' meant, quite literally, stepping beyond the ordinary world. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠With an epithet to their name, each and every one of them was all but a demigod.

More to the point, my purpose here was never to prevent the empire's fall. My goal, first and last, was to decide the future of the legacy inheritors — and everything done to anyone else would be written off as never having happened. Whichever side remained standing would make it easier to claim Pharaoh's legacy, and that, in turn, would serve the Pharaoh of today. Ideally, more of his body should survive intact than his authority.

"Inom Ahjussi has lived as a statue for a very long time. His power only deepened across those ages — but ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠his body remains lost to him." His authority had grown over the millennia spent within the Void Space. For him, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a vessel capable of fully containing that power mattered far more than raw strength.

"This, you mean?" I raised the keen-edged blue sword resting in my hand.

An old enemy of Akron — the primordial Venetus and master of the Primordial Island — and of Lise. A being blessed with the singular authority to pass freely between 'bodies.' One who, in the end, fell before me and was sealed away. And…

"There's no rule saying the legacy inheritors have to be exactly two, you know?"

Trash.