A Rumor Runs Rampant
The next morning.
First period was Curses. Simon had come to school wound tight as a bowstring, terrified that some strange rumor might be circulating about him, but the lecture hall's atmosphere was exactly the same as always.
His friends greeted him and passed by like they always did.
What a relief. Did they not spread it after all?
Simon even tried to be optimistic about it, but in truth, those girls had been unable to contain their itching mouths and had let the rumor slip everywhere—to everyone, in every corner of the academy.
The rumor went something like this:
A rumor, by nature, only spreads far and wide when it has a certain believability to it—when it sounds plausible enough to repeat. This one, though, was pure provocation with little grounding in reality.
Considering Simon and Merida's usual behavior, and above all the sheer absurdity of laying out a blanket and doing something strange in the middle of the heavily trafficked main hall of all places, the whole thing lacked any semblance of realism.
If the location had been an empty classroom instead, the rumor might have spread far wider.
Even the students who loved gossip quickly lost interest, knowing that bringing this story up would only get them treated like an idiot. Only the two girls who had seen it with their own eyes were being driven half-mad with frustration.
Of course.
"You absolute perverted lunatic—AAAAAH!"
Someone did believe it.
Mayrin, who was in the same class, abruptly grabbed Simon by the wrist, dragged him outside, and began hammering his face with a cushion.
"M-Mayrin! Hold on! Mgh—!"
"How, h-how COULD you! You're supposed to be a model for all students as Student Council President, and you! At school! With a girl! Doing s-something so SHAMELESS...!"
Face scarlet, Mayrin flailed the cushion up and down. Simon caught it and asked,
"Hold on. What exactly did you hear this 'shameless something' was?"
He was genuinely curious about what version of the rumor was going around, but at the question, Mayrin's face flushed even redder than a tomato. Backing away, she stammered, 'W-well, you see...' before her embarrassment apparently hit its limit and she shrieked,
"Why would I tell YOU that, you perverted creep?!"
"...Simon."
Beside them, Camibarez was fidgeting with her hands, a dazed look on her face.
"I'm in shock. To think you became a grown-up before the rest of us..."
"I'm TELLING you I didn't, Kami! Why are you like this too?"
Kukukuk.
Following the sound of snickering, Simon found Dick laughing with his hand clamped over his mouth. Simon glared at him.
"So it was you, Dick."
Even a ridiculous rumor would have sounded convincing once Dick got done embellishing it.
"Ah~, I just happened to hear an interesting rumor and shared it with the student council members, that's all. Any explanations should come straight from the source, no?"
"...Fine."
Simon explained the whole story from beginning to end.
"Merida cast Sleep on you?"
"And THAT'S how you ended up tangled together!"
"...Don't say 'tangled together,' Kami. It makes me feel weird."
Simon scratched his cheek sheepishly and turned to Dick.
"Please."
He meant: do me a favor and spread the explanation around. Dick, who had been perched on the windowsill, hopped down and shrugged.
"You don't even need my help—this rumor's already sinking on its own. Just leave it alone instead of poking at it, and it'll die off by itself."
"I certainly hope so."
"Hehehe, though I bet it'll get milked for laughs by tying you and Merida together for a month or two?"
Dick gave Simon's arm a couple of playful jabs.
"If it turned out to be true, you'd be a hero among men. The Legend himself, Simon!"
"...Please be quiet."
Simon glanced around nervously, terrified someone might overhear.
Mayrin still looked troubled as she hugged the cushion to her chest.
"But Simon, how did you end up paired with Merida of all people?"
"I got assigned as her dispatch partner this time."
"Oh?"
Dick popped in out of nowhere.
"Oho! Then at your destination, that rumor might just become reality—"
THWACK!
Dick took Mayrin's cushion to the back of the head and went tumbling. Camibarez spoke up.
"I'm just glad it's finally decided, Simon! Where are you being dispatched?"
"Ah, well. It's..."
Simon scratched at his temple and looked at Mayrin.
"The Ivory Tower."
"Huh?"
Mayrin clearly hadn't known a thing. Simon told her how it had all come about.
"...The Festival of Time. Ah, right—it is almost time for that, isn't it."
"You know about it?"
"What kind of question is that? I'm Ivory Tower affiliated—of course I know it! I've even been inside a few times."
From what she described, it didn't seem like a particularly dangerous place.
Of course, Mayrin had been young back then, and it was before she'd opened her core, so she'd mostly wandered around the lower floors where the danger was lower. As for the upper levels, she admitted she couldn't say what might happen up there even to her.
"A place where the Continent's time flows! That's so amazing! I want to go see it someday too!"
Camibarez, who had been listening, fluttered her wings excitedly.
"Must be nice. Some people get sent to a desert for their dispatch, and some people get to go enjoy a festival? Isn't that discrimination, like, way too severe?"
Dick grumbled as he picked himself up off the floor.
While all this chatter went back and forth, Simon kept sneaking glances at Mayrin.
— From this point onward, this is a confidential mission entrusted to the Student Council President by Headquarters alone. —
It was a top-secret directive—one he couldn't share even with a friend who belonged to the Ivory Tower.
This was no simple dispatch.
Kizen Headquarters had entrusted the mission to Simon alone, in his capacity as Student Council President. Put simply, the assignment was to go inside the Tower of Time and bring back information and data belonging to the Ivory Tower.
In other words, he was being told to play the spy.
And at that moment, Simon confirmed one thing for himself.
'I know I can't refuse the mission, but I have no desire to get caught up in friction between Kizen and the Ivory Tower.'
'Ah ha, I suppose it could be misunderstood that way.'
The Headquarters staff member had spoken with a grave face.
'It's classified as top secret, so I can't go into details, but this matter concerns the peace of the entire Continent.'
'...Sorry, what?'
'The Tower Master of the Ivory Tower is scheming something.'
Simon recalled the exchange he'd had with the Headquarters staff member yesterday.
Mayrin genuinely had no idea. She knew about the Festival of Time itself, but she had no clue whatsoever that Simon was being dispatched to the Ivory Tower.
But there was one person who might know.
'Something interesting is about to happen soon.'
Serne Eindark.
She was the official successor of the Ivory Tower, and within the organization she belonged to the faction hostile toward Kizen.
Above all, the Tower Master was her adoptive father.
'Hmmm. Please, let me not have gotten tangled up in something tedious.'
Simon pressed hard at his temples. All he wanted was to return safely and learn the Dullahan.
The day of the dispatch. Evening.
Simon stepped out of his dormitory in a tuxedo with a bow tie.
It had been a long time since he'd dressed up this much. He'd styled his hair with his bangs swept up, leaving his forehead clean and exposed, and had even given the new dress shoes he'd bought for the occasion a light break-in stomp.
"Kahaha! I find myself looking forward to this Ivory Tower engagement, Boy!"
'Looking forward to working with you, Pier.'
Just in case, Simon had decided to bring his Ancient Undead along on this external trip as well.
Those he would carry directly into subspace were Pier, Herseba, and Akemus.
Erzebet was currently tailing 'White' on Simon's orders, with the plan of summoning her via Herseba's abilities should anything happen.
Beyond that, Kal, the Beast of Pestilence, was melted into Pier's greatsword, and Prince could be summoned anywhere so long as zombies were present. The entire 7th Legion could move at a moment's notice.
Preparations complete, Simon teleported out from Kizen via magic circle.
He crossed through space and arrived.
"Ah."
A night sky dense with glittering stars opened above him.
When he lowered his head, brilliant lights dazzled his eyes.
Simon had dropped right into the heart of a great metropolis. Towering buildings stretched toward the sky as if competing with one another, and the noise rising from everywhere left his ears ringing.
Simon was rather taken aback.
The Ivory Tower was THIS bustling of a place?
When ordinary citizens of the Continent heard the words 'Ivory Tower,' the image that came to mind was a single lonely tower standing stark in an empty field, packed with eccentrics who never came out and did nothing but research.
But the Tower's technology flowed beyond its walls, and naturally, a vast metropolitan region had formed around it.
Wheeeeee—!
There was even a train running through the middle of the city.
Incredible! A train, and this isn't even the Holy Federation!
Necromancer era or not, everyday goods that people's lives depended on were still typically made with mana.
Magic stones, mana screens, communication crystals, memorial crystals, mana lamps, mana stoves, and so on.
Jet-Black-based goods certainly performed better, but with no means of production surpassing a necromancer's core, they came with the drawback of being expensive.
Mana-based goods, on the other hand, could be mass-produced, and they were cheap.
The Ivory Tower must have amassed a truly staggering fortune through this mana technology.
Impressive, I'll give it that.
A city of cutting-edge technology and wealth that outstripped even Langoustine.
That was Simon's first impression of the Ivory Tower. The architecture, the people walking the streets—even just passersby seemed wealthy; the very way they dressed was on another level.
Delighting in the new environment, Simon spread out a map beneath the glittering lights.
It'd take a while to walk to the destination.
Seeing as he'd come all the way to the Ivory Tower, he decided to try riding the train. There was a special sightseeing train that ran only during this 'Festival of Time,' and he paid the rather steep fare of 500 silver to board it.
Oh.
The train moved at a leisurely pace, and one entire wall was practically made of glass, offering an unobstructed view of the city's nightscape.
"Welcome, all you tourists visiting the Ivory Tower!"
Each train car had its own guide, explaining the city to the passengers.
"For over two thousand years, the Ivory Tower has served as the vanguard leading humanity forward, and..."
While listening to the guide, Simon browsed the photographs and paintings mounted along the train's walls.
Most of the works were odes to the Ivory Tower's long and storied history, though there was even a photograph of the Ivory Tower standing tall in a jungle, a desert, and atop a glacier.
So the Tower existed in places like this too. Did they used to move locations around a lot in the old days?
Beside it hung one rather amusing piece: a photograph of a naked, still-evolving-looking ape and a robed wizard holding a staff, arms slung over each other's shoulders, laughing and flashing V signs at the camera.
Okay, that's stretching it WAY too far!
Setting aside whether an ape and a wizard taking a friendship photo even made sense—in that era there hadn't even been such a thing as a mana recording device.
"Excuse me, this photograph. Wasn't there no such thing as mana recording devices back then?"
There was actually a tourist who voiced exactly the thought Simon was having. But the guide, showing not a flicker of embarrassment, replied with gravity:
"The ancient Continent was home to a legendary system of magic known as the 'Magic Civilization.' These secret technologies, which even the knowledge of the present day cannot analyze..."
Whenever the guide sensed something odd, the story of the Magic Civilization came out to smooth things over.
The Magic Civilization was, in a way, the ultimate cheat code.
Still, as Simon poked through this material and that, he found himself thinking that this Magic Civilization might really have existed.
Which would mean the Ivory Tower once attempted research into turning back time, too, wouldn't it?
And so Simon did his sightseeing, enjoyed the pleasant ride, and arrived at his destination station.
Realistically, walking would have been faster.
The sightseeing train wound around in a big loop at a crawling pace, so it took quite a while.
Simon unfolded his map once more.
Looking at the city as a whole, two great towers stood soaring above it.
The relatively smaller white tower visible to the left was the Ivory Tower's headquarters.
And to the right—the largest and tallest of all, a weathered gray tower—that was the old headquarters of the Ivory Tower, the place now known as the 'Old Tower' or the 'Tower of Time.'
There it is.
Measured against the Tower's two-thousand-year history, it had served as the Ivory Tower's home base for seventeen hundred of them.
The Tower of Time loomed before his eyes.
Vmmmmmmmmm—!
Some unknowable force coiled around the Tower's peak. Something like bands of golden light—reminiscent of Nephthys's power—flowed into the body of the Tower of Time and vanished, over and over.
Just what was going to happen here?
Feeling a pleasant thrill of anticipation, Simon started forward.
"There! Pull up over there!"
City carriages clattered to a stop in front of the Tower of Time. Gentlemen and noble ladies descended from them one by one.
"Count Kalbraine and his wife, confirmed."
At the Tower's entrance stood a butler verifying the invited guests. Behind him armed soldiers were visible—the security was tight.
...So I made it here safely, but.
No sign of his partner, Merida.
Simon had expected them to depart from Kizen together, but Merida had insisted on taking a separate route in.
She'd guaranteed she'd arrive at the destination exactly on time, yet not so much as a hair of her was to be seen.
Just as Simon began glancing around anxiously—
!'
A dark night.
He could see a girl sitting on a bench beneath the soft glow of a streetlamp. She wore a black dress with bare shoulders—a face Simon knew very well.
Merida?
She was dozing on the bench, head nodding, nodding, nodding.