Chapter 324
Chapter 324
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 324
Chapter Title: Flip the Board (2)
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Her field of vision had narrowed.
Suddenly, Raniel had that thought.
With her vision so constricted, it was only natural that she couldn't grasp the situation properly or arrive at the right answer. What snapped her out of that narrowed view was, amusingly enough, a single remark from the princess standing outside the whole mess.
Flip the board.
Chewing over those words, Raniel walked on.
As she moved, she took in the broader picture with her widened vision. She agonized over what she needed to do. What was the essential issue in this situation?
The elder's death?
Having to kill her benefactor with her own hands?
No, that's not it.
He himself was seeking death.
He wanted to die as himself, nothing more. So Raniel had to grant that request willingly. There was no value judgment involved in that.
She just had to carry it out.
What made this situation complicated was everything tangled up afterward. The matters tied to that child named Resti. The impact it would have on a girl just starting to grow. Worrying about that, Raniel had agonized and agonized.
But now that she thought about it...
"I buttoned the first button wrong."
She had thought wrong from the very start.
All of this was just Raniel's own assumption. She hadn't even asked the person involved for their opinion before thinking whatever she wanted and trying to make decisions on her own. Looking back, it was ridiculous. Since when had she become like that?
It was self-deception.
Judgments had to be made by oneself.
The regrets, the responsibilities, everything that came from them—she had to bear it all herself. It could never be delegated to someone else.
Thud.
Raniel stopped walking.
The place where she halted was right in front of the Ashen Mage Tower. She had visited this tower several times in recent days to see the elder, but not today.
"Professor Lania?"
Raniel looked at Resti.
Facing the girl she had been avoiding head-on, she opened her mouth.
"Hello, Resti."
Raniel gave a wry smile.
"There's something I need to tell you. Do you have time?"
The original madman wanted the elder and those connected to him to agonize over the choices she had thrown at them. He was surely watching those tormented souls, reveling in it no matter which path they chose, as regret lay ahead either way.
In response, Raniel made her decision.
She would choose to do what the madman would hate the most.
Even if it was the cruelest path.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ 2.
Resti blinked.
Because the expression on Lania's face as she came to see her was different from usual. The Lania that Resti knew was enigmatic, sometimes playfully mischievous... but never someone who exuded a heavy atmosphere.
A lighthearted person.
Someone who seemed to yearn to escape from something.
In a way, she felt similar to Resti's old self, unbound by anything. Like herself as a child. But looking at Lania standing before her now, Resti felt a profound sense of incongruity.
She was heavy.
It wasn't the twenty-two-year-old professor sitting before her, but someone who had experienced far more.
"Resti."
She called her name.
Resti nodded slowly.
"Before we talk, there's one thing I want to ask."
She opened her mouth.
Slowly, but with weight.
"Did my advice help you?"
It was an out-of-the-blue question.
She had given so much advice that Resti pondered for a moment... but with the next words, she realized what it referred to.
"You had no regrets?"
Make a choice you'll never regret.
That one sentence had upended Resti's entire life. Because of those words, she had the present. Without a moment's hesitation, Resti nodded.
"Yes."
Resti smiled.
"It helped. A lot. More than I can say."
The professor before her had always given her advice and help, big and small. Those had made Resti's path forward clearer.
"To me, you're like a master."
"I'm your professor, so of course I'm your master."
"Not that kind of master..."
Resti gave an embarrassed smile.
"Like the elder. Someone I respect and want to serve. That's what you are to me, Professor Lania."
"I'm grateful you see me that way. But Resti?"
Lania asked.
"I'm about to ask you for a favor, but please don't ask any questions. This will be my first and last request to you."
Lania had never used favors owed to press anyone before. So this truly was the first time.
"Will you hear me out?"
"If it's something I can do..."
Resti nodded slowly.
Lania let out a short breath and opened her mouth. And so she began her story. It was far from pleasant to hear.
A bitterly harsh truth.
She didn't tell her everything.
Lania broke down what Resti needed to swallow into manageable pieces. So she could take it in bit by bit. So that she could choose for herself.
"......"
Having heard the story, Resti fell silent.
She slowly raised her head to meet Lania's gaze. Her eyes wavered, but the voice escaping her parted lips did not.
"Is all of that true?"
"I didn't lie."
"That means you're hiding something."
Resti slowly closed her eyes.
With her eyes shut, she spoke.
"Since you asked, I won't pry. I'll believe there's a reason you're keeping it from me. You've always given me advice that helped, so I'll trust you this time too."
There was a foundation of trust built between them.
She wanted to trust the words of the second master she served. It was hard to believe, but because it was Lania, she would try.
"But."
She opened her eyes.
There was no wavering in them now.
With bloodshot eyes, Resti looked at Lania. Her face looked ready to burst into tears at any moment, but the girl shed none.
"I get to choose, right?"
Lania nodded.
"That's why I told you."
Resti stood from her seat.
Lania watched her back for a while, then rose as well. Whatever choice she made, what Raniel had to do wouldn't change.
"Resti."
Lania spoke.
Resti turned around. To the girl biting her lip, Lania said just one thing.
"Make a choice you won't regret."
It was the same thing she had once said to her.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ Krenbel's consciousness was hazy.
He fell asleep several times a day, only to wake suddenly. This time was the same. Krenbel struggled to prop himself up against the bed.
How long had he slept?
He couldn't tell.
In his foggy mind, the elder looked to his side.
There was a chair there. Resti Eleanor sat in it.
"Resti? When did you arrive?"
"...Just a bit ago."
Her voice was hoarse.
Her head was bowed, so her face wasn't visible, but her shoulders slumped.
Krenbel called to Resti in a gentle voice.
"What happened?"
"......"
"Tell me. What could have..."
"I heard from Professor Lania."
Krenbel's body flinched.
"...What did you hear?"
"That in a month, the time given to you will end."
Resti raised her head.
Her eyes were red-rimmed.
"The given time ends. Your lifespan runs out. You only have a month left..."
Resti swallowed.
"You said that even after your lifespan ends, you'll live on in another form. Keeping that body intact... as something else."
As the elder gulped dryly, Resti continued.
"But you don't want that."
So.
"You're wishing for a proper death..."
Is it true?
She didn't need to ask.
The elder's expression already answered.
"It's all true."
"...I'm sorry, Resti."
"I want to ask why you hid it from me, why only a month left, why it happens... I really want to, but I won't."
Because she was told not to ask.
Because she was told she'd know when the time came.
Resti swallowed her tears and spoke.
"So, she said you made a request?"
The elder had asked someone else to kill him. The one who received that request was Raniel van Trias, former next Mage Tower Lord of the Ashen Mage Tower. That's what Lania had told her.
The Ashen Mage will fulfill the elder's request.
But if that's what you want.
I can leave that role for you.
Choose.
Whether to pass the elder's final request to another, or to tie it off with her own hands. The choice was Resti's.
"......"
Resti was silent for a moment.
After wiping her eyes with her sleeve, she spoke to the elder in a resolute voice.
"There's no need for that."
Resti looked straight at the elder.
"If it's your final wish, I think I should be the one to grant it."
She wanted to tie the knot herself.
Only then would she have no regrets.
"......"
Before Resti, who looked at him that way, the elder could only gulp dryly. The Resti he had worried and fretted over was no longer there.
The one standing before him now wasn't the young, immature Resti he remembered.
The girl gazing at him with a resolute expression was already a full-fledged mage. Not a child he needed to protect, but a completed human being.
"Ah."
The elder let out a laugh.
"Well, this is..."
Come to think of it, four years had passed since he fell asleep. Four years. A short time if short, but enough for a child to become an adult.
"You've grown well, Resti."
The elder gave a wistful smile.
The aged old man raised his arm. His bony fingers, like dry twigs, stroked Resti's hair. Resti bowed her head and bit her lip.
"I..."
"It's fine. No need to say more."
The elder said.
"I thought you were still a child, but you've become an adult. Time flies, doesn't it."
His own time had stopped four years ago.
This child's time kept flowing onward.
Parents smile watching their grown child.
"Yes, Resti."
The father smiled.
"Make the choice you won't regret."
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ 3.
A few days later, Lania faced Resti who had come to see her. The girl who had sung praises of each day as joyful since the elder awoke was gone.
In her place was a mage.
"I've decided."
Resti said, looking at Lania.
"So, tell me."
Lania had said that day.
If she decided to fulfill the elder's wish with her own hands, she would tell her how. How to sever a being that had escaped life.
"Tell me the method."
Lania nodded.
The thing she had put off and delayed.
Watcher, the one who reads context.
Lania intuited that the time had come to fully awaken that talent.
Time passed.
A month that would feel longer than any other.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ "......"
Krenbel looked down with hazy eyes.
Blood flowed from his mouth, nose, and eyes.
Dark red blood dripped steadily.
There's still time left.
Ten days remained, yet Krenbel felt death approaching moment by moment. He sensed his body being devoured by the shadow. Yet, strangely, his consciousness didn't blur.
It grew sharper, instead.
That fact filled Krenbel with fear.
Why?
Devoured by the shadow.
The madman taking his body.
He had expected that would mean his consciousness vanishing entirely, leading to complete death. But that was Krenbel's misconception.
The shadow didn't seize the body.
It didn't steal his consciousness either.
It merely assimilated.
Krenbel felt his values changing.
The convictions he had upheld for so long were shaking. With his mind kept clear, their foundations trembled. Sane, he felt himself slowly染染ing with madness. It was a horrific terror.
Memories mingled.
Personality, values, foundations—all mixed together.
Dyeing his self with madness while retaining his ego was a horror beyond what Krenbel had imagined. Krenbel reached out and touched his mouth. Blood flowed, but his lips curved into a smile.
Laughter echoed in his ears.
The echoing laughter was familiar.
Krenbel slowly raised his head to look at the window. His reflection in the glass was smiling. The grotesquely twisted mouth wasn't that of a sane human.
It was the madman's.
Madness whispered in Krenbel's ear.
To fulfill his duty as a prophet.