Chapter 458: Why Are You Doing This…? (6)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 458: Why Are You Doing This…? (6)
[When is the wedding?]
Alon was flustered by Heinkel’s words, but only for a moment. A sense of déjà vu washed over him. For some reason, it felt like this had happened before...
Sensing a familiar dissonance, he naturally turned his gaze toward Penia.
And there he saw it.
“....”
Penia was subtly averting her eyes.
“Wow... You’re doing it like this now?”
“N-No, I’m not!”
Evan, who had been observing the situation, let out an exclamation of admiration.
Penia denied it convulsively and immediately followed up.
“I never spread a rumor like that! Why would I carelessly put out something that would be debunked in a few weeks anyway?!”
Penia defended herself desperately.
[Hm? It wasn't you? The rumor is everywhere, so I thought you were finally actually doing it this time.]
“It’s not me!”
“For someone saying that, you were sure rolling your eyes away pretty quickly.”
However, Heinkel and Evan were not easily convinced.
With a rare look of panic on her face, Penia quickly added more words.
“No, it’s just—well, you know? It’s not like I intended for that to happen. It’s just that, while I was working hard, things ended up that way... It wasn't originally about that at all. I was just telling people something else, and—”
Penia flailed her hands aimlessly, rambling incoherently.
But that only lasted a moment.
“...So you told them it was a special relationship?”
“Yes.”
She answered in a small, crawling voice, her head bowed as if expecting a scolding.
Alon nodded for now.
Honestly, he wondered if simply mentioning a 'special relationship' could cause such a massive rumor.
‘But considering last time...’
Recalling the mysterious rumors that had circulated back at the Magic Tower, it felt like it could happen again.
‘But... was there a need to call it a special relationship?’
Alon felt a sense of doubt.
Looking at it objectively, the work would have surely proceeded smoothly even without defining their relationship as something special.
However.
“I understand.”
Alon placed a hand on the moping Penia’s shoulder to comfort her.
“...Pardon?”
Penia looked up at Alon. Her gaze seemed a bit surprised and questioning, but Alon continued.
“I’ve known you long enough to have figured it out to some extent.”
Penia’s face brightened strangely.
“F-Figured it out?”
“Yes, figured it out.”
“W-Well—what exactly...?”
“Your thoughts.”
“M-My thoughts?”
“Yes.”
“No, I mean—how do you know my thoughts so well—no, that’s not it, it’s just a bit flustering to hear that so suddenly—”
Penia rambled, her lips twitching between a smile and a frown.
However.
“You do have a bit of a tendency to enjoy showing off.”
Snap.
At Alon’s following words, Penia’s eyes, which had been darting around busily until a moment ago, came to a dead halt.
“...What?”
Penia asked back in a dazed voice.
Alon nodded as if he understood everything.
“Of course, I’m not criticizing your personality. It’s fundamentally good to take care of one’s own self-esteem.”
“Ah...”
“Anyway—I have no intention of scolding you for this, so rest easy.”
Focus returned to Penia’s lost eyes.
Seeing this, Alon gave her shoulder a couple of light pats.
“Ah... Yes... Sigh.”
It was a sigh that sounded like a mix of resignation and relief.
“Ooh—”
But as soon as Evan chimed in, Penia’s eyes sharpened into slits, and she whipped her head around.
Seeing her return to her usual self, Alon wore a satisfied expression.
“...Hm? Is something the matter?”
When he felt Heinkel’s gaze and looked at her—
[Well—I’m not sure what to say about this...]
“Pardon?”
[No, well—it’s nothing.]
“??”
Heinkel stared at Alon with a somewhat complicated expression before eventually shrugging her shoulders.
The brief commotion soon died down.
[Now, since all the preparations are finished, I’ll show you.]
Heinkel spoke confidently and headed toward the center of the library.
A pillar with a broken clock hanging on it stood right in the middle.
[Sigh]
Reaching the spot, Heinkel let out a light breath and placed her hand on the broken clock.
Tick—tick-tick-tick-tick!!
With that, the clock, which had been silently frozen in its broken state, began to move frantically.
The minute hand ticked so fast it was a blur.
The hour hand rotated at a speed that the eyes could barely follow.
In that situation, Alon realized one thing.
‘...Counter-clockwise...?’
The clock was turning backward, not forward.
And when the clock completed its rotation—
Clack!
The moment the hour and minute hands stopped simultaneously at ‘12.’
Whoosh!
The form of Heinkel, who had her hand on the clock, began to fade away.
Soon after.
Rumble!
The pillar began to open with a heavy sound.
Numerous hexahedrons shifted and shuffled in a dizzying array, revealing the interior of the pillar.
From within.
“...!”
Alon, Penia, and Evan witnessed it.
From the darkness inside, Heinkel walked out with a face full of confidence.
“Fufu—surprised?”
“....”
“....”
“....”
A deep smile was etched on her lips.
However, Alon, Evan, and Penia couldn't say a single word.
They had no choice.
“...Hm? What’s wrong?”
Because Heinkel’s height was absurdly small.
To the point where one might doubt if the person standing before them was truly Heinkel.
“...She’s a total kid.”
When Evan blurted it out directly.
“Hah...?”
Heinkel flared up as if someone had stepped on her tail.
Alon, who agreed one hundred percent with Evan, quietly hid his awkward expression.
* * *
“This body is 155 centimeters tall!”
“Isn't it 140?”
“It is not!”
“No matter how I look at it, it’s 140...”
“I suppose you want to experience the Central Magic Tower’s vertical drop course?”
After Heinkel appeared in her physical body.
Amidst the silence caused by her unexpected cuteness(?), Evan had spoken up courageously.
In response, Heinkel threatened to show him the ‘Special Express Vertical Course’—plunging him from the ceiling of the Central Magic Tower to the floor—and Evan took a step back.
“...And yet, the Earth still turns...”
Muttering that one last line to the end.
“What?!”
“Alon! Now that I think about it, there’s some information I need to receive, so I’ll head down first!”
Whether he wanted to say that the truth doesn't change or not, Evan, who had managed to whisper it alone, scurried away from the scene.
Alon stared blankly at Heinkel once more.
‘...She really is small.’
Even a casual glance suggested Evan’s estimate was reasonable.
At that moment, as if reading Alon’s thoughts, Heinkel’s eyes narrowed.
Sensing the atmosphere, Alon quickly averted his gaze and spoke.
“...How did this happen?”
Heinkel still looked displeased, but she eventually let out a sigh as if she had no choice.
“Explaining everything would be too long, so I’ll just put it simply. You can think of it as having entered cold sleep.”
“...Cold sleep?”
“Yeah, by utilizing a few artifacts. Do you want to hear more details?”
“Yes.”
This time, Penia answered immediately.
Unlike at first, when she had been dazed by the sight of the tiny Heinkel, her eyes were now sparkling.
“First of all—”
Heinkel began to explain the magic, and a heated conversation between the two followed.
Watching them, Alon thought.
‘...This is a setting that didn't appear in Psychedelia.’
Of course, he had no intention of being bound by the settings of Psychedelia at this point.
However, in Heinkel’s case, she had never once appeared in the flesh even when the world was ending, so it was bound to be fascinating.
Watching the two, Alon raised his hand slightly.
“May I ask one thing as well?”
“Hm? What is it?”
“Why did you freeze your body in this manner?”
He had become curious all over again.
At that, Heinkel let out a light ‘Ah’ and answered nonchalantly.
“Because there was nothing left to do.”
“...Pardon?”
“I told you, right? Because there was nothing left to do. Um—to be precise, rather than not having a grand ambition I wanted to achieve, it’s better to say I felt my limits.”
When Alon tilted his head, Heinkel naturally stroked her chin.
His eyes were drawn to the posture that didn't suit a child, but she soon opened her mouth.
“As you know, I’m a somewhat mythical figure to mages. Although the theories on Tiers were all passed down from somewhere, I’m the one who created quite a few of the magic formulas and calculation methods.”
Just as Heinkel said, her standing was immense.
“But once I reached a certain point, I felt a limit. Just like that!”
“?”
“With the theories I came up with, I could reach ‘Origin,’ which was the next stage of the magic I knew, but I couldn't reach what came after that.”
“The stage after Origin...”
“To be more precise, it’s more accurate to say that a realm beyond that exists.”
Her explanation continued.
“Anyway. In the end, thinking that there was a realm I couldn't reach alone, I decided to borrow the power of time. That’s how it is.”
“...If you mean the power of time—”
“Of course, it’s hard for a genius like me to be born twice in this world, but humans are beings who eventually accumulate knowledge.”
Only then did Alon understand.
Why she had entered hibernation in this way, and why she had woken up at this point in time.
‘Was the reason she helped promising mages in the game settings because of this?’
As Alon recalled her settings and nodded as the puzzle pieces fell into place, Penia spoke up.
“Then, is there a specific magic you are looking for, Lady Heinkel?”
“Well, yes. In fact, you could say I spent these hundreds of years in hibernation just to find that magic.”
“...What kind of magic could it possibly be?”
At Penia’s curious murmur, Heinkel gave a somewhat bitter smile.
“...I’ll tell you when the time comes.”
An expression that seemed to hold a long story.
Though her body was close to that of a child, the expression on her face held deep agony and sadness, so Penia kept her mouth shut and nodded.
“Ahem—now, let’s walk for a bit. I expected it, but since it’s been a while, my body feels awkward, and my mana hasn't fully returned yet.”
Heinkel soon wiped away the bitter smile.
Then, as if trying to cover up a painful memory, she shouted with forced brightness and approached the library door.
Thud!
She promptly slammed her forehead into the door and fell backward.
“?”
“?”
While Alon and Penia were bewildered.
“Ah—ugh—”
Clutching her stinging forehead, Heinkel jumped up as if nothing had happened and laughed.
“Ah—this is just—I, I got too used to moving around in mana form, so, uh, I moved without thinking too much, you see?”
She was speaking coolly, but Heinkel’s entire face was flushed red.
Whether she was embarrassed that the mood she’d set had been shattered, she coughed awkwardly and hurriedly reached for the doorknob.
She definitely reached out—
“...Ah.”
A low exclamation escaped her lips.
No matter how much she reached up and up, her hand did not reach the handle.
“....”
“....”
It would have been fine if it were a normal door, but the library’s handle was positioned strangely high up.
Heinkel struggled to grab the handle somehow.
However, even though she stood on her tiptoes, she couldn't reach it at all.
After several attempts, Heinkel eventually stared blankly into the air.
“...Open this for me...”
In the end, her cheeks turned red as if they were about to burst, and she made the request, sounding like she was on the verge of tears.
“....”
“....”
Creak—
Alon opened the door without a word.
...While adding the information to his mind that Heinkel was surprisingly clumsy.
* * *
And at that moment.
In Phildegrin, the kingdom of the elves.
“Sister, did you finish your business well?”
“Yes.”
“So, what was the reason you were out this time?”
“What was the reason, you ask—”
Magrina, the Queen of the Elves, and Line were having a leisurely tea time.
“Is it something I shouldn't ask? You suddenly opened the Platon and rushed out immediately, didn't you?”
At Magrina’s question, Line thought for a moment.
“Well—something suddenly came to mind.”
“...?”
“Something I had to tell Godfather right away.”
She replied with a faint smile.
While Magrina was wondering about that.
Knock, knock—
With a soft sound of knocking on the door.
“Um, excuse me—”
Magrina’s secretary, Myu, entered cautiously.
“What is it, Myu?”
When Magrina asked with a smile, Myu hesitated.
“Well, the ‘information’ you always ask me to keep track of has arrived...”
“Do you mean information about my brother?”
“Yes. That is—”
She then began to look at them tentatively.
“Go ahead and tell me.”
Looking at Magrina, who maintained her usual smile, Myu made up her mind and spoke.
“...It’s not certain, though... Since it’s information related to a rumor...”
“I see.”
At Myu’s preamble, Magrina nodded as if it were fine.
However.
“Well—there’s a rumor that the Primordial has found a ‘special relationship’—”
The moment Myu’s report continued.
Magrina’s movements stopped.
And with that.
Crack—
Cracks began to appear in the teacup she was holding.
Clatter.
Just like that, it shattered.
However, even with the shattered teacup before her, Magrina did not lose her smile. As she always did, she placed the cup—now with only the handle remaining—back onto the saucer.
Rattle—
Above the teacup resting powerlessly over the spilled black tea—
“...Could you tell me that story in a bit more detail?”
Hearing the voice that resonated without any inflection, Myu swallowed hard.