Guilt and Worry
The deepest reaches of Dawn Castle. Shiron's bedchamber.
"Seira."
Sitting lost in thought on the edge of the bed, Shiron quietly spoke the activation word.
Until yesterday, calling the forgotten mage's name had hurled him into the space where Latera waited. Now, speaking her name changed nothing at all.
"...No good."
A bitter taste filled his mouth. His mood had been foul since dawn. With how much he expected to talk with Seira going forward, it was better that calling her name no longer did anything—but the guilt he felt toward Latera, who had helped him all this time, was something he simply could not help.
Not because he could no longer receive her Blessings. Not because of anything he stood to lose. He was genuinely sorry.
...He was sorry to Latera.
"Haa."
Shiron let out heavy sighs and pressed a hand to his chest.
If only Elysee had been some mysterious powerhouse with nothing whatsoever to do with the game, things never would have turned out this way. She wasn't even an extra—she was a core character, and his Reputation had taken a massive hit because of it.
Latera, on the other hand, was a child who had never appeared in the game at all.
I have no idea what's what anymore.
There were too many places where his memories of the game failed to line up cleanly with reality, and the confusion only piled higher. Even so, Shiron tried at once to grasp the situation.
The Hero's House?
That had never existed in the game to begin with.
Or rather—perhaps it was more accurate to say it had simply never been shown to the player?
And what about Latera?
An angel? When cardinal-rank priests who wielded holy power cast those blessing-like buffs, a beautiful woman spreading her wings would appear as an effect behind them.
Demons, by contrast, had been nothing but monsters to be beaten down on the spot. And yet one was still attending him even now.
"Yuma."
"Yes, Young Master."
The woman who had stayed at his side without leaving since the day before bowed her head. Having her stuck to him like a burr from bath to bedtime was more than a little oppressive—but in the present circumstances there was no escort more reliable than Yuma, so Shiron did not bother to scold her for it.
"We should get going."
"Understood."
Shiron stretched and rose to his feet. The guilt he felt toward Latera, and the gratitude he owed Ophelia, he set aside for now. What mattered was advancing his relationship with Seira by any means necessary.
Because it sat on Mount Makal, where snow fell in every season, the underground of Dawn Castle was cold enough to make even Shiron—who possessed a decent tolerance for the chill—shiver.
Creeeak— creeeak—
Clap.
Yuma struck her hands together and lit the dungeon.
A barren landscape that had been invisible in the total absence of light swam into view.
"Ugh."
Shiron edged back a little and looked at Yuma. Mummies still littered the dungeon here and there, not yet cleared away.
The corpses, frozen in death with no way of telling when they had died, were curled in on themselves as if they had perished shivering from the cold.
"...Do some cleaning, would you."
"No one has come or gone for the past hundred years, so... I apologize. I will have the children tidy it up before long."
"Right."
They walked on in silence until a place where blue flames wavered caught his eye.
The Mana-Devouring Flame.
Seira was there, bound in black chains and trembling hard enough to shake.
"Good morning."
"W-What. Why—why why are you here."
Seira forced her eyes wide and lifted her head toward Shiron. She was the greatest archmage of all ages, a hero who had saved the world. A little cold was not going to break her spirit. She was hardly about to play the weakling in front of some human brat.
"Have you eaten?"
Wearing an easy, good-natured smile, Shiron took bread and margarine from his coat. A fully vegetarian meal with neither milk nor eggs.
"Here."
He spread margarine on the bread and tossed it right under Seira's nose.
Thup—
"..."
And yet Seira only stared blankly at the bread that had landed in front of her face.
Locked in a freezing cell with nothing to eat, she had to be desperately hungry—and still she kept her mouth clamped shut, pointedly refusing to so much as glance at the bread, as if staging a protest.
What? Why isn't she eating?
Shiron turned his head and looked at Yuma.
"Yuma. What's she doing? I gave her food and she won't eat it."
"...I do not know, sir."
A little awkward, Yuma tucked her hair behind her ear.
"I am hardly an expert on elves myself, but by rumor they live on nothing but grass steeped in mana under the moonlight, and dew. Perhaps she is dissatisfied with the meal Young Master prepared?"
"Hmm... a slave with serious side-dish complaints."
"What kind of bullshit is that?!"
Seira shouted in a voice thick with outrage. Listening to this any longer without saying something would have killed her of frustration. Face flaming red, she snapped back as if cross-examining them.
"You goddamn racist bastards! That's all garbage rumor! Do you have any idea how well I eat meat? Huh? Do you?!"
"You could have quietly asked for meat instead of yelling..."
"Do I look like someone who can keep quiet right now?!"
A faint wetness began to creep into Seira's voice. Even she was only just realizing it, but she had a surprisingly tearful streak.
"It's because of racist bastards like you that elves all hid away in the forests! What? They only eat mana-steeped grass? Who the hell started that perverted garbage rumor? That's elf hate!"
"Then why aren't you eating? Don't tell me you're not hungry."
"Iiiigh!"
Seira finally lost her temper and let out a raw scream.
If he had only asked whether she was hungry, she would never have gotten this angry. All of it was because of the way Shiron tilted his head and played the perfectly innocent fool.
That devilish little brat putting on a cute act twisted every organ in Seira's body. Damn kid. Exactly how hard did he plan to push her buttons?
"I'm tied up! How am I supposed to eat like this?!"
"Why can't you? Just stick your face in it and eat."
Tsk—
Shiron wore the expression of a man looking at something pathetic. She really was a woman with nothing but sky-high pride.
Not that it was hard to understand. After centuries of running around causing every nuisance she pleased without a single rival, of course her manners had gone to hell. Shiron accepted it.
"So you're full, then. Full. For all that talk about being a great mage, in the end you're just another magic-dependent wreck. Why are mages so high-maintenance? Do this, do that. No sense of their place at all."
"Young Master... that..."
"Hm? What."
"......It's nothing."
I'm a mage too.
Yuma swallowed the rest of the words she could not bring herself to say.
She had no way of knowing what had happened outside Dawn Castle to make Shiron spew this much loathing for mages—but for the Young Master she loved and respected to develop a blanket hatred of mages was, for Yuma, a little...
No. An extremely inconvenient problem.
"Well."
Left with no choice, Shiron stepped toward Seira. He picked the bread up off the floor and held it to her mouth.
"There. Better?"
"Hmph! You think anyone's going to eat just because you do that?"
"......Playing hard to get."
Shiron heaved a long sigh and, a little irritably, shoved the bread into her mouth.
"Mmph..!"
Seira's eyes flew wide. The hard bread packed her mouth full. At this rate she might choke to death. She had spat the words just kill me only yesterday—but the instinct to survive set her jaw working in frantic earnest.
"Mmph! Mmph-mmph!"
"That's it. See? You can eat just fine. Why the act?"
"Khak! Kuhh!"
Seira's face flushed scarlet, crumbs stuck to her lips. Her throat burned and tears welled at the corners of her eyes.
W-What is this bastard... is he actually trying to kill me?
This brat had not a shred of mercy.
Seira narrowed her eyes and looked ahead.
"Well? Feeling a little less empty now?"
The human brat crouched in front of her, smiling brightly. Until a moment ago she had sensed nothing from him at all. Now she felt something.
What is this...
A chill ran down Seira's spine and she gave a small shiver. She carefully raised her head and looked at Yuma standing behind Shiron, half-suspecting the demon was leaking demonic energy.
But no.
The demon playing the loyal servant did not intervene no matter what the brat did beside her.
"You look like you've got some energy back. Let's talk."
"...You. What are you. You're weird."
"You're exhausting, you know that."
Shiron poked Seira's bound cheek with a finger.
"Whether I'm weird or not isn't the point right now. The point is whether you feel like talking to me or not. Why can't you take a simple hint? Hmm?"
"..."
"Companion of the hero Kylie. The mage who 'almost' took the Evil God's head five hundred years ago. Seira Romer. What does a dusty old achievement like that even matter?"
"What...? What did you just say?"
"None of that matters in the slightest."
Shiron drew a staff from his hand. A purple staff brimming with violet energy. Seira's own armament. The Forgotten Mage's Staff—a legendary-grade weapon. Shock steadily flooded Seira's eyes.
"What matters is whether you become mine or not."
Shiron had no intention of dragging this out.
"...What. How. How do you know that..."
"Choose. Are you going to be my companion, or aren't you."
If she could not become his companion, he would simply kill her where she sat.
"Seira Romer. Become my companion."
Hugo's estate. A room in the annex.
"Where on earth did he go without a word."
"Oppa. You don't think something terrible happened, do you?"
"...Haa. Tell me about it."
Lucia knit her brows and looked at the bed.
A woman lay on the wide mattress. Ophelia. The demon who had followed Shiron since Dawn Castle.
In the middle of a sparring session with Siriel, a commotion had broken out at one end of the training grounds, and Lucia had turned her attention that way.
And then the slave Shiron had been watching for months and Shiron himself had vanished at the same time—and Ophelia had collapsed.
At first she had thought it was some kind of prank. But a full week had passed, and Ophelia, the only one who might have explained the situation, still had not woken.
"Making everyone worry for nothing. Isn't he a total idiot?"
Lucia rubbed at her stinging nose.
I am Seira, the Forgotten Mage.