153. The Siblings' Dream
153. The Siblings' Dream
My head was a tangled mess.
Me? To van Chaser? I taught them the Deceptive Body?
When?
No matter how much I thought about it, I'd never done anything like that.
I'd had neither the time nor the inclination.
Why the hell would I teach the Deceptive Body to some... lecherous woman who'd gone strange and stopped valuing her own life?
And even if I had taught her, she wouldn't have been able to use it properly anyway.
Even Eurasia, who in my eyes had talent so prodigious it deserved the highest praise, couldn't use it properly. I can't imagine Hilde could have.
So what's this about me bestowing it?
What kind of nonsense is that?
Could Hilde, after getting beaten by me, have attained some enlightenment and passed the Deceptive Body down to her descendants?
When I slapped her cheeks and she kept trying to block... I did use the Deceptive Body.
But the Deceptive Body isn't a technique you can learn just by getting hit.
In the first place, even Paulo and Arisa couldn't use it. How could that... strange woman have learned it?
It's impossible that Hilde stole my technique.
Then what the hell is this?
"So that's why I asked Lady Eustetia. Whether she created it herself... or whether it was bestowed upon her by someone."
"If... it turns out it was bestowed by someone, what happens then?"
"Starting with the head of House van Chaser, every member of the Council of Elders who knows the secret would be interrogated."
"Interrogated" was putting it kindly. The process would be viciously brutal.
That's just how northerners are.
I don't know about Hudd... and Ashtar seems a bit gentler, but northerners are generally headstrong and aggressive.
So that interrogation would very likely come with violence.
"Before that happens, Lady Eustetia would need to visit the North once. That said, no harm would come to Lady Eustetia. Judging by your reaction, you didn't learn it knowingly."
"I didn't use it knowingly, no. I was already planning to visit the North at some point, so if that's the case, I'll be visiting sooner than planned."
"You don't look all that tense, so it seems you didn't receive it from anyone. That's a relief..."
Ashtar swallowed a sigh of relief.
"Yes. This is... the Deceptive Body is a technique I created myself."
It wasn't a lie, and it wasn't wrong.
No, in the first place, what I said was correct.
I created the Deceptive Body.
I... Ronan Luzarak created it to keep up with Paulo's movements after he received the Sacred Sword's blessing.
I created it to open a path for my comrades.
I created it to carve through Demons with annoyingly tenacious lifelines.
So I made it.
"Your voice carries no falsehood, either."
"Yes. They say you must never lie to the warriors of the North. That they'll see right through it."
"Not everything, but we can sense it to some degree. Our... family's red eyes are a bit special."
That was true.
House van Chaser had an uncanny, almost beast-like... intuition? Something like that.
Hilde had been the same.
At some point, she'd started noticing the emotions I—we—had hidden because we didn't want them known.
"Then... yes. I don't think there'll be any problem for House van Chaser."
"You sound like there's a problem somewhere else."
"It's not so much a problem as... hmm..."
Ashtar smiled bitterly.
"It's just that our dream might come true."
And that felt a little complicated.
Wearing an expression far too conflicted for someone about to achieve a dream, Ashtar slowly walked over and sat down in a chair.
That word "our"—it didn't seem to mean House van Chaser, but rather the two siblings.
Why?
"This seems like it'll be a long story. Is that all right?"
I'd find out by listening.
"I am a very busy person, but for you, senior, I'll specially make time."
"Ahaha!"
*****
It really was a long story.
Well... most of it was tedious, tedious background about House van Chaser and the longings of their ancestors.
The gist was this.
The Ronan who had passed the Deceptive Body down to House van Chaser had said that if an outsider ever appeared using that technique, they should deliver something to that person.
What that something was, even Ashtar didn't know. Only the head of the family knew. And it was kept in the North's family vault.
So, it would be good if I could visit the North sometime.
However, if I didn't want that, she would ensure that not only the family head but all of House van Chaser kept silent about it.
That was the end of the story.
Obviously.
I never did any such thing.
I never passed down the Deceptive Body, and I never asked anyone to deliver anything. If it was something I'd ask to have delivered, then it was presumably something important to "Ronan."
Something important?
The pocket watch and the Severing Sword.
Both of them are with me.
The pocket watch is in my breast pocket right now, and while I gave the Severing Sword to Eurasia, it's still in my subspace pouch.
I even retrieved the sword Diana had used from the Imperial Palace Treasury.
So that definitely wasn't me.
Meaning I didn't go senile before even turning sixty and pull some stunt like that.
And after that.
Ashtar, who said she'd keep it quiet if I expressed that I didn't want it, actually seemed to be hoping I would do exactly that.
Wouldn't it be a good thing if House van Chaser's long-cherished wish could be fulfilled? Well, sure, if you had no affection for your family, maybe it wouldn't be.
But... that wasn't it. Ashtar's tone was brimming with affection for House van Chaser.
She didn't hate her family.
But she didn't want the family's wish to be fulfilled.
More precisely, she didn't want it fulfilled "right now." That was the feeling.
Why?
She didn't seem to want to talk about the reason.
But I could guess.
My guess was probably right, but I didn't want to burden myself with pointless speculation, so I stopped thinking about it.
Meanwhile, Eurasia, who'd been sitting beside me and had heard the entire conversation between me and Ashtar, still wore a dazed expression.
She seemed to be worrying about what she, who had learned House van Chaser's secret technique, was supposed to do.
Of course, nothing bad would happen to Eurasia.
I'm the owner of that technique, and that damned fake Ronan is looking for me, too.
Well... I called him a fake Ronan, but.
I think it was Arisa.
Arisa must have gone to House van Chaser, taught them the technique, and then told them to speak of it as the history that's been passed down.
After the armistice declaration in the Human-Demon War, Arisa was the only one who crossed over from the Demon World to the continent.
And even setting that aside, that sly little minx Arisa kept leaving traces behind.
Traces whose intent I couldn't discern.
But traces whose destination was clearly visible.
The fairy tale book... honestly, I don't know what she intended with that.
Why did she write me as some damn plague-ridden Martial Artist named Ronan?
Did she do it just to piss me off?
Wasn't it because of that damned fairy tale book that a talent like Hudd put down the sword and became a Martial Artist?
If it had just properly recorded that I used weapons, Hudd wouldn't have ended up so broken.
Well, anyway, that's that.
The one who passed the Deceptive Body down to the North was probably Arisa.
Though how Arisa passed down my Deceptive Body is a mystery.
Arisa—and every one of my comrades besides me—couldn't use the Deceptive Body.
They knew the theory but couldn't use it.
Just as I know the theory of magic but can't use it, so I can't lecture Stella about it—you can't teach someone else something you can't even use yourself.
How do you teach someone something you yourself are unsure about?
So how the hell did she teach them?
And what did she ask them to deliver?
If I touch it, will I see another illusion?
What kind of illusion this time?
House van Chaser. The grand ducal house of the North.
Arisa had known for certain that I would visit the North. There was no way she wouldn't have.
To reach Ge Vihenum, you have to pass through the North.
To visit the "grasslands" where the World Tree and the spirits are, you have to go through the North.
If Arisa knew me, she couldn't help but know what reincarnated me would do.
So she left something in the North.
My head was a mess.
This was too grand a scheme for that chimpanzee—for Arisa, whose head had always been a field of flowers.
Had it all been an act, the way she always smiled in front of us? Did I not know you? Did we not know you?
What the hell are you hiding, Arisa?
"May I hear my junior's choice?"
Ashtar's voice pulled me briefly from my thoughts.
"I'll go to the North."
"...I figured you would."
Ashtar clicked her tongue as if disappointed.
I wish she'd just tell me plainly why she was acting that way, but I wasn't going to pry.
I don't want to learn something needlessly and end up carrying a needless burden.
"But I won't go right now."
At those words, Ashtar's expression brightened a little.
"At the earliest, I think I'll go at the end of this year."
The North. Whatever I learn when I go there, it's still too early for now.
Right now, I'm weak. If I go to the North, learn something, and it makes my blood boil—
I don't yet have the strength to handle that rage.
So this summer, I need to go to the Holy Kingdom first.
Even if I abandoned the academy and went... it wouldn't matter, but I'm still weak all the same.
I need a little more time.
"Did you say that out of consideration for me, junior? If so, you don't need to bother."
"No. It's nothing like that. It's just simple personal circumstances."
"...I see. Then... I'm relieved... and grateful, and sorry."
"You seem to have a lot to be grateful and sorry about, senior. Why do you live so exhaustingly? You're Tier 6, which isn't exactly a low Realm, and you're even a grand ducal princess of House van Chaser. Just live shamelessly."
"M-My lady...!"
"Ahaha! It's all right, junior Eurasia. I... like people who treat me comfortably like this, too. There aren't many in the Empire, so I was a bit lonely, but now I feel quite fulfilled. Can we get along well from now on?"
"I'd like that. I needed someone who'd swing a blade at me as casually as you do, senior."
Ashtar looked pleased by that, but her lips jutted out just the slightest bit.
"So I'm only useful to you as a sparring partner, junior?"
"Well... it's not just that. You're easier to deal with than the imperial family, and... uh, um... geez. Why nitpick something like that? We're friends, that's enough."
Ashtar giggled.
"Friends... yes. Whatever it is, I'm happy too. For me—for a grand ducal princess—someone as free of pretense as you is the first and probably the last. And also..."
Still smiling, Ashtar stroked her lower belly with a peculiar smile.
"Someone who hit me that hard—I don't know about the last, but for now, you're the first."
Those words sent a deep, deep chill down my spine.