End of the Day (5)

When she asked what looked good, I nearly choked. I had no idea what any of this food tasted like either—how was I supposed to recommend anything? My mind went blank.

And usually, once someone asked what was tasty, what they really wanted was for you to perform mind-reading and unearth the single dish they'd already marked in their hearts. That made it worse.

"I dislike cold food. Anything with a mint scent, even more so. This place seems to have gathered nothing but such things, so there is no need to even glance at them. Let us go."

"The aroma is weak. And I do not care for anything sweet. Something salty, perhaps."

"The scent passes muster, but anything from the sea is out of the question. Let us look for something else."

Thankfully, Hoyeon laid out exactly what she wanted without any games.

No desserts. Absolutely no seafood. Nothing sweet if it could be helped. Preferably salty, with a strong aroma. After filtering by those criteria, only a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠few options remained.

Every last one of them was swimming in bright-red oil or reeking of intense spice, and as I picked them I couldn't help thinking, You're really going to eat this?—but watching her heap her plate full while practically salivating, I figured I'd chosen well enough.

Still, for a girl, her tastes were pretty unusual. I'd never met a woman who disliked sweets and cold things and had no interest in desserts either.

Looking at what she'd piled on, it was nothing but greasy, spicy-looking meats and carbs. I wondered if she wouldn't gain weight eating like that, but that was for her to manage.

We didn't exchange many words. She seemed absorbed in eating, and I was busy enough sorting through information on my own.

First—regarding the gods. The god she spoke of clearly wasn't the goddess worshipped by the Papacy. Calling divine power "twisted pure magic" was suspicious enough on its own.

More than anything, when I'd asked what a god even was, she'd deliberately tried to brush past it with vague answers. That alone meant it wasn't something this continent would tolerate.

I didn't know how much she knew, but the moment that thought struck, a setting from the original suddenly came to mind.

Demons and demonic energy.

The setting that demons and their followers wielded demonic energy. That divine power suppressed demonic energy. That this continent was saturated with divine power.

And above all, considering how she'd worn a constantly uncomfortable expression the whole time—it was reasonable to wonder whether she used demonic energy herself, or was at least connected to it somehow.

But that felt like too much of a leap.

In Stephania's case, she herself didn't use demonic energy. She used a workaround—turning her followers into demonic energy users and commanding them—so she stayed fine.

Her followers, of course, did not.

What had they said… that every breath felt like pouring a handful of searing sand into their lungs? Whether strong or weak, the moment someone became a demonic energy user, they started dying that way. So Hoyeon didn't seem to be wielding demonic energy.

If she were, she wouldn't be eating this heartily right now.

Even with that small mouth of hers, the steady way she kept eating looked genuinely delicious. Her expression seemed to have softened a little, too.

Looking at her like this, I couldn't help wondering how parents like hers had produced a child like this. One was a pure warrior who'd poured his entire life into wars of conquest, and the other wasn't even human to begin with.

It was hard to believe Hoyeon had come from those two.

Honestly, if she hadn't been their child, I might have tried asking her out at least once. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠There were minus factors—I didn't particularly like the beastkin character type, and since she didn't appear in the original, I had no idea how to approach her.

But even accounting for all that, she'd been beautiful enough that I'd asked her name.

As for personality and character… well, growing up under those two, it couldn't be helped. If anything, she turned out remarkably well for someone raised by them.

Watching her share bread without even asking what I was doing up in a tree made me think she might be kinder than expected.

The way she so casually declared that the common people were foolish—that was just her position talking.

"Why are you staring so intently? Is there something on my face?"

My thoughts must have wandered. At some point, the flow of my thinking had shifted from her identity to her as a person.

"No, it's nothing."

"What a strange fellow."

The look she gave me said she'd seen it all, then she went back to chewing. If I kept watching, my thoughts would drift that way again, so I tried to force myself back to sorting information.

Anyway, her eating pace had slowed—she was going to leave some. At this rate, about half might end up left over.

The fact that my eyes had already drifted back to her in that short span suggested thinking was pointless, but still.

So, about pure magic… honestly, I had no grasp on it at all. Star's blood, an immense power only gods could use—none of it landed. I couldn't sense any of it either.

I didn't know if mana was disgusting or not, and I couldn't feel divine power any more than I could feel the pure magic she spoke of.

The biggest takeaway was probably just learning that when pure magic was twisted, it became either divine power or mana.

Once my train of thought broke midway, picking it back up was hard. Even when I tried to reorganize, whether from waking up suddenly or from being full, I was getting sleepy.

Still, just knowing that Hoyeon wasn't purely harmful was a relief.

"…I seem to have taken a bit too much."

She left some after all. I'd had a feeling she would. It had looked like a lot from the moment she first filled her plate.

"Shall we head back, then?"

She poked at her plate with her utensils a few more times with a look of regret, then stood. Together we headed back to the dormitory.

A few trivial words passed between us, nothing of note.

If—and this was purely hypothetical—if I just cleared Hoyeon's route, would everything end peacefully? That idle fantasy crossed my mind for a moment.

Nothing else of significance happened.

With now-familiar hands, I undid my hair tie, straightened my clothes, and opened my diary—only to find I had no idea what to write.

More precisely, I knew what to write, but putting it into decent words was hard. Come to think of it, it had been the same when I was a writer.

Whenever I tried to write proper sentences, I'd get stuck, and looking back later, I'd uploaded nothing but incomprehensible gibberish.

The reason I bothered with sentences at all was that this wasn't just a diary—it was also a letter to Mother.

But would Mother even be able to see something written in a place like this? I wasn't doubting her abilities, but honestly, it seemed unlikely.

Back when she'd shown me two books and said they were one, I honestly hadn't understood. Two was two and one was one—how could two be one?

When I'd asked her with that doubt, she'd smiled and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠painted ink on the cover of the left book. Then the exact same ink mark appeared on the right one.

Only then had I understood what she meant by the two being one.

Whether it could still affect its pair from this far away, in a place overflowing with twisted pure magic—I honestly didn't know.

I hadn't written a diary since coming to this continent, so it was an unknown. It had worked fine at least until we crossed the sea, so I could only hope it still did.

…So what should the first sentence be?

Dear? Respected?

Settling on that was always hard. In my past life and this one, I resented my poor writing skill, but if I agonized over something this small I'd clearly stay up all night.

I didn't want that, so after racking my brain hard, I managed a decent opening.

Once I had the first sentence down, the rest came pouring out. What had happened so far, what was wrong with this continent's pure magic and its ley lines.

How I'd ruined my first greeting at the Academy, how the children's reactions had somehow been cold, how lunch had tasted awful. How a child named Iris had suddenly apologized.

What happened at the shelter. What happened with Dogeon. How good dinner had tasted when I ate it with him.

It felt like the day had been enormously long, yet once I wrote it out, everything fit on a single page. Reading it over again, it even looked more trivial than I'd expected.

No matter how long I waited, no writing appeared on the other side. I sat at the desk a little longer, thinking maybe if I just waited a bit more—but nothing changed.

…Of course. Even Mother couldn't manage it from a place like this. Wanting to soothe my gloomy mood, I burrowed under the covers.

Once I was under the blanket for a while it grew warm, and yet a chill still lingered in one corner of my heart.

In my past life I'd slept alone just fine for twenty-eight years. Had holding someone for a mere decade or so really left me unable to sleep by myself?

No, that couldn't be. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Thinking about it, I hadn't been able to sleep without the captain of the guard beside me the whole way here—but my independence couldn't have fallen that far.

I wasn't a child.

If anything, past life and present life put together, I was someone who'd lived more than forty years. There was no way I couldn't sleep alone.

What was so hard about sleeping that I had to steel myself for it? All you had to do was close your eyes and stay still.

Hugging my tail was absolutely not a substitute for a person.

Absolutely not.