Chapter 27
Chapter 27
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 27
Chapter Title: Recap - 9
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Pashier halted all her ongoing research and experiments without pause. Instead, she devoted the remaining time to sifting through her memories.
It wasn't easy. The time they'd spent adventuring together had been quite long, and there had been no shortage of moments when she'd spoken to him, even if briefly.
What she had done to him was so obvious and cruel that there was no new information worth dredging up.
Insults and contempt. Orders and coercion.
She had rarely observed his expressions properly, but the views preserved through her sorcery captured them in vivid detail.
As she watched fatigue, anger, resignation, and sighs deepen across his face, a rising disgust for her past self welled up within her.
"I need to... skip further."
Watching herself repeat the same mistakes over and over was painful and tedious. Pashier rewound time again and again.
Little by little, his face brightened. The hollow, worn expression slowly filled with conviction and passion, kindness and love.
The man who had staggered after orders without emotion now brightly showed consideration for others. He worried whether those fighting might be hurt and sincerely welcomed back those who returned from battle.
The further time rewound...
"Ha..."
Pashier, who had been sifting through her memories soullessly, suddenly found herself confronted by the memory of a certain night.
She had forgotten it.
She shouldn't see this. The instant Pashier laid eyes on it, she wouldn't be able to bear it.
She wouldn't be able to stay calm. She wouldn't be able to act for the sake of saving the world or fulfilling her vow. Her emotions would simply swallow her whole and puppet her body into moving.
But she lacked the strength to stir herself. The sleep surging vertically forth showed her that memory, heedless of her will.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ "Ah, you're up? Saved me the trouble of coming to wake you. Good job."
The footsteps echoing from the tent brought a smile to Pashier's face.
"I don't think I slept properly. Waking me that roughly—you'll have me suffering nightmares even in my sleep."
The porter grumbled, but he didn't hate her yet.
"What can I do? I can't wake you with this little body of mine. Had to rely on magic."
"Fair enough."
"The Saintess—that little squirt—could get you up with just a few words. No discrimination there. What gives?"
"Can't help that I actually get up."
"True. Well, there's no shortage of unavoidable things in the world."
The mage patted the rock where she had been sitting.
"Sit. I've got a little time left, but if you go in first just because you woke up early, the Hero will wake up screaming."
He plopped down beside the mage like a sack of potatoes.
"Already sleepy? Your head's drooping."
"Just woke up—can't help it..."
"Talk to me a bit. I'm used to meditation or solitude, but standing watch isn't my forte... I got bored. So, how've you been holding up lately?"
It wasn't that being alone was boring.
Sitting quietly to explore magic or formulate hypotheses about incantations was as routine as breathing for a mage.
But maintaining a magical surveillance net against unknown enemies who might or might not appear was an excruciatingly tedious chore for Pashier.
"You know all about it, Mage. It's just... exhausting, feels like I'm dying. Worn out... Makes me wonder why I'm even here."
"Wasn't it your choice to follow us? All I can say is hang in there."
The porter gave a wry smile.
"Well, that's true enough if you think about it... Come to think of it, why are you here, Mage?"
"To gather magic materials and control the Demon King's threat. Joining a Hero party at my age is a bit mismatched, but for my wish? I'd do anything."
"A wish, huh... Can I even hear about it?"
The mage fell into thought for a moment.
"It's not much of a secret, but I'm not one to blab first. Still, I have a feeling you'd react interestingly. Fine. I'll tell you."
She raised her hand and pointed to a star in the sky.
"Look at that."
"A star."
"Yeah. It lives forever. I gaze up at the sky now and then, but I've never seen it vanish."
The mage gazing at the sky looked almost innocently bright, like a girl her age.
"The star I'm seeing now will still be here a thousand years from now, and it was probably in the records a thousand years ago too."
"That's... surprisingly romantic."
"But don't you think it's cruel? Stars live forever, but humans die."
Her emotions surged, stirring the surrounding mana.
"A murderer kills ten people, and the village trembles in fear. The Demon King kills thousands, and the world cowers."
In the porter's eyes, she wasn't the type to value human life highly.
But that was only half right, half wrong. Her battles had already claimed far too many sacrifices, and even now, countless were dying—so she simply couldn't afford to cherish just one life.
"Yet time—that bastard—slays thousands, tens of thousands, billions, and still brazenly claims it's 'the natural order' while taking its due."
For the first time, the porter learned what the mage's face looked like in anger.
This was the woman who laughed off the Hero's trembling rage at the Demon King's Army's atrocities with, "They're that kind of scum—what can you do?"
The one who called the Demon King and his army mere "petty thugs easily swept away by the natural course" compared to her true enemy.
"I will conquer death."
The porter stared alternately at her face and her clenched fist, momentarily speechless. Mulling over the mage's declaration, he suddenly voiced a question that popped into his head.
"But... haven't you already done that?"
"Well, for myself, to some extent?"
She had already lived for centuries. The porter didn't know much about magic, but he couldn't imagine she was simply hiding her aging or shambling around as a skeletal lich.
Her lifespan wasn't dramatically longer than an elf's on the surface, but she had overcome aging somehow.
"But what's the point of me living forever alone? No. With this, I'll save everyone."
"...Pardon?"
"This body is a prototype. It costs too much, and I don't even know what side effects it'd have on others."
There were plenty of mages who learned magic chasing dreams. Mastering magic was grueling, and those of status to study it could live comfortably without it.
Thus, countless pursued impossible miracles—magic to defy the odds out of desperate longing.
But they gave up. Time's barrier, talent's barrier loomed before them.
Any layman could say, "I'll learn magic to make it rain," but as they delved in, they realized the mana, sacrifices, time, and effort required.
But she hadn't given up. If some hack had said it, it'd be dismissed as a fool's delusion ignorant of magic. But she had proven it wasn't with her own immortality.
"Humans are stronger than death. I'll prove it with my magic."
One couldn't deny death itself. But it shouldn't be for trivial reasons like "he was born too long ago to live now"—not when human will or mighty dragons couldn't stop it.
Applying her sorcery to one more person might take centuries. To another after that, centuries more.
Elevating it to a theory applicable to all? Centuries again.
Developing an efficient process everyone could afford, gathering materials? Maybe millennia.
But she wouldn't give up.
"So, your thoughts?"
Having poured out her passion, Pashier anticipated what creative curses or insults he might hurl.
No one who'd heard her words had ever responded positively to the plan.
"Absurd" was the cutest criticism she'd endured.
Clerics foamed at the mouth over defying divine will; elves raged at rejecting nature's gift of lifespan.
Others compared her to vile necromancers in history books or groveled for the spell just for themselves.
All pathetic. All repulsive.
"Eh, sounds fine. Good luck with it."
"Knew it! You fool—wait, what?"
He was the outsider with different values. It'd be a lie to say Pashier hadn't harbored even a sliver of hope.
But his casual tone, tossed out like it was nothing, made her assume he was mocking her dream too.
"Cool."
He affirmed her dream.
That day, Pashier thought for the first time that she'd found someone who understood her.
If gods existed, she figured they'd sent him to her through this adventure. A mage who'd never believed in gods, but in that moment, she believed in the Goddess's providence.
That was what she'd thought.