The Disciple Receives Help from Her Daughter
It was her conversation with the dragon egg Rhea that first made Sera realize she needed it.
"But Mama,"
"Hm?"
Sera answered the word "Mama" with complete natural ease by now. To Rhea the dragon egg, Jade was Papa, so hearing herself called Mama felt only right—and she had adapted to it with surprising speed.
"Mama gets to look at Papa's sleeping face, but Papa never gets to look at you. Is that really okay?"
"Why?"
"Things drift farther apart with time. That's just the way of nature, isn't it?"
Truly… a perfect being…
Even unhatched, Rhea was wise beyond measure.
"……"
In truth, Sera had been wrestling with the same thought. No—honestly, she was already at her limit. She could sit here staring at Jade's sleeping face all she liked, yet it was never enough. The thirst only grew sharper with every passing day.
Above all, when people put too much distance between themselves, hearts inevitably grow distant as well. To never meet, never truly speak, and still demand that the other person's feelings remain unchanged—that was nothing short of cruel coercion. Just as everyone understood it was wrong to demand something without paying a proper price, unilaterally demanding emotion was equally, endlessly wrong.
If you truly cherished someone, it was the one thing you must never do. The infinitely regressing Hero knew that perfectly well. Yet she had judged that without this extreme method, her odds of victory would plummet. And if the odds were low, you discarded the approach without hesitation. That was the truth of life the infinitely regressing Hero had learned. Even if Jade's influence had begun to change her for the better, completely rewriting the way she had lived until now was still difficult—especially when the matter concerned Jade himself.
…But what I'm doing right now could end up being the worst possible move that ruins everything.
If, in her desire for him to see her differently, she instead lost his heart completely, what could be more foolish? It would be no different from setting fire with her own hands to the home she longed to return to once everything was finished.
"But Papa will only ever see Mama as a child."
Sera referred to Jade as Papa as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"Unless I appear before him as someone completely different, Papa will keep treating me like a kid."
"Hmm. That's a tough one~"
Without even realizing it, Sera was seriously confiding her troubles to a young life still sealed inside an egg—perfect being or not.
"Then what about doing it the way you and I do right now?"
"Hm?"
"You and I are sharing our hearts just by talking with our voices, right? So why not do the same with Papa?"
"……?!"
Even for the infinitely regressing Hero, whose power had always been used purely to save the world, it was a leap of imagination she could never have made on her own. And that was precisely why only Rhea the dragon egg—who could still look at the situation with pure eyes—was able to offer it.
As expected of a perfect being!
Sera felt a fresh appreciation for the greatness of dragons and began preparing it at once.
This was a world with magic, yet magic was not omnipotent. More precisely, it was omnipotent—but the authority to wield that omnipotence belonged only to the tiniest handful of people who had reached the heights of an Archmage. The overwhelming majority of ordinary folk never enjoyed such power at all. That was reality.
Consequently, no means of ultra-long-distance communication existed either.
Over short distances telepathy magic worked well enough, but even that grew difficult once the range stretched. The farther the distance, the greater the mana consumption required to maintain it—an obvious limitation. For longer ranges people resorted to message magic, yet that too had its limits. An Archmage might conceivably invent something more impressive, but anyone who had reached that level could simply use spatial-transfer magic, appear in person, and speak face-to-face. There was no need to bother creating a finicky spell with such demanding conditions.
If even magic struggled so, crafting an artifact for the same purpose was naturally far harder.
Yet the world always contained people who insisted on challenging whatever everyone else had already dismissed as "useless."
Grand Artisan Stephen Orville.
The title of Grand Artisan was bestowed upon blacksmiths who forged legendary blades, master artifact crafters, and other creators whose works would leave their mark on history. Stephen Orville held that title as the Empire's finest artifact artisan.
The problem was that, despite possessing skill enough to produce immensely profitable artifacts whenever he chose, he continually vanished into "a certain research project" and never released any finished pieces. And that research was so thoroughly shunned that not a single person was willing to open their wallet for funding or investment.
It was, of course, the ultra-long-distance communication artifact. The trouble was that no one actually needed it. "We've already got spatial-transfer magic—why bother?" That was the prevailing opinion. To high-level mages and the nobles who could hire them, the device looked like nothing more than a flashy, ultimately pointless toy.
And so, once again, Stephen Orville found himself forced to abandon his research mid-session and nurse a splitting headache over the lack of funds.
"I was almost there!"
One step. Just one more step and he would finally reach the goal he had dreamed of for so long. But the research capital required for that final step was enormous—far more than he currently possessed.
"Guess I'll have to make something else and sell it again. Ugh."
The problem with artifact crafting was that you couldn't just dig it out of the ground. Gathering the necessary materials was labor enough, and the work itself demanded absolute concentration and flawless technique that left no room for even the slightest mistake. Naturally, every scrap of time and attention had to be poured into the crafting. Which meant the ultra-long-distance communication artifact—now only a single step from completion—would have to sit idle for a good long while.
From Stephen Orville's perspective, the stress was so crushing he felt the few remaining hairs on his crown might all fall out at once.
"No, no. These little guys are my treasures. I'll protect them no matter what."
He activated the hair-improvement artifact he had developed himself and tried to calm his nerves.
Just as he was steeling himself to pour his energy into crafting something sellable for research funds—
Bang!
"Who the hell is it?! Who dares make that kind of racket in the workshop of Grand Artisan Stephen Orville?!"
Stephen Orville was an extremely high-strung man, hypersensitive to noise. Whenever someone flung open his workshop door, he glared as if he had just met his mortal enemy on a narrow bridge. Most visitors wilted under that stare and never managed another peep…
"My ears hurt."
"…Ahem. So it was the Archmage. Ahem."
The moment he confirmed the visitor was Archmage William, Stephen's tail dropped at once.
An Archmage was an Archmage, after all. The titles Grand Artisan and Archmage might look similar on the surface, but they were nothing alike. Of course a Grand Artisan held an important position… yet no matter how brilliant an artifact crafter he was, none of his creations could truly threaten an Archmage. Given sufficiently complex conditions and a carefully prepared environment he might stand a chance, but long before those conditions could be completed an Archmage needed only a flick of the fingers to reduce a Grand Artisan's frail body to ribbons. In every practical sense, Stephen had no choice but to mind his manners around William.
Even the famously loud, pedantic Grand Artisan Stephen became meek in the presence of Archmage William.
"Ahem. So… what business brings you here?"
"The one I serve has a request for you."
"Pardon? An Archmage serves someone?"
A sharp glint.
"…Ahem. Well, if the person is sufficiently impressive, I suppose one might."
Even Archmages grow old the same as anyone else… so why has this man's gaze gotten even sharper? Stress? Then why hasn't his hair fallen out? Is that what being an Archmage means? Archmages don't go bald?
A hair-complex rather than an inferiority complex flared inside Grand Artisan Stephen, but he was no amateur; he never let it show.
"Anyway—that ultra-long-distance communication artifact you've been researching."
"Why bring that up all of a sudden? Come to lecture me about wasting time on something useless?"
An Archmage might not seem to need artifacts, yet even Archmages did not solve every problem with magic alone. No mage willingly spent their own mana on a problem that could be handled more easily by borrowing someone else's power—and that held true for Archmages as well. The greater the mage, the more particular they tended to be about craftsmen. It was not unheard of for William to show up in person and scold Stephen whenever the Grand Artisan's eccentric streak buried him too deeply in private research.
"The one I serve requires it."
"Oh-ho! Is that so!"
Anyone who could place an Archmage beneath them was no ordinary figure.
And if such a person was taking an interest in his research, that meant—
Research funds! A chance to secure research funds!
It meant he could finally lock down the enormous capital he needed and devote himself entirely to that last remaining step. Grand Artisan Stephen could not help but beam at Archmage William. Today, William's healthy head of hair—so perfect Stephen sometimes wanted to yank it out in envy—looked especially beautiful. Stephen's inner weather was nothing short of "clear skies."
Thud.
"…What's this?"
"A Hydra Core."
Hydra.
In an age when dragons—the most perfect beings—had vanished, Hydras were considered the closest remaining creatures. That judgment, of course, rested purely on appearance. Hydras were nothing more than giant monsters without true intelligence. Incapable of communication, they were catastrophic great-magic-beast-class monsters that plunged humanity into crisis. Even so, records claimed Hydras were weaker than dragons; some legends even said dragons had once snacked on them.
But when the tiger leaves the mountain, the fox becomes king. In the modern era, with the dragons' throne empty, it was the Hydras that made humanity tremble.
"…A Hydra Core is an extremely rare item. So~! I'm supposed to sell this for research funds?"
"What are you talking about?"
Stephen had naturally assumed that was the intent, only to be met with Archmage William's ice-cold stare—a look thick with the unspoken question, Has this idiot completely lost his mind? Stephen's considerable pride flared, but given who stood before him he could not show it.
"The one I serve said that by now your research should be exactly one step short. Correct?"
"Eh? H-how did you—?"
"And that missing step is an energy source capable of withstanding the enormous power required to activate and sustain the artifact."
"Th-that's right."
"A Hydra Core, they said, would make it possible."
From Stephen's perspective it felt as though he had been possessed by a ghost. The energy-source problem was something he had only just begun to research, yet some unknown person not only knew the answer but had casually delivered it to him. His head was spinning.
"B-but that alone isn't enough. What I want isn't a single-use item. I want an artifact that can be used over and over again, indefinitely."
That was precisely the part of Stephen's research everyone had dismissed. Creating an ultra-long-distance communication artifact was already difficult enough; Stephen insisted on making one that could operate for an extremely long time. Artifacts that consumed only tiny amounts of energy were sometimes designed that way, but applying the same principle to something that required massive energy was considered absurd.
It was no different from an alchemist declaring, "I shall create the legendary Philosopher's Stone—please fund my research!" In other words, to everyone else it looked like pure eccentricity—or, more bluntly, outright madness.
"Do I look as though I don't know what you've been researching?"
"Well… you have come by several times to thoroughly crush my spirit by calling it impossible research…"
"I did it because I hated seeing your talent wasted on something useless. Looking back, however, it seems I was the one wasting effort."
"……"
Huh. That stubborn mule actually admitting he was wrong? Tomorrow the sun might not rise.
A reality that should never have occurred had just occurred, leaving Stephen questioning reality itself.
"This core is no ordinary core."
"Then is it the core of a Hydra Lord or something?"
No such thing as a Hydra Lord existed outside third-rate novels. The remark carried the clear implication of Even so, how impressive could it really be?
"This core has a Hydra's life force sealed inside it intact."
"What?"
"Beyond the energy already contained in the core, the pure energy the Hydra possessed while alive has been sealed within it whole. The moment the core's energy is fully depleted, the seal releases and the core refills completely. I've examined it myself—it should be usable a great many times, for a very long while."
"……"
Stephen doubted his own ears. Normally, a core obtained after killing a monster lost most of its energy. That was only natural: a core was most active while the creature lived; once dead, the majority of its energy dissipated. Even so, the residual energy left in a great-magic-beast Hydra's core was still enormous and never to be underestimated.
But to have a Hydra's life force sealed intact inside the core, so that the moment its energy ran dry the seal would break and refill it completely? That was no different from having a living Hydra's fully activated core preserved inside.
If those words were true, the final step he had longed for was solved. The core itself was the great leap that fulfilled the goal he had pursued for so long.
The only problem was…
Uh… why do I feel so unsettled?
How to put it…
The thing he had desired so desperately was now within arm's reach, yet some stranger had suddenly appeared, claimed it, and then tossed it to him like casual charity. He had gained something… yet it felt as though he had lost something precious at the same time.
Grand Artisan Stephen was forced to taste a thoroughly complicated emotion he had never experienced in his life.
For the record, Sera had not simply stolen the results of Stephen's future research. In one of her previous loops, when she invaded the Demon Realm and magic communication became impossible, she had helped him with his research; together they had completed it. Therefore Sera held a legitimate share of the results, and using her knowledge of the future could not truly be called theft.
Of course, the present Grand Artisan Stephen knew none of those details. Feeling as though something precious had been taken from him, he suffered such intense stress that one of the few remaining hairs on his crown trembled, loosened, and finally plummeted to the floor.