Infirmary Unobserved Area (3)
Memories poured in relentlessly. This was dangerous.
Imperial secrets were usually hazardous just to know. Some forms of magic could be planted inside memories. I'd heard that royal recollections were often laced with spells designed to attack a viewer's mind the instant they were seen—safeguards against information leaks.
At this rate, I'd fall victim to the mental assaults planted by an imperial family that prided itself on being the greatest of all time! Even deflecting them would be a problem. Those spells were linked to the royal's own mind, so countering them would injure the very person whose memories held the magic.
Ordinarily, they'd be far too powerful to fight back against. And yet somehow, I had a feeling I could.
Damn it—what the hell was I supposed to do?!
"Huh?"
A frozen wall. A wall meant to shove someone out and freeze them solid.
Because it was that kind of wall, I'd been certain I'd see the imperial secrets Iren most desperately wanted to hide.
But that wasn't it. The memory that appeared was something I hadn't known—yet needed to.
"Aaaaaah?! F-Frey! Frey!"
Just a few hours ago. It was Iren's memory of seeing me collapse.
"C-Come on, wake up! F-Foam. B-Blood! Wh-What do I do? What do I do?"
Iren was more panicked than I'd ever seen her. Looking at her like that, my conscience stabbed me hard.
"I-It's because of me. Because of me, Frey pushed himself too hard……. Hah, hah……!"
Iren was gasping for breath. I squeezed my eyes shut.
"That's hyperventilation……."
"What's hyperventilation, big brother?"
Little Iren asked with pure innocence. I explained while painfully watching the memories flood in.
"It's a condition from breathing in too much oxygen. It hurts. It's miserable."
"Isn't more oxygen a good thing?"
"Little Iren, is there a food you like?"
"I love chicken skewers!"
So Iren liked chicken skewers. I'd have to buy her some later. Real ones—not illusionary chicken skewers.
"What happens if you eat a hundred chicken skewers?"
"Wow! I'd throw up!"
"Exactly."
Either way, hyperventilation was an extremely painful condition. Your hands and feet went numb, and a terrible headache slammed into your skull. Right on cue, in the replaying memory, Iren's hands and feet began to tremble. Her fingers locked at grotesque angles and shook in place—it was clearly a severe attack.
"R-Rest. Frey needs to rest—he has to rest!"
With those words, ice-cold mana exploded from Iren's body like a blast. The wall's memory ended there.
Little Iren was staring right at me. Her gaze felt prickly somehow, so I turned my head away.
"What are you going to do now?"
"Well. What should I do?"
Should I tell her the truth? That it had all been an act of mine?
But honestly, I didn't want to say it. Wouldn't she think I'd done it because I hated her? Let me say it again—I now considered Iren a precious friend. I didn't want to hurt her.
"Right. In the end, the problem is self-blame."
Iren was under the mistaken belief that I'd ended up like that because of her. So all I needed to do was correct that misunderstanding.
To do that, I needed to find Iren quickly. No more dawdling.
"Little Iren! Hold on tight!"
"Huh?"
"We're running!"
"Kyaaah!"
I ran hard with little Iren on my shoulders. Along the way, I quickly resolved the problems of Iren's thought-forms that appeared, and within just a few minutes I arrived at a place where her mana felt intensely strong.
"Hmm."
"Big brother, what's that?"
"Beats me."
Right in front of us stood a giant……lion plush, planted firmly in place. Focusing my senses, I could feel Iren's mana strongly concentrated at the center of that lion plush.
Which meant Iren was inside that lion plush.
I casually placed a hand on it. Then I looked at little Iren.
"Big brother……?"
"Ugh."
As if she'd figured out what I was about to do, little Iren's eyes were getting misty!
What was I supposed to do about this?
I deliberated for five full minutes, then finally reached a conclusion.
"Little Iren."
"Y-Yes? Big brother, you're not—? You're not seriously going to cut open the belly of that cute, adorable, fluffy lion plush that everyone would love, are you?"
"Listen carefully. Close your eyes and count to ten, and I'll give you an amazing present."
"Liar! You're just going to cut up that cute plush while my eyes are closed!"
"Absolutely not. I almost never lie."
"So you do lie sometimes?"
Even as a kid, she was still Iren through and through. That rigid, unbending personality was exactly the same.
"Can't you trust your big brother and close your eyes for me?"
"Can I really trust you?"
"If I disappoint you, I'll buy you ten chicken skewers."
"Make it twenty."
The kid had quite an appetite.
"Fine. Twenty."
"Yay! Okay, I'll close my eyes!"
Little Iren closed her eyes. I immediately studied the giant lion plush.
I captured the details and burned them into my mind. This place was saturated with mana, and little Iren was a thought-form, so I could do this kind of thing with illusion magic.
Perfect.
"You can open your eyes now."
"What are you trying to—whoa!"
Little Iren's eyes sparkled. Looking at what I held out, her mouth fell wide open. So this was how Iren had smiled as a child.
"This! This!"
"Well? It's identical, right? And this one's yours."
"Wooow! I love it so much!"
What I'd given her was a lion plush just the right size for little Iren to hug tightly. Aside from the size, every fine detail matched the giant one perfectly.
Little Iren seemed absolutely delighted—she grabbed the lion plush's paws and spun around with it, hugged it tight, and even smothered it with kisses.
So I casually asked.
"Then I can touch that giant lion plush, right?"
"Yes! Go ahead! Ehehe."
Kids really were suckers for presents.
Just as I concentrated mana in my hand, little Iren grabbed my sleeve.
"What's wrong?"
"E-Even so. You have to be gentle so the lion doesn't hurt, okay?"
How could she be this kind? Her nature seemed different in texture from the Iren of now.
"Okay, okay. I'll be careful so the lion doesn't hurt, and I'll fix it up afterward too."
"Thank goodness! Then let's go play, Alexis!"
She'd even given it a name in the meantime. That pure innocence was truly adorable.
Alright then—time for me to go save Iren.
The giant lion plush was ultimately something shaped by Iren's magic. It looked fluffy on the outside, but its essence was cold.
When I concentrated mana in my hand and touched it, it melted with a sizzling hiss. Because of little Iren's request, I melted only enough for me to barely squeeze through as I advanced.
What kind of state was Iren in right now? I couldn't rule out the possibility that she'd lost consciousness from hyperventilation. I hoped she was okay.
"@#$@%@!!!!"
"Huh?"
The closer I got to Iren, the more I heard strange shouting. Was one of her thought-forms in here with her too?
I was almost to her when—
"It never should have gotten this far!"
"B-But Frey ended up like that."
"Oh come on! This is so embarrassing I don't know how I'm supposed to face Frey! In the first place—"
There was only one voice, yet it sounded like two people having a conversation.
I'd thought she might be talking with a thought-form, but this had a different quality to it.
Because the Iren I caught a glimpse of was clearly alone.
What on earth was going on now?
Iren von Valencia happened to be feeling the exact same emotion as her elder brother, the Third Prince.
In other words, she was thoroughly mortified.
It was true she'd panicked at the sight of Frey collapsed and foaming at the mouth. But it absolutely never should have escalated into a full-blown rampage.
Unfortunately, the reason for the rampage was the personality of the very young Aylin inside her.
Seeing Frey's wretched state, Aylin had screamed, broken the pact they'd made with each other, and forced her way to the surface—and that had directly affected Iren's own body, causing her mana to run wild.
If she'd been in Aylin's form, her unique mana would have vanished, and this never would have happened. But with Aylin's personality strongly interfering while she was still in Iren's form, this disaster had unfolded.
"Even so, this was way too much!"
"Frey needed to rest! And this was the surest way to make that happen!"
"There's still such a thing as going too far! Do you think Frey would like this?!"
"Frey worked for ten years at the ducal house without a single break! He wouldn't rest unless we went this far!"
"That—well, maybe, but this still isn't right!"
And so right now, they were bickering wildly—not in a mental world, but using a real mouth.
At least in the early stages of the fight, her appearance had flipped back and forth between Iren and Aylin in total chaos—but two hours after the incident began, she'd settled into Iren's form for the time being.
"There were gentler ways to make Frey rest in the first place! You're saying you'll make him rest for a whole week like this? Are you planning to turn the entire Academy into an Unobserved Area?"
"That's—!"
"Um."
Aylin—Iren—whipped her head around. And froze solid.
"Ah, Iren? About that. I, uh."
Both the original personality and the newly born one broke out in a cold sweat at the same time.
Had they been caught……?
Iren stared at Frey with her mouth hanging open.
Frey was looking at her with a pitying expression. What kind of face was that? Had he heard the entire conversation between the two personalities? Since when?
How was she supposed to explain this? I—I—
Just as Iren felt like she was about to lose her mind, Frey slowly approached her.
Iren stepped back without thinking. But Frey closed the distance faster. There hadn't been any room for her to retreat further in the first place.
At last, Frey came close enough that she could feel his breath.
And then—he pulled her into a tight embrace!
Both Iren and Aylin—their thoughts completely stopped.