The Mirror's Farewell Gift
The words struck me like a farewell gift reflected in a mirror. The world spun before my eyes. I felt dizzy, as though everything were drifting away. Was this anger, bewilderment, or fear? Struggling to steady the indescribable emotion, I asked Rin,
“…I heard the Duke of Mittenburg hasn’t made any public appearances since what I did. More than anything, you…”
I looked straight at her.
“It wasn’t anyone else. It was you. Every time you absorbed a pigeon from the capital, you deliberately dug up news about Zophy and told me, even though I never asked.”
“That’s right.”
Rin answered calmly.
“According to the most recent information I gathered, Lady Zophy is—”
“Don’t use honorifics.”
“…Understood, Mother. In any case, Zophy is still a wreck who can’t take a single step outside her room. Though I did hear she’s improved since right after you left the mansion—she at least has the cognitive ability to explain who she is now.”
Yes.
Rin had always told me the same thing. Zophy, the sole survivor of the Mittenburg ducal house and automatic heir to the title after every other claimant died, had never shown her face outside since that day.
She governed her direct territories and communicated with her vassal nobles entirely through attendants and advisors. Even then, it was impossible to tell whether those orders truly came from the Duchess herself or from the new head attendant who had effectively been granted full authority.
“Then it makes even less sense. She’s young—well, thirty isn’t exactly young anymore, but still, her body is that of a girl barely past twenty. She has no proven experience or ability in politics, and on top of that, she’s a wreck who hides under her blankets trembling in her room. Why would anyone make a woman like that empress?”
“It doesn’t make sense? That’s exactly why. That’s what makes her the most ideal empress imaginable to those who hold the power to choose one.”
“Ah…”
Only then did I understand. Perhaps the poison of the memories I’d brought from Earth still hadn’t left me. My homeland on Earth had only taught me histories of absolute monarchs wielding tyrannical power. That prejudice from the history I’d learned back then had sunk deep into my memory.
“I see. How unfortunate for Zophy… or rather, for Her Imperial Majesty as well. I wonder if she even has the intelligence left to understand how unfortunate she is.”
“Well, we can only hope she doesn’t. Rest assured. If the prince-electors wanted to seat the Duke of Mittenburg as a puppet empress, it means they still see her as either a wreck or an imbecile. …For now, at least.”
I thought carefully.
Zophy becoming empress was certainly unexpected. She herself probably hadn’t foreseen it either. A young duchess who never left her room, whose very ability to function as a person was questionable, would never have orchestrated something like an imperial assassination plot.
Still, even if an incompetent emperor benefited the prince-electors, to enthrone someone so clearly broken…
As long as Zophy remained as much of a wreck as I once was, the change of emperor shouldn’t bring any immediate consequences my way. But Rin’s words lingered. The fact that Zophy had regained a little more cognitive ability than before.
The prince-electors might dismiss it and treat her as a mere puppet, but considering her personality and ambition, what would happen the day she recovered her former brilliance and drive?
The bloody storm Zophy would unleash upon the court and the high nobility wasn’t my concern, but what she would prioritize the moment she regained her wits was obvious.
She would come for my blood.
Since the cursed book existed, it was only a matter of time before the imperial citizens pinpointed the location of “Kaira, the Witch of Sand.” The place that held everything about Riaska was obvious—the historical encyclopedia that had been published.
If she learned of this, Zophy would turn her eyes toward Riaska.
Riaska was not imperial territory. Unlike the Light Denomination’s direct holdings—nearly half of which followed the empire’s state religion and had been granted by imperial favor—it was not a place where imperial influence held strong sway. Separated by a great river and consisting of rain-soaked marshes, it was land the empire had never shown interest in.
That was why I had been able to live without worry until now. But if Zophy had become empress, the story changed. Even if an emperor needed the consent of all the great nobles to move an army, an emperor was still an emperor.
I didn’t want to bring harm to the land of death that had sheltered me all this time, nor to the people who ruled it and lived here.
It meant the day I would have to leave this land was approaching.
After hearing the news of the new empress’s ascension from Rin, I spent about five days in thought. On the fifth night, right after finishing sword practice, I told Bishop Lumina about it.
The bishop’s reaction went something like this:
“Hmm… You have quite the ego, don’t you, Miss Kaira? Do you really think you’re such an important person?”
“An ego…?”
“Even an empress wouldn’t mobilize an army for personal revenge without any gain. Even if she wanted to, she couldn’t get consent. There’s no land here where wheat—the kind the imperial citizens eat—can be grown, no matter how hard you look. And in this land of death, where skeletal hands might grab invading soldiers’ ankles from the swamps and vengeful spirits that have festered in the rotting mud for ages might steal their souls, it’s even less likely.”
I answered with a displeased expression.
“Is that so…”
I doubted whether Zophy was the kind of person who would yield to such common-sense considerations.
“Still, I appreciate that you’re thinking of us. Even if it’s not an army, assassins might come through various routes. This place is so short on people that we’d literally borrow skeletal hands if we could. There’s a limit to how densely we can station the undead for defense, so we can’t stop everything. And…”
Bishop Lumina’s cold, scale-covered hand caressed my cheek, still damp with sweat after dozens of practice bouts today.
“You want to leave, don’t you? The swordsmanship you learned from me, the magic you studied from your master while poring over books—you want to test them as you wander the world, don’t you? You want to see the parts of the world you haven’t seen yet, and taste men’s cocks in unfamiliar places? I’ve felt that desire burning in you for the past year or two.”
I couldn’t lie here. …Though the part about cocks annoyed me a little.
“…So you knew everything. I’m sorry it seems ungrateful to leave after you’ve sheltered me with such kindness.”
“No. The reason I kept you here was to ask you to write that book. Since you wrote it splendidly, you’ve repaid everything you owed me. So if you want to leave, you can go whenever you like. If you want, I can even assign you undead escorts. Though you don’t want to become a bug-mother again, do you?”
The moment I heard those words, a year’s worth of horrific memories resurfaced, and I frowned slightly.
“It’s fine. I don’t need escorts…”
“Good. I thought you’d say that. You’ve grown quite strong, so you probably won’t need them anyway. Well then, it’s a shame to lose a swordsmanship disciple and a blood bag, but I can’t keep holding onto a mage hero who has so much ahead of her. You can leave whenever you’re ready—as long as you say a proper goodbye.”
Then the bishop stared at me with a peculiar expression.
“Hmm. Miss Kaira, have you looked in a mirror lately?”
“A mirror…? No…”
Mirrors were expensive tools. Until I first saw one at the Magic Academy, I had only ever glimpsed my reflection as a shadow in water. Even in the well-appointed mansion of Cashel Groa, there had been no mirror in my room. I hadn’t needed one.
“Then I’ll give you one. Consider it a farewell gift.”
A mirror as a farewell gift…
Bishop Lumina had many duties to attend to during the waking night hours, so I withdrew and returned to my room. I opened Master Viran’s book again—the one I had pored over so diligently these past three or four years—but I couldn’t concentrate. My mind was already drifting toward departure.
After flipping through the same page of the book over and over, trying to mentally calculate magical formulas that wouldn’t stick in my head, I sensed the presence of something not alive.
A pristine white skeleton dressed in clean clothes befitting a noble mansion approached me. It was one of Bishop Lumina’s undead servants. Soon, a small hand mirror made of finely polished silver was placed before me.
So she really had sent a mirror. The servant, as if that had been its only purpose, gave a formal bow and left the room.
‘I don’t understand. Why a mirror of all things…’
Confused or not, I had received it, so I might as well use it. Come to think of it, I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d seen my own reflection.
I banished the darkness of the room—lit dimly to suit a vampire—with a small light in my hand. Then I floated the orb of light above the bed so no shadows would fall, and raised the mirror.
“Huh…?”
A dazed sound, almost a sigh, escaped my lips.
The reflection in the mirror… In my hair, the soft strands that had inherited their color from both my mother and father, were mixed strands of white.