Chapter 287 |
Let’s go back.
Somewhere in that distant world, a man must be wandering in search for me.
Now adrift to a far world, it is imperative that I retrace the man’s footsteps and return to where I once belonged.
Upon opening my eyes, what unfolded before me were streams of a massive world, branching out in dozens, hundreds of directions.
The multitudes of possible worlds I had once observed with Ed were now branching, advancing towards the future.
I felt buoyant as if swimming through space, weightlessness engulfing my entire body.
Within the currents of this vast world, Lucy had to find traces of Ed.
Somewhere, Ed too, must be incessantly searching for signs of Lucy.
Worrying over Lucy who has drifted away, floating ceaselessly here and there.
I can no longer make Ed wait.
The magic bestowed by an alternate self was limited, but by gritting my teeth and summoning strength, I should be able to return to the currents of the original world.
Gritting my teeth, I draw up the magic. I focus every sensation in my body on the flows of magic spreading throughout the world.
Somewhere there, Ed’s magic must certainly exist.
Here. This is where you should return. Like a lighthouse signaling, it must assuredly be indicating the direction for Lucy to proceed.
If I fail to grasp his traces correctly, I’ll drift into the vast currents of this immense world once again.
I might end up in the future or in the past.
I could fall into a vast ocean or in the midst of an unfamiliar city.
Despite all these variables, I must grit my teeth, concentrate, and detect the signals Ed sends.
And so… while I concentrate on the flow of magic with gritted teeth, I feel a familiar surge of magic from one of the distant world’s streams.
That magic, never once forgotten in a lifetime, feels like warm sunshine to Lucy.
Even at this distance, I can notice it instantly. Lucy does not have the luxury to hesitate.
I gather all my magic and leap between the worlds. With Ed’s magic emanating from Ed Rostailor as my beacon, I leap over and over through numerous possible worlds.
Though my body screams in pain, there’s still a long way to go.
To reach where Ed’s magic is visible, I must press on. Even as chunks of magic are being chiseled away, I do not stop floating.
Thus, Lucy pushes into the world stream from where the magic bursts forth.
But not yet.
Entering the same flow is possible, though the lines of space and time remain a significant distance away.
I must continue. To move into the era where Ed is, I need to scrape together every last bit of magic to reach further.
But, my body screams.
Magic at its limit tells me it can no longer proceed.
I’m almost there.
I’ve succeeded in entering the same world’s flow, but I cannot allow myself to be thwarted so close to my goal.
With a cough, a trickle of blood is expelled.
It’s been since the encounter with the great sage, Silvenia, that I’ve taxed my body this much.
But now is not the time to think of my body. What good is it to enter the same flow if we don’t share the same time?
Lucy’s strength ebbs.
The endearing flow of magic. Despite being so close, I no longer have the strength to move forward.
Slowly… sinking into the world’s stream… Lucy tightly closes her eyes.
– Kwang, bang!
The sound of something like a wooden shelf collapsing resonated.
In a basement devoid of sunlight, its exact location unknowable.
The place I’ve arrived in after leaping between worlds feels strangely familiar.
– Huff!
“Heugh, heurgh…”
Lucy manages to right her tiny body that had rolled onto the floor, barely contorting it.
It was a storehouse of sorts, crammed with various research materials and arcane artifacts. Lucy tried to rise, but her body refused to obey.
“Ugh, huhuh…”
Ultimately, I did not arrive at the source of Ed Rostailor’s magic.
Though I’ve returned to the world he lives in, I’ve been cast adrift to a completely different time and space.
I don’t know which country, or even if it’s a different continent.
How much time has skewed is also unknown. It could be 10 years, 100 years… nobody could predict.
Few in history have wielded magic of this caliber.
“Uhh… huhuh…”
Tears begin to form in Lucy’s eyes.
Oh, how I long to see Ed Rostailor. With only that feeling, I flew into the broken body, but it wasn’t enough.
Now I’m uncertain when I will see him again.
The misaligned time could amount to not just hours or days, but likely spans decades. For a transit of this magnitude, that’s the minimum discrepancy.
Without the magic to return, and even if I recover, to study the Arcane Magic to leap across time again would take another lifetime.
It could be years at best, or I may never see Ed Rostailor again until death.
With that reality… tears threatened to fall.
“…..Such a flamboyant entrance.”
That’s when it happened.
A familiar voice permeated Lucy’s ears. A voice I haven’t heard in so long yet could never forget.
“I had a notion you’d appear around this time, but I never imagined it would be like this.”
Wrinkled hands that used to lovingly caress Lucy brought back memories.
In the cramped basement filled with old research tomes and crowded workbenches…
For some reason, the archmage Glokta, covered in ash, was brushing off his clothes with a wry smile.
Then I realized why this basement felt familiar.
This was… the secret research lab beneath Glokta’s hut.
The very place I had been investigating with Zelan and Ed before leaping worlds.
*
Lucy tried to speak, but her mouth fluttered voicelessly.
However, the sight of Glokta, awkwardly dusting off the ashes that covered him, remained etched in my memory.
– ‘Thanks to you, I’m fully awake. But I certainly told you to be careful when practicing magic in the cabin…’
– ‘I should find something to brush off these ashes.’
Memories from the day Glokta had gifted Lucy a cap.
After accidentally overturning the ash container while tending the fireplace, I had gone down to the basement to sweep up the ashes with a dust cloth.
Glokta, who had been absent from the basement for a long time, had comforted Lucy, who was feeling oppressed, by placing a cap on her head on that day.
“I, I am….”
“There’s not much time. We needn’t go into detail, I understand.”
With that raspy voice, the master, a father figure to Lucy, gently stroked her head.
“You must have been through a lot to be beyond the need for explanation. Unlike my master, Sylvanya, who can read all the world’s currents and possibilities, I can only see fragments of the future… I can’t entirely grasp the life you’ve lived.”
After all, only the great sage Silvenia can observe all the streams and possibilities of worlds.
But Glokta could at least mimic her to some extent, capable of foreseeing just snippets of the future.
Surely Glokt knew that around this time, Lusi, who had once tried to leap across worlds, would end up drifting here.
Although he couldn’t pinpoint the exact place and time, he was able to prepare to a certain extent.
“Even so, I believe you must have lived a life of worth,” Glokt whispered warmly.
Lusi, holding back the tears that threatened to spill, responded, “Grandfather… I…”
“Yes, you have a place to return to. The possibilities of the world are constantly branching out and progressing. We must act quickly before things become more complicated.”
With those words, Glokt took out a giant crystalline globe—a magical engineering device—from the center of his laboratory.
Knowing that Lusi would eventually drift to this place, he had been able to prepare it in advance.
‘Time-axis Regulator’
The device, found by Zellan and Ed while investigating Glokt’s cottage, had the trace of being used but once.
– ‘The archmage Glokt I knew despised breaking taboos. He was always a sorcerer who held reverence for magic and respected the natural order and fate of the world.’
– ‘Lusi Mayril. It might be shocking for you, but… it seems the archmage Glokt researched taboos in his final years.’
– ‘Considering the circumstances, it appears the late Glokt Elderbane… once altered the line of time. In other words, he attempted time travel, an act against taboo.’
It felt as if a missing puzzle piece had finally clicked into place.
The reason why the great archmage Glokt Elderbane, who lived his whole life with nothing but awe for magic, ventured into forbidden research on time travel in his final moments.
And even the reason why he had to break his lifelong beliefs, just this once, at the very end.
“Grandfather… this is…”
“We have no time to delay. I shall initiate it. You just focus on sensing the mana.”
Lusi, wiping her eyes with her tattered clothing and clenching her lower lip tightly, murmured, “Grandfather…”
While Glokt gathered mana at his fingertips, Lusi looked up the stairs leading to the ground above.
Behind the firmly closed wooden door, she wondered if there would be an intimidated version of herself buried under a pile of ashes.
The life she knew was filled with emptiness—a life devoid of meaning, merely drifting by.
Knowing well what that was like, the figure of Glokt who had taken her in and raised her seemed even more impressive.
To Lusi, Glokt’s cottage had been a cradle.
An old sorcerer who tirelessly pulled the arms of a girl who might end her life at any moment, empty until she understood the meaning of life.
It was a life in which she had received much.
However, there comes a time when one must kick out of the cradle.
When the day comes to stand on one’s own two feet, the cradle I once lay in becomes nothing but a burden to carry.
Life’s journey is long.
If one wishes to set out on that long journey, one must leave behind what needs to be left.
Because humans are beings meant to live looking forward, not backward.
“Hey, Grandfather.”
Lusi called out to Glokt softly. Just the act of calling his name brought a fresh sharp sting to her nose.
She took a deep breath and, with a faint smile, spoke.
“It’s a sad story but… Now, you’re not the most precious person in my world.”
Hearing these words, as he operated the magic orb, Glokt’s eyes widened for a moment before he too smiled broadly.
“That… is the best news I’ve heard.”
Glokt might not know exactly what kind of life Lusi had led.
The journey of life is full of unpredictable events.
After colliding here and there, struggling to survive…
The girl, who once knew only emptiness, came to smile so faintly.
The little girl, who had no one precious but her teacher, eventually gathers a host of cherished connections.
Staying in place, considering only Glokt as the most precious person, is not the way to live.
What has passed, has passed.
What must be left behind, will be left behind.
The fact that the once timid Lusi was diligently stepping into her own journey delighted Glokt perhaps more so than anything else.
With his deeply wrinkled face stretching into a smile, the old sorcerer expressed his joy.
Lusi took off the witch’s hat she had received from Glokt and pushed it into his arms.
“I will leave this behind.”
Glokt, taking the hat, asked with a curious eye, “What is this hat?”
Upon hearing his question, Lusi’s eyes widened in surprise before she laughed, a bit resigned.
“It was the thing I most cherished. …The reason is a secret.”
At that, Glokt nodded and quietly tucked the hat away into his pocket.
The device created by Glokt’s magic began to emit mana again.
The world was enveloped in a halo of light, and a warm aura tenderly embraced Lusi.
Before leaving, Glokt, with eyes gently closed, said, “Thank you, Lusi.”
What was there to thank her for? From Lusi’s point of view, she was the one who had received so much.
However, what he said next pierced Lusi completely.
“It was a tumultuous life, but… in the end, you were the meaning of my life.”
“…”
“Thank you for becoming the significance of my life.”
Within the cascade of light, although she tried to offer a smile for the last time…
Lusi could not help but shed endless tears.
*
In a world that was once engulfed in darkness, light begins to circle.
When she opens her eyes, the place hasn’t changed. It is still Glokt’s cabin.
But how much time has passed, the once intact facility is now completely worn. The traces of time are evident.
A streak of light streams down from the staircase leading to the ground.
The firmly closed wooden door is now slightly ajar.
The girl gets up, her body battered. Staggering yet decisively, she races towards the surface.
She kicks open the door to find a scene all too familiar—the front view of the cabin.
She crosses the room and bursts through the main door of the hut.
The noon sun is dazzling.
Ed, searching for Lusi with magic before the observatory, comes into view.
Behind him are Zellan, replenishing his magic with a worried face, and his secretary, Wilhelm.
Lusi runs straight into Ed’s arms.
Startled, Ed falls backwards, but Lusi climbs on top and buries her head into his chest, rubbing her cheek against it while shaking her head.
Even while sobbing, Lusi doesn’t loosen her grip on Ed.
Just holding him, she cries and cries endlessly.
– Tadak, tadak
The sound of logs burning in the fireplace.
As the gentle light of the cozy fireplace flickers, so do the shadows inside the hut.
Sitting there, looking dejected, with white hair full of ashes, the girl is given a witch’s hat by the old sorcerer who emerges from the basement.
He gently strokes her shoulder, smiling kindly at her.
– ‘I thought it best to give this to you now.’
– ‘This is…’
– ‘Take good care of it. Someday, this hat will become your most cherished belonging.’
– ‘But… why…’
Life is unpredictable.
The girl who thought she would live a life marked solely by emptiness might one day come to celebrate the value of life.
– ‘…Well, one day you’ll find out.’
Such was the charm of life.