Chapter 206
I got scolded.
Half in jest, I had said:
“Since it’s already come to this, how about I don’t reveal my identity until I’m found out?”
And then I met Mehen’s cold gaze.
I thought it would be fun.
“Arel, I don’t see any sign of remorse on your face.”
“But listen to me. I’m not saying I’m trying to deceive anyone on purpose. I’m just saying I won’t reveal that I’m me until someone notices. It’s like an accident due to a kind of tacit intent.”
Mehen pressed a hand to his forehead.
“Did I raise Arel to behave like this?”
“Uh… no.”
“Or is this the work of the Archmage?”
“…I was wrong.”
I admitted my fault honestly before the innocent teacher got caught in the crossfire. Only then did Mehen’s expression soften.
“I’m all for it!”
Seizing the moment, Rena tried to cheer me on, but…
“……”
I lost to Mehen’s cold stare.
With a light sigh, Mehen met my eyes. Even under the magic lamp, his light green eyes pierced straight through me.
“Do you know what kind of heart I’ve lived with for the past fifteen years after Arel disappeared?”
“Uh….”
This is cheating.
Mehen didn’t need words to speak his heart.
He only conveyed how hard those years had been through his expression, his gaze, and the trembling of the hand that touched me.
…I had hoped you lived well.
“Even now, it still feels like I’m dreaming.”
I boldly grabbed Mehen’s hesitant hand, which didn’t dare touch me, and pressed it to my cheek.
“How could this be a dream?”
Mehen smiled.
“It was embarrassing, but I realized I couldn’t even function properly as a human. That’s when I first understood how pitiful and inadequate I was.”
“Mom, you’ve always been the best.”
“Without Arel or Valer, Halbern… was meaningless to me too. Even doing what I always did, keeping my place was exhausting. Being there only reminded me of the emptiness they left behind.”
“Mehen…”
“Anyway, that’s how it was.”
Perhaps embarrassed, Mehen quickly wrapped up his words.
“I won’t dare ask you to understand. It’s only my feelings; you have no obligation. But…”
Mehen’s gaze turned sharp.
“You shouldn’t do that to His Highness. Arel liked him too, didn’t he?”
A sharp rebuke.
“At least I knew Arel was alive, but His Highness did not. As I said, the royal family hid that fact from the Crown Prince. Yet he held on to you the longest.”
Perhaps even now.
Speaking like this, Mehen calmly persuaded me, implying he had once seen how far someone could break after losing someone precious.
“Arel, if you truly wish the young prince to return to the kind, gentle person he was in childhood, that’s up to you.”
I blinked quietly.
“Be kind to His Highness.”
Mehen’s calm voice…
“Just as he was kind to Arel.”
It melted away the stubborn little spite I’d held.
“Sorry. How could you not recognize me? No matter how many imposters there were, still… I guess I got a little angry because it hurt too much.”
“Yes, that’s understandable. I get it.”
Mehen hugged me as I grumbled, showing empathy.
“I do that to Valer sometimes too.”
He muttered with a playful, fierce grin that next time he returned, he’d really ‘half-kill’ him—but smiled brightly.
Really? Could that be possible? Well, he’s my mom, so probably.
“I’ll do as Mom says.”
“If it’s okay with Arel, I’d like to do some parts according to Arel’s suggestion.”
“Huh?”
Mehen tilted his fingers.
“If you return immediately to your original status, it would be chaotic. So let’s live temporarily under a different status. Once I return and start organizing things, and Halbern’s influence returns, then Arelin can properly return.”
I nodded, smiling at Mehen’s sincerity that she only wanted me to walk a path of flowers.
For a while, I would live as the Archmage’s top disciple, under the name Rel.
“Where exactly are you hiding your identity?”
I got such questions, but I was confident.
“Miss—!”
Though not everyone believed me.
“Yuni!”
After losing her duties at the Halbern mansion, Yuni eventually resigned when Mehen left too.
Later, using the experience of managing me in El Sionello, she started a beauty business providing exercise programs and nutrition plans for young ladies—and it became a huge success.
Yuni, now a proper businesswoman, ran toward me cheerfully, but stopped dead when she saw my smile.
“Who are you?”
“Huh?”
“Our lady never welcomes anyone like this! She frowns at passing leaves, gets irritated at words, finds breathing itself bothersome! Life is pain to her! Who are you, smiling so brightly like this?!”
“Want me to get mad?”
“You really are our lady!”
“Oh, really.”
“I missed you.”
Is there no touching reunion for me? Why is everyone like this lately?
“Step back.”
“Wow, really our lady! Hiiing.”
“Don’t get emotional over something like this.”
“You truly are our lady!”
“Ah, really.”
“More! Get even angrier!”
“Ah, I’m annoyed!”
“Yes! That’s it!”
Ern joined the Saren Knights, Amber was too busy, so only Yuni came running—but instead of disappointment, I felt a sense of the ages passing.
“Miss, don’t you need a maid? I can still be a maid.”
“No need.”
“Ahem. Yuni, the chief maid is already me.”
“What?! That’s unfair!”
The two bickered.
Normally, Amber would give snacks to divert attention—but I heard Amber had opened a bakery and it became a hit.
For a moment, I felt nostalgic, then returned to the present.
So.
“Dad… could he be dead?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
Mehen shook his head.
“If he were dead, Halbern’s power would have gone to Arel.”
“Could I know that right away?”
“Well, when all the closed ‘visions’ expand at once, it’s hard not to notice, right?”
Mehen had also tried to find Dad, gathering information through adventurer guilds, intelligence guilds, and even sending people personally to collect information.
“The whole world? Strictly speaking, not the whole world.”
The Sky Tower of the Mage Tower and the Infinite Library.
The Grand Forest of the Sugra Empire.
The holy site of the Lrmren Principality.
The Great Ruins of the Yuyo Union.
The Northern Abyss and the Southern Forbidden Zone.
Even the hidden world.
Countless places unreachable by humans, so even Mehen could not fully know.
“My daughter barely made it back alive, and I can’t even see my father’s face.”
I don’t know where he is or what he’s doing, but really…
Dad’s always late.
Still, I love him.
“By the way, what’s Godfather doing these days?”
“In the Lrmren Principality.”
“Why?”
“It’s a time of seclusion.”
The Regent Duke, who had sent rare artifacts and elixirs when I was weak, had become a wreck after I went missing. After hearing I was alive, he went to the Principality to pray for my safe return.
How should I put it… a bit…
“Wasn’t he not that kind of person?”
Mehen shrugged.
“He sent letters, so maybe he’ll read them after finishing his prayers.”
“Well, probably.”
“So, you’re going to the Mage Tower?”
“Yes.”
I wanted to meet the others for a joyful reunion too.
“We can’t just leave Dad as he is.”
I smiled brightly, and Mehen made another strange face.
I imagined him thinking I resembled Sionel or Valer, but the atmosphere was completely different; maybe I resembled neither.
“If it’s Master, I think he can find him.”
It would require planetary-scale tracking magic, but maybe Master could do it.
“So…”
Mehen looked at my hands overflowing with shopping bags with a complicated expression.
It was far too much luggage for a trip to the Mage Tower.
Rena was shocked and asked if I was going on a trip. Not exactly…
“Ah, why? What, why?”
I had shopped a bit for the first time in fifteen years—is that so hard to accept?
“No, it’s fine.”
“Mom, you’re not going to become this poor, right?”
“No, but…”
“All of this is bribes. Bribes for smooth social interactions. You know?”
I smiled brightly, ignoring Mehen’s reluctant expression.
“Anyway, I’m off!”
