Chapter 50
The day before the festival began, Sophia was getting ready to go out.
“I think pigtails would be cute. No, wait. That might be uncomfortable if you’re moving around a lot. Should I tie it all up? Braid it? What do you think, Sophia?”
“Quiet, Grandpa.”
Loray was putting the finishing touches on her hair, but Peyton had been hovering for a while now, commenting nonstop on what style would look best.
After wandering through all that chaotic chatter, Loray compromised with a half-up style, tying it off with a white ribbon.
Sophia, dressed in a thin yellow dress, didn’t show it outwardly, but she was quite excited about the outing.
“Shall we head out together now?”
When Loray said that, Sophia fell silent for a moment. That morning, she had asked Loray about his true name. What had he said back then?
‘Most of what that man says is nonsense. My name is Loray.’
She didn’t need to hear it from anyone else to know that was a lie. After all, how many years had she spent with him?
Wanting to tease her a little, Sophia shook her head.
“I’m just going to buy some books and come back, so I’ll go with Grandpa only.”
“…Pardon?”
“If I’m with Grandpa, at least I won’t get hurt or anything, so it’s fine, right?”
Well… that was true, but still…
Loray hadn’t expected Sophia to say she would leave him behind. He had often excused himself and left her side first, but she had never been the one to put distance between them.
“Right, Grandpa?”
“Hm? Well, I’ve lived a few hundred years, so I should be able to handle the role of guardian, don’t you think?”
Not convincing at all, young lady…!
Sophia saw the distrust in Loray’s eyes toward Peyton but pretended not to notice and pulled Peyton along.
“…If that’s what you wish, then yes. I’ll wait at the castle.”
In the end, Loray stepped back.
Since the day she had gone out with Joshua and Benjamin, Sophia hadn’t left the castle much, so this was only her second time riding in a carriage.
“Wow! Look, Sophia! That cloud looks like a cat’s face! Someone once told me that if you see an animal-shaped cloud, you’ll meet someone new that day!”
Who’s the child here, really?
Sophia followed his gaze to the cloud. It really was a cute one.
Wait… animal-shaped clouds?
That was a saying she’d heard somewhere before. Nonsense, of course, but the person who had told it to her had been so earnest that she’d had no choice but to believe it.
Ah—Mother.
Ever since she saw her mother’s portrait, memories of her had been surfacing now and then. The thought of her was bittersweet yet comforting, making the start of this outing a pleasant one.
“I hope we meet a cute cat.”
While Peyton was murmuring such a wish, the carriage arrived at Lookford Square. Peyton hopped out like an excited child.
“If you run like that, you’ll trip.”
“It’s fine, it’s fine. I won’t die anyway!”
Cocky because he had healing magic, huh.
As Sophia stepped down from the carriage, imagining how nice it would be to put a leash on him like a fish in water or a puppy seeing snow for the first time, she spotted not far away a woman struggling to keep up with a child.
“If you run like that, you’ll trip!”
“It’s fine!”
“Good grief, who did you take after to be like this?”
The mother, watching her child dart farther and farther away, locked eyes with Sophia.
Feeling an unlikely camaraderie, the mother ran after her child while Sophia raised her voice to call Peyton.
“Grandpa! If you keep running like that, we’re going back!”
“If you don’t listen to Mommy, we’re going straight home!”
At those words, both the child and Peyton stopped in their tracks and returned to the ones calling them.
“Now, say it.”
“I will never, ever run off alone again!”
“Good.”
After successfully drilling that into Peyton, Sophia continued on with him—now tamed, for the moment—to browse the stalls that were busy selling their goods.
Peyton was delighted. Rings that supposedly brought good fortune, boosted romance luck, improved health—each with some supposed benefit tacked on. Sophia had to keep stopping him from buying things on impulse.
“Sophia, they say if you wear that ring, all illnesses will be cured!”
“Why would you want that?”
“Isn’t it amazing? I mean, how could non-magic folk make something with those effects?”
“They didn’t. It’s all lies. There’s no such thing.”
“Huh? Really?”
Peyton kept marveling as they wandered through the square. There were all sorts of people. If it was this crowded before the festival had even started, she was glad they hadn’t come on the day itself.
“Wow! Jay, look at this! My books are all over the place…!”
“Yeah, yeah. Isn’t that the shop you were looking for?”
“That’s right! They’ve got good-quality ink there.”
“Let’s go, Eura.”
“Yes!”
Everyone seemed to be in high spirits. The lively atmosphere of the festival had that effect.
“Wheel, what’s up?”
“There’s a shop selling good swords. Mind if we stop by?”
“…How good?”
“Probably among the best you can find on this continent.”
“Let’s go.”
“Good choice, Eren.”
She had never thought she would breathe in this kind of air or melt into this kind of atmosphere.
Standing in the noisy center of the square, Sophia quietly looked up at the sky.
On the last night, flowers of light would bloom up there. How beautiful would they be? And what expression would she have when she saw them?
“Why the sky? Hoping to see stars or something?”
“…Stars?”
With an armful of food, Peyton asked that question with a mouth stuffed full like a squirrel, not realizing anything was odd about it.
Right now, the sky was bright and blue under the midday sun. There was no way to see stars.
Was he asking if she was trying to find stars that weren’t even there, just because she’d been staring at the sky for so long?
“Oh, there’s a famous fortune-teller over there! Let’s go!”
“No outside food. Finish that first.”
“Mmph.”
Peyton answered with a mouthful of grilled mushrooms on a skewer. She’d been feeling it for a while now, but it really did seem like their roles as guardian and ward had switched.
Even counting the time she had lived after turning back the clock, it was nothing compared to the years Peyton had lived, yet he was still so childlike.
A wizard who had lived for ages. Someone who had spent a long time apart from ordinary human life. In a way, someone like her.
“Grandpa.”
“Yeah?”
“Has it ever been hard, living for so long?”
Peyton didn’t understand the intent behind the serious question. Still, it wasn’t something he needed to avoid, so he answered honestly.
“Hmm… I’ve come close to dying dozens, maybe hundreds of times, but it’s never been hard. I didn’t die, I kept on living, and I’ve heard plenty of people say it’s amazing I’ve made it through so much still intact.”
“….”
“But I’m a wizard. Wizards are just like that. We’re born knowing—consciously and unconsciously—that we’ll live a long time, so we’re dull to it.”
“Dull to it?”
The flow of time was etched into their very bodies differently than in humans. A wizard’s life spanned more than a human could comprehend.
“So… I guess you could say we’re not very interested in how we live differently from humans. It’s just how we are. For us, pain and hardship are so normal that we’re numb to them.”
Peyton shrugged as if it truly didn’t matter. He had seen countless deaths and births, had almost died himself, and had survived with healing magic—speaking of it all in a light tone, as though it had happened to someone else.
“Trying to apply human ways of thinking to a wizard is what’s strange. How could someone who hasn’t even lived a hundred years understand those of us who’ve lived for centuries?”
“That’s true.”
“Plus, I can’t die, so it’s even more like that. I’ve had swords stuck in my neck dozens of times, but look—still perfectly fine, right?”
Balancing a packet of food in one hand, Peyton cupped his chin in the other and gave a playful smile.
For him, that was normal, and it was human life that was the anomaly. Trying to force human ways of thinking onto him would be like trying to force something unnatural into place.
Still, even knowing that, she found him very strange. But Sophia couldn’t say it aloud—because she wasn’t much different from him.
She, too, had died many times and come back, had lived long years and remained unfazed. She had accepted her fate from birth and grown numb to it—just like the wizards.
