Chapter 82
I stood there with my mouth slightly open, then, unable to hold back any longer, fired off a barrage of questions.
“Wait a minute, Tower Master sir. What do you mean you’re just giving it to me? Why would you give me, for free, a relic so incredible that you’ve kept it hidden without even displaying it?”
Theo reacted calmly, as if he had expected this.
“Because I want to.”
“…Excuse me?”
“I am the Tower Master, and this relic is under my management. Do I not have the right to give it to whomever I please?”
I sprang to my feet.
Then I hurriedly put the ring I had been holding back down on top of the box.
“I won’t take it.”
Of course, the relic was fascinating.
But Theo’s answer was on a level far beyond something I could simply accept or reject.
And I had a tendency not to trust things I couldn’t accept.
Theo immediately placed the ring back into my palm.
“You shouldn’t refuse it outright like that.”
Then his expression turned unusually serious.
“You already know, don’t you, why I chose you, Young Lady.”
I froze, my mouth falling shut.
Theo stared straight at me and continued.
“You are not an ordinary person. Not long ago, time—”
“T‑That’s enough! Stop! Stop it!”
I flailed and jumped up onto the table, clamping my hands over the Tower Master’s mouth.
Tian was staring at us with eyes wide as saucers.
The Tower Master led me out of Tian’s audience chamber.
He had made the excuse that he wanted to discuss research matters and wished to speak alone with me.
We walked quietly down the corridor.
Yet the air between us was taut with tension.
The moment we reached a shabby, deserted hallway in one of the detached palaces, I quickly grabbed hold of the Tower Master’s clothes.
“Y‑You. Tell me who you really are!”
I wanted to grab him by the collar, but since I couldn’t reach that high, clutching at his thigh was the best I could do.
The Tower Master looked down at me with the same calm, composed eyes as ever.
‘You already know, don’t you, why I chose you, Young Lady.’
‘You are not an ordinary person. Not long ago, time—’
‘He knows about my regression.’
I knew the Mage Tower’s information network was impressive, but I hadn’t imagined it was to this extent.
“If you don’t tell me right now—!”
“I will tell you.”
The Tower Master answered without resistance.
Then, right in front of my dumbfounded face, he snapped his fingers once.
The surroundings flashed with light, and a hazy film began to rise from the floor.
The strange current climbed as if it would reach the ceiling, then turned transparent and vanished.
“When discussing matters like this, soundproofing is important.”
I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the empty space where the barrier had disappeared.
‘How did he cast something like that without even using a mana stone?’
Theo hadn’t torn a scroll, nor had he used any magical device.
He had merely snapped his fingers, and a barrier that looked sturdy even at a glance had formed on its own.
“Do not be alarmed. The Mage Tower’s technological capabilities are already far beyond what is known to the public.”
“Gasp.”
“…Or perhaps I should say my capabilities, rather than the Tower’s.”
Frowning slightly, Theo tilted his head, then met my gaze as if it hardly mattered.
Suddenly, he bent one knee and knelt on the floor.
“Abner, Young Lady.”
For some reason, he paused mid-sentence to take a breath.
It was truly an incomprehensible, strange attitude.
“The twin rings are powerful relics. That is why I have, for a long time, conducted aggressive research to activate them.”
“……”
“I did not hesitate to carry out experiments using my own body as the medium.”
My eyes flew wide open.
“Y‑Your body… as the medium?”
“Yes.”
Theo answered as he rolled up his sleeve.
From just inside his wrist deep up his forearm, grotesquely twisted scars stood out clearly.
They were scars that unmistakably looked as though they had come from horrific injuries.
“My entire body is covered in scars like these.”
“Why… why would you go that far…?”
“Because I was desperate. And because there is something I absolutely want to protect.”
Theo paused, then stared straight at me.
“I am the Tower Master, after all.”
I looked at Theo with an awkward expression.
I had thought he was a worldly man who had come to haggle over the price of a relic, but that didn’t seem to be the case at all.
‘Is he just someone who loves the Mage Tower that much?’
I steeled my weakening resolve and quickly narrowed my eyes again.
“Th‑Then what does that have to do with giving the ring to me?! And Lia, time, time—!”
“Are you asking how I knew you had regressed?”
Gasp. As I shut my mouth, Theo continued.
“February 12th. And June 7th. On both dates, identical abnormal phenomena were observed in various relics.”
My eyes widened on their own.
February 12th was the day I regressed.
June 7th was the day I was attacked by Brook.
The day light leaked from my wounded back, and a bizarre event occurred, as if time itself were flowing backward.
“When relics that are sensitive to mana react, it means that powerful magic has been activated somewhere nearby.”
“……”
“So, using those two dates as reference points, I investigated every ‘non-ordinary incident’ that occurred within the Empire.”
I swallowed hard.
“In February, there was an incident where a child from a provincial orphanage sent a letter to Duke Abner. Shortly afterward, the duke took in a ward.”
Theo spoke smoothly, his face expressionless.
“Upon investigation, that ward turned out to be you. After your arrival, the Abner family sued the Coel family, with whom they had maintained a long-standing cooperative relationship, and exposed corruption in their mines.”
“……”
“During that process, a new mana stone refining formula was developed. And the developer was also you.”
Theo’s golden eyes did not waver even slightly as they fixed on me.
The explanation continued.
“June 7th. From that day onward, when the relics reacted once more, your whereabouts became unclear.”
“…Hic.”
“Upon investigation, it was discovered that you had suffered a life-threatening attack and were confined to a sickbed. There was also a record of a man named Owen coming to the Alchemy Institute to obtain a remedy…”
Theo paused, frowning slightly.
“Is the rumor that he is your mentor true?”
I forgot to answer, shaking my head vigorously to regain my composure.
Somehow, it felt like I was being dragged deeper and deeper into Theo’s pace.
But Theo merely muttered quietly.
“If he was your mentor, he shouldn’t have let you get hurt in the first place.”
Then he exhaled softly.
“…Anyway. After that, you developed Rubarina and Rubawen. With a letter of recommendation from Crown Prince Tian, with whom you have a close relationship, you completed your registration at the Alchemy Institute.”
My mouth felt parched.
Theo had, quite literally, seen straight through everything I had done over the past few months.
“When I investigated the Crown Prince, he, too, was rather strange. A man scorned by the Empire’s people as a discarded crown prince suddenly grasping the political situation of the Eastern Continent—it was puzzling.”
“……”
“Then there were the letters exchanged between you. In that case, isn’t it obvious? A five-year-old acting as though he already knows everything that is about to happen—”
“S‑Stop!”
Unable to listen any longer, I once again clamped my hand over Theo’s mouth.
Theo simply stayed still, his lips pressed against my palm.
“Y‑You even stole the Crown Prince’s letters? Tower Master sir, just who are you?!”
“I am merely the master of the Mage Tower.”
“You’re not the leader of a dark guild or something?!”
“Creating one wouldn’t be a bad idea.”
“Y‑You—!”
“The point is, I was extremely desperate and persistent. When it came to meeting you.”
Theo took out the relic again.
Lasandra’s twin ring still shone with a hazy, dreamlike light.
“There are several ancient documents in the Mage Tower that only I am permitted to read. Among them are records concerning this ring.”
“……”
“Have you ever considered the possibility that regression itself is a type of highly complex magic?”
Meeting his suddenly serious gaze, I hesitated, then nodded.
“Yes.”
“Then do you know the activation condition of the relic as stated in the ancient texts?”
“…What is it?”
“That the wearer must be a target of magic who has previously experienced an explosive flow of mana.”
My lips pressed tightly together.
A target of magic who had experienced an explosive flow of mana.
That description clearly pointed to me, someone who had regressed.
“On June 7th as well, the day the relics reacted, you must have experienced something mysterious.”
After hesitating, I nodded.
I remembered the moment when, just before losing consciousness, light burst from my wound and order itself twisted as if time were flowing backward.
Thanks to that, I had survived Brook’s attack.
“…I did.”
“That is called a remnant.”
