The Path the Girl Chose

It was like a snake coiling around her.

But the snake did not carry the cold of a reptile. If anything, it had the searing heat of a branding iron.

Why, no, no, not this…!

The girl screamed, but the snake refused to loosen its grip.

How long had she been thrashing?

How many times had she tried to resist?

Then, all at once, the snake vanished.

A sliver of relief.

The next instant, her breathing stopped.

Something was pressing down on her throat. Clenching her teeth, she forced her eyes open to see what it was, and found two eyes red as blood.

What those pupils gave off was wrath, hatred, killing intent.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…

She wanted to say it, but the agony stole her words.

I didn't mean to.

I didn't want to kill you.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…

I don't want to die.

Why did such a thought come to her? No, even before don't want to die, what struck her was the simpler emotion of fear.

Scared, scared, scared scared scared…

She ran.

Headlong, without seeing where she was going or what was at her feet, she just kept running.

When she glanced behind her, those bright red eyes were already there, glaring her down.

From the snake, from the red eyes, from the fear… she wanted to flee from all of it. She tried to.

Run, run, run…

"—!!"

When she opened her eyes, the scene before her was familiar.

Books were piled haphazardly all over the room. The light streaming in through the window's curtains made starkly visible just how much dust drifted through the air.

"A dream… I fell asleep, huh."

The girl muttered.

Only then, as though finally relieved, she let out a small breath and pressed a hand to her chest.

Judging by the brightness, dawn had only just broken.

But the place she had fallen asleep was not her bed. It was the chair at her desk.

Stretching her body out wide once to work the stiffness out, the girl sluggishly stood up.

She scratched her head, and a flurry of dandruff scattered down, adding a fresh layer onto the books and research papers strewn about.

She seemed not to care in the slightest, and instead moved to the washstand in the next room over.

When she sent magical power into the faucet, the keseki inside it reacted, drawing up water.

She splashed the water onto her face with her hands, then, without bothering to use a towel, scrubbed it dry with the sleeve of the clothes she was wearing.

The mirror over the washstand was so caked in layers of water stains that it no longer reflected her face.

But to her, that was actually preferable.

A tattered long-sleeved shirt that covered even her hands, and trousers that dragged along the floor.

Her hair, left to grow out untouched, hid most of her face. To an outside observer, she might have looked like a moving lump of fur.

It was all because she hated her own appearance.

In any case, she shuffled back to the room she had been in and put her hand on the handle of a casing.

This casing was a device she had built using space-time magic of her own design; inside, the flow of time was stopped.

More than twenty hours had passed since her last meal, so she went to take some food.

"Ah…"

But the things that should have been food had become a colorful collection of objects: red, green, black. A foul smell spread out, and she hurriedly shut the casing again.

Pinching her nose, she sighed once.

"Another failure…?"

In her memory, it had been working perfectly up through yesterday.

What had gone wrong? Why had it turned out like this?

While she was still pondering, her stomach began to ache with hunger to the point where she could no longer ignore it, and she resumed activity in order to resupply herself with food.

The destination was the chest of drawers… or rather, the heap of cloth piled up in front of it.

The girl stared at the heap for a while, then thrust an arm into the bottom of it and pressed down on the top with her other hand.

One full rotation.

Grabbing the cloth, now a piece of clothing at the very top, she began to change.

Sadly, even her underwear had been buried in the pile of cloth.

Once she had finished changing, she threw on the robe hanging from the pole hanger by the door and unlocked it.

Mercifully, there was no one in the corridor; she let out a small breath at confirming as much.

Where she lived was the magic guild's main headquarters in the Mithledge Kingdom; specifically, a room in its research wing.

The research wing was where graduates of the magic guild's educational institute who had presented exceptional research results, or magicians who had succeeded in the field without going through the institute at all, were invited by the guild to establish their own laboratories.

She was the latter.

She had been invited at fourteen years old. Naturally, she was the youngest resident, and unquestionably a genius.

Crossing from the research wing to the main building, she headed for the cafeteria.

It being early morning, there were few people, but she still spotted students here and there eating their meals.

The girl pulled her hood down low, kept her gaze on the floor, and headed for the counter.

Even so, she could feel the rude stares, and her brow furrowed deeply.

"The usual…"

"…"

The woman behind the counter knitted her brow and returned only a stabbing gaze; she gave no reply.

Eventually, a bag of bread and a basket of side dishes were set on the counter, and the girl took them silently and left the cafeteria.

She did not pay. Room, board, and clothing were all guaranteed. That was one of the conditions she had been offered when she registered with the magic guild.

Sneaking back to her room in the research wing to avoid being seen, she stuffed the side dishes into the bread and gnawed at it.

The bread was so cold and stiff it might have been baked the night before, but she didn't care.

The rock-hard bread could be reheated on the toaster in her room, which used a fire keseki, but the toaster (and the entire kitchen, for that matter) was caked in dust, so she felt no urge to try.

Once she had managed to chew her way through her meal, she hung the robe she had been using as an apron on the hanger, and turned to her desk.

Hypothesis, experimentation, observation, investigation.

Research was the endless repetition of those.

What she would do today was investigate the casing.

The first task was digging out her records to determine how many days the device had been able to stop time.

Then, to figure out why mold had developed at a rate so wildly disproportionate to the elapsed time, she would confirm how much of the food the mold had been covering.

Her field of research was space-time magic.

Time reversal, specifically.

Space magic and space-time magic (collectively termed "ancient magic") were, by default, classified as forbidden arts, but under the magic guild's supervision there existed two recognized users in the world.

She was one of them, and that was the reason this young girl had been welcomed into the magic guild with such exceptional treatment.

The magic guild designated as forbidden any magic that would cause catastrophic damage if misused, and for which no countermeasure (the way water counters fire) had been established. The discoverers and users of such magic were placed under protective supervision as subjects of monitoring and management.

And if they refused, those magics would be sealed by force. That was one of the duties the magic guild, whose creed was the study and refinement of magic, had taken upon itself in order to prevent the seeding of new conflicts.

For her, too, the guild's offer (not only the guarantee of room, board, and clothing, but also permission to peruse the forbidden tomes) had been like a boat sent across the water.

Even knowing that the purpose was monitoring and management.

"This much, I guess…"

Having finished her investigation and analysis, the girl rummaged through her desk drawer to start the experiment.

First drawer, second, third.

No matter how many times she opened them, the item she was looking for, the catalyst, was nowhere to be found.

There were, broadly speaking, two ways to invoke magic.

The first was to chant an incantation and consume mana to invoke the spell.

For most magicians, and for those with no real involvement with magic, this was magic. They studied existing incantations from textbooks and committed them to memory as their form of magical training.

The second was invocation via catalyst.

This method was more complex than the former. One had to channel mana through a catalyst to draw out "the power the catalyst presides over," accurately read the formula inscribed in the magic circle that appeared, and rework it into an incantation to invoke the spell.

Because this method required understanding the source of the catalyst's ability and conducting experiments to draw out that power more efficiently and more powerfully (which in turn required tremendous mana reserves and exquisitely fine control), it had not spread widely among the public.

Of the research into the latter method, one magician of bygone days had written in his book: "The stimulation to one's intellectual curiosity from stepping into the unexplored, and the excitement and sense of accomplishment when one discovers a new magic, these defy description." But as the ages went on, the scope of research grew far too deep and wide, and even among magicians, the majority confined themselves to improving or modifying existing incantations. Those who did research using catalysts had dwindled, until even within the magic guild's main research wing they could be counted on one hand.

Incidentally, there was a third way to invoke magic: to let one's own mana run wild. But this was nothing more than a runaway, and a torrent of formless power put not only others but the user themselves at risk; for magicians, whose internal mana was instinctively regulated, this was an act bordering on impossible.

In any case, without a catalyst, there was no creating a new magic to speak of.

"… Haa."

The girl looked up at the ceiling and exhaled.

At least she hadn't changed back yet, she thought, forcing herself to look on the bright side as she rose from her chair. She swapped her leather shoes for boots, threw on a mantle, and took up her staff (crowned at the tip with a red crystal), completing her preparations.

When she stepped out into the corridor, she felt a pressure that made it hard to breathe.

The source of that pressure was the stares of the people in the corridor.

Reflexively lowering her face and trying to keep walking, she was stopped by a voice.

"Miss Lula."

The girl… Lula stopped and glanced sideways at the speaker.

The one who had called out to her appeared to be the man at the head of a group of students.

A long beard, a wide-brimmed hat showing white hair beneath it: a man who looked exactly the way one imagined a magician. He turned a smile to Lula.

Whether by some quirk of his age, Lula couldn't quite read what emotion the smile contained, but the students around him made no effort to hide the negative feelings in their gazes.

"I was thinking of holding a seminar shortly. Won't you do us the favor of attending?"

"… I'm going out. Can't."

Lula turned to walk away, and that, it seemed, was the last straw for him.

"You'd brush off an invitation from Heronimo-sama!?"

The shouted backup at once rebuked her and laid the students' emotions bare.

(It's not like I'd promised anything…)

There was no call for her to be censured to that degree.

Even so, Lula said nothing and began walking again.

She could hear something behind her, but she pretended not to.

(That's exactly why I hate getting involved with people like them.)

A foolish dark elf. A genius who'd stepped into the unexplored. An arrogant brat trading on her talent to throw her weight around as she pleased.

Jealousy, envy, revulsion, hatred… no matter how many feelings they held toward her, so long as they thought themselves inferior to her they would not raise a hand. They would not say a word.

And yet, the moment they slid in under the wing of someone strong, without having become anyone of consequence themselves, they would borrow another's authority and look down on others without a shred of guilt. They would raise a hand. They would say their piece.

(Hate them… hate them, hate them, hate them, hate them!)

Pulling her hood down deep, Lula kicked against the corridor carpet and hurried outside.

Fortunately, the only catalyst she needed (one she couldn't buy at the guild's commissary) was the chain-like tail of the Corsorb Guest, a giant black dog with serrated claws and horns.

Before heading out to collect it, Lula checked the guild's request board to see if there was a subjugation or collection commission open for the Corsorb Guest.

The Corsorb Guest was a powerful monster, and its sheer speed made it an especially terrible matchup for magicians. So when a magician wanted one subjugated, they had to put in a request through the Guild Association and rely on the cooperation of the mercenary guild.

There were magic-guild members who voluntarily teamed up with mercenaries, but most of the magic guild dismissed them as violent ruffians who enjoyed rough business, looked on their robust physiques with envy-tinged jealousy, and refused to associate with them at all.

Because of that bad blood, magicians who issued subjugation or collection commissions for the Corsorb Guest were almost nonexistent.

And from the mercenary guild's perspective, the materials gained from subjugating a Corsorb Guest were almost identical to those gained from the Bo Guest, a kind of weaker cousin species. On top of that, for what Lula wanted (the chain-like tail), a chain made of metal was simply better in terms of repair and modification. So mercenary-guild members willing to challenge the formidable Corsorb Guest were essentially nonexistent.

Even knowing that, if a subjugation or collection commission were open, or if someone had taken it and they happened to cross paths, things could get troublesome.

Hating that possibility, Lula searched the board two or three times, but no such commission was posted.

(… Good.)

That meant she could hunt without worrying about prying eyes.

Letting out a relieved sigh, Lula left the magic guild behind.

Once out of town, Lula passed through the Opus Plains and entered Riel Gorge.

For a magician as accomplished as her, food, water, and fire were no trouble to procure.

If anything, were it not for her research, she might have considered shutting herself away alone in the mountains.

Once morning came, she undid the wind-barrier and resumed her trek. When her throat was dry, she drank water; when she was hungry, she roasted nuts or the meat of game she'd hunted, and once full, she set off again.

When night came, she set up the wind-barrier and went to sleep, and when morning came, she undid it and walked on.

After cycling through that workmanlike routine until she had climbed up out of the gorge, she pushed into the Riel highland region, where the trees grew short and the reddish-brown earth peeked through in places.

Confirming that she had entered the Corsorb Guest's territory, Lula tightened up, just in case.

"Just in case" because she had been here many times before.

She could deploy the wind-barrier, but she was poor at sustaining a steady supply of mana, so she couldn't keep it up while moving.

With that in mind, she advanced cautiously, holding her staff ready to swing into an intercepting posture at any moment.

While picking her way around the large bird-type monster Misriargreifos and the poison-scattering plant Rielparara, she spotted, in the distance, a Corsorb Guest stretched out on top of a jutting rock.

It would not be a problem if it had spotted her first, but better still to catch it unaware.

"— Seize, ensnare, bind."

Lula spoke as though muttering to herself.

Those words were one of the space magics she had deciphered from the forbidden tomes.

"— This is no punishment. This is no hatred. Merely the fetters wrought for thee —"

Lula reached out a hand and pointed it at the Corsorb Guest.

Target designated. Complete.

"— Laprais Raging!"

The instant the line closed, fist-sized twists of space formed around the Corsorb Guest.

By the time the black hound noticed the anomaly, it was too late; from each of the twists, something extended in every direction and bound its body fast.

Look closely at the distortions in the air, and one might notice they took the shape of chains.

The monster, suddenly restrained, howled, but unable to move, its frustration only mounted.

Knowing the effect of her magic, Lula approached without so much as a wary gesture toward the monster, which was now drooling and baring its fangs.

The monster glared at her. Set into its pupils was nothing but bare hatred and malice.

(… In the end, people and monsters are no different.)

Lula leveled her staff at the monster.

She had taken the trouble of approaching for two reasons: to reduce the change in mana consumption due to distance, and to minimize the margin of error in invocation point judged by sight, so that parts beyond the tail could also be secured in better condition.

That done, all that remained was to slit its throat with wind magic, then bleed it out quickly with water magic.

"—, ngh!?"

Lula, about to begin the chant, was startled when her surroundings suddenly darkened, and reflexively scanned the area.

Then she found it.

A writhing cross-shape circling in the sky.

(A dragon…!?)

Lula hesitated.

Should she intercept it now?

Or should she go through with her original purpose, recover the Corsorb Guest's tail and commit to fleeing?

Greed got the better of her.

That was how she would describe it later, in retrospect.

There was, no doubt, complacency in it too: in her unmatched gift for magic and in the effort she had piled on top of it.

But more than that, what tipped her choice was the dissatisfaction and irritation sparked by the emotions in that monster's eyes a moment ago, something she herself did not realize.

"— Take up your bow."

She raised her staff and lined up her sights with the enemy in the sky.

A fire dragon, yes, but only one of them.

While it was still unaware of her, she would unload everything she had centered on water magic.

Even if she missed, she could use Laprais Raging once it closed.

"— The droplets falling from the tautened lower string are a eulogy to the dead —"

Lula began the chant, and the mana within her body began to activate.

The sound of air bursting.

"Ngh…!!"

Springing upright as if launched, Lula scanned her surroundings.

But there was no threat in sight; only the back of a rabbit fleeing in startled panic from the noise.

"… Haa."

The wind-barrier prevented the air and sound within its range from leaking out, and it also had a function that alerted the caster via a bursting sound if anything intruded.

But that was meant to react to monsters or bandits and the like, not to small animals like rabbits or songbirds.

If the misfire had a cause, Lula analyzed, it would be her own state of mind.

Hunted by the fire dragon and gripped with fear, her overactive instinct for self-defense had unconsciously appended the extra setting: let nothing approach.

Even while making that cool-headed analysis, Lula felt her irritation rise, and she decided to resume moving.

If she stayed here, there was no guarantee that another monster, drawn by the earlier sound, wouldn't show up.

"Ngh…!"

The moment she stood, a sharp pain shot through her ankle, and an unpleasant chill ran down her body.

It seemed she had twisted her ankle while running.

(… If I'd only known, I would have studied recovery magic too…)

That was hindsight, plain and simple.

Deciding it did her no good to dwell on it now, Lula started walking, using her staff to brace herself.

The battle with the fire dragon had been completely on her terms.

She had not managed to destroy its wings, but the fire dragon was bleeding from various places, and amid its anger there had been something like fear directed at her.

But abruptly, her footing had wavered.

She had wondered if it was some kind of spell, but the moment passed quickly, and she'd written it off as imagination.

It had not been imagination.

Malnutrition from her unbalanced eating.

A journey piled on top of her low stamina.

Mental exhaustion that had been accumulating on top of all that.

Intermittently, Lula began losing control of her body.

And at the worst possible moment, a second fire dragon had appeared.

In the end, she had failed to get the tail she'd been after, but escaping with all five limbs intact was fortune enough.

So now, she walked through the forest, heading back to Mithledge.

If she got out of the forest, there was a highway; turn off it, and there was a village close by.

If she reached the highway, she might meet traveling merchants or guild members.

If she reached the village, even if she couldn't have her leg properly healed, there were inns.

But those obvious options weren't open to her.

She was a dark elf, a reviled race.

Who would be an enemy, who would betray her, who would try to take her life: there was no telling.

That was the reality of this world, as the girl who had left home had come to learn.

In that respect, the magic guild was good.

She knew they wouldn't lay a hand on her while she still had value to them.

But Lula understood: the magic guild was not a place where she could rest easy.

It was good enough.

Whatever she had to use, she had a goal she wanted to achieve.

(… There it is.)

It was a castle like a crystal, rising from the soaring Reju Range: the home of kings.

The royal capital of the Mithledge Kingdom, which hosted the magic guild and gathered within itself the finest of magical art.

Lula decided that, rather than resting, she would first put in a request at the magic guild.

The request, of course, was for the collection of a Corsorb Guest's tail.

For Lula now, the top priority was acquiring recovery magic, and the most efficient thing she could do was let someone else fetch the tail while she focused on that.

If she filed it through the magic guild rather than under her own name, the guild that protected her would naturally be more careful about the details, so no one could pull a clumsy stunt on her just because she was a dark elf.

Recovery magic, however, was a different story.

Long ago, Lula had once visited a Lottévester Faith chapel seeking treatment for an injury.

Guild Association branches and headquarters also offered treatment, but only to those affiliated with a guild, and at the time she had not yet been old enough to enlist.

There were exceptions for those below the age limit, but at the level she had been at, she would not have qualified.

The chapel, by contrast, would have its faithful apply recovery magic so long as one paid in the form of a donation. Having heard as much, Lula had visited in desperation, like a drowning person clutching at straws.

But what awaited her there was not recovery magic. It was offensive magic.

Long ago, it was said, dark elves had, in their unrestrained thirst for knowledge, once attacked the world trees.

For the Lottévester Faith, which revered the world trees, that was nothing less than the gravest taboo.

Lula had feared she would be treated the same way as ever, but the faithful greeted her with such open smiles that she relaxed.

Then, claiming he was about to cast the treatment, the faithful began chanting an attack spell.

That a man who had just been smiling could expose a malice, a killing intent, exceeding anything she had been on the receiving end of before, terrified Lula.

A person could hide such horrible things behind a smile.

That fact crushed her.

She had spent her whole life on the receiving end of open hostility and bare killing intent, but learning of this dreadful possibility turned this world into a hell where she could trust no one.

That particular man had apparently underestimated her by her looks; the thought of what might have happened if his attack spell had been one she didn't know still made her shudder.

She had not received another's treatment since.

She had also considered acquiring [Heal] right after that, but at the time she could not master it. By good fortune (or bad), she had never since taken an injury that absolutely required treatment, and so things had stood until now.

It was proof of how exceptional her talent and effort were, and yet this time those very same things had backfired on her.

Enduring the searing pain and chill, she filed her request at the guild reception desk and went to the library to borrow a textbook on recovery magic.

From there she went to the cafeteria to secure food, then once more shut herself up in her room.

She did spare a moment's regret for the fact that her bed was buried under books and that she really ought to wash off the mud and sweat first, but she immediately cut the thought off as too much trouble.

Enduring the pain in her leg, she sat down at the chair, and turned the cover of the book.

Two days were nearly up.

Lula still had not mastered recovery magic, and to her that was a complete miscalculation.

It seemed she had no aptitude whatsoever for recovery magic.

Since her chants (which could command all four attributes) got no response, that was the only conclusion.

The moment she resigned herself to that, a wave of dizziness and nausea broke over her like a dam giving way, and she collapsed.

Pushing herself to study while injured had been the wrong call, apparently.

Lula passed out, slumped forward over her desk.

A snake closed in.

No matter how many times she experienced it, she could never get used to it, never escape from it. That suffering attacked Lula again.

I'm sorry.

She screamed.

I'm sorry, Father.

Face soaked with tears and pain, she pleaded for forgiveness like one supplicating.

I'm sorry, Mother.

Even so, the suffering bearing down on her would not stop.

I'll never forgive you, not till you're dead.

True to those words, the pressure mounted, until Lula could not even breathe…

And then, abruptly, it eased.

A song.

Yes, a song.

A faintly audible singing voice wrapped Lula like light.

Gently, protectively.

It felt nostalgic.

A voice she could feel at ease in.

A space where the heart could be calm. As though she were being held by her mother.

"M-mother…?"

In Lula's blurry vision, a figure appeared.

The singing stopped, and the figure turned.

That person had long ears, just like her mother.

Have you forgiven me?

A hair's breadth before the thought could become a word, she noticed.

The figure in her sight did, indeed, have ears as long as her mother's.

But there was one definitive difference from her mother.

White skin.

A being with the same ears as her mother, and white skin.

That meant an elf, or a half-elf. No, the length of those ears was not the in-between length of a half-elf's.

In other words, an elf. An enemy.

"Ngh— those who would do me harm—"

The instant she made that judgment, Lula sprang up and began to chant.

But,

"All right, stop."

"Owh."

A flick to her forehead, and the chant was cut off.

There was no pain; it had felt like being nudged by a lump of silk, and yet she hadn't seen the motion at all.

Surprise dulled her thinking, and Lula just stared blankly at the person in front of her.

White skin, hair like glowing gold. Eyes large and as deep blue as the sea, with a pull that made one feel one might be drawn in.

An enemy.

She was supposed to think that, yet she found herself transfixed by the beauty.

"Glad to see you're feeling better, but stay still a little longer."

So saying, the girl (who looked barely older than Lula herself) moved away.

As Lula's eyes followed her, she felt a strange dissonance.

The air around her was one she knew, and yet she felt as though she were in a different place entirely.

A moment later, she realized the reason.

The bedroom, which had been buried under so much scattered stuff that there was no place to stand and was coated in dust, had been impeccably tidied into a place fit for human habitation.

(Flooring… I haven't seen that in a while.)

The instant she had that thought, she shook her head hard to refocus.

Without making a sound, Lula slid off the bed and gripped the staff that had been propped beside it.

Keeping her distance from the kitchen and washstand area where the other girl had gone, she moved into the corner of the bedroom.

If she kept her distance, she could intercept the enemy. That was the reasoning behind her movement.

But,

"You don't have to be that wary. I'm not going to do anything."

"!?"

The door should have been shut, but the voice came through it as if there were nothing in the way.

Looking around the room, she saw no special tools or any kind of magic in operation.

Bewildered and confused, Lula gave a small jerk at the sound of the door opening; understandable, given the circumstances.

"Sorry to keep you. Here, sit down."

In the girl's hands was a tray bearing dishes of food.

Unable to process the situation, Lula blinked, then, as if only now noticing, realized that the scent of food had spread through the room.

Her field of vision had widened enough that she had a vague sense of what the girl was doing, but even so she looked back and forth between the food and the girl and refused to budge from her corner.

The girl must have decided that this was getting nowhere.

A wry smile on her face, the elven girl set the tray on top of a pile of books and reached for the food.

She tore off a piece of the bread and put it in her mouth, picked at the vegetable salad, scooped up a spoonful of soup and swallowed.

Having done that, she smiled at Lula.

"See? No poison or anything."

It was, true enough, one of the things she had been wary of, but if the goal had been to kill her, she would never have woken up in the first place.

Lula had at least that much composure restored, but her refusal to lower her guard was for a more fundamental reason.

"… Who?"

Aah, the elven girl nodded as if convinced, and looked briefly thoughtful.

But she quickly turned to Lula again, and bowed.

"I'm Ilya. I came to ask you about something."

That was how the dark elf girl Lula and the elf girl Ilya met.

What had drawn Ilya's attention to that particular commission was the rarity of the material it called for.

The collection target: the tail of a Corsorb Guest.

For ease of handling and repair, a chain made of metal was simply superior to the tail itself. In terms of strength and mana-permeability, the tail of the Bo Guest (a closely related species) was more useful, and the Bo Guest's habitat was on the same continent. So she found it strange that someone would single out the Corsorb Guest specifically.

"Excuse me."

"Y-yes!"

When she called out to the Guild Association branch receptionist near the bulletin board, a girl who couldn't be much older than Ilya herself jumped.

Ignoring that reaction, Ilya picked up the commission in question and showed its contents to the receptionist.

"The one who put up this commission… could you tell me who it was?"

"O-one moment plee—"

"Ah, no rush～"

Waving her hand to show that she wasn't in a hurry, Ilya watched as the girl turned bright red and retreated into the back office.

Thanks to her barrier, there was no danger of her curse-like charming ability indiscriminately ensnaring anyone nearby.

But she belonged to a race (the elves) that hardly ever showed itself in public, to the point of being considered all but legendary, and the elves as a whole had such beautiful features that she could not help but draw eyes.

Ilya was just about to put the mask resting on top of her head over her face to escape from the cloying surrounding stares when the receptionist returned.

"S-sorry to keep you waiting…"

Looking visibly downcast, the girl peeked up at Ilya from beneath her bowed head.

The way she peered up timidly was like a small animal afraid of being hurt; Ilya found it adorable, but felt sorry too.

"Um… I was able to confirm that the magic guild of the Mithledge Kingdom is the one who put up this commission, but…"

"Thank you. That alone is enough for me."

So saying, Ilya gave her the brightest smile she could manage.

The receptionist's clouded expression brightened in an instant, then she immediately turned bright red and dropped her gaze again.

A treat for the eyes, but if this kept up it wouldn't be good for the girl.

So Ilya decided, for the time being, to take the commission.

"I'd like to register for this commission."

"Y-yes!"

The girl's fumbling movements clearly marked her as a newcomer, but Ilya only found that endearing, not unpleasant.

If anything, it would be harder for the girl with someone watching, so Ilya intentionally averted her face and took the moment to think about the commission.

The commission had only just been posted.

It had been pinned up right next to Ilya as she was looking at the board, which was how she had spotted it. So there was no question about that.

The contents of any newly created commission were transmitted (via the magical power of the world tree, whose roots spanned the globe) to all Guild Association headquarters and branches within a day of creation. So the gap between creation and posting was minimal, meaning this commission had been drafted by the magic guild only moments before.

Incidentally, only the upper executives of the Guild Association's main headquarters and the top brass of each guild knew this network used the world tree. If that fact became public, it was clear that some nation would demand the technology and the Faith would denounce the act as desecration of the world tree. So the secrecy was only natural.

(The magic guild, huh.)

It was not in itself unusual for the magic guild to issue commissions.

To secure large quantities of materials, or to harvest specific parts of a powerful monster of disaster classification, the guild would sometimes file commissions under its own name in order to keep indiscriminate hunting from spoiling the desired part by raising its priority.

But the contents of this commission did not sit right with her.

For one, the call for applicants was extended even this far away from the magic guild's main headquarters in Mithledge. And the Corsorb Guest's tail was, to her knowledge, not normally used as a magical catalyst.

(… Or… knowing what the tail does, are they trying to use that effect somehow?)

The Corsorb Guest's tail had the effect of halting change in whatever it captured.

It was a trait originally evolved to let them preserve food in regions where prey was scarce, but rephrased from first principles, it amounted to a localized stopping of time.

The stopping of time.

That was one of the concepts of space-time magic.

In this world, where concepts of time outside past, present, and future were poorly developed, simply knowing the tail's effect would not lead anyone to space-time magic.

But for the magic guild, it wasn't out of the question.

(If it's a magic-guild researcher who studies space-time magic, they might have that too.)

Thinking so, Ilya decided that for the delivery report at the commission's completion, rather than the nearest guild branch, she would head directly to the magic guild in Mithledge.

If she went to the main headquarters, she could find out more about whoever had filed the commission.

On top of that, she had been wanting to visit the magic guild's main headquarters anyway, so it killed two birds with one stone.

Just as she settled on a tentative plan, the registration completed.

"S-sorry for the wait! Here are your commission slip and registration card back!"

"Thank you."

"Th-there's a deadline set, so please be careful! Best of fortune to you!"

Waving back at the receptionist, who bowed hard enough to nearly bash her head on the counter, Ilya left the branch.

She was currently in a small republic called Panka. Despite its small size, the country had succeeded as a national policy in specializing in the technology of inscribing formulas onto keseki to grant them machine-like functionality, and the town's liveliness alone radiated a sense of hope.

But the technology Ilya was looking for was not here.

Perhaps because of that, leaving town stirred no feeling in her.

"— Aerial Verty."

The moment she passed through the gate, she invoked her flight magic.

Leaving anyone obviously tailing her, or any skilled trackers, in the dust, Ilya climbed to an altitude in the blink of an eye where the town below shrank to smaller than her fist.

"Come, Akagane."

When she chanted his mark and called his name, an enormous magic circle materialized in midair, forming a cylinder.

Then, as though projecting an image, a black hawk with a crimson mane appeared.

"You called, Ojou?"

"Yeah. I'd like a ride for a long-distance trip."

"By all means."

The hawk, which had been beating its wings to hover, banked around and slipped beneath Ilya's feet.

His speed of action was unchanged from usual, and Ilya, missing her chance to correct his "Ojou" address, exhaled a wry sigh.

The moment she straddled his thick neck, the giant hawk surged still higher.

"To where?"

"Just a moment."

Ilya called the world map up from memory and pinpointed the Corsorb Guest's habitat: the Riel highland region.

Once the exact location and bearing were locked in, she pressed her small forehead to Akagane's neck.

"Did that come through?"

"As instructed."

The instant he said it, Akagane beat his wings and was already accelerating.

There was no damage to Ilya, but a shock akin to inertia communicated to her told her that the speed was anything but ordinary.

In fact, looking down, the landscape flowed past like a raging river.

The wind whipping Ilya's hair (wind that should have been redirected by Akagane's aerodynamic control) told her plainly that he was pushing well beyond his usual.

(Hmm… he seems in a good mood.)

Losing yet another chance to correct the title, Ilya gave a wry smile.

For a while, she enjoyed the rushing wind from Akagane's neck, but as she ran the math on travel time she decided to grab a nap, and lay down across his great back.

Akagane's fur was short, but his crimson mane alone was over a meter long.

What was more, it was as soft as the finest blanket, and the slight warmth from its fire mana made her drowsy.

Buried in his mane, savoring the fluffy texture, Ilya was sleeping soundly before she knew it.

"— ou."

A voice called, and Ilya woke from a deep sleep.

"We will arrive shortly, Ojou."

"Mm, thank you. And, sorry, I couldn't keep you company much."

"… So long as you ride my back from time to time, that is enough for me."

And there Akagane's words trailed off.

Ilya knew the reason too.

In fact, it was because she had noticed first that Akagane (bound to her by their master-servant contract) had been able to pick up on it as well.

(Fire dragons… two of them.)

Dragons were fundamentally territorial creatures; even if they had no business with her party, the chances of them quietly overlooking trespassers were low.

Ilya's prediction proved correct.

One of the two fire dragons took flight, and its partner on the ground exhaled an enormous, fire-clad mass.

Akagane easily dodged the giant fireball, but the other dragon, which had flown in as if anticipating the maneuver, breathed flame from its mouth.

This time, it was not a fireball but a breath that scattered small fireballs across a wide area like a shower.

Akagane accelerated and pulled clear of the buckshot range early.

"Akagane, keep that one busy."

"As you command!"

The instant she spoke, Ilya leapt from Akagane's back, removing the restrictions on him.

Akagane's specialty was movement and speed, and although his attribute was fire (the same as the fire dragon's), he didn't have the firepower to break the dragon's tough scales even with his overall stats above its.

But for aerial harassment and disruption, there was no familiar she trusted more.

That was why her target was the other dragon: the one with wounds visible across its body, even now just about to launch into the air from the ground.

Skipping the trouble of checking that no people were nearby, Ilya immediately generated the [Fool's Mask] that blocked her head-derived charm effect, hid her face with it, and released her barrier.

Then, invoking her flight magic Aerial Verty, she accelerated still further toward the ground.

"Out of my way!"

A palm-strike, not a fist, slammed down, and the fire dragon, which had barely started to float into the air, was literally pinned to the ground.

Landing inside the cloud of dust kicked up by the colossal impact, Ilya began chanting through the still-unclearing haze.

"— Seize, the resentment that clings unto him. Bind, the empty waste of the dead that sleeps within yon land."

A distortion rippled across the ground.

The distortion soon began to whirl in overlapping circles, and a chaotic black of all the colors mixed together began spreading from the center of the distortion to invade its surroundings.

Akagane, sensing the invocation of magic he should not have been able to see through the still-hanging dust, glided just above the ground.

The wind he stirred up sent the dust flying, and Ilya's blue eyes caught the red dragon dancing through the sky.

"— Gray La Praysnir!"

By the time the fire dragon noticed the abnormal black points on the ground, it was too late. Tendrils extended from the distortions and bound its limbs, its wings, its mouth. Curiously enough, it was the higher-tier space magic to Lula's Laprais Raging, which the dark elf had used in this same area.

With its mana and physical strength sealed alike, the fire dragon was dragged down by the tendrils and, helpless, crashed into the earth.

A mass five times that of a grown man slamming into the ground was no small impact.

Unable to dampen the blow, the fire dragon took it square on and was knocked unconscious. From first contact to subdued, two fire dragons had been laid out in mere seconds.

"… Honestly."

"Would you not like to finish them off?"

"No, that's fine. It's their fault for attacking without listening to a word. If they die from it, they were just unlucky."

Stroking Akagane's mane as a thank-you, she answered while he landed beside her.

Once Ilya had thrown her barrier back over herself and removed the mask, Akagane crouched so she could mount easily.

With Ilya on his back, Akagane took flight again.

Flying low, they searched for a Corsorb Guest.

"It'd be over in one shot if I could use [Detection], but…"

To distract herself from how unfit she felt, Ilya clung to Akagane's neck and rubbed her cheek against him.

"As high as we are now, there will yet be plenty of those vile bugs. Take care not to push yourself."

"I knooow…"

If she used [Detection], she would perceive everything from monsters like Corsorb Guests to small living things great and small, and that would include the insects she viscerally hated.

Just thinking about it sent her clinging to the fluff of his mane for healing; the thought of actually setting eyes on them was unspeakable.

She understood that herself, but the tone of her familiar (who should have been comforting her) somehow sounded a little entertained.

Faintly annoyed, Ilya buried her face deeper into the mane and savored the fluffy texture.

"Ojou, look below."

Reluctantly shifting her gaze to the ground, Ilya spotted a black dog-like monster snarling threateningly up at Akagane.

Its horns were distinctive too, but what caught her eye was its chain-shaped tail.

Ilya summoned a slender, conical lance and gripped it in her left hand.

"Akagane, please."

"As you command."

At Ilya's word, Akagane climbed.

He drew a vertical loop, and dove.

Toward the dog monster, of course.

The moment Akagane's descent reached top speed, Ilya pushed off from his back and Akagane pulled up just before hitting the ground.

Ilya, holding her lance like a missile launched from a fighter jet, slammed into the Corsorb Guest. Its body was crushed like a popped tomato, and it died.

Ilya, by contrast, calmly stood, and the lance in her hand dissipated.

To Akagane (the divine beast known as Akōtenkyū) humans were, by default, no different from any other living creatures: faceless, indistinguishable rabble.

Yet looking on the figure of Ilya standing in a ghastly sea of blood, his pupils held a rapt, intoxicated light.

To have her on his back, to be relied upon by her… having tasted that joy, he no longer felt any appeal at all in simply lording over other creatures as a divine beast.

"All right, that's that."

Having recovered the tail, Ilya set off on foot for the royal capital of Mithledge, where the magic guild's main headquarters was.

Akagane, on the receiving end of her gaze, snuggled up to her happily.

When she reached the royal capital, Ilya browsed the shops lining the main street without stopping, on her way to the magic guild's main headquarters.

Of course, she could not bring the divine beast Akagane with her; she had dismissed him at a distance the capital's patrols would not pick up on.

Her familiar had shown obvious dejection at being sent home, but stroking him while promising to call him again finally restored him, and he had returned through the magic circle.

(Was he always this needy…?)

Even as she wondered, she could not help finding it endearing.

She had no concrete plan for when next she would summon him, but she resolved to do so without fail.

Maybe I should call my other familiars too, she thought, and that left her vaguely conflicted, but since Ilya had contracted with her familiars out of affection rather than self-interest, she could not bring herself to consider it a chore.

She boarded the lift marked "to the magic guild," which carried her up the mountainside. Crystal-like architecture came into view; as she watched it take in the light source and shimmer in rainbow colors, the voice announcing the end of the line accompanied the stop, and through the opening doors she saw an especially large facility: the magic guild's main headquarters.

If the royal castle resembled a luxurious, fairytale-like edifice more than a fortress, then this facility, the magic guild's main headquarters, had the bare, solid construction of a true stronghold.

The closed-off atmosphere fit a magic guild that was conservative about disclosing its technology.

With that thought, Ilya kept walking.

Inside the magic guild, in addition to commission-related reception counters, there were also counters for using its functions as a main headquarters.

The commission-related counters Ilya was headed for were three.

Male, male, female.

Without hesitation, Ilya joined the line for the female receptionist.

"Excuse me, I'd like to report a completed commission."

"… Very well. If you have your registration card and the collected goods, please present them."

The receptionist's manner was hardly cordial, perhaps because Ilya looked so young, but she clearly handled this routinely.

She had, one might say, the air of a veteran shop clerk who'd been at it long enough to know exactly where she could cut a corner.

"Commission completion confirmed."

After this they would move on to payment, but Ilya broke in.

"I'd like to deliver this directly to the one who issued the commission. May I get permission for that?"

"… One moment, please."

After a confused pause, the receptionist quickly regained her composure and went into the back office to confirm.

With time on her hands, Ilya's attention naturally turned to her surroundings.

She had grown used to feeling stares, but of course she did not neglect to vary her response depending on the emotion behind them.

Curiosity, lust, friendliness… whatever the desire layered into them, so long as the gaze was approving, Ilya let it slide. But if it was malice or hostility, she did not hesitate to remove the threat. The current stares, however, gave her a strange sense of dissonance that fit neither.

(… Something feels off.)

It was definitely not malice or hostility, but neither was it simple admiration.

It was closest to the jealousy that the nobility (who poured their whole effort into preserving their beauty and finery) had once leveled at her.

But it wasn't that obsessive, and it wasn't that domineering.

She had been at a loss to interpret it, but the hint came from the very mouths of those staring.

"(… An elf, isn't it?)"

"(Maybe she came looking for that Lula girl…)"

"(Dark elf or elf, who's stronger?)"

"(Either way's fine by me. Just don't let them duke it out here.)"

Ah, Ilya understood.

The jealousy in the gazes wasn't directed at her. It was directed at this dark elf "Lula" they spoke of.

She tried to gather more by listening to the surrounding chatter, but before anything useful came of it, the receptionist returned.

"Sorry to keep you waiting. I'm afraid the receipt of materials will be handled by our office, so…"

"I don't mind it being a dark elf."

Cut off mid-sentence, the receptionist froze.

Gauging the tension around her, Ilya was now certain her guess had been right.

That said, the rift between elves and dark elves was hardly shallow, and even Ilya wasn't naive enough to think a verbal promise would smooth things over.

"If it would help, I'd even be willing to form a Geas binding that I won't lay a hand on her from my side."

"B-but, that would put you in a difficult position, wouldn't it…?"

Whether the receptionist's concern was for Ilya's position as an elf or for what might happen if she were attacked, Ilya couldn't tell.

Couldn't tell, but Ilya had cast off her standing as an elf entirely, and she had a barrier that admitted absolutely no attacks, so either concern was groundless.

But explaining that in a way someone else could accept was another matter.

(What to do…)

Ilya had moved to deliver the materials in person specifically because she wanted a smooth meeting with the client. If refused here, she'd just change tactics and search the facility for someone who would, on her own, stand out as a dark elf.

It shouldn't take long.

Just as she was thinking this, unexpected help arrived.

"Direct delivery is permitted."

She turned toward the voice and saw a young man emerging from the door behind the counter.

The receptionist gawked, then scurried over to him.

"D-Director!? But the section chief said—"

"I'll take responsibility. And of course, we won't impose a Geas on you."

The young man (addressed as Director) kept his gentle smile and turned his face toward Ilya.

But his eyes were not open.

Instead, several small entities danced around him in flight, looking this way and that, occasionally brushing against him.

"If you don't mind, I can guide you to the issuer of the commission myself."

"That's very kind of you. May I take you up on it?"

"Of course. This way, please."

Leaving the surrounding confusion behind, the young man and Ilya walked deeper into the magic guild.

Mid-stride down a corridor where they were alone, the young man stopped and turned around to face Ilya.

"My introductions are late. I'm Samuel Estebe, the magic guild's Director of Education."

"I'm called Ilya. At present I make my living as an adventurer."

Samuel showed a faint confusion at Ilya's reply.

But he soon returned to his usual gentle smile and resumed walking.

Tilting his face toward Ilya, who followed him obediently, Samuel spoke as one might to fill the silence of a walk.

"You don't doubt my word."

There was no reproach in his voice.

But unilateral trust could also be unsettling, Ilya knew, and so she chose to answer his question honestly.

"You seem to be someone the spirits are fond of."

Unless one had considerable aptitude, one could not see spirits.

Seeing spirits was harder than merely using spirit arts, but Samuel showed no surprise at her answer.

If anything, she was the one surprised that spirits flocked around him so much.

"You can see them too."

"Yes."

Samuel laughed quietly and raised a hand to the light, and the orbs of light (the spirits) danced about it.

They looked to be appealing to him, and Samuel mixed something a little bitter into his gentle smile.

"These children are excited too, but… they seem to be hesitating over whether it's all right to touch you."

That's a little off, Ilya thought, smiling wryly to herself.

"It seems they've been given a strict order not to touch me."

"… May I ask by whom?"

To Samuel's perplexity and stifled excitement, Ilya answered with another wry smile.

"A great spirit."

"… I see."

The spirits hovering around Samuel were, when ordered by a superior being like a great spirit, much like small children obeying a parent: they could not disobey.

While Samuel was reconciling himself to the spirits' reaction, he was also wondering what kind of person this girl Ilya was.

A contractor of a great spirit.

The phrase came to mind at once, but he sensed no spirit presence whatsoever about her.

"It's a little hard to bear, being treated like something fragile."

The moment Ilya said it, the spirits hovering around Samuel rushed to her side.

She'd given them a hook.

The spirits flitted around her busily as though to say so, and Ilya could not help but break into a smile.

The lumps of light that had been only orbs gradually condensed into the silhouettes of little pinky-finger-sized children.

The spirits themselves seemed surprised at the change, and clung to her shoulders reluctantly as if they couldn't bear to leave, exchanging words with her.

"We're sorry we broke our promise."

"Looks like the goddess-sama's power is too much for us after all."

"But meeting you makes us so happy!"

"We all love you, goddess-sama!"

"So… please don't be sad?"

The way they slurred over their words made them even more endearing, and a smile (not a polite one) spread across Ilya's face.

"Thank you. I love you too."

The light enveloping the spirits grew brighter and they returned to Samuel.

With a little wistfulness, Ilya understood why the great spirit had forbidden the spirits from coming into contact with her.

For spirits, who instinctively shunned distortions in nature, even a brief contact (the kind that would let a primordial spirit evolve into a low-rank spirit) would be hard to accept.

Even so, that they still showed her affection meant she had no real complaint about being unable to touch them.

Lost in thoughts about the spirits, Ilya glanced over at Samuel and noticed he was looking at her in surprise.

"You can speak the spirits' language…"

"Yes, well."

"And… the spirits' power seems to have grown. Did you do that too? … No, forgive me. Forget I asked."

He realized he had pried too far, and that it was indelicate.

Samuel withdrew the question himself.

Ilya gave him a soft, wry smile. As a rule, Ilya tried not to associate with men, but with one as gentlemanly as him, she was willing to make an exception.

And because she'd understood from the start that he was the sort of person spirits would love, she had been willing to accept his offer without hesitation.

After they began walking again, they were silent for a while, but as they crossed onto an open walkway connecting two buildings Samuel spoke up.

"I have no intention of doubting the words of someone the spirits favor."

That whole scene at the counter had begun when the spirits, more excited than he'd ever seen them, had led him there.

But the one the spirits had taken interest in was not Ilya alone.

The dark elf girl, Lula, too.

Unlike fairies, who shared their whimsical disposition, dark elves were not on good terms with spirits because of the influence of shadow elements. Yet when he'd met Lula on an inspection visit, for whatever reason his spirits had paid her close attention.

At first Samuel had assumed they were afraid, but once he realized they were drifting around her as if to make their presence known, he'd appealed to the guild's department heads and proposed taking her into protective custody at the magic guild.

Monitoring and management. The reason he'd given her, on the surface, was so she could make the best use of her abilities.

The magic guild had no real objection, and by clearly placing responsibility on Samuel as initiator, his proposal had been on track to be accepted.

When they met on moving day, Samuel had been struck by Lula's distorted state all over again.

The lifeless air about her, the lifeless words.

For Samuel, who could not see, the atmosphere wafting from her was close to that of a corpse, not the air a child should ever wear.

"She… Lula is a difficult child. Only if you can. Please save that child."

If two people the spirits had taken interest in were involved, perhaps something would come of it.

Samuel bowed his head with that thought, and Ilya answered without changing expression.

"I'm not the sort of person who does things for someone else's sake."

The voice was firm, and Samuel sensed that this was a part of her she did not want touched.

There was no point in pressing. As Samuel was about to give up, Ilya did not stop there.

"I just do what I want to do."

Ilya herself meant no more than that by it.

But to Samuel, it sounded only as: "I'll do what I can. Even if something works out, it's nothing to do with me."

A tsundere. A beautiful elven tsundere, though it was a misunderstanding.

"… That is fine with me."

His renewed bow held no ulterior meaning.

But Ilya could tell from the tone of his voice that he was hoping, and in her chest she sighed, weighted by the guilt of being about to betray that hope.

He guided her to a room in a building marked Research Wing.

"It's here."

At those words, Ilya's expression scrunched up.

From the corridor there was no obvious difference from the other doors, but the foul smell wafting through brought a deep crease between her brows.

"I would like to accompany you, but she won't have it. Please excuse me here… I leave it to you."

"… Yes."

Surely "the smell makes me not want to enter" was not, in his case, a possible reason.

Accepting his withdrawal without question, Ilya found herself privately leaning toward wanting to flee, too.

But she had a purpose here beyond delivering the materials.

Bracing herself, Ilya knocked on the door.

"…?"

No response.

She knocked again, this time calling out, and still got nothing.

[Presence Inference] told her someone was inside, so they were either asleep or ignoring her.

When she tried the doorknob on a hunch, she found, alarmingly, that it was not even locked.

Pushing the door open just a crack, she muttered "I'm sorry" and peeked inside.

"!?"

And Ilya was at a loss for words.

The interior's catastrophic mess could only be described as gruesome, and one word flashed through her mind.

(Burglary…!?)

Slowly opening the door, Ilya slipped silently inside.

By some small mercy, the foul smell had reached such intensity that her barrier had registered it as something to be nullified, and Ilya could ignore the stench.

The human presence might be the burglar still on the premises. If so, they were either lying in wait or had not noticed her entry. Given the lack of response, it was likely the latter.

With that in mind, suppressing her own presence, Ilya drew nearer to the other presence in the room, until…

"… A fur ball?"

She had spotted a gray mass piled atop the desk.

It was an unmistakable fierce battle.

She had lost count of how many times the sheer stubbornness and toughness of it had made her consider just burning it all out with magic.

How many weapons had she wasted?

How long had the two sides faced off?

Finally, fed up, she let out an angry yell.

"At this point this isn't mold anymore, it's some kind of monster!"

She hurled the weapon she had generated (a toothbrush) in frustration, but it only let out a sharp clack that echoed in the bathroom, with no effect at all on the mold.

"I've got my own ideas, you know…!"

Ilya put on an alluring smile and began to chant.

What she invoked was not an offensive spell that would destroy the room along with the mold, but a localized time reversal that would erase the mold itself as though it had never been.

With the invocation of space-time magic, the tiles regained the sheen of when they were new, and the grout filling the gaps reverted to its original pure white.

"Ahahaha! That's the punishment for crossing me, mold!"

Ilya, in an oddly heightened mood, cackled into the tile grout.

Coming back to her senses, she blushed and left the bathroom, looking around the now-tidied room and nodding with satisfaction.

"For now, this'll do."

Garbage and her recent dark history alike had been incinerated without a trace, and all the clothing had been washed.

Only the books were beyond easy disposal. She had sorted them by content and split the heaps, but there were so many they cropped up like a series of peaks rising from the mist throughout the room, like the magnificent sea of stone columns at Huangshan.

She had finished cleaning the walls and the area around the windows, too, so fresh air now circulated through the room with its windows thrown open, and the foul smell was much subdued.

The kitchen, mercifully, had hardly been used, so there had been no greasy buildup or food residue breeding bugs.

Noticing it had gotten cool, Ilya headed to the bedroom and closed the window beside the bed.

Sleeping in the now-clean bed, freshly washed by laundry and cleaning, was the gray fur ball… or rather, the dark elf girl.

Her hair, left to grow out, had no luster and was unkempt; perhaps from poor nutrition, her brown skin looked sallow, and was dry and rough.

When Ilya had found her, she had been in critical condition from compounded fractures and exhaustion, but most of that had been resolved by Ilya's recovery magic.

(Recovery magic, huh…)

Ilya thought back to the books spread across the desk.

Their contents had been on the chants and effects of recovery magic, and the like, but as her [God's Eyes] had told her, the girl sleeping like the dead had next to no aptitude whatsoever.

To start learning recovery magic only after taking an injury… frankly, that was abnormal.

This girl, whose abilities for offensive magic were so over-specialized to compensate for her total lack of aptitude in recovery magic, might until now have managed never to take a serious wound.

If she had ever been injured, well, being a dark elf, it might have been hard to get a chapel to treat her, but for a basic patch-up the guild ought to have provided treatment. Even so, there was no sign of any such treatment having been performed on her.

That child… Lula is a difficult child.

Ilya was thinking of Samuel's words.

(I thought saying that about her was a bit much… but yeah, she's clearly been through a lot…)

When she stroked her head, the coarse hair caught her fingers, beyond combing.

It must have been miserable to deal with; the only reason Ilya could think of for not cutting it was to hide her looks.

"… Haa."

Ilya sighed at the welling discomfort.

She couldn't understand the people who would saddle a young girl with such a heavy burden just because she happened to be a dark elf, or whatever.

Ilya wasn't much older than Lula either, but with her memories from before reincarnation she was mentally well into adulthood. So she couldn't help looking at Lula not as a peer.

In any case, deciding that being indignant did her no good, Ilya decided to head out into town for a while.

(There's no fixing nutrition with magic, after all.)

After running her errands and cooking, Ilya folded the laundry one piece at a time to put in the chest of drawers.

The clothes (probably gifts) were made of decent fabric, and thinking of the work that had gone into them, she found herself folding carefully without meaning to.

While she was working away in silence, she began to hum to herself, until she heard the rustle of cloth from the bed.

She turned, stood, and went to the bedside. The girl was slowly opening her eyes.

"M-mother…?"

Their eyes met, and after a moment of silence,

"Ngh— those who would do me harm—"

The girl sprang up and began chanting.

"All right, stop."

"Owh."

A flick from Ilya, and her chant cut off as the girl fell back onto the bed.

Eyes wide in surprise, the girl blinked rapidly and seemed bewildered at the sight of Ilya.

The way she immediately judged Ilya as an enemy spoke to strong vigilance. But considering she had been careless enough to leave her door unlocked, it could also be that she had attacked simply because she'd seen an elf.

If so, her bewilderment now made sense.

Made sense, but Ilya didn't want the room she'd worked so hard to clean to be messed up, nor for Lula to make her condition worse by overdoing it.

"Glad to see you're feeling better, but stay still a little longer."

That much said, Ilya headed for the kitchen.

The cooking itself was done; she only had to reheat the soup.

While that warmed, she made a salad and dressing with practiced movements, and from the bedroom she felt a flow of mana.

"You don't have to be that wary. I'm not going to do anything."

When she called through the door, she heard a loud noise that suggested Lula was rattled.

Carrying a tray with sliced bread, salad, and the soup in dishes back to the bedroom, she found that Lula (who had moved into a corner of the room) gave a wary jolt of her body.

The way she watched her was so much like a cat.

"Sorry to keep you. Here, sit down."

The girl swallowed dryly at the proffered tray.

But, perhaps because she was on such high alert, she only looked back and forth between the food and Ilya without moving from her corner.

Ilya decided this was getting nowhere, set the tray on a stack of books, and reached for the food herself.

She tore off some bread and put it in her mouth, picked at the salad, scooped up some soup and swallowed.

Having done that, she smiled at the girl.

"See? No poison or anything."

Lula relaxed her guard slightly, but still wouldn't move; she only opened her mouth a little.

"… Who?"

It was a reasonable question, and Ilya accepted her wariness.

But here Ilya thought it over.

As a dark elf, Lula might know that all elves had family names, not just given names.

Ilya had cast off most of her name (family name included), and didn't want this girl, who could not be expected to know that, to assume the worst of her if Ilya gave only "Ilya" as her name.

That said, if it came to it she could explain. And if Lula understood that Ilya hated elves, that might actually make her loosen up.

Coming to that conclusion, Ilya straightened up and bowed to the girl.

"I'm Ilya. I came to ask you about something."

Faced with a manner clearly different from any person Lula had ever met, she could not shake her wariness.

"Before that… here. The material you commissioned."

Lula could not tell where Ilya had produced it from, but at the sight of a wrapped bundle she looked at Ilya with suspicion.

"You already got it…?"

"Yeah. I did."

"But… you're an elf."

The accusatory tone was, given Lula's past, only reasonable (and from Ilya's own perspective unreasonable), but Ilya understood why and didn't bother to correct it.

If anything, she kept the same easy smile and said,

"I hate elves."

Of course Lula could hardly accept that on its face.

Yet hearing those words, Lula found herself half-unconsciously persuaded of Ilya's earlier behavior, and she could no longer turn pure, unalloyed wariness or anger toward her.

Timidly, she crept up to the tray and sipped at the soup.

"Ah! …! ～～～!"

Before she knew it, she could not stop bringing her hand to her mouth.

"Want more?"

"Mm… …"

Lula hesitated, hesitated, hesitated… and at last held out her dish with reluctant urgency.

"Just a minute."

With a smile, Ilya took the dish and headed to the kitchen; Lula could only watch her go in a daze.

When she returned, their eyes met, and a smile was offered to her. Embarrassed, Lula dropped her gaze and chewed the bread quietly. Even that bread was so delicious it felt like her cheeks might melt away.

"Mind if I ask your name?"

"…………………"

Lula glanced at Ilya but only kept chewing without opening her mouth.

From her exchange with Samuel, Ilya already knew Lula's name, but she had decided to wait to hear it from Lula herself; she gave a wry smile, thinking this might be a long-term project.

"… Lula."

It was a whisper of a voice.

When Ilya looked, Lula was scowling and averting her eyes.

The way she did it was like a cat refusing to look you in the eye after letting you near it; far from annoying, Ilya only smiled and resumed sorting clothes.

"Thank you for telling me."

"…"

Still no answer, but that was fine.

Once she had finished her sorting, Ilya turned to Lula again.

"That's a barrier of space-time magic, isn't it?"

In the end, Lula had finished the entire pot of soup, the whole loaf of bread, and the salad Ilya had made; full to bursting and unable to move, she had collapsed onto the bed.

What Ilya was asking her about was the casing that had held rotten food.

Surprised that Ilya had pegged the experiment without being told, Lula thought,

(Maybe she saw it while tidying up…)

And settled on that explanation to keep her composure.

"The materials you commissioned… but also, are you researching space-time magic?"

"… So what."

She'd come off rebuffing; that came from her wariness of Ilya. But that wariness, too, sprang from how unsettlingly accurate Ilya's words had been: from the anxiety that maybe she really knows everything and is just pretending not to.

"On a hunch, Lula… have you ever read forbidden tomes?"

"…"

Lula turned her face away from Ilya and looked up at the ceiling.

She had read them.

It should have been simple to say so, yet Lula could not give Ilya that confirmation.

For some reason, that fact irritated Lula herself.

"… I have. They keep them here."

After a long pause, Lula's voice came out small, but Ilya had clearly heard, because she said "In that case…"

"Could you arrange permission for me to view the forbidden tomes too?"

Ilya's expression was no different than before.

So Lula rolled over and clenched her teeth.

So this elf had also approached her for the forbidden tomes.

That thought made her sad, and realizing she had let her guard down enough to be saddened in such a short time made her bitter.

(… And I thought she was a good person…!)

Realizing how naive she had been, Lula curled up on the bed.

"In return, I'll help with your research."

"…"

Lula didn't know what Ilya's knowledge or skill was like, but with an elf's body of knowledge, it might be an attractive offer.

While she analyzed it calmly, Lula still couldn't bring herself to answer, and Ilya continued.

"And in the meantime I'll take care of your daily needs… no?"

Without thinking, Lula rolled over and stole a glance at Ilya.

She was smiling.

It was clearly not a smile hiding hostility, and it didn't look like the smiles of those who had used Lula and discarded her when convenient.

Equivalent exchange.

Not just use Lula. You use me too.

Hearing that subtext, Lula rolled over to face away from Ilya again.

"… Food."

"?"

"If you cook me food… fine."

Surely Ilya could see what kind of face she was making.

But there was no way she could say it while looking at her.

"Got it."

With her usual smile, Ilya accepted, and a pact was struck between the two of them.

What kind of life Lula would lead from here, and how she would change: of all that, at this moment, she had no way of knowing.

Lula doubted her ears.

It was the morning, a few days after they had first met.

After breakfast, on Lula's suggestion that they should just go file their paperwork while the area was less crowded, the two had stood in front of the reception counter.

And as soon as the registration paperwork was filed and Lula had turned to head back to her room, Ilya gripped her arm tight.

"Now we're going into town."

"… What?"

Lula doubted her ears.

Ilya might be one thing, but Lula was in her at-home clothes, with nothing covering her face. On top of that, the elastic and scrunchie Ilya had given her had tied her hair back, and her face was entirely exposed.

There was no telling what she'd be subjected to if she went out looking like this.

Lula tried to refuse, of course, but Ilya yanked her along with a force that didn't match her slender frame.

You can't be serious.

The instant they stepped into town, the pressure of the surrounding stares had Lula's eyes flicking everywhere; her body trembled with fear.

"It's fine, it's fine."

Without realizing, she had ended up clutching Ilya's arm, but her fear overwhelmed shame and wariness alike, and she couldn't pull away.

In the midst of all that, the first place Ilya headed to was a hair… a hairdresser's.

"Welco—"

The clerk's voice trailed off, and severity crept into their gaze.

Just as I thought.

As Lula expected, the staff gathering up front turned hard, judging looks on her, and one of them came up to Ilya.

"… Miss. I'm sorry, but—"

"Are dark elves not allowed?"

The blunt phrasing rattled not only the clerk but Lula as well.

Just as suddenly, Ilya stepped behind Lula, put her hands on her shoulders, and shoved her gently forward.

"Look at her aside from her being a dark elf. Really look at her. At her."

"Wai— what are you do—!?"

Lula tried to protest, but Ilya cupped her cheeks and turned her face back toward the staff.

Once again exposed to their stares, Lula was afraid, but at last she registered (managed to register) that the contents of those stares were starting to shift.

Ilya popped her head out beside Lula's and pressed her advantage.

"She's this cute, and her hair just hangs there untouched. Isn't that a waste?"

With her words, the pressure of the stares shifted again.

Over the past few days, between Ilya's relentless overhaul of her lifestyle, Lula had recovered her looks as a striking young girl.

That said, her hair was still left grown out. Without the scrunchie tying it back, she'd look like a wild child.

"On one hand there's resentment toward a race from ages past; on the other, your pride as professionals in bringing beauty to the fore…"

She paused and turned a provocative smile on the staff.

Ostensibly a grace period for them to weigh her words, in truth it was an aging period for them to come around.

Then, she asked.

"Which is truly more important to you?"

Silence on both sides as they faced off.

In a hush so thick one could almost hear someone swallow, one woman stepped forward and raised her hand.

"… Let's do it!"

She offered her hand for a handshake.

"Pleasure to be working with you."

Ilya, of course, took it and gripped firmly.

"What should we do…"

"Lula's face is small, so why don't we make use of her wavy hair?"

"Ear-length… no. About shoulder-length would be just right."

"Brilliant!"

"My arms are itching to get to work～!"

Without consulting Lula in the slightest, the plan came together at speed.

More than her hairstyle, the shift in the staff's attitudes left Lula dumbfounded.

(How can her words alone change them this much…?)

Was it because it was Ilya? Or because she was an elf, which made her a natural adversary to a dark elf?

These were not questions Lula could answer.

In the end, Ilya got drawn into a passionate discussion of hairstyles and styling with the rest of the staff and ended up leaving Lula's side.

Even so, the looks aimed at Lula did not return to disgust or hostility.

Left alone with the stylist, Lula's eyes wandered, and she kept stealing glances at Ilya through the mirror.

When their eyes happened to meet, Ilya would smile, and Lula would look away.

It wasn't unpleasant, but it wasn't comfortable either.

As that odd feeling left her hazy,

"I'm sorry."

A voice came from above.

Looking up through the mirror, Lula met the stylist's eyes and saw her bow her head.

"You didn't do anything, and we… believed an old story without even knowing if it was true and tried to treat you so cruelly… I'm really sorry."

A self-serving thing to say. The old Lula would have dismissed it on those grounds.

Now, though, she found she could think about it calmly even as she felt that.

An apology wouldn't undo what she'd been put through, nor make it forgivable.

But that was for the things other people had done.

This stylist had been about to chase her away, true, but it hadn't actually happened, and she was apologizing now.

A whole race wasn't all the same kind of person. Lula knew that now.

Lula glanced at the girl on the other side of the mirror, with ears like hers and skin so different.

She closed her eyes and murmured,

"… It's fine."

"… Thank you. I'm definitely going to make you extra cute!"

With her eyes still closed, Lula didn't see Ilya smile softly when she caught their exchange.

"Thank you for your patronage!"

Smiling staff sent them off, and the two left the salon behind.

The staff had apparently expected Ilya to also get her hair cut, and when she said she had no intention to, they pouted openly.

After that, with apologies from all the staff received and accepted by Lula with few words, they reconciled with no incident, which brought them up to now.

"Yeah, cute."

"…"

Lula turned her face away at Ilya's praise and didn't react.

She tried to head for the magic guild, finally to go home, but Ilya started off in the exact opposite direction. Pulled along by the arm, Lula nearly tripped.

"H-hey, where are you going…!?"

"Next we have to look at clothes."

"I have clothes at home!? I don't need…!"

Lula was guaranteed clothing, food, and lodging by the magic guild, so she had never had any shortage of clothes.

There were two ways to fulfill the clothing guarantee: paying out cash, or sending clothes outright. Lula had chosen the latter, so clothes were sent to her regularly.

The result had been the room from the other day. A pile of high-quality clothing reduced to a sorry state, never having been washed once.

"You don't get it."

Ilya rejected Lula's argument.

"All you had were ones picked for the season and functional use, or fancy ones meant for formal occasions, weren't they?"

"…"

Now that she pointed it out, maybe so.

But Lula didn't understand what was wrong with that.

"As long as I can wear it…"

Ilya stopped at Lula's words and turned to face her squarely.

Pinned by Ilya's straight gaze, Lula caught her breath, and Ilya said,

"There's a saying: The winner is righteous, the loser is rebel."

"… Huh?"

"It means that whoever wins is justice and whoever loses is evil. A phrase that captures the unfair justice of this world."

Granted, but Lula didn't see why this phrase was being pulled out here.

Without giving Lula time to be confused, Ilya continued.

"And I know another phrase that succinctly captures justice."

"…"

Lula waited for Ilya to go on.

She mustn't interrupt. Something inside her was telling her so.

To that Lula, Ilya said it.

In a high, clear voice:

"Cute is justice!"

That Lula was exasperated hardly needs to be said.

"… You're kind of a moron, huh."

"How rude."

Watching her sulk, Lula thought again that Ilya, whom she'd taken for someone mature, was, after all, a girl barely older than herself.

The sulking turned out to be only a put-on; Ilya was already wearing her usual smile.

"But a good outfit isn't the same as a flattering one. The most flattering outfit is the cutest, so we have to find it."

"… I'm fine, really—"

Lula's protest was never allowed to reach its end, and she was dragged from shop to shop.

In several of the shops they met firm discrimination, but as at the salon, there were also stores whose staff changed their attitude and got into ooh that, no this as they dressed Lula up. Without exception, in those stores, all of the staff (and Lula herself) ended up smiling.

Ilya was adamant that clothes and shoes were inseparable, and she took Lula not to weapons-and-armor shops but to stores carrying decorative footwear. After a full tour of shoes, they hit accessory shops too.

(This kid is definitely weird.)

That was Lula's takeaway from being dragged around town all day.

She'd persuade people with strangely glib turns of phrase one moment, then square up to hostility with even more resolve than Lula herself the next, and Lula couldn't read what was driving her.

The two sat on a bench in a park, with a one-person space between them.

Looking at the wrapper of the snack in her hand, Lula muttered,

"You… why are you doing this?"

"Doing what?"

"Cutting hair, buying clothes… why?"

Why are you doing all of this, for me?

That was what she had meant to say, but the words wouldn't come.

Lula got scared.

If she asked, and it turned out it was all calculated?

If Ilya was only pretending to be kind so she could make use of Lula's powers?

Unable to bring herself to consider what might come next, Lula froze, and Ilya answered easily as ever, smiling.

"I said I'd look after your daily needs, didn't I?"

"… This goes beyond that."

"Then maybe it's because I'm doing things I want to do. You being so cute and yet leaving yourself in such a state… I thought it was a waste."

Lula looked up at Ilya despite herself. Seeing Lula's somewhat stunned expression, Ilya gave a wry smile.

"I can't do things for someone else… I'm selfish. Sorry."

Lula slightly parted her lips as if to say something, but in the end, no words came.

She looked at the wrapper she still held and thought,

(This kid… yeah, she's definitely weird.)

Lula's thoughts were of no one but Ilya, a strange girl unlike anyone she had ever met.

That she failed to notice the change in the gazes around her, and that she did not care about it, was a fact that escaped her.

Some time after that, on a certain day.

Lula heard humming, put her pen down, and headed to the bedroom.

When she opened the door, she found Ilya doing some kind of sewing, the fine thread reflecting the light from the window into a fantastic white glow.

"… What are you doing?"

"You said this got tight, didn't you, Lula? So I thought I'd remake the clothes that don't fit anymore into something new."

"Hmm…"

A few months had passed since Ilya had begun caring for her daily needs.

With the improvement of her life, Lula's body began making up for lost time in a burst of growth, as if releasing everything it had been holding back.

Her height and her chest were particularly conspicuous in their growth, so much so that, with all the clothes they'd already replaced, Lula had begun developing her own opinions about what she liked.

Lula climbed onto the bed Ilya was leaning against, and sat beside her.

Watching Ilya's hands as she pricked and stitched, Lula eventually grew bored, and she stroked her fingers through Ilya's hair as if combing it.

The golden hair, so light and fine you could forget it was there as you touched it, rippled in waves with each motion of her fingers, reflecting light; before she knew it, it had a strange power to draw the eye and hold it.

"What's wrong?"

"Your hair's pretty…"

"You think? Yours is pretty too, Lula."

Is it… Lula thought, embarrassed and pleased in equal measure, as she touched her own hair.

Its wavy curls didn't have Ilya's flowing texture; it left her fingers catching ever so slightly.

Dissatisfied, Lula scrunched her brow and flopped back onto the bed.

Watching Ilya work from behind for a while, she eventually grew restless and leaned her weight against Ilya's back.

"Lula?"

Not chiding, just asking gently with a wry smile: that was Ilya's voice.

It made her happy, and Lula leaned against her even more.

She'd give an occasional shake to be scolded with a "hey," or ask what Ilya was making.

A fitting amount of time had apparently passed, because Ilya finally set the clothes she had been sewing aside and stroked Lula's head.

"Time to start dinner, hm?"

"… Mm."

In the beginning Lula had only eaten; lately she had taken to volunteering to help cook.

"All right, watch the burns and shred this finely."

The bowl held to her had boiled, drained chicken in it.

"Yes yes… hot!"

"What did I say?"

Well if you knew, you should have said so more sternly, Lula thought unfairly, and thrust her finger out toward Ilya.

"Heal."

"You might burn yourself again, so after, okay?"

"… Cheapskate."

Running the spot under the water from the faucet, she finished shredding the chicken.

The other ingredients prepared were boiled green peas with the pods still on, cooked rice, and a tomato-based paste simmered with various vegetables… ketchup.

Rice and ketchup were not widely traded in this world, but to Lula, who had only known a narrow part of it, they were just "huh, there's such a thing."

Looking at the lined-up ingredients, Lula guessed the menu.

"Chicken rice?"

"Bingo. But not quite. There's some egg left, so we'll use that too."

In a large frying pan, Ilya cooked the chicken rice; meanwhile, having finished the salad, Lula beat the eggs.

After splitting the chicken rice into two portions on plates, Ilya poured oil into a smaller frying pan and began heating it.

Once it was so hot it smoked, she poured in roughly half of the beaten egg, then immediately killed the heat and stirred quickly so it wouldn't spread out and set, but wouldn't break apart either.

Then she gathered the egg to one side of the pan and with a flick of her wrist shaped it into an elegant oval omelet.

Without cooking it all the way through, she set it on top of the chicken rice and split the middle of the omelet with cooking chopsticks.

"Ooh…"

The soft-cooked half of the omelet spilled over and wrapped around the chicken rice. Complete.

"This is omurice. I don't usually make it because the egg's wasteful, but…"

"Ooh."

"Want to try?"

Looks hard. I might mess up.

But curiosity beat fear, and before she knew it Lula was standing in front of the pan.

The result was chicken rice and a fully cooked omelet.

Rushing to shape it while still soft, she had stumbled on the steps she would normally pull off without trouble.

"…"

"At least it's not scrambled, so you're improving."

Even as she let her head be patted, Lula glared sidelong at Ilya, dissatisfied.

Ilya, seemingly resigned to the fact, moved them forward to the next step.

"All right, rock paper scissors."

"!"

Lula braced herself.

She had eaten chicken rice before, but it was her first time having it in omurice form.

If she had to pick, of course she'd want Ilya's.

What was more, deciding priority by rock paper scissors was fair and let winner and loser part without grudges, something Lula had come to like.

"Rock, paper…"

"Scissors!"

Not realizing she'd actually said it aloud, Lula glared at their outstretched hands.

Lula was rock; Ilya, scissors.

"Yes!"

"Aw, I lost～"

"So I get Ilya's, ne～"

"Can't be helped, can it～"

It was strange to Lula that Ilya kept proposing rock paper scissors when she always lost, but it was better than her losing, so she didn't think too hard about it.

Maybe I'll let her off because she finally called me by name.

That was what Ilya was quietly thinking, as she carried the remaining plate after Lula.

In this world, there wasn't rice or ketchup as refined as Ilya's.

Not knowing how special they were, Lula chomped her way through the omurice.

"Lula, do you have any experiments planned tomorrow?"

"No… why?"

"I was thinking I'd go look at the forbidden tomes."

Mmm, Lula muttered, and turned her eyes away as if uninterested.

Finishing off the omurice, she looked out the window as though to demonstrate her indifference, and asked Ilya:

"… What are you looking into in the forbidden tomes?"

"How to revive a person."

Lula tensed.

By revival, most people thought of [Healing Light]-class recovery magic, or its higher counterpart Resurrection.

Ilya would obviously know that, which meant she was talking about revivals outside that scope: the forbidden art of reviving those who had lost their bodies.

The soul of one who had lost the body was said to return to the side of the human god, the supposed ancestor of all races, and there await the next life.

That was the cosmic order shared across religions, nations, and races; to revive one who had lost the body was to wrest the soul from the human god.

The Three Primordial Pillars: the dragon god, the demon god, the human god.

The human god, mightiest of the three in arts, said to have repaired this world from near-destruction during the war among the gods in the age of myth, was said to have disappeared to the other side to serve as a guide for the many souls who had died in the war. That was why only the human god was absent from this world today.

What if, by stealing a soul from the human god, one earned his wrath?

What if the god mighty enough to have once mended a near-destroyed world chose to turn that power to destruction instead?

The wrath might fall not just on the one who had stolen the soul, but on the whole world.

That was why the revival of those who had lost their bodies was the absolute taboo.

Lula too had once searched for it while reading the forbidden tomes, but she'd half written it off as something she'd never find.

But if it was Ilya…

The thought worried her.

Lula's expression, though not very animated, must have communicated her concern.

"Of course, even if I find it, I won't try it."

Ilya smiled.

That usual smile reassured her, but what came next was a little different.

"I just… want to know that such a method exists."

The wry, somewhat sad smile she showed there was one Lula had never seen.

They had only met not long ago, so there was bound to be plenty Lula didn't know.

Even understanding as much, an unsatisfied disquiet welled up in Lula's chest.

"… I'm coming too."

"Eh? But your experiments?"

"I'm coming."

Lula's declaration allowed no objection, and after it she refused to meet Ilya's eyes for a while.

It was no wonder Ilya tilted her head at her.

The vault holding the forbidden tomes was guarded by personnel, defensive barriers, magical barriers, and the like in multiple overlapping layers: a more solidly defended place than the royal castle.

Judging by the direction they had gone and the absence of windows, it had been excavated into the mountainside.

The entrance was limited to the magic guild, and if it came to it, the whole thing could be collapsed and buried.

Truly a placement that killed two birds with one stone.

"There's surprisingly little, huh."

Lula nodded silently at Ilya's murmur.

The vertically long rectangular room had books embedded in its four walls; in the center were a long table and four chairs.

Each corner had a tall ladder for reaching books high up the walls; from the wheels on its base, one could see it could be moved.

That the upper shelves had more empty space than lower ones was likely because they expected to add more forbidden tomes that might be found in the future.

"I didn't think it'd be empty."

Ilya's imagination had her picturing several researchers in here, knit-browed and muttering.

But Lula didn't seem to find it strange and answered while picking up a book.

"Deciphering forbidden tomes takes patience and time, so not many people come casually."

The book she opened to show her was written in the script of the age of the gods.

The scripts in use across the world today varied by country and race, said to have developed either to obfuscate one's own information during the war in the age of myth, or by the wrath of the three gods at the war, scattering language so the races could no longer quarrel.

As a result, the language of the age of myth had been forgotten: not only unreadable, but barely possible to decipher.

"… I see."

Convinced, Ilya looked around the room and turned to Lula.

"I'm going to take a look around."

"… Got it."

Probably going to look for books in her own research field, Lula thought.

Lula drifted away from Ilya and picked up a nearby book, idly flipping through pages.

Ilya moved away too, working her way from the bottom shelf at one end, checking the contents of each book.

For Ilya, this was a deeply meaningful time.

She couldn't check every single book, but she gleaned what those who had lived in the age of myth had thought, how they had viewed the war, and accounts of how the magic of old had been developed: a different perspective from the strictly guarded knowledge of the age of myth that the elves preserved in their settlements.

Meanwhile Lula, while opening books of her own, kept watching Ilya as she pulled book after book and flipped through them.

The pace was rapid; at a glance, it looked like Ilya was picking them up randomly.

But that didn't explain why Ilya turned each page reliably and occasionally paused, hand stilled in thought.

Could she be reading it? If so, perhaps Lula's research could go much faster.

Even as she thought that, an indescribable dissatisfaction welled up in her as she watched Ilya so absorbed.

Before she realized it, Lula had moved up beside Ilya, and as Ilya reached for the next book, Lula caught the hem of her clothes.

Not at all flustered to find Lula so close, Ilya turned and tilted her head: "What is it?"

"… Are you going to be a while?"

"Are you done already, Lula?"

"… Yeah."

Truthfully, she had made no progress at all on her own deciphering, so by rights she should have been putting in at least some effort.

But right now, Lula wanted to leave this room as soon as possible.

Whether or not Ilya sensed that, she didn't take a book; she just lowered her outstretched hand.

"All right, let's head back."

Lula nodded silently and tugged Ilya by the clothes as if to lead her out.

Smiling wryly, Ilya pried Lula's fingers free of the cloth, then took Lula's hand in hers.

Lula had whirled around with a startled, almost frightened look when her grip on the clothes had been freed, but at the renewed hand-hold she went wide-eyed, then frowned as if angry and looked away.

But she didn't let go, even though her grip was loose. Smiling at that, Ilya left the vault with Lula in tow.

Five months had nearly passed since they had made their pact.

Ilya had taken to using the second bed she had set up in Lula's bedroom.

She had set up the bed herself, but the reason she had decided to was that Lula had grabbed the hem of Ilya's clothes and said, "just stay over."

That was fine.

Generating a bed was nothing for Ilya, and it was a hassle to make the round trip from a capital inn back to Lula's room each time. It was a convenient proposal (?).

But she hadn't seen one thing coming.

(… She got in again.)

The first thing Ilya saw on waking was the sleeping face of Lula, who was sound asleep next to her.

With Ilya's pillow under her head, she had clearly snuck in deliberately.

For the first few months it had never happened, but lately it was every day.

"Honestly…"

Sitting up, Ilya stroked Lula's head; Lula fussed in her sleep, then settled into a peaceful smile.

After indulging in the heart-warming sight a while, Ilya got out of bed and began breakfast preparations.

Knife paused mid-cut on the vegetables, she mused.

Someday, would she also have a chi—

(Nope. No way, impossible.)

The instant she thought of it, a shudder ran through her entire body, and she patted her chest in relief that she was still safe for now.

Just as she finished breakfast and was about to head to the bedroom to wake Lula, the door opened and Lula appeared.

Still a little sleepy, she came toward the kitchen rubbing her eyes, swaying a bit.

"Morning. Wash your face and we'll eat."

"… Mm. Fwah…"

She yawned hugely, but at least the fact that she covered it with a hand showed she was developing a girl's self-awareness.

Ilya untied her apron strings and tossed it into the laundry basket, since it was probably about due.

Lula came back with a refreshed face, and the two of them carried out the meal and started eating across the table.

To call it "table manners" might be putting it too strongly, but Lula's eating was beginning to look reasonably civilized. If anything, it was less that she had learned and more that she was remembering, Ilya suspected.

It was probably something her parents had taught her, but in Lula's solitary life there had been no one she could ask, and Ilya certainly couldn't.

"What are you doing today?"

"Mm…"

Her hand paused, but the response was vague; her eyes drifted.

By "what," she of course meant her research.

Lula's posture, which up to now had been one of relentless single-minded focus, didn't look very enthusiastic; Ilya had been noticing this become more pronounced lately.

"If you need materials I can go get them?"

"… Not right now."

She wouldn't meet Ilya's eyes, and her voice was stiff in denial.

Sensing a lie somewhere in there, Ilya nonetheless decided to feign ignorance.

Even if it was coincidence, the fact that Lula had found the books she needed within the forbidden tomes and made at least a little progress in deciphering them spoke to genuine talent.

It wasn't limited to space-time magic, either; she had succeeded in pulling out new magics from descriptions in forbidden tomes outside her stated goal, and could easily make a living off that alone.

If she could shake free of her fixation and live as a researcher in some other capacity, that was a perfectly good way to live, too.

"So this magic isn't an attack? It was just meant to convey words to someone far away?"

"Right. Looks like the mutual influence was too strong. There's more to it, and you noticed quickly."

"… Ehehe."

Recently, whether in research, housework, or while bathing, that smile of hers had appeared more and more often.

Watching that innocent expression, Ilya sometimes thought as much.

That said, the decision was Lula's.

So Ilya intentionally refrained from poking at the changes, and made an effort to act exactly the same as ever.

The deciphering help that Lula had started insisting on having a hand in came to a stopping point, and Ilya stood up from her chair.

"I'll go run some errands."

"… I'm coming."

Eh, Ilya blinked.

It was the help that had come to a stopping point, not the deciphering; Lula's eyes, fixed on the forbidden tomes, had been positively gleaming.

And she was going to interrupt that.

"You can keep going a bit longer, you know?"

"It's fine. I'm coming."

Looking away as if sulking, Lula closed the book she was reading and returned it to its place, gathered her reference materials, and began preparing to go home.

Watching the determined profile, Ilya gave up on persuading her (once Lula got like this she wouldn't listen), helped her pack up, and the two left the vault.

They returned to the room briefly, prepared to go out, and headed into town. Walking arm-in-arm with Ilya, Lula's earlier sulking expression melted away into a beaming smile.

"Hey, isn't that Ilya-chan and Lula-chan. You two are as close as ever, eh."

"Made a new piece! Try it on for me!?"

"Ilya, you're cute as always… I'm not going to take her away, so don't glare like that. You're cu— okay, you don't have to make that face."

"Aaah, it's the candy onee-chans! Here! I was looking for you, I wanted to give you something as thanks!"

In the royal capital, especially in the district near the magic guild, people who openly disliked Lula were no longer to be seen.

She didn't show others the same smile she gave Ilya, but Lula's own attitude had softened somewhat too.

That said, she still flinched whenever anyone other than Ilya seemed about to touch her.

Reflex from fear, Ilya gathered.

And there was one thing Lula refused from even Ilya.

Anything that touched her lips.

When Ilya had once tried to wipe sauce off the corner of her mouth, Lula had batted the hand away with a frightened look.

For the cause, Ilya had her guess: it was Lula's [God's Eyes]-visible unique ability… [Charm Kiss].

Its effect was that anyone she kissed would be charmed: a simple ability, but one that did not depend on the owner's intent.

She might trigger it accidentally and be set upon by someone she did not want.

If she could not control the ability, that wasn't out of the question.

That said, seeing how extremely fearful Lula was about it, Ilya decided to hold off on dealing with it until Lula herself brought it up.

It wouldn't be a real healing of her heart through hard treatment; it would have to be solved step by step.

So for now, she would just live normally.

That was Ilya's decision.

Even as she said they could live in town normally now, they steered clear of the Lottévester Faith's chapels, where dark-elf hatred was part of the teaching, but they had room to stroll through town for fun.

"I'm hungry."

The street stall Lula was tugging her toward sent up sweet smells, but as far as sweets went, Ilya could make better, in greater quantity, herself.

But she knew from her past-life memory that there was meaning in eating out on a whim, so reluctantly Ilya indulged her.

Sitting on the bench with less than a person's width between them, the two of them ate crepe-like sweets.

The widely produced sugar was still scarce and expensive in this world, so it wasn't used, but the sauce made from peaches was plenty sweet.

"Mmh～"

Lula stuffed her mouth full and broke into a smile, completely absorbed in eating, but plenty of men were locked onto her.

It was the same bench as when they had first come out together, but it would be hard to take that Lula and this Lula for the same girl.

Ilya moved her eyes from Lula to her sweet and brought it to her mouth.

"It's delicious, Mother!"

Without a doubt, it was Lula's voice.

Stopping the hand reaching for her mouth, she turned toward Lula with a start.

"Mother, you said…"

She wasn't the right age. She had no partner. She had no intention of having children.

Several quips popped into Ilya's head, but she did not voice them.

The innocent smile she'd thought she would see on Lula's face had instead frozen into something close to despair.

"… Lula?"

Ilya bent to peer at Lula, who had dropped her head.

A combination of pain and confusion crossed her face, and the blood had drained from her skin to leave a gloomy shadow.

In her sight, Lula wasn't suffering from any status ailment.

Ilya reached out and brushed her hair behind her ear; Lula slowly turned her gaze up to Ilya.

"… What's wrong?"

"…"

There was no answer.

Distorted by an expression that looked on the verge of tears, Lula seemed to be forcing a smile.

After that, Ilya and the clearly downcast Lula went back to the room and kept up the same routine, but spoke very little.

Forcing her to talk wouldn't help.

Deciding so, Ilya kept things normal, and lay down to sleep as usual.

A soft rustling made her turn her head. Right there stood Lula, hugging her pillow.

"… Can I… join you?"

Eyes down, not meeting hers: the words came out in a whisper.

She'd come to Ilya's bed on her own plenty of times, but this was the first time she had asked.

"Sure."

Ilya scooted to the edge to make room. As if in thanks, Lula gave a small nod and slipped awkwardly under the covers.

Neither met the other's eyes, and they stared at the ceiling for a while.

For Lula, it was the kind of painful silence she hadn't felt in a long time.

Even so, she had decided to ask.

"… Ilya…"

Her voice trembled.

She had mustered her courage, yet her voice was smaller than she'd expected; Lula could feel her resolve wavering.

"Mm."

Ilya's hum.

That alone felt like a push at her back.

Pretend to be normal.

She scolded herself, working not to let it show.

"Ilya, when you're done looking through the forbidden tomes, what will you do…?"

"… Hmm…"

The dreamy reply made Lula look at her without meaning to.

The face right beside her seemed to be wearing a wry smile, and although her blue eyes gazing at the ceiling should have been a cool color, they held the familiar gentle warmth.

"You see, I'm looking for something."

"… The revival method…?"

"That's more of an aside, really."

That she could call a taboo an aside made Lula incredulous, but also yeah, that's like her, she thought.

"So first, I'm planning to travel all over the world."

"…… I see…"

Lula hoped she had returned a normal response.

She averted her gaze from Ilya back to the ceiling.

"Mm-hm. So once I'm done with the forbidden tomes, I'm going to set off on the road again."

"… Ohh."

"That's why—"

Ilya did not finish her sentence.

Lula had thrown her arms around her and buried her head in Ilya's body, in a way that seemed to say I don't want to hear it.

For Lula, it was an action she hadn't expected from herself.

A reflex moved by the voice of a heart that couldn't put itself into words.

Even so, with the unexpected warmth of Ilya's hand stroking her, Lula felt her chest tighten.

From the next day on, Lula threw herself into her research as if she'd become a different person.

Ilya did not know it, but the focus and devotion exceeded even the Lula prior to her injuries at the hands of the fire dragon.

"I'll leave your lunch here, okay?"

"… Thanks."

They no longer ate together.

"Hm? Ilya-chan, just you today? That's a rare one."

"Lula's been working hard."

"Then you have to make her something good as a reward."

"Yes."

They no longer went out together.

"Lula… you really should take a bath, you're going to start smelling."

"… I'll go in a little."

The intervals between bathing grew, too, and Lula no longer barged in while Ilya was in the bath.

"… Mmh… no…"

"…"

She no longer slipped into Ilya's bed at night, and Ilya began noticing her tossing in her sleep.

The arrangement of their lives was what Ilya had originally envisioned, and with the extra free time, Ilya more often spent it at the vault delving into the contents of the forbidden tomes.

As she had told Lula in bed, Ilya didn't intend to keep this lifestyle indefinitely.

Ilya felt about Lula the way one might feel about a clingy little sister, a love close to family love, but the magic guild's main headquarters and the royal capital made for too crowded an environment. The more people there were, the harder management got, and public order suffered.

On top of that, the forbidden tomes were a kind of power that called forth human greed.

The danger that something might one day happen did not match what Ilya was looking for.

For Ilya, who wanted to find a place that better suited her conditions, it was preferable for Lula to become self-sufficient.

She was burying herself in research a little too hard, but once it was done, that should settle too.

If so, getting Lula back to a solo environment little by little was for the best.

So Ilya gradually reduced her time in the room.

(Maybe the bed should go next.)

Heading back from the vault, mulling over the timing for removing the bed, she returned to Lula's room.

That was when it happened.

A roar resounded, and a violent tremor shook the magic guild's main headquarters.

"!?"

The guild members standing watch braced for an attack, and those in the corridors and entrance halls glanced about in every direction, caught somewhere between fear, confusion, and a hint of the excitement that came from an unusual event.

Through them all, Ilya ran like the wind.

In fact, the people she passed must have felt only a sudden gust.

At that speed, Ilya reached Lula's room, put her hand on the doorknob, and was stunned.

(It won't move…)

For good measure she dropped her barrier and tried with all her strength to force the doorknob open, but only the handle broke off; the door itself didn't budge.

(… Time-fixed, huh.)

She put up a barrier over the corridor to keep anyone from entering, and began chanting.

When Ilya was there, it had felt as if she could understand anything.

Places she had never been able to decipher she could now read; so many ideas welled up that her real worry was whether she could remember them long enough to write them down.

Meals with two were fun.

Learning to cook was fun; even when she failed, Ilya would smile and eat it, and Lula loved her for it.

Cleaning was not fun.

But there was a certain satisfaction in making something clean, and when Ilya praised her, her heart warmed and she wanted to clean even more.

Putting on clothes had become fun.

When Ilya called her cute she was happy, and she wanted to look like Ilya, who was always cute herself. She'd started taking an interest in clothes and shoes.

Walking in town was fun.

She had wanted to show off being beside someone as adorable as Ilya, and when someone said the two of them suited each other, she had been truly happy.

Bathing had become fun.

Washing herself felt refreshing and pleasant, and the way her hair had become soft enough to want to keep touching forever made her happy. Above all, watching the usually composed Ilya get flustered had been so fun.

Sleep had stopped being scary.

She felt calm sleeping next to Ilya, and once she realized she could sleep without that dream, she'd started slipping into her bed every night.

Like a friend, like an older sister… like a mother, she'd come to feel.

She realized it when she unconsciously said the word herself.

"It's delicious, Mother!"

That one sentence.

With that one sentence, Lula realized she had been laying her mother's image over Ilya.

Her mother's gentleness.

Her mother's warmth.

When she was with her… with Ilya, all of it seemed to be there.

The day she became aware of it was especially bad.

Every gesture overlapped with her mother's; every action translated itself in her head into something her mother had done.

She felt like she would go mad.

Ilya is not her mother.

Unlike her mother, Ilya was not trying to kill her. She did not lie.

Even thinking that, suspicion welled up.

She was anxious.

(Ilya is not the same as Mother.)

Wanting to confirm that for certain, hugging her pillow to suppress the fear threatening to crush her, she headed for Ilya's bed.

"… Can I… join you?"

The voice she barely wrung out was tiny, but Ilya welcomed her in.

She slipped under covers that, unlike her own bed's, weren't cold; covers warm with human warmth.

For a while she stared at the ceiling.

A ceiling that had once felt so far, so high, was now so close.

Realizing the change in herself, Lula mustered her courage, I am not the me of before.

"Ilya, when you're done looking through the forbidden tomes, what will you do…?"

"… Hmm…"

There was a reply immediately to her question.

Ilya was looking for something, it seemed.

She had asked for permission to read the forbidden tomes, but the revival method wasn't the goal; from her tone, the thing she was looking for wasn't here.

"So first, I'm planning to travel all over the world."

"…… I see…"

Lula's hunch had hit the mark.

But this was a happy hit.

"Mm-hm. So once I'm done with the forbidden tomes, I'm going to set off on the road again."

"… Ohh."

"That's why—"

Lula cut her off by leaning her body against Ilya's.

It's okay.

You don't have to say any more.

Don't apologize.

As if Ilya had read that unconscious thought, Ilya did not refuse her, but kept stroking her head.

Feeling Ilya's gentleness and warmth on her skin, Lula thought.

Ilya had pushed her away without pretense, without making it nice.

(Ilya is not Mother.)

So at the very least, she should put in her own effort to let the person she loved go on her journey with peace of mind.

(I'll succeed, no matter what.)

Settling the past.

No. What she sought was a redo of the past.

If the past changed, the future might change too.

If she succeeded, Ilya might end up a complete stranger to Lula.

(That's fine.)

So she thought.

Because Ilya would lose her future worries entirely, and she could spend the time she had used on her here on something else.

So she thought, and yet her chest still ached as if being squeezed.

From the next morning on, she lost herself in research.

She holed up in the vault, deciphered, and ran experiments based on the descriptions she'd deciphered.

She intentionally didn't look at Ilya.

She intentionally avoided being with her.

If she didn't, the weak version of herself would come out.

After several days of that, she began seeing less of Ilya in the room.

Maybe she was making progress through the forbidden tomes.

Maybe her investigation was nearly done and she was preparing to leave.

I'm lonely. More than that…

Pushing aside the half-formed thought, she made herself empty and submerged herself in research again.

When she came to, a meal would be sitting close by, and as she ate it cold, something would run down her cheek.

Wiping at her eyes briskly as if convincing herself she'd imagined it, she stuffed food into her mouth to distract from the ache squeezing her chest.

And then, it was complete.

The space-time magic that enabled time reversal: Rila Berplays.

When she applied a localized formula and ran the bathroom water through the spell, the water that should have been flowing for some time was instead pulled back up into the faucet; in the end, not a single drop remained on the washstand, and the time during which the water had been flowing had vanished.

Seeing the result, Lula stood there for a while.

But as the moments passed, her head cooled and she came to grasp the phenomenon before her.

"I did it…"

The welling emotion would not be contained.

"I did it! Ilya! I did it!"

She ran around the room searching for Ilya, but Ilya was nowhere to be seen.

If she had truly been calm, she would have waited for Ilya, or run more checks to make sure it was safe.

But after consecutive nights of no sleep and the obsessive thoughts driving her, she could not exercise calm judgment.

It'll just get forgotten anyway.

Lula resolved to invoke the spell at once.

Before she lost it, she would end things with the beautiful memories intact.

"— Flow that does not change."

When Lula began chanting, every color around her began to drain away.

The scenery, painted only in lines, stretched to the left and right, and stretched, and stretched… until eventually the ends spread out into the far distance, and the many overlapping horizontal lines became so thin the eye could no longer catch them, and disappeared.

In a pure white space, Lula, standing on the geometric circle, alone kept human form, and chanted the seventy-two verse incantation exactly.

Time designation, position designation. Then,

"— Rila Berplays!"

She completed the chant.

In that instant, the world went black.

"…"

Lula was elated.

She was, presumably, going back along the flow of time.

She could do it over.

This time, everything would go right.

This time, she would do it right.

But the change did not come.

"…?"

Strange.

Just as Lula began to think so, it happened.

The space regained color in a flash like lightning; squinting and opening her eyes, she saw a familiar scene.

A cottage-like cabin in a forest of tall trees.

(… This is the house.)

Or so she had meant to say.

But the murmur didn't become a voice, and Lula finally noticed the anomaly happening to her.

(I can't speak? But, this body —)

Her point of view was clearly low.

Yes. A child's point of view.

She had succeeded in turning back time.

Just as Lula was about to rejoice, the next anomaly was thrust upon her.

"We couldn't get much in the way of wild greens today, huh…"

(Eh!?)

Her mouth had moved without warning, putting forth words.

Not only that, her body looked up of its own accord; it was not her will doing so.

"That's right. I wonder if your father will hunt something proper this time."

The person looking down at her as she said so, a wry smile on her lips, was a woman.

Long ears, golden hair, blue eyes… and brown skin.

There was no mistaking it.

(Moth… er)

Did she actually smile and speak so gently?

Remembering it now, with the realization fresh, Lula felt her eyes grow hot.

But this body in this moment would not cry.

"Don't say bad things about Daddy, mehh-no, okay?"

"Fufu, you're right. Sorry."

Mother's hand stretched out, and the sensation of being patted on the head followed.

The way her eyes narrowed, the way her heart warmed: Lula felt it as though through someone else's body.

(A… aaah…)

A chill seized Lula's entire body.

If a girl's body could have shown the expression, it would have been despair itself.

(No…)

Just barely keeping the despair from breaking her, Lula screamed.

(No!)

This is not what I wanted.

This is meaningless if it's like this.

Lula understood that much instinctively.

This is wrong.

This is failure.

Stop, change, end.

Lula's screams reached nowhere, and she felt, in the child Lula's body, the sensation of folding laundry with her mother.

"I'm home～"

The door opened, and a dark elf youth with gray hair poked his face in.

(Stop! Don't come in! Father!)

Lula's voice did not reach; he held up his right arm and showed the bird he had hunted.

His family saw it and let out a sound like a cheer, "Waah."

"Well? Impressive, isn't it?"

The youth puffed out his chest, growing larger in Lula's sight.

She was running to him.

It matched the action Lula remembered.

(Don'tttt!!)

"Daddy, love you!"

A kiss between father and daughter, imitating mother's.

It was supposed to be nothing more than a sign of affection.

"… Lula."

"?"

(Fa… ther…?)

The youth squeezed Lula tight.

From the outside, it looked like a father moved to tears embracing his daughter.

But Lula, watching it (being forced to watch it) as a third party, noticed the change.

Until then, his eyes had been full of the love one reserves for a precious thing; in an instant, they had shifted.

They now held a clingy, lustful look. Lula noticed.

And it led to despair.

Night.

After Lula and her mother had gone to sleep, the Lula in her consciousness woke to the sensation of her body being carried.

Immediately after, the feel of something licking her mouth woke the child Lula.

When her eyes opened, what was there was her father, looking down at his own child with eyes ruled by lust, stark naked.

"Daddy mmgh—"

(Stop! Father!)

Lula's voice did not reach.

In any case, at this moment the child Lula had her mouth covered and was in no state to make a sound.

Her father's hand reached out to his own daughter's body.

The body of a young girl, far too premature even to be called developing, was caressed with a force that could break her; eventually, as if even the fabric of her clothes had become an obstacle, he tore her clothes off.

Lula's body trembled with fear, and incontinence wet the floor.

(Father! Stop!)

The father's rampage did not stop.

He hungrily sucked at Lula's barely-there chest as if devouring her, then forcefully pried her legs apart and put his mouth to her urine-soaked crotch.

The father's manhood was unthinkably erect for the situation, considering he was looking at his own daughter.

(No! Please! Stop!)

Whom Lula's screams were directed at, she couldn't say.

The moment the father gripped himself and tried to press it against his daughter's crotch…

"NoooOoooooo!!"

A beast-like shriek burst from the child, and she thrust both hands out before her.

It was just an instinctive attempt to push the father away.

But it did not end there.

A blinding light blazed from both her hands; an avalanche of mana surged into the father's body and went wild inside him.

With all his internal organs churned to ruin, the father convulsed; the moment his movements stopped, he vomited a bucket's worth of blood and collapsed.

By then, Lula was already unconscious; the next time she woke, her father was lying in the bed next to hers.

(… Fa… ther.)

The despair continued.

"Dear, dinner's ready."

In Lula's view, her mother was shaking her father's shoulder as he lay in bed.

Eventually, perhaps fed up that he wouldn't wake, mother pouted as if sulking, came back over to Lula, and sat down in the chair.

"Can't be helped. Let's eat by ourselves."

"… U-uh, yeah."

(… Mother…)

The child Lula had no other choice but to answer.

After that, life went on just as it had before.

From morning to midday they tilled the fields; from midday they went into the forest to gather food for dinner.

The whole time, her father was just sleeping.

Not moving.

After several days of that, a foul stench had begun to cover the house.

The child Lula could not bring it up with her mother.

But she could no longer stand the smell, and Lula made up her mind to ask.

She gathered her courage, braced herself for whatever might come to her, and asked her mother.

"Mother… why won't Father wake up?"

"He's a real sleepyhead, that one. Always has been. So much like a child."

"… Shouldn't we wake him up?"

"He's tired. You don't need to worry about a thing."

(Mother…)

Lula could ask no more.

She might have brought up something unpleasant.

Mother might be angry.

So Lula thought, but her mother was kind.

She always cared for Lula, stroked her head, and held her so tightly it almost hurt.

But one day, Lula witnessed it.

"Colt… ah…"

The bed creaking and creaking, with a single shadow.

It was her mother, naked, straddling her father and moving her hips frantically.

"Eep."

The blood-red eyes pierced Lula, who had let out a small sound despite herself.

"Oh no… dear, Lula's seen us. How embarrassing…"

(Mother…)

Cheeks flushed, mother struck a coquettish pose, beautiful in a way that, to Lula, looked like Something terrible.

Mother's hand reached toward Lula, frozen in fear.

"You'll have to know about this someday too, so you should watch properly, all right? Come on… come over here?"

"No!"

(…!)

Mother stared with wide-open eyes at the hand and the daughter who had reflexively pushed her away.

Her face emptied of all emotion, and Mother stood up.

"I-I'm so—"

I'm sorry.

About to say it, Lula was overshadowed by a looming figure.

"… You…"

(Stop…)

Mother raised her hand.

It came down at once, and struck Lula's cheek hard.

"You killed him!!"

Grabbing her daughter's hair, she dragged her over and shoved her against the thing that had been her father.

"You're the one who killed him!! My beloved Colt!!"

Still holding her hair, she flung her, and Lula's body slammed into the floor.

Looking down at the child crying and coughing, mother's eyes held no warmth.

Even with something falling from those pupils, it did not soothe her ire; it stoked it.

"Why you… why… a brat like you…!"

(…)

Muttering curses, mother slowly walked over to Lula, who couldn't even rise, and knelt as if pinning her down.

She put her hands around her thin neck.

(Mother!)

"I should've never… given birth to you…!"

"Ka, ha…!"

(Mother! I'm sorry! Please! Stop!)

Listening to the creaking, gasping sounds, Lula looked up at her mother.

The face contorted with rage was terrifying, but the tears running down spoke of how vast her sorrow was.

The mental strain on her must have been enormous.

Looking closely, mother's hollow cheeks were heartbreaking; she did not have the strength to kill her daughter outright, and the suffering only continued because of it.

"I'm so… rry… I'm s-… … rry…"

(I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…!)

She tried desperately to apologize, but air only leaked out; it didn't become words.

Even so, mother must have read the words from her.

"I'll never forgive you."

So she said, and increased the strength in her hands.

"Ma… ma…"

Mother, I'm sorry. I loved you.

In her fading consciousness, she tried to say this last thing.

But the words wouldn't come.

"………… ngh."

Suddenly, the force around her neck eased.

What moved her then was pure survival instinct.

Lula pried away the hand trying to kill her and ran for her life.

Without shoes, without looking back, Lula ran through the night forest.

Her throat burned as if scorched, her tired legs went stiff and stopped moving properly, and Lula collapsed.

She's coming after me.

If she catches me she'll kill me.

Crawling on the ground, Lula pushed on desperately, but eventually her strength gave out, and she lost consciousness as though fainting.

While feeling the exhaustion of her fleeing body, Lula was thinking.

(Why… didn't she come after me?)

For all her desperation, a child's legs were no match for a grown woman's. The fact that she hadn't been caught could only mean that her mother hadn't pursued.

Perhaps mother had thought she would die of exposure, or had simply stopped caring.

(Mother…)

Unable even to cry, simply re-experiencing her memories, Lula was utterly exhausted.

Even so, the despair continued.

The one who found Lula collapsed in the forest was a traveling man passing by.

He shared his food with her, and she barely managed to hold on to life.

To the child Lula, who smiled at him, the Lula in her consciousness screamed.

(Don't follow him!)

But her voice did not reach, and the traveler sold Lula to a slaver.

When the slaver dismissed her as worthless because she was a dark elf and got into a shouting match with the traveler, Lula was able to slip away. But what awaited her then was persecution of dark elves.

(Aah…)

Stones thrown, insults shouted, daily.

Sometimes outright violence, falsely accused of crimes she'd never even heard of, thrown into prison.

(Here…)

After being attacked by an unknown man, the place Lula went clutching at straws was a chapel.

Chapels heal wounds.

Hearing the rumor, Lula visited as a drowning person clutching at straws, and what awaited her was killing intent hidden behind smiles.

Lula came to fear the creature called human.

After yet more time in prison, she begged a fellow inmate who knew magic to teach her; once she had mastered magic, Lula registered with the mercenary guild and made her livelihood there.

Even there, the persecution continued.

(Mm…!)

She was framed and stripped of all her commission pay; her self-defense against an attempted rape was deemed unilateral violence, and she was saddled with bail as debt.

When she heard the whole branch was in on it, she'd left that branch, but she could not give up the mercenary guild altogether for fear of losing her livelihood.

Caught in that vicious cycle, Lula visited the unfrequented ruins for investigation.

(This place…)

There, Lula found the book that became her turning point.

When she deciphered it (the book, written in the script of the age of myth) the lines she had managed to read described a magic that moved beyond space itself.

(Don't use it here!)

When she actually tried it, indeed she could move ignoring distance and time, but the cost was horrendous and consumed nearly all of Lula's enormous mana.

Forced to camp out for the night, Lula was apprehended by guild members who'd been tailing her, treated as a criminal for using forbidden space magic.

The book confiscated and Lula imprisoned, even so, her eyes were more alive than ever before.

If space magic exists, then space-time magic must too.

That had become her hope.

She had learned space magic by then; she could break out at any time. But once used, her mana would drop precipitously and she wouldn't be able to fight.

She'd waited quietly for release, but the one who came to her cell was not a guild official with the key, but someone from the magic guild.

"Good day, young miss. I am Samuel. I serve as a Director at the magic guild's school."

She did not wholly trust the man's words, but the relationship he offered (one of mutual benefit) was easy to understand.

More than that, the conditions he offered (permission to view the forbidden tomes) were exactly what she had been craving.

After signing a provisional contract that got her released immediately, Lula parted with Samuel and headed alone for the royal capital of the Mithledge Kingdom, where the magic guild's main headquarters was, to sign the formal contract.

The looks aimed at Lula in the royal capital were as harsh as ever, but by the time she reached the magic guild's main headquarters Lula didn't have the physical or mental capacity to even respond.

"Then, your room will be here."

(…)

The room she had been shown to at the magic guild.

It was, indeed, the very same room she had spent time with Ilya in.

But to the young Lula, the room held no meaning, and wanting to be alone, she opened the door and stepped inside. And then.

"We couldn't get much in the way of wild greens today, huh…"

(No… way…)

"That's right. I wonder if your father will hunt something proper this time."

Lula's consciousness was once again housed inside the child Lula.

The past being relived, again and again.

A time of suffering forced on her with nothing she could do but watch.

How many times would it take?

She lost count after the tenth time of going back.

She could not even close her eyes by her own will; she could only watch the same despair over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

(… Haha.)

Lula laughed.

This is punishment, she'd come to think.

For the sin of stepping past the limit of human action, of presuming to do what only god is permitted: to change the past.

(Hahaha.)

Lula understood. Her mother hadn't let her go.

She had noticed the consciousness inside, and let her live precisely because she knew this eternal sin would be visited on her.

Because that would suffer her more than killing her.

(Hahaha, ahahahaha, ahahaha, ha, ha haha, ha ha, hahaha!!)

Lula laughed.

Nothing could be changed now. She wasn't even allowed to die.

She would, right here, repeat this worst, lowest possible life forever.

What had she wanted to do?

What had she been seeking?

What was this self that drifted around, unable to do anything?

Who am I?

What am I?

Who is the girl reflected in the eyes of this woman trying to kill her?

I am…

"Lula."

A voice called.

The girl, locked in a prison cell, looked up at the girl who had called.

At a development that had never come before, the her in her consciousness was bewildered.

Eyes of a blue with the depth of the sea, hair shining like light in gold. Long ears, skin white as snow.

Beautiful.

The girl thought, simply.

"I've come to get you."

So she said, holding out a hand. But the girl was not looking at the other girl in front of her.

Yes.

Those eyes seemed to be looking at someone she couldn't possibly perceive: her own self.

"Let's go home, hm?"

A brown hand batted aside the girl's offered hand as she smiled.

The girl's expression turned to surprise, but instead of getting angry, she only gave a small, wry smile.

That, somehow, squeezed at her chest.

"No."

It was a voice that hit her eardrums for the first time in ages.

The voice that had always echoed emptily for her: this, surely, should have surprised her, but she showed no reaction at all. The brown-skinned girl's eyes were riveted on the fair-skinned one.

The tension in her face said she was glaring.

"Eventually… you'll throw me away too."

What came out of her mouth was less the voice and more the overflow of something from the depths of her heart.

"I won't throw you away."

"You're lying!!"

She screamed as if slamming the words down.

"Then why did you leave me alone and go to the forbidden tomes!?"

It's because I devoted myself to research alone.

"Why are you leaving me by myself!?"

Because I, on my end, was avoiding you so that you would.

"Why…!"

She knew it, but the words wouldn't stop.

"Why… won't you stay with me…!?"

In her blurred, unclear vision, something was moving.

It grew larger and larger, and…

"Stay with me forever… don't go…"

That something larger embraced her, and warmth wrapped the girl.

But the next moment, the girl shoved that warmth away.

"I don't need this!!"

The girl screamed.

Her head was in disarray, like a child venting raw feelings.

"If I'm just going to be lonely again, then I don't need this!! I don't want to know!!"

She hadn't thought she would ever feel this warmth again.

She hadn't thought she would ever brush against this kindness again.

If something exists, you start to want it.

But she was afraid of being betrayed by it.

The pain of losing it again, of being lonely again, was unbearable.

"You'll just betray me too, Ilya!!"

Ilya.

Yes. Ilya.

The moment she recalled the name, something touched her eyes; the tears she'd thought wouldn't stop were being wiped away.

As her vision came back into focus, Ilya was there, and behind her, the despair the girl had lived could be seen flowing past like a river.

In a space with multiple torrents of imagery flowing past, Ilya and the girl stood.

Don't look.

She tried to scream it, but Ilya's finger touched her lips, restraining her. With an unmistakably bewitching smile, Ilya cupped the girl's cheeks.

There should have been no force in it at all, and yet she couldn't move. Ilya closed her eyes, and brought her face close to the girl's.

Stop.

Don't.

This will affect you too.

As though bound, those thoughts couldn't become words, and lips met lips.

More.

It was only a kiss that grazed her, and the girl reached her hands up around Ilya's back, wanting more.

But that wish would not be granted.

"… Ah."

When they parted, there was less than one person's space between their faces.

Ilya, eyes still closed, opened them, and the two of them met each other's eyes.

She was afraid.

The thought that Ilya might end up like her father ran a chill through her entire body, and the trembling wouldn't stop.

But… Ilya smiled.

The same as ever, with that ocean-deep depth, yet with the warmth and dazzling life-radiance of those blue eyes narrowed.

"Something like this isn't going to change me."

"Ngh…"

Ilya let her hands fall from the girl's cheeks, slipped them around her back, and drew her in.

"Didn't I tell you? I'm selfish. Only I can change me."

The words whispered in her ear were hot, and the chill that had taken her body gave way to warmth.

"I love you, Lula."

"…… Really…?"

The hand that had been at her back stroked Lula's head and drew her in even tighter.

"On that, I will never betray you."

Lula's hands, with nowhere else to go, slipped around Ilya's back, and Lula clung to her tight.

The tears welled up again unstoppably, but at this distance it didn't matter.

"… Mm!"

That's right, Lula thought.

She had always thought.

That she was not allowed to come to love anyone.

Her beloved father had gone mad and died, and her beloved mother had nearly killed her.

If I come to love someone, surely I will lose them.

So Lula tried not to feel that way. She closed her heart.

But Ilya had pried it open by force… no. Through the crack in the closed door, the hand that touched her was warm, the words spoken kind… and before she knew it, the door had been opened. So she tried not to let it show.

The days she spent with Ilya were fun, her heart could be calm, and though even that had become uncertain… she'd been careful, at the very least, never to put it into words.

Because she absolutely didn't want to lose her.

Because she didn't want the one she loved to change.

But Ilya was different.

She did not change.

"… Is it… all right for me to love you, Ilya…?"

"Mm-hm."

Accepted.

So happy it was, with her heart now loosened breaking like a dam, Lula poured out all the feelings she had been holding in.

"Love…! Ilya, I love you…!"

With her voice trembling, mixing it with sobs.

Even so, Lula kept confessing.

Again and again.

"Mm-hm. Thank you."

Ilya's reply. That was supposed to be what I said, Lula thought.

Thank you for saving me.

Thank you for teaching me so many things.

Thank you for being by my side.

The frustration of the words clogged in her chest, Lula could only convey it by holding her tighter.

The sensation of being held back came, and at last Lula could do nothing but cry.

Pouring out all the sadness she had stored up.

Spending out all the loneliness she had carried.

How long had they been there?

Eventually, perhaps cried out, Lula fell asleep still clinging to Ilya.

"Honestly…"

Ilya laid Lula down on the spot and began chanting.

What she used was a space-time spell that warped space and time to leap to specified coordinates.

With the invocation of the magic, the space the two of them were in returned to Lula's room.

She picked Lula up and carried her to the bedroom bed.

Watching Lula's past flow by like the reel of an old film, Ilya had thought.

That maybe Lula's mother really had let her go.

Even gripped by madness from the loss of her husband, perhaps the daughter's voice calling her "Mother" had brought back a sliver of sanity, and she hadn't been able to kill her after all.

So she thought.

(Well, the moment she tried to kill her own child, she had failed as a parent.)

Stroking Lula's crying-swollen cheek, Ilya gave a wry smile.

How much of what she'd done would actually work in Lula's favor, she didn't know.

There weren't going to be any convenient and that fixed your trauma! outcomes, but that couldn't be helped either.

(It's all stuff I did because I wanted to, anyway.)

After all, she couldn't do anything for someone else's sake.

She could no longer do that.

Even so,

(If she can, I want her to be happy.)

That thought, she couldn't help.

The dark elf girl who had cried herself to sleep was a cute, cute little sister.

Even if she couldn't do anything for her, surely she was allowed to wish for her happiness.

"… iryaaa…"

"… He—"

Stroking her hair, Ilya was about to cast [Heal] on her precious little sister… and stopped.

She'd take care of her until the swelling went down.

That was her latest selfish whim.

The next day, Lula, just after waking, looked entirely occupied with simply accepting reality. She barely spoke, just sat in a daze.

About five years of her childhood, calculated at the slowest from the speed of the imagery flowing past, at least fifty repeats.

Even with a dark elf's mental constitution, suited to handling long lifespans, looping that much trauma could easily break a mind.

Ilya was worried, but,

"Munyaa…"

"…"

The next morning, seeing Lula slip into Ilya's bed and show a happy sleeping face, Ilya knew her concern had been groundless.

What's more, it wasn't the modest snuggling of before.

She was sleeping with her arms and legs completely wrapped around Ilya, plastered to her.

"Lula… let go."

"Nnu…?"

When she gripped her arm to peel her away and called out, the half-awake Lula opened her eyes.

Their eyes met, and Lula blinked a few times and seemed to grasp the situation.

"Mm～"

"Mm-mph!?"

She kissed her, suddenly.

Whatever the circumstances, a morning kiss was not a pleasant thing.

Unlike Ilya, who felt as much, Lula pulled her lips away with a flushed, satisfied smile.

"Eheh."

"… Don't 'eheh.' Get up."

"You're so cold."

Lula puffed up her cheeks and sulked, then sat up.

Finally released, Ilya sighed, changed her clothes, and began preparing breakfast.

Lula, who began helping without a word, had a peaceful face. Nowhere on it could one find the shadow of the recent re-living.

""Let's eat.""

Across the table, the two began their meal.

They chatted a bit, and just as Ilya was inwardly relieved there were no aftereffects,

"What happened to Father… it really was because I kissed him, right?"

Ilya nearly spat out her orange juice.

Sudden topic changes were nothing new, but Lula's lightness of tone (like it was nothing) threw her.

To the half-exasperated Ilya, Lula gave a smile with her brows slightly down.

"… It's okay. I'm okay now."

"… I see."

It didn't look like bravado.

Judging so, Ilya decided to tell her about her ability.

"… Yeah. Your lips have an ability called [Charm Kiss] that charms whoever you kiss."

"Charm…"

So murmuring, Lula touched her own lips.

They weren't quite "puffy" lips, but they were a fitting size, lustrous and seductive.

A world away from the gaunt, dry state of her childhood; in town, plenty of men naturally turned to look at her.

"You'll probably be able to control it to some extent with use, but you can't undo the effect. So—"

"I won't do it."

Before Ilya could finish, Lula answered immediately.

"I have no intention of kissing."

Just the thought sent a shudder through her.

On top of the aversion and fear she'd already had, the new sense of danger and disgust meant she wouldn't even want to use it as a tool.

"… I see."

Ilya felt a little sorry thinking about how that affected Lula's life, but Lula herself saying it that decisively gave her some relief.

This was Ilya's guess and not confirmed, but Lula's father, she figured, had received only a weak Charm effect.

The father's family love (affection) had simply been so high that the Charm had been converted into a romantic love for the opposite sex, and because the Charm itself had been weak, he had not been brought under Lula's control. He had partly lost his reason and let his lust run wild.

If she did it now, fully grown, the effect might be much stronger and put the target completely under her control.

But that kind of love wouldn't save Lula's heart; it would warp her even more.

(Glad she's not thinking of going down that road.)

Lost in those thoughts, Ilya let Lula sit down next to her without resistance.

And then,

"Mmh～"

"Mmph"

The second kiss of the day.

I thought you said you weren't going to kiss anyone.

From Ilya's narrow-eyed look, Lula seemed to read the line ahead.

"Except for Ilya."

So Lula said, with a small-devil's smile.

Then she clung to Ilya, buried her face in her shoulder, and closed her eyes as if to savor the contact.

"… Ilya, I love you."

The heat in those words almost made it sound like a confession of love to the opposite sex, but Lula was fine with that.

Ilya would never betray her, never abandon her, never lie to her.

If she could believe in Ilya, that was all she needed to feel full.

So long as Ilya was there, she would be fine.

It was not bravado, nor resignation, but something she actually believed.

Stroking her, Ilya answered.

"I love you too… As family."

"Eeeh."

The discontent was not her real feeling.

Even so, she couldn't end it here.

As though struck by an idea, Lula sprang up and faced Ilya squarely.

"Then, marry me!"

"No."

"Waaah! I got dumped～!"

With a teary expression and a pitiable wail, Lula latched onto Ilya again.

But the face buried in her body wore a smile.

Lula did not mean it seriously either.

This kindness of being accepted even as she was teased: she loved that.

This warmth, felt skin to skin, was a joy.

Surely, soon, she would leave.

That was sad, but the self that was also relieved (yeah, that's the Ilya I came to love) was also there.

Selfish, and yet kind, cute, and cool… the one I love.

For at least this much time, she wanted to feel that warmth, that kindness.

She thought she'd spoil herself completely.

"Lula, time to clean up."

"Boo."

Touching the spot on her head Ilya had stroked on parting, Lula closed her eyes once and smiled. The next moment, she put on a sulky look and followed Ilya, who was carrying dishes to the kitchen.

While helping wash up, as if remembering something, Lula spoke.

"I think I'm going to stop researching reversal magic."

Another bombshell announcement.

Half-exasperated again, Ilya gave a wry smile at the sign of Lula's growth.

"Stop?"

"Mm-hm. Going into that space made me think… how do I put it. This world is something built up out of accumulated rules that say this is what things are."

A collective of information. Rules, she likely meant in the sense of the laws of the world.

By being thrown into a space where the information called "past" was severed, Lula had been able to look at this world from a third-party perspective.

"So maybe magic isn't about manipulating elements to make a phenomenon happen. It uses mana to change the rule, and as a result, elements get used. That's how I see it now."

Strictly speaking, it wasn't about changing the laws but rewriting the information to cause the phenomenon.

When mana was spent to its very limits and exhaustion overtook the user, it was because the mana that should have been maintaining the information of yourself was being drained.

Various pieces of advice and warnings came to Ilya's mind, but she did not commit the rudeness of voicing them.

"And then?"

Where another would have laughed her off, Ilya, without mocking her, urged her on.

That made Lula happy, and a smile escaped despite herself.

"So, I think I want to look into that. What magic is. How far it can go."

Compared to when she had spoken to Ilya before about her research, her eyes now held the brightness and vitality of one looking ahead with hope.

Feeling the firm inner growth of a Lula who had accepted her past wounds and turned her gaze forward, Ilya smiled, judging that she would be all right now.

"You can do it, Lula."

It wasn't a definite answer to her question, nor was there any basis for it.

Even so,

"… Mm-hm!"

For Lula, there was no greater encouragement.

Five days after that, Ilya set out on her journey.

Life alone was, as expected, lonely; the magic-guild people still cast her jealous looks.

The townspeople treated her the same with or without Ilya, but travelers paid no mind to such things, and some directed disgust or hatred at her.

Even so, the existence of people who accepted her was what supported her.

That having people she could truly trust would feel this reassuring: she had not known.

Finishing the cleanup after lunch, Lula stopped at noticing the unexpected size of the kitchen.

Feeling the loneliness on one hand, but the warmth that remained in her heart on the other, she gave a wry smile and headed to her workroom to face the half-written documents.

"… All right!"

The mercenary-guild people guarded people and hunted monsters; many in the commerce guild bustled about chasing profit; agriculture-guild members sweated for the harvest; thieves-guild people stirred in the dark.

To them, perhaps, the magic-guild people seemed glued day and night to their desks, staring incessantly at incantations and books and never moving themselves.

Plenty held that kind of prejudice; many magicians took it as their proud calling.

But it no longer applied to her… to Lula Nelius.

The girl who had hugged her knees alone, looking only at the past, was no more.

Now her eyes looked ahead, and she had begun to walk by her own will.