Ch.16

An outdoor tea party had been set up near Lake Reim!

“All right, the final highlight of the autumn camp! We’re going to have a treasure hunt!”

“Wooooow!”

The excited children burst into cheers.

The adults were chatting and drinking tea at the party tables, while the children had gathered in a circle around the professor in charge.

“There’s treasure hidden all over the Academy! If you’ve been exploring here and there, it shouldn’t be too hard, right? Then begin!”

The children scattered in a rush of laughter.

I took a long breath and puffed out my chest.

If there’s one person who’s been exploring, it’s me.

Ten days—short, if you called them short, long, if you called them long.

Out of everyone here, I was probably the one who had crawled all over the Academy the most!

A chance to carry on my reputation as the number one kid! Burn, my competitive spirit!

“What are you doing? Rubian, hurry up, let’s go!”

“Okay!”

Sortie and Jerdin took off at once.

I was just about to run after them when my head turned, almost without thinking, toward the tea tables where the adults were.

Grandpa, celebrity that he was, was surrounded by people, but the instant he felt my gaze, he looked straight at me and waved.

But... why isn’t Dad here?

My eyes drifted to the empty seat beside Grandpa.

I slowed as I ran and remembered what had happened in the dressing room just now.

I can’t believe Dad still had that glass bottle... I was really startled.

Honestly, I had been flustered.

Flustered enough to leave Dad behind in that wrecked dressing room and run out.

This feels strange.

That glass bottle was not some amazing magic tool worth treasuring like that.

So why had Dad kept it all this time? As if he were holding on to something precious.

If he finds out that bottle was mine...

What would Dad say?

That he was grateful?

That it had helped him a great deal?

And if that happened... then of course he would also learn that I was a mage.

“......”

For some reason, my fingertips turned cold.

Now I knew.

I knew that even if my family learned I was a mage, they would still cherish me the way they did now.

But even knowing that, the reason the words would not easily leave my lips was because these laughing, ordinary days together were so precious.

Because if they learned that I had been a mage of the Magic Kingdom, and a boy soldier who had gone through that war... they would be heartbroken.

I wanted this plain, peaceful life not to tremble, even a little.

Besides, everyone thinks the runaway mage was already caught...

To dig up a story everyone had already forgotten took more courage than I’d expected.

But I can’t avoid it forever.

Seeing that glass bottle with the blue ribbon tied to it had made it feel all too real.

The problem with the mark is almost solved now, so it’s time to face this one too.

Thinking that, I happened to turn my head and spotted a glimmering piece of paper wedged in the gap of a large tree.

“Treasure...!”

I plucked it out, and a gold note dropped into my hand.

< Found it! Treasure! >

Before that, I need to deal with the tracker chasing me.

The second was still in the capital.

The tail I had to cut off myself. I could not go to my family while dragging something like that behind me.

If my guess was right, then the second had probably disguised herself as a restorer and infiltrated the Academy somehow.

“Time I started dealing with— Hm?”

Just then, into my lowered field of vision, a familiar fist suddenly thrust itself forward. That was...

I quickly threw paper.

“...This isn’t rock-paper-scissors.”

In that brusque voice, Khalid flipped my palm over and dumped something onto it in a clatter.

“Gah—treasure!”

How many was this? There had to be dozens!

“I found them on the way. You take them.”

“No way. What if I really end up getting first place like this?”

“Then get it. More importantly... I’m going to step away for a moment.”

Khalid lowered his voice to a whisper. I shoved the gold notes into my pocket and tilted my head.

“Why? Did something happen?”

“I need to check on my animal friends. Something came in from around the Delcan Ruins.”

When I followed his ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) subtle glance upward, I saw a hawk circling overhead.

“You sent a familiar that far?”

I hurriedly checked his wrist, but the bracelet was still fastened in place.

“Of course. Who knows what those mage bastards might do with so many of them swarming around together.”

“But if you send a familiar that far away, it takes that much more magic.”

“...I have one that uses less magic.”

“Huh?”

Did animal friends have a power-saving mode too?

“That sounds... suspicious.”

“......”

When I stared at him as if interrogating him, Khalid turned away at once.

“What’s suspicious about it? Anyway, I’ll be back. Keep looking for the rest of the treasure.”

Leaving only that behind, he disappeared deep into the secluded part of the garden.

I watched his back for a moment, then patted my swollen pocket and turned the other way.

I had become rich overnight against my will, so naturally I wanted to aim for the win, but—

“...Whew. Honestly, this isn’t the time to be leisurely hunting treasure.”

There was something I needed to do right now.

All right. Let’s deal with this first. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

I fiddled with my watch and moved my magic, careful not to strain my body.

A faint, invisible force seeped into the air.

If she’s nearby, she’ll notice.

My steps turned toward the library.

Today, because the camp closing ceremony overlapped, the library was closing a little earlier than usual.

So by now, Professor Yuliope will probably be the only one there.

In any case, everyone had already scattered all over the grounds to look for treasure, so no one found my movements strange.

I really do want to find about ten more treasures and take first place, though.

But this came first!

*****

Leviathan’s footsteps pounded frantically down the stairs.

He could not even remember what state of mind he had been in when he left the lounge.

“Your Grace, I was just about to come find you. Has something happened?”

“Rubian... Where is my daughter?”

“The princess?”

The maids entering the building tilted their heads.

“Well, I imagine she’s probably playing somewhere near the lake, but—”

Before the maid had even finished speaking, he forced his legs to move, though they no longer felt like his own.

He had thought he would not be able to take a single step, and yet somehow the scenery around him was already whipping by.

Ruby... that child was the owner of this glass bottle.

Somewhere, he heard crying.

Only when the cold air cut into his skin did he realize that the sound echoing in his ears was not crying, but the wind.

It was a familiar hallucination.

He was tormented by the sensation that he was standing in the middle of a battlefield again.

“Your Grace... that item again?”

Whenever the pursuit of the dark mage ran into difficulty, the glass bottle would appear, as if by appointment.

The instant Leviathan found it, he had given the order.

“Search the area, Leon. If whoever left this behind did so here, they may still be nearby. Hurry.”

“Yes, sir!”

But somewhere inside, he had vaguely known.

This time too, he would not find the owner of the object.

“Who in the world...”

was helping him,

without ever showing themself?

“We’ll examine the corpse.”

The moment he opened the bottle, crammed full of black magic, dark creature corpses spilled out as if they had been waiting.

The knights rushed in from all sides and began tracing the dark mage’s tracks in their own ways.

Leviathan stood there blankly watching them and clenched the empty bottle in his hand.

Then, suddenly, something brushed his fingers. When he looked down, a blue ribbon was tied to the glass bottle—something wholly out of place on that savage battlefield.

In the blood-red blur of his vision, it was the only thing that shone blue.

The ribbon is clumsy...

Was the mage simply bad with their hands?

For some reason, Leviathan could not suppress the restless unease rising inside him.

He hurriedly searched his coat, but all he had on him was harsh liquor to warm his body and cigarettes to help him forget the pain.

It would have been better if he had had food—jerky, or dried fruit.

“Your Grace! We’ve pinpointed the dark mage’s location! A cave underground nearby!”

Just then, the knights who had backtracked the traces left on the corpses shouted.

Leviathan tied the ribbon on the bottle tightly and leaped onto his horse without hesitation.

“I don’t know who you are... but stay alive until I find you.”

The pounding of hooves as the horse launched forward shook the ground like thunder. Cutting through the fierce wind, he muttered once more, like a vow.

“If I ever meet you, I will repay this debt without fail.”

No. No.

And the Leviathan of the present cursed that past self.

I should have pursued it more relentlessly back then...

He regretted it.

If only he could go back to that day, he felt as if he would strangle himself with his own hands.

It had not been a mage who was clumsy with their hands.

It had been a mage who could only have been clumsy.

Because it had been Rubian. Because she had only been ten years old.

It was his fault for taking at face value the claim that all the boy mages had been moved to the rear, the scouts’ reports, the intelligence from the allied nations.

I refuse to regret this twice.

Without even asking Rubian anything more, everything was certain now.

So there was only one thing he had to do.

I have to protect that child. From the Magic Kingdom. No matter what it takes.

This time for sure.

No matter what.

He hurried toward the lakeside. He had increased security to an almost excessive degree, and yet a strange wave of dread still kept rising.

“Ruby, where on earth are you...”

Why could he not see her?

His heart growing more frantic, he had half broken into a run when—

“Waaah! Treasure hunt!”

Far away, he heard children laughing and running in a noisy cluster.

For some reason, it felt like a punishment.