Chapter 67
It's Like the
Night before the Final Battle
Translator : PolterGlast
Well, even if I
thought about creating a good atmosphere, Lotus's defenses were impenetrable,
so nothing like that could ever happen, and regretting it was pointless, I
thought to myself in the empty hallway, a pill bug El, rolling around.
Goro-goro. The sound was so catchy that I was starting to wonder if it was
actually a word. Just then, "...What are you doing?"
My childhood friend
was standing right behind me. I turned around nonchalantly. "Do you need
something?" I said with a smug look. Socius looked at me with suspicious
eyes, then looked around. "Where's Lotus?"
"He went back to
his room... but why are you here, Socius?"
"He said 'see ya'
and left," I said, tilting my head while patting my skirt. Socius frowned,
looking offended.
"What do you mean
'why'? This is the dormitory area. You know that, we went to my room earlier. I
heard a strange rolling sound, so I wondered what was going on."
A pill bug El, rolling
on and on. I had gone a little too far. Could I have been rolling around in the
hallway, disturbing everyone's sleep? That was the worst, I thought, panicking.
"Well, at this hour, there are probably more people awake and
active," he replied, which made me feel a little more connected to the
Magic Tower. But Socius looked exhausted, so he must be a man of the sun. Looks
like we're incompatible.
"That's terribly
rude of me... Sorry. I'll quietly go back to bed..."
"Wait, wait,
wait. Since we're here, let's talk for a bit. Let's do that."
He grabbed me by the
shoulders while with firm words. Come to think of it, how many years had it
been since I was alone with Socius? Today had been packed with events: San's
kidnapping, infiltrating the Magic Tower, and meeting Veda. Honestly, my body
was exhausted. But my mind was clear, and I felt like staying awake a little
longer. With him still holding me by the shoulders, I thought for a moment,
then nodded, "Okay." As we stood side by side looking at the night
city from the window, I had a strong sense of déjà vu, like this exact same
thing had happened just now.
We stood side by side,
spacing out, and I was surprised that we weren't talking. We had no common
topics. When we were in the village, we could talk about anything, but not
anymore. Since I had become a demon, my paths with Socius had diverged
completely. I even had that feeling.
"You know, being
like this..."
"It feels a lot
like the eve of the final battle in a game..."
"I have no idea
what you're talking about."
It's like that event
in a game where you talk to each character one by one right before the final
boss. It's usually at night. Anyway, there are certainly things you can only
talk about when you're alone, but conversely, those are things you don't have
to talk about. When I turned into a demon, Socius regretted that he couldn't do
anything. He apologized, saying, "Sorry." That was the end of the
story, and I had no intention of digging deeper. But the bond between Socius
and me was simply too deep to end it and say goodbye.
As we just stared
blankly at the sky, "Hey, El, you know..." Socius muttered casually.
"You've changed a
lot."
"Do you think
so?"
"Yeah."
I was aware that I was
Eldorado. But I understood what Socius wanted to say. After all, if I hadn't
remembered my past life, I would have become the enraged mass of vengeance, the
most terrifying witch Eldorado, wanting to destroy humanity and take revenge on
everything.
"You used to have
the kind of energy that if someone hit you once, you'd hit them back five times
as hard."
I thought that was a
bit of an exaggeration, but the "five times" part felt strangely
real. Certainly, the old me had the spirit of not forgiving someone unless they
offered several times the amount of stolen pudding. If someone slapped my left
cheek, I'd slap their right cheek, punch their solar plexus, kick their butt,
and finish with a nose hook. And I did those on Socius.
"...I've grown
up, you see."
This was said with a
lot of ambiguity.
I fell off a cliff,
and the memories of an adult mixed in. "I learned a different perspective,
I guess." That summed it up. Knowing how other people thought and
realizing that they could think that way, I stopped living for revenge. But I
didn't think that was the right answer, I just thought it was convenient for
survival. Continuing to burn with the flames of anger would be very painful.
"People's
thoughts change."
Of course, changing
wasn't necessarily virtuous, and the Eldorado who lived straight in the game,
while certainly doing many bad things, was someone I thought was amazing. And
originally, I thought of myself as a child. Just because I remembered the
memories of an adult didn't mean my body and mind would follow. I knew that
even if I confessed my feelings, Lotus wouldn't reciprocate. My young self felt
frustrated.
But, I had grown from
eight to eleven years old.
The three years had
brought about slight changes. I was growing a little bit bigger every day.
--How long, how long
do I have to wait? Until I grow taller? It'd make me really happy if you could just
give me a rough estimate!
--Well, how long...
well... about this tall... I guess?
At my eager question,
he frowned and thought, then immediately got angry, asking what I was talking
about, but every morning when I woke up, I would ask Ichi and the others to
measure my height. Lotus probably knew and was probably exasperated, wondering
what I was doing. I knew. I knew this was a childish thing to do.
The sigh I let out
after thinking that wasn't just sad.
"I wish... I
could..."
"You wish you
could what?"
"No, I mean, I
want to be able to do a lot of things, I want to change, I feel like I'm trying
hard enough! But! But!"
Socius's room was full
of notes. Socius was still a fourteen-year-old boy, and he probably had
memories, emotions, and many things he was fighting within himself.
"...Socius,
you've been at the Magic Tower for about a year, right? How is it? Veda said
you were serious."
"Yeah, I'm
serious. Magic tools are relics of the past, and we can't create new ones, so
the Magic Tower is a place that teaches the skills to use the existing ones
carefully. But there are also some things whose usage we don't even know, and
I've even made some of them usable!"
"Th-that's
amazing!"
"Well, yeah! It's
a magic tool that greatly amplifies sound, and it looks like this."
Socius made a hand
gesture that looked exactly like a speaker, so I just vaguely went,
"Oh..." Then he said, "What? Conveying words is super important,
you know! Don't you think 'oh, is that all?'" "No, no, I don't think
like that!" I personally thought it was amazing, but perhaps others had
said things to him.
"Just so you
know, I'm actually pretty good at this. You use magic tools by adjusting the
magic power inside them, and I'm incredibly good at sensing that magic power.
The moonstone on the necklace you and I have is mostly just a trinket, but I
found a really high-quality stone—I wasn't aware of it at the time, but I used
my magic power sensing to find it, so its rarity is about S-rank, you
know!?"
"Hueeeee!?"
No wonder I thought the
stone we bought cheaply at the festival was incredibly convenient. In the past,
I was bad at storing magic power, so I had been desperately trying to increase
my magic power by repeatedly storing and using it from the moonstone.
I was impressed. The boy
who puffed out his chest, saying "Leave it to me," after I humbly
apologized and thanked him for his past help, laughed heartily. After that,
looking at each other became instantly funny. We both burst out laughing, and
our long-awaited one-on-one chat with my childhood friend came to an end.
Socius would probably return to being a serious student as usual from tomorrow.
I had been worried about what would happen to him when Veda found out, but I
was truly relieved.
And then, a few days
later, Veda informed us that he had used a branch of the World Tree to send a
message to Cloudy Country.
There was still no
reply from Cloudy Country.
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