At the hopelessly bright face, I lost my words and let out an empty breath. With the parallel world Ruvlian, I immediately felt that he was a bit more mature and ripened, but Alli was just Alli. That slight maturity was offset by that brightness.
While I stood still, Alli naturally crossed through the window, and following that, Deadrian and Montrio joined as well.
Unchanged light blue hair that came down to the waist and light blue eyes. Brown hair swaying near the shoulders and bright yellow eyes. The two gave off a much more adult feeling than Alli.
“It’s been a while.”
“Hi, Sihyeon~.”
Montrio greeted stiffly, Deadrian cheekily. Though the worlds were different, their personalities seemed unchanged.
……But why was the phrase “it’s been a while” coming out? I thought they might be seeing me as the parallel world Baek Sihyeon. While being mindful of the squeaking sound, I stepped back and looked at the three, and I saw the terrible longing contained in Montrio’s eyes. The older Deadrian seemed to have become quite a snake, his expression unreadable, and Alli was actually feeling antipathy toward me.
“Wow. You really look exactly like Sihyeon. Still twenty-two years old?”
Alli, who had reached right in front of me, blocked my view. Unlike his purely innocent-looking face, it was a quite deliberate action. My comrade Alli was like this too. Pretending not to, smiling meekly while expressing dissatisfaction through actions rather than words.
“Alli.”
“I get it, I get it. I’ll stop, so put away that scary look, Montrio.”
As if defeated, Alli stepped back.
Montrio, who had issued the warning, still stared at me with eyes immersed in memories. Longing appeared all over his face. It was really strange. He wasn’t seeing someone else through me. He seemed to know ‘me,’ not the parallel world Baek Sihyeon, but I couldn’t know the path of how he knew.
I didn’t know the people of the parallel world, yet why were this side’s Ruvlian and Montrio acting like they knew ‘me’ rather than the parallel world’s Baek Sihyeon? My brain, which had stopped activity for a moment, wriggled again.
“Do you know me?”
I deliberately kept my gaze on Montrio as I spoke. As if understanding the implied meaning asking if he knew I wasn’t from the parallel world, his lips twitched for a moment.
“……I know. How could I not know you?”
“How?”
“……”
“I don’t know you, but how do you know me?”
If I heard the answer now, I would also be able to know the reason why the parallel world Ruvlian knew me, who didn’t belong to this world. I waited for Montrio’s mouth to open. He hesitated several times, then rolled his lips inward and pressed them shut.
“Now, now. Let’s put that story off for later~.”
This time Deadrian blocked my view. His face seemed slightly gaunt too. If he’d contributed to killing the Demon King and earned merit, he should have gained more weight. Perhaps because the things I’d learned during the short time staying in the parallel world—the parallel world Ruvlian’s eccentric behavior and the parallel world Baek Sihyeon’s whereabouts—were unusual, I noticed points I shouldn’t have needed to care about.
“Sihyeon, you’re really wearing something scary so well?”
“Wow, what is that? No wonder the spirits ran away in fright. I don’t know what kind of magic it is, but it’s incredible……”
Alli trembled with a disgusted expression. Then he stepped backward, creating distance.
Spirits were fine with natural mana, but didn’t like unnatural mana. They almost avoided it. Something about their nature-friendly disposition. So generally, spirit mages tended to assimilate to spirits to some degree, which was why they hadn’t gotten along well with mages for generations.
For mages, it was simply unfair. To be hated for the single reason of using magic with the mana in their bodies.
“I feel like something terrible would happen if you took that off, but isn’t it uncomfortable? Don’t you get sweaty? How do you wash?”
Question mark attacks came in succession. And in the midst of that, asking if I got sweaty. It was a point I hadn’t even thought about. Since coming to the parallel world, I hadn’t been in my right mind for even a full day, so I hadn’t felt any discomfort at all. Except for the squeaking sounds.
“Alli, stop~ Sihyeon wouldn’t know either. That thing is also controlling mana and Divine Power, so Sihyeon is currently in a state where he can only feel the flow of mana.”
While stopping the rampage of Alli, Deadrian looked at me. In his gently lowered eye corners, certainty was clearly forming. It was just like him to check even while being certain.
“Right.”
“Why didn’t you take it off?”
Deadrian, who had Divine Power contrary to mana, was surprisingly knowledgeable about magic. The application methods of Divine Power and mana weren’t that different when you looked at them, and since he’d studied directly, it was perhaps a natural result that he knew well. His innately good sense and eye for reading flow also played a part. So there was no way he didn’t know that if I took it off, my ankles would be destroyed.
Yet the reason he asked was obvious. It was because he’d noticed that I would know the fact that severed legs could be regenerated with Divine Power, though it took a lot of strength.
“There’s no way he wouldn’t have cast magic to send an alarm if I took it off.”
Of course, that wasn’t everything, but there was no need to say it all. An indifferent yet monotone sound came from my throat.
Deadrian stared at me intently with that face that always smiled, then muttered lowly as if to himself.
“You’ve already figured out Belitent.”
The room was too quiet, so it was a size everyone could hear, making me wonder if it was really a soliloquy.
“Is it a remnant of the past, or is the other Belitent not much different either?”
Among the sentences made by lips that became round then stretched horizontally, the phrase ‘remnant of the past’ stuck in my ear. Like water pooling in my ear, it showed no signs of draining. The past…… As expected, we’d met once, but was there a problem with my memory? But even when I persistently traced my memories and searched for signs of tampering, they were just fine.
Deadrian threw out words that bothered me, then smiled brazenly as if he hadn’t said anything. Exactly like when my comrade Deadrian would shift blame to Montrio after causing trouble and smile. The feeling of being on the receiving end was indeed not good.
“Why did you come?”
Deciding to get answers from Montrio, who kept sighing about this matter, I threw out a fundamental question. If it was the parallel world Ruvlian, he would already know about the intrusion, yet I didn’t understand the reason for coming to my room while taking such a risk.
“Don’t you want to escape from here? ……Don’t you want to return to your original world?”
Montrio, who had been watching the situation while stepping back, looked directly at me. His bright yellow eyes stuck persistently. His eyes took on the aspect of a hawk. It was a focused appearance like looking at prey right before hunting.
“Right now, those words sound exactly like you came to send me back to my world…… Why?”
What I gained from coming to the parallel world was only immunity to nonsense and questions. During that short time awake, I couldn’t remember a time when question marks left my head.
As if he’d expected this from me, Deadrian nodded. It was an attitude that he would have been suspicious too if he were in my place. But before that, Alli opened his mouth as if bursting out.
“Revenge, of course!”
……Revenge? It was an unexpected word. Moving my gaze that had stopped at Alli to look at the other two, they were holding their foreheads as if troubled. They looked exactly like brothers with a tomboyish younger sister. It seemed to be a purely independent action.
“What revenge?”
“That’s because of you, the one who was sacrificed,”
“Alli Ledian!”
“Alli.”
The first was Montrio, the second was Deadrian. The two called Alli almost simultaneously. As if blocking the words that would follow the unfinished sentence.
“Who was sacrificed because of me?”
I tilted my head crookedly and asked in a still calm voice without inflection. To fill in the lacking information, I had to dig out even one more thing from them. Whether my gaze toward Alli was too blatant, Montrio subtly blocked Alli’s front and Deadrian openly interfered.
When I said nothing at that and just stared at the spot where Alli had been, Deadrian let out a deep sigh. His expression was exactly like when seeing someone who didn’t act according to the strategy set during subjugation. At this variable not in the plan, he was surely lamenting life inside.
“Don’t mind what Alli said. I don’t know what world you’ve experienced, but we’re on extremely bad terms with Belitent~.”
It was obvious he was trying to gloss over it.
I organized the clues step by step. A sacrifice for me. The parallel world’s Ruvlian. And a person who had a connection to me while giving enough affection for Alli to speak of revenge. Combining the conditions, the answer came out clearly.
The parallel world’s Baek Sihyeon.
“Anyway, aren’t you trying to escape? Don’t you need help?”
As if knowing I would figure it out if I thought long, he pulled pointless tricks. When I’d already finished organizing my thoughts and derived the answer.
There’s no need to tell them. I very faintly showed the emotion of suspicion on my face. As if I still hadn’t grasped it.
My comrades who knew me well wouldn’t be fooled, but this side didn’t know me well. As proof, Deadrian who saw my reaction somehow had a relieved face. I was concerned because Montrio seemed to know ‘me’ rather than the parallel world Baek Sihyeon, but I deliberately didn’t check his expression.
“I do need help.”
Though those words might be lies. As much as they didn’t know me, I didn’t know them either. I was just inferring by comparing them with my comrades I knew. While being wary and suspicious.
“But, before that, there are a few things I want to know.”
When I gave off the nuance of asking if they would answer, Deadrian shrugged. It was a gesture saying he’d decide whether to answer or not after hearing.
“How did you get in here? Your voices are loud so there’s no way you wouldn’t be caught, and there’s magic all over this mansion so you’d be caught right away.”
“We came knowing we’d be caught. Before you collapsed, Belitent deliberately let words slip to Montrio. That there’s someone who resembles Baek Sihyeon here. Anyway, Belitent wanted us to meet you and you to meet us, so there’s no need to stop it. Though it was half a gamble.”
It was utterly brazen, but when there was no breakthrough, making one and charging straight ahead was just like Deadrian. It would have been all Deadrian who made the plan and put it into action.
“It’s been two days since you collapsed, so we did come for nothing those two days.”
“If I hadn’t woken up today, you were going to come again tomorrow.”
“Of course. We would have come until you woke up.”
Deadrian, who smiled cheekily, was sincere. This one definitely wasn’t normal either. As expected, Montrio, who trembled once as if getting goosebumps one step back, was the most normal.
After gently shaking my head, I put the thing I was most curious about in my mouth, following the light question I’d first thrown.
“The parallel world Baek Sihyeon, was he a Hero?”
As soon as the words were spat out, the atmosphere froze in an instant. Deadrian still had a smiling face, but the air of wariness was clear, and Montrio froze as is. Lastly, Alli…… was furious.
