Chapter 241 : Chapter 241
Chapter 241: Drinking (1)
Elaine and Ellen were the same person.
Ellen seemed unwilling to reveal that secret.
“In that other world, you only spent time with Elaine. You never met me.”
And after crossing over into this world, he had spent time with Ellen.
Not Elaine.
“That is why Elaine dreams too.”
The story stopped making sense if one dug too deeply into it.
If that were the case, then why would Ellen, who had originally had nothing to do with it, be dreaming too?
“Could it be because you crossed over into this world and spent time with me, so I started dreaming too?”
Ellen spoke as if she were making a guess.
It was coercion.
Even if it was the wrong answer, it had to be the right one.
“That does seem likely.”
For now, Harad simply nodded.
“The Elaine in this world will not turn out like the one in that world.”
Ellen said it with certainty.
“Why?”
“Because she is not interested in you. What, are you disappointed?”
“As if.”
Elaine and Ellen were different people.
They shared the same sex. Both of them were women.
That setting had now been newly added.
It was a trick meant to keep Ellen’s one-woman performance going a little longer.
‘Is this because of Grand Duke Aratus?’
The fact that Serzila’s sole heir was female was a state secret.
He did not know why, but Grand Duke Aratus had decreed it so.
‘There had to be more to it than just that.’
It was not enough.
That expression on her face could not have come from that reason alone.
Ellen wanted to draw a line.
That was why she treated Elaine, her other self from that world, as though she were some other woman.
So she had cast away Elaine and kept Ellen.
Elaine and Ellen were different people who merely shared the same sex.
In other words, she had revealed only half the secret.
In the end, it was good for everyone.
By keeping Ellen, the secret of her sex would remain secure from here on as well. Elaine had confessed to being a woman, but Harad had no intention of going around blabbing about it.
“You cannot let it show when you are around Elaine.”
Ellen urged him again.
Do not spend time with the Grand Heir Elaine, but with Ellen.
In other words, just as now.
“Do not worry. I have no interest in that side.”
That was what Harad wanted as well.
At this point, trying to approach the Grand Heir would have been ridiculous anyway.
Grand Duke Aratus and Ellen needed the Grand Heir.
That role had no meaning to Harad.
The real one was standing right in front of him.
And in that other world.
‘Two worlds.’
This world and that world.
If one wished, it was a fresh idea. If one wished, it was a trite one.
‘Certainly. To someone who knows nothing, this would sound more plausible.’
It made more sense than regression.
The concept of time stood above the concept of space to begin with.
“Who told you that? Cassion? Manoa? It is a rather advanced theory for Cassion to know.”
That was a perfectly justified slight.
Cassion had started out as a bug, a tool that had survived by becoming Gu Poison.
He might be excellent in practice, but he could not help being weak in theory.
Even more so with theories that existed only on desks.
“What do you mean?”
“Was it not inspired by the Origin Realm?”
Ellen tilted her head.
Now that he looked at her, it seemed she had arrived at the conclusion entirely on her own.
“Ellen, you are a genius.”
By coincidence, it was a conclusion very similar to one mages had studied for a long time.
“An Origin is nothing more than a projected shadow. The Origin Realm is a hypothetical world that exists on that premise.”
Harad kindled a flame above his palm.
“This fire is not the fire of the true sun.”
Mages explained it in terms of Rank.
Projection and Manifestation. Just as there was a gulf between those forms of magic, they said that the magic produced by a true Origin and by the shadow of an Origin would differ in kind.
“The theory is that Origins exist in a world unknown to us, while the Vessel called a mage contains the shadow of an Origin that occasionally falls across this world.”
“…….”
“I did not come up with it.”
At that, Ellen smoothed the crease between her brows.
She disliked hearing mages described as Vessels.
“It is an old theory. No mage has proven it. But no mage has refuted it perfectly either.”
“Has anyone ever seen the Origin Realm?”
“No.”
“Then why can nobody refute it?”
By then Ellen’s eyes were shining.
It was that familiar curiosity of hers.
“Because nobody has managed to solve the problem of Origins.”
“Is it not right here?”
Ellen pointed at Harad’s heart.
The Origin was in there. That much was true. But nothing beyond that could be explained.
“The essence of Aura lies in humans. The source of Divine power is Laan and Luan. Then what of Origins?”
That was where mages hit a wall.
No mage had ever broken through that problem.
“Ordinarily, death is the end. When a knight dies, that knight’s Aura ends as well.”
The same was true of priests.
Badelots had repeated regeneration until he died. When the flesh died, the Divine power contained within that flesh ended with it.
“Origins alone are different. If I die, the sun will someday be born again through someone else’s heart.”
If Ellen died, an Aura with the same nature as hers would be born again, and someone would one day receive the same Divine power as Badelots through baptism.
“That is what makes no sense. If it is a vague thing that somehow makes sense, then why would it apply only to magic? What exactly is an Origin?”
Only the concept of Origins seemed detached from everything else.
Mages stood closest to that concept which was so removed from the world, and yet they could not uncover its essence.
“So the Origin Realm appeared. People became fixated on that idea of detachment.”
Origins were not in this world, but in some other world.
What a mage’s Vessel contained was the shadow of an Origin from that other world.
That was why an Origin did not vanish when a mage died.
When the shadow of that Origin fell across this world again someday, the mage who contained it would be born.
“The immortality of Origins, and the existence of objects and phenomena we have forgotten or never known, are said to be evidence that the Origin Realm exists. Or so the theory goes.”
“Forgotten or never known?”
“The former would be Shrines. The latter, something like an eraser.”
Harad explained it at Ellen’s level.
“Shrines were structures made in the age when people believed 6th Rank Magical Beasts were gods. They are no longer used.”
And not just Shrines. Most of the objects used in that age had vanished.
“But they still remain as Origins. Even things far older than that.”
Things that remained only in history still survived among Origins.
Harad of his previous life had even seen a mage whose Origin was a bronze sword.
“Hosek’s white rubber. He called it an eraser.”
It had been both an Origin and a magic meant to erase things.
“I only understood what it was after I saw Hosek erase scratches from a wall with it.”
A white rectangular piece of rubber.
Harad had known nothing of such an object.
The erasers he knew were not made of rubber. Nor were they white.
Even so, Hosek’s eraser had to exist.
Somewhere Harad did not know.
Origins were like the whole of creation.
The Origin Realm was the world in which the essences of that whole of creation existed.
“So the strongest mage would be one who reached the Origin Realm?”
“……Was that not just the sort of theory born from curiosity or scholarly zeal?”
“Mages’ theories usually come from the Otherworld.”
Theories about magic always began in the Otherworld.
The Otherworld wished to use Origins for war.
“If the true Origin exists in the Origin Realm, not a shadow like this one, the Otherworld could hardly help going mad for it.”
“For something like that, it does not seem all that famous.”
“Well, it is only a theory.”
Mages were prodigious manufacturers of theories.
The Origin Realm was merely one of countless common hypotheses.
“It is a theory that flared up briefly and left only residual heat behind. There is no way to reach a hypothetical world invented to explain Origins.”
Even so, that residual heat would linger for a long time.
At least until the problem of Origins was solved.
The Origin Realm was a theory that explained the riddle of Origins with convenient ease.
There was a reason mages had become excited.
As proof, an enormous number of derivative theories had sprung from the Origin Realm as well.
“What else was there?”
“They said the world has a front and a back. Therefore Origins come in pairs, must be merged into one, and if the mage who has merged them dies, then the Origin dies too.”
“Was that one popular?”
“Everything is popular. Mages are mad for curiosity.”
Mages welcomed any new theory.
“What about you?”
“I am the same, but not as much as the others.”
“Why?”
“Because there cannot be many mages whose reality is as astonishing as mine.”
Regression.
Harad was a mage who had personally experienced a concept higher than the Origin Realm.
“Certainly. It does not sound entirely impossible.”
If one could cross time, why not space?
Perhaps the Origin Realm was not such an absurd world after all.
“Because you came from another world?”
“Hm?”
“Hm?”
Ellen tilted her head.
“Ah. Right. Of course.”
Harad realized it anew.
Ellen had come close to the correct answer, but she had not actually reached it.
Should he be satisfied that she had gotten this far, or should he provoke her and make her guess further?
“What is it? Did I get something wrong?”
Ellen looked at him uneasily.
She was uneasy over whether her conclusion was wrong.
“And if you did?”
“Then I would have to solve it again.”
“That is all?”
It was not simply a matter of whether she was right or wrong.
Ellen should have been anxious about the future.
If the secret of Elaine were exposed.
If she dreamed again.
If Elaine of her previous life took her body again.
If she were taken completely.
Then Ellen—
“What else is there?”
But she did not think that way.
She saw only the obstacle right before her. Ellen was that kind of woman. Since Harad was right in front of her, she saw only Harad.
Within those burning, dazzling eyes, Harad smiled bitterly. Unlike Ellen, he was someone who had to be anxious about many things now that he had regressed.
“No. Nothing.”
But for the moment, he did not want to use his head.
At least not where that woman was concerned.
“Shall we have a drink?”
“You do not drink.”
“It is not that I cannot. I drink now and then.”
It would be Harad’s first time drinking with Ellen.
She brightened, then flinched.
“With that bitch?”
“I did. Though I never let her drink much.”
“I will not say anything about that.”
Ellen replied primly.
“But drink with me more often instead.”
“I will.”
Her primness lasted only a moment.
Ellen brightened and picked up the liquor, then was just about to pour some into Harad’s cup when she furrowed her brow in a rather adorable way.
“But I do not love this liquor.”
It was because the liquor she had brought was Eternal Snow.
A liquor Elaine of his previous life had loved.
“Did you not like it anyway?”
“That was not me.”
“Ah. You only said it was a rare liquor.”
Ellen narrowed her eyes.
“Have you no thought of trying to like it now?”
“Why should I?”
“Because I like it?”
“What do you like?”
“Drink, and I will tell you.”
At those words, Ellen downed the Eternal Snow in a single gulp.
“Now tell me.”
“…….”
Rather than answer, Harad turned the bottle upside down.
She had emptied it so neatly that not a single drop fell.
“And my share?”
“It is right here.”
Ellen pointed at her lips.
***
Fortunately, there was more liquor.
That was because this place was no longer the hidden heart of the Flower District, but an Intelligence Bureau den.
Bringing liquor into such a den was nothing at all for Ellen, the daughter of the Intelligence Bureau Director.
Besides, Intelligence Bureau Director Benus was lenient when it came to liquor and tobacco.
“If Elaine is nowhere to be seen, just assume she is off somewhere secretly having fun.”
“In her original form?”
“Yes. That is how she avoids being found out.”
Harad let out a soft laugh.
Ellen was adding more detail to the setting.
‘How shameless.’
It was, in truth, also correct, but he could not show it.
Elaine and Ellen were different people.
They had to be.
“A Magical Item that changes one’s sex. Remarkable. Astonishing, really.”
“Why? Are you interested?”
Ellen pretended to be jealous.
As expected, she was meticulous when it came to whatever was right in front of her.
“Not in Elaine, but in the Magical Item. To be honest, I still find it hard to believe. If what you say is true, then it means I, a mage, had a Magical Item right before my eyes and still failed to notice it.”
He meant it.
Harad had failed to notice it in his previous life as well.
If Elaine had not shown him directly, he might never have known for the rest of his life.
“I told you. It is a special Magical Item His Highness gave me.”
“It really must be special.”
The Stone of Regression too.
Elaine possessed many extraordinary things.
“Would you like me to show you?”
“Can you do that?”
Harad’s eyes lit up.
“Of course. Who do you think I am?”
She was the one responsible, after all.
“Then show me.”
THUD.
At those words, Ellen took out a fresh bottle of Eternal Snow and grinned.
“If you drink, I will show you.”
Harad immediately downed it in one shot.
“Now show me.”
“And my share?”
“It is right here.”
Harad pointed at his own lips.
“You are the one who seduced me?”
Ellen’s eyes flashed.
They were the eyes of someone who had just spotted prey.