Chapter 242 : Chapter 242
Chapter 242: Drinking (2)
Regression belongs to Elaine.
And to Ellen.
To the Stone of Regression, Harad was incidental.
Closer to an uninvited guest, or a kept man.
Because of that, there were many things he had not been permitted to know.
They had come to share dreams, but that was less a matter of permission than proof that the effects of regression had deepened, and a signpost telling him that the direction of his stimulation had been correct.
Harad was the one who had regressed, but in the end, the true principals were Elaine and Ellen.
There was no need for him to keep that fact especially in mind.
Even if he did not, the restriction made sure to remind him.
“How was that other world?”
Instead of whispering that speaking would bring disaster, the restriction merely tickled his heart.
“Ah. That was a mistake. I’ll ask again. That other world was not very good, right?”
“It wasn’t.”
“Why was it not very good? Because of Elaine? Am I right?”
“…….”
If she was right, he answered that she was right. If she was wrong, he remained silent.
Only then would the restriction slide past him.
“You nearly died, right?”
“I did.”
“Ah, so that is how it works?”
Ellen seemed to have figured out how to hold this conversation.
If it was a loophole, then it was a loophole.
And it was also one of the rewards of regression.
“Why was that other world not very good? Because you nearly died? Am I right?”
“…….”
His heart tickled. It was close to pain.
Silence was not a good answer either.
It was closer to the restriction letting him off.
“I’m sorry. I’ll ask more carefully.”
Ellen seemed to have felt the restriction.
She had realized that silence was not an answer she could rely on often.
“So I have to figure it out myself.”
“That’s right.”
That was why Ellen dreamed.
Harad was in a position where he had to be content with merely having attached himself to the regression. In the end, the true actors were Elaine and Ellen.
“So that was it!”
Ellen, who had just declared that she would be more cautious, suddenly cried out.
“So that’s why you were rude to Sir Kalinos!”
“……?”
“In that other world, Sir Kalinos died. That’s why you thought Sir Ahite was the 3rd Knights Commander. Right?”
Ellen spilled it all out like someone who had reached enlightenment.
Rather than being drunk on liquor, she seemed drunk on the fact that she had found the right answer.
“So that’s why you acted that way toward Sir Kesera too.”
“That’s right.”
Harad laughed aloud and admitted it.
“You knew that bastard Meteor too. You met him in that other world, didn’t you? Right?”
“I did.”
“And you didn’t know Fireball. Right?”
“That’s right. I met him here for the first time.”
There were many things he could talk about now.
Things that had once been secret were no longer secret.
“In that other world, Shura died. And Kubel was a mage of the Liberation Tower. Right?”
“That won’t happen.”
“Because of you.”
Ellen could only speak of what she had figured out on her own, but even that amounted to quite a lot.
“What about Duke’s side? Anton’s Liberation Faction, I mean. You didn’t know them, did you?”
“I didn’t.”
“And Balbebron? Alena?”
With side dishes enough to spare, it was only natural that the drinks kept going without end.
“Shall I pour you another?”
“I’d appreciate that.”
It had been twenty years since Grand Duke Aratus stopped drinking, and Ellen was the future Grand Duke pretending to be collateral kin.
All of that precious Eternal Snow belonged to her.
“You’re not drinking?”
There were plenty of things to eat, the liquor was overflowing, and Elaine—who used to stop him from drinking—was not here.
Ellen was a bad friend tempting an exemplary student.
“I should drink.”
By nature, fire was fond of liquor.
Both of them burned hot.
“This is all thanks to me, isn’t it?”
Hic. Ellen smiled slyly through a hiccup.
“That’s right. Thanks to you, I’m drinking very well.”
Eternal Snow was a liquor only Serzila could drink.
Harad had no way to obtain it on his own.
“No, not that.”
“Hm?”
“Everyone you met with me.”
“Now that you mention it, that’s true.”
Kubel and Shura.
Harad had been the one to stir things up, but Ellen had been the one to decide.
Rick the Tunnel-Digger, Balbebron and Alena, Manoa, Anton and Ocellin, Duke’s family unrelated by blood… all of them were people he had never known in his previous life.
If not for Ellen, he would have abandoned some of them.
Maybe not now, but to the Harad of that time, they would not have mattered very much.
“You like all of them, don’t you? So that means it’s all thanks to me.”
They were people he had only been able to choose because Ellen existed.
“I painted you too, you know.”
They were memories.
They were the relationship he had built with the person called Ellen.
“I’ll paint you even more from now on.”
Hic. Ellen hiccupped and laughed softly.
Harad nodded in time with the hiccup. His vision swayed for a moment. Ellen was not the only one hiccupping anymore.
“Then I suppose I should paint you too.”
“How?”
At that, only Ellen’s hiccup stopped as if it had been a lie.
The laughter vanished from her face as well.
“With what?”
Ellen looked at him with heavy, lingering eyes.
***
Eternal Snow was a liquor for Serzila, and a liquor beloved by Serzila.
In other words, it was a liquor that truly worked on Serzila.
That was why its proof was so absurdly high.
They called it a fine liquor, but in the Empire it was treated like some barbaric poison.
It had to be that strong for Serzila to get drunk.
If he set his mind to it, even Grand Duke Aratus could be made drunk.
As far as Harad knew, the only one who could pour down Eternal Snow without ever getting drunk was Grand Duke Elaine.
He still had a long way to go.
That Grand Duke Elaine was far beyond him.
He had a long way to go before he could catch up.
…Which meant that when he opened his eyes, it was morning.
“Hmm.”
The floor was hard.
It seemed he had gotten drowsy and simply lain down on the floor.
For some reason, his body was thoroughly drenched.
He checked just in case, but his clothes were still on. Ellen was lying right beside him. Her clothes were still on as well.
There was no hangover. The smell of liquor, however, was overpowering.
Harad quietly watched Ellen sleeping. After a while, the lovely line between her brows twitched, and then she opened her eyes.
“You’re awake?”
Ellen’s voice was refreshingly clear for someone who had only just woken up.
That was thanks to Innate Strength.
“Did I wake you?”
“Probably?”
She had woken thanks to Innate Strength as well.
Her senses, sharper than a beast’s, had rung the alarm clock just because someone was looking at her.
“It’s fine. I slept enough.”
She probably had not even been sleepy in the first place.
Most likely, she had only gone to sleep because he had fallen asleep first.
Sleep did not mean much to Ellen’s body.
“Then let’s get up.”
“I don’t want to.”
His right arm had been stolen.
Ellen was clutching it like a body pillow and had no intention of letting go. It was a trap Harad could never undo by force.
“We’re filthy.”
“At this point?”
That was true too.
Harad lay back down comfortably and looked up at the ceiling. It was blackened with soot. When he rolled his eyes sideways, the walls were the same.
“Was it always like that?”
“What?”
“The walls and the ceiling.”
They were obviously scorch marks left by fire.
And not a small fire either. Not just the ceiling and walls, but the floor, table, and chairs were all a mess as well.
It was difficult to find anything that had not been scorched.
“…….”
“What?”
Ellen was looking at him as if she were dumbfounded.
“You don’t remember?”
“I do.”
“No, you don’t.”
“That can’t be.”
He was the sun, after all.
Most poisons did not work on Harad’s body. The sun burned them all away. The vitality granted by that Origin smoothed over many vague inconveniences.
“Is that so?”
Even while denying it, Harad rolled his eyes upward.
Eternal Snow was a delicious poison potent enough to get even Serzila’s Sword Masters drunk.
He had drunk it now and then, but because of Elaine he had never overindulged in his previous life. Harad pushed himself upright and looked around.
Half-melted empty bottles were scattered untidily across the bar. In all his lives, this was the most he had ever drunk.
“When did I fall asleep?”
“I don’t know what time it was, but you just suddenly flopped over backward.”
“I see. So my memory really does cut off. I don’t remember lying down.”
It was the first time Harad had ever experienced that.
“It seems I have a habit of falling asleep when I get truly drunk.”
That was newly discovered knowledge.
Knowledge was knowledge. Harad nodded to himself.
“You also apparently have a habit of setting things on fire when you’re drunk.”
Ellen pointed at the scorched marks with an incredulous look.
“Ah. Was that me?”
“Yes.”
“That explains it.”
No wonder the scorch marks had looked familiar.
“That’s all you have to say?”
“I told you. I grow fiery when I’m drunk.”
In his previous life too, he had tended to become an arsonist when he got drunk.
“Did I curse too?”
“You didn’t.”
“Maybe that’s because it was you.”
If it had been Elaine, he would have.
“What was it like?”
“What was what?”
“My drinking habits. Weren’t you curious?”
Back in the Village of Embers, Ellen had tried to pressure Harad into drinking.
“I didn’t know you’d mean actual fire.”
For some reason, Ellen sounded unimpressed.
“Isn’t that the bigger problem?”
“I prefer a different kind of bigger problem.”
“…….”
“Do you know how surprised I was? I asked what you were going to paint me with, and you suddenly started a fire.”
“So I painted with fire.”
“Yes. Not me. This place.”
Ellen snorted.
“Were you disappointed?”
“Yes.”
Ellen was brazen.
“Has the carriage already left?”
“No. It’s waiting. Because you didn’t get on.”
Her smile was even bolder.
Without realizing it, Harad thought of the Moon.
It felt as if he were enchanted. Looking at her now, Ellen too possessed that sort of dangerous charm.
But charm always carried danger within it.
Crash!
A deafening noise rang out. The door flew straight over Harad’s head as he lay there.
An unwelcome guest.
Ellen’s face twisted into something savage.
Harad thought she looked like Seria when Seria had discovered a devil and flown into a rage.
“Lady Ellen!”
The unwelcome guest was Cassion.
He had burst in after smashing the door, then immediately seized Harad by the collar and hauled him to his feet.
“I’m Harad.”
“You lunatic. Do you think this is the time for that?”
Cassion openly let out a sigh.
He looked around and even clicked his tongue. For some reason, he seemed serious.
“Did you only drink?”
Cassion asked.
It seemed important.
Harad nodded.
They really had only been drinking.
“All night?”
Harad nodded again.
Cassion looked him up and down.
“That part doesn’t matter.”
“Then why did you ask?”
“What matters is that you stayed out all night. With Lady Ellen.”
“That doesn’t exactly count as staying out all night, does it?”
“It does.”
Cassion declared it flatly.
It did not seem to be his own opinion.
“What’s the matter?”
“My apologies, Lady Ellen. Please excuse me for a moment.”
Cassion was always exceedingly polite to Ellen.
Since Ellen was involved in this staying-out-all-night business, he had to speak even more carefully.
“Ah.”
Ellen was the identity used for getting away with things.
It was hardly the first time she had come back after drinking all night.
‘But never alone with a man.’
Then yes, it counted as staying out all night.
In the North, Grand Duke Aratus was the law.
“What did His Highness say?”
“Take this.”
Cassion handed him a note.
Grand Duke Aratus, who only ever raised the real issue when speaking face to face, had sent a note.
‘He did send someone once before.’
A servant from the ducal residence had once come all the way to the annex to deliver a note.
That note had told him to meet Aroshu of the Bonfire.
But that time had been an unusual case.
An Elder of the Otherworld had been involved.
It was an arranged meeting, so the timing had to be matched.
Harad read the note Cassion handed him.
—Bring the fire. There is something I must confirm.
That earlier note had included the word immediately.
This one did not. Which meant it was not urgent.
The meaning was obvious.
It meant that if Harad came before him now, the man would not be able to restrain himself from killing him.
“Is there a deadline?”
Cassion shook his head.
This was not an urgent order, yet it had been sent first thing in the morning.
“So it means I am not being ordered to obey at once. I’m being told to return.”
If he returned, it felt as if he might die.
“Should I go say something for you?”
“If you do, I think I’ll die even faster.”
Either way, it was a terrible move.
‘Still, he did not come himself.’
If he had, Harad would already be dead.
Harad felt relieved inwardly, but also puzzled.
They had been caught staying out all night.
To borrow the Grand Duke’s way of putting it, they had secretly done it out of his sight.
‘We didn’t do anything.’
The Grand Duke would surely think they had done everything.
When he had warned them to exercise restraint, they had not even endured it. He would be even angrier than if they had simply thrown themselves at each other.
‘And yet he didn’t come himself?’
He was the sort of man who had destroyed even the imperial palace.
If the mood struck him, nothing he did would be surprising.
‘Was he only putting on a show as a doting father? Or did he trust me? As if.’
Neither made any sense.
‘He’s outside. Come to think of it, he’s not here.’
Now that he thought about it, Grand Duke Aratus had never left the Inner Fortress.
That had been true in his previous life as well.
Only after handing the ducal seat to Elaine and retiring had he finally left the Inner Fortress and entered the Boundary.
‘He really does seem like a man who has smeared honey all over the Inner Fortress.’
In other words, so long as one did not enter the Inner Fortress, there was no chance of meeting Grand Duke Aratus.
“Should we run?”
“Not to that extent.”
Harad and Ellen were a half-official pair.
Regardless of his feelings, Grand Duke Aratus still had to keep the two of them together.
‘Even if it hurts enough to kill me, it won’t actually kill me.’
Harad was accustomed to pain.
Compared to tempering, the Grand Duke’s pressure was little more than a fit of sulking.
‘Me, Ellen, and Toremot.’
Only three people knew how meetings between the Grand Duke and Harad actually went.
“Is that why you came running here? Even breaking down the door?”
Cassion was making an absurd fuss.
The malice that had briefly faded from Ellen’s eyes returned again.
“Have you lost your mind?”
But Cassion too glared with equal ferocity.
“Don’t tell me you forgot.”
Even with Ellen, his mistress, standing right there, Cassion was perfectly bold.
He looked like a man backing an even greater master than Ellen at his back.
“Did you prepare a gift?”
“What gift? For His Highness?”
As far as Harad could tell, the only such master was the Grand Duke.
“You lunatic!”
But Cassion exploded.
“I mean a birthday present!”
“……?”
“It’s Shura’s birthday!”
The master in question was Shura.
“Ah.”
Shura had been born at the height of summer on the continent.
In the North, that meant the least cold day of the year.
That day was today.
That was why Harad’s body had been soaked when he woke up earlier.
“You lunatic. So you really did forget.”
Cassion snorted.
“…….”
The violence in Ellen’s face vanished as if it had never been there, and she became meek.
She had forgotten too.
There were many reasons they had forgotten.
Reasons they could not speak aloud, but if they apologized, Shura would understand. Instead, she would only feel hurt and swallow it alone.
“The Inner Fortress is preparing a surprise party!”
Whatever the Grand Duke chose to do, they had to return to the Inner Fortress.
***
Fortunately, there was still time to prepare a gift.
Because the important part was the evening.
The surprise party would be held at dinnertime. She would eat the finest feast, then receive her presents.
A birthday was a day on which one ought to fall asleep using that happiness as one’s bed and blanket.
The more sudden it was, and the more secret it was, the greater that happiness became.
That was why it was a surprise.
It was also why Shura had been half-pushed out into the alleys to play.
That lovely child would only return to the Inner Fortress in the evening, hand in hand with Duke and Arika.
The less overlap there was in gifts, the better.
Harad prepared a light, sparkling necklace. Beside him, Ellen toyed with a sharp, light dagger. It was a very Northerner-like choice.
“If it’s a dagger for self-defense, I already prepared one.”
Though he was a mage, Cassion behaved like a Northerner.
Instead of a self-defense dagger, Ellen bought a large coat dyed black. It was made from Magical Beast hide.
The dagger, the coat as stubborn as armor, and several of the other gifts were all rather fearsome things, but none of them were bad presents to prepare.
Children in the North were like reverse scales, but the North was not inhabited by Northerners alone.
By the time today’s party ended, Shura would possess an armament that many knights might envy.
The air in the Inner Fortress was heavy.
Not the air itself, but the Grand Duke’s Aura. Yet that was all it was. Even though the man must have noticed Harad’s presence, his Aura remained only heavy.
The Inner Fortress was filled only with people who liked Shura.
The Grand Duke too was part of that Inner Fortress.
No one who ruined a child’s birthday could become Grand Duke. In the North, children were that kind of existence.
Perhaps the Grand Duke had prepared a gift for Shura as well.
He would surely have someone deliver it in secret, leaving out the part where he had chosen it himself. Grand Duke Aratus was not an honest man.
From the outside, Kubel’s annex looked no different than usual.
But the moment the door opened, it was nothing like usual inside.
It was full of people.
Servants, knights, and mages. If Seria had not returned, she too would have been among them.
People who normally could never mingle had gathered together to prepare the birthday party of one little mage.
Harad found the sight awkward.
Alien, fresh, and vague. It felt like a dream.
Once, Manoa had shown him a dream like this.
Now reality itself looked that way.
Small though it was compared to that dream, this was unmistakably real.
A child’s birthday had to be the best.
In the back of the kitchen, gifts had been piled up like a tower. No matter how much they prepared, it was never enough, and yet time flew by in an instant. When the sun set, the people all hid themselves away with reluctant expressions.
The heart of it all was the surprise.
When Shura opened the door and came in, when she sat down in her place, they would all burst out shouting.
Kubel sat at the dining table and cleared his throat.
He had the duty of being the first to greet Shura in a loud voice. Opposite him sat Harad and Ellen.
“And you, why—”
“What?”
Cassion sat beside Harad.
Unfortunately, Shura liked Cassion too.
Soon, it would be the appointed time.
Cassion flexed his hands open and closed. When Kubel shouted, that bastard would clap loud enough to bring the annex down.
Ellen loosened her shoulders. She was going to embrace Shura with all her strength… no, not all her strength, but lightly. Beside her, Harad rubbed his middle finger and thumb together.
There was no spectacle finer than sparks.
“…….”
But Kubel never had reason to use his voice.
Cassion never clapped.
Ellen never embraced anyone.
The sparks popped uselessly in the wrong direction.
“…….”
Shura did not come back.
No matter how long they waited.