Chapter 91
Chapter 91
“Something you already knew too, right, Master?”
Sword Saint Yohanel was a wise man.
Though he placed great importance on personal martial strength, he did not forget the importance of information either.
That was why he had kept his eyes and ears wide open in all directions, and thanks to that, in the original story he had been the first to notice the occurrence of the Demon Realm gate and had even set out to stop it.
“…Truly.”
The Sword Saint’s eyes now carried a gravity different from before.
Then, letting out a quiet sigh of lamentation, he continued speaking.
“I suppose I can’t help but say that this time, I was genuinely surprised. I thought you would reach the level of Master soon enough, but this is…….”
This was not simply a matter of having talent in swordsmanship.
The story I had told him was something he himself would only have managed to uncover a clue to after digging into it for several years.
He tried to find suitable words to continue speaking, but soon seemed to give up and let out a long sigh.
“The Demon Realm, yes. Now I finally understand. I had wondered what kind of bastards they were, to be so thorough and persistent like weeds. To think they were demons.”
“Strictly speaking, the ones you were chasing weren’t demons, Master. They’re a race called Majin, people who contracted with demons in exchange for power, offering up their souls and bodies as payment.”
“…Just how in the world do you know something like that?”
Rather than sighing at my words now, the Sword Saint looked at me with a gaze of sheer disbelief.
‘That reaction is understandable.’
Unlike the other imperial princes, Leios had no real power base.
To begin with, there hadn’t even been a mother to establish that foundation for him, so he had had to build everything from nothing.
At best, all I had done was hide my strength.
The Sword Saint must have known that too, which was why he had watched my back to the point of even calling himself my master.
“It’s a trade secret.”
I said that with a small smile.
Of course, it wasn’t as if I could really call it my faction yet.
If I had to stretch the definition, perhaps Alice and Petra, who had truly become my people now, and maybe Leysias as well.
But making what doesn’t exist look like it does is also a kind of ability.
Perhaps having accepted something from that, the Sword Saint nodded with a meaningful expression.
“Then are you trying to ascend to the emperor’s throne yourself?”
An unexpected question came my way.
At those words, even Chris, who had been listening quietly, looked at me with eyes filled with interest.
“Emperor, huh.”
From the current point in time, it wasn’t an entirely empty notion.
My personal martial strength had reached the level of Master, and behind me stood both a Sword Saint and a great archmage.
On top of that, if I made good use of future events, earning major achievements would be no difficult task.
If that happened, the path to that seat would be firmly paved within a few years.
But I shook my head.
“The emperor will be the First Prince, Carius.”
“That sounds as if you intend to make it so yourself.”
Chris spoke while twirling the tip of her hair.
Her tone carried the nuance of asking whether I really had that kind of ability, but I shrugged and replied to her.
“Once the faction Darius joined hands with is connected to the Majin, the ending is no different from being decided. I may not have the power to make someone emperor, but I do have the power to prevent someone from ascending to that seat.”
If Darius, who had joined hands with those who had abandoned being human, became emperor, what would happen?
With a single misstep, he might truly offer the entire empire itself as a sacrifice and summon the Demon Realm in its entirety.
If that happened, a catastrophe greater than a mere gate opening would descend upon this continent.
That was something that absolutely had to be prevented.
“And shouldn’t it be Carius, who will become emperor, who protects the empire against the Demon Realm forces, rather than me?”
His personality was certainly duplicitous, but at its core, it leaned toward good.
That was why, in the original story, he could join the protagonist’s party and become the emperor of the empire.
If he learned that Darius had joined hands with the Majin, he would surely try to set things right somehow.
And if even he became tainted by it and fell, then dealing with the two of them and seizing the throne at that point would not be too late.
“…Well, either way, as long as I can get revenge on that demonic dragon, that’s enough for me.”
Whether she liked my answer or not, Chris brushed off her hands and expressed her stance of siding with me without protest.
At the same time, it was also a reminder not to forget her own objective, so I nodded calmly.
“Don’t worry. A fight with the demonic dragon is inevitable.”
The battle with the demonic dragon was the final episode of the original story.
It was completed with the death of the original owner of this body, Leios.
But I had no intention of dying in meaningless sacrifice.
Rather, I would grow old together with those I loved and reach a happy ending.
“By the way, if you read the future, did you also see what I was doing?”
Once the general discussion was wrapped up, the Sword Saint was the first to try to satisfy his personal curiosity.
He asked with an eager expression that suggested he surely hadn’t been left out, but I scratched my cheek and held back my answer.
Lies wouldn’t work on the two who were at a higher realm than me.
Still, telling the truth made me hesitate a bit, but it would be better than inviting unnecessary suspicion.
“…Uh, you pass away.”
“I pass away? Where do I go?”
As if it were something he had never expected, he wore a confused expression.
Seeing that, I corrected myself with an awkward look.
“The first gate connecting to the Demon Realm appears near the capital. You realize it and head straight there, Master.”
“Hm-hm.”
At that story, the Sword Saint nodded with a satisfied face.
But at the words that followed, his entire body froze.
“And after a fierce battle with the Demon Realm’s great general known as the Hell Archduke, you perish together.”
“…We perish together?”
As if he couldn’t believe it, he asked again.
I nodded with an awkward face in response.
The Sword Saint slaughtered countless demons, including the Hell Archduke.
But at the end, his strength was exhausted, and he lost his life at the hands of the remaining Demon Realm army.
‘Come to think of it, that’s a perfect opening scene for a novel.’
The death of the empire’s greatest hero, Sword Saint Yohanel.
Retaining his memories as a Sword Saint, he regressed into a young body and rewrote his own history.
Or perhaps a story where he possessed or reincarnated into the body of another person from the future or the past wouldn’t be bad either.
‘Now that I think about it, didn’t the author say the next work would be a possession story?’
Was it just my imagination that the protagonist’s name written in the synopsis had been Yohanel?
“Mm…….”
Anyway, upon hearing that death awaited him in the near future, the Sword Saint let out a low hum.
At that, Chris, who had been beside him, gently covered her mouth and patted his shoulder.
“Well, your hair’s gone white and you’ve got wrinkles, so for a human you’ve lived plenty long enough. That should be fine.”
She probably meant it as comfort in her own way, but coming from an elf who lived close to a thousand years, it looked more like mockery than anything else.
No matter how he was called the Sword Saint, the concept of death must have been unfamiliar and hard to grasp.
In truth, his expression was a complicated one that couldn’t easily be put into words.
“Well, don’t worry.”
“Don’t worry?”
At my words telling him not to worry, he lifted his head.
I responded with a confident smile.
“The future can be changed. It already has been.”
Of course, it wasn’t the flow I had wanted, but due to my existence, the future had been changing one way or another.
Leios’s fate, or even the protagonist’s gender.
In particular, even I hadn’t expected August’s fall.
Considering things like that, it should be possible to prevent the Sword Saint’s death as well.
‘I can’t lose him.’
How many powerful enemies appeared later on? The original protagonist overcame crises through awakenings, but the process had not been smooth.
Only after close companions died, or after he himself was wounded to the brink of death, did the story barely move forward.
That kind of story was something I truly wanted no part of anymore.
All the second semester exams ended.
The students’ faces looked exhausted, but within them was also a sense of proud relief.
“…I got two wrong.”
My group, including Alice, was seated in one corner of the cafeteria, fully absorbed in checking answers.
In the first semester, Alice hadn’t particularly cared about her exam scores, but perhaps because she had made friends, she showed a tactful diligence this semester.
That was why her expressions, swinging between joy and despair at each question, were endlessly amusing.
“The one with perfect scores in every subject certainly looks relaxed.”
As I enjoyed the leisure I hadn’t felt in a while while watching them, Leysias, sitting across from me, spoke with a smile.
“What, want me to tutor you or something?”
“…If someone else had said that, I’d have laughed it off, but since it’s you saying it, I can’t even refuse. I never thought you’d get a perfect score even in the magic subject.”
“I told you, I’m a genius.”
At my words, she let out a long sigh.
“Even for me, from the Sheffield family, magic theory was a subject I had to stay up all night studying just to barely get a perfect score.”
“I get it. When you keep looking up, life seems unfair. Look down instead. Other kids probably feel the same way about you that you feel about me.”
“…I can’t win with words.”
Leysias shook her head with a bitter smile.
“Ostia, I got 70 points!”
As I was talking with her, Alice, who had finished grading, came up to me.
Looking down at the stack of graded exam papers, I could see that the rainfall was noticeably lower than last semester.
“Looks like you studied a lot. You said you wouldn’t care since you were leaving anyway.”
“Still, when everyone else is working hard, it feels wrong for me to be the only one slacking off. …And you never know how things will turn out later.”
As she said that, Alice looked at me with eyes tinged with hesitation.
I could vaguely guess what emotion was surfacing there, but it was too early to worry about that already.
So I redirected the conversation by lightly tapping her shoulder and telling her to work harder if she wanted to catch up to me.
“I got five wrong in total.”
Elysia got five questions wrong and dropped to third place.
After her came Werner, who seemed to have shown his true ability with ten wrong overall, and Maria, who took a high rank with solid scores.
For reference, Diark had top-tier practical exam results, but his theory exams were terrible.
So he remained in the middle ranks, and Yuria, despite working hard, stayed in the lower-middle ranks as well.
Well, that was probably the best she could do.
All of her magical talent and calculation circuits were likely tied into her magic nullification ability.
If she couldn’t control that, it would be hard to demonstrate her true ability, but if she did manage it, she could become a mage even greater than Leysias.
“Now that it’s all over, it’s vacation again.”
With the exams finished, we automatically entered vacation.
Another month and a half of break.
It all felt like time was just rushing by.
The accident in the first semester exam dungeon.
The incident in the Britain territory during vacation.
And just recently, near the end of the second semester, the Academic Festival.
And this time……
“This vacation, we’re going to our territory, right?”
Leysias said to us with sparkling eyes.
The prestigious magic family, the Sheffield family.
It hadn’t originally been planned.
What kind of incident would be waiting for us there this time?