Chapter 388

I stared blankly at him before instinctively clamping a hand over my mouth.

‘…Why my mouth? Is he going to feed me or something?’

Sorry, but whether I was just contrary by nature or everyone was like this, the moment someone told me to do something, I immediately didn’t want to do it. Tell me not to, and suddenly I’d want to try it. So naturally, I covered my mouth. It wasn’t as though I normally acted on that stubborn streak of mine, but right now it seemed like the better option.

To be honest, though, the real reason my thoughts were racing wasn’t that. It was the fact that Narke, of all people, had ignored what I’d said, come looking for me anyway, and then spoken in that strangely subdued voice, saying something I never could have anticipated. And apparently I’d been thinking too hard, because Narke pressed a hand to his forehead before smiling.

“My head hurts, Lukas.”

“Then stop reading.”

“You won’t do it for me?”

“…….”

Do what? I swallowed hard. Was he saying I’d done it when Abraham told me to, but wouldn’t when he asked? Did he already know I’d just drunk blood?

…He probably did. If it was Narke, of course he would.

I’d expected this ever since I learned about Ismailov’s ability—ever since I understood why Narke had warned that the three of us should never stay near Ismailov. I’d always known that, if it was him, he’d find out the things I never told him. Even so, hearing it confirmed in person made my heart start pounding.

I glanced around the café to make sure no one was nearby, then looked back at Narke, who was tilting his head at me, and slowly opened my mouth.

“…!”

Something absurd happened. I instinctively snapped my mouth shut, biting down hard on the two fingers he’d shoved inside. Familiar divine power burst forth and flowed down my throat. Even through the thin leather of his glove, the sensation of bone between my teeth was just as horribly disturbing as ever.

“Ow, ouch~ That hurts! What if you bite my fingers off?!”

Despite sounding startled, Narke kept pressing down on my tongue with all his strength, forcing divine power into me. I twisted sideways, trying to pull my legs out from under the table, and grabbed his forearm, trying to wrench it away.

“Mmphf, wha’re you do—?! You idio—!”

“Hang on.”

Using his other hand to steady my jaw, Narke began to chant.

— Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.

Divine power imbued with purification magic lingered around my core before gradually spreading through the rest of my body. The unpleasant burning sensation that had been churning in my stomach vanished without a trace. The moment I realized it, the fingers pressing down on my tongue withdrew.

I immediately let go of the fingers I’d been biting through his glove, wiped my mouth with my sleeve, and instinctively put my guard up.

“It’s fine. It’s all over now~”

Narke peeled off the glove, now soaked with saliva, and waved with a smile. Apparently he hadn’t been joking when he’d worried I’d bite his fingers off—blood had already rushed to his hand. Even the sight of that irritated me.

“Why are you smiling like that? Throw the glove away.”

“You looked like your stomach was bothering you, so I was helping.”

“What are you, an internist?”

“Keeping that stuff inside you isn’t good for your body.”

“…….”

Don’t say things like that so casually. You don’t have to tell me how much you know. Besides, once my mana converts it, it’s not even something that deserves to be called that anymore.

I let out a long sigh and slumped onto the table. Lost in thought, Narke murmured, “Come to think of it, I once went to Spain to examine someone’s tonsils. Their tongue just kept getting longer, so I had to hold it down with a silver tongue depressor.”

“There are too many things to question there…”

“They’d eaten a cursed sheet of paper and ended up possessed.”

“…….”

He really hadn’t lived anything resembling a normal student’s life. What kind of experience even was that?

Meanwhile, the sound of footsteps faded into the distance. It seemed he’d gone downstairs to place an order.

Since his divine power had completely washed Abraham’s mana out of my system, I felt much better. I spent a long while wondering whether I should thank him or yell at him. In other words, I’d completely missed the timing to get angry.

As I lay there slumped over for a while, I felt someone gently lifting my hair strand by strand using mana.

“Give it a rest…”

My tongue was still sore because of him. I was in no mood for jokes. Before I could finish speaking, Narke grinned and pushed a fork with something on it into my mouth.

“Pavé chocolate~”

“…….”

Sweet. I silently chewed it up, washed it down with a sip of bitter, burnt-tasting coffee, and asked flatly, “What was that?”

“I bought it. It’s Leo’s favorite chocolate, right? We used to get it whenever we came here to study for exams.”

“Looks like you and Leo came here a lot.”

“Yeah. We did.”

Unlike me, who could only act familiar with Leo at his private training grounds or in the dorms without drawing attention, Leo and Narke—who were both on good terms with just about everyone in Class 2—had probably hung out together from time to time. Elias too.

Looking out the window, Narke murmured, “Those were good times.”

“…….”

I knew things hadn’t been going well between Leo and Narke lately. While I was wondering how to carefully bring up the subject, Narke slid the plate toward me.

“You probably don’t like sweets much, but I figured you could use the sugar right now.”

“You saw me chugging cola all through school and still decided I don’t like sweet things? That’s impressive.”

“You didn’t drink it because it was sweet, though, did you?”

“…Hm. Fair point.”

I nodded at the floor, picked up the fork, and said teasingly, “Thanks. My mood certainly took a nosedive after you pulled that unprovoked act of insanity.”

It honestly felt like I’d just been to an internist. Damn it… everyone around me is a quack.

“Haha. So, you didn’t need me to confirm whether he was telling the truth?”

“Mm… sorry. I should’ve tried asking again if they’d let you in, but I was in a hurry. Besides, with the artifact that bastard had, I wasn’t worried about whether he was lying.”

Just in case, I’d kept watching the Change Probability, but there was still very little chance it’d change. Even accounting for the possibility that it might go up or down, nothing looked like a red flag.

Narke waited for me to continue, so I got straight to the point.

“Even Abraham doesn’t know much about Ismailov. More accurately, he both does and doesn’t. There are very few people with the level of access he has, yet even he wasn’t entrusted with information about Ismailov.”

“Mm. I figured as much, but it’s still disappointing.”

“Yeah.”

Even so, I doubted anyone else could have told me more than Abraham had. Speaking with him had been necessary. I answered shortly, then looked toward the students in Imperial Second Academy uniforms walking in the distance.

“If things had gone as they were supposed to, we’d be getting ready to start our third year by now.”

“Haha. It’s only March. Summer break is still more than two months away.”

“Even so. Narke, what were you planning to do during the break?”

“…….”

Narke fell silent, his eyes fixed on the view outside.

Why the silence? According to the plan from a year ago, his exchange program would have ended that summer, and he would have returned to the Vatican. Maybe summer vacation was never in his plans. But… Somehow, I didn’t think that was all there was to it.

After watching him for a while, I spoke first.

“Did you know things would turn out like this?”

“That’s a difficult question. I couldn’t foresee things this far ahead. I came this far feeling as though I were gambling with dice myself. All I can do is watch where fate leads you all. I understand the principles by which the universe moves, but that isn’t the same as knowing the future with certainty.”

I nodded.

“Have you heard back from the hospital?”

“Not yet.”

“Do you think there’s any way to save Heike? Right now, isn’t it just his body that’s still alive?”

“…….”

The moment Heike came up, the mood grew heavy again. Narke spoke in the same subdued voice.

“As long as his body remains, I believe there’s a way to bring him back… if my theory is correct.”

“And that theory is…?”

“I’d like to tell you, but I can’t. We both have things we can’t share with each other. You understand that, don’t you?”

“Hm.”

I studied the dark circles beneath his eyes, probably brought on by stress, before answering.

“Yeah.”

I speared a piece of chocolate with my fork and held it out to him. Narke, who had looked exhausted only moments ago, broke into a bright smile and accepted it. I stared at him as he swallowed the forkful I’d offered and let out a short laugh.

“I meant for you to take it and eat it yourself.”

“Ah!”

“What’s with the ‘ah’?”

“It’s not like I’m reading your mind all the time, Lukas… Besides, you don’t like it when I do.”

“Yet you still came all the way here.”

“Well… I was worried. Especially today. Besides… it’s better to have someone with you than to be alone, isn’t it?”

I answered with a faint smile and silently sipped my coffee. He did the same. We split the chocolates he’d bought between us. We hadn’t meant to divide them exactly in half, but somehow that was how it worked out. We were all exhausted, and we needed the sugar to recharge. Narke, who had been reading a palm-sized Bible, snapped it shut once the chocolates were gone and asked, “Shall we head back to Nymphenburg? You can sort through your thoughts there.”

“Sounds good.”

Even as I said it, I couldn’t bring myself to move. I stared out the window. I could see the streets I’d walked with Heike. Somewhere farther down, where the bustling city center gave way to quieter roads, stood the photo studio.

“…….”

Bavaria felt more like home than Prussia, and Munich more than Berlin. Being able to fall asleep in Nymphenburg was, in itself, a blessing.

Even so, it didn’t change the fact that the most peaceful six months of my life here—whether I wanted to admit it or not—had been spent in Berlin, at the Imperial Second Academy. Back then, I hadn’t even realized it was peace. Maybe it hadn’t truly been peaceful after all. But only after Heike collapsed did I realize those days I’d dismissed as nothing special had meant far more than I’d thought.

By the time we returned to Nymphenburg, my room had vanished once again.

“Ha…”

“What.”

Leo was leaning against the doorway of what had once been my room, arms folded.

Why hadn’t I realized what the end of my duty to watch Ismailov would mean?

I pressed both hands against my forehead and looked up at the ceiling. Anyone could have seen how annoyed I was, yet Leo remained completely unfazed.

One friend suddenly purifies my mouth without warning, while the other—this bastard… no, this friend—takes every opportunity to make my room disappear. How had they both ended up at my side?

Unable to sort through the countless thoughts racing through my head, I muttered, “If only you knew what someone said to me earlier…”

I couldn’t tell him. Right. He’d done it out of concern for me, so I shouldn’t give him too hard a time.

Even if I really wanted to.

Giving up, I followed him to Nikolaus’s office. If I couldn’t change the situation, I’d just change my mindset. From now on, this wasn’t the Crown Prince’s Palace—it was simply Nikolaus’s office.

I tossed my bag onto the bed set up in the office living room before stepping into the hallway.

“Hey. Mind if I pick whichever room I want this time?”

“Suit yourself.”

Leo apparently couldn’t relax unless everything was somewhere he could keep an eye on. Even though he’d usurped my room again, he answered absentmindedly without looking up from his notebook. At this rate, if someone somehow cast a warp spell on the floor beneath me, he’d probably insist on coming along too. Not that it was even possible to cast a warp spell inside the Crown Prince’s Palace.

I found a room lined with books and shamelessly decided to claim it as mine before heading back out. When I returned to the living room, Leo spoke first, even though I hadn’t asked.

“I’m trying to find a way to fix Heike’s core.”

His desk was buried under notebooks and scattered pens. I silently nodded and took the seat across from him.

“We can’t just use the same treatment you used on me, right? My core was in terrible shape back then, too.”

“Your case only worked because of your talent.”

I’d fully expected that answer, but I’d still held onto a sliver of hope. Closing my eyes, I let out a long breath. Leo spoke calmly, “Lukas. A core doesn’t recover that quickly. It’s rare for one to shatter completely in the first place, but when someone is brought in after their core is destroyed in battle, they’re usually bedridden for months at the very least. Even then, many of them don’t make it.”

“…….”

“Your core last year wasn’t in any condition that could’ve healed just by drinking dozens of bottles of the recovery potion I made and receiving treatment from my mother and the doctors.”

I know. I realized it after the Ash Wednesday Eucharist, after I gained the ability to absorb mana. How could I not? Back then, I simply assumed Luka had the talent to become the finest mage in the family, so it only made sense that his core recovered unusually fast. That wasn’t a wrong assumption. But now that I know where that ‘talent’ actually came from, all I can do is laugh.

Ismailov could recover by drinking blood. Heike couldn’t. Elias’s bitter words echoed through my mind. I closed my eyes again. As if he could read the internal turmoil I was going through, Leo replied calmly.

“That’s only true under normal circumstances. Everyone’s magical aptitude and talents are different. The doctors figured out long ago that your case was unusual… but they never could have guessed the ability we’re both thinking of now. So don’t worry about that.”

“Right, I’m not worried about that part.”

The way he answered so quickly told me he’d already considered the possibility himself. When it came to treatment, there wasn’t much I could add anyway.

I picked up a blank notebook from Leo’s desk, scribbled down what Daniel had told me earlier, and asked, “What about Luise?”

“Julia’s with him. He hasn’t said much yet… I think he just needs some time.”

Leo looked at me before continuing.

“You went to see His Imperial Highness, didn’t you? Nothing happened?”

“…….”

Well, if drinking someone’s blood counted as nothing, then sure. But I couldn’t exactly tell him that. I shook my head and answered seriously.

“Nothing worth mentioning. More importantly, we can divide the information into two sources.”

Perhaps sensing I was finally getting to the point, Leo leaned forward with a nod.

“Abraham has a prophet named Daniel. So there’s the information I got from speaking with Daniel, and the information I got from Abraham… except Abraham didn’t actually know anything.”

“Even he didn’t?”

“Right. After putting together everything Daniel told me, I think we need to start with Ismailov, not Heike. So I questioned Abraham about Ismailov first. Hardly anyone knows anything about him. And among those who don’t, Abraham probably knows the most. If it hadn’t been him, I wouldn’t have gotten anything out of today’s conversation. Anyone else probably wouldn’t have even known Ismailov existed.”

Leo silently nodded.

“Leo. Did anything important happen on August 31st last year? Nationally, personally, or even just around us—anything at all that comes to mind?”

“Nothing I can remember. Why?”

“Abraham said that’s when they started grooming Ismailov to become the Messiah.”

“…What? I thought they’d been preparing him for at least ten years. That’s much more recent than I expected. Why last year?”

Exactly. That was the very thing that was bothering me, which was why I had gone out of my way to ask.

August 31st of last year. Nothing in particular connects me to that date either. The only thing that stands out is that it was shortly after I arrived in this world. The school year had started on September 1st, and I’d ended up here sometime in August.

‘…At least it wasn’t the exact same day.’

If it had been, I would’ve gotten chills. Not that there was any reason it should have been. It was just one of those thoughts that crossed my mind because the timing was suspicious once all the clues were put together.

I shook my head and my expression hardened.

August 31st—the first day they began preparing Ismailov to become the Messiah. Maybe I was stating the obvious, but the fact that Abraham gave such a specific date suggested it wasn’t merely the day someone first brought up the idea. It was probably the date that had actually been recorded. That theory fit even better considering Abraham himself hadn’t been directly involved. He’d only heard about it through people close to those who were.

In that case, if August 31st was the day the decision was approved—or when it was put into motion—when had the discussions leading up to that decision begun?

“…….”

Even if the dates didn’t match, it was still suspicious enough. Why August of last year? As someone who had been brought into this world that same month, I couldn’t help dwelling on it.

‘…What if Pleroma was performing some kind of necromancy and accidentally dragged me in…?’

Yeah, right… What a ridiculous leap. I let out a quiet snort, but the amusement faded before it became a smile. I laced my fingers together with a serious expression, then almost laughed again.

‘Come on.’

I buried my face in my hands again. After watching me alternate between snickering and going dead serious, Leo finally asked with a perplexed look, “What’s gotten into you, Lukas?”

“Nothing. Just… a stupid thought.”

“What kind of stupid thought?”

This wasn’t the time to think about it. No—that wasn’t quite right. It was the time, but thinking any harder wouldn’t get me an answer. What I needed to do now was piece together everything I knew and decide whose Extra Chapter to enter for more information—or who I needed to seek out directly.

The best place to start was figuring out how Heike and Ismailov had ended up caught in this incident. Maybe I’d answer my earlier questions along the way. Since Ismailov had become entangled in all this, getting to the root of his story was no longer optional. Whether I liked it or not, I was going to find out whether I had really been dragged into this world because of that unknown operation Pleroma had been preparing for Ismailov.

‘For now, I can’t rule out the possibility that the timing was just a coincidence.’

Right. There was far too little evidence to conclude that Ismailov and I were connected simply because of Pleroma. I couldn’t let one matching date push me into reading too much into it. I also needed to make sure I wasn’t falling into confirmation bias.

Leo waited in silence, so I shared the second significant piece of information I’d learned from Abraham.

“Abraham wasn’t involved in Ismailov’s brainwashing. Which means there had to be someone else capable of doing it.”

“Someone like Narke?”

“Right. There has to be a mage within Pleroma who specializes in powerful mental magic. Whoever it was would have had to remain absent from last September until this March, so they were probably someone who lives within Pleroma full-time. The problem is… if someone like that exists, shouldn’t they be the Messiah?”

I let out a sarcastic laugh.

I wished I could see Ismailov’s Mental Strength stat, but every stat on his status window was marked with nothing but “—”. Not even question marks—just dashes. It couldn’t possibly mean he had zero Mental Strength.

I fell silent for a moment, then voiced whatever thoughts came to mind.

“Narke has been telling me from the beginning that neither he, Heike, nor I should get anywhere near Ismailov.”

Leo looked at me with a questioning gaze. I told him what I’d only ever told Narke.

“Ismailov has the ability to absorb mana and Special Abilities. That’s one of the reasons he’s the Messenger of the Covenant.”

“…What? That ability…”

“I only became certain of it recently myself. As I suspected, Ismailov possesses multiple innate abilities. If Narke was trying to keep the three of us—himself, me, and Heike—away from Ismailov, then he must’ve judged that, among the Eszett, our abilities were especially dangerous.”

“…Abilities that would be dangerous if Ismailov acquired them, you mean.”

“Exactly.”

At this point, the conversation had become less about exchanging information and more about organizing my own thoughts. Even though he couldn’t see why I had suddenly brought up Narke, Leo patiently followed each abrupt turn in the conversation. While I was lost in thought, he spoke up.

“So there were two useful pieces of information you got from Abraham. I understand that much now. What about Daniel? What did he say?”

“For now, the prophecy of the seven stars and the seven golden lampstands isn’t important. It wasn’t what caused all this.”

“Why not?”

If that prophecy had been the key to this incident, Daniel would have left me with at least some cryptic hint. That could wait. I gave Leo the short version.

“I don’t know the reason either. Most of it was a warning directed at me. He told me to beware of the Pharisees, and to beware of those who want me to stand on my own—but also want me to stand alone… And he said Heike and Ismailov aren’t connected.”

There was more to our conversation after that. But it had nothing to do with what was happening now, and it wasn’t something I could comfortably tell Leo. Leo paid no mind to the fact that I was deliberately leaving things out and simply continued.

“He told you to beware of someone. The fact that you’re telling me that means you trust me.”

“Hm…? Of course I do.”

Maybe it hadn’t been so obvious to him. Ever since what happened to Heike, Leo had looked weighed down, but a faint smile crossed his face. A moment later, he masked it and asked, “Heike and Ismailov aren’t connected? That’s the part that throws me. If that’s true, does it mean a third party attacked them?”

“At the time, Elias and I were both with them. So whoever did it couldn’t have shown up and attacked them directly—it would have had to be a remote attack…”

Heike’s core had been under Narke’s protection¹. If anything had happened to it, Narke would have known immediately. That safeguard had been put in place precisely in case something happened to Heike. And if someone had attacked him remotely before he collapsed, Narke would have said so right away. But was a remote attack like that even possible? Technically, it shouldn’t have been.

Everything we’d discussed so far kept replaying in my mind, falling into place only to scatter apart again.

“…….”

Ah.

The moment a thought struck me and I started to speak, Leo rubbed his forehead and let out a long sigh.

“I think I understand now why you didn’t start by asking His Imperial Highness about Heike. The moment he said the two of them weren’t connected, it turned everything into a dead end. Digging into Ismailov instead really is the better….”

“I’ve got it.”

It was still a long shot, but I finally had a hypothesis. I shot to my feet. Leo looked up at me, startled.

“What? What did you figure out?”

“Leo. Can you give me some of Ismailov’s blood?”

I grabbed him by the shoulders and looked straight into his bewildered eyes.

“Then wait three hours for me. I’ll be back.”

Translator Note

1. In Chapter 214, Narke placed a subjugation spell on Heike’s core. ↩︎