Chapter 551

I couldn’t fail to recognize the emotion in those eyes. It felt as though something made of ice had pierced straight through my heart. The looks that had once saturated me whenever I went to school after a shoot, or whenever I opened the classroom door the day after some new topic about me had emerged—they were here now. Whether those looks were positive or negative had never mattered.

The brief moment of agitation passed as though it had happened in a dream, and I quickly regained my composure. I smiled at the friend before me, a friend whose presence filled me with such joy that my heart almost skipped a beat.

“Um…”

Ulrike hesitated to greet me. He watched me in silence before approaching with hesitant steps. Then, for no particular reason, he called my name.

“Lukas.”

“Yeah. What is it?”

Ulrike hesitated for a moment, then opened his arms. Understanding, I smiled and embraced him. Ulrike’s arms tightened around my back. He didn’t seem to care that I must have smelled of blood.

“Are you okay?”

That was what I asked. Right now, Ulrike was looking at me as though a vast river had somehow sprung up between us, as though he were looking at someone from a distant world. At my question, Ulrike flinched, then answered playfully.

“Of course. That’s what I should be asking you.”

“You saw everything, so you know I’m perfectly fine.”

“I saw everything, so I can’t say that.”

He had a point. Drinking human blood and then bringing it back up in front of everyone was hardly something anyone would call normal, and that was precisely why I had used it. I wondered if there had been anything else wrong with me. What had happened during the stretches of time I couldn’t remember?

Ulrike rested his chin on my shoulder and murmured, “But you put up with it because you needed to. Right…? More than that, I was surprised because you felt like a completely different person the whole time. You really are His Excellency Adrian Askanien’s younger brother…”

“Hahaha.”

I patted his back and gently pulled away with a smile. Ulrike looked straight into my eyes and said, “I’m genuinely glad you’re alive. Even the people who said you should be executed have gone quiet now. No one can kill you now.”

I wondered whether I had truly survived.

But he was right. I had survived. I could finally breathe again. My steps felt lighter, and the reason was that I had lost something.

More than anything, I had suffered a loss.

And yet, I hadn’t lost it.

What I had lost was in my hands.

I finally had it in my grasp.

They had taken it from me, and today I had gained it back. Yet that gain was, in the most absolute sense, a loss for the person called ‘me.’

There is no need to add anything more to this contradictory statement. Anything more would distort my life.

In short, I was smiling with my eyes closed, but whenever I closed them, I found myself staring back at me with a blank expression. It wasn’t the me from my second life. It was the complete face I knew as my own, staring at me like a ghost that had risen from the grave. I knew what was in his eyes. He silently reproached me. At times, he seemed like the mother who had given birth to me, sitting there and watching me with eyes I could not understand. But I had no regrets. I had not chosen to live on for the sake of petty money and honor so insignificant that I felt like nothing more than an ant in the universe, nor had I chosen to act opportunistically out of fear of death.

By stepping one pace away from what my heart told me to do, I had also stepped closer to it. In a situation where I seemed to be moving farther away from my past self, I was actually drawing closer to the person I was today. I could not make the life Leonard had given me meaningless. And it wasn’t only a matter of physical death. I had never known there were people in this world who would stake not only their lives, but even their souls, on another person. That day, I discovered for the first time someone who could give himself completely to another, no matter how different that person was from him. And so, from the day of my third bitter defeat onward, I have been carrying on this life that I received from the person who destroyed himself to interfere with the fate of a complete stranger.

There was more I had gained from all this besides the one friend who made me want to live more than anything else. I had gained time to spend with all the friends I loved. I had gained the chance to keep someone else from being sent to the execution ground. I had gained the chance to try to protect the people from Pleroma. In other words, I had been given the rest of my life to do my best in matters where I already knew injustice existed. The chance to build a world worth showing to the earliest version of myself I knew…

I was prepared enough. I was confident I could hold my breath and wait for another day. So I did not regret taking half a step backward before moving forward.

“I’m glad I’m alive and got to see you, too. Have you been well?”

“No.”

Ulrike was firmer than I expected—not that it was unexpected; he had always been like this. It wasn’t difficult to understand why he was so firm. I shifted my gaze slightly, raised an eyebrow, and placed a hand against my chest.

“Because of me?”

“More precisely, you could say it’s because of the way people have been treating you.”

“Now I feel bad for no reason. More importantly, I have to leave soon. If you don’t mind, could you wait for me at school?”

“You’re going somewhere again already?! Can’t I come with you…?”

Ulrike asked as naturally as ever, as though he had never hesitated when he saw me. I gave Mecklenburg a look, and after thinking for a moment, he nodded.

After a simple lunch at the Imperial Palace, we traveled by carriage to rest. I had expected it to some extent, but sure enough, an Imperial Dailies interview had been scheduled for noon. Since our interests aligned on this matter, at least this much I wanted to give the Imperial government credit for. I leaned back against the seat and folded my arms.

There was something I was curious about.

Pleroma had left me at the mercy of the public. They had tried to isolate me through the people, and for a brief moment, they had succeeded. But now that the public had turned their backs on Pleroma once again, what would they do next? Had they not expected me to turn the tables once more? Or was there another game waiting for me to play against them?

If I wanted to think rationally, I had to assume the latter and prevent Pleroma’s next move. What methods could Pleroma use to kill me again? We had to consider every possibility and defend against everything from their smallest counterattack to their grandest scheme.

As the carriage set off, Ulrike unfolded the stack of newspapers he had bought after eating and leaving the palace, then neatly piled them one by one on my lap.

“Here, newspapers. Everyone’s talking about you!”

The front page of the Imperial Dailies was dominated by a photograph of me looking at the Imperial subjects while raising a bloodstained, clenched fist and speaking to them. It had been taken from my left side at a slight angle, and perhaps zoomed in from somewhere among the crowd, because the frame was completely filled with me. Even I found myself embarrassed by how fired-up and fervent I looked.

At least my eyes had been captured much more sharply than Adrian Askanien’s, whose gaze carried a certain wisdom and strength, so I didn’t look much like my older brother. Instead, there was something more hot-blooded and aggressive about me.

Above it was some incomprehensible headline along the lines of The Person Who Overcame Blood.

I turned to the second page and raised an eyebrow at an unexpected phrase. There was an article quoting the headlines of other newspapers and commenting on them positively.

“‘The Second Gladstone,’ huh? Looks like this is part of the strategy, too?”

It was a strategy for fostering closer ties with Britain. Naming a promising young politician whom Germany had decided to accept as one of its rising political figures after the British prime minister was bound to make Britain feel good about itself rather than offended. The fact that they would secretly hold their heads a little higher because of it was practically guaranteed. That, in itself, was proof that my speech had succeeded on a continental scale.

In less than two hours, I had already become the very symbol of a reversal. I had become the person who broke through the injustice created by Pleroma and carved out a path toward justice…

Of course, the justice I was talking about was justice within the limits the public could accept. But to those watching, even that was radical enough. The ‘justice’ I had compromised on was, to them, a shock that hit them right in the back of the head.

I forced the corners of my stiff mouth upward.

Once you accepted that groups could change like fluid, in a way somewhat different from individuals, it was no longer surprising. Just as I had believed before coming here, that was what was happening for a brief moment today as well.

In any case, Prussia did seem to be taking the opportunity to hype me up a little too much. But considering they were willing to make a move this bold, there had to be some genuine belief behind it.

I tapped the newspaper lightly and asked, “What do you think, Senior?”

Mecklenburg said nothing. He moved his lips as though he had so much to say that he couldn’t say anything at all, then turned his head away.

Ulrike rested an arm on my back and murmured, “I really thought of him.”

“Really?”

I tilted my head and gave him a polite, conventional smile for the moment. Ulrike narrowed his eyes and waved both hands around as he tried to explain further.

“You were, well, incredibly… seasoned. The camera made you look like you were angry for no reason, but when I saw you in person, you looked like you’d been through a speech like that dozens of times.”

“I see.”

“If it were me, I would’ve gotten angry or upset, but you stayed calm from beginning to end… And…”

I propped my chin on my hand and listened as I watched Ulrike. He clasped his hands together and looked down at the floor of the carriage before speaking.

“You told everyone they were wrong.”

“…….”

“Everyone must’ve felt like you were scolding them. It couldn’t have been easy for you to say something like that from where you stood, but you did it anyway. To me and the others, it was just like Gladstone, a British who criticized his fellow Britons. He pointed out that something was wrong even when it was his own countrymen who were doing it. Honestly, we really need politicians like that. Someone who can lead the politics of their time—someone who can tell us to reflect when someone is going firmly down the wrong path, whether they’re our fellow subjects or fellow politicians…”

“Mm.”

“And most of them don’t. They’re quick to point out the faults of politicians from other parties, but they never point out the faults of the voters who hold their seats in their hands. Instead, they tell them what they want to hear. They pursue the policies those voters want, and really, that’s only natural. People elect representatives to carry out their will, after all. If the people want imperialism, they elect an imperialist prime minister. And if the people want a war to secure their nation’s dominance, they choose a politician who actively supports war and put them in that position. That’s why it’s so rare for a politician to tell the people what imperialism really is, or what the reality of war is like. You did that today, even with your own life in the hands of the people. So I think the title is well deserved. That’s how I see it.”

I listened to him in silence until he finished, then quietly replied.

“So that’s how my words sounded to you.”

“Yeah.”

What I lack isn’t something most people lack. What he meant was that my speech had found the right distance between me and the public.

But was I going to stop there?

No.

If I had succeeded in reaching that line, shouldn’t I gradually push it farther and farther beyond itself?

When the carriage began to slow, I smiled and said to Ulrike, “Now I have to go to the Imperial Dailies for an interview. I don’t think Pleroma is going to stop here.”

At that, Ulrike clapped his hands and widened his eyes. Then he narrowed them again and shrugged.

“Ah, right. Strange. I doubt they expected you to get out of this so cleanly, but… if it were them, they could’ve prepared much more thoroughly. If their plan was to claim that you were their Christ and then throw the subjects into confusion, there should’ve been something else to follow it up.”

“Exactly. It’s obvious they’re going to do something else.”

“What?”

I set the newspaper down at one side of the carriage and adjusted my clothes as I answered.

“We don’t have to look far. The answer should be in the Dead Sea the continent is digging up right now.”

Pleroma wouldn’t hesitate to make use of the biblical manuscripts discovered in the Dead Sea. That was the first possibility that came to mind when considering the small, piecemeal responses they could make.

Once I knew that, what should I do?

The right move was to strike first and kill the sprout before it could grow.

Thirty minutes into the interview broadcast, with the interview gradually drawing to a close, the interviewer asked me what I thought Pleroma would do next.

Why on earth were they asking a student like me that in the first place?

For one, my image as a student had already faded considerably. And second, because this whole thing was a staged game between me and the government.

I was answering as sincerely as I could.

“So, I would like to urge all of you, my fellow subjects, to keep this in mind. Now that Pleroma has failed to fully achieve its goal of throwing the people into confusion, they may resort to any lie imaginable to divide the Empire and the continent once again. We cannot know what kind of forged biblical manuscript they might have produced and hidden in Ein Feshkha, or whether they took a genuine biblical manuscript and subjected it to careful, deceptive editing. In particular, their interpretation of Scripture is fundamentally heretical, because they decide on the outcome they want first and then force the text to fit it. That is precisely why I find this Ein Feshkha manuscript so deeply concerning.”

“Ah, yes. That is certainly a very important issue.”

The interviewer nodded with a deliberately grave expression. I continued, putting on a worried look.

“No matter how I look at it, I have no doubt that Pleroma intends to use that biblical manuscript for the wrong purposes. The Ein Feshkha manuscript is undoubtedly a precious heritage of humanity, but its value is being tarnished as heretics use it to sow division among the people, within the Empire, and across the continent. My fellow subjects, whatever Pleroma says using the Ein Feshkha manuscript, whatever sensational claims the manuscript appears to make, you must not believe them. Scripture, by its very nature, must meet certain conditions regarding the time in which it was given and the suitability of its contents. That is why the canon as we know it today was established only after a long period of examination and debate. The New Testament apocrypha and pseudepigrapha¹, on the other hand, are incomplete in that regard. Even if they claim, with their characteristic Antichristian worldview, that they have discovered a new scripture, and then release sensational claims that it contains a vision of a future in which Gnostics hold sway or reveals who the next Christ will be, such information is precisely as divisive as it is sensational—and that makes it far removed from the truth. If something truly is Scripture, it would generally contain words that unsettle our complacency or fill our lives with joy, rather than simply being sensational. So, everyone, once again, we must not allow Pleroma to shake the Empire as they desire.”

“I agree completely. My fellow subjects, you should begin by assuming that every piece of information Pleroma puts forward is a lie. Look at what has happened because they are trying to bring down the Empire. Isn’t our Empire weakening as though a war had broken out?”

The interviewer, famous as a pro-Imperial political commentator, agreed with me, making a circular gesture with his hand. He smiled as he recited his closing remarks.

“We’ve been speaking with Prince Lukas Askanien. As we already knew several months ago, and as we saw again this morning, there is certainly a reason he is being praised as the second Gladstone. Is there anything you would like to say in closing?”

“Indeed. I suppose that’s the last thing you wanted to say. I’m very grateful for the comparison to the second Gladstone, but I would prefer to be a little more modest. His Excellency Gladstone was truly an exceptional politician and a great father of Britain. I’m still too young to be called that, and I haven’t even properly entered the political world yet. I do wish to work for the honor of our homeland and for all of you, my fellow subjects, but I’m not yet accustomed to that sort of role. I appreciate the praise, but I don’t think the time has come yet.”

“How surprising. If I had received such a title at Your Highness’s age, I would have been overjoyed. But there’s no denying that you made an impact just as great as that, isn’t there?”

I smiled, raised an eyebrow, and replied, “I won’t deny it.”

“Hahahaha!”

“But the people also played a part in making this address so meaningful. It was you, my fellow subjects, who recognized the problem in my appeal and decided not to give Pleroma any more power. I hope all of you will continue to make wise choices instead of letting yourselves be swayed by their every word. There are times when a single word can turn everything around, and times when it cannot. You must have the ability to distinguish injustice wearing the mask of justice from true justice.”

“The more I speak with you, the more I feel that you’re a person with a very promising future. I suppose graduates of our homeland’s finest school really are different.”

Deeply struck by the kind of statement that would have been difficult to make so openly in the 21st century, I smiled inwardly and checked my Reputation value. +5. Considering that it became harder to raise as the number grew, it was an absurdly large increase. The interviewer continued praising me until the very end, practically running out of saliva.

“You remind me very much of His Excellency Adrian Askanien.”

6:00 PM.

“I suffered serious injuries during the operation and still need treatment. In particular, I walked without crutches when I stood before the square this time, so my broken leg has probably been weakened again. I’d like to have that treated properly as well and focus on my recovery.”

I had said something along those lines halfway through the interview, leaving some room in my schedule for the coming days. It was not something I had discussed with the Imperial Family, but there was no point informing them beforehand when they would obviously refuse. It was better to get ahead of them. There were things worth compromising on, and things that weren’t. To avoid any identity conflict with Nikolaus Ernst, Lukas Askanien’s official schedule could not be packed too tightly.

But since I had come out today, I had to make the rounds until the end. I got into a car rather than a carriage and stopped by the Imperial Second Academy. I had told Mecklenburg that I would discuss it with the Imperial Family—or rather, that I would make the decision myself.

The reporters who had been informed of my route in advance were already taking pictures, so I simply held out my hand toward them with an expressionless face, as royals and high-ranking politicians usually did. When I got out of the car in front of the Imperial Second Academy, I saluted the seven or eight professors waiting at the main entrance. They returned the salute.

The professors who had been waiting for me greeted me with proud smiles, while some others welcomed me with smiles that were a little awkward, if no less genuine. Shutter clicks, and more shutter clicks…

Even after returning my salute, they went out of their way to shake my hand. I didn’t mind. When I saw my homeroom professor smiling with a wordless look of pride on his face, I found myself smiling as well. I had already read his entire letter and knew what kind of help he had given me.

Before I could even exchange a verbal greeting with him, the newly appointed head of the Department of Magic grabbed my shoulder, patted me on the back, and said to the reporters, “He is a rising star in our Empire’s political circles. We couldn’t be happier to see a student of this institution become the very symbol of a promising future.”

In other words, from the moment I had most dramatically proven my innocence in the worst possible situation, and from the moment I had succeeded in pairing it with a strategic speech, I was no longer a student.

A student politician—no, that was wrong. An icon.

What kind of icon?

I represented the destruction of the ‘Prussia versus the Continent’ framework France had worked so hard to construct, replacing it with ‘Germany versus the Cult.’ More than that, I had become an icon capable of expanding that framework into ‘the Continent versus the Cult.’

Only Mecklenburg, standing on the opposite side, remained stiff as a board. He had been like that the whole time. Perhaps Ulrike had been the same way for a moment.

I answered with a confident smile instead.

Whatever I had become, the important thing now was not to leave this rapidly rising icon as an icon, but to bring him safely back down to earth. So far, I was succeeding. I would continue to do so.

Because I was going to make it happen.

After finishing my greetings with the reporters, I warped onto the academy grounds with the professors and spoke with them for a while. It would be too early to start meeting politicians when I was only just beginning to establish my position in political circles. For someone like me, who intended to win over the majority, it was more advantageous to start from the periphery—scholars, professors, reporters, and others with connections to the political world—and work my way inward.

At 10 PM, after I had finished greeting the reporters, I headed to the Wittelsbach mansion in Berlin with Ulrike, who had entered the academy through the back entrance and moved in and out of the school while I was speaking with them. Since this was my private residence, one the academy already knew about, there would be no problem with me resting here.

The moment I stepped into the garden, I caught the familiar scent of grass. I greeted the Wittelsbach household servants with a gesture and a smile, then took off my hat and jacket and handed them over. Ulrike did the same before asking me, “Actually, about earlier.”

“Hmm?”

“When I first saw you, I didn’t say anything for a moment.”

“You didn’t.”

“For a second, you felt like someone who was way above me, and I wondered if it was okay for me to act around you the way I usually do.”

I turned at those words and met Ulrike’s calm gaze.

“What do you mean? No matter how I give a speech, that doesn’t change the fact that we’re friends.”

Since that was the only subject I could think of that he might be referring to, I brought up the speech first. Whether that was the right thing to do or not, Ulrike tilted his head and said, “That’s true. But usually, when people’s circumstances become different, they gradually grow apart.”

“…….”

“Even just last week, or two weeks ago, I thought I’d be spending more than a hundred years with all of you. But today, I’m not so sure. Do you think we can still be like we were today without the team that binds us together?”

If I thought about it coldly, with the mindset of a working adult, I should have said no. The idea that all seven of us would continue spending every moment together like brothers wasn’t impossible, considering that we were in a specialized line of work and, unusually, were all peers selected from the same school. But even so, it would be difficult.

And wasn’t Ulrike the only one who actually wanted everyone on this team to become close friends? For the others, there would be nothing wrong with becoming friends on a personal level, and at times it might even be nice—circumstances simply hadn’t allowed it. None of them truly rejected or disliked the idea. At the same time, though, we were people brought together as a team to work, so I didn’t think we all had to become close in the way Ulrike hoped.

But, like everyone else, I didn’t want to voice a cold calculation of the odds in front of a friend who kept saying he wanted us to grow closer. Personally, I wanted these friends to have as many good times as possible, too. And, really, if we had simply remained friends from different classes, perhaps things would have been different. But we had already met like this…

“If you want things to stay this way, then of course. At least I want to spend more than a hundred years with all of you.”

I couldn’t turn away from him. I thought for a long while about how to answer honestly, and in the end, that was what I told him.

At that, Ulrike rubbed his chin and fell into thought. I had expected him to say something like, ‘Then that’s a relief,’ but he was staring into empty space, deep in thought. Had I said something wrong…?

But I hadn’t said anything just to fill the silence. I don’t do that in situations like this. Unless things are urgent enough that I have to act, I almost never say things I don’t mean, because doing so makes me feel like I can’t stand myself. The only question was whether I had already given him enough reason to trust me enough to believe I was being sincere.

I had told him the truth. Whether someone else chose to accept it or not was no longer in my hands. All I could do was wait, tense with anticipation.

Ulrike followed me wherever I went, then sat down on the sofa in the center of the second floor. Once he sat there, I had no choice but to sit beside him. Ulrike spoke quietly.

“Actually, if I told you now that I don’t doubt you anymore, you’d have a hard time believing me, wouldn’t you?”

I raised an eyebrow, wondering what he meant.

“You could think I was deceived by Pleroma’s announcement and had been doubting you, only to say I believed you after seeing proof as extreme as what happened today. I mean, from your point of view. I should’ve told you I believed you right then, on Easter, but…”

“Luise. You don’t have to worry about that. I don’t hold anything against you.”

I smiled and gave him the proper, textbook answer. Even so, Ulrike was leaning both arms against the sofa, sitting at an angle with his eyes wide as he stared at me. Then he said seriously, “You’re misunderstanding something. What I’m afraid of right now isn’t that my sincerity will be doubted. I’m afraid you might not be able to be yourself in front of me.”

I often found myself at a loss for words in front of Ulrike because he could sometimes be startlingly honest. Faced with that kind of straightforwardness, I never knew what I was supposed to do.

When I said nothing, he asked quietly, “So… are you going to keep treating me the way you are now?”

“No, Luise.”

I closed my eyes for a moment and shook my head.

“No.”

“…….”

“What do you mean, how I treat you?”

Ulrike slowly straightened up as he answered.

“You seem to still be in the same state you were in when you gave that speech. Even if you aren’t like that for a while, it feels like you become that way again.”

Only then did I understand why he was acting this way. I had already made a strategic compromise with myself, and as an actor, I was in a perfectly good state. But my friends, who knew nothing about that process, had noticed that something about me had subtly changed. As far as I was concerned, the difference was that I had been unusually confident the whole time. From Ulrike’s perspective, though, it must have been strange to see me go through something that insane and still come out of it looking so triumphant. Wouldn’t it?

I shook my head, trying to offer some kind of explanation.

“It’s not like that. I didn’t necessarily mean to do that.”

When I stubbornly denied it like a child, Ulrike snapped his fingers with a serious look on his face.

“Definitely not this time.”

“Right. Well, if you want, I’ll explain. But…”

Ulrike waved a hand, cutting me off.

“Ahhhhh. Wait. Then.”

Then what? I tilted my head, wondering what on earth he was trying to say. Ulrike suddenly lit up like a child waiting for Christmas and exclaimed, “Then, you know!”

“…Yeah, what are you trying to say? What comes next?”

“I want to see that you’re still you. Are you free tomorrow? You said you don’t have any plans because you’re going to the hospital tomorrow.”

“As if. Absolutely not.”

Is going to the hospital not a plan? I put that brief question aside for now.

Why was Pleroma staying quiet? That meant they had a plan. Of course, they might not actually have one—I could simply be overestimating them all the time—but it was far more rational to assume they did. That meant I had to stay on the ground, and even with my identity as Lukas Askanien overlapping with Nikolaus Ernst, I was going to have to keep rushing back and forth between Bavaria and Prussia.

“I suppose so… What about tonight?”

“We have to sleep at night.”

I had no particular intention of sleeping though. What I wanted to do was come up with a strategy. Apparently already well aware of that, Ulrike interlaced his fingers and asked with an unconvinced expression, “You’re going to sleep?”

“…….”

I stared at him for a moment, then shook my head with an expression that admitted defeat.

“No. Luise, I think I know what you’re trying to do, but I can’t go outside. Especially not to go out and relax. Absolutely not. I want to avoid doing anything that might change public opinion before the official schedule.”

“Uh-huh. Of course I know~! I know that much without you having to say it!”

Ulrike grabbed my hand and pulled me up from my seat. I got to my feet almost without thinking and followed him. He pulled out a note I had never seen before and headed up one more floor. Then he stopped me in front of a room at the end of the corridor and knocked on the door.

“Get in!”

“Why? What is it?”

“I liked the set we made at school earlier, so I brought it here. I wanted to follow Elias’s example, too.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

I asked, feeling my head go cold. My temples were already starting to throb, but even the words I wish you’d just fill in all the necessary parts of the sentence when you speak didn’t make it out of my mouth.

“I met a professor, too. Actually, I got to this mansion before you did.”

“What?”

I narrowed my eyes and looked at Ulrike. He frowned seriously and gestured toward the door. I needed to know what he meant by saying he had arrived at this mansion before me, but judging by the way he was looking at me, he didn’t seem inclined to explain. Watching him suspiciously, I opened the door anyway. Ulrike didn’t miss his chance and shoved me from behind.

“Uh, wait—”

I never got the chance to say anything more.

Because I realized there was no ground beneath my feet.

“W-whoa?!”

SPLASH—

I heard the sound of water. Droplets splashed against my cheek.

The moment the breath in my lungs caught, Ulrike grabbed my shoulder and started laughing as if this were the most amusing thing in the world. As it turned out, after pushing me, he had immediately wrapped his arms around me again and fallen with me.

Fortunately, the actual ground was only about 30 centimeters below the surface, so it wasn’t deep. The problem was…

We had fallen into a stream.

The icy cold water seeping into my boots sent a sharp chill all the way to my heart. Ulrike’s laughter was absurdly bright, and I stared up at the sky in disbelief.

That was when I spotted two people sitting on the bank beside the stream.

Leonard and Julia.

The strangely clear sky, the sudden heat that felt more like a summer day, the friends who appeared even though they couldn’t possibly have been nearby enough to be inside the same magic, and—of all things—a stream…

I was so dumbfounded that I forgot to even greet the friends I was meeting for the first time since my confinement, and instead looked back at Ulrike behind me.

It was a Mimesis.

This was what he had said he’d brought back from school.

Translator Note

1. Apocrypha and pseudepigrapha: Writings associated with early Christianity that were not included in the canonical New Testament. ‘Apocrypha’ generally refers to texts whose canonical status was disputed or that were excluded from the biblical canon, while ‘pseudepigrapha’ refers to works attributed to figures who did not actually write them. ↩︎