Chapter 553

“It’s snowing.”

I murmured as I looked up at the sky. Then I leaned forward and pushed myself upright.

“There’s no way it’s snowing! Did you change the settings?”

“No. I had it fixed to summer.”

Ulrike frowned in confusion. Now that I thought about it, he seemed to express his emotions with his eyes quite often. But despite our confusion, the snow stopped falling almost immediately. The weather remained just as hot as before, hot enough to make us sweat.

“I should go outside and check.”

Even so, Ulrike narrowed his eyes and thought hard for a moment before getting out of the water. Normally, a participant couldn’t leave Mimesis from the inside unless they died or broke one of Mimesis’s rules, so I supposed he had some kind of controller that allowed him to leave.

He disappeared toward the place where we had thrown our clothes.

Leonard, Zähringen, and I could only stare blankly at one another. Zähringen tossed the nut that looked like a chestnut in his hand over to Leonard and me. After thinking for a moment, I went to roughly bury it in the dirt behind us and returned. When I returned, Zähringen was grinning as he cracked the nut between his teeth. Then he remarked offhandedly, “Even though it’s a Mimesis?”

“Out of habit.”

“It’s unripe, so there’s no need to bury it. Even squirrels won’t bother with it.”

“I see.”

When I plopped down beside them, Zähringen leaned back comfortably, supporting himself with one arm behind him, and said, “It’s a hazelnut. They fully ripen in autumn, so that’s when they’re best to eat.”

It looked remarkably like a chestnut, but apparently it wasn’t one after all. Unfortunately, the only hazelnut I knew was the flavor used in hazelnut coffee.

Zähringen clearly didn’t mind playing with people his own age. I had no idea how much he had actually gotten into playing with children he probably considered rather simple, given that perpetually relaxed expression of his, but it seemed he had spent his time trying all sorts of things and enjoying himself in his own way.

I had been born and raised in the city, so unless it was something as common as chestnuts, I didn’t know the names of most other fruits and nuts, much less think they were particularly tasty. Considering that the cities here were far more in tune with nature than 21st century Seoul, I suppose it couldn’t be helped. Though, to be fair, if I had often gone hiking or visited parks even in 21st century Seoul, I probably would have known them well enough.

I just hadn’t had many opportunities to do that.

As if he had read my thoughts, Zähringen tilted his head and teased me.

“City dweller.”

“I don’t want to hear that from someone from Karlsruhe.”

“Hahahaha!”

Zähringen burst into clear laughter. It was ridiculous hearing him say that when everyone here had been born and raised in a major city.

Zähringen leaned back a little farther, then flicked his fingers and pulled an unripe hazelnut toward him with mana from the other side. He rinsed the hazelnut in the water, then brought it toward my mouth.

“Ah.”

“Why?”

“Try it.”

Zähringen smiled as though he wanted to see whether I could actually eat a hazelnut or not. It wasn’t like there was any reason I couldn’t. When I just stared at him indifferently, Zähringen brought the hazelnut right up to my lips. Only then did I take it from him and give it a rough bite. Leonard didn’t even try to stop him. This only strengthened my suspicion that the two of them were often on the same wavelength.

I knew well enough that hazelnuts had shells. I crushed the shell with my molars, and once it had split open enough, I pulled the hazelnut halfway out of my mouth and dipped it back into the water. Then, underwater, I tore the split shell apart and let it drift away.

Zähringen smiled and gestured for me to try it, so I cautiously bit into the end of the hazelnut.

And immediately, I had to scrunch up my face.

“…! Ugh, that’s awful.”

“Hahaha.”

I barely managed to break off and swallow the part I had bitten into, then let the rest drift away in the water. With a sigh, I put both hands into the water and splashed my two friends, who were doing nothing but laughing.

“Haha.”

“Why me…”

Leonard muttered with a snort of laughter. Zähringen casually wiped the water running down his face. I put a hand to my forehead.

“How did you not make a single face when it tasted like this?”

Even after I asked, Zähringen merely smiled faintly, his eyes crinkling. Just as he always did.

Leonard, who had raised one corner of his mouth crookedly in an expression that made it impossible to tell whether he was smiling or looking at Zähringen with pity, explained.

“He wanted you to eat it.”

I shook my head and got to my feet. After wandering around for a while, I came across a tree bearing small fruits that looked like apples. This one was obvious enough that I knew exactly what it was, though I’d never actually eaten one.

I took off my completely soaked vest, rolled it up, and used it to carry the apples back to my friends. By then, Ulrike had returned as well. I asked the friends sitting together on the bank,

“Anyone want an apple?”

“Go on, try it.”

I just smiled at Zähringen. I set the apple down beside me to make it clear I wasn’t going to eat it, and Leonard chuckled. It was probably sour or astringent anyway…

I sat down beside Ulrike and asked, “So, Luise. Everything all right outside?”

“Yeah. Totally fine. What should we play now?”

“I don’t know. I’m going to dry my clothes.”

I flopped down in a sunny spot and closed my eyes. My wet clothes clung to the ground beneath me. Lying in the sunlight, I liked the feeling that they were already starting to dry.

Something covered my face again. Feeling the leaves pile up endlessly, I asked Ulrike, “What is it this time?”

“…….”

“Luise. I know it’s you.”

“A sunshade. You’ll get a tan!”

“It’s fine, Luise. There’s nothing wrong with getting a little tan.”

Among students our age, having sun-kissed skin was something of a point of pride. I had no particular feelings about skin color, so I didn’t especially take pride in getting a tan, but there was no reason to go out of my way to prevent it, either. Unlike before, I wasn’t doing anything that required me to carefully manage my appearance, so whether I got tanned or not didn’t matter to me.

“No. You just stay like this. I’m the only one who’s getting a tan.”

“It’s Mimesis anyway.”

“Ah~ Aha~”

Ulrike chuckled for a moment, then seemed to mutter a curse under his breath. He wants to get a tan this badly? I’ll have to drag Ulrike out to get some sun when summer comes. He removed the leaves piled over my face one by one. He left only the one covering my eye and slipped back into the water.

“Look at this, a trout~”

Much later, I heard Ulrike showing off to Leonard and Zähringen about the fish he had apparently caught. Even then, I remained with my eyes closed, basking in the warm sunlight atop the moss and clover.

How much time had passed?

The direction of the wind changed. I brushed away the oak leaf covered in snow and sat up. The wind slipping beneath my shirt felt different.

“Wait.”

It was snowing again.

Leonard and Zähringen, who had been lost in their own little world, laughing and talking for quite some time, turned their heads as well.

I opened my mouth in disbelief and pushed myself to my feet. A cold wind swept across my body. The water began freezing solid in an instant, starting from upstream. Green leaves began falling from the sky, turning into autumn leaves as they dropped.

CRACK—BOOM—

With frighteningly quick judgment, Leonard flicked his hand and made grass grow from the bottom of the stream. He eventually turned the streambed into level ground, creating a path for Ulrike to get out more easily. The water above and below the section Leonard had blocked froze solid, turning white.

“So that thing earlier…”

I muttered a curse as the easterly wind chilled me to the bone. I checked whether what was falling from the sky really was snow, but no matter how much I doubted it, it was snow.

It had been summer ten seconds ago.

Now it was winter.

“Wow. We’re going to freeze to death soon.”

Zähringen said it with a smile, folding his arms. He was remarkably relaxed considering the situation. I turned around and looked at Ulrike behind me.

“Luise, the Mimesis settings…”

When I was about to speak to him, I saw the determined look on Ulrike’s face. He had skewered several thick trout onto a long branch and was waving it around like a weapon. Looking at us, he quickly pointed downhill.

“Let’s go down to the houses! We’re out of time!”

“Wait, this isn’t the time to be going down—”

“Hurry!”

I grimaced, then quickly retrieved the jacket I had thrown up the slope and ran downhill.

“Hey, Luise. Luise!”

“What?!”

“Whew…”

I was too cold to even speak. My half-dried clothes had frozen solid, shedding thin shards of ice whenever I moved. Ulrike’s lips had turned blue as well.

“Luise, you need to go outside and check what happened! You have the controller, don’t you?”

“I can’t! If I go out now—”

“Why not?! Give it to me. I’ll go myself.”

“Ahhhhh.”

“Are you Elias or something?!”

Ulrike effortlessly leaped over rocks and tree roots, then slid down the sloping hillside. Then, apparently seized by some inexplicable burst of confidence, he stepped onto the stream, which had frozen solid.

Leonard and Zähringen, on the other side of the stream, widened their eyes in surprise. Zähringen quickly returned to his usual faintly curved smile, but I couldn’t do the same.

“Wheee~”

Ulrike came sliding down the gently sloping stream, screaming as he stretched one leg straight out and tucked the other inward. When the slope ended, he climbed back onto the path I had been running along, then wrapped mana around the trees and swung through the air.

“Woohooo!”

“…….”

I was gradually running out of things to say. The wind blowing hard enough to cut through my skin was bewildering enough, but I also couldn’t understand how this student had the stamina to fly around like a monkey. And every time the snow piling up on my eyelashes melted into water and seeped beneath my eyelids, my head ached so badly that I had to keep shaking it.

Above all, running around in the middle of winter wearing a shirt that wasn’t even dry yet was practically an act of suicide. At this point, getting into a coffin seemed more likely than making it safely down to the village.

I called out to my friends on the other side.

“Hey, guys—! Why aren’t you stopping Luise?!”

“Because I don’t think he’d listen even if we tried.”

Leonard answered calmly and simply. Zähringen seemed to be in the same boat.

“Luise! You changed the weather, didn’t you?!”

“No—!”

“What do you mean, no?!”

“I really didn’t! I don’t know how to change the settings from inside!”

“So this happened because you don’t know how to operate it properly?!”

“No?!”

“Then is it at least safe?”

“Yes! I can guarantee it—!”

Doesn’t sound like he can guarantee it to me.

My joints were freezing up. At this rate, I might end up rolling all the way down the hill. And there was something else I was starting to seriously suspect…

I widened my eyes and bit my lip.

That was when Ulrike shouted.

“Oh! Ohhh!”

“Ah.”

Fortunately, a village with signs of habitation began to appear ahead of us. The Mimesis had presumably been set up without any people in it, so only the village itself should remain.

Ulrike naturally vaulted over the wall of the first dilapidated house he spotted. We followed him inside.

“Okay, one, two…”

Ulrike pulled on the doorknob, but it didn’t budge. He nodded as if he had expected that.

BANG—!

Then he slammed his shoulder into the door, smashing the wood apart. The sight gave me an instant headache, and I shouted without thinking.

“Ah!”

“Why? Why, why?!”

“What are we supposed to do in winter if you break the whole door?!”

“Let’s stay upstairs.”

Ulrike said it with a determined look before running upstairs. Fortunately, Leonard created a wall of vines to cover the doorway where the wind was blowing in. Completely exhausted, I collapsed onto the sofa on the first floor. The cool fabric against my body made me shiver.

Leonard sat down on the sofa beside me. A mass of grass crawled over to me and covered my entire body. When I looked over, Leonard had made something like a robe out of grass and draped it over himself as well…

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

“We really do end up doing all sorts of things.”

“Yeah. It feels like we’re playing a Headquarters game.”

Even so, Leonard didn’t seem bothered in the slightest. He looked at the trout skewer Ulrike had tossed onto the table before leaving and rubbed his chin. Then he called over Zähringen, who was straightening his clothes, and began saying something to him.

As they talked, all sorts of grass started growing up along Zähringen’s body, taking the shape of a robe. Seeing Leonard take care of him despite everything—though, really, it was something I should have expected to some extent—made me smile.

Zähringen nodded almost immediately after hearing Leonard out. He rummaged around in the kitchen, then took something and went outside.

Not long after, a flash of light burst outside, followed by thunder.

KRA-KOOM— RUMBLE—

KRA-KA-BOOM—!

I could tell what he was doing without even looking. Creating lightning just to get a fire going was so primitive that it sometimes made my back stiffen.

Before long, a dark silhouette appeared beyond the doorway and spoke to me from behind.

“Lukas, could you get rid of some of these vines?”

Before Zähringen could burn the house down, I pushed the vines covering the doorway as far to the side as I could. Zähringen came in carrying a thick, burning branch and gave me a wink.

It had looked carefree when Elias did it, but seeing Zähringen do it somehow made it feel completely new.

He stepped inside with a smile, set down the can of cooking oil he was holding in his other hand, and dropped the branch onto the firewood in the fireplace. I went over beside him and used mana to create a faint breeze, feeding the flames.

Crackle—

The fire slowly spread, melting the cold in my bones. I sat close enough that my eyelashes might have singed and closed my eyes. Zähringen went upstairs to bring Ulrike down, and now there were three of us warming ourselves in front of the fireplace. I did wonder if we could just stand in front of the tree that had been struck by lightning, but that didn’t seem like a particularly useful survival strategy.

Zähringen asked Ulrike if he could roast the trout, and when Ulrike readily agreed, he placed the skewer over the fire. Leonard, who had also made a robe for Ulrike and was growing plant stems on the living room floor to use as firewood, made a thoughtful sound when he noticed something catching on the ground.

“Why?”

“Look at this.”

Without hesitation, Leonard grabbed one of the wooden boards making up the floor and tore it up.

“Why are they like this…”

I muttered as I glanced sideways at my friends, who were now tearing up the floor of the house. Leonard finally pulled out whatever had been catching and tilted his head.

“Potatoes?”

“Oh, let’s eat these!”

Ulrike happily took the potatoes from Leonard and brushed the dirt off them. Curious, I asked, “Why are there potatoes buried here?”

“Well, when you think of Germany, don’t you think of potatoes?”

Ulrike answered cheerfully. I still had my doubts, but there wasn’t exactly anyone around to argue with him. Watching Leonard and Ulrike dig up potatoes together, I thought to myself that I didn’t know what place had been brought into Mimesis, but as long as I stayed close to Leonard, I probably wouldn’t starve to death. Add Zähringen to the mix, and with fire, we could probably build a civilization.

Now that I thought about it, my abilities weren’t particularly useful for this kind of survival. Maybe it really was better to stick close to my friends.

I went outside, picked up some branches that would work as skewers, came back, and threaded the potatoes onto them before asking Leonard, “Have you been wearing the potato brooch I gave you?”

“…….”

“Why aren’t you answering?”

“Of course I’ve kept it well.”

Leonard raised an eyebrow slightly and smiled politely before heating the skewer I’d handed him over the fire.

“What about the tomato I gave you with it?”

“That too. I was thinking of giving it to Narke later.”

Germany meant potatoes, and Italy meant tomatoes. Leonard had picked up on exactly what I had in mind. While we were busy wrestling with the potatoes, Zähringen struck up a conversation with Ulrike.

“Luise, want to go outside with me for a bit?”

“Oh, sure!”

Apparently Ulrike still enjoyed going outside even in this weather, because he disappeared after Zähringen.

I sat in front of the fire without thinking about anything in particular, drying my clothes. Before long, the two of them came back inside, sending snow flying around them.

“Ta-da~ I found some of the apples Lukas picked earlier still lying around.”

Ulrike said with a smile, showing us the apples cradled in his arms.

“Weren’t these supposed to be pretty unpleasant to eat?”

“Not at all.”

Zähringen came straight over to the fireplace, poked at the logs with the fire poker, and buried an apple beneath the ashes.

“This is a good way to eat them.”

“Huh…”

That was a new one. As I thought that, I pulled out a potato that had cooked enough and started brushing the charcoal off its skin. Leonard casually muttered, “Luise, fight back.”

Before I could even ask what he meant by that, Zähringen smeared charcoal onto Ulrike’s cheek. When Ulrike’s mouth fell open, Zähringen smiled at Leonard’s remark and said, “This friend of mine knows me far too well to humor me anymore, you see.”

“‘Anymore,’ huh? I suppose you don’t realize that you’ve never succeeded even once.”

“Hmm. All I remember is having a wonderful time with you. I take it you remember things differently.”

“How could I? I enjoyed watching you try to get in my way time and time again.”

“I’m honored.”

Zähringen turned to him and waggled his eyebrows. Ulrike seemed wary of the two, whose conversation sounded vicious on the surface—though by this point, to me, it seemed more like they were reminiscing. Just when I thought it was over, Zähringen seized the opportunity and pressed his charcoal-covered finger against my nose, too. When our eyes met, he flashed me a grin.

“It suits you.”

“Don’t say something suits me when it clearly doesn’t…”

I let out a dry laugh and wiped the charcoal off with my still-damp clothes. After that, there was nothing left to do but eat the trout, which had cooked all the way through. We ate nothing but trout in the living room, bathed in golden sunlight. We’d already worn ourselves out a little earlier, so no one spoke. The fish was well cooked and tasted pretty good even without any seasoning. As the silence stretched on, I finally felt as peaceful as I had when I was sleeping under the sunlight.

Zähringen used the fire poker to fish an apple out from beneath the ashes. He brushed off the ash and handed it to me.

“If you eat it now, it won’t taste sour.”

“Oh, thanks.”

I cautiously took a bite and, surprised by its sweetness, stretched my lips into a wide grin.

“It tastes like apple juice.”

“Right?”

How on earth did Julia know how to do things like this? The more I thought about his wide range of experience, the more he surprised me. Zähringen handed roasted apples to Ulrike and Leonard as well. Ulrike took a bite, then clapped his hands and wrists together. He tossed the apple into the air, caught it in his mouth, and finished it in no time. Then he went back to picking at the trout.

Ulrike murmured, “I can’t believe this is how we’re spending our time.”

“Why not?”

“It’s so peaceful.”

“We went from midsummer to midwinter, and you still think it’s peaceful.”

At my bleak remark, Ulrike shook his head and smiled at me as if to say that was exactly what made it nice.

“Do you think it’d feel like this if we actually went on a trip to the countryside?”

“For one thing, we couldn’t just trespass into someone else’s house. Or break their floor.”

“Mimesis is the best.”

Ulrike answered flatly, as though he had given up on ever trying something like this in the real world. He raised a hand and said with conviction, “Heike needs to experience this, too. Once Heike wakes up, let’s all come back here together.”

I’d like that. It would be nice if Elias and Narke could come, too. The moment I thought that, the view outside the window began to turn slightly yellow.

“Oh.”

“It looks like it’s becoming autumn.”

Leaves began to grow back on the trees outside. Before Leonard and I had even finished speaking, Ulrike sprang up like a coiled spring and cleared away the vines covering the door.

“Let’s go gather ginkgo nuts! Come on! Hurry, get up! The hazelnuts should be tasty now, too!”

Who keeps changing the seasons?

I got to my feet sluggishly, thinking that to myself. I followed behind Leonard and Zähringen at an unhurried pace. The world was already awash in the colors of autumn foliage.

I slowly gathered ginkgo nuts with mana. The frozen water had melted before I knew it.

Leonard and Zähringen, who had gone ahead, turned around and waved at me. I waved them on, telling them to go ahead without me. Zähringen pointed toward the water, and Leonard looked at him in silence.

I had no idea what they were saying, but I had a feeling they were suggesting we get back in the water again.

“Aaaaaaaagh!”

At the scream, Leonard and Zähringen turned toward me.

I turned around to see what was happening again and found Ulrike running toward me with a black object chasing him.

I blinked and took a closer look.

It was a bear.

“Seriously, why does this keep happening…”

I stopped in disbelief and pulled out my wand.

“Luise! We’re mages!”

“Ugh—”

Ulrike was in no state to cast a spell.

I started running too, turned around, and cast a spell. Ulrike’s voice was getting closer.

“Aaaaaaaaah—”

Why is he coming this way? Why? I kicked off the ground and sent a wave of mana surging up. The crimson tide of mana rose into towering waves and crashed over the bear. My heart pounded from the shock, but a brief sense of relief twisted the corners of my mouth into a crooked smile. And then—

BOOM—!

Divine power emanated from the bear’s paws. There was no doubt about what it was. An incredulous smile spread across my face, and the bear vanished right before my eyes.

“…!”

Instead, a tall, slender figure appeared in the distance. Black robes fluttered in the wind. Behind me, Ulrike stood gaping, wiping the sweat from his face.

It was Narke. Holding his staff with both hands, he smiled and greeted us.

“Hi.”