Chapter 32 – Life and Magic (4)

Life and Magic (4)

Madness.
Her eyes were filled with madness. There was nothing but madness. And it was somewhat frightening.
People in such a state are often completely gone. To survive for a long time, one must avoid such people.

Of course, to satisfy curiosity, one cannot only pursue safe endeavors.

The place Aeon dragged me into was a secret space under the table. A residence hidden by illusion magic, and research that must be concealed to the extent that it distracts attention with the appearance of a chaotic laboratory. It looked suspicious no matter how you looked at it.

The secret space was even more vast than I had imagined. As if affected by illusion magic, the mysterious space I had just seen seemed many times larger.
The difference was that most of that vast space was empty, and there was only one staircase in front of me.

The staircase was long and far. It seemed endless, as if I had been tricked by illusion magic again.

“God can observe everything. Nothing on earth can escape the sight of God.”

Aeon spoke when my knees began to hurt. Thinking it was a meaningless statement, I didn’t respond.

“So, underground within the underground. A place that cannot be spied upon, that’s where I investigated.”

Investigation, not research.
Is Troka’s life and death not certain?
It would naturally take a long time to find evidence that a person who is already dead is alive.

“The body of Troka you saw that day, was it really his?”

From the process of killing the demon king to the process of stabbing oneself in the throat. It was all captured by my eyes. It was certainly a real body. Warm, it was warm. Cold, it was becoming cold.

“And one more thing, I haven’t received a proper answer yet. Anyway, Troka had a reason to run away from us, and he’s pretending to be hiding because of that.”

It’s strange not to run away when you’re treated like an idiot. Of course, there’s no paradise at the end of the escape.

Yet Troka ran away. To go from one hell to a slightly less terrible hell, he stabbed himself in the throat.
Well, it is a kind of escape. That’s right.
But is it really right for you to talk about such things?

“In addition, the world is quite unstable right now. Even if it seems stable on the surface, it’s tumultuous inside. In such a situation, a focal point is needed to bring everyone together. Troka couldn’t possibly refuse that, could he?”

To suffer enough to consider suicide over just one demon king. To sacrifice more on top of that? Even if he’s a fool or an idiot, he wouldn’t go that far… though he might.
Yeah, maybe he’s better off dead.

But still, I didn’t reply.

“There’s a lot I want to talk about, but we’re already at the end. We’ve arrived.”

Aeon stopped.
The end of the staircase.
A door with a moon drawn on it appeared around us. Not just one, but dozens, hundreds of doors scattered all around.

As she gestured with her hands, the doors scattered about began to converge into one, and soon only one door remained before me.

“Come in.”

With those words, Aeon disappeared. She fragmented into several streams of light and vanished as if the moonlight was fading away.
Was the Aeon beside me just now an illusion created by magic?
If so, her real body must be inside that room.

What kind of secret needs to be hidden so desperately that it is protected with double, even triple layer?

As I grasped the strange, crescent-shaped handle, the door disappeared.

Before I knew it, I had entered the secret room.

This place was even more chaotic than the one I had seen before.
If the previous room was the literal embodiment of the word ‘messy,’ then this room seemed to be the very definition of ‘chaos.’

Papers covered the walls. They were written in such scrawled handwriting that it was impossible to read properly.
Moreover, why were relics that should be protected by the Holy Imperial Court torn in half and stuck to the walls and desks?

She sat in a chair, still expressionless. If it weren’t for the faint glimmer of madness in her eyes, one might have mistaken her for a statue.

“Iconoclasm… blasphemy?”

“There are parts that suggest divine intervention in Troka’s disappearance. I had no choice but to obtain information.”

God is a bastard.

It’s not because he only ever hands down trials to me.
But God is an asshole. Especially in this other world.
The reason why there are many followers of God here is that, in this world, gods actually exist and there are many fanatical believers. The Holy Imperial Court is one example.

They say you can sleep in the arms of the goddess when you die. That all the sins of your past life will be forgiven and you can go to heaven. The same old cliché phrases. Seems like all the religious freaks say the same thing.

The difference is that the Holy Imperial Court has power.
They exact immediate retribution if their idol is insulted.

They never overlook even the most childish jests. That’s why my relationship with the Holy Imperial Court was not good.
If I hadn’t been part of the hero’s party, the Holy Imperial Court’s claws would have been aimed at me.
They even sent assassins a few times.

“If the saint hears about this, it won’t end well.”

Apart from Troka and me, the rest of the party members got along fairly well. Especially Aeon had a good relationship with the saint.
Though I’m not sure about it now.

“It doesn’t matter.”
Whatever I say now won’t stick in those ears.

“Anyway, I’ll tell you why Troka is still alive.”

She glanced over the papers stuck to the wall several times, clipped a few sheets onto a clipboard, and then finally looked at me.

“Firstly, the barrier I cast around the demon king’s castle was designed to block ‘anything from entering.’ So, it couldn’t do anything about things going out.”

The surprise attack to defeat the Demon King was so crucial that a powerful barrier was erected in case of failure, to ensure his death. At that time, the Demon King’s forces had just advanced into the empire, so they could return at any moment, which is why the barrier was created.
But even then, there were vulnerabilities.

“I saw Troka’s suicide with my own two eyes, didn’t I?”

“It’s only natural that you couldn’t grasp it with your pathetic kinetic perception. That was within the expected range,”

…I’m at a loss for words.

Aeon scribbled something on a piece of paper before speaking again.

“Secondly, have you ever seen Troka’s corpse?”

“I touched it with my own hands. You saw it too.”

It was me who carried his dead body to the girls.

“No, after that. After the body was handed over to the imperial court.”

Of course.
You, who had no interest in a cold corpse, immediately returned to the Country of Magic. So it’s only natural that you don’t know the full story.

“……After returning to the imperial court and finishing the audience, you guys wouldn’t know, but I personally watched Troka’s body being cremated, and I was the one who ground his bones.”

She tore up a few of the papers she was holding.

“Anyway, you weren’t always keeping an eye on things. So it’s possible that someone took Troka away while he was in a comatose state.”

And then she wrote a few more characters.

“Thirdly, Troka’s magical power is infinite. That’s why I wanted to use it for my research, and if such a power had disappeared, there would naturally have been some effect. But I only found a slight reaction. So Troka must have escaped.”

Ah, now I understand.
Aeon isn’t curious about why Troka died.

It’s not about regretting for someone who was driven to suicide. It’s about finding the material for her research that she believes has escaped.
It’s just about believing that someone who is already dead is still alive.

“Lastly, according to the books about the old heroes, any item brought from another world by a hero, or bestowed by a goddess, is reclaimed upon death. The same goes for body parts. Unless he returned to the original world.”

Now nothing matters.
I’ll deliver the will and just end it.
I don’t want to see her face anymore.

“It would have been nice if you had shown the tears you didn’t show back then. It seems I expected too much from you.”

There was no time to listen to more nonsense. The letter might not be opened, but if I tell the truth, it will eventually be opened.
Informing someone who denies reality about reality could collapse their psyche.

But does it matter?

“……Can’t you just let me rest now?”

Aeon ignored my words and spat out a bit of mockery.

“Is there a culture in your world where you mourn the living?”

The words sounded forced. That’s how her words came across to me.
It was as if a child was throwing a tantrum.

Was she conducting research, no, an investigation, in this damned basement for such stupid reasons?

The position of the Tower of Magic’s master in the Country of Magic wasn’t of great importance to me.
However, I couldn’t stand the thought of her, who had attained her position thanks to the hero’s merit, wasting her time like this.

“Do the old mages up there know? That you’ve fallen to conducting such research.”

“Old mages?”

For the first time, there was a change in her expression. It wasn’t a big change.
Just a slight, very slight look of surprise.

“There are no other mages in the Tower of Magic. I haven’t received any.”

…Wait, then what about Valkvogel.

She’s probably doing fine. She’s a dragon, after all.

“What do you think? The hero is still alive, right?”

Aeon had definitely crumbled.
It seemed she couldn’t accept the fact that the only hope for her research, which had been driving her, was completely gone.
It didn’t matter to her what had happened to Troka, whether he was dead or alive. She was only trying to ascertain his life or death.

If she couldn’t believe that the dead Troka was alive, she wouldn’t be able to bear it and would collapse, at least that’s what it seemed like for now.
There’s no way Troka could be alive.
And such an absurd story couldn’t possibly be true.

The only thing I could say in the current situation was.

“You said secondly, that you saw Troka’s body being cremated, right?”

To her, who couldn’t let go of hope until the very end.

“Then why, why do I still have Troka’s clothes that haven’t disappeared yet?”

She carefully took out a shirt from a box. It was an exceedingly common shirt. It was in a style that was fashionable in this world, nothing special about it.

Aeon turned the shirt inside out as if to show it off to me. There were letters written on the back. Letters that were completely unintelligible to me. At first, I thought it was an unknown language from this world.

I slowly scanned the letters. Little by little, memories from the previous world came back to me.

A, B, C, D.
English? Right, I hadn’t seen it in this world.

But why was that here, no, that couldn’t be.

“According to the books, when a hero dies, anything related to the hero is reclaimed by the goddess.”

I quickly reached out and touched the holy sword.

Still, the holy sword was in my pocket.