Episode 117 – A Change of Mind (1)

A Change of Mind (1)

Watchtower Shelter.

As soon as Elise received Shion’s message, she rose to her feet. She was about to leave immediately but hesitated. Looking out at the dense blizzard outside the shelter’s window, she pondered.

“Sigh…….”

Should I go?

No, is it right to go?

Shion’s coordinates are far behind this shelter. To be precise, they are even further than the location 6 hours ago.

What am I supposed to do by going to Shion, who is lagging so far behind?

What can I do?

It’s not just a matter of grades.

……Actually, grades are a problem, but there’s a more important issue.

It’s a question that leads to another.

Can I fix this ‘relationship’ with these actions born out of my mere sympathy? Is it possible in life?

The reason is simple.

No matter what I do for him now, in the end, we have been misaligned from the beginning. We have been twisted infinitely since birth. Because we are twisted like an umbilical cord.

Even if I help Shion here, even if I suddenly pretend to be good, it won’t be corrected.

It would be strange if it were corrected.

By any chance.

Really by any chance, if our relationship changes a little due to my efforts.

If at the very last moment, if Shion ever finds out. If he realizes the cause of his mother’s death.

He will feel my efforts as another betrayal. He will hate Petra more, he will dislike her more.

“…….”

There’s no answer no matter how much I think about it until my brain cells tear apart.

In the end, Elise silently packed her backpack. She put on her coat.

“What’s up. Elise. Did you find the way?”

“It’s the peak of the blizzard now. Let’s rest a bit and go.”

Kain and Asher turned to look at her.

“Kuaaaaaa…… Kuek…….”

Inside Layla’s snoring, Elise shook her head.

“I have a little work to do. I’ll be back.”

“Work? You have work in this maze?”

“…….”

“Kuaaaa- Kem.”

I also think it’s a pathetic excuse.

“Kem…… Kek……. Kuaaaaaa-”

Elise fiddled with her coat collar and corrected herself.

“I need to use the bathroom, a bit.”

“Oh.”

“Sorry.”

She added, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear.

“If I’m late, go ahead.”

“……Is it that serious? How long have you been holding it?”

Asher asked with a laugh. Kain lightly hit his side.

“Well. It could be that serious.”

“…….”

Elise put her hand on her forehead.

“No. It’s not that serious…… Actually, it’s not the bathroom.”

I can’t say anything to these guys.

They are the ones who, because of me, dislike Shion as much as I do.

“……Understand it as you want. It’s personal. If I can’t come, I’ll send a message. Don’t wait.”

“What…… Okay? Come back~”

“We’re going to rest a bit.”

The two nonchalantly leaned against the ground. They fell asleep quickly, perhaps tired.

Elise left the shelter alone.

Whooooosh───!

The blizzard was like a windowpane. In an instant, it piled up over her shoulders.

Elise ripped off the wooden planks of the shelter and climbed on. With a low hum, she levitated the plank with her magic.

Whoosh!

She propelled herself forward with her psychic power, as if riding a snowboard.

She adjusted her direction while comparing coordinates. Occasionally, she encountered monstrous hordes like hyenas, and senior parties, but she ignored them all.

She raced at a steep speed.

Swoosh!

At some point, she stopped, sweeping away the snow.

She looked up blankly at the path she had descended.

“I climbed up for 6 hours while finding the way…”

In just 30 minutes, she had undone it all.

Life is such that while it’s hard to climb, falling happens in an instant.

Elise checked the coordinates on her smartwatch.

She was close. Just a few steps away from the coordinates she had marked.

Whooosh!

The blizzard was annoying. Elise radiated her psychic power in a circular form. A transparent barrier formed, blocking the snowstorm, and the area cleared up momentarily.

“….”

She looked around silently. As she walked, looking up and down, she stepped on something bumpy.

She glanced down without thinking.

“!!!”

Her heart almost dropped.

A face, almost completely buried in the snow, with only the nose sticking out.

It was Shion.

“Haah, haah.”

Elise put her hand on her chest and panted, then tried to lift him up with her psychic power again…

“?”

It didn’t work.

“What, again.”

Why is this happening? No matter how much psychic power she applied, his body didn’t budge. Was there some natural resistance or something?

Instead, Elise used her psychic power to remove the snow piled on him. His body, she had no choice but to lift with her arms and carry on her back.

Whooosh!

Her concentration wavered and her psychic power dissipated. The snowstorm whirled again. Carrying him, Elise started to climb the path she had come down.

“….”

In that instant, all the traces she had left while descending disappeared. There was no path.

She had expected it.

She had expected it, but…

Thud— Thud—

With each step, her feet sank, and suddenly she felt a sense of despair.

Why am I doing this here?

I’m not a servant or a taxi, so why, why am I carrying a person?

It’s a lowly, useless, and unhelpful task.

Why on earth am I….

Elise walked with gritted teeth, not knowing whether she was moving forward or backward.

After wandering for hours in a dangerous sense of error, where her body, which was getting cold, suddenly felt warm…

“….!”

She spotted a faint light in the distance.

At first, she thought it was a hallucination, but within the snowstorm, something twinkled.

Elise gathered her magic in the palm of her hand. With a sizzle, she condensed it to the point of sparking and shot it out.

Whoosh….

That psychic power ‘opened the way’. The straight line in that direction was revealed like a tunnel.

There was someone. A man with a rope wrapped around his body and a flashlight on his head.

─Who’s there, who….

Shion’s head slipped off Elise’s shoulder.

─Huh?!

Then, the other person recognized him.

─Isn’t that Shion who beat Gerkhen Kal Doon!

______________________________________________________________________

When he opened his eyes, it was an unfamiliar ceiling. The air was warm. His back was soft, and his whole body was warm.

I’ve been abandoned.

That thought naturally came to mind.

There was nothing I could do about it-

“Expected!”

Suddenly, a man’s face popped up from the corner of my vision.

“Ugh!”

I hastily got up. The man was grinning broadly.

“Indeed~ The man who defeated Gerkhen Kal Doon.”

“You…….”

His face was pure white and hairless. A familiar look and a familiar line.

In one hand, he held a warm wet towel. It was Terhen.

“Terence, right? Forgot my name?”

So, it was Terence.

“……Where am I?”

I looked around blankly. It seemed like a bedroom in a residential house.

“This is my 「Spectrum」.”

At Terence’s words, I tilted my head.

“I’ll tell you. I call this ‘home’. For now, it’s a space I can carry around. The maximum is about 150 square meters.”

“Oh?”

Well, it seemed to be a space-type 「Spectrum」. If you can pull out a pre-established space anytime, anywhere, it’s quite unique.

“But…….”

Suddenly, I looked at the bed next to me. There was one more person lying down.

It was Elise, her face flushed as if she had a cold.

“What’s with her?”

“Who else! It’s Elise! She’s the one who saved you when you were buried in the snow! She seems to have caught a cold now.”

“……Ah, right.”

The R-elix came to mind belatedly. I hastily checked my inventory.

「C-class R-elix」

There was an R-elix. Fortunately, it wasn’t a dream. I hadn’t lost it.

But I can’t use it right now. The C-class requires 900 experience points.

“Phew…… How long did I sleep?”

“About 5 hours?”

5 hours.

Considering it was an evaluation test, I slept a lot. Thanks to that, my condition was at its best.

I got up from the bed.

“I’m leaving.”

“Eh, already? Let’s go together when Elise wakes up!”

Terence pointed at Elise.

Her cheeks were so swollen and red that she looked like a pizza bun, and her breathing was ragged.

“Why is she sick?”

“She carried you for a long time.”

“…….”

I put my hand on her forehead. It was quite hot.

“Hmm…… What about the others? There were about forty of you.”

Terence was the leader of the stragglers.

Although he seemed a bit too gentle and round to be a leader.

“Most of them gave up after climbing a little bit of the mountain. Now there are four of us left, including me.”

“Is that so?”

I looked around the interior again.

Not only the bedroom, but also the living room, bathroom, etc., visible through the gaps in the doors, the structure was diverse. If this is the level of Spectrum, it’s intermediate or higher in terms of substance. With a little more development, it could even be recognized as a ‘base’.

Terence smiled faintly.

“I purposely hid my Spectrum. I wanted to share it with the persistent ones.”

“Ah, I see.”

It’s best to hide your Spectrum among your peers.

“We formed a party with the ones who held out. We tied ropes to our bodies and moved forward, then came back to change the location of the house when we found the way, rested a bit, and then went again. That’s when we ran into Elise.”

“…….”

Indeed, Terence was relentless in his efforts.

Not just Terence. The other seniors were also putting their heart and soul into the evaluation.

Suddenly, I wondered why.

My reason for giving my all in the evaluation was to bring down Libra.

What about the others?

“Hey.”

“Huh?”

“I’m curious, why are you working so hard?”

“Uh… I’m working hard to go to college? You know how hard my parents are struggling to pay my tuition.”

Ordinary.

The most fitting motivation for students who haven’t even reached twenty.

“I’m curious about you. How did you train so hard to beat Gerkhen Kal Doon?”

Terence asked. I calmly replied.

“Just. I wanted to win at least once, so I did it do or die. I don’t have parents, so choosing and focusing is easy.”

Terence’s mouth opened slightly and then closed.

“Uh… Yeah, right. Want to eat?”

“Eat?”

“Yeah. I’ve stocked up a lot of food here just in case. It’s like a bunker, we can last a month. We’ve already eaten.”

“Really? Then… I’ll eat with her.”

I pointed to Elise. Terence chuckled.

“Isn’t she sleeping?”

“She’s awake.”

When I put my hand on her forehead just now, she definitely squirmed.

That means she’s been awake for quite a while.

“Hey, wake up.”

“……”

Elise pretended to sleep shamelessly.

“She seems to be sleeping?”

I silently snatched Terence’s wet towel. I spread it out square and covered Elise’s face with it.

“……Eek──!”

Elise flailed and tore the wet towel with her telekinesis. She gasped for breath and sat up.

“You, you, are you crazy?! I almost died!”

Elise grumbled with a flushed face.

“Who told you to pretend to sleep?”

“……Tsk.”

“Well, then you two chat~ I’ll prepare the meal.”

Terence quickly left the bedroom.

Thud-

“……”

“……”

It’s a bit awkward with one person gone.

No, it’s very awkward.

Elise is quietly scratching her cheek, and I don’t have much to say either.

“Why did you come?”

I just asked that.

“……I can’t believe it.”

Elise narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms. I shrugged my shoulders.

“I honestly didn’t think you’d come.”

“You seemed to be waiting though? You didn’t give up and held on.”

“I didn’t want to give up. I’ll be forcibly transferred just before I die anyway.”

“……Yes. You’re really ignorant.”

Elise sighed. I felt a little hot. I looked away and spoke.

“Anyway, thanks. I’m a bit grateful.”

“……”

Elise didn’t respond. She kept silent for a long time and just gently shook her head.

“Don’t say that.”

“What. Why.”

She responds while poking the bed quilt with her fingernails.

“Ghost hotel.”

“……”

“Go figure. It’s not like I specifically came looking for you, you just happened to be nearby.”

“Um… yeah, I guess.”

I looked at the smartwatch on my wrist.

“There are 50 hours left now.”

“What?!”

Elise jumped up.

Her hurried glance at the clock was like that of a 7-year-old who had lost a toy.

“The difference will be huge. After all, we’ve almost certainly lost 24 hours.”

“Ah……”

Elise ruffled her hair and glanced at me again. She licked her lips as if she felt wronged and resentful.

“But, I’ve thought of a way.”

I raised a finger. Elise received it with a look full of disbelief.

“You’re talking about a method.”

“Let’s get carried away by the blizzard.”

“……What?”

“Didn’t you feel it when you came?”

I pointed to the blizzard outside the window.

“The wind is only blowing in one direction.”

At that, Elise, who had been thinking deeply, also gradually widened her eyes.

“……Right. It’s only blowing towards the inside of the maze.”

“So. If we make a hot air balloon well, I think we can fly. What do you think?”

“……”

Elise looked around the room.

There seemed to be plenty of space and materials here to make a hot air balloon.

“It doesn’t seem…… impossible.”

“Then.”

I reached out my hand.

“Party until we get out of this snow mountain?”

She stared at my hand. Her eyes shook slightly. Her jaw was tightly clenched.

“What, you’re not going to do it?”

“No. I will. It’s just…… we’re not in a relationship to shake hands, are we?”

It’s a rather desolate tone. The end of the sentence trembles unnecessarily pitifully.

I was dumbfounded.

“Excuse me. I told you I don’t like you, didn’t I?”

“Yes.”

Elise nodded with a serious face. She looked straight into my eyes and said.

“I’m glad.”

-Knock knock

The door opened with a knock. Terence brought in a tray full of food in both arms.

Pork cutlet, spaghetti, soup, etc. – it was a proper meal.

“……Wow.”

I swallowed my saliva as soon as I saw it. Elise had a similar face. There was saliva on her lips, glistening.

“You’re hungry, right? You’re hungry, right? Eat quickly.”

We picked up knives and spoons. I put a whole pork cutlet in my mouth, and Elise elegantly started with a knife.

Terence, who was watching, cautiously floated a question.

“But…… Elise and Shion, who beat Gerkhen Kal Doon. Do you guys have any plans?”

I looked at Elise while chewing. Elise nodded her head.

“Yeah. We have a plan.”

Gulp- I swallowed and then spoke.

“Do you want to join our team?”

Terence is fully qualified to do so.

Above all, we need this guy’s help to make a hot air balloon.