Chapter 114

.

Drip.

Drip.

Somewhere, water was dripping.

That was the only sound in the quiet space. Breaking the silence felt like something to fear, and even that damp dripping offered no real comfort.

The palace, once splendid, had become a ruin where no human could live. Traces of the old kingdom's wealth and glory remained, but that was all. The gold-trimmed marble pillars had crumbled. So had the wallpaper with its delicate paintings, and the mosaic floor of shining glass.

All of it left broken.

Drip.

A droplet fell.

His skin prickled.

Not water. The atmosphere, unable to hold the overflowing mana, was spitting it out. Liquefied mana struck the floor. Pure, uncontaminated mana threw off a wave every time it was struck. No human could withstand it. Even Edwin, the "mage of the new dawn," had to wrap himself in countless spells like armor to set foot here in human form. And even that wasn't enough.

But Edwin had to come here.

To the fallen palace at the center of the former capital of the Kingdom of Alharn.

Every time a wave of mana swept through the space, the memories etched into the palace trembled. They flickered like glitches, scattered, then re-etched themselves. Children with pale blond hair ran between the pillars and vanished; women in old-fashioned dresses drifted past waving fans. Elegantly dressed gentlemen chased after them, smiling.

The deeper he went into the palace, the more pronounced the phenomenon became. The floor was outright soaked with mana. Even without a single ray of light in the ruins, the liquefied mana was enough. With every step, the mana glowed green, sometimes blue, sometimes tinged with red.

The memories mana called up grew more chaotic too. Edwin barely made out that the clothes worn by a group of people passing right through him were the old royal guard's dress uniforms. It startled him that he could.

The last time he'd seen those uniforms was ten years ago. There was no kingdom left anymore, and yet an old man who'd introduced himself as captain of the royal guard had raved, out of his mind, about how he had to go rescue his nephew trapped inside the palace.

The mad old man hadn't held out long before he died. Everyone whispered that he was just a poor old man driven mad by the mana surge. But some whispered that the clothes the old man wore were royal guard uniforms, and the medals pinned to his chest were real too.

"..."

The palace itself had sunk into the ground. The first floor, which would originally have been the entrance, had become the hardest place to reach.

If he'd known he'd end up here like this, he might have tagged along on a palace tour with the master of the Lambert estate back when he'd lived there. At least then he'd have known what this once-splendid corridor had originally looked like.

The mana concentration was growing thicker. No wonder mana filters couldn't withstand it. It was close to a miracle that woman had made it down to the fifth floor. Then again, in a world where mana was this abundant and magic had become as natural as breathing — like in the old days of the empire — miracles happened easily enough.

Cruelly, the miracle that could have saved Edgar hadn't happened.

...But that was a problem Edwin could fix.

Drip.

At some point the sound of dripping had stopped. The mana pooled on the floor was gone.

No. No. The mana filled the entire space. Edwin had walked into a lake of mana. An endless sea. Even the new humanity, adapted as they were to mana filters and heavy mana concentrations, would die encountering mana like this.

Edwin ground his teeth.

However many shields he layered on, the waves broke them faster than he could put them up. Edwin summoned his grimoire. The book appeared in the air and circled Edwin, its pages fluttering.

Edwin didn't spare the book a glance and pressed on. Mana clung to every inch of him. Stop, and he'd be crushed.

The pages stopped. They were full of characters scrawled every which way. Not one of them made sense as a word, and some were as crude as a child's scribbling.

But under Edwin's touch, the characters rose as if dancing. They began to shine. From a blue bright enough to hurt the eyes, they blended into every color and sparkled like jewels.

Edwin let out a long breath. To increase the power of a spell, a grimoire was essential. Whatever today's explorers — not content with driving mana filters into their skin, they'd started replacing their internal organs with them too — might have to say about it. Explorers. Since when had they gone by that name? Edwin snorted.

The world was drifting further and further from the world Edwin had lived in.

"..."

The mana that had been crushing him was gone.

What came in its place this time was stillness. A skin-crawling, terrifyingly honest silence.

And this time, he heard footsteps.

Not the strange glow of mana this time — a soft gold, shimmering like a faint lantern.

The Spirit of Mana. Edwin stopped walking and waited for the light to reach him. The light took the shape of a person and came toward Edwin.

Pale blond hair. Hazy green eyes. The man in old-fashioned formal dress looked like the nobility who would have filled the palace before the kingdom fell. Which he had been. He'd actually been a noble.

"It's been a while."

"..."

The man's eyes went wide.

"...Edwin?"

"Gri—"

"No! Don't say that name!"

Edwin felt a hand cover his mouth and blinked.

At the same moment, the mana that had gone still rippled loudly. If he hadn't reinforced his shields crossing the mana pool, he'd have been swept away for sure.

A shockwave that size would have hit the whole capital at the very least.

Hm. Hadn't seen that coming.

Look — nowhere in that game Edwin had played was there any of this kind of backstory. He'd never have dreamed that what he'd felt long ago soothing his twin in the room the butler had locked them into would come back to him now, of all times.

---

When had anything in the world ever gone the way Edwin wanted?

Edwin sighed. The man in front of him hadn't changed from the Grisha Lambert of his memory. Far from changed — he looked younger.

Younger even than when Edwin had first met him.

But the melancholy smile at the corner of his mouth was tiresomely the same as ever.

Edwin ran a palm over his face. In his hazy memories, he thought there'd been an "NPC" who felt something like this. A weapon-enhancement NPC.

Why had the name Bertholdt felt familiar when he'd been reborn? Because that NPC's name was Bertholdt.

Neither "[last archmage] Edwin" nor "[mage of the new dawn] Edwin" had a family name. That "Edwin's" family name was Bertholdt only came out in the event story Edwin had played last.

"So then..."

No. The game didn't matter.

Edwin looked at Grisha.

"...Mr. Bertholdt?"

"Sorry. I can't use my own name — and I didn't think any other name would bring you here."

"Right, well... I did come because I heard the spirit's name was Bertholdt."

At a glance he looked like an ordinary human. But every time Grisha moved, the mana trembled. There was a reason the explorers called him the Spirit of Mana.

Nothing about what made up Grisha Lambert was human. From head to toe, he was close to a pure mass of mana.

"I figured you were the only one who'd use that name."

Grisha had been in the palace the day of the great surge. Rural nobility like the Bertholdts could show up to a coronation or skip it and nobody would notice, but the ducal house of Lambert couldn't have missed it.

Edwin had naturally assumed Grisha was dead. Until he'd heard the rumors that a spirit by the name of Bertholdt was wandering the palace.

The Spirit of Mana.

"What about Edgar?"

Grisha asked before Edwin's thoughts could go any deeper.

"...I still haven't been able to wake him."

At Edwin's hesitant answer, understanding dawned on Grisha.

"I see. Then you did know what this was, didn't you?"

"..."

"When the people who came to see me told me there was a mage named Edwin, I realized. Your uncle and I had it wrong."

Grisha pulled a book out of the air. A battered leather journal. Edwin knew what it was at a glance.

"I asked an explorer to go to the ducal estate and find this for me. I wasn't sure it would still be there... but, well, once I saw what a grimoire actually was, I understood what this had to be."

Edwin opened the journal.

His father's handwriting, unseen for decades, spread out in front of him. Beautiful letters, each drawn with care. Edwin had been at Albrecht's side as he'd written every one.

"Your uncle thought this was the reason Albrecht died. Given how tangled things were in the capital at the time, it wouldn't have been strange for Albrecht to write it in code for security."

"My uncle knew about this too?"

"He found it in the safe and handed it to me before he went down to the domain. From the very start we couldn't crack it, and yet we kept trying..."

"..."

"This is a grimoire, isn't it?"

Edwin nodded.

"Yes."

"Albrecht's?"

"No. Mine."

It had been a last resort, just in case.

Even with no mana of his own, if he had a proper grimoire, it could at least serve as a means of self-defense.

But after Albrecht died, Edwin hadn't had a moment to think about the grimoire. Just looking after Edgar was more than he could handle.

By the time he finally remembered the grimoire, it was already gone. And by the time it occurred to him that Grisha might have it, Edgar had already collapsed.

"Yours?"

But Grisha's reaction was strange.

Rather than being surprised that the journal he'd never been able to crack was a grimoire, he seemed more surprised that its owner was Edwin.

"That can't be right, though."

"What?"

"Edwin."

Grisha gave the grimoire a light tap.

He wasn't the grimoire's owner, but when the pure mass of mana stirred it, the grimoire fluttered to life.

The characters written in the grimoire shimmered faintly.

"Look closely. This grimoire can't be used as a means of self-defense."

"...What?"

"There's only one spell written here. And even that one isn't finished."

Edwin slowly examined the grimoire. The beautiful handwriting, achingly familiar, rippled. The feelings of the young Edwin Bertholdt who had once rifled through old books at his father's side — he set them aside for now.

The mage analyzed the spell written in the grimoire. Grisha was right. The spell wasn't finished. But its intent was clear.

And right that it couldn't be used for self-defense.

This spell.

This—

What Albrecht had left behind for his son—

"Edwin."

Albrecht Bertholdt had made his name as the genius of the century. That sharp intellect stayed on people's lips not only in his lifetime but long after his death.

Edwin had been one of the people who saw Albrecht's genius from closest up. A man who had seen through the fact that his own son wasn't ordinary before that son was even a year old — what more could you ask?

Even so, Edwin had underestimated his father's intellect. He hadn't truly grasped just how remarkable his father was.

"This is a spell that turns back all of time."

Entranced, Edwin gazed at the spell his father had left behind.