Chapter 47

Even as he was born extraordinary, Alejandro seemed to be someone who was difficult to even envy.

“There’s no one else who could condense ten years’ worth of research in just a few months, so what else should I do? I’m leaving. I’ll be back when he’s back.”

It sounded heartless, but her intention wasn’t calculated.

Yennit’s friend was also an expert at magic formulas, and though this friend’s way of thinking was peculiar, the skills he had were similar to Yennit’s.

And yet this friend wasn’t enough of a reason for Yennit to remain at the magic tower.

Thus, Yennit packed up and went back to the place where she stayed as a trader.

Right here, at the Ronen Castle.

It wasn’t difficult for her to settle down because mages were welcomed for their manpower everywhere they went.

And Ronen was a place where the characteristic indifference of the northern people prevailed, so it was easy for Yennit to adapt here.

‘It’s already been five years.’

It began yesterday, when she received a letter from her friend.

Yennit flicked off the ashes of her cigarette and, from sitting back earlier, she leaned forward and picked up the letter on the desk.

It was from Cornelli Deurang.

His writing conveyed his uniquely bright and lively personality. The contents of the letter were evidently long, but it could be summarized with only one line.

「 Yennit, they said Alejandro regained his memories! I’m going to pick him up! 」

When she first received the letter, she was so surprised that she thought that she could spit out her heart.

She immediately replied with, Where on earth are you, I’ll come with you, but there was no reply.

While she was still so worked up, the second letter came.

“Lady Mage, there’s a letter for you.”

“From whom?”

“Actually, it wasn’t specified. It only says that this letter is for the mage of the Ronen Castle.”

It was a suspicious letter from the very beginning. And inside the letter when she opened the envelope, the grandiose name of ‘Ophelia Milescet’ was written.

The sender deliberately did not write her name on the envelope.

And the content of that suspicious letter was also shocking.

“…Grand Duke Ronen was shipwrecked? Critical condition?”

Grand Duke Ronen, Ian Carle Ronen, was, if she had be specific about it, Yennit’s employer. So if this letter was telling the truth, then Yennit would have to be there as soon as possible.

However, the Milescet Empire was quite a distance away.

The Principality of Ronen was at the very edge of the Maynard continent, in which many countries including the Milescet Empire occupied.

And more than that, there was a rugged mountain range further inland.

That’s why for a faster route, it’s better to go by the sea compared to by land when traveling between Milescet and Ronen.

However, that ‘faster’ route was also something that was relative, because it would take at least a week to get from one place to the other.

It was too far a distance for her to teleport to, so Yennit would have to take a ship instead. Even when she prepared for the trip right away, preparations took one whole day.

So she fell asleep after preparing to leave the next day, but when she woke up the next morning, there was another letter placed atop her desk.

Perhaps it was placed by a servant there, but it was strange that three letters came consecutively within the period of two days.

As she yawned, Yennit opened the envelope, and she saw that it was from the same sender yet again.

Ophelia Milescet.

Yennit herself didn’t know why, but that name felt grandiose yet familiar.

Just like the previous day, the contents were similar.

For her to hurry and come because the Grand Duke of Ronen is in critical condition.

However, even if she was urged to hurry, it would still take at least a week to get there, so Yennit tried to throw the letter into a pile of papers.

If not for the postscript written at the end.

「 —At any rate, your help is desperately needed now. I hope you can come as soon as you receive this, so for your travels to be quicker, I’m sending you the formulated coordinates of this place. 」

A requisite to drawing a teleportation circle was the calculation of the starting point and the ending point.

Usually, the calculation process for this was cumbersome and difficult, and this was because coming up with coordinates’ formula required a higher understanding of magic than one would expect.

But here, there was a suspicious letter and the formulated coordinates for instantaneous travel?

Yennit’s eyes gravitated towards the formula attached to the postscript of the final letter.

And suddenly, a conversation she had with Alejandro crossed her mind.

—Your coordinates are awfully peculiar, Lord Alejandro.

—Is that so?

—Yes. On the axis, all three of them, there aren’t any symbols. How does it work?

—Maybe there’s a difference with the expression, but it’ll work as long as the magic formula abides by the same logic.

Even if it’s somewhat out of the usual way of doing things, if the place is properly entered into the magic formula, Alejandro said it would work.

And this—Yennit was sure. It was Alejandro’s formula.

‘I’m certain.’

Lord Alejandro was about to return.

With a strange excitement, Yennit jumped up and threw away the cigarette that had already been burned up.

Crumpling the letter into her pocket, she hurriedly put on her robe, quite impatient to see him.

Perhaps it was a natural concern.

She had to go and draw up a magical formula.

As she suddenly opened the door and went out, Haha! she burst out into laughter and strode across the hallway.

“Chief Attendant, please say that today’s trip is cancelled!”

“W-What are you talking about, Lady Mage? Aren’t you going to see His Grace?”

“I will still go!”

“But where are you going now?”

“Empty lot!”

To draw the formula, an empty lot about the area of a building was needed.

Perhaps she would have to draw without any break for a few days to finish everything.

However, what a wonderful coincidence it was that Yennit was currently researching an improved method to make a teleportation circle.

That means that there was already a working teleportation ready to use, all she had to do was modify it a little bit and include the coordinates in the empty spaces.

Yennit was excited. For the first time in a long while, she burst out into a cheerful laugh.

“Hahaha!”

She was going to meet that person before Cornelli!

That morning, pleasant laughter filled the halls of the Ronen Castle.

* * *

Then, back to the present—

“That’s why I came first. I modified the formula that I had already improved, and I don’t know what went wrong, but I fell into this forest instead.”

Yennit proudly finished her explanation.

Anyway, she seemed to be greatly excited by the fact that she did arrive at Ladeen.

Ophelia wondered if that figure was seen.

“Alei.”

“Yes.”

“Are all mages like this?”

“Everyone calls me a weirdo more often than not, but at the tower I’m actually considered to be on the more normal side of the spectrum,” Yennit answered.

“I feel like I’m normal, Ophelia.”

“I don’t know much about humans, so I’ll hold my tongue.”

Ophelia suddenly had a hunch that the standard of normalcy might change depending on who she asked.

“…I see.”

She ignored it. There was something more important to address right away.

First of all, Yennit was kneeling on the floor, and the sirens who’ve been let go were protesting formidably right now.

“You made us roll on the floor!”

“Sante, are all humans this strong?”

“I thought my wings got snapped!”

As she had expected, it was Ophelia’s messengers who caused a problem again this time.

The youngest Dillo was crying the most, and Asello was pouting as if to express how much he didn’t like this situation.

Of course, that didn’t mean Sante wouldn’t bat an eyelash.

“Did you just realize that you’re weak? If you know, then go back to the nest. Why would you provoke someone guiltless?”

“No, Sante! We really didn’t do anything! We were only curious about the mana wave, that’s why we went here! That’s all!”

The second child along with Dillo shouted while saying it was unfair.

“We were just trying to catch a bird that had paper hanging on its leg!”

“Yeah, we were only secretly trying to look out for that paper!”

“Then we bumped into that female human, but we didn’t bump into her on purpose!”

“We didn’t mean to do anything bad!”

“And I also caught them without bad intentions. I wanted to know if this is Ladeen.”

Yennit waved her hand and responded cynically.

As she crossed her arms, she had an expression on her face that seemed to say that she really had no malice towards the sirens.

“I only want to know if this is the right way, and if possible I wanted to ask if they could take me to my destination, but who here first shouted, ‘Die’?”

“You caught us before you did that.”

“And you said the next time we meet, you’ll kill us.”

“Of course! I’m going to kill you!”

Yennit shrugged as if not understanding the sirens’ reactions, and she didn’t seem to be reflecting on her own words.

“Yeah, well, that’s roughly what happened. It’s not like I’ll see you sirens after a day or two, so I was just going to scare you enough and let you go.”

“Anyway, it seems like the fault lies with you weak punks.”

Sante smiled and flicked a finger, then the noisy mouths of the three sirens were shut tight.

With a sense of déjà vu, the sirens were kicked out of the forest.

Sante was, unquestionably, the head of the sirens.