༺ The First Letter (9) ༻
On that day, Seria returned with a sullen expression.
It was an unexpected situation to her, after all, even though it was hard for her, she bent her pride as a junior and sought advice from her senior.
But for me, it was a very reasonable decision.
Am I crazy? Objectively speaking, Seria was a better swordsman than me, and there was nothing I could teach her.
There was nothing more stupid than wasting time on pointless things. If I could have helped, I would have spared some time for a few days due to my responsibility as her senior at the academy.
Another reason was that her relationship with me was not deep enough for me to deliberately go and teach her my insights.
After spending days with her, I might have pointed out a problem that she had not noticed herself, but it would take too long.
I wasn’t a person who was free enough to sacrifice so much of my time for a junior who wasn’t even that close to me. In fact, it was more appropriate to say that I had enough free time, but it was clear that it would be more fun to spend time with close friends such as Leto and Celine instead.
However, maybe it was because I refused too quickly, but my mind, after sending Seria away, was not as comfortable as I thought it would be.
The sight of Seria walking away with her shoulders dropped in disappointment contrasted with her usual arrogant and upright visage, evoked even more of a pitiful feeling within me.
No wonder Leto and Celine criticized me.
“Hey, hey, hey, How could you say no to her so directly? You should have said it more discreetly.”
“Yeah, yeah, Ian. This was a bit too much even for me.”
Leto spoke as I expected him to, but Celine’s reaction, who seemed to be about to fight to death with Seria at any moment, was surprising.
Looking back, I thought it was a little too much, but I couldn’t help it.
I couldn’t take back what I already said. I shook my head to shake off those confusing thoughts.
“Well, it’s already over. It’s useless to continue worrying about it. Let’s go eat instead.”
Leto and Celine blamed me even more for my rebuttal. Rather, Celine, rethinking about my proposal, thought I was right, and soon regained her smile.
Only Leto shook his head with a pale face, groaned in an exhausted voice.
“No, I don’t have time for that… I’m so busy.”
“Do you have that many assignments?”
“That’s how it is in the mage faculty. I want to kill all the professors..….”
Leto, who was muttering such scary words, embodying truly how a student of the mage faculty is in his busy days, soon sighed and drooped his shoulders.
“I also have to visit the alchemy faculty’s lecture building later. What should I do? I’m way too exhausted to even move.”
In the meantime, Leto began to glance at me. It was an obvious hint.
“Ah, if only someone would go in my stead… Come to think of it, Ian, did you take your liberal arts class near the alchemy faculty’s building?”
Celine, stunned, tried to say something, but it fell through when I accepted doing my friend a favor. Celine sulked as she lost her timing to talk to me.
“Yes, yes. I’ll take your place, so you can go back and rest… The bags under your eyes are so dark.”
At my compassionate acceptance, Leto was delighted, and took a piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to me. Then he began to give a rough explanation.
“It’s something I need for my research, and I require the help of alchemy faculty students. The professor already gave some of them notice, so you’ll find it if you go to the alchemy’s faculty lecture hall before this evening. You have to go to Emma.”
“Emma?”
It was a familiar name. In the third year of the ‘Faculty of Alchemical Studies,’ we were at the stage where we could chat pleasantly. One might say she was close to me.
But I tilted my head for a moment when I heard the name because I felt like I had heard it somewhere else recently.
The worry didn’t last long. There was some time left until I went to Emma anyway. I could think about it gradually. With that mindset, I nodded for now.
“Yeah, don’t worry. I’ll go to her.”
So that afternoon, I entered the lecture hall of the ‘Faculty of Alchemical Studies.’
The lobby on the first floor was lined with mysterious experimental tools. It seemed to be an exhibition, but I, a swordsman, had no idea about their purpose.
When I looked at the note that Leto handed me over, the number “506” was written at the top. It means I had to go to room 506 in the alchemy faculty lecture hall.
Having climbed the stairs to reach the fifth floor, I knocked on the door with the sign “506.” Then, soon from the inside, the sound of a voice saying ‘come in’.
It sounded familiar. Convinced that I had come to the right place, I opened the door pushing it aside.
There, there was a woman with red hair and a gentle impression staring at me with her eyes wide open. Like she didn’t expect me to visit.
I grinned.
“Emma! Long time no see.”
“…… Ian? What are you doing here?”
Hearing Emma’s voice, a mixture of both surprise and warm reception, I took a seat at the reception table in the center of the lab.
And I spoke in a calm voice.
“It’s an errand, Leto had a note for you. Something he needed for his research?”
“Oh, oh, oh! Professor Adriana’s lecture… Yeah, I got it. If you see Leto next time, tell him to come back in three days.”
Emma then calmly accepted the note I gave her. Her green eyes slowly scanned its content. She seemed to be checking what ingredients to prepare.
In the meantime, I looked around Emma’s laboratory. It may have been lent by the school, but an alchemist’s laboratory has always been something intriguing.
The eyes in the jars, the unidentified silver powder, and the by-products of magic beasts such as claws and hearts.
Just imagining what kind of potion those items would be reborn as made me fascinated . Of course, I heard from Emma that it’s actually quite a difficult task because the preparation is thoroughly based on complex formulas and theories.
Imagination was synonymous with freedom, so I looked around the alchemist’s laboratory with a bated heart. And by the time Emma finished reading the note, she said hello.
“Come to think of it, how are you these days? I think it’s my first time seeing you since last semester.”
“Yeah, it’s the same as always. I’ve been going back and forth in the forest lately. There were surprisingly many ingredients.”
As soon as I heard the word ‘forest,’ I felt a hunch in a corner of my head.
I felt something coming to mind. I then asked, tilting my head.
“If it’s a forest, are you talking about the one in the south?”
“Yes, It’s where the hunting festival is held.”
“Wouldn’t it be dangerous there? There must be wild beasts.”
Emma laughed at my probing questions. She looked at me with the eyes of someone who had just heard a funny joke.
“You know, the wild beasts of the forest don’t come out to the outskirts. The more you go inside, the more food they get. I’m happy to be able to collect so many ingredients, since everyone is so worried about the beasts that they don’t even go into the forest.”
“……Are you sure?”
Emma nodded vigorously to my question, which was still worrying.
“Yeah, don’t you know I used to be a herbalist? I know the forest like the back of my hand. Ian, while you may not seem like it, you are an aristocrat after all.”
I coughed out heavily at Emma’s words.
While I was only the second son of a countryside aristocrat, I was still in a much higher position than a commoner like Emma.
More than half of the commoners who enter the academy get to receive a scholarship. Nonetheless, only one-third of the Academy’s students were commoners.
The nobles didn’t need to worry about their livelihood. It was enough to just concentrate on either training or studying all day. But for the vast majority of commoners, the situation was different.
Except for the offspring of some wealthy merchants, most commoners have to study and train to the point of losing the time to eat and sleep. That’s how they managed to get into the academy.
No matter how hard I trained while growing up, I was still no match to the students from the commoner background.
Feeling a little embarrassed, I began making up excuses.
“No, after all, you, as a commoner, must know the forest well… I know that you used to be an herbalist. I’m not saying that I know nothing, and only rely on my status as a noble.”
Emma giggled at my shrinking voice. It was a clear laugh that reflected her feelings.
“Yes, I know. I just said it because Ian doesn’t feel like a nobleman. Sometimes, I forget that Ian is an aristocrat.”
“You can just forget about it. It means nothing to the academy anyway.”
To Emma’s comforting remark, I replied as if it was nothing. But I knew as well that it was not such a simple matter.
Even if it happened only recently to me, rumors spread widely that I beat Seria to the point of near death.
This was due to the fact that I knocked down the top of the grade, while being only at the lower-intermediate rank at best, but was also because of the fact that a lower aristocrat of the Empire plummeted a person coming from the high aristocracy.
Although there is no discrimination based on status within the academy. However, in the outside world, it wasn’t the same. After graduating from the Academy, a commoner returned to the plebs, and the nobles returned to the aristocracy.
Emma, the daughter of a herbalist, was smart enough to get into the academy, so she must have known that my words were just to diffuse that atmosphere.
Nevertheless, she soon smiled warmly, uttering a sincere thanks
“……Yeah, thank you.”
She’s a lovely woman. It would be nice if she had a little more confidence, but I didn’t mean to meddle in such a deep matter.
However, while talking to Emma, a memory came to mind.
That letter, which said it came from the future seven years from now, somehow crossed my mind.
“……Ehm, Emma, by any chance.”
“Huh? What’s wrong?”
Emma looked at me with a little surprise, as if she had anything more to say. It was about time I had to leave.
But Emma was the only one I could ask the question that came to my mind, so I asked her.
“Is it possible to receive a letter from seven years in the future?”
Emma stared at me silently, tilting her head as my question seemed to be a bolt out of the blue to her.
It was nonsense, to say the least. A letter from the future seven years from now.
It must have been someone’s prank letter for a week when I lost my memory. As I said so, I shook my head.
“No, it’s not that important. I shouldn’t have asked you that question. Then I’ll go now…….”
“It’s not impossible.”
However, Emma’s answer, which she had been deeply contemplating for a while, was so unexpected that my body stiffened as I was about to stand up.
My questioning gaze turned to Emma, who was lost in thought with her arms folded.
And soon she headed to the corner of the laboratory. And when she pressed a button there, a hemispherical map unfolded in the air.
It was a map used by all magic and podium techniques based on astronomy and astrology.
“You know that every star in the sky has myth and history, right?”
“Oh, I’ve heard of it…….”
Emma waved her hand before my answer was finished. The seven stars embedded in the center of the sky were magnified with a hook.
“With the exception of the sun and the moon, these seven stars are the ones with the strongest power. Represent the seven sins that Delphirem, the first sinner of mankind, committed.”
Delphirem, I stood up as I heard that name.
In my dream that night, the man told me.
‘Delphirem looms on the horizon’ but shouldn’t it be just a legend?
“You know that, don’t you? The concept of death didn’t exist in the first place in humans. But after Delphirem made seven offerings to the evil god, sin was born, and death was created.”
“……So?”
My voice hardened without even realizing. However, Emma, who was deep in her thoughts, did not notice such an expression, and continued her explanation while placing her chin in her hand.
“They are stars with the power to twist the rules of the universe… With that power, it’s not impossible to reverse time. After all, they gave birth to a concept that did not exist in the plan of God.”
I, who until then had remained stiff in an awkward position, sank back into the chair.
An ominous foreboding struck me. That night, that vivid dream. And a letter that was too elaborate to be dismissed as a joke.
I suddenly remembered one of the contents of the letter. Yes, the letter also included Emma’s name.
She will be attacked by a beast and fall into a coma. My heart skipped a beat out of shock.
And the moment I was about to leave Emma with a warning.
“Of course, it can’t be possible. Hahaha…….”
At Emma’s playful voice, I was immediately stunned and had no choice but to stare blankly at Emma.
Emma giggled, perhaps unexpectedly seeing my reaction. As if everything she had said so far was a joke.
“Time travel? It’s only theoretically possible. There have been many attempts to deal with the power of those stars, but they have never been successful.”
“……Is that so?”
Persuaded by Emma’s confident tone, I breathed a sigh of relief and sat back down.
Yes, that can’t be true. A letter from seven years in the future.
It seems that my brain got messed up after having been through so many strange things recently. I shook my head with a wry smile.
Let’s stop thinking about it. At the moment I resolved myself, Emma’s words bolstered my decision.
“Don’t worry too much. I don’t know where you heard about it, but it’s probably just a rumor.”
I sighed and nodded. I’ve been wasting my energy and brain on useless things. My body finally rose from the chair.
And just as I was about to say goodbye, as there was something bothering me, I asked Emma.
“Emma, come to think of it, when are you going to the woods?”
“Well, I’m thinking of going there sometime this evening… Why?”
Should I tell her what was in the letter or not?
I hesitated for a moment, but I soon smiled bitterly and left only one word.
“Just, be careful.”
“You, again… don’t worry. Oh, gosh! Come to think of it, I almost forgot about it. I have something to give you.”
Emma took out a small potion bottle with a cute gesture. It was a grayish potion.
“It’s a potion that wipes out your traces. I succeeded in making it a while ago. If I start mass-producing it, I will be able to prevent hunters and travelers from dying.”
In the meantime, Emma asked me to test it and put a bottle of potion in my hand. She looked proud, as she was an alchemist boasting her research results.
Since her father was a herbalist, it was probably a potion containing her most deeply rooted feelings and hopes.
She should have used it to go to the forest today instead of giving it to me. Still, the smell of the ingredients she was going to collect today was so strong that the potion would be meaningless.
So Emma saw me off with her usual sweet smile.
The next day, Emma was found unconscious in the forest.
She was attacked by an unidentified beast, and her intestines were spilled out of her body.
