Chapter 15

“What you will help with is finding Sylvia. Chadie said that if you help with that, she might be able to see you someday.”

“…What meaning does that have for Chadie?”

I had thought I would do anything to meet Chadie, but at the very least I wanted to know the reason.

He fell silent for a moment, as though he had not expected me to ask that. Then, having decided it was all right to tell me, he met my eyes and slowly opened his mouth.

“Since it has been so long since you left the orphanage, she seems to suspect you may be looking for her for some other reason. So it seems she believes that if you help her, she can confirm your affection for the orphanage and the sincerity of your wish to see her.”

In other words, it meant she did not know whether I still thought of her as a friend. Because I had not come looking for her in ten years. Her prickly feelings came through so clearly that it ached.

Chadie might not know it, but finding Sylvia was harder for me than anything else. I wanted to see Sylvia desperately, and yet I also did not want to see her. I was afraid to confirm whether she was not the person I had known.

If I refused here, Chadie would be even more disappointed. She might even take my refusal itself as my true feelings. If so, I had no choice. I quickly changed my expression.

“I’ll help.”

“…You decide quickly.”

“What is it I have to do?”

“We will look into that gradually.”

I had come buoyed by the hope of simply meeting Chadie, yet what I had heard was a string of other enormous things.

That Sylvia had gone missing, that Chadie had awakened as a mage, that this place was the famous Cersi…

I plopped down on a barstool. A glass of cold water was pushed before me. I mumbled a rough thanks and downed it in one gulp.

Silence flowed between him and me. Both of us had much to think about. Only after a long while did I speak.

“Even if this is a back alley, isn’t it dangerous to set up a base where the imperial court’s hand could reach? Even I practically stumbled in here by accident…”

The reason I had been able to find this guild was largely thanks to Jessie’s connections. Jessie had been born and raised in the alleys, so she knew many people here.

She had told me that those who looked like vagrants were in fact sentries guarding the guild, and that if I slipped them a few coins, I could set foot inside. I had followed her words, and they had been true.

‘Or did they disguise themselves as a guild on purpose?’

As my questions continued, Chadwick pushed another glass of cold water toward me and spoke.

“You needn’t worry about that.”

“Why? Because on the surface it is nothing more than an ordinary guild?”

At my words, Chadwick shook his head.

Then he looked at me with eyes that seemed to pierce right through me. At that moment, I saw his violet eyes ripple strangely.

“Because the only ones who can set foot in this place are mages.”

Since this was Cersi, that was only natural. I nodded, then suddenly froze as a thought struck me.

‘Wait, then how was I able to come in?’

A silence like eternity rose between him and me. He kept his gaze fixed on me as though still observing my reaction.

I fidgeted with my fingers for no reason. Too much time had already passed to give a proper answer.

“…I don’t know what you mean.”

“Well, I didn’t think you had come knowing.”

He shrugged. As though my answer had been entirely predictable.

“W-wait a moment!”

I grabbed him as he tried to go behind the bar table. I was the urgent one. I was the bewildered one.

“…Are you joking right now?”

“Not in the least.”

“……”

At that, my face grew serious. That I might be a mage?

“By any chance, is there a possibility that there’s something wrong with that door…”

“There is not.”

With that, he disappeared inside. Left alone in the shop, I mulled over his words.

I had entered a place only mages could enter, and there was no chance the door was faulty. Before my thoroughly tangled mind could be sorted out, Chadwick reappeared.

“Take this.”

“What is it?”

He handed me a small stone. What I had taken for a stone felt as light as though it had no weight at all.

I was rolling the stone in my hand, turning it this way and that, when it happened.

“That is a judgment stone, used to identify mages.”

“…In what case can you tell someone is a mage?”

At my question, Chadwick hesitated for a moment. He kept his eyes fixed on my hand for a long while before answering belatedly.

“If you can lift that stone, you are a mage.”

At those words, my hand—which had been rolling the stone about like a toy—stopped dead. I set the stone down quietly on the table.

“It seems there is no room for doubt.”

He took the stone back.

‘That I am a mage.’

I could not understand it. From long ago until now, I had never shown the slightest sign of mana. The kinds of signs we had discussed regarding Chadie, for instance.

I could not say my temperament was good, but I was not eccentric or sensitive. Nor had I ever felt possessiveness toward any person or object… Hmm, that part was ambiguous.

I thought back to the feelings I had once held for Kirill. But could that be called possessiveness or obsession?

It was because I liked him according to the setting of the novel. It was not a sign that I was a mage.

Besides, I now knew how this world worked. This world was a perfect tapestry woven without a single gap, from beginning to end, for Gizelle. There was no room for me in it.

I was a supporting character among supporting characters, not even permitted a single line of description. Merely a petty villain used like a tool for Gizelle’s narrative and discarded when the time came. There was no room in it for me to be a mage.

Speaking as someone who knew the original story, the mage was Gizelle. Of course, Gizelle was already a registered mage of the imperial court, but there was a more important fact than that. Gizelle was destined to become the future imperial mage.

It was the highest honor for a mage and, in itself, public recognition of being a tremendous wielder of power.

Gizelle had handled immense mana since childhood. She had been registered with the imperial court as a mage when she was only six years old. Even now, it was all but certain that she would become the imperial mage.

As I sat lost in thought without speaking, Chadwick roused me.

“Then I look forward to working with you from now on.”

He extended his hand to me. I hastily pulled myself from my thoughts and grasped it.

“Then I look forward to working with you as well.”

His hand was warmer than I had expected. He looked cold, so I had assumed his hand would be cold as well.

I held and shook his hand for quite a while.

“…You can let go now.”

“Ah, yes!”

It seemed I had held on too long without realizing it. I hurriedly let go, and for some reason his face was serious.

I had come to this place to find an old friend, and instead I had taken on a heap of questions.

* * *

After Saya left, Chadwick sat with the small stone resting on his palm, glaring at it with a grave expression.

“What are you doing with the judgment stone?”

“There is something I need to think about.”

That he had something to think about was no empty phrase. There was no need for Saya’s help in finding Sylvia. Even so, Chadwick had told Saya that she should help.

‘Because if she does, I can keep seeing her.’

Saya had not come looking for him for a long time. That seemed to suggest that the things at the Dollin Orphanage had not meant very much to her.

So if she cooperated in finding Sylvia, he felt he might be willing to overlook, at least for a while, her lie about wanting to see Chadie.

And he could not simply let Saya leave him and go off somewhere again.

Unexpectedly, Saya’s decision had been quick.

That did not mean, however, that he had learned what her true feelings were.

“Strange. Truly strange.”

Dahlia clicked her tongue and was about to pass by him when Chadwick suddenly tossed the judgment stone at her.

Dahlia yelped and dodged the flying judgment stone.

“Are you insane?”

She took a deep breath, angry, and bent to pick up the judgment stone that had fallen to the floor. Dahlia lifted the judgment stone—small enough to fit easily in one hand—with both hands, as though hoisting a boulder.

“Argh! I can’t do this. Clean it up yourself.”

“I will.”

She had called him strange, but lately it had been worse than usual. Dahlia steadied her startled heart, having nearly been killed by the judgment stone, and went inside.

Chadwick walked over and picked up the judgment stone with one hand. It was a weight that even he found difficult to lift with one hand. He could lift it, but not roll it about freely.

The judgment stone felt lighter the more mana the person lifting it possessed.

Recalling how Saya had just tossed the judgment stone about as though it were a toy, Chadwick’s expression grew even graver.

“Sylvia, what on earth did you do?”