Chapter 19

Chapter 19

All the nagging fantasies drifting through my head scattered in an instant.

An orphan with no kin who had lost their parents early.

A younger sibling.

“You...... have a younger sibling?”

“Around this time, they should be seven or eight...... no, nine. Perhaps ten.”

So how old are they? Does he not even know his own younger sibling’s age properly? As I looked at him in disbelief, Edelred gave me a weak smile and shrugged once.

“It cannot be helped. I do not know exactly what year this is. Of course, if you tell me the proper date even now, I can answer with certainty.”

“No, that’s.......”

How am I supposed to know what year it is? All I know is that I’ve lived for roughly a thousand years, or perhaps more. It’s not as if I can calculate by the old standard and tell him, either. While I turned my back on the world, the calendar used by people might have changed.

“A-Anyway...... don’t try any useless tricks. You seem to think you’re some incredible figure just because you regressed, but honestly, your circumstances don’t matter to me at all.”

What was so great about someone who had lived until his seventies at most, then ended up living again from his twenties? He was simply an error-ridden existence that violated the order of the world.

“I know. I know well enough that I am nothing more than a lowly thing. I doubt the future will change because one person like me disappears.”

Edelred nodded and closed his eyes as if steeling his resolve.

“So you need not concern yourself too much. My younger sibling, if I, their only blood relative, disappear, will suffer alone under the oppression of adults blinded by greed...... and in the end, they will be killed......”

“Uh.......”

“But there is no need to concern yourself too deeply. What does it matter whether that child ends up that way or not? That, too, is certainly! not as great a matter as defying the order of the world.”

“.......”

Excuse me, could you not say it like that? Now I’m starting to care an incredible amount.

Of all things, why did it have to be an orphan with no kin who had lost their parents early and whose life was endangered by the oppression of adults? Their situation was so similar to mine as a child that I couldn’t not care about it.......

“Um...... your younger sibling really has no one else to rely on besides you? No r-relatives or anything......?”

“There is an uncle, at least.”

Ah, what? Then he could entrust his younger sibling to this uncle, could he not? Good grief, I thought it was something serious. They weren’t particularly in a situation like mine after all. Then I really didn’t have to worry about it. Whew, what a relief.......

“The problem is that this uncle is the very person abusing that child and threatening their life. At least while I was there, he was too conscious of me to extend his evil hand to that child as well...... but once I disappear, he will likely focus his oppression on that child and try to kill them.”

“.......”

“All of that would begin from you erasing me...... but it is not particularly important.”

“.......”

Why did I suddenly feel as if I had become an evil mage who had plunged a child into a pit of abuse and death? I was only trying to complete my research assignment and prevent the order of the world from being disturbed.......

Master, what am I supposed to do at a time like this.......?

Of course, I could simply ignore such tricks. But how could I ignore a story about a child in circumstances similar to my childhood?

If there were at least one element I could not sympathize with, perhaps that would be one thing.......

“......Huh? Wait. Come to think of it, didn’t you say you had once entered a library? One with a secret archive attached, at that.”

To be able to enter such a place, he could not have had an ordinary high status. If that was the case, there was no need to think this bastard’s younger sibling would be in a situation similar to mine. I did not know how much of a scumbag this uncle was, but if the child’s status was high, they would not suffer anything as extreme as I had.

......Just as I thought that and tried to stop sympathizing, Edelred quickly offered an excuse.

“My younger sibling had mistakenly eaten a poisonous plant and was dying, so I sneaked in to find any method I could. Even then, I was discovered partway through, scolded severely, and driven out. I was confined for quite some time as well.”

“Mistakenly eaten a poisonous plant? How?”

Edelred’s face filled with guilt.

“It was my mistake. We had nothing to eat, so I tried to cook grass porridge and at least keep us alive.......”

“You had nothing to eat...... so you cooked grass porridge?”

Huh, someone of high status would never eat something like that. Then this bastard really was a commoner with no status whatsoever? Ah, no. If that was the case...... I had no choice but to sympathize with the situation his younger sibling would face.......

After a long yet short anguish, I finally released the formula binding Edelred and deployed a new formula. The newly deployed formula became purple letters and rose into the air, and from among them as they gathered together, a red-hot lump of metal manifested.

“For now...... put out your right leg. I’ll treat it.”

“Hm......? Like this?”

Released from the binding and looking bewildered, Edelred lifted his right thigh in confusion. As if it had noticed something was wrong, the error wrapped around Edelred’s entire right leg began thrashing and surging, stretching out countless things like black tentacles.

The moment they tried to attack me threateningly, a purple net densely surrounded them and returned them to their original position. The wavering tentacles melted away like ice touched by heat, and the purple net, which had changed into a shape like a long sock, completely wrapped around Edelred’s right leg.

With this, the contamination should not spread around him, right? Good. Then I just needed to isolate it in a subspace like this. Feeling slightly proud, I broke the lump of metal floating in the air into small pieces and began attaching them to Edelred’s right leg one by one. As the vivid red lumps gradually cooled, they became components of leg armor, and formulas meant to replace Edelred’s right leg, which had been swallowed into the subspace formed inside the leg armor, were meticulously engraved throughout the parts.

“There, done! How is it? Is anything uncomfortable? Walk around a bit and check.”

“U-Um....... Very well.”

After looking down at the leg armor wrapped around his right leg in a daze for a moment, Edelred soon hesitantly rose to his feet. He stood still awkwardly for a while. Then, as a deep green light seemed to wrap around the leg armor, Edelred slowly began walking around.

“This is....... Good heavens, I am walking properly. It has been a long time since I walked this well. And...... the pain I felt until just now has completely disappeared too. Yet it does not feel as though the leg is completely gone either. How can this be?”

“Among the overlapping causal relationships, I left only the causal relationships up to the present and isolated the rest. You could say I sent them to another dimension....... Anyway, now they can’t affect the rest of your body left on this side.”

In other words, Edelred was no longer someone who had lived the future up to his seventies and regressed, but a person of the present in his twenties. That said, it was not as if the fact that he had regressed had never happened, so his memories and personality as a regressor would not disappear.

Still, his abilities as a swordsman had certainly been adjusted to a level matching his current situation. In fact, the aura Edelred was currently emitting looked to be at the level of an intermediate Sword Expert, not a swordmaster. Edelred could no longer break through my formulas and run away like he had earlier.

“So give up on trying to shake me off and escape. It’s useless even if you sneak away. A location tracking formula is engraved into that leg armor.”

I could even make Edelred return on his own by remote control - or more precisely, by having the leg armor control him. Haha, how does that feel? Now you can’t run away, you escaped cookie!

......While shrugging my shoulders like that, I was inwardly tense. I felt as though Edelred would burst into anger, saying, “Are you threatening me right now?” and that after exchanging harsh words that hurt each other’s feelings, the relationship between me and this bastard would end up irrevocably ruined.

Of course, this bastard and I were neither friends nor anything else, so it did not matter whether our relationship soured or not. However, becoming the worst possible relationship with someone was, just imagining it, an awful thing that gave me extreme stress. All the more so for me, who had experienced the worst possible relationships.

Unexpectedly, however, Edelred did not get angry at me. Rather, he only seemed somehow moved.

“To think there was such a method...... I did not know. I thought that once one became an , one had no choice but to die on the spot or cut off the infected part.......”

“Huh? Why cut it off? You need to leave it there if you’re going to restore it later.”

“Restore it? Are you saying it is possible to return an infected part to its original state?”

Was that not obvious? When I nodded in confusion, Edelred let out a hollow laugh.

“How is something like that possible? Until the moment I died, I never saw a mage accomplish such a thing....... Is it true? Is that truly possible?”

“Why do you think it’s impossible?”

I simply could not do it right now because I had no idea what kind of life this bastard had lived until he reached his seventies. With proper information values, restoration itself would not be difficult at all.

Well, of course, that would be something mages who only knew how to copy and paste design codes could not even dream of.

“Just why...... did I never know until the end? When a mage like you existed in this era, how...... why did I never know of your existence until now? Hm? Why is that?”

“E-Even if you ask me something like that.......”

Edelred’s desperate gaze, somehow hollow, stared fixedly into me. Thanks to that, I panicked and hurriedly pulled my hood down to cover my face, but his burning gaze showed no sign of leaving me.

No, seriously...... stop staring at me like that. I feel like I’m going to suffocate.

Could this bastard be doing this on purpose? Was he trying to use the fact that I was weak to this sort of situation, dry me to death with his gaze, and escape?

That was, in its own way, the correct answer...... but escape would still be impossible. Because the contents of the research assignment had been updated like this in the meantime.

***

[Research Assignment] No. 703083-456 ☆★Updated★☆

＃001. Check Whether Distorted/Altered Designs Can Be Restored

→ Complete (Including devising a way to prevent the spread of contamination)

→ Collect clues to correct and restore the isolated error.

＃002. Collection of Related Samples and Case Collection Through Design State Restoration

→ Collect as many cases as possible to increase the success probability of Item 1!!

→ If collecting information values about the future is impossible, observe the causal relationships that will accumulate from now on!!

***

Ahh, Master. Must you truly roll me around this harshly......?

Well, it was only natural. As long as I did not quit the Magic Tower, Master would continue rolling me around. Truly, here I was realizing that obvious fact all over again.

As I let out a sigh that flowed out on its own, something suddenly appeared in my vision. When I startled, I realized it was Edelred’s hand.

What is this? What am I supposed to do with it? I looked up at Edelred with a dissatisfied expression. Toward me, Edelred smiled softly and spoke.

“Reu Rel, by any chance...... would you consider coming with me?”