Chapter 279: Shadow Part 5

Yuna looked at the sleeping Johan with a gentle smile.

Johan was extremely exhausted. After making him do physical labor on top of that, it was only natural that he would fall asleep from fatigue.

“Up we go.”

After confirming that Johan was deeply asleep, Yuna got up from her seat.

Her face had been flushed the entire time. For her as well, lying in the same bed all day had been quite a lot to handle.

And they hadn’t just been lying there. They had openly and deeply expressed their affection for each other, so Yuna had barely had any time to steady herself.

“Alright, then.”

Normally, she would have simply fallen asleep with Johan and stayed that way until the next day.

But she had no intention of just quietly watching him struggle.

“Mephi.”

“Wh-What.”

At Yuna’s chilly voice, Mephi flinched.

It wasn’t that she was scared. It just felt unfamiliar.

There was a clear gap between this and the way Yuna usually acted in front of Johan.

“What happened while I was gone? Tell me everything. Don’t leave anything out.”

She had known Johan would suffer.

She knew the look on his face when he searched through Immun’s corpse.

Honestly, in that moment, Yuna couldn’t hide her shock.

It wasn’t that she was surprised by Johan’s actions.

It was that she could see how much those actions were hurting him.

“From now on, I need to understand Johan better.”

Most of the Cradle students had felt that kind of pain and regret.

And Yuna knew those emotions well too.

Only now did she realize that Johan was more innocent than she had thought.

That was why she had arranged the sparring match. If it was a similar kind of feeling, his classmates from the Cradle would understand it best.

Of course, she understood it well too.

But…

My situation is a little different.

Any wound will eventually heal with time.

Even if it leaves a scar, a wound will close.

But not every wound is like that. Some wounds never dull, no matter how much time passes.

That was the case for Yuna.

Because she had killed her father.

She’ll regret it for the rest of her life and suffer for the rest of her life. That was her choice.

“I’m the only one who can protect our cute Johan.”

“Who are you calling cute? I’m the cute one. This form is the standard. Yuna, your sense of aesthetics is seriously warped.”

“Mephi, stop talking nonsense and just answer.”

“Fine.”

Mephi nodded.

It’s best not to get involved with crazy people. Rather than argue, Mephi decided to just comply.

“Hmm, so that’s what happened?”

Even in that brief time she had been captured by Lobelia, Johan had gone through quite a lot.

Yuna let out a quiet sigh at Johan’s turbulent life.

What made it even sadder was that none of it was surprising. For some reason, Johan was always loved by people who needed watching.

It was almost as if he gave off pheromones that attracted nothing but dangerous individuals.

“Seriously…”

Yuna’s original plan had been to resolve the scattered problems around him before Johan started to suffer.

That way, he would have less time to agonize over them.

But the moment she heard from Mephi what Johan had been through, she realized something.

“There’s nothing I can really do.”

Too dangerous to ignore, yet impossible to properly confront.

Johan only ever seemed to get caught up in situations like that.

There was no way to counter them. The only option was to be swept along.

“I guess the best thing I can do is just stay by his side.”

Yuna gave up.

She simply wrapped that resignation in prettier words.

The problems Johan was facing were things she had no way of solving.

Yuna crawled back into bed, faced Johan, and fell asleep.

***

The moment I opened my eyes in the morning, I felt good. There’s something about the warmth of another person that makes your heart feel warm.

And that wasn’t all.

Yuna who was holding me in her arms wasn’t just warm. She was soft.

An indescribable sense of fullness made my heart race.

Since we were both in thin pajamas, I could feel her curves…and her shape more clearly than usual.

“Uhe…”

I had been watching Yuna like that for a while when she opened her eyes.

She must be sensitive to someone’s gaze. It seemed I’d woken her up.

“Johan.”

As soon as Yuna opened her eyes, she murmured with a slightly flushed face,

“W-Wow… you’re pretty energetic for first thing in the morning…”

…It seemed she hadn’t woken up just because of my gaze.

***

After a brief, awkward silence passed between us,

We lay in bed for a while longer, facing each other and smiling.

“Mm.”

Yuna stretched first and lifted herself out of bed. She arched her back like a cat.

Still in her pajamas and having just gotten out of bed, she was showing more skin than usual.

Man… I don’t even know where I’m supposed to look.

Of course, if I suddenly averted my eyes, Yuna might feel disappointed, so I kept my composure and continued looking at her calmly.

…Married life might not be so bad.

“Johan, what are you doing today?”

“The new semester’s starting soon, so I should go to the library and study.”

“Ugh.”

Yuna visibly recoiled.

“Do you really have to?”

“I mean, I need to at least do well on the written exams if I want to avoid failing.”

“But Johan, don’t you think you’ll be fine even if you don’t ace the written part? You beat Bayron yesterday.”

That was coming from Yuna, who had always secured overwhelming scores in the practical exams.

This was exactly why she didn’t study.

Even last year, she did well enough in practicals that she could get by with average written scores.

I’m the only one staking my life on grades.

Well, she’s not wrong. I’ve gotten pretty strong now. If I just live decently, I’ll probably be fine.

Still…

“Considering my attendance record, it’s probably better if I do well on the written exams too.”

I’ve been busy getting caught up in all kinds of incidents, preparing for them, and dealing with the aftermath.

On top of that, I skipped quite a bit during the first year for various reasons, so I really need to start thinking about attendance.

If I wanted to live like Yuna, it wouldn’t be enough to just do well in practicals. I’d have to absolutely dominate them.

“You don’t even have to graduate. I can provide for you.”

“Yuna, I’m a noble.”

Graduating from the Cradle and taking a high-ranking post is something commoner students worry about.

To be honest, I don’t really see the value in graduating.

Even so, the reason I have to graduate is because of the imperial family’s scrutiny.

As I mentioned before, most nobles who either dropped out of or were expelled from the Cradle ended up facing retaliation from the imperial family.

The Cradle has become relatively peaceful lately, so the chances of that happening again are low, but my situation is what it is.

Even if it’s not outright retaliation, if the Emperor decides to look into the Damus County, he might notice the tension between Damus House and Ether House.

So I have to graduate.

And since I have to graduate, I don’t even want to think about repeating a year and staying an extra one.

Conclusion.

“I guess I’ll just study.”

Let’s try living diligently.

***

In the end, Yuna left me.

Saying it like that makes it sound like we broke up, but she just got bored of sitting around and went out to have some fun.

It’s still within the Cradle anyway, so there shouldn’t be any problems.

When I arrived at the library, I exchanged a light greeting with the librarian I’d grown familiar with and headed inside.

Back when I said I wanted to borrow advanced magic books, they looked at me with suspicion, but these days they even cheer me on to study hard.

I guess if you live diligently, people start to acknowledge you.

Or maybe the other students just don’t study as much.

Just as I stepped into the relatively quiet library—

“Haah…”

I let out a sigh the moment I walked in.

“Sighing the moment you see someone is quite rude.”

It was because I came face-to-face with the Oracle.

She wasn’t wearing her usual hood, just her school uniform.

Her bright blonde hair flowed over her shoulders, and her starlight-blue eyes narrowed as she looked at me.

“I told you to keep your hood on.”

“I have no reason to follow your orders. I’ll do as I please.”

“Geez…”

She looks like Alice.

But forcing the issue any further would, as she said, be an overreaction.

She probably doesn’t want to walk around with her hood up all year round.

That’s only natural.

Well, putting that aside…

“So what are you here to nitpick me about this time?”

“I was here first.”

“Oh. Right.”

Then let’s just live while respecting each other.

With that thought, I shrugged and tried to walk past the Oracle toward another section.

“What is it.”

But without even blinking, the Oracle grabbed the hem of my clothes.

See? I knew it.

Every time we meet, she either lectures me or brings some kind of trouble.

“Well done. You finally dealt with the Scriptwriter. Does that mean only the Under Chain remains?”

“I told you that’s not the case.”

“But you’ve already taken down four organizations with your own hands, haven’t you? Starting with Eden, then Lemegeton, the Speartip of Snow Blossoms, and now Ex Machina.”

“…….”

Only one remains.

At this point, it really does look like I deliberately went around dismantling four organizations.

Maybe that’s why.

Ever since I got tangled up with Kult, all kinds of groups have been coming after me to keep me in check.

Honestly, if I were them and some killer showed up targeting only people with gray hair, I’d be concerned too.

Maybe it’s some twisted sense of solidarity among terrorists.

“I used to hate the sight of you for changing the future however you pleased and putting me in difficult positions, but lately I’ve reconsidered.”

“I knew that already, but hearing it out loud still kind of hurts….”

I knew she didn’t like me, but to think she couldn’t even stand the sight of me.

Was it really that bad…?

“I’m starting to think it might be acceptable for us to form a united front.”

“You stayed quiet while I handled four of them, and now you want to swoop in and take credit?”

“If you don’t like it, you can just deal with the rest on your own.”

“No, that’s not what I …never mind.”

Honestly, I’ve been thinking the same thing.

At this point, if I want to live in peace, maybe I really do need to wipe out the remaining terrorist group as well.

If the same thing has happened four times, then a fifth feels almost guaranteed.

The Great Sage recently came to see me in person, so the foreshadowing is more than enough.

“By the way, why didn’t you do anything during the Scriptwriter incident?”

I can understand Eden and Lemegeton. Eden was wary of the Oracle from the start, and Lemegeton was supposedly beyond even her foresight.

The former tried to make a move and ended up getting crushed by the cult instead, and with the latter, the whole thing was over before she could even perceive it and intervene. That much, I can understand.

As for the Spearpoint of Seolhwa… I’m not sure.

The barbarian raids broke out on such a wide scale that she might have been dealing with something somewhere else.

Considering even the Black Knight joined the fight, she must have done something.

But what about the Scripwriter?

He openly occupied Creta, and quite some time passed after that.

And yet she never showed her face once.

“If I had gone, I would have been killed quite easily by the Scripwriter.”

“Even if you knew the future and prepared for it?”

“The Scripwriter’s technology is far more advanced than you realize. He had countermeasures prepared for me as well.”

The Oracle said that the moment the Scripwriter became aware of her existence, every possible means of stopping him was blocked off.

“When you were tricking Loki, he noticed. I didn’t expect him to use that moment to confirm my existence.”

“You think I fought the Scripwriter because I’m competent or something?”

“You are fairly competent.”

The Oracle tilted her head.

“……”

For a moment, I was speechless at the unexpected assessment. I never thought she’d call me competent.

Even I consider myself incompetent, so hearing that from her was the last thing I expected….

“Why are you so surprised? If you’ve taken down four organizations on your own, that makes you competent.”

She’s not wrong.

It’s not like I smashed them apart myself, but I was involved.

Was I actually competent…?

“For now, regarding your defeat of the Scripwriter this time, I’ll offer my praise. In the future where the Scripwriter succeeds in his plan, nothing remains.”

“The end of the world?”

“That would be an accurate way to put it.”

“…….”

Maybe it was because of something I’d heard recently.

Suddenly, Faust’s words came back to me.

In the futures where the final boss candidates succeed, the world is destroyed.

I already knew that much. But the more I learned about Naraka, the Demon King, and the others, the harder it became to think of it as such a simple ending.

Whatever the case, the Oracle had said she would cooperate with me.

“Faust contacted me recently. Did you happen to know?”

“I can only observe the future by specifying a location. I cannot see the future of an individual. Unless it grew into a major issue, there is no way I would know.”

“I figured….”

Just because she is the Oracle does not mean she knows every future.

The futures she sees are like a map viewed through a satellite.

Because she sees the whole picture, she cannot examine the finer details.

It felt entirely different from Kult, which can see an individual’s entire future.

Well, I suppose each has its own advantages and disadvantages.

“So, what did you talk about?”

“He said the end cannot be avoided. That even if it is not him, it will happen.”

“If there is a beginning, there is bound to be an end. That said, we are doing this because we have no intention of dying quietly, are we not?”

“The nuance was a little different.”

“Hmm….”

The Oracle lifted her eyes from the book she had been reading and pondered for a moment.

Then she spoke as if tossing the words out casually.

“Come to think of it, did you know?”

“What?”

“That this world has already overcome the threat of destruction several times.”

“Well….”

“Let us take only the major ones as examples. There are about three. First, roughly a thousand years ago. The world nearly perished. What do you think the cause was?”

“…A plague.”

There was an epidemic that swept across the entire continent. If we compare it to Earth, perhaps something like the Black Death or smallpox?

Such diseases spread throughout the continent, so it must have been catastrophic.

“Then do you know who resolved that crisis?”

“…….”

I clicked my tongue once before answering.

“The Great Sage, Faust.”

“Correct. That was the first existential threat this world faced.”

This is precisely why Faust is better known as the Great Sage rather than by the title of the first Archmage.

Through his wisdom, the world was able to overcome one great crisis.

“Do you know what the other two were?”

I briefly recalled the broad strokes of history that I knew.

Two immediately came to mind.

“War and famine.”

What is there to even say.

Both were problems created by the Empire.