“Is this a cure…?”
At first glance, Ariel’s condition looked dangerous.
Not that she herself was in danger.
“Whoa.”
It was me who was in danger, exposed to the aftereffects of her ability.
Every piece of furniture in Ariel’s room floated in midair, moving as if in tune with her thoughts. Just moments ago, when she tilted her head in confusion, a large wardrobe hurtled toward me.
“Phew…”
Yet Ariel herself who had unleashed this power had no real awareness of what she was doing.
I had to make my way to her as if walking through the eye of a tornado.
“Let me warn you upfront. This medicine can cure Lady Ariel’s illness, but it comes with side effects.”
At first, I had considered concealing those side effects and simply giving it to her. If she took the medicine, there’d be no pain and no chance of death. That approach would’ve been easier.
But there was no sense in deceiving her. Even if I saved her that way, all I’d hear would be her resentment. It would be worse than doing nothing. Few things feel as unfair as working hard only to be cursed for it.
“If you take this medicine, your development will halt, Young lady. Oh, I don’t mean physical growth. Think of it more like hitting a ceiling on your talent.”
“……”
Ariel said nothing. She just shook her head and turned her gaze away.
“Then again, I never really expected Lady Ariel to accept it.”
I took a step toward Ariel, who was slumped on the floor.
Just that alone caused the furniture and other objects floating around the room to shake. Their movements grew more violent.
Her unconscious feelings of rejection were manifesting outwardly through her ability.
“In fact, Lady Ariel, you know this yourself. That you’d be more helpful to Lobelia than in creating some trivial spell.”
Even if she became an archmage and established magic, it wouldn’t match her own innate power. After all, the essence of magic was to enable others to use one’s ability.
What’s more, adapting it to someone like Lobelia who was a sensory type and not a true mage meant you couldn’t expect much in terms of raw power. And above all, I knew exactly what spell Ariel would create.
“Yet still, I thought that you’d choose to make magic even at the cost of your life. Do you know why?”
Ariel’s magic: [Leap of Freedom].
Its effect was simple. It was a buff that let you move freely through the air.
But depending on the user’s skill, it could become a tremendous variable.
And for Lobelia, who darted around the battlefield like lightning, it would be absolutely perfect.
You could say it was a spell made solely for Lobelia.
It was undoubtedly an amazing magic. Yet even so, it was no match for her own power.
“Because Lady Ariel is focused not on surviving and being useful, but on dying.”
Crash!
A huge piece of furniture slammed into the wall, shattering it. Her turmoil was spilling out for all to see.
It was terrifying. If she were to truly unleash her anger, she could shred a person to pieces.
And that person would be me.
What was even more frightening was that she didn’t realize the severity of the situation. Ariel’s ability could kill me regardless of her own intentions.
“Lady Ariel was raised in a blessed environment.”
“…Me?”
“Yes. You’ve always had good people around you. Like Her Highness Lobelia, for example.”
Her past may have been a little unfortunate. But after arriving at the Cradle, she made many friends.
They must have been kind people, ones who respected her.
“But that might have turned out to be poison in the end. Even those kind people probably flinched when they learned that Lady Ariel was a beastkin.”
Ariel always wore a large witch’s hat.
With it, she covered her rabbit ears, the mark of a beastkin.
Why? For what reason?
Had she been scorned? Exposed to senseless hatred?
No, she had been treated considerately.
“You probably felt even more miserable because of that kindness.”
“…Ha.”
Even those people, when they encountered Ariel unexpectedly, would flinch.
They couldn’t take their eyes off her rabbit ears.
That wasn’t about human kindness. It was a perception rooted deep within their hearts.
It was fear of beastkin.
Because of what the “Speartip of Snow Blossoms” had done over the past year or even before Ariel was born.
They had been cruel, savage, and had committed horrific atrocities far removed from anything human.
“Isn’t Lady Ariel simply exhausted? Haven’t you grown disappointed with your own existence and become skeptical about reality?”
Yes, Ariel was tired.
No matter how much she tried, there were things she simply couldn’t change.
And the more she was treated with kindness, the more clearly she must have felt that truth.
She had escaped the cage and experienced the world.
And she had realized that the world wasn’t all that beautiful. She also knew it was even harsher for her.
“You… seem to know me well. You’re right. I’m a little tired. But the desire to be helpful…that’s real.”
“I’m sure it is.”
If all she wanted was to give up out of exhaustion, she’d had plenty of chances.
The reason she had endured until now was because she wanted to leave behind something meaningful.
So unless you erased every excuse, persuading her was bound to be difficult.
“That’s why… could you please just leave me alone?”
“Don’t you get it? The fact that I’m still talking, even after knowing all that…. doesn’t that tell you something? You of all people should know I’m not just here to state the obvious.”
“…Sir Johan, your tone is always so harsh. That’s why people avoid you.”
“I know. But unlike you, Lady Ariel, I don’t care what others think.”
“……”
Whack!
Was that the price for irritating her? One of the objects floating around suddenly struck me on the head.
Ha, damn it… Should’ve brought a weapon or something. I can’t defend against this.
Still, I somehow managed to protect the medicine vial from breaking.
“Saying you want to give up because it’s hard… well, I get it. I’ve been there too. And honestly, I’ve given up plenty of times.”
“Sir Johan.”
Her voice returned cold and sharp.
At that moment, I knew everything was going according to plan.
“You don’t know. There’s no way you could understand.”
Crash!
Her emotions surged.
A large drawer came flying and slammed into me with force. I had expected this and barely managed to brace myself…
But damn, it hurt like hell.
“I hate that kind of thing.”
Yeah, of course it would come off as insincere. That’s exactly the point.
The furniture crashing around us. It was her unconscious reaction.
A glimpse of her true feelings.
How could I, a non-beastkin, ever understand the struggles of someone like her, who was?
They say seeing once is better than hearing a hundred times.
It means that one glimpse outweighs a hundred explanations.
Then it was easy to imagine that the one experience she had lived through must have been far more harrowing than the hundred scenes I had merely witnessed.
“You… what do you even know…? You don’t know how much shame I feel, how much I suffer…!”
Crash!
This time, a vanity with a mirror came flying and slammed into me.
I had been prepared again, but I hadn’t anticipated the shattered mirror shards.
The broken pieces of glass tore through my clothes and cut into my skin.
The price of exposing her deepest feelings and drawing out her vulnerability was steep.
At this point, even just speaking to her might cost me my life.
Still, I had to protect the medicine, so I tucked the vial inside my clothes and hunched down.
Damn it—why is saving someone this hard…?
“Princess Ariel, did you know? I’m a coward.”
“What…?”
I revealed my own weakness to her.
It was a way to help her open up about the things she had buried inside.
But that alone wouldn’t be enough. It wouldn’t come across as sincere.
To convince her, I had to stand on equal ground.
A different place, but on the same level.
“Maybe you’ve already noticed, Princess Ariel, but I tend to avoid relationships with people.”
I exposed my own ugliness.
“It’s because I’m a coward. After experiencing the pain of parting a few times, I became afraid of connecting with others. Pathetic, isn’t it?”
It was over ten years ago.
I watched my fiancée burn and disappear right in front of me.
What did I do then? I think I did nothing.
What came after was even worse.
“The day my fiancée died, I tried to forget her. Because remembering her just hurt too much.”
To escape the pain of loss, I let go of my fiancée’s face from my memory.
I didn’t even mention her name. Now, I couldn’t even remember what she looked like.
I kept running away, afraid of that pain of loss.
“From that day on, I think I became quite a twisted person.”
Then what about me in my past life? I wasn’t anything special either.
I lost my mother in childhood and even my father during school years.
While keeping vigil over an empty funeral hall, I realized that my own pain didn’t mean as much to others.
After that, I kept living in a reality where I was left all alone, slowly growing cold.
It happened when I was just 17.
“After losing so much, I became too afraid to even reach out anymore.”
I regained the memories of my past life two years before entering the cradle.
It was when I was 16.
By chance, I recovered those memories, but surprisingly, it wasn’t all that confusing.
Maybe it was because the memories didn’t feel like someone else’s.
Partly due to our similar age, but more so because my past self resembled my current self to a shocking degree.
There was no wall between us.
“Feel free to laugh at me.”
“……”
“Because I’m such a pathetic person, I can’t understand Lady Ariel’s pain.”
I didn’t know her sadness.
I didn’t know the pain she must have felt.
All I did was recite things I had learned beforehand.
How could someone like me claim to understand her?
The only one I could truly understand was my wretched self.
“So how could someone like me possibly claim to understand Lady Ariel? Of course you’re angry; it’s only natural.”
Ariel was someone far too remarkable for me to even dare compare myself to her.
She was someone who took the hand extended by Lobelia and tried to break free from the world she had lived in until now.
She saved countless people and never once complained about the prejudice and fear unjustly directed at her.
She could have been angry at all of it, but instead, she held firm, enduring it all as just part of her reality.
But I was a coward. And even worse, a disgraceful one.
That’s why I won’t try to persuade her. I don’t have the ability to do that.
There wasn’t some deep bond between us either. We stood in completely different places.
“After experiencing that farewell, I wandered for a long time. Up until just a few months ago, all I did was run away.”
Bang!
The cabinet slammed into my head.
Clothes tumbled out and scattered, blocking my vision.
The blood streaming down my head….when did it even start flowing? I can’t begin to guess.
Yes, just trying to approach her is dangerous for someone like me.
That’s how weak I was.
“I’ll be honest. I’m doing this because I just want some kind of comfort. On that day… the day my fiancée died… I did nothing. And now, I want some kind of proof that I’ve done something, anything, since then.”
I saw a blue flame before my eyes.
The beautiful flame that danced before me was just like the starlight I saw that night.
“That’s why I’m asking you, someone stronger than me.”
That day, I did nothing. Of course, there wasn’t anything I could have done.
Even so…
“Would you please live….for my sake?”
I think now, maybe I should have begged her not to leave.
“I need you.”
So, this was the best action I could take as the person I am now.
***
Right before her eyes.
At a distance where she only had to reach out her hand to touch it.
There was a bottle filled with a pale pink liquid.
Ariel looked up at the man who had placed the bottle down.
There stood the man who had openly called himself a coward.
It was true. He was so weak that he couldn’t even protect himself.
“Sir Johan…”
The man didn’t try to persuade her.
He didn’t offer clumsy reasoning or tried to preach. He had simply, calmly stated that he was a weak person.
“I… I…”
Not long after enrolling at the Cradle, Ariel had ended up wearing an oversized witch’s hat.
It had always been meant to hide the thing that bound her.
And in a way, it had been her own act of consideration.
Because she knew that when the other students saw her ears, they were reminded of the barbarians from the “Speartip of Snow Blossoms” and trembled in fear.
They knew Ariel was trying for their sake.
So they pretended to be fine and said kind, considerate things to her.
But how could she not know?
“Do you… really need me?”
That she was someone who made others uncomfortable just by being there.
She wanted to be helpful.
She wanted to stand beside Lobelia, the one who had pulled her out into the world, and help her achieve her dreams.
But Lobelia was an extraordinary person. She was someone who would soar even without Ariel.
That had made Ariel shrink back.
It made her wonder if, instead, she was just getting in the way.
“Yes, Lady Ariel.”
But there was someone who needed her.
Someone who didn’t find her unsettling but instead had fought through a storm just to save her.
A man who, despite his body being torn and battered because of her abilities, had still protected the medicine in his arms. That man spoke.
“I need you.”
Someone needed her.
Someone said that her simply being alive was enough.
“……”
She couldn’t pretend not to hear it.
In the end, Ariel accepted the medicine Johan offered her. She no longer needed to become an Archmage.
“If me being alive can save you, Sir Johan… then I’ll do it.”
Because just by being alive, she could save someone.
Because now she knew that.
Ariel drank the medicine.
She could feel the sensation returning to her weightless body.
Then, feeling returned to the tip of her tongue, and her vision began to clear.
Things she had never seen before, things she had never felt….came rushing in like the tide.
Ah.
And the look of relief on the man’s face as he smiled at her. The pink-colored medicine he had created…
“You did well.”
It was surprisingly sweet.
Leave a Reply