REFDL 56

It was fine.

I was already familiar with failed love.

……After my parents passed away, I went through what you might call a long period of wandering.

I quit swimming and school altogether. After spending a year that felt like my memory had flown away, I came to my senses and realized I was already well past twenty.

I was still stuck in the past, in that momentary guilt. Everything except me treated me as an adult.

I readily accepted it.

I worked part-time during the day and drifted between clubs and gay bars at night. When I forced sex onto my overworked body, the insomnia that medicine couldn’t cure vanished, at least for then.

It was actually closer to passing out, but anyway, it was a night without consciousness.

That was enough.

Looking back, I think I was always starved for human connection. But I could never really love anyone.

Even the people I believed I liked, in hindsight, the feeling weren’t genuine. It was just physical.

…Saying it like this makes it sound like I lived a really promiscuous life.

No! But everyone was an adult!

It was consensual!

I never cheated. Most of the time, we broke up cleanly… Let’s stop here.

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is, I’m used to letting go.

[…….]

Honestly, I already had a bad feeling about this!

Somehow, I already have a premonition that this one will last much longer than the others!

…But…

No emotion can outlast time.

Even if traces remain, they’ll inevitably fade.

Who knows?

Maybe in the meantime, a guy even better than Kaelus will suddenly appear, and my heart, as light as my butt, will flit right over to him?

[…….]

A man better than Kaelus’ is already unrealistic…

“Over there!”

The mage riding behind Nitan practically climbed over his shoulder, leaning his body far forward. Nitan couldn’t say a word, cursing him only with his expression.

The mage didn’t notice. His eyes were glued to the circle formed by his thumb and index finger, too busy pointing the way.

“Over there!”

“…A lake.”

It was just as Kaelus had said.

It was incomparable to the one near the Forest Village.

[It looks like the sea.]

A lake of immense size revealed itself amidst the Sea of Trees.

* * *

The mage claimed the ‘third will’ had emerged from that lake.

“Looks like an ordinary lake to me. Mage, do you sense anything?”

“……I can’t tell right now. But…… this is the correct location.”

“Understood.”

Kaelus divided the group into two.

Kaelus and I, along with Nitan and the mage, circled above the lake, scanning for anything unusual, while the rest landed at the lakeshore to search the immediate area directly.

“There might be monsters nearby. Be careful.”

“Yes.”

The mage stared down at the lake through the gap between his fingers.

…He found nothing special, just got dry eyes.

“This can’t be right… It was definitely this lake…”

[…….]

I agreed with that assessment.

I didn’t sense anything immediately, but strangely, I had a feeling.

An intuition that this lake might be the one I saw in my dream.

Impossible.

…I couldn’t say for sure.

Everything I’d already experienced fell into the realm of the impossible by previous standards.

The first day ended with us returning empty-handed.

I urged the mage to try again tomorrow. Odan’s head turned toward me. His bloodshot eyes flashed.

……My heart nearly stopped.

Go-goodness, you scared me……

“Did you… sense something…?”

[……!]

I quickly shrank.

I figured a bigger face would show my expressions more clearly.

I answered as a red slipper.

[That is not the case.]

“I see…”

He turned away, disappointed.

Should I have told him the truth?

I thought about it again and shook my head. It wasn’t certain, and if I heard something bad, I wouldn’t be able to handle it.

I made up all sorts of excuses and postponed the karma for later.

* * *

The next day.

Departure was early dawn.

Everyone included in the investigation team got up at dawn and came to the dining hall. At the lake, we hadn’t eaten anything but simple jerky or dried rations. 

The situation and location weren’t suitable for eating much.

That’s why we had to eat well now.

Odan appeared last.

His steps were unsteady. His expression was even more irritable than usual. He radiated a madness that suggested he might drag any unlucky soul into a back room to test some wicked magic.

The knights flinched, but I knew better. That was just the face of someone exhausted.

I shoved a bowl of salad and grilled fish right onto his face like a cow, placing it before him after he’d taken the stew and bread.

Odan seemed hesitant, but soon pulled the plate toward him obediently, saying thank you.

The thought that you must eat to live applied to mages too. Chewing a bread soaked in soup, Odan spoke.

“Last night… I searched through the records all night…”

“I see…”

Nitan, who had been answering out of habit, faltered.

Wait. All night?

All night with your stamina?

We have to march again today, and you stayed up all night?!

Hold it in, Nitan. If a knight like you grabs him and shakes him, he will pass out, and we’ll really have to go tomorrow.

“That lake felt strangely familiar. I wondered why… I’d seen it before in some records. Not official ones… Well, what official records are there in this field anyway…”

“So. What’s the conclusion?”

Kaelus folded his arms, demanding a simple, clear summary.

“The description of that lake… matches the lake mentioned in the most plausible hypothesis about the death of the founding emperor.”

“…?!

“…Could it be… the lake where the founding emperor, Firmus, died?”

I raised my front paw.

[I believe a kind explanation is needed for a dragon ignorant of human affairs.]

“……”

“Hmm. Records exist detailing the great deeds the founding emperor accomplished during his lifetime, but strangely, almost nothing remains about his death. Only… it’s passed down through unofficial histories. This is… extremely peculiar. It can only be interpreted as the people of that time… deliberately concealing… that part. The most plausible theory is that he was assassinated by vile power-hungry figures, and they concealed his dishonorable death from future generations.”

Wow… that’s something.

It’s so plausible, I’m speechless.

Odan, seemingly excited, spoke at great length. He barely stretched out his words (even for Odan).

He seemed to have been interested in this topic for some time.

So the conclusion is…

There are no official records left about the founding emperor, Firmus.

However, among the folk tales, there’s a theory that he died in a lake.

“According to this theory, the dragon Julan promised Firmus eternal life……. As long as he wasn’t fatally wounded, his lifespan wouldn’t end. Thus, Firmus was supposed to rule his empire eternally…….”

Hold on.

[Did dragons have that kind of power?]

“Julan was special, you see… Hmm. To explain this, I need to mention one more hypothesis…”

[What is it?]

Any frustration over the frame-within-a-frame structure testing the listener’s memory vanished the moment Odan’s next words came.

“That dragons might not have originally been monsters.”

[……?!]

“They were originally divine creatures, but during the Great Demon Invasion, they fought the demonic race and became tainted by demonic energy….”

3 minutes later.

“Isn’t it fascinating…?”

No.

“I think so too….”

No…!

“Especially the part about them being such noble, sacred creatures whose standing plummeted to the depths. That desperate fall is just… perfect.”

[……]

I knew he wasn’t normal.

But maybe it was because he had the same name as the kid Odan. I’d been feeling a sense of familiarity, but I need to retract that. From now on, I’ll maintain a distance, treating him as ‘just an acquaintance’.

Anyway, Firmus was an emperor who promised his subjects peaceful lives and actually delivered on that promise.

His subjects cheered.

But those in power seemed to have their breath knocked out by the existence of an absolute ruler who would forever tower above them.

They devised a plan to eliminate both Julan and Firmus, using the pretext of ‘ushering in the age of humanity’.

“Kidnap someone precious to the emperor… First lure out the emperor himself, then use that emperor as a hostage to… bring out Julan too.”

A bait within a bait.

..Huh. But it sounds familiar…

My gaze reflexively turned toward Kaelus.

At first glance, he seemed normal.

…But he couldn’t possibly be gripping that fork so tightly just to break it.

[……]

I quickly turned my head upright. Cold sweat poured down like a waterfall.

I know nothing…!