3.
"I see. So it was just a misunderstanding."
After hearing my desperate explanation, Raviel nodded.
A fast food restaurant.
I'd wanted to go to a cafe, but the timeline of the [side story] was in the past. The time when cafes began sprouting all over the country like bamboo shoots was still a ways away.
Unfortunately, this meant that there weren't many places we could enter freely and have a conversation.
"Well. I should have known that you would never look at someone else. In fact, the news that the laws of physics had been disproven would have been more believable. I just got caught up in my emotions for a moment."
"No. I'm glad you believed me…"
Honestly, I thought the world was going to collapse.
"Well. In my opinion, the Black Dragon Master is a capable person. Even if she had been born in the empire, she would almost certainly have become a noble. To become such close friends with such a person is a wise decision. You're pretty lucky. Of course…"
Raviel squinted her eyes at looked out the store's front window.
"I never would have expected you to come back with a goblin child."
Outside the window, Uburka was standing with his back to us and his arms folded.
Although a giant hobgoblin was standing in the middle of the city, people continued to pass by as though it wasn't strange.
Some seemed to be surprised by how big Uburka was, but none of them recognized him as a hobgoblin.
"Is there some kind of perception altering spell on us?"
"Maybe."
Clink.
Raviel swirled her glass of coke, causing the cubes of ice to tap against the sides.
"The clothes I'm wearing are very different from the ones here. Normally, this would make me stand out. But while there are a lot of people staring at my face, no one seems to care about the clothes I'm wearing."
Raviel was wearing a dress in the empire's style. And yet, the store clerk didn't react to it when he saw it earlier.
Even though Raviel's otherworldly beauty was enough to make the world quake.
"The conclusion is obvious. In their eyes, we all appear to be dressed in normal clothes."
"A world wide perception alteration… That's ridiculous."
"That just means that the person who gave you this opportunity is omnipotent. You have a talent for being appreciated by the powerful. Gong-ja."
"Haha."
Around the restaurant, customers of all ages and genders kept glancing at Raviel. This showed that while the perception alteration worked for our clothes, our appearances seemed to be the same.
If this was an era with smartphones, they might have taken them out and sneakily tried to take pictures of us.
"Then bring that child you call your son."
"Is it really okay?"
"Right. Even if he is not your biological child, it is still a relationship you made in your heart. You never know. I might even recognize him as a member of the Duchy of Ivansia."
Raviel rarely ever granted favors like this.
Before the Duke could change her mind, I quickly went to get Uburka.
"…"
Uburka grabbed two chairs and sat down on them. With his arms still folded, he looked down at Raviel, who was much smaller than him.
"…"
"…"
The silence continued.
What was going on?
Why am I the one who's most nervous?
"…silver hair like the light of the moon, and red eyes like the lilies in the valley."
In the end, it was Uburka who broke the silence.
"Now that I look at you, you remind me of someone from a legend. Ugor. Are you Raviel Ivansia?"
"Oho. Contrary to how you look, you speak quite well."
"I just remember the things Daddy told me."
"Has Gong-ja been talking about me in your world?"
"Daddy created five legends. The fourth is about you, Raviel Ivansia. The Silver Lily. The moon whose heart was stolen by a mirror. There isn't a goblin who doesn't know you."
"Hmm."
The corners of Raviel's lips raised and I felt a bit better. Raviel grabbed her thin straw and slowly swirled it around, stirring her coke.
"I heard that you are a Constellation."
"Ugor."
"I was once a Constellation, too. It wasn't because I wanted to be, but it wasn't like I was offended that the world revolved around me. You are on a completely different level from other people. Do you really not feel strange having Gong-ja as your father?"
"That's a stupid question. Even when goblins were immature beasts, Daddy fulfilled his role as a parent. Relationships aren't formed when you're on the same level, but emerge when you throw that level aside."
"Do you not care about your own dignity?"
"Ugo. Dignity comes from qualifications. Daddy deserves it. In fact, I don't know anyone other than Daddy who has the right to be honored by the goblin race."
"Mm.""
Raviel nodded.
When I, the one who loved her, saw that, I knew it was a good sign.
More than that, this guy Uburka acted so much like a child when he was around me, but he was now acting mature to Raviel. Was he discriminating against his father? That made me sad. This was why it was useless to raise a son.
"How did you first meet Gong-ja…"
"Ugor, it was when the war had broken out with the Slime Empire…"
Soon, the two began to have a friendly conversation. Without me.
Sadness continued to pour in as I was ignored by my wife and child simultaneously.
This was the sorrow of being a goose dad(1)….
'Huh?'
As I looked through the window beside us, my attention was suddenly grabbed by a passing pedestrian.
Upon seeing them, I felt a strange sense of deja vu.
"…?"
At first, the reason the pedestrian caught my eye was because of their clothes.
Shinseo Middle-High School uniform.
To be precise, it was the middle school uniform.
Middle school students were among those who bullied Kim Yul. Regardless of gender. Maybe that's why the uniform caught my eye.
'I never saw this student before.'
Was this just deja vu?
When I strengthened my eyesight with aura, I immediately noticed several strange points of the passerby.
First was the hair.
'Blonde.'
It wasn't a dyed color, instead it appeared to be their natural hair color.
Whenever the pedestrian walked on the sidewalk, their blonde hair swayed.
I thought it could be a foreigner, but considering the fact that he was wearing the uniform of the Shinseo Middle-High School, that was unlikely.
'He's wearing a dirty uniform and… carrying a briefcase?'
The pedestrian wasn't carrying a student bag.
Instead, he was politely carrying a briefcase that office workers would have with both hands. The briefcase was very old and worn. The leather of the briefcase seemed to be on the brink of peeling. It was safe to say that it was already past the point of being called trash.
The last time that caught my eye was…
'He has a steady gait.'
There were no changes to his stride.
That fact alone accounted for a majority of the strange feeling.
'His pace and stride haven't changed at all.'
This wouldn't have been that difficult if he trained his body and movement to a considerable level. But the pedestrian didn't show any signs of exercising regularly, let alone the traces of aura. Instead, he seemed to be particularly weak when compared to his peers.
The pedestrian slowly passed in front of the fast food restaurant.
And for a moment, our eyes met.
"…"
Time seemed to slow down.
No, it wasn't my time that slowed down.
The pedestrian was completely expressionless. It was as if he'd never shown any expression since birth. And the pedestrian's expressionless face was perfectly sculpted.
But his eyes.
His eyes were endlessly transparent.
This world was currently in the middle of summer, but this pedestrian didn't seem to mix with the sweltering heat on the street or the nervous sighs of the other people. It was a type of transparency that did not tolerate any impurities.
Hooonk-
The car horns in the distance.
The traffic lights blinking at the intersection.
Even the sight of the yellow light becoming red at the three way intersection was not reflected in this pedestrian's eyes. It was as if he was walking in a different time.
The same rhythm. The exact same stride. Like an absolute being was walking through the world.
The [walking] proved that they had once been a part of this world.
But he wasn't a passerby. He was someone who could reject the the entire world simply by walking. Once in one step. Twice in two. Thrice in three. Four times…
Endlessly.
"Gong-ja?"
Suddenly, I realized that I'd gotten up from my seat.
"What's wrong?"
"Sorry."
Raviel and Uburka stopped talking and looked at me.
"Please wait here for a moment. I have to go somewhere."
As I apologized to them, I kept my gaze on the back of the pedestrian who was gradually drifting away.
"I'll let my aura out so you can follow me if you want to. Uburka should easily be able to follow me."
"Daddy?"
"Son. Look after Raviel."
After saying that, I hurriedly ran out of the restaurant.
'Where did he go?'
The pedestrian was crossing the street. The light at the crossing had only just changed to green, but it was already beginning to flicker, urging the pedestrian to hurry.
Hooonk-
Since it was the middle of summer, there weren't many people on the street, and there was only one pedestrian on the crossing. Despite the fact it was still blue for the pedestrians, drivers seemed to ignore the signal. Cars drove on the road behind and in front of the lone pedestrian.
'When… where did I see him?'
I followed him.
'When I went to Shinseo High School?'
The pedestrian walked into an alley.
'No. I wouldn't have forgotten a student that walked like that. Even if I only saw him once, I would have remembered.'
The trees lining the street casted their shade on the road.
'This is definitely the first time I saw him. So why….'
The summer sun shined brightly.
The boundary between the shaded and unshaded places was stark. As the pedestrian walked under the shade, he seemed to drift like a mirage, trying to escape the season.
Chirp chirp.
The cicadas cried.
'Who is he?'
Tap.
The pedestrian stopped in the middle of the shade.
I had no choice but to stop walking, too.
"…"
The pedestrian slowly turned around.
I immediately felt an invisible attraction.
In the short moment when the pedestrian turned around, it felt like time slowed down once again. My breathing stopped, and my thoughts accelerated.
In this slowed time, memory fragments began to flow.
「I want to know how the Towers are built.」
Before entering the 35th floor, the Crusader asked.
「There just needs to be someone living the unhappiest life in that world.」
The Lady's voice answered.
「The Tower is built by the Master.」
「The Master lives on behalf of the life of the unhappiest person in the world.」
「The Tower is built in a world that the Master has already lived in and passed. Worlds without Towers are those that the Master hasn't passed by yet.」
Something tickled my nose when the pedestrian turned halfway.
It was a certain scent.
A scent I knew.
「I'm going to school a bit early today.」
Kim Yul.
「I have to go to the farm and feed the rabbits.」
The scent of old animal feed that had been stored in the warehouse for a long time.
「Anyway, we don't have an animal caretaking club anymore. The middle school class presidents are supposed to take turns feeding the animals, but… There's no way middle schoolers are going to stick to it, you know? So the security guard and me…」
「And some middle school kid.」
「Take care of feeding the animals between the three of us.」
A Tower had been built in our world.
If the Lady's words were true, that meant the Master of the Tower had [lived] in our world before.
On behalf of the unhappiest person.
If so, it meant that someone had been judged to be unhappier than Kim Yul.
「Kim Gong-ja.」
So that's why.
The words the class president had said resonated in my mind once again.
「You went around calling him the 2nd-year loser of Shinseo High School or whatever.」
The pedestrian looked at me.
I was standing under the summer sun. The pedestrian was standing under the shade.
There was a space.
A gap.
The loud cries of the cicadas was the only thing that filled the gap between us.
"—who are you?"
An unceasing ringing.
It was only after the pedestrian opened his mouth that I realized the true origin of the feeling of deja vu.
It was a voice I'd only ever heard in the Tower.
"And if possible."
"…"
"Tell me why you're following me."
Tower Master.
The Master of Manseng looked at me. (Manseng=10,000 lives)