Chapter 195:  Was That Your Taste?

R̈êâd̈ ̃õ​ń ̂​K̈át́R̂éäd̂ìńĝ​C̃âf́ë

“Please open the gate!”

The desperate plea of a woman snapped her back to reality.

The scream—the raw emotion in it—clung to her eardrums, refusing to fade. Curiosity prickled at her. What could make someone sound so distraught?

Then she saw her: a woman with long white hair, frantically pounding on the city gates. Bitter dust swirled in the wind, and the sky was choked with a suffocating haze. Everything felt merciless.

“I beg you, grant me entry!”

Sugar kept her distance, watching the woman.

Why doesn’t she call for Ian or Ione?

You’re friends with them. At the very least, you could ask Leon for help…

Ah. Right. Ian didn’t appear in this dream.

As if she and Sugar had never been connected.

Leon, too, wasn’t holding the White Tree Staff.

Even though he’d become friends with Sugar and Riley, it seemed his hardened heart hadn’t thawed.

Then—what about Riley?

“Forget about me! Please… just Riley… He’s my precious family…!”

Listening to the strained voice—usually as gentle as a spring breeze, now hoarse and metallic—Sugar pondered. The woman’s hands, red and swollen from pounding, were bleeding.

A pitiful sight.

And then, finally, a response came.

Simple. Clear. Cold. Empty.

“It is the decision of Her Holiness—!”

Dream Sugar froze.

Had she given up? Had despair hollowed her out?

No.

Her tear-streaked face twisted into something unspeakable.

A dark aura rose from her body, as if she were about to unleash something demonic.

Filled with rage, consumed by malice, as if she couldn’t bear to hold back anymore—

Thud.

A blond youth grabbed her hand.

“Stop.”

He had appeared out of thin air.

But his condition was far from good. Bandages covered his body, and one eye was hidden. Sugar, too, wasn’t in great shape, but he looked worse.

“I’m fine. Really.”

At those words, Sugar’s aura settled. The tension drained away.

Yet his face was heavy with guilt.

“…”

Silently, she turned away.

Hand in hand, they walked through the bitter dust, leaning on each other for comfort as they left.

When Riley ruffled her hair, Sugar managed a faint smile.

She hadn’t broken yet. She hadn’t given in to despair.

Her eyes still held hope—that at the end of this journey, a sanctuary for just the two of them awaited.

Watching up to that point, Sugar forced her eyes open.

She didn’t want to see the rest.

Because this dream was one where Sugar would eventually end up alone.

***************

Sweet drinks contain a lot of sugar.

It might sound obvious—”sugar tastes sweet”—but the degree was so extreme it bore mentioning.

A blended shake topped with whipped cream and syrup. A single cup contained more than half the daily recommended sugar intake. Just one drink, and she’d already crossed that threshold.

Not that Sugar cared.

“Haaah…”

The sudden sugar rush made her brain tingle. Riding the high, she basked in the euphoria. It was her way of shaking off the foul mood she’d woken up with.

Good. Keep this momentum going.

Next up: reading time. Soon, the sugar crash would hit like a tidal wave of drowsiness, but Sugar was a mage. She could just channel her magic to burn off the excess energy beforehand.

A model student—reading books and training her basic mana control!

—Parallel World Theory
—Beyond the Starry Sky
—The Possibility of Eternity
—Dictionary of Mystical Words

Sitting on an outdoor bench, she opened a book.

She’d just returned to the Holy City with her friends the other day. Their business in the White Forest was done, and now she was enjoying her free time.

They’d mostly gathered the ingredients for Saint’s Water, and Leon would handle the potion-making.

The rest of summer vacation could be spent relaxing.

‘I even promised Riley we’d go to the beach, just the two of us…’

Hehe. Humming to herself, Sugar kept reading.

Poof.

Someone appeared right in front of her—then vanished just as quickly.

“Hmm…”

Unfazed, she focused on her book.

—Poof.

Again, someone appeared and disappeared.

“Hmm…”

Sugar’s concentration broke, but she turned her eyes back to the book.

—Poof.

Again, someone appeared right in front of her—

“Stop. Stop. Freeze.”

“Why?”

Sugar closed the book.

“Riley… Why are you asking ‘why’? You’ve been popping in and out like crazy since earlier.”

“Don’t mind me.”

“How can I not mind?”

It was a rare sight—Riley being the restless one while Sugar sat quietly reading.

“Practicing teleportation or something?”

“Yeah. Shortening the incantation.”

After answering, he finished the spell in an instant and vanished.

Not long after, he reappeared with another poof, right in front of Sugar.

“That’s dangerous. Too close. It’s not that I don’t trust you, but if something goes wrong, you could get hurt.”

If he miscalculated the coordinates and overlapped with Sugar’s body, it’d be disastrous for both of them.

Getting stuck in the ground, a wall, or a person—whatever the case, it meant mutilation or death. Coordinate-collision accidents were a tragic annual occurrence.

Naturally worried, Sugar scolded him.

“When I’m targeting you, I can teleport perfectly. I’m sure of it.”

The sheer confidence of his claim made Sugar blink.

Then, Riley tapped his own neck lightly.

“You’re my walking coordinate.”

“Me?”

Since he was touching his neck, did he mean the choker?

When Sugar pointed to her own neck, Riley nodded.

“I embedded a location-tracking spell in it, packed with all my knowledge. Your coordinates flow to me in real time. With that as a base, there’s no room for error.”

Ugh.

So obsessive.

Unfazed by the shocking confession, Sugar covered her mouth. She didn’t want him to see her lips twitching upward. For some reason, it felt like losing.

“Anyway. The calculations are set, so I’m working on shortening the incantation time.”

“Planning to use it in combat?”

In this world, teleportation only allowed short-distance jumps. Of course, with more incantation time and mana, the range could be extended—but in fast-paced battles, it wasn’t particularly useful.

For long-distance transport, like moving supplies, multiple casters could chant together to save time and mana.

So why bother mastering it? When she asked, her childhood friend answered cheerfully.

“So I can catch you anytime, anywhere.”

As he finished speaking, he sat down beside her.

Sugar made a slightly irritated face.

This is bad.

If he gets too good at this, it’ll be easier for him to run away too.

‘Guess I’ll have to gag him first when I need to subdue him…’

Silently reaching her conclusion, she flipped a page.

“But why are you reading all these books?”

“Got curious about something.”

Riley picked up one of the books on the bench and skimmed through it.

“You’re curious about the weirdest things.”

“A little, yeah.”

“You doing your assignments?”

“Ah.”

The summer vacation assignments that replaced final exams.

“Gotta finish those before we can go to the beach.”

“O-of course I’m working on them.”

Pretending to focus on the book, she hid her face behind it.

Riley didn’t press further. He just imagined Sugar, a week before school started, crying over unfinished homework.

Sugar peeked at him from behind the book.

‘…Should I ask Riley for advice too?’

The reason she was reading so unusually—there were too many unanswered questions about the presence in her psyche.

There’s something strange living in my head.

If she said that, how would he react? Would he send her to a clinic?

‘No… He’d believe me. If I call it an “entity interfering with my trials,” he’d understand immediately.’

Sugar nodded to herself.

But was it right to tell him?

Even Ione, who had peered into Sugar’s mind with her insight, avoided directly mentioning the presence.

Because it was always watching and listening. It was probably observing them right now.

That part didn’t matter. The presence wouldn’t care if Sugar quietly read books with unusual content.

But speaking about it was different.

If she actively informed her childhood friend, discussed its identity and motives, and then tried to eliminate it—how would it react?

‘Is it right to burden Riley with this…?’

It didn’t seem hostile to Riley. If anything, it seemed friendly.

“Just know this—I’m on Sugar and Riley’s side.”

Still, you never knew. She didn’t want to risk harming her friend.

‘A way to consult Riley about the Traveler in secret… It doesn’t even have to be a full consultation. Just a way to inform him, so if something unexpected happens, he can act with the Traveler in mind. At least let him know there’s something inside me…’

As she pondered, a certain promise suddenly floated to the surface of her thoughts.

“Sugar, I’ll keep that promise no matter what. When ‘that time’ comes, I won’t look or listen of my own—”

‘Another way! There’s gotta be another way!’

Her cheeks flushed instantly, and she shook her head vigorously.

Riley gave her a weird look from beside her.

‘…Wait. The key is just blocking whatever’s inside me from seeing or hearing, right?’

After agonizing over it for a while, she finally seemed to land on a good idea.

And she decided to act on it immediately—because Sugar was nothing if not decisive.

“Riley. You free right now?”

“I wouldn’t be sitting here if I wasn’t.”

“Great. Then play with me. I’m getting a little bored just reading. Hehe…”

“…What kind of game?”

“There’s this game I wanna try.”

“A… game?”

Riley tensed slightly. The “games” Sugar came up with were rarely normal.

“It’s a guessing game. You’ll get it once you see it. Let me go grab some stuff.”

With that, Sugar hurried off.

She returned shortly, arms full of supplies, and began setting up on the outdoor bench.

The finished setup was… concerning.

“…”

“Mmph!”

‘Ta-dah!”

A blindfold over her eyes.

Earplugs stuffed in her ears.

A gag in her mouth.

“Mmmph! Mmm!”

‘Perfect!’

“What the hell—”

The sight left Riley utterly dumbfounded.