Ch.288Side Story: Time Gate – 1

Before I knew it, the final exams had ended, the period for grade disclosure and corrections had passed, and the day had arrived when the last lecture of the 16th week—held to supplement the unfulfilled curriculum—would conclude.

And with it came the second vacation ceremony in this world.

As always, Erestica came forward as the representative and recited an appropriate congratulatory speech, followed by Laura who also delivered another suitable address. The students cheered and prepared to return home.

Unlike the summer vacation, this time almost no students remained in the dormitory. Not only the nobles, but also commoners from all over the Empire packed their bags full and returned to their hometowns.

This was because when the new year came and they advanced a grade, they would have to move dormitories. Rather than staying at the academy only to trudge along moving rooms later, it was better to take their belongings home and move in fresh when they returned.

As a result, the dormitory was bustling for a while with servants who came to escort their masters, carriages for moving luggage, and dimensional magic for convenient transportation.

Being almost the only ones who weren’t in a hurry, we gathered in the club room and waited leisurely, only starting to pack our belongings and prepare to leave after all the students, carriages, and servants had departed.

“I chose peach flavor this time. Aren’t you excited?”

“…Yes. Indeed.”

Everyone except me, who had been caught after briefly stopping by the Director’s office.

Erestica hugged me tightly and squirmed like a child clutching a beloved doll. The pressure from her embracing arms would have crushed the bones of even a decent knight.

Inside a nearby magical cooking apparatus, a slightly pinkish pudding—the peach flavor she had mentioned—was being completed. One of the ingredients had just been extracted directly from Erestica by me.

“They say fresher ingredients make for tastier food. I think you can look forward to this one too.”

It had been happening for a while, but recently she had become more blatant about using her breast milk to make desserts. She would even openly ask me to collect it separately for different purposes.

And then she would get excited watching me eat whatever she gave me.

Sometimes it wasn’t dessert but bread that appeared. Always deliberately choosing the driest kinds. Seeing her slightly unbutton her shirt while asking if my throat was getting blocked from eating, I knew she was doing it intentionally.

‘Erestica… what in the world…’

I’d felt this before, but what kind of wonderful and good daughter must she have been to turn a dragon—who was so uninterested in her surroundings that she thought human women were 2.3 meters tall—into someone with such a personality?

Into a sexual deviant who treats someone as her son while simultaneously being desperate to express both maternal love and sexual desire toward that same son.

“Are you going back to your family home now?”

Only after feeding me the dessert containing freshly extracted “milk” one spoonful at a time, and then giving me a full glass of freshly squeezed milk as a palate cleanser, did the meal service finally end.

Of course, her arms around me showed no sign of letting go.

“That’s the plan.”

“For the entire time?”

“No. I’ll stay there for about a week, then move to another mansion where we can stay together, just us. You’re welcome to join us if you have time, Erestica. We have plenty of rooms. Ah, and before that, I’ll visit Earth for a bit too.”

Even if we assigned three rooms per person and gave Beatrice her own room, we’d still have several left over. It was literally a grand mansion, after all.

It’s practically impossible to spend the entire vacation with my parents in this world anyway. The merchant guild doesn’t take breaks just because it’s a school vacation, and the people around me wouldn’t expect that either.

“Just us together… you mean those children I know?”

“That’s right.”

“Hmm…”

Erestica’s eyes curved slightly. Desire—which could be seen as either lust or some other special emotion—welled up in her gaze directed at me. Feeling instinctively creeped out, I asked:

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I was just thinking how bold you are. Don’t worry. I’ll prepare some elixirs for fatigue recovery and men’s health, not just a little… but a lot. You should be able to drink five or six a day. I must visit the Imperial Palace soon.”

“…Why does everyone always think in that direction?”

This wasn’t the first time I’d heard such comments. Laura, Nika, and even Beatrice all said they would bring elixirs when they heard the news that they would all be staying at the mansion together.

The first two even wore lecherous smiles.

“So, you’re not going to do it?”

“…”

I became speechless. Not because I wasn’t going to do it. That would be a hypocritical answer even by my own standards. It was just a matter of frequency. If I did everything they wanted, I didn’t think my body would survive.

Not just Nika who was a succubus, but also Laura, Elisier, Rosaria, Priscilla, Leona, and Latina too. They weren’t just thinking it—they were absolutely certain it would happen.

“If you don’t want to, you can just say so. They’re not the type to force you if you refuse.”

“Saying it only gets me this far.”

Surprisingly, reaching this compromise was already the best outcome. At least we wouldn’t be following someone’s insane suggestion to live completely naked since we’d hardly be wearing clothes anyway.

I was curious about who first brought up that idea, but all seven of them conspired to never tell me. Even Priscilla kept the secret.

“Hmm… I see.”

A seductive smile appeared on Erestica’s face. The smell of milk began to permeate the air around us, and her white shirt became visibly damp.

Realizing that if I stayed any longer, I wouldn’t be able to leave until evening, I slipped out of her embrace. Erestica looked at me with an expression like a wet puppy.

“What will you be doing, Erestica?”

Seeing how quickly her expression changed when I asked, it seemed she had been deliberately making that face.

“I have some preparations to make. For instance, arranging early graduation for you and the hero.”

“…So it’s really happening after all.”

“Of course. Did you think I was joking? I’ve already established the perfect justification, so there’s no backing out now. Everyone will understand in your case.”

The thought of being the first person in Bellium Academy’s 130-year history to do this made me feel a bit strange. I’d done many unprecedented things before, but this time I felt oddly peculiar about it.

Perhaps it was because my former self never graduated from university before being dragged to another world.

“Nothing will really change, so don’t feel too burdened. You’ll still be staying until Ciel graduates anyway.”

I was planning to remain at Bellium Academy even after graduation. I needed to wait for Priscilla who would become a third-year next year, Elisier who would advance to second year, and Karna.

Only Leona and I were permitted early graduation; the others weren’t. No matter how close they were to me, such special treatment couldn’t be extended to everyone. This had already been agreed upon by all.

“It’s actually better for them too. There won’t be any more time discrepancies like before, and they can be with you as soon as they finish their classes.”

I was about to nod, unable to refute her point, when—

—Zzzzt.

Suddenly, an ominous energy began to manifest. I stood up. The still air in the Director’s office shifted to one side, and golden particles appeared in midair.

Seeing these familiar golden particles, my expression hardened, and Erestica’s followed suit.

“What’s wrong, child?”

“Don’t you feel something?”

At my words, Erestica’s eyes widened. Her dragon-like vertical pupils stretched up and down as she fiercely scanned the surroundings. But judging by her expression, she couldn’t see the golden particles like I could.

If she could, she would have recognized them immediately without needing to check.

“Mira! Mira!”

Suddenly, a dimensional gate opened and Rosaria thrust her upper body through. Laura, who would normally have made a comment about how this looked like a “Hitomi tag,” didn’t seem to be in a good mood either.

“You felt it too just now?!”

“You too?”

I looked through the dimensional gate. Elisier shook her head.

“We didn’t notice anything. Only Rosaria and Leona sensed it. I suspect the difference is due to the presence or absence of holy power.”

Leona, Rosaria, and me—we all had connections to holy power. It was quite surprising that Latina hadn’t noticed anything.

‘The Sky Goddess and Demon Goddess aren’t showing up either…’

It was also concerning that the two goddesses, who should have jumped out of the spirit crystal and made a fuss by now, remained quiet.

That meant either the situation was so serious they couldn’t even make a fuss, or it was truly nothing to worry about. But at least from my perspective, it wasn’t the latter.

“Let’s go to where Aria is.”

In the increasingly dense golden currents, everyone quietly nodded.

As expected, the Sky Goddess and Demon Goddess had already left the spirit crystal and gone elsewhere. It was the exact place where Aria’s fragment had begun to appear in time.

We stared blankly at the golden glowing gate that had appeared in the spot where Aria used to be. Not blue, not purple, but a gate shining with golden light.

Both the air currents and the golden particles were flowing into the gate. The Sky Goddess and Demon Goddess, who looked like something wasn’t going well, awkwardly approached us.

“What’s happening? Where’s Aria?”

“That woman… is inside there.”

The Demon Goddess’s tiny finger pointed at the golden glowing gate.

“What is that?”

“It’s byproducts that were wandering through time, arbitrarily attaching themselves to Aria and clumping together. You could call it a kind of purification process. Once all these byproducts are destroyed, there will be no more need to tamper with time.”

“That’s good to hear… but is everything okay?”

“If all those things are successfully destroyed, it will be fine. Since that gate is operating with Aria as its core, there shouldn’t be any problems if we just extract her. Since it wasn’t created by her own will, there shouldn’t be any resistance.”

“That sounds like there’s a condition.”

I looked at the gate that seemed like it could explode and cause a dungeon break at any moment. The power flowing from inside was unsettling.

“Yes. We’ve handled everything else, but we couldn’t extract the core from the outside.”

“If you can’t extract it from the outside…”

“It means someone has to go in there directly.”