Ch.30I Want to Hear Your Story (4)

“Again…?”

Kiel, who was buried in ice, frowned. His face showed that he couldn’t understand Olivia’s irrational behavior at all.

She doesn’t kill him. Nor is she trying to extract information through torture.

Every morning, she just zaps his head once and leaves.

“What exactly do you want?”

As always, Olivia didn’t answer. She just looked down at Kiel expressionlessly.

Now that she had discovered that memories from the “clues” affected the present, there was no reason to talk to Kiel anymore.

[‘Affection +7’ will be applied normally 5 years later.]

Wouldn’t freezing him continuously destroy his affection? It was already destroyed to the point where it couldn’t drop any further.

‘I’ll just raise his affection through clues, keep him frozen for a few years, then wake him up.’

No matter how she thought about it, that seemed like the best option. If his affection reached at least negative 50, he probably wouldn’t try to kill her first when fighting the Demon God.

“Don’t just stare at me, say something…”

As always, Olivia grabbed Kiel’s head and sent an electric current through it. Then the familiar notification sound rang out.

[Regressor, you have subdued ‘Kiel Rothschild’!]

And so she entered the memory once again.

[Time remaining: 40 minutes 00 seconds]

[Olivia]

Level: 80

Job: Advanced Glacier Mage

Title: Trusted One, Academy Top Graduate.

As always, Olivia checked her status window first. Her level had increased by two over the past 12 days. What on earth had she been doing?

Had she been running dungeons?

‘At this rate, was it the Ancient Golem dungeon?’

All Olivia could do was search her memories to make a rough guess.

Olivia slowly looked around. A familiar landscape spread out beyond the window. Multi-story houses were neatly arranged around the fountain in the square.

“This is…”

An exclamation escaped Olivia’s lips. Not because she was impressed by the scenery. But because she remembered where this place was and what she had done at this time.

Golden Tower.

Level 80.

There was only one answer.

‘Grand Mage advancement.’

It was a reasonable deduction considering that the minimum level to advance to Grand Mage was 80.

Of course, Olivia had no intention of spending her precious time on job advancement.

‘My self from the annihilation cycle will do it anyway!’

Olivia kicked open the laboratory door. Or rather, she tried to.

“…Wait.”

Kiel was nowhere to be seen.

“Where the hell did this bastard go?”

******

“I apologize, Duke Kiel. The Master of Golden Tower just left for an inspection of the Blue Tower.”

Kiel narrowed his brow.

Today the Blue Tower, yesterday the Red Tower, the day before the Green Tower.

“Is it normal to conduct inspections so frequently when it’s not even the end of the year?”

“Haha…”

The secretary laughed awkwardly. If the visitor had been an ordinary nobleman, he would have just driven him away without needing such excuses.

The status of the Golden Tower was so high that ordinary nobles couldn’t even look up to it.

But the man before him was a Duke. He was someone who could use force and remove a mere secretary if he wanted to.

“I know the Tower Master is avoiding me.”

“…Pardon?”

“But I’m not here to see the Tower Master today. I’m here for one of the mages belonging to the Golden Tower.”

“…”

The secretary rolled his eyes nervously.

Technically, there was no problem with this request. But it was hard to believe that a Duke would go to such lengths just to meet an ordinary mage.

If he entered under the pretext of meeting a mage and then rushed to the Tower Master’s office, there would be no way out.

‘If I send him in carelessly, I’ll be the only one fired.’

He wasn’t confident he could withstand Melina’s anger.

“May I ask the name of this mage?”

“Olivia.”

“Ah, you mean Olivia… What?”

How does the Duke know Olivia?

The secretary’s eyes trembled.

There was a reason for his overreaction.

Olivia’s existence in the Golden Tower was quite special.

The Golden Tower was an old… no, a senior mage tower with an average age of 47 years.

While the Tower Master contributed greatly to raising that average, it was undeniable that the average age was high even excluding Melina.

Even the secretary himself had entered his 40s this year.

Olivia was the only person in her 20s in this Golden Tower.

With her fresh personality, outstanding appearance, and excellent skills, the older uncle mages couldn’t help but like her.

Some mages even regarded Olivia as half their niece.

So Kiel had just declared that he was going to take away their beloved niece.

“…”

The secretary’s clenched fist trembled.

A mere Duke?

How dare he?

He might accept other Dukes, but not Kiel. No, thinking about it again, other Dukes wouldn’t do either. At minimum, the Empire’s Crown Prince would be a suitable match.

But since the Empire didn’t have a Crown Prince yet, therefore there wasn’t a single man on the continent worthy of Olivia.

Too subjective a judgment?

To all the mages of the Golden Tower, including the Tower Master, it was entirely objective.

The secretary looked at Kiel with disapproval.

“Is there a problem?”

“…No.”

But he had no intention of letting his emotions ruin his work.

“Follow me. I’ll guide you to Olivia’s research lab.”

He knew anyway. That Olivia, a born mage, would never show interest in a swordsman like Kiel.

‘She barely has enough time for research.’

It hadn’t been long since she returned from her training journey that she left for half a year ago. There were rumors that she would soon break through to a new realm, so it was unlikely that she, being busy, would meet with Kiel.

It was a perfectly reasonable deduction based on perfectly reasonable grounds.

Duke Kiel would return empty-handed today.

“Her room is in the middle of this corridor. But whether Olivia will be able to see you, Duke…”

“Kiel! What are you doing there!”

The secretary froze. Creeak, creeak. His neck turned slowly to the side as if rusted.

“We don’t have time! Come in quickly!”

That innocent appearance, with just her head poking out from behind the door and waving her hand, was, unfortunately, directed at Kiel.

“W-what is this… ugh, urgh!”

Looking at the secretary who was shuddering in despair while denying reality, Kiel wore a sympathetic expression. Certainly, from a third party’s perspective, there was plenty of room for misunderstanding.

But Kiel had no intention of correcting that fact.

“I’ll be going now.”

No response came back.

*****

With a bang, the door closed. Only after drawing several magic circles on the closed door did Olivia turn around with relief.

“…What are all those?”

“Sound-blocking magic and sevenfold locking magic.”

“…Sevenfold?”

“The people here are a bit excessive.”

That was certainly true. Sensing with his ki, Kiel detected numerous people lingering outside the door.

– Damn it. It’s locked!

– Bring a crowbar!

– Hammer! Hammerrr!

“…It seems more than ‘a bit’ excessive.”

“…”

Only after Olivia reinforced the sound-blocking magic fourfold did the noise from outside stop.

‘What a crazy tower.’

He had momentarily forgotten what kind of people the mages of the Golden Tower were. They were a tribe with exceptional ability to confuse people.

In the silence, Kiel was the first to speak.

“Actually, I had things I wanted to ask you before. Questions like who is the real you between the usual you and the current you.”

Olivia nodded. Her face suggested that what she expected had finally come. But Kiel’s next statement was far from what Olivia had anticipated.

“But… such questions turned out to be meaningless.”

“…Why?”

“Because…”

Kiel looked like he had a lot to say as his lips moved.

Since talking with Melina, he had been thinking.

Perhaps Olivia had lived longer than she appeared.

Her realm rising faster than could be explained by mere genius, her ability to freely interpret ancient rune characters, her calmness about her own extinction.

All because of that, he thought.

Olivia’s gaze became slightly crooked.

“Why did you stop talking?”

“…”

Over the past 12 days, Kiel had studied various ancient books related to mages. Those books detailed how mages with split selves eventually self-destruct.

[When the self is divided into two, they fight for dominance and eventually self-destruct.]

The line added after that.

[Unless one side accepts its own extinction.]

At that sentence, Kiel lost his words. His hands trembled violently, almost dropping the book.

– It’s different from trust. You… wouldn’t understand even if I told you.

Only then did he understand Olivia’s words.

He truly knew nothing.

Nothing at all.

Olivia.

She was more afraid of killing her other self and surviving than of her own death.

Repeating the process of killing herself, over and over.

Somehow…

His lips dried up. His throat felt choked.

There must be a reason why Olivia hid this fact.

There must be such a reason.

But…

“…I.”

Kiel gathered his thoughts and said.

“I want to save the current you.”

“No.”

“…Why not?”

“You can’t save me. It’s impossible.”

Olivia’s will was firm.

If she stayed aimlessly in the past of memories, she didn’t know what effect it would have on the “ending.”

To see the ending, this cycle must absolutely be one of annihilation.

Therefore.

“It’s right that I disappear.”