Chapter 20: The misunderstanding grew worse
by fnovelpia
Ssszzzt!
With a strange sound, letters began to appear.
[If you’re reading this, then I must have already left.]
Ria reacted to the sound and checked the letters.
“!!!!!!”
As soon as she saw the message, Ria tried to run off in search of her teacher.
Tap!
The Ice Princess grabbed her.
“Let go!”
“It’s okay.”
“What’s okay about this?!”
“Our teacher is gone!”
“No.”
“Your teacher hasn’t left yet.”
“He hasn’t?”
“How do you know that?!”
“Think about your teacher’s plans… This message shouldn’t have appeared at this moment.”
The Ice Princess gave a more detailed explanation.
“Your teacher’s original plan was to recruit me tomorrow and give me the Cursed Ring. Right?”
“Y-yeah, right?”
“If that happened, I would’ve been wearing the ring while reading the guidebook.”
“There’d be no reason to remove a ring that suppresses magical outbursts.”
“So?”
“If that were the case, this message wouldn’t have appeared.”
“What do you mean?”
“This is special ink.”
“It only becomes visible when it absorbs a certain attribute of magic…”
“And if I were wearing the ring, there wouldn’t have been any magic leaking out.”
“So the message shouldn’t have shown up?”
“Exactly.”
“Even if I became an ally, I wouldn’t have been able to read this message right away…”
“Then…”
She took a moment to think from the teacher’s perspective.
The opportunity to escape had come.
But if he just ran, it might cause problems later.
So he’d want to leave a letter.
If he wrote a long one, he might lose his chance to escape.
So he would want to keep it as short as possible.
But if he only left a single short note, they might not accept it.
They could even chase after him to ask why he ran.
So he came up with a plan.
He wrote the full letter in advance, then left a short message telling them how to access it before escaping.
‘Take off the ring and read the guidebook.’
…Even a short note like that could let them read the full message.
“Ah…”
“So that’s what it was…”
“In that case, let’s read the letter first.”
“Alright…”
They quietly read the letter.
[If you’re reading this, then I must have already left.]
Ah.
Let me say this first—it’s not because I hated you that I left like this.
There’s something only I can do, and something I want to do.
That’s the only reason I left.
So please tell Ria not to cry.
“Ice Princess…”
“Hmm…”
By now, you probably would have told us your name, so I’ll use it.
Elise.
“This confirms it.”
“What does?”
“The earliest you’d hear my name would be if I got recruited successfully tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow…”
“If this letter was meant to be revealed after tomorrow…”
Then their teacher must still be at the inn.
So.
She calmed herself and tried to read on.
“Wait…”
“Huh?”
“Your teacher…”
“How does he know my name?…”
“Our teacher… he knows everything.”
“Still, this is weird…”
“What’s weird?”
“Because there’s not a single person who knows my name.”
“It’s not something you can find out through leaked info or tracking me…”
“Wouldn’t something like your name come up with enough digging?”
“No…”
“?”
“My real name was ‘Test Subject 32’…”
“Elise is the name I gave myself after blowing up the facility and escaping…”
“And I haven’t… told a single person. It’s a name that only I know…”
“How… did he find out?”
Elise was shaken.
Everything else could be found if someone thoroughly investigated her past.
Even future techniques could be described in a way that built off her abilities and research.
But.
Her name, Elise, that was something no one could possibly know.
No matter how smart someone was.
No matter how good their intel network.
Unless they could see the future, it was impossible… “Wait…” she checked the guidebook again.
***
After seeing it again, she re-evaluated the situation.
Now she had a rough idea of what kind of person Ria’s teacher was.
“Ria…”
“Yeah?”
“I think I might have figured out a bit about your teacher’s true identity…”
“Tell me.”
Ria asked with a serious expression.
They had heard he was a D-rank adventurer, but no matter how they looked at it, he didn’t seem like your average D-rank.
So she had always been curious, and she listened closely to Elise.
“Your teacher isn’t just someone with great intel…”
“He’s someone who knows the future.”
“The future?…”
“There’s no other explanation…”
No one knew her name.
But.
If it was the future, then it wasn’t strange that someone might know.
She had planned to tell Ria her name eventually, and she had intended to tell their teacher too.
“Then…”
“The future skills listed here…”
They weren’t the result of research.
They were written exactly as her future self had mastered them.
“Even knowing my preferences…”
He must’ve become a close comrade in the future.
Someone close enough for her to share her tastes with.
…That thought made her curious.
‘How close was I to him in the future?’
Even if they were close, she felt like she would’ve hidden those kinds of details out of embarrassment… But the fact that he knew this much…
‘No way…’
‘Did we… end up in that kind of relationship?!’
If they were just friends, there’s no way she would’ve shared that information.
But if they were lovers, then it would make sense.
They would’ve already done plenty of embarrassing things together.
I think I might be able to confess that I like cute things…
Zzzzt!
My face turned red the moment I imagined it.
‘Uwaaah…’
‘What the hell am I even thinking?!…’
‘Ah… no, wait…’
It’s not like I don’t have those feelings.
Honestly… ‘Now that I think about it…’
‘He might be exactly my type…’
Just from reading the guidebook, I could tell he had done a lot of research.
Not the kind of person who simply saw the future—
He deeply studied our abilities and technology.
That kind of person is attractive.
Someone who researches techniques.
Someone who works hard to develop things further.
Not some fanatic who relies on mysterious powers and hopes for miracles, but someone who pioneers with his own strength.
That’s the kind of person I like.
‘His face… wasn’t bad either…’
Even if he looked average, I think I still would’ve liked him, but he was actually handsome.
‘R…Really…?’
‘My future husband?…’
My heart suddenly started pounding.
‘M…My husband?…’
“S-So that’s what it was about?!”
He researched curses just to save me… that’s the conclusion I reached?!
Now that I think about it, it really was strange.
A cursed object.
Most people would never even think of studying something like that.
They wouldn’t even want to touch it.
But.
Kain studied even that kind of object.
‘For me…?’
He desperately researched it, fully prepared to be cursed himself.
And as a result, he found a way to save me.
‘Who in the world would go that far, just to save one person?’
‘It’s not like I was dying…’
‘I wasn’t even going to die from mana overload…’
It would’ve just been inconvenient.
I just needed to live separately from my teammates, that’s all.
It’s not like I had an incurable disease—
And I wasn’t about to die.
It was just inconvenient, and a little lonely.
That was all there was to it.
To me, it felt like a curse I wanted to erase no matter what, but from someone else’s point of view, it probably seemed minor.
Still.
Kain put his life on the line to study that minor problem and find a solution.
‘No one would ever do that if we were just friends…’
‘Unless I was someone truly important to him…’
A lover.
If it wasn’t that kind of relationship, there’s no way he would’ve done that kind of research.
…The moment I thought that, My already red face turned even redder.
‘Uwaaahhh…’
‘We were lovers?…’
We’re not now.
In the future, he was someone who ended up with me, but the me he met today is a stranger.
However.
The Kain who knows the future must have remembered and loved the future me.
In that case, Isn’t it only right for the current me to embrace Kain in her place?
‘That’s right.’
He risked his life and studied cursed items for me.
He loved me that much.
So, there’s no reason not to love someone like that.
I made up my mind.
‘Kain…’
‘My savior…’
‘If you truly…’
‘…Sacrificed yourself for me—’
‘Then that sacrifice deserves to be repaid!’
I hate tragic love stories.
‘If there’s a man who sacrificed everything to save the heroine, then the least she can do is hold him in her arms.’
…Or so I thought.
“What are you thinking about?”
“Uwaaaaah!”
Ria suddenly spoke to me, and I jumped in surprise.
“?“
Now that I think about it…
There was something like that in the guidebook.
‘Ria and I have a high chance of becoming best friends.’
It’s not a certainty.
Which makes sense.
My future boyfriend(?) changed the future just to save me.
There’s no way I would’ve found the cursed ring this early otherwise.
Future Kain researched it over and over until he found a solution, and the present Kain, who knows that future, found the ring and gave it to me.
That never happened in Kain’s original future.
In other words, the future changed.
In the future Kain saw, Ria and I were best friends.
But even that could change now.
There’s no way to be 100% certain.
Still.
The Kain who wrote the guidebook was hoping Ria and I would become best friends again.
In that case, I’ll make it happen.
“Ria.”
“We’re the best friends in the whole world.”
“W-What?! All of a sudden?!”
Ria was flustered.
But, Like the best friend she was in the future, she responded right away.
“Yeah!”
“We’re the best friends in the whole world!”
“Master said so too!”
And just like that, the two of us became the best friends in the world.
“But right now, Master is the top priority.”
“I know.”
“I need to hold on to my future husb—no, my savior—so I can ask him questions and make a plan.”
I grab Kain before he can run away.
Before, I wanted to stop him because I wanted to learn from him, but not anymore.
‘He’s the one who researched curses for my sake.’
‘If he’s trying to go off alone now, it’s 100% something like that again.’
‘He’s trying to sacrifice himself.’
‘He’ll forget everything about the future, and try to do something else for the sake of my happiness.’
‘I can’t let that happen.’
You know those types of guys in romance novels.
The ones who save the woman they love,
Then quietly sacrifice their lives so she can live happily ever after with someone else.
Utterly foolish men.
They love her enough to give up their lives, and still die without ever being loved in return.
If they had just said something, the girl would have looked only at them and truly loved them.
‘Why die without saying anything?’
‘Even if it’s necessary…’
‘Even if he has to die to save the woman he loves…’
I don’t ever want to see a man who truly loves me die in secret like that.
I’d rather die with him.
If someone loves me that much, then he should just stay by my side and say, “Let’s die together.”
That’s why I won’t let him go.
***
Meanwhile.
Kain was fast asleep, knowing nothing.
“Snoooore…”
“Snore…”
“A three-part combination robot?!…”
He was dreaming about riding inside a great robot formed by the fusion of three dinosaur robots.
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