episode_0085

The back of the boy leaving lingers in the distance.

He tries to reach out and grab the boy, but his hand never reaches him.

The boy disappears into the distance, and she is left alone there, waving her hands over and over again, calling out his name.

But nothing changes.

The boy never looks back.

It just keeps getting further and further away.

The girl screamed his name in despair.

“Erto―!”

I jumped up from my seat,

“Ugh… ”

When I came to my senses,

It was a dark prison cell.

A colorless, bleak and quiet space.

“… ”

Bam.

On the small bed, Tirissia Brouard let her outstretched hand drop limply.

A week.

It was the morning of the seventh day since she had been imprisoned in this prison.

During that time, she had been waking up every morning from a nightmare with the same content.

The last view of the boy as he walked away coldly.

Even though I tried to escape, the memory was engraved in my mind and I couldn’t shake it off.

“Hoo… Hoo… ”

She placed her hand on her chest and calmed her pounding heart.

It’s time to get used to it now,

Every time I had that dream, the emotions I felt at that time would come back to me, and my heart would pound as if it was going to burst.

“Um… ”

Tirisia got down from the bed, stood up, and looked around.

A tiny room that relies on a single small light bulb for its light.

Three sides are blocked by gray stone walls, and the only open wall, toward the entrance, is lined with iron bars at gaps that make it impossible for a person to pass.

All there was in the room was a simple shower and toilet, a few books, and a shabby bed.

On the outside it looked like an unremarkable prison, but it was no ordinary place.

A prison built within the royal palace grounds to manage special criminals.

Among them, the room she was currently standing in was a special prison created by mobilizing all royal magicians to imprison first-class criminals.

Just as when Brood was imprisoned in the mansion, the inner walls there were lined with a barrier that absorbed all approaching magical power and blocked its outflow.

In addition, the place, which was specially designed to imprison the Archmage, had an additional barrier that absorbed all of the magical power of the prisoner inside, leaving only the minimum that would not endanger life.

Unlike house arrest, where magic can be used from the inside, this is a double barrier that thoroughly excludes magical power.

The highest level of magic sealing facility a country can prepare.

Although Tyrisia’s crimes were not considered serious enough to warrant her imprisonment there, the court concluded that it would be dangerous to keep her in a regular prison, as she had already been forcibly escaped from house arrest.

‘…Should I wash?’

With a bitter expression on her face, Tyrissia took off her gray prison uniform and headed to the shower installed in a corner of the room.

Although her movements were monitored by magic, she felt no hesitation in exposing her naked body, as no one was watching her from beyond the bars.

To minimize contact with the inmates, prison guards only appeared briefly three times a day to deliver meals.

Shoo-

“Hoo… ”

Tyrissia wiped her face as water poured from the faucet on the wall.

The act of washing the body did help somewhat in restoring the shattered spirit.

This is because I had the illusion that the burden on my mind was being washed away along with the dirt in the flowing water.

In fact, it wasn’t supposed to be a facility inside the prison in the first place.

In an ordinary prison, sanitary facilities such as showers and toilets had to be used in a common area under the supervision of guards.

However, in order to avoid the risk of taking a wizard who had been admitted outside the barrier, all sanitary facilities were placed inside the room.

Because it was a place that housed powerful magicians who, if allowed to escape by chance, would have an unclear chance of being recaptured.

A strict prison where once you enter, you cannot leave even one step until you have served your entire sentence.

In this way, Tirisia was forced to spend ten years in a place isolated from society.

“Haa… ”

A week has passed, but the remaining sentence is 9 years, 11 months and 3 weeks.

The immense weight of pressure weighed on her shoulders.

‘…let’s not think about it.’

Tyrisia tried to shake off the stuffiness and washed her hair in the running water.

This was just the beginning.

The loneliness and desolation of being cut off from the world.

They will surely cause you pain for a long time,

In fact, such physical punishment was nothing compared to the sadness of never seeing Erto again.

He just hoped that during that time he could clearly remember Erto’s face.

Kikrik-

After taking a shower, Tirisia put on her prison uniform again and sat down in front of the prison bars.

While waiting for something to come from outside, she opened the book in her hand and began to read.

Anyone who is imprisoned in the highest level of prison is a wizard with exceptional talent in some way.

From the country’s perspective, rather than simply eliminating such talent, it was hoped that they could be transformed through prison terms and used as useful resources.

Therefore, to prevent prisoners from completely losing their senses due to loneliness and boredom, they were guaranteed a minimum level of leisure time that would not affect their escape.

In Tirisia’s case, she could ask the guard who came to deliver meals three times a day for newspapers and any books she wanted.

Although it was a one-way street, the fact that she could access news from the outside world was a great comfort to her.

As she sat on the stone floor reading a book for a while, the iron door opened outside the bars and the sound of approaching shoes could be heard.

Step by step – step by step –

“Prisoner number 7. Breakfast and newspaper.”

A middle-aged guard approached the bars, opened a small door in the bars, and pushed in a tray and a newspaper.

“… Thank you.”

Tirisia rose from her seat and bowed to him, and the guard asked her in a businesslike voice.

“Is it necessary to exchange books?”

“These… any kind of book is fine.”

As Tyrisia returned the books she had finished reading yesterday through the bars, the guard picked them up and asked her another question.

“Okay. Anything else special?”

“None.”

“Then I’ll come back for lunch.”

Step by step – step by step –

The guard, who had finished his work without showing a shred of humanity, left, and Tirisia, who was left alone again, abandoned her meal and ran towards the newspaper.

Chomp!

She opened it with impatient hands and scanned the article printed large on the front page.

There was news written there that the feared event had finally occurred.

-Civil war breaks out, the mastermind of the rebellion is the owner of the academy-

“Ah… !”

As Seldianne had said, in the end, the Durakal family led the nobles who followed them and staged a coup.

The plan they were plotting had been revealed to the world, and with his son murdered, the only options left for the chairman were to either flee to a distant foreign land or end things here.

The chairman chose to carry out the rebellion to the end, whether it was because of his anger at his son’s murder or because he thought he still had a chance of winning.

Since it was Durakal whose influence reached even the inside of the palace, the number of nobles following their side was considerable.

The article’s main point was that the military combined the knights and noble soldiers to suppress the rebels with force, and that the clash between the two forces caused great unrest in the city.

However, there was also news that a significant number of noble rebels were suppressed early and surrendered thanks to the Elkonja family, who had been notified of the situation in advance and were preparing countermeasures.

And leading the way in suppressing the army were his mother and father, the Broward family.

When the details of the humiliation suffered by their precious only daughter were revealed to the world, they were furious and were using every means at their disposal to destroy Durakal.

“Sigh… .”

Tirisia was greatly concerned that the middle of the country had turned into a battlefield, but at least she breathed a sigh of relief that the worst she had imagined had not happened.

If Durakal had succeeded in a complete surprise attack, the future of the country would have been uncertain, but Erto and many others had prepared, and since he and Perzena had exposed Durakal’s plot to the world, they were able to eliminate the possibility of their victory.

Above all, the rebellion’s chances of victory were already half-dead because Kelg Durakal, the leader of the action force, was eliminated by her hands.

‘Mom… Dad… Erto… Everyone… Please, no one gets hurt or dies… ‘

Tirissia held the newspaper tightly to her chest and thought about all the precious people she had in the outside world.

We may not be able to avoid the fight that has already begun, but we hope to end it with the least possible damage.

May no one ever lose a loved one again.

Even if my prayers are meaningless now that I am just a bystander,

Tirissia Brouward folded her hands and wished them well.

One day like that,

Two days,

As time goes by,

Another week passed―

“Prisoner number 7… No, Tirisia Brewerd.”

On this new morning,

The guard who found her pulled his hat down low and handed her a newspaper.

“It’s a victory, but it’s not good news for you. Read it with caution.”

As the guard, who always spoke mechanically, called her by her name, Tirisia felt uneasy and picked up the newspaper he had pushed in.

She opened the newspaper in front of the guards, and scanned the front page with her jade-colored eyes―

There,

“Huh… ?”

It contained news of the mutual destruction of the Durakal and Brood families.