Chapter 244: After 9 years (4)
It is a technique of creation that only gods can achieve, but a magician is one who steals and eats from a god’s lunchbox.
Lucy spoke confidently.
“Probably, when we harvest, we’ll get enough for 10 million people to eat for a day. We have to wait another 5 days until the next harvest, though.”
“Oh, that’s impressive.”
“Right? Look forward to the future. Over there, I’ll make a mountain, and over there, I’ll make a sea. The mountain will be rich with various minerals, and I’ll have all sorts of fish swimming in the sea. It’s not a lot of land now, but I plan to expand it more. Although I can’t make people live here, I’m going to create a separate, independent world from the parallel dimension. And the immediate task is to differentiate that and create a small-scale parallel dimension. Even if it’s not an amazing ability like the Parallel Dimension Eruption Ability, it’s still amazing that an individual can create a parallel dimension! If it weren’t for the lack of people, I could sufficiently measure the evolution of life with this. The ultimate goal is not far off. With this, I too will become a magician who will be remembered in the continent’s magic community for a long time! Mwahahaha!”
Risel smiled faintly. If it were a world where people could live, the power of gods would inevitably intervene.
This space that Lucy has created is a new world where the power of gods does not reach. Although even at its end, people would not be able to live, his magic will be completed with this.
He doesn’t know if this space will continue to exist after his death, but magicians originally walk the path of self-completion. Legacy is something you pass on only when you haven’t achieved self-completion.
Despite being young for a magician, the magician who was walking a path close to achieving a great feat opened the door of the tower.
“Now, come in.”
“Excuse me.”
The inside of the tower was like a model for a realist painter who wanted to paint a picture titled “Magician’s Laboratory.” Several wide desks were placed, and all sorts of tools were scattered on top of them.
Risel passed a desk with a structure of beakers and flasks connected by glass tubes, exquisitely linked together, and passed another desk piled with various parchments and books, then approached a door made between bookshelves filled with various precious metals.
There were no stairs in the tower, but Risel wasn’t curious about that. He knew that the new room that appeared when the door opened was the next floor.
He stroked his chin and voiced a thought he always had.
“Whoever inherits this, I must say they’ll be really lucky.”
“If there’s someone among the guys I’m currently training who can become my disciple. They all have mediocre talent. At best, they can become the Emperor’s ears and mouth. The talent to become the Emperor’s right hand hasn’t appeared yet.”
“I’m sure of it. Someone who will become the representative magician of the Empire won’t appear so easily.”
After going up a few more floors, unlike the other floors that were a jumbled mess, a neatly organized floor appeared.
There was a bed, a sofa and a table, and a fireplace with a steaming kettle, all the appearance of an ordinary single room.
“Sit over there.”
“Hmm, is this Len’s handiwork?”
“Since I’m so bad at cleaning and organizing. She got fed up and one day, she cleaned this place up this much. I can’t tell you how much effort I had to put in that night……”
“Everyone will think it’s a blessing that Len is your wife. Don’t complain when you’re grinning every morning.”
Risel sat on the sofa Lucy offered, and Lucy pouted and snapped his fingers.
Then, the tableware placed on one side moved as if boasting, and the teaspoon moved to put tea leaves into the teapot, and the kettle hanging on the fireplace poured water into the pot.
Risel, who received the tea setting completed in an instant as if it were natural, lifted the teacup.
“So, what is the item you mentioned?”
“Wait a minute. Where did I put it? Hmm, that’s right! I see it! There it is!”
Snap!
Lucy, who was concentrating, snapped his fingers. Then, a rather large oval mirror appeared on the table. Lucy proudly introduced the object.
“A mirror for observing multiple space-time. The so-called Multi-Time Mirror, or ‘Dashigyeong’! I completed it recently and made some adjustments.”
“Wow……”
Risel picked up the mirror with trembling hands. It was a mirror that could reflect his entire upper body, and according to Lucy, it could reflect other things as well.
It was a mirror with a great magic spell that allowed one to project and observe the appearance of other parallel dimensions. Using this, one could watch anywhere in the parallel dimensions.
Risel spoke with a nervous expression.
“Is this…… possible?”
“I haven’t tested it, but I’m confident that I can see it clearly. I’ll show you if you truly want to see it.”
Lucy had a calm expression. He knew what Risel wanted to see. He wanted to see his precious friend, whom he had parted ways with 9 years ago, at least once more.
Although his daughter now bears that name, in the past, she was a friend who had shared hardships and fought against the Empire and Artshever together. Even thinking about her now, even Lucy couldn’t help but have melancholic eyes.
He can see her.
A lot of time must have passed since then. What does she look like now? Multiple space-time has its own different speeds.
It could be 100 years after Aila returned, or it could be right after she just returned.
If he wants, he can see his friend, who was his daughter in another parallel dimension.
Risel held the mirror and stared at it for a long time. In that mirror, he, with white hair and black eyes, was staring at himself on the other side.
Lucy, watching him, quietly filled his pipe with tobacco and lit it.
It was up to him to decide. Lucy had only prepared the tool so he could decide. He had accepted it because it seemed like a rather interesting request, but whether Risel would use it was entirely up to Risel himself.
He imagined the appearance of his friend, hidden behind the mirror. What kind of expression would she have? The fingers holding the frame of the mirror and his shoulders were trembling slightly.
‘Whatever decision he makes, it’s his freedom. I just hope he doesn’t regret it. Hey, Risel, you can’t fix that regret this time. Because your third life won’t come.’
He blew out the smoke from his pipe and scattered it into the air.
The magician waited for his friend’s decision.
A gentle humming flowed softly.
Although it was clear that it was an impromptu melody with a monotonous rhythm, a mother’s humming to lull her child to sleep is a sound that can fill anyone’s heart with warmth.
Levidian, who was humming, hoping her sleeping daughter would have good dreams, felt the presence of the door opening silently and brought her hand to her sleeve while continuing to hum.
“It’s me.”
“Ah, Risel, you’re late.”
“Somehow…… I ended up talking with Lucy and doing some remaining work.”
“I’m fine, but Aila…… seems to be very attached to you, this child.”
“Is that so? ‘Aila’ was like that too.”
Levidian smiled brightly. The Aila that Risel mentioned was not the daughter she was stroking now, but the name of a precious person who could be considered their friend.
She was about to take out that piece of memory, but she tilted her head slightly after seeing her husband’s expression. It was hard to see clearly because it was hidden in the shadows, but his face was excessively pale.
‘Was work too tiring?’
However, that face wasn’t the kind of fatigue caused by the pressure of work. It was more of a mental issue. She checked that Aila was asleep, stroked her head once more, and properly covered her with the blanket.
She spoke for her beloved husband.
“Would you like to go to the terrace? I have some decent wine.”
“Thank you.”
While Levidian brought the glasses and the wine bottle, Risel lit a cigarette, which he hadn’t touched much recently. He put the cigarette in his mouth, rubbed his fingers together a little, and then brought them to the end of the cigarette, lighting a red flame.
Around the time he was sending the cigarette smoke away with the wind blowing from the high ground, the terrace door opened.
Levidian didn’t particularly want to point out her husband’s smoking, but she still hardened her expression. In her memory, whenever he had a cigarette in his mouth, it was always……
“Something happened.”
“I have no intention of hiding it. It’ll all show on my face.”
“Then I won’t pry. Here you go.”
She handed him a glass and filled his and her own glasses with an appropriate amount of wine. She sat slightly on the railing of the terrace and moistened her lips with the wine.
The Emperor and Empress spent a silent moment with the moon as their companion. Levidian didn’t question him, and she was thinking that if things continued like this, she would just go inside and sleep.
Even if it wasn’t something he talked about right away, she remembered that her husband always talked about it after not too long.
When the wine in her glass was half gone, Risel opened his mouth.
“Lucy…… made a mirror that can see other parallel dimensions.”
“Parallel dimensions…… It’s been a while since I’ve heard that word. We used to talk about it several times a day.”
“That’s right. And after ‘that day,’ we rarely mentioned it.”
After their friend, Aila, returned to her original world, they consciously avoided talking about it.
It wasn’t because it was a bad farewell. It was just that the memory was too deep, and not enough time had passed to talk about it.
Risel placed his hand on the railing, looked at the moon, and said,
“To get to the point…… I didn’t see her.”
“Why? Couldn’t you see her?”
“No. I didn’t see her, by my own will.”
Levidian stared intently at his profile. Although he couldn’t see her expression, it was a sign that she wanted him to answer. Risel spoke.
“The time we spent together…… was a happy time. There were many hardships, but we were strong and happy because we had each other. Even now, when I think about it, it’s a time I can look back on with a smile.”
“Yes, that’s right. I think so too.”
But why didn’t you see her? Risel could sense the question hidden in her words. He answered.
“Even if you die and come back to life, you can’t fix the past. Not in a practical sense, but in a more conceptual sense. It’s not fixing.”
“If it’s not fixing, then what is it?”
“It’s denying the self that you’ve created up until now. Saying that you can create the right you. So, it’s like saying that you weren’t yourself up until now. But…… is that even possible?”
He emptied the wine in one gulp. Levidian, thinking about whether she should bring something stronger, filled his glass halfway with wine.
“Thank you, Ibi. You can’t fix your past self. Even if you go back in time, not dimensions, the mistakes you’ve made and the things you’ve done won’t be erased as long as you remember them. In the end, people can’t abandon themselves. Denying it is absurd. If you tell your past self, which you can’t change, that you weren’t yourself, then in the end, your present self, which is built upon the past, becomes nothing as well.”
“I see. I think that’s right. So? What’s the reason you didn’t see ‘Aila’?”
“Our joyful, happy, and beautiful time ended then, on that day. For me to see her now, whom I can’t even talk to…… would mean continuing the past, which should remain as a beautiful memory, into the present. In other words, it means not acknowledging the past. Even Aila, not our lovely daughter, wouldn’t want that.”
People are vulnerable to attacks from the past.
When the things they’ve done in the past happen in reality and overwhelm them, they are gripped by the fear of losing their present selves.
There are things that are happy when buried in the past.
The same goes for memories that are remembered beautifully.
Just like when you accept the fact that the ideal person you’ve vaguely imagined is also just a human being like you, when a memory becomes reality, its light also fades.
A memory is a memory only when you can reminisce about it.
Trying to drag fragments of the past into the present is ultimately trying to deny the fact that the memory existed, and it’s like killing the memory.
“I couldn’t see her. If I held that mirror and wished for the appearance of the friend I longed for to appear in it, it would come true…… but…… in the end, I put down the mirror. The past I spent with her is precious. But I can’t cling to it. She and I decided to part ways on a path we could never meet again. Back then, I wished for that joyful time to continue even a little longer. That lingering feeling remained, leading up to today, but it was a wrong thought.”
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