Chapter 110 – Skandal’s Bookmark (4)

“It may sound like a cliché to those of you who have already finished the semester, but what is magic? Since ancient times, there have been many private opinions, discussions, duels, and wars about this, but in the end, there is only one thing that everyone agrees on. “Magic is an act that is extremely close to creation.”

Throughout Lehel’s pre-dinner lecture, Caroline’s mind was occupied elsewhere.
It was because of a note given by a ‘contact book’ saying that she had been ordered by Michelan to be her escort.

“The problem is that this creation was originally an act not permitted to humans. There is only one thing we can create. You all work hard to carry on the family line, right? Please refrain from such behavior on the train. “The soundproofing isn’t very good here.”

In it were written the church’s instructions that Caroline had to carry out when she arrived in Skandal.
Find out the location of ‘Sacreir Dragon’s Nest’, one of the four great secret places of the empire, where all the world’s treasures are gathered.
Although that record has already been lost in modern times, it means that there must be a clue within Ujet.

“Okay, so this is important! Don’t fall asleep there! Humans have brought magic into the realm of ‘thinking’ and ‘calculation’. What was needed in the process? “Who wants to answer a question?”
“‘Samwonbon’.”
“Yes, well done Miss Liv. That’s great. Now that magic has become commonplace, it may seem like a bit of a philosophical thing, but magic did not ‘exist’ to humans in the first place. Because no one has ever made it. So, we chose three things that inevitably exist in this world as the source of the phenomenon called magic. “The sky needs wind to blow, so we created the wind.”

Why does the church that sent him to Parenzia to find a holy relic ask him to dig up information about Sacreure?
The sound of the rosary beads in Lehel’s hand struck my ears.

“So, I hope you will reflect on what we have just said during this training. It is not common to experience not just luxury and pleasure, but to throw oneself into a world that no longer exists. Maybe… “It could be an opportunity to expand your horizons.”

At that time, Caroline saw Lewis taking Ansen out from the end of the dining car.

‘What? ‘Did we know each other?’

I wanted to follow the suspicious behavior, but the sight of the saintess leaving alone while no one was waking up was too noticeable.
Moreover, she had no idea what troubling revelations she might make when she contacted Lewis again.

“Then, next, I will tell you what to do when the chariot begins to pass through Skandal City. Everyone has a good bookmark, right? First, after taking a bath with a comfortable mind, I lie down on the bed…”

In the end, she had to listen to the chairman’s story until the end, with the roast beef cooling down in front of her.
By choosing only vegetables to avoid gaining unnecessary weight in certain areas.

***

“Really? “You are the church’s contact person?”
“Yes, to be exact, it is the ‘original me.’ “The family itself has a deep connection to the temple.”
“Then what did you just tell Caroline?”
“These are her instructions given to her.”

The story I heard from Ansen quite piqued my interest.
Since he was just a contact, he seemed not to know exactly about Caroline’s purpose or her abilities, but he knew the contents of the letter.
Sacreir Dragon’s Nest.

“What if I fail?”
“Well… From the rumors I heard within the church, it seemed like their position was quite dangerous. Since she is definitely a saint, she will probably skip it once or twice. But as a former brigade member, she probably doesn’t know what happens when failure continues.”
“…”
“You’re not really surprised?”

Ansen asked, peeking over the dining car for a moment.

“Did you already know?”
“Identity? “I had a rough guess.”
“No, that’s not it…”

Was it the keen intuition of a doppelganger who was infinitely sensitive to aspects related to survival?
Or was it because of the experience of directly confirming my cold and cruel side with my own existence?
Even though he couldn’t bear to make eye contact with this person, he mustered up his courage.

“Caroline… So she doesn’t seem to feel that the saint is a threat.”
“…”

As the saying goes.
Until now, I have never judged Caroline Magdalena to be unnecessarily wary or threatening.
If she considered him dangerous, she would have taken appropriate action.
Like Ansen, who threatened Adela twice and even involved me to threaten him.

I thought about whether to smoke, but eventually changed my mind.

“Do you know by what criteria saints are chosen?”
“Yes? “Isn’t she a person who has a lot of divine power or who performed good deeds according to the will of the goddess?”

The former is wrong, and the latter is right.

“If Caroline is from the Blood Gate Brigade, she will never be able to become a saint. She must have some secret…”
“There is nothing like that.”

And the standard of goodness should never be judged by human standards.
There was no need to explain, so I dismissed his guess and turned my back on the wall.

“If anything happens in the future, please report it to me.”

And then we returned to the dining car.

However–

“What? “What about my food?”
“There.”

All the half-eaten food and utensils had been removed.
Confused, I followed the direction Mark indicated and Lehel, who was eating alone, greeted me.
Maybe it was because she kept giving lectures like an old man until it was time to eat, but no one was sitting at her table.
The platter I was eating was placed opposite her where she sat.

“Ssajang~! Welcome!”
“Do you want to eat with me?”
“Yes, please sit over here. “Did you hear everything I said just a moment ago?”

I didn’t listen very carefully because I was chatting with Ansen for a while.
Was it a story about magical beings and all?
When I said there was no magic on Earth, Terra had said something similar.
She said that maybe the reason we use magic is simply because we believe it exists.

“Yes, well… More than that, Chairman.”
“Yes?”
“Why are you directly leading this training?”
“Ah, that?”

Until now, as the president of the Parenzia Academy, Lehel had never acted with any particular work ethics.
The only thing I do all day is watch Monwangjeon and gamble.
When I asked her why she was leading her students in her own carriage, Lehel proudly puffed out her chest and said,

“I want to gamble!”
“What?”
“There’s a gambling house in Ujet too! It’s also a huge gambling hall with a whopping 1,000 people! Think about it. I thought I could get all the gold coins in the empire… Hehe! Now, don’t cut it! “Listen to me!!”

When I put the knife I was cutting meat with to her wrist, she freaked out and threw herself onto the table.
The tablecloth was pushed and the dishes fell, but because it was a noisy restaurant, it didn’t attract much attention.

“Well, even if I win money there, I can’t take it with me anyway! “It’s just a make-believe game, a midsummer night’s dream!?”
“These are all lame excuses. Don’t you know that virtual ones are more dangerous? There is no floor there. There is no floor. “I’ll put it back on in a week, so just close your eyes and cut it, right?”
“Hey! Yeah, that’s right! That’s not true… !”

My hands kept slipping because they were covered in sauce, wine, and meat grease.
While she was considering making her wrists removable, she realized that her hands were shaking.

Now that you think about it, didn’t she try her hand at gambling during the vacation?

“Can’t stand it again?”
“Yes, yes…” …”

I was lost in thought for a moment.
Wouldn’t it be great just because she reported it so faithfully?
Moreover, he probably didn’t know that I was following him, but seeing as he volunteered to be the leader, he must have been trying to satisfy his own needs.
It’s both amazing and a little absurd.
It was quite ambiguous.

“How did you know there was a gambling house there?”
“That’s it… “Have you been there before?”
“Are you saying you went there before the empire fell?”
“I can’t speak!”

It was Lehel, who was wearing a hat all the way down and falling down on the very dirty table.
When I touched the white hand that was still holding me, various liquids mixed together and it became very slippery.
When I rubbed my fingers together and intertwined them, I felt a warm sensation.
I don’t know how old she was, but I felt like she was just a woman who was playing around.

“Hey, boss… Well, give me a hand…”
“Come back.”
“Yes?”
“I have to go and resolve this. Instead, don’t call me after losing all your money like last time.”
“Really!? “Well then, wouldn’t you like to go with us?”

Strength went into her joined hands.
However, since I had no particular interest and came because of Erzsebet, I had no time to enjoy gambling.

“I’m done. Rather than that, let’s just win something. “If I win money, I’ll get something too.”
Haha… ! That would be nice, right? Property is shared… Because it’s my name. Then, I will go to where the boss is staying later! “I made a lot of money!!”

I nodded hesitantly as she watched her eyes shine with her sauce on her nose.
I guess I won’t be able to see Lehel for a week.

***

After the meal was over, the students entered their rooms one by one.
I too headed to the front of the chariot with Erzsebet.
I laid her body down on her wooden floor and took out the necklace she had given me, and found that the magic stone embedded in one of her brass colored triangles was broken.
This was because he lied when answering Caroline’s question in the smoking room.

‘Two more times.’

I remembered the bewildered face of the saint thrown into the vortex of fate with an unlit cigarette in her mouth.
After falling into this world, one of the two words I hated the most was ‘fate.’
The other one is uncle.

She probably won’t understand.
Why was she chosen as a saint?
The goddess always cherished and loved her saints, but on the contrary, she was annoyed by her warriors.

The proof was that even at the moment when humanity was on the verge of extinction, no warriors were summoned.
After finding the imperial secretary, holding on to the forcibly summoned soul, and offering it to the Ruby shrine, he reluctantly gave the revelation.
Pointing to the north toward the Demon King’s Castle with light——save humanity.

I still kept the oracle I received at that time, one of the three sources of strength for the warrior.

Rattling, rattling——

The interior lights went off and the sound of the electric carriage shaking and Erzsebet’s breathing coming from the other side of the door filled the chilly room.
At the academy, when I was starting to worry about Adela, who was crying even at this very moment, I sensed something strange.

Rattling, rattling…

Were chariots always this slow?
It was clearly a vehicle that ran at super speed and destroyed everything in its path, but now it was truly reaching the speed of a train.
As I was carefully getting up from my seat, I heard Erzsebet’s voice.

— I left the food here, so take care of it. Okay?
— Don’t play pranks or anything like that. Oh, you can ask Lewis. Just enough so that it doesn’t hurt too much.

“Princess?”

I knocked on the door and soon she was in her nightgown, rubbing her eyes and pulling back her curtains.

“Louis? “What were you doing instead of sleeping?”
“Something strange happened. Why has the speed decreased so much?”
“Yes? “Didn’t you hear the explanation at the restaurant earlier?”
“Explanation?”

I barely heard what Lehel said because I was busy talking to Ansen.
Erzébet was embarrassed, and he immediately opened the door and fumbled with my body.

“Bookmark! “Where’s the bookmark I got when I left!?”
“That? Probably with Jim…”
“Oh my god! I told you to always carry it with you! Take care of it quickly!”
“What the hell is going on? “Weren’t you going to Skandal?”

Then she looked out her window and screamed in surprise.

“This is already Scandal!!”
“Yes?”
“The city of Uzet no longer exists in reality. “All that remains is a week’s worth of records discovered by an adventurer in a burned history book!”
“Then how do we get there?”
“I must sleep while the chariot passes through Skandal. Then this place becomes a book, and we are the bookmarks inside it.”

Just one week a year, and a city called Skandal.
It meant that the magic of the empire was placed on this specific moment of time and space.
I realized why Mark stopped me when I broke Boris’s leg.
Why did Lehel call Skandal a transit point?

“It wasn’t something that happened in reality from the beginning.”
“If you understand, go to sleep quickly! “If we keep passing through Skandal, we won’t be able to go to Ujet!”
“I can’t sleep…”
“This burn… ! Right! Sleep magic!”

Erzsebet hurriedly took out a magic spell and cast a sleep spell on me.
However, my mind only felt a little tired and I did not lose consciousness.

“Uh, why!?”
“Because I have good magic resistance. I have some insomnia, and if someone touches me while I’m still sleeping, I wake up right away…”
“I didn’t ask you that!”

While she was chewing her fingernails and contemplating, the carriage slowly began to swerve.
Then, as if he had made up his mind, Erzébet took my hand and moved to the bed in her room.

“Hey, come here and lie down…” … !”
“Really?”
“Hurry up because we don’t have time!”

The softness is completely different from the sofa on the second floor of the cafeteria that I made myself.
And perhaps because the passenger was lying down just a moment ago, I felt a warm feeling in the center.
Erzébet quietly lay down next to me with a voice so embarrassed that I could tell even in her room with the lights off.

“Tsk, move to the side.”
“The bed is narrow because it is for one person.”
“You can touch it… ! “Gather it on the boat!”
“How about lying on your side?”
“It would be nice if I could sleep well with that…” … Why, why are you lying down facing this way!?”
“I asked you to escort me. How do you protect yourself when your back is turned?”

She hesitated, but eventually she rolled over and lay down, muttering as quietly as her ant.

“… “I’ll take care of it.”

We fell asleep, curled up like shrimp.
The scent of the princess’s hair, different from the soft blanket, tickled her nose.
As she said, if I really couldn’t sleep, it would be a big deal, but strangely, my consciousness began to fade little by little.
I fell asleep, unconsciously holding a bookmark in my outstretched hand with a few strands of blonde hair and a bookmark that was starting to glow gold.