073 – …Mom?
“…Impossible.”
“But it’s done, yes?”
Myaong~
After showing her that it’s possible to create a new aether core in a physical body with only three elixirs.
Lillian Isolde examines my body here and there, as if observing a research subject.
“Um… If you keep touching me like that, I’ll be a little embarrassed.”
“Ah…! I, I apologize. That, well…!”
“Such interests can wait until you’re an adult, Miss Lillian Isolde.”
“It’s not like that!”
A brazenness for one so young.
I contemplated giving her a proper education as an adult.
But realizing I’d be dead before even starting, I quietly tried to leave.
“Where are you going?”
“Hm?”
“You must tell me before you go.”
“I told you, that sort of thing can wait until you’re an adult, you know?”
“Not that!”
Lillian Isolde, grabbing my wrist as I tried to leave, demanded I teach her how to create an aether core in a short time.
Unfortunately.
“Think about it carefully, Miss Lillian Isolde.”
“…What’s with that, like, professor-like tone…”
“I clearly only said I would show you, not that I would tell you.”
“Ah…!”
I had only *shown* how to create an aether core, not *told* how.
Of course, even if I *had* told her, Lillian Isolde, lacking the Silence skill, wouldn’t have been able to do it.
But in my current situation, using a method similar to magic without an aether core, it was difficult to explain the existence of ‘skills’ to Lillian Isolde.
“Miss Lillian Isolde didn’t tell me how to break an aether core, did you?”
“That’s…!”
“This is a similar situation. I have shown it, but I cannot tell it.”
“…!!”
Smoothly get past this situation…
“Do it.”
“?”
“Me too… you crushed the ether core in my body..! So you have to make me a new one!”
“Hmm…”
Lillian Isolede’s words, now that I thought about them, made a lot of sense.
“Come along, then.”
“You’ll… you’ll really do it?”
Originally, she’d have three ether cores by the time she was twenty, becoming the strongest mage of all time. I was just advancing Lillian Isolede’s growth by about five years.
“Haa… Just… don’t go around telling people I did this, alright?”
“Of course! I’m still keeping your relationship with Miss Ella Eloise a secret, aren’t I?”
“Follow me to my room.”
…
After making Lillian Isolede drink three bottles of elixir.
“Alright~ Lillian Isolede-ssi will now fall asleep.”
“..Huh? No, wait a se-“
“Drifting… off to sleep~.”
I promptly lulled her into slumber.
“Hup… Master, are you… are you touching little girls now?”
“Silence.”
“Ugh… whhyyyy…”
After silencing the muttering cat beside me, putting it to sleep as well.
Confirming Lillian Isolede’s sleeping state, maintained for the sake of a perfect crime.
“Silence.”
I cast a silence spell on her body.
‘Just waiting about an hour should do it.’
Deciding to wait and monitor Lillian Isolede’s body for about an hour, in case of any unforeseen side effects.
I quietly sat down within the silenced room and decided to pass the time by reading the literature of this world.
“Wow… a hero who can only get excited by beastkin…”
The novelists of the Magic Kingdom certainly possessed imaginations that transcended imagination.
…
I spent about an hour reading the novel.
Fortunately, there were no apparent anomalies felt in Lillian Isolede’s body.
“Lillian Isolede-ssi?”
Shaking her a few times on the bed to wake her up…
“Just… five more minutes…”
“..Hm?”
“It’s vacation anyway, Papa…”
Mistaking me for Professor Layton, she asked for five more minutes of sleep.
‘Sleep is important, I suppose.’
Well, considering the time, it was understandable.
Unlike me, whose days and nights were reversed, a good child should be asleep at this hour.
Zzz…
Perhaps she was having a pleasant dream.
Gently scooping up Isabella, who was purring in her sleep, I walked outside without a plan.
‘Why does this feel so different?’
It had only been about two days since I last used Aether.
Suddenly using Aether again gave me a slightly awkward feeling.
It was like… the kimchi I ate every day had been replaced with kkakdugi?
Not a major problem, just a slightly irritating situation.
‘It’s probably nothing.’
Without another thought, I left the Academy and headed straight for the church.
‘Why did the Heart Harvester mistake me for the Goddess?’
Normally, if you wanted to communicate with the Goddess, you could just find a spot anywhere and ask your question.
But I had a lot to think about, and Isabella was asleep.
I wanted to sort my thoughts out before going to the slums.
So, I simply walked into the church near the Academy.
“Wow… They really do look similar, no matter how many times I see it.”
Gazing at the statue of the Goddess Libera, who always reminded me of my mother,
I sat down on an empty bench, Isabella in my arms, and looked up at the statue.
“The second chance… given by the Lord… I did not recognize it… I am sorry…”
“I will accept the Lord’s punishment… quietly…”
The Heart Harvester, uttering his final words as if delivering a deathbed confession, vowing to accept the Lord’s punishment.
The abandoned Heart Harvester was originally a Reaper, acting under the orders of the Goddess Libera.
But for some reason, he had been abandoned by the Goddess.
And then that guy suddenly fell asleep in my heart for two days, woke up, and called me the Goddess.
‘Is it because he knows I’m using the Goddess’s power?’
Kidnapping, Surveillance, Sleep, Infiltration, Silence.
Were those five skills, which I use with the Goddess’s power, what made the Heart Harvester mistake me for the Goddess?
‘…If that was the case, shouldn’t he have realized it when I cast Silence on Princess Asher?’
However, if I thought about it that way, it was hard to explain why the Heart Harvester hadn’t mistaken me for the Goddess from the start.
“…Then what made him mistake me?”
If that wasn’t it, what on earth made him mistake me for the Goddess?
“…Do you have any guesses, Goddess Libera?”
No matter how much I pondered, wracking my brain, nothing came to mind, so I looked up at the statue of the Goddess Libera.
“…”
10 minutes… 20 minutes…
It didn’t seem like a particularly important matter, but once I started thinking about it, the questions kept piling up.
Why am I able to use the Goddess’s power?
Why is the Goddess favoring me in this world?
Why… why does looking at the Goddess’s statue always remind me of my deceased mother…
“…Mrs. Lee Bora.”
My mother was a beautiful woman.
Even at that tender age, though my memories are hazy, I knew my mother was a beautiful woman, even without makeup.
So young looking, it was hard to believe she was a mother at all.
Even with me clinging to her side, there were always those men who’d ask if she was out with her younger sister.
“The Liberia Goddess…”
Even if my memories were imperfect, could a child ever truly forget the face of their mother after years of seeing it?
I often visited her ashes to pay my respects, wasn’t I looking at her photo each time?
“…”
I didn’t delve too deeply.
For me, my mother’s presence had been an empty space for so long.
It felt awkward, and honestly, unbelievable…
“…Lee Bora, Liberia…”
As a single thought began to take root in my mind, I was suddenly overcome with a fear of the worst.
Even though I knew I could open my status window and ask a single question to confirm whether my idea was truth or delusion.
A strange, creeping unease was strangling the air around me.
“…”
It felt foreign.
For someone who had lived their entire life with such optimism.
For someone who had faced even the most difficult and disadvantageous situations with a smile, to suddenly feel this awkwardness.
“..No..Right?..”
What did the Heart Reaper feel, trapped inside my heart?
How could the Heart Reaper, sealed within my heart, sense the Goddess?
How could a glob of Aether perceive the Goddess’s Aether inside a heart where Aether didn’t even exist…?
My skill wasn’t Aether. It was the Goddess’s authority.
Surely a glob of Aether couldn’t sense the Goddess’s authority…
“..Nah, it can’t be. How could that even be possible?”
The sealed creature must have sensed *something* of the Goddess in me, enough to mistake me for the Liberian Goddess herself.
Like… looking at a child who’s the spitting image of their mother and saying, “You look just like your mom.”
“…”
The Goddess’s blatant favoritism toward me.
The Goddess’s undeniable convenience for me.
The Goddess’s undeniable… care for me.
Me and the Goddess, so similar that even a discarded Heart Reaper who once served under her could be confused…
“So… That…Means…”
Opening and closing my mouth countless times.
Ridiculous, that I should hesitate over a single word…
Yet, it has been such a long time for me to finally be able to refer to someone as so.
“…”
Carefully, I opened my mouth.
With the status window still open…
Infiltration [Activated]
—
I called out,
“..Mom?”
—
Infiltration [Available]
—