CH 12

With that kind gaze directed at him once more, Alei’s lips spewed out another question on their own.

—What kind of relationship did we have in the past?

—…That’s enough questions for today. I’m only answering one.

Ophelia spoke nonchalantly, but Alei noticed.

She was quite flustered.

‘The reason she kept avoiding the question was because… she’s a mermaid.’

He somehow got the answer he needed for a question he’d been so curious about, but Ophelia just seemed to be shrouded in even more mysteries. Alei didn’t like this progression very much.

Sometimes, he felt like this fog was clearing up, but then it would return again. He was bothered by the ambiguousness of it all. Every time their eyes met, her brows would furrow.

He didn’t want to face Ophelia in this condition.

However, Ophelia was his superior.

Even if they weren’t connected through the matter of finding his memories, they would still continue meeting because of official business.

Fortunately, most of the complaints that he needed to solve had been handled as soon as they arrived at Ladeen, so there was no need for him to accompany Ophelia. What was left for them to do was the road reconstruction.

Of course, they weren’t expecting a low-ranked mage to rebuild the road. Rather, they were only asking him to help move around the materials and clear the space where the road would be.

That’s why before going to the construction site, Alei had no choice but to report to Ophelia.

He had never been unhappy doing a low-ranked mage’s tasks, but he was in a bit of a tight spot right now.

But what could he do? If he didn’t report to her, then he would be neglecting his duties.

‘There’s also something I need to give…’

Alei stopped complaining inwardly. He took a deep breath, then knocked on Ophelia’s door.

“Come in.”

When the muffled permission was heard, Alei opened the door.

At Ladeen’s guest room for esteemed visitors, even the door was well-oiled and quiet. As it opened silently, Ophelia looked up from the book she was reading.

“What brings you here, Alei?”

Their eyes met. Alei inadvertently avoided looking at her furrowed brows, hurriedly lowering his gaze. Then he saw the book that Ophelia was reading.

The words were small and upside down, so it was hard to read them from a distance. However, it wasn’t difficult to recognize the illustrations on the page.

For a moment, Alei doubted his eyes.

“Is that a book about mermaids?”

“Yes. Seeing the coast last night made me want to read it.”

Yet that doubt disappeared in an instant.

In no time, not even a few minutes after he entered Ophelia’s room, his prior suspicions hardened into conviction.

The dream he had was a memory, and it was clear that he and Ophelia had a connection before… when she was still a mermaid.

The questions that he had been agonizing over were solved at once.

‘You look relieved, like a problem has been solved.’

Meanwhile, Ophelia was astute in noticing the change in Alei’s demeanor.

Actually, it had been a while since she noticed that he was inwardly wrestling with something, which affected his mood.

He might have thought that he hid it well in his own way, however, Ophelia was someone who lived her entire life not being received well, so that particular look was something she noticed right away.

But he was someone who lost his memories and was now just starting to get more information, so it was bound to be confusing for him. That’s why she kept quiet about it.

‘More importantly, apart from Alei, there are some other things I can’t afford to ignore…’

Ophelia turned her eyes towards the book in her hands, her gaze complicated in many ways. It was a book about mermaids, but to be exact, it was better to say it was a book about mermaids with the premise that they were only mythical.

Just like with the sirens, humans didn’t know if mermaids really existed or not.

Still, she opened the book and read it to see if it would help. But in the end, it was more useless than she thought. It was no exaggeration to say that Ophelia knew more.

‘I was wondering if I could get some information about mermaid scales, but this was just a waste of time.’

Even after swallowing one, the reason why she was looking up information on it was simple—she wanted to know why exactly she had returned to the past.

And… just in case this wasn’t truly the past.

After teleporting to this territory yesterday, Ophelia suffered from extreme motion sickness, and after her nausea subsided, she turned to Alei.

—I hope we won’t have to teleport again in the future. Are you alright?

Unlike Ophelia, who had become noticeably fatigued in a short time, Alei looked fine.

Alei nodded, then replied gently.

—Of course. Motion sickness caused by teleportation is usually because of a lack of affinity with mana.

—…You’re a mage, so you don’t have to go through this, then.

—That’s how it is, but…

Alei’s expression as he answered became laced with apprehension.

—…Something’s not right. May I have your left hand for a moment?

After Ophelia reached out her hand, he took off the ring that he had put on her during their last meeting, then spoke again as he looked at it curiously.

—Have you ever taken off this ring?

—No, I couldn’t even take it off myself. Is there a problem?

—That’s normal. For people who can’t do magic, there’s no way to remove magic tools.

Ophelia assumed that it was a magic tool because it fit her instantly, but it felt strange to hear him confirm it.

But why was Alei suddenly worried about it?

—The spell I placed on this tool was to increase the affinity of the wearer. An ordinary person should be able to withstand the effects of teleportation just by wearing it.

—…Then why am I nauseous right now?

—I’m not sure. I have two theories.

Rolling the ring between two fingers, he continued apprehensively.

—First, you might have a terribly low affinity to mana.

Alei went on and explained that this theory didn’t make much sense because it was a rare occurrence, and by the sound of his voice, Ophelia noticed that he was thinking that this was definitely not the case.

He didn’t know about anyone else, but this couldn’t be true for Ophelia.

—As you know, the people of the Milescet Empire are born with some degree of mana affinity.

—…Yes.

—That’s why it’s strange. There’s only one theory left to think about after this.

After saying this, Alei continued expounding on the theory.

There was a possibility that someone else’s magic was at work.

As soon as she heard this, one thought instantly popped into her head.

The mermaid scale.

She was wondering about it from the beginning.

What was it that Ariel wished for that Ophelia was sent back to the past? And how far was the reach of the mermaid scale’s influence?

‘Unless what she really wished for was to simply come back to the past.’

It was necessary for Ophelia to know what it was that Ariel wished for, if only so that she could plan accordingly.

It would be different to just prepare a plan based on an assumption, compared to if she could see it with her own eyes.

Alei said the protective spell that the Imperial family had cast on themselves could distort over time, so the body could have an untoward reaction to it later on. However, Ophelia knew that this was not the reason.

The Emperor had never cast a protective spell on her.

—Can you guess what it is then?

—…I have an idea. But the problem is that I don’t know how to solve it.

Alei sighed softly as he heard this from Ophelia.

—If you can’t solve it, it will affect your life in many ways. It won’t be limited to not being able to accept mana from others.

But Alei, too, had no idea what to do, so they ended the conversation with him retrieving the ring.

‘Then I can’t use any healing magic.’

First, she was planning to meet Ariel. The mermaid had already died when the scale was given to Ophelia, so even if she knew that meeting Ariel now might not solve this, she still wanted to meet her again.

She wished she could ask Alei, but Ophelia remembered how surprised he was when he saw the sirens last night.

It seemed like he really didn’t know anything about other magical creatures.

‘If he doesn’t know anything about sirens, then I doubt he knows anything about mermaids.’

So Ophelia went to Ladeen’s library today and borrowed some books, feeling as though she was grasping at straws.

And the result was abysmal.

To alleviate her disappointment, Ophelia closed the book. In any case, it would be rude to keep reading in front of someone who came to visit her.

“So, what brings you here?”

“I’ll have to go to the road construction site soon, so I came to see you.”

“Will you need me to come with you?”

“If you give me the authority to do so, I would be fine going alone. It won’t take much time.”

Ophelia signed the document that Alei placed on the desk.

In the past, Alei was dispatched to the road construction site next to the canal. There wouldn’t be any problems.

She returned the signed document to the mage, but in return, Alei placed something on the desk again.

It was the ring that was on Ophelia’s hand until yesterday.