CH 88

Truthfully, she wasn’t sure in the beginning.

Sure enough, Ophelia had been afraid of what kind of end Ariel’s scale would bring her.

But at some point, that fear disappeared. She wondered when it happened.

Perhaps it was that night.

Before Alei had started distancing himself from her, when their time together still occupied most of the day’s hours.

There was one night when Ophelia had a nightmare.

It was such a night when she had to rely on Alei’s help because she couldn’t wake up.

She’s sure that she found herself in the hellish Ronen Castle. Ian and Ariel, and then Cadelia who, in Ophelia’s stead, had been sold off into marriage to Kschent.

When she opened her eyes, she could feel how soaked her back had been with cold sweat. And Alei was there, looking at her with such urgency in his eyes.

She was out of breath and her cheeks were wet. She realized that she had cried in her sleep.

When Ophelia sat up and calmed down to a certain extent, Alei brought her a glass of water and asked.

“Just what kind of dream is it that you seem to be dreaming of something so dangerous? Is it a nightmare?”

“…That’s right, a nightmare.”

Even if it was a nightmare, there’s no other nightmare like it—to the point that she thought she had unknowingly returned to the past she had turned her back on already.

This was the manifestation of Ophelia’s anxiety.

At the back of her mind, she was thinking that even as she was trying to move forward in this new life, she would one day open her eyes and return to the same past.

That she was certainly just dreaming of this new place she found for herself in Ladeen—that it was all just an illusion.

If that happened, would she be able to endure reality?

She wanted to live. She was so terrified of the past. She was afraid of how unstable the present was, so frightened of the conditional magic engraved upon her.

Gripping the glass of water that Alei handed to her, Ophelia muttered to herself.

“Going back to the past that I left behind, a nightmare about that. How terrible.”

“Am I there in that past?”

Then, this question came back to her.

Ophelia initially doubted her ears because she didn’t expect any response to something she had muttered to herself.

“What did you say?”

“Am I in the past that you find dreadful, is what I asked. Or maybe I’m not there?”

“…What do you mean by ‘not there’? I don’t understand.”

“I mean it literally. Either I’ve died or I’m not there anymore, which leads to a more strained or nonexistent relationship between us.”

“It’s nothing like that.”

Even though you left me.

Those words were heavy on her tongue.

Hearing Ophelia’s response, Alei nodded as though to say that this was enough.

“If you go back to the past, then please call me back.”

“You?”

“I don’t know why you’re looking at me like that. Perhaps, did you hate me?”

“No? Not at all.”

Rather than that, she favored him.

When Ophelia denied it, Alei grinned, though there was a hint of cynicism in his expression.

“Then isn’t that enough? Call me. I’ll be there for you.”

“But you’re not by my side. You’re at the tower.”

“Still, I’ll be able to teleport as much as I want.”

“And I still have a title that I can’t remove.”

“It wouldn’t be a bad idea to find a way together to take that off.”

“But… It’ll only trouble you.”

“Are such unnecessary words needed between you and I?”

When Alei asked this, Ophelia unconsciously held her breath. Those words made her feel suffocated.

Alei hung his head as though he really couldn’t believe this, and he carefully took the glass that was in Ophelia’s hands.

And, in the emptiness left by the cup, Alei held Ophelia’s hands.

“If you need me, and if we’re still friends, then I’ll come to you as many times as you want. No matter how bleak the situation is, two is always better than one, right?”

As he said so, by the time his eyes met with Ophelia’s, Alei awkwardly withdrew his hands.

Perhaps this was his way of comforting her.

“So, don’t be scared.”

When Alei turned his head a bit, his reddened neck was exposed.

With light colored eyelashes framing his eyes, they curved gently upwards right then.

There were some moments when Alei would smile without a single hint of sharpness.

Although, this was as rare as Ophelia laughing out loud.

At that time, did Alei know just how breathtaking he looked?

The gentle curve of his smiling lips was beautiful. The eyes that curved thinly in two sleek arcs were beautiful. Even his harmoniously angular cheekbones and nose were beautiful.

All the anxiety she was feeling lost its steam in front of him.

Alei was right.

Even if she found herself back in that past, Ophelia could now be confident in saying that she would not be afraid to call Alei.

Up until she had swallowed the scale, she was upset and distressed by the fact that Alei had deceived her.

She believed that this was proof enough that she was nothing to Alei.

That their friendship was nothing but a mere façade to further isolate Ophelia.

‘Because my field of view was very narrow back then.’

Still, even if Alei from that time were to say this, if she were to look at how she was still seized by the same mindset, it didn’t seem like her field of view had widened much even if she returned before everything had happened.

But now, Ophelia trusts Alei. She believed that there must be a reason as to why Alei had to deceive her.

Their friendship was never just a shell.

Thinking like this made it possible for her to be no longer afraid of going back to that past.

Even if her reality would remain the same, she had changed as a person.

What she wanted was clear in her mind now, and she was willing to act in order to get it.

“So… I’m not afraid anymore. I’ll deal with what’s urgent first, then I’ll find a way to end the spell later.”

By the time Ophelia finished speaking, Ariel was also now much less confused.

The mermaid nodded slightly when she heard that Ophelia had made up her mind. Then, she asked.

“Then what do you want from me?”

“It’s really something simple. I just want to ask what happened on your birthday.”

When Ophelia inquired, she paused for a moment.

It was necessary for her to organize her thoughts first because she’d have to ask in an indirect, clever manner so that she could bypass the prohibition that the magic tower had ordained.

‘That is, the prohibition about revealing the tower’s location.’

So if Ophelia were to ask a leading question like, “You swam near the magic tower, didn’t you?” and Ariel’s answer was going to be its location, then the result was obvious.

Even if Ophelia asked one hundred people, all of them would not answer.

That’s why Ophelia would need to be a little crafty with the way she’d say it.

“By chance, did you want to go to the magic tower, Ariel?”

“Ah, how did you know? My sisters wouldn’t even let me go near the tower. If it was a normal day, I wouldn’t be able to go there.”

“And that’s when you came across the ship, right?”

“Yes, that’s right. You really know everything, huh?”

“Then there’s one thing I’m curious about.”

Ophelia took out a piece of paper from her pocket. It was the map that Ophelia had made a literal mess out of with all the symbols she wrote.

As Ariel saw the dry paper, her eyes twinkled.

“Wow, that’s paper! It really is thin!”

“It’s not usable if it’s not dry after all.”

Ophelia answered lightly and pointed towards a long row of arrows.

“Can you tell me what this is? Sailors have recorded the direction of the currents according to their ship’s movements.”

“Ah, sure. If you see this over here, it looks like it’s right. But there’s a small mistake here. This doesn’t just go up, but it turns like a coil and then goes up.”

After Ophelia took out another map, work proceeded at lightning speed.

Without having to be asked, Ariel pointed out the wrong parts of the first map.

It’s an added bonus that she showed the true direction of the ocean’s currents.

As the direction of the currents changed, so did the routes. Ophelia quickly took out a pen and wrote down new symbols on the second map based on what Ariel said.

Then, there was something that stood out to her.

One spot on the map where there was an intersection of the ocean’s currents along the quiet and tumultuous routes.

All the symbols were meaningless.

Because, in the first place, the map was wrong.

Whether the routes were strangely accident-free or whether they were actually accident-prone, all guesses were necessary input.

“…Haha.”

A wide smile appeared on Ophelia’s lips.

“Found it.”

Siren Tower—the magic tower.

Finally, she found it.