Chapter 42 October 3, 2022
Chapter 42 – Reverberation of the Past (2)
After her face-to-face talk with Ludger, Lynne walked down the hallway with a dreamy look on her face.
She held the book of non-property magic that she had been given by Ludger in her arms.
Even though her consciousness seemed to be preoccupied with something, she instinctively felt that she had to treat the book preciously.
Lynne, who was walking down the hallway with quick steps, stopped when she heard a voice calling her.
“Lynne.”
“O-oh? E-Elendil?”
It was a soft and sweet voice that had called her.
She was a second-year student who took the same spell casting class as Lynne, and she was the third princess of the Empire who was certainly the best on the continent and was even famous in Sören.
Elendil looked at Lynne with a worried look.
“What brings you here…?”
“What do you mean? I was waiting for you because I was worried. You were summoned by Professor Ludger.”
“Pardon? Ah, ah! Yes. Right. Hehe.”
“Hmm?”
Elendil felt even more suspicious at Lynne’s strange reaction.
“Lynne… Did you experience any harassment from professor Ludger…?”
Elendil had not thought of Ludger’s behavior prior to that in the best way.
It must have been because his first impression was the worst to her.
During the first orientation, Ludger had shown his guts by not telling the students what he would teach in his class. Because of that, there were a lot of talks among the students in , so his attitude must have been really surprising for them.
In fact, it was Elendil who had asked that question to Ludger first in a slightly sharp tone.
For her who had the right values of righteousness, Ludger’s actions were simply unacceptable.
Afterwards, the teachings in his class were quite incredible, so she admired them, but that alone did not immediately erase her bad perception toward Ludger that was stuck in her mind at the beginning.
Rather, it was even more upsetting for her to see Ludger’s unexpected cold-hearted attitude toward her in the werewolf incident last time.
It was obvious for her to have bad thoughts when Ludger took Lynne to the professor’s office.
“It… it’s not like that!”
Lynne hurriedly defended Ludger.
“Professor Ludger just gave me some advice.…! Well, he didn’t touch me or anything like that! Professor Ludger is not such a pervert!”
“Whaat?”
It was Elendil who was rather embarrassed when Lynne said that.
Elendil blushed and spoke in a rather startled tone.
“I… I didn’t mean to say it like that. Lynne… You’re quite sly, I see.”
“P-pardon?”
“I was just talking about him telling you to change your class or forcing you to take another class and kicking you out of his. I… I can’t believe that it was an intercourse between a man and a woman that came to your mind…”
“O-oh? W-wait! It’s not like that!”
Lynne also blushed full of embarrassment when she realized that she had caused a big misunderstanding.
As she was looking at Lynne, who was desperately trying to say something in embarrassment, Elendil burst into loud laughter.
“Hahaha. I get it. Since nothing that I’m concerned about happened, I’ll take it in a good way.”
“…Really?”
“So was there really nothing that happened? Nothing at all?”
“Yes. I told you that there was nothing.”
“Then what’s that book?”
“Ah.”
Elendil had noticed that Lynne was holding a book that she had never seen before in her arms and pointed at it.
She had noticed that Lynne Lynn had been handling that book carefully like it was something very precious.
Of course, she was bound to be curious about it.
“This is the book that Professor Ludger gave me.”
“Professor Ludger?”
Lynne nodded her head. Elendil opened her eyes wide, as it was a little bit unbelievable to her.
She didn’t know much about Ludger, but she never thought that he’d take care of Lynne when she couldn’t keep up with his class—mostly because of his personality.
She thought that he’d kick Lynne out of his class instead.
“Yes. He told me that if I learn this book, it would help me a lot in following his class.”
“Really?”
Seeing Lynne smiling faintly made Elendil feel even more incredulous.
‘Ludger did this much of a favor for her?’
‘Didn’t that man sharply and brutally point out the flaws of the students’ implementation of elemental properties in the last class?’
Of course, his words were all true, and she understood that it was his method of motivating his students by irritating their pride.
Elendil didn’t really like that kind of method.
‘Wait. I think he was especially nice to Lynne at that time as well.’
When the werewolves had attacked Sören…
She remembered that Ludger had been rather harsh to her, who held the title of a Princess, and had spoken a little softly to Lynne.
Of course, the memory of that time was slightly distorted because of her bad views toward Ludger, but the overall context did not change.
If she looked at the fact that he summoned Lynne separately and even gave her a book…
No way…
Elendil had some words in her mind, but she didn’t say them out loud.
At that time, Lynne was concerned about something and asked a question in a careful manner so that only Elendil could hear it.
“Do you think that, perhaps, the professor likes me?”
“…”
Lynne actually uttered the thoughts that Elendil had only in her mind.
Elendil shook her head while contemplating how to explain it.
“No, that’s not it.”
“No?”
“Yes.”
“I see.”
Lynne also thought that what she said wasn’t true.
However, after saying that, she had some doubts as well.
‘Doesn’t it mean that Professor Ludger likes me for real?’
If she said it like that, it sounded like she was boasting, but Lynne was confident in her appearance.
‘But aren’t I pretty enough?’
Lynne was actually a woman with a really beautiful appearance who could catch the eye of even a decent aristocrat.
Her hair color was also quite rare, but her heavenly beauty that matched it was enough to make Lynne’s name known amongst all the boys in Sören.
Suddenly, Lynne imagined the scene where she was together with Ludger.
She thought that they would be a good match, but Lynne shook her head immediately.
‘No, no matter how good we might be… To be together with someone I don’t really know yet…’
Lynne had a quite strong conservative personality when it came to that kind of thing.
Elendil, who was looking at Lynne as she was shaking her head after showing a blank face all by herself, spoke carefully.
“Have you already eaten?”
“Pardon? N-no. Not yet.”
“Then do you want to eat with me?”
“Can… can I really do that?”
Lynne was elated at the Princess’s offer to eat with her because she had never expected it.
That was because she thought that if it was Elendil, there would also be other people eating with them.
But it was Lynne’s misunderstanding.
Elendil had rarely hung out with anyone thus far. Her status as a princess was great, but she was avoided by other students because the status that she held was so high.
There were students from noble families who occasionally talked to her, but they only communicated with her for political purposes. They didn’t approach her purely because they liked Elendil as a person. What they saw was the third Princess, not Elendil.
Yes…
Elendil was, quite frankly, a loner who went around by herself, even in Sören.
Because Elendil was like that, she courageously offered, for the first time ever, to eat with her junior who had become close to her.
‘Oh my Gosh. You’re the first person who has asked me to eat with them!’
And in Lynne’s eyes, who had been lonely all along because of the incident at the beginning of the semester, the offer seemed like a great mercy that was given by her senior.
Maybe Elendil thought Lynne’s delayed answer was a rejection, she twisted her blonde hair with her fingers and spoke.
“Well. I can’t help it if you don’t like it or feel uncomfortable…”
“No! I want to eat with you!”
At that moment, Lynne and Elendil, each for the first time, finally had a close friend with whom they could eat together with.
***
After sending Lynne away, I sat alone in the professor’s room and recalled my meeting with her.
I didn’t think she knew it, but I knew what power she had.
‘Non-property magic… It’s not a surprise that the property itself doesn’t exist.’
For me, non-property magic was a new form of magic that had never been discovered, so there was nothing new about it.
—Because magic had always been new to me.
Because I had lived in a world without magic before, the magic that existed in this world always gave me a mysterious experience.
Ironically…
I, who had memories and knowledge of another world, appreciated magic even more than the wizards who were the residents of this world.
The recent wizards with a narrow way of thinking were isolated and stagnant in their own lives.
Having experienced death and a new life, moreover, realizing that magic existed afterward, I was one level higher in accepting something than the others.
Should I say that the limiter in my brain had been loosened?
The other wizards who discovered the new magic would say:
-Non-property magic? There can’t be something like that!
And even when they were foaming at the mouth, I would say:
-Non-property magic? This is a world where magic exists, so there can be something like that.
It had reached beyond the point of being flexible.
The perspective that I had and my way of perceiving magic itself were that different from the wizards of this world.
Even my strict teacher used to click his tongue with that particular topic when he was teaching me.
However, what I cared about while looking at Lynne was not her magic, but her eyes.
Non-property magic was just a part of her power.
The real power was her ‘eyes’.
‘Those eyes… No wonder I thought that I’d seen it somewhere.’
My old teacher had all kinds of antique books that were typically hundreds of years old that the wizards could no longer find about monsters and demons.
It was said that there were no monsters except for a few Cryptids, but in the past, the continent had been full of all kinds of monsters.
And there were even demons who had handled those monsters.
‘It was only a brief moment, but the eyes that she showed me…’
I recalled Lynne’s eyes.
Her eyes had a subtle blue color.
But when we had talked a little while before, I had noticed a subtle change in the color of Lynne’s eyes.
Among her deep blue irises, there were white lights that shone like the starlight in the sky.
Her eyes resembled the calm surface of the Milky Way in the night sky.
I was bound to recognize such peculiar eyes.
‘Eyes that distinguish good from evil, the Judgment Eyes. If I’m not mistaken, Lynne is the owner of those Judgment Eyes.’
The Judgment Eyes were eyes that distinguished the good and bad in others, and beyond that, clearly showed whether or not they had hostility towards the owner.
It was an ability that could not be called magic, but rather, it was literally close to miracle and mystery.
The greatest thing about the Judgment Eyes was that the owner could spot the ‘demons’ hiding in the cracks of human beings.
‘Right now, those demons are mostly treated as legends.’
To people of the current age, demons were just evil beings with red skin and horns on their heads that only came out in fairy tales.
—The product of lies to frighten children.
However, according to the literature, it seemed that the demons had actually existed.
‘There must also be demons in this world where magic exists. I died and came back to life again, so why couldn’t there be something like demons?’
And Lynne’s eyes had a strong connection with demons.
I had seen with my own eyes that the Judgment Eyes, which were only written as a record, actually existed.
In other words, the existence of the Judgment Eyes that distinguished demons also proved the existence of demons.
Another characteristic of the Judgment Eyes was that, if they appeared, a big event would occur, regardless of the period in time.
Fortunately, Lynne’s Judgment Eyes were not in a fully awakened state, and she probably did not know that she had such ability.
But one day, she would realize it.
‘Is this also what they call fate?’
The book about non-property magic that I handed over to Lynne…
I didn’t expect that the book written by ‘her’ would circulate and return to Lynne’s hands.
I didn’t think Lynne remembered it herself.
‘It’s a bit of a headache.’
The fact that I realized that she was the owner of the Judgment Eyes and the fact that I was being faced with the connection to my past again like that.
‘I can’t believe I’m getting involved in this kind of event in Sören.’
I got up from my seat with a sigh.
Suddenly…
Some thoughts came to my mind.
If Lynne could use the Judgment Eyes properly, she might be able to find all of the members of the secret society that were hiding in Sören.
The most threatening thing to me was especially the other First Order, who was still hard for me to identify.
I couldn’t figure out who the hell he was and what he was doing, but that didn’t mean I could ask Sedina Rochen about him.
‘I intended to raise my guard as much as possible, but I need to be able to make a guess first in order to do that.’
Unless I knew where they were and what the other First Order was doing, I had to be as careful as I could.
But if Lynne’s Judgment Eyes worked properly, maybe it’d help me a lot.
The Three Musketeers, including Aidan and his friends, plus Lynne…
If I use the power of those children cleverly, then maybe…
‘No, never mind. Let’s get off work for now.’
When I opened the door to leave the teacher’s room while wearing my overcoat, I had no choice but to stop when I heard a scream outside the door.
“Aaaaah.”
The dark-blue-haired girl was sitting on the floor with her hand holding her head as if her forehead had bumped the door.
Looking down at her, contrary to my confused inner thoughts, I uttered in a cold voice.
“What brings you here, Flora Lumos?”
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