It seemed like the 5th Princess was supporting the lifestyle of Mirabel and her daughter.
‘Why on earth?’
Ezekiel’s mind was filled with question marks. The 5th Princess, who wished for the collapse of the Spirit Trap, and Mirabel and her daughter, who wanted to repair it—these two were fundamentally opposites and should be in direct conflict. There was no way they could cooperate.
‘It must be the 5th Princess’s support, no doubt.’
No one could confuse that more than Ezekiel himself. It meant there couldn’t be any support from anyone other than the 5th Princess.
Which meant…
‘Could it be that the 5th Princess has other thoughts?’
For the moment, he could think no other way. He shook his head and dismissed stray thoughts. For now, focusing solely on the repair of the Spirit Trap seemed to be the right choice.
“Why? There’s nothing to worry about.”
It was then that the girl parted her lips. It seemed she understood Ezekiel’s quiet deliberations in a different way.
“Since I was a baby, the cart has been filled regularly. I also wondered who filled it sometimes, but I let it go after a while—there was no way to find out at all.”
The girl said as she opened a can.
“There’s no one to scold you for using it however you like. You won’t get a stomach ache. So you can use it comfortably.”
Ezekiel quietly understood. That cart had likely been filled periodically since the girl was born. It made sense for her to think of it as normal, having lived her whole life with such an occurrence.
It was time to discuss the Spirit Trap.
“You called the Spirit Trap a gift. What does that mean?”
“It is a gift, indeed. It’s also my mother’s wish.”
The girl shrugged her shoulders.
“She always said that completing the Spirit Trap was her wish. She said it must be a gift for someone.”
So Mirabel held a wish to repair the Spirit Trap.
However, there was a phrase that kept catching Ezekiel’s ear.
“I’ve been feeling this while listening all this time, but you don’t say you repair the Spirit Trap. You call it completing it.”
“My mom said so. The Spirit Trap isn’t collapsing; it’s just incomplete.”
“…Incomplete?”
“I want to explain more about it, but honestly, I also don’t know the reason. My mom just went crazy after saying that completing the Spirit Trap was her wish.”
Even though it must have been a heartbreaking situation, the girl spoke quite calmly—as if it was nothing.
Was it because she was given such a tough reality? She seemed unnaturally mature for her age.
“I don’t think my mom had that much magical talent. In fact, she must have known it herself, right? That she couldn’t complete it on her own.”
The girl continued chewing the meat from the can.
“As expected, she couldn’t complete the Spirit Trap and went crazy. I’m just doing my best every day to fulfill my mom’s wish, even though I’m perfectly fine.”
“Have you made any progress?”
“I have. My mom’s materials helped.”
The girl nodded her head.
“Since my mom had low magical skill, she wrote down everything she could see and feel in detail, so that someone else could continue the work later.”
She then brought a book from a corner of the house.
Just how did this material help in repairing the Spirit Trap? Ezekiel opened it right away.
──A shining sphere must rise from the palm of your hand. Its size must be exactly like an egg, and its color must not be darker than the blue of a stream. Gather the mana…
As soon as he read it, he unconsciously narrowed his eyes.
“What is this…?”
“There are spell problems for each piece of the Spirit Trap, right? This is evidence of trying to express the answers.”
Yeah, Ezekiel knew that much.
But that wasn’t the problem.
‘These ordinary mages would never recognize this.’
To give a simple example, it’s like what we call a ‘kick.’
Mirabel didn’t know the term kick, so…
──Fix one leg to the ground and swing the other horizontally. Using your hip strength is crucial.
This was how it had been expressed. Such notation would only be understood by high-level mages like Ezekiel, while it would be indecipherable for the rest.
It was not a record meant to help understanding in a friendly manner.
Ezekiel asked the girl.
“You worked on this while looking at it?”
“Yes. At first, I didn’t understand a thing, but as I tried using mana here and there, I found some understanding.”
The girl glanced at the part Ezekiel was reading, then conjured a mana sphere over her tiny hand.
Ezekiel was somewhat surprised. The girl’s magic was quite refined, and that was definitely the correct answer.
“Do you know what magic you just cast?”
“No? I don’t know.”
The girl shook her head nonchalantly.
‘This is the exact opposite of Mirabel.’
While Mirabel struggled to leave records to understand the answers she never knew, the girl only knew the results without any knowledge of the process.
She knew how to move her body to kick, but she had no idea that this technique was called a kick.
“I don’t really understand the principles. I just looked for things I could do among the records left by my mom and tried them one by one. That’s how I got here today.”
The girl had deciphered about eighty percent of the Spirit Trap fragments.
How much effort did it take to find answers to those fragments without knowing any principles at all? She must have spent her days trying each one physically.
It felt as slow and difficult as a small droplet of water chiseling away at a rock. No, it would actually be easier than chiseling stone with a droplet for the girl.
At this point, Ezekiel grew curious.
“Why are you doing this work?”
“I don’t want my mom’s wish to remain in an impossible shape. At least if I succeed, that wish itself will have been fulfilled, right? That’s how I think about it.”
Ezekiel gazed at the walls of the house.
The answers to the fragments, the positions corresponding to the fragments.
Everything was a result the girl had obtained by bumping into each piece one by one. It was more than a pity; it left him with a heavy heart. That a young girl had to live such a life.
When thinking about the lives of other girls her age, the differences were stark. Noble daughters should be entering the academy soon, enjoying their boiling youth.
The girl desired none of that. She simply wanted to fulfill the wish her mother left incomplete.
“So, why did you have such thoughts?”
The question came from a place of frustration more than curiosity.
“You don’t know the principles of magic or the terminologies. You might have to dedicate your life to finding the remaining answers. Won’t you regret living like that?”
“My mom didn’t regret it.”
The girl replied calmly.
“The only thing she probably regretted was not seeing the Spirit Trap’s completion with her own eyes. She’s never regretted living like this.”
In her disturbingly serious voice, Ezekiel could hardly imagine how much sorrow and hardship she had faced.
“My mom was a precious, one-of-a-kind person. I wonder why she was so desperate until she went crazy… I want to know that; I want to understand.”
The girl’s eyes met Ezekiel’s.
“I heard that exploring the unknown and illuminating it is a mage’s quality. Doesn’t that make me a mage too?”
It was an endlessly tragic story.
Whatever had happened, Mirabel’s life, which had ultimately gone insane, was pitiful, and her daughter also continued to live that same miserable life.
But at the same time, he understood the girl’s heart.
On one hand, she didn’t seem to show any signs of being depressed. Rather, there was a glimmer of excitement in her demeanor.
“I’m still feeling good!”
“Why?”
“Actually, I had no idea what to do with the remaining answers, but now someone with skills like yours is here to help complete the Spirit Trap, right? Of course I’m happy!”
She said that while offering Ezekiel a can of meat with a confident expression.
“You’re definitely going to love it! It’s super delicious.”
Ezekiel was quite familiar with it.
He often ate during class with the 5th Princess. The aroma of the smoked meat brought memories of the past rushing back.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Dawn.
“─!”
“─!”
Ezekiel awoke to some noise.
It was a sound coming from outside, where someone was yelling with a hoarse voice. It was Mirabel.
“I have something to report─!”
“I still haven’t accomplished my mission─!”
It was pitiful to see her shouting into the void at such an hour. Just as Ezekiel was about to step in to stop her…
“Don’t go.”
A small hand gripped Ezekiel’s sleeve. The girl held onto him.
Meeting her gaze, she said,
“From the outside, it just looks like she’s crazy, but as her daughter, I can tell. It’s her favorite time.”
“…Favorite time?”
“Yes. It’s the time when she talks to the commander.”
Ezekiel looked outside again. Mirabel was just shouting towards the void.
“No matter how much you try to stop her, you can’t. During this time, she won’t respond to anyone trying to talk to her. But it seems like she considers this time when she acts like that to be very important. You can feel her sincerity.”
“…”
Time spent talking to the commander, huh.
“Mirabel─!”
“I still haven’t received an order to retire─!”
Is it possible that she still occasionally has the illusion of talking to Ezekiel?
The girl brought over a can instead.
“Do you want to eat since you’re awake? I’m okay with it now. In times like this, I just eat the canned food and wait until my mom stops yelling.”
“…”
The bizarre 5th Princess’s actions.
The tragic life of a mother and daughter.
While chewing on the canned meat for the first time in a while, Ezekiel firmly resolved in his heart.
That he would finish the repair of the Spirit Trap as soon as possible.
That very dawn, Ezekiel did not sleep and reviewed all the materials left by Mirabel.
And finally, he got a grasp of things.
Now, the repair of the Spirit Trap was in its countdown.
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