Tap tap. I approached Lampades while making a noise and footsteps to make my presence known.
I’ve always been told I lack presence, so suddenly appearing in front of him would probably give him a shock.
We were friends, but it had been years since we last talked, so his face might have faded from my memory too.
Did he hear me? Lampades turns his head. His slow and awkward movement suggested he might have muscle aches.
No, wait. The pale face and the beads of sweat — this is Tension.
Is he nervous about the upcoming assessment?
Well, it’s his lifelong dream, so it makes sense. What should I say to encourage him?
After thinking for a moment, I decided to go with universally comforting words.
“Hey, it’s great to see you! You’ve achieved your dream!”
*
Step.
Something strange was happening.
The Elysion has a world-class flow of people. Footsteps not being heard in such a place was odd.
Yet, the current footsteps sounded particularly clear. Unlike the aimless noise, it felt like they were aimed solely at Lampades.
Step.
A second sound followed. It was getting closer.
Lampades was panting. No, surely not. The Dark Elf who loved machines slowly scanned his surroundings.
That slow movement seemed more like a desperate struggle to postpone Inevitable Doom than simple caution.
Like a child instinctively sensing Parents’ Anger, knowing they would eventually be punished, yet still hiding their mistake.
Lampades turned off the antenna’s sound-collecting device. The range of the auditory sensors, which had detected even the distant whispers of lovers, suddenly narrowed.
Step.
But the footsteps did not disappear.
They were coming from the direction he was trying to turn his face toward. There was no escaping it.
Eventually, Lampades turned his head.
I saw his hazy face. A foreboding smile was rising just as it always had in the past.
“Hey, it’s great to see you.”
Lampades couldn’t speak. You… you…
“Congratulations on achieving your dream!”
Wasn’t he supposed to be dead?
Lampades’ reaction seemed less about logic or reasoning and more like a reflex of social interaction.
“It’s still hard to say I’ve achieved my dream. I’ve barely got through the paperwork…”
This was where Lampades’ reflexes hit their limit. Fortunately, the Augmented Reality display reflected the greetings recommended by the secretary spirit intelligence.
“—I just passed the assessment. The practical is the biggest hurdle, right?”
“Aw, come on! If you’ve passed the paperwork for a Mage Tower, then you should also pass the practicals without a doubt. You’ve practically achieved everything.”
“Thanks for the encouragement.”
Dozens of everyday phrases recommended by the spirit intelligence floated across Lampades’ view. However, he couldn’t choose that type of conversation. What he truly needed to know was something else.
“You… I heard you, um, died?”
“Aha. I have never experienced death.”
*
I noticed that his expression was pale when he first saw me.
Well, it was a situation that could easily cause Lampades to misunderstand. In the request where he met Carisia, everyone but me had died because of the employer’s betrayal, and I disappeared with Carisia.
The other comrades who participated in the request probably left no corpses, so the rumors would imply I was merely missing during the operation.
In the troubleshooting and mercenary industry, being ‘missing during an operation’ equated to ‘dead but no corpse found.’
Thinking from Lampades’ perspective, a friend he thought had died years ago suddenly appeared. It was as if a horror or mystery story had just started.
I moved closer to ease Lampades’ tension.
“The report about my death was greatly exaggerated. Look here.”
I spread my hands in front of him.
“See? I’m alive and well, right?”
*
Unbelievable.
Lampades kept repeating that phrase to himself.
After the incident where he and Orthes were the only survivors among ten troubleshooters, he desperately gathered funds for opening a Mage Tower and retired as soon as he met the minimum funding threshold.
While accumulating achievements for the assessment, he was anxious every day, thinking that somehow I might return.
He feared I might suddenly appear, saying something like, “The expiration date of the whim that saved you has passed.”
And then he heard the news: missing during an operation.
The area where Lampades operated as a troubleshooter was notorious for being the frontline against extra-dimensional beings.
A place most ordinary people wouldn’t even have heard of, somewhere that was preferable to selling one’s organs for a lowlife.
Troubleshooters flocked to such places. More accurately, those who survived there were industry elites.
They fought against extra-dimensional incursions daily.
And the last request Orthes was involved in was a special mission that filtered five elite troubleshooters from among the top ranks.
Details of the request were not disclosed. All five troubleshooters disappeared simultaneously, leading to vague guesses about what had happened.
The top troubleshooters couldn’t handle the request and perished. Such occurrences weren’t rare in the frontlines against extra-dimensions.
Yet, Lampades did not believe Orthes was dead. He had multiple records of miraculously returning alone from requests.
It had only been a few years since Orthes’ disappearance that Lampades finally began to take the assessment, always thinking that one day Orthes might appear right in front of him.
Orthes had definitely said:
“I support your dream. I’ll come to see you once you achieve it.”
Circumstantially, it seemed like he was dead, but what if the news of his survival came by tomorrow? Lampades anxiously pondered for years, and now he found himself at the assessment.
Lampades was about to face Orthes.
‘Ah….’
The faceless Orthes had returned.
*
“How have you been?”
“Uh, fine. Busy gathering achievements necessary to pass the paperwork…”
Lampades’ gaze drifted elsewhere. He seemed to be noticing people from his Mage Tower over there.
“Oh. Are they members of the same Mage Tower? Shouldn’t you introduce—”
“No! No need for that. It’s been a while since they came to Elysion, so I gave them some free time. How awkward would it be if the Tower Master intruded?”
Lampades poured out words like a flash. It showed the kind-heartedness of a model Tower Master, considering his members.
“Wow, you’re so lucky to have people from Lampades’ Mage Tower. It’s a whole different level compared to our company’s boss.”
“Boss?”
“Oh, my bad! I forgot to mention that.”
I handed Lampades a business card with simple personal information like an email address for the Ether Network.
It was a card prepared by Carisia for external activities while getting ready to come to Elysion. Though the title of Head of the Divine Investigation Office was hidden, it was labeled as Head Secretary.
However, a secretarial office with only one member isn’t too credible. The Divine Investigation Office, if you take stock of its members, is no different.
‘But soon, Kine will register as an intern or something.’
As Lampades read the handed business card, his expression twisted grotesquely before returning to normal.
“You have a company? I can’t quite picture it.”
Ah, I see.
“When I was a troubleshooter, I traveled alone without any affiliation. But like I told you, that was all a misunderstanding! When I approached them, they’d all push me away, so I had no choice but to wander alone.”
*
“I’m not that socially awkward a person!”
Even as I said that, Orthes’ demeanor remained hazy.
If I were to ask passersby to describe Orthes’ features, they’d likely say his face was forgettable and only recall that he was “smiling.”
Lampades was no exception. Unlike the fleeting passersby, he could recall a bit more.
A faint smile and thinly closed eyes. A memory where only the laughter remained, without a clear face.
That’s why Orthes was called the faceless Orthes.
Lampades recalled the creepy tales about Orthes: “Comes back alone every time,” and “Swallowed the faces of others to act as them.”
Though he had never experienced the latter, Lampades himself nearly became a victim of the former.
He could easily read Orthes’ implications.
His boss ‘from a different dimension.’ Lampades was someone who witnessed Orthes living, having been ‘survived’ by him. If he were different from that, there were two possibilities.
Does this mean he’s a monster like Orthes? Or is it possible he’s someone even more innocent who doesn’t know about Orthes’ true identity?
“Ah. There’s someone coming over.”
Lampades turned his gaze following Orthes’ respectfully extended hand.
Pure white hair that seemed to know nothing of Darkness. Golden eyes that seemed to capture the sparkle of stars.
He couldn’t be of the same kind as Orthes.
“This is someone who greatly helped me after my last request. They are now serving as my boss.”
‘Ah.’
A person entangled in Orthes’ beasts without knowing the truth!
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