Chapter 34 (1/2)

Ten years?

No, just from looking at Leon, it wasn’t all that out there.

By my calculations, that would put Leon’s current age at twenty-eight1, but that did match his appearance, so.

So, Leon was twenty-eight, huh. He was quite a bit older. Like a ten year difference?

That aside, if what he said was true, there was one problem. My current appearance.

Soul or not, as long as the body was alive, its appearance would mature. Based on the discussion, this body of mine was twenty-six years old, but at the very least, it didn’t look it.

…I got that far before suddenly remembering that Palmira was twenty, so I took a step back and admitted that it wasn’t impossible. But I bet a gap between looks and age as big as Palmira’s was quite rare. It wasn’t an everyday thing.

“Ten years… Yes, ten years. And yet, your appearance is no different. You look almost — no, exactly the same as the last time I saw her, ten years ago.”

My heart thumped in my chest, seeing Leon looking at me with such a serious face, but I was thinking the exact same thing.

So that meant Leon didn’t know much about what happened after he saw [Chris] ten years ago?

“You mean, you don’t know what happened to [Chris] for those ten years?”

“Do you?”

He turned the question back on me.

So he didn’t know. Of course, neither did I. I shook my head by way of reply.

“…The only thing I do know is that afterward, someone… took her body away.”

“Took her body away?”

On reflex, I parroted those disturbing words back at him.

Not ‘stolen’, but ‘taken away’. At the same time, the indifferent coolness I sensed in Leon gave me a bit of a shock.

…Well, it did happen ten years ago. Leon might have compartmentalized it.

Because he was currently looking at a version of her.

“Yes, the body should have been secured in the Schola Magorum. But one day, according to a report from the Schola, it had been [taken away]. As things stand, it was a strange case. Earlier, I said it was a special inst.i.tution, but it’s for that very reason that stealing from it is close to impossible in the first place. However, such a situation deliberately went unquestioned at the time. If I had to say why, my guess would be that handling the body would have been difficult, given its connection to the loss of the six-Attunement magus.”

“It would have drawn attention to the loss of something troublesome.”

‘As you say.’

His head hanging slightly, Leon answered as if he took it personally.

“Still, I searched for her, as far as my reach could take me. Though it has become a mere excuse, I think of it as my atonement. But I couldn’t find a single lead on her whereabouts. For what purpose was her body taken? Even the motive was a mystery — and so ten years went by. Just as she was fading from my mind, she suddenly appeared before me. In other words — you.”

Leon turned to look at me. That pair of eyes pierced through me with their strong determination.

Suddenly, the story had come to me. The breath caught in my throat.

“The truth is, I was surprised. I was genuinely surprised. For you see, the figure before me looked just like the one I had seen ten years earlier. On the other hand, I thought it was impossible. Because you were completely different in terms of personality. Moreover, the state you were in.”

Leon chuckled. He was remembering what happened back then, I guess.

For some reason, I abruptly grew embarra.s.sed and turned away.

“Not like I could help it. Quit laughing.”

” — My apologies. In any case, I couldn’t believe it at first. It was something like that, I suppose. The same physical appearance, but from ten years ago. And everything else was completely different. But normally, you’d think of it as an uncanny resemblance. Nevertheless, you resembled her too closely. Especially with that silver hair.”

This?

Pulling on my bangs, I brought some of that hair down to my eyes.

Sure, if it were just the face, then whatever. But when even the hair color was a match, it wasn’t exactly easy to dismiss. I mean, this color was impossible to begin with.

“Had it not been for that hair, I suppose I would have kept my distance without issue. And yet, when we first met, I was fighting to maintain that boundary, you know? For that reason, I even exposed you to considerable danger.”

“Now that you mention it, I was ruthlessly forced to play a slave.”

Well, it wasn’t like I was dragged into it kicking and screaming. It was a job to me, plain and simple.

I didn’t feel all that resentful about it either.

“Ah, I do apologize for that. But… at any rate, your confession that day changed my way of thinking. It was when you said you [became a woman]. Hearing your story, I developed a theory, one that verged on conviction. Right now, you’re thinking the same thing, aren’t you — that [you] are possessing [Chris’s] body.”

I remembered Leon’s behavior upon hearing my confession, as well as the series of exchanges we had when he showed me [Chris’s] portrait the next day.

I suppose he’d been thinking about the possibility of possession since he heard my story. From that perspective, his actions since then all made sense.

Even what happened that night on the river bank… I can’t say that it’s a complete mystery to me.

“However, this is all I currently have. At present, I’m in the process of re-examining my findings, but regretfully, much remains shrouded in mystery.”

“By ‘examining’, you mean the business with Artor?”

What I heard earlier today at the guild came back to me.

The military had the Artor Ruins in quarantine while they worked on something.

So that was on Leon’s orders, I guess.

“True, that’s also an area that requires investigation. However, it would be difficult with our current personnel, so it will wait until after we a.s.semble a specialized task force for the investigation of the labyrinth.”

Huh?

From the sound of it, Leon hadn’t made a move on Artor yet.

A bit confused, I checked with him.

“Then you aren’t investigating Artor right now?”

“As of yet, no,”

he said, like it was no big deal. It didn’t seem like he was lying.

In that case, who has Artor on lock-down right now?

…Wait, is Artor really on lock-down?

The distrust I felt toward Arc back then.

Again, it tugged at my mind.

“…Actually, I went to the guild today. I want to know how things were going at Artor — well, more precisely, where my original body was… Anyway, I heard about it there — the military occupation of Artor.”

Leon fell deep into thought.

From the looks of it, it was probably fair to say this was news to him.