Chapter 554

“​Narke.”

I gave the person who had gone from a bear back to a human an awkward smile. I’d figured out who had been changing the seasons. Narke must have been watching us from outside and manipulating one thing after another. His slightly curly hair fluttered in the wind.

When I met Narke earlier that day, he had lightened the color of his eyes and hair, either because he was a seminarian under the Papal See’s supervision or because he had decided to disguise himself as a priest. Either way, I preferred him with his natural colors, like this. I had never been particularly fond of their standard colors, then or now.

Narke hesitated, then smiled. Just as when Ulrike had handed me the eyepatch, he grabbed both his cheeks and shouted in an absurdly low voice.

“Narke?!”

“What’s wrong~? You begged me 101 times to please come to this mansion, remember?”

He could’ve just come without making him beg that much…

I didn’t know when he had sent the message, but both Ulrike and Narke were remarkably persistent and tenacious friends.

Pie, who had been tucked inside Narke’s hood, spotted me and hopped over to my shoulder like a rabbit—well, it was rabbit-like, at least. Perhaps because a few days had passed, I stroked Pie with my finger as he simply squeaked instead of using divine power to speak human language.

Ulrike spread both arms and shouted.

“Even so, I didn’t expect you to come in as a bear! And besides, I only asked you to change the season before you came in! I didn’t ask any of this! How did you do it?!”

Now that I thought about it, did he slip out when the first snow started falling earlier, meet Narke, and then come back? And then he tricked us.

I gave Ulrike a suspicious look, and his eyes slid sharply to the side. Narke answered calmly with a smile.

“It was in the kit you received, Luise.”

“You can turn into animals in Mimesis?!”

“You can’t actually turn into one~”

Narke snapped his fingers, and the enormous bear appeared again. The bear was as tall as a person and broad enough to match, making Ulrike instinctively take a step back.

When Narke returned to his human form, Ulrike rubbed his chin.

“Huh… I was so excited that I only skimmed through it. I didn’t know it had a function like that… So the professors were the only ones using something like this.”

They probably used it to make the exams, not to turn into animals.

I swallowed the remark, and Narke probably did the same.

Ulrike shouted at Narke with a determined look.

“I want to try it too! I’m going to be a cat.”

“Oh, why~?”

As they talked, Leonard and Zähringen approached from behind. Ulrike raised a finger with a cool, analytical expression and began explaining.

“Listen. If we’re talking about looking cool, I think a lion would be better, but I’d rather go with something lighter. Cats can jump sideways as well as upward, so they can cover more ground. They’re animals optimized for hunting, so their mobility is pretty good for their size. A lion, on the other hand, probably wouldn’t be able to jump three or four times its own height.”

“Hmm. That’s reasonable in a way. But as far as I know, you probably won’t be able to jump any higher than usual. You’re not actually becoming a cat, after all.”

Whether he had heard that or not, or simply wanted to try anyway, Ulrike gestured to Narke with a look that said he wanted to give it a shot. Narke tapped at the air as though there were a controller only he could see.

Then…

“…Oh.”

A strange yellow tabby cat appeared where Ulrike had been standing. Pie, who had been going back and forth between my shoulders, shook his whiskers furiously and climbed all the way onto my head. I held him with both hands so he wouldn’t fall and looked down at the unfamiliar cat whose ears were now only 30 centimeters above the ground.

The cat placed its front paws on the wall and looked at us. I suppose that meant it intended to climb over.

Its first attempt wasn’t bad. Just as cats naturally would, it easily cleared the knee-high wall. Narke clapped his hands beside me, letting out an impressed “Whoa” or something of the sort.

The cat ran around like mad before placing its paws against a very tall, thin tree. It started climbing as though a person were taking a running jump, only to slip back down around the middle.

“Can’t cats normally climb trees?”

“No.”

Narke answered immediately.

After trying the same thing another dozen or so times, the cat finally sprawled out on the ground. Narke adjusted the settings, making him appear in his original form again. Ulrike rolled onto his back, stretched both arms out on the ground, and stared up at the sky.

“Ah~ If the tree had just been a little thicker, I could’ve climbed it just fine~”

“You really can climb it?”

“Of course! What a shame. So I really can’t turn into an animal after all. Only my appearance changes.”

Ulrike quickly lost all his energy. Unlike Richthofen, who had actually switched bodies, this only fooled our perception, so in the end, everything still depended on his own physical abilities.

Ulrike clapped his hands and got to his feet.

“Then I’ll be a lion this time! Looking cool is the best part.”

“Hmm.”

He’s doing it again?

I gave him nothing but a hollow smile.

While Narke adjusted the settings, Zähringen, standing beside Leonard, raised the corner of his mouth and asked casually, “Aren’t you due to go back home, too?”

“Good grief…”

Leonard laughed, clearly incredulous. If he had acted like this outside Mimesis, Leonard probably would have given him a cold look. It seemed, though, that he was comfortable enough to let himself act this way here. Even if Ulrike had done this at school, Leonard probably would have humored him with a laugh, but he wouldn’t have looked genuinely dumbfounded like this. There was no more time for laughter, however.

We silently stared down at the male lion that had suddenly appeared, watching it look us over. My blood ran cold. I didn’t even have time to ask why Ulrike had specifically chosen a male lion—the thing that had once been Ulrike opened its jaws and roared.

“Roooaaaar!”

“…!”

Could a single tooth really be half the size of a palm?

The lion that was presumably Ulrike charged at us, forcing all four of us to run for our lives.

“Lu, Lukas—!”

Pie squealed incessantly beside my ear. Some paw kept frantically trampling against my skin. With twice the chaos going on around me, I clutched Pie tightly in one hand and ran blindly ahead. I could hear Leonard and Zähringen laughing behind me as they had already veered off in another direction. Narke ran alongside me, glancing back over his shoulder.

“H-ha, hahahaha… So this is what it feels like. No, wait. The bear was still better.”

“Was it?!”

“Haha, it was pretty terrifying~”

“Turn him back!”

He was my friend, so I couldn’t exactly swat him away with mana. The sound of the lion’s paws pounding against the ground was terrifying enough. Narke clicked his tongue and quickly tapped at the air.

“Whoa!”

Ulrike, who had been running perfectly well until then, suddenly stopped with his eyes wide.

Only then could the rest of us stop and catch our breath. Realizing his body had returned to normal, Ulrike went, “Tch,” and pretended not to notice.

I walked over to him and silently draped an arm around his shoulders. Before I could even say anything, Ulrike apologized first.

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine… Don’t apologize.”

With nothing else to say, I held up Pie, who was still in my hand. Pie had been lying on his back, but he squirmed free and immediately went on guard.

“Look at him.”

“Cute.”

“He’s startled by you.”

“Gasp.”

Ulrike put on an exaggeratedly serious expression and tried to take Pie from me. But Pie refused to go to Ulrike, apparently still affected by what had just happened. He even ended up biting my hand, so I had no choice but to put him on my shoulder and resume my aimless wandering.

Before long, we came across the same wild apple tree we had eaten from earlier. I picked one of the tiny apples, no bigger than a ping-pong ball, and took a bite. It was more sour than the cultivated ones, but the sharp taste cleared my head and helped calm my pounding heart. I was going to save one for Ulrike, but he had already disappeared somewhere.

I looked back at the barley field behind us, conscious of the priest standing beside me. Whenever the wind blew, the staff in Narke’s hand gave off a clear, delicate chime. As sunlight streamed into my eyes and blurred my vision, I asked Narke, “Why didn’t you want to come?”

Narke said nothing.

Instead, after a long while, as we walked along the barley field, he caught a freshwater snail that looked like a whelk from the little stream and placed it in my hand. I had no idea why these guys kept handing me things from nature as though they wanted me to do something with them. I ran my fingers over the smooth, ridged shell before returning the snail to the water.

Narke caught another one and placed it in his hand, murmuring, “Escargot.”

At a loss for words, I removed the snail clinging to Narke’s hand and returned it to the water. All the while, Narke wore nothing but that polite smile. Even though his expression and tone were the same as always, I could tell that something was different.

I took Narke by the arm and turned him around to face me. Then I let divine power flow into his forehead.

“Isn’t divine power strange?”

“…….”

“When I use it on myself, it takes so much strength to draw out. But when I use it on someone else, it doesn’t take any effort at all.”

I could understand why Christians viewed this power so positively. The belief that divine power was a sign of goodness probably wasn’t unique to Christianity, either. Divine power wasn’t limited to Europe. This power had spread across every continent, and had been received in turn. Many religions across the world revered it, and in some countries, so did those in positions of power.

I was grateful to be somewhere where my divine power didn’t have to be used in the sense of charity given by those above to those below. Here, it could be used as an expression of fellowship.

I moved my hand down from Narke’s forehead and patted his shoulder, finishing the transfer of divine power. Narke stared into my eyes for a long while before his lips finally moved.

“Because I didn’t belong in this place.”

“This Easter isn’t the tribulation Lord Gabriele spoke of, then.”

It might have sounded like it came out of nowhere, but I was saying what I’d suspected for quite some time. Something that could be overcome through cunning tricks wasn’t a tribulation. No matter how it might seem, it wasn’t the kind of tribulation described in Scripture. Thinking about it, it was only natural. Pleroma had failed to bring their Christ here, and we had no idea what their next plan was.

Narke simply kept walking, his expression blank.

Walking beside the barley field, I spoke to him from behind.

“There’s no place you shouldn’t have come to. Whatever happened, we made it through. Because we believed we could.”

“Yeah. You did well.”

Narke answered calmly. He was good at acting, which meant he was also good at hiding his own condition. I watched him without jumping to conclusions about whether he was still trying to deceive us.

“Just like you. I always knew you’d pull it off. And the more you do, the less I can bring myself to look you in the eye. If you want an answer to your question, then yes. Making excuses isn’t really my thing, but… I didn’t want to come because I couldn’t bring myself to face you.”

“Why?”

“Even the fact that I can’t answer that question is something I can’t bring myself to face.”

Narke looked back at me with a faint smile. He reached for my hand, then slowly curled his fingers into a fist instead. I asked him, “Is this something you can somehow change right now, or is it not?”

“…….”

“Is it not?”

I pulled him by the hand.

“Then enjoy the present for now. Those friends of ours told me to. That’s why I ended up here, even though I had absolutely no intention of coming here to play.”

Narke remained silent, still smiling. I asked him once more as I pulled him toward the barley field. Only then did Narke raise his eyebrows.

“Or do you not want to be with us? Do you want to be alone?”

He didn’t answer this time either. Looking into his golden eyes, filled with light, I said, “If you’re okay with it, I want to be with you.”

“This isn’t much of a fair trade.”

“Who’s losing out? Me or you?”

I shook my head and continued.

“If you can’t tell me now and you can’t change it either… you can leave here if that’s what you want. But if you’re okay with it, do what our friends want. You said you came in here because Luise asked you to.”

I gave him a mischievous smile.

“You already did it once. Do it one more time.”

Narke looked down at the hand I was holding before opening his mouth.

“You’ve changed a lot.”

“Yeah. I think so, too…”

“Hey, guys――!”

Ulrike’s voice rang out across the fields. I raised my eyebrows and lowered the corners of my mouth. In the distance, the figure that looked like a dot waved both arms over his head.

“It’s a cave――!”

“There’s all sorts of things here.”

I let out a hollow laugh, then turned and asked Narke, “Want to go see?”

Narke didn’t answer, so I shrugged and pulled him along. He followed behind me without a word as we crossed the barley field. The autumn sunlight pouring down over our heads was warm, as was the warmth coming through the glove on my right hand. Ulrike had called Leonard and Zähringen over as well and led us inside.

“Ooh――”

Ulrike’s voice echoed through the cave exactly as he made the sound. Of course it did. We held our wands out, letting them glow with light, and ventured deeper inside. With every step, I could feel the walls growing damper. I could hear the sound of running water, too.

I asked indifferently, “Isn’t something going to come out? There’s water flowing inside.”

“Looks like there’s an underground waterway.”

Zähringen replied indifferently, stroking his chin. Just then, Ulrike, who had been leading the way, began making a strange noise.

“Heh heh heh heh.”

“Hmm?”

“What’s wrong, Luise?”

Even at Zähringen and Leonard’s reactions, Ulrike only shook his head and continued making the strange sound.

“Heh heh heh heeeeh.”

“What’s gotten into you…?”

Ulrike then held up the box in his hands.

“…!”

The moment we saw the small glass bottles and powder inside, we knew exactly what it was.

Rampage drug. There was a box of rampage drugs here.

Leonard spoke.

“So this is a training game field for fighting Pleroma.”

“A lower-level version of Violett Brot.”

At Zähringen’s reply, Leonard nodded. Ulrike asked, his eyes sharp and focused.

“Then is this all the boxes? It looks like the plan was to contaminate the groundwater.”

“Probably not.”

Experience told me otherwise. If I had to put it precisely, the cave was only a somewhat peripheral answer.

Leonard nodded at my response. Then, to some extent, the same light appeared in everyone’s eyes. Ulrike raised one corner of his mouth and looked around at the rest of us.

Honestly, I could point out where the other boxes were with my eyes closed. I didn’t know what grade this game was intended for, but it certainly wasn’t something meant for the seniors.

As I was thinking this, Ulrike tapped me on the shoulder. Pie, who had been draped over my shoulder and half-asleep, moved over to the other one.

“Lukas. You’re out.”

“Why? I’m hurt.”

“If you join us…”

Ulrike closed his eyes and circled his hand in the air, searching for the right words. Leonard, Zähringen, and Narke all looked at me, their eyes conveying the same thought. Ulrike shouted.

“Because it’ll be over immediately if you join! You can’t play. You keep coming in first every time, and you still want to compete against us?!”

“Huh.”

I let out a hollow breath and asked, “Then what am I supposed to do?”

“Follow us around!”

“…Fine…”

Looking refreshed, Ulrike turned to his friends.

“Okay. Then I’ll team up with Leo~!”

“What about me?”

At Zähringen’s question—he had been on the same team as Ulrike during the Violett Brot test at the Command—Ulrike tilted his head and changed his mind.

“Hmm, we got a good result last time. Then I should team up with Julia.”

“What about me?”

At Narke’s playful question, Ulrike finally buried his face in his hands and began seriously pondering. Ulrike raised a hand toward Narke, and Narke pressed his palm against it, just as Zähringen usually did.

And so the teams were formed: Leonard and Zähringen, and Ulrike and Narke.

I had to choose a team to follow, and my choice was Ulrike and Narke. I decided to follow them. There wasn’t any particular reason. I was simply curious whether someone with Insight would have an advantage in the exam.

After splitting into pairs, Narke and Ulrike discussed where the remaining boxes might be. Ulrike pointed up the mountain first.

“Upstream!”

That wasn’t what I had in mind at all. It was more intuitive than the cave, but inefficient. There were two other options that were much closer to the answer.

Fortunately, Narke slowly rubbed his jaw and shook his head.

“No. It’s a waste of time. Besides, there’s a high chance someone would notice that something was wrong before any problem even occurred. Even if the villagers realized there was something strange going on in the village, it would only be effective after the problem had already happened.”

“Then…”

Ulrike looked around before meeting Narke’s eyes again. Narke pointed his staff in a certain direction.

“We should go to the well, and then the brewery.”

“Good idea.”

We ran toward the enormous building with its tall, towering chimney—the brewery. Ulrike stopped at the main gate, then opened the brewery’s mailbox with a triumphant smile.

“Oh.”

Narke raised an eyebrow when he saw the box wrapped in newspaper inside the mailbox. When the two of us looked at him as if asking how he had known there would be a box here, Ulrike shrugged.

“What we found in the cave was still-sealed medication. If this is a test where we’re supposed to retrieve the entire box, there’s no reason to go all the way into the cellar. If someone received the box from a courier, they would’ve already put the medication into one of the cellar’s barrels. There’s no way they’d just leave a box containing Rampager drugs sitting around in the cellar. There’s also the possibility that the courier secretly hid the box of medication in the cellar themself, but without any additional information about the situation, using the mailbox would lead to the widest range of possible ‘next steps.’ Of course, we might simply not have been given that information, so I was prepared to search the cellar too. Since there were no barrels stored in the cave, if it wasn’t the mailbox, then the cellar would definitely have to be involved. But we didn’t need to go that far.”

“Good. Then, the well.”

Narke answered with a smile. The well. A good choice. But what next?

Narke rubbed his jaw and ran toward the village notice board. Ulrike decided to look for the house where the village head lived.

How likely was it that a box would simply be left sitting at the well? Let’s think. An exam like this had to provide clues. It was time to find them.

I wandered around here and there for a while before picking up the village newspaper.

[8/27]

[As announced, the well in the center of the square will only be available until the end of the month. The installation of the water supply system will be completed the day after tomorrow, after which the water will be turned on throughout the village. Please use the water supply at home.]

A short notice, which somehow looked like something the village head had written himself, was printed right in the middle of the newspaper. I raised an eyebrow and whistled.

The water supply system was about to be installed, and the well would only be usable for another five days. It was the perfect time for Pleroma to throw the village into chaos.

The answer was already practically staring me in the face, but I had no idea where the other two friends were. Just then, Ulrike came running toward me from a distance, casting a soundproofing spell that connected the two of us.

“Look, Lukas! These are the contact details for the surveyor and the people who’ll remove the well!”

“We can forget about the removal crew. We just need to find the surveyor’s house.”

Narke approached from the opposite direction and somehow already knew what had been said inside the soundproofing spell. He tossed a box into the air to show us.

Ulrike put a hand to his cheek and shouted. Now that I thought about it, his voice got higher when he was happy, but when he wasn’t, it seemed to drop lower and lower without end.

“Do we already have two?!”

“Yeah.”

Narke answered with a grin. Excluding the one we’d found in the cave, we already had two boxes in our hands. We didn’t even know how many were hidden, yet they were finding them remarkably well.

Pie, who had been sleeping like he was hibernating, woke up and happily joined in despite this having nothing to do with him—presumably by copying Narke’s reaction. I had no idea what this scene was even supposed to be. Watching these people, whose temperaments were so different from mine, happily playing together only drained me, so I merely smiled.

Perhaps I was simply more compatible with friends like Leonard and Zähringen, who acted more like me.

Ulrike solemnly held out the note with the surveyor’s contact information. It had a simply drawn map and an address on it.

It was around the stream again. Only this time, the house was on a hill slightly higher than the village, with the stream running below it.

We ran straight there.

And, unsurprisingly, along the way…

“Was stealing things part of the game, too?”

We ran into Leonard and Zähringen.

After spending so much time with Ulrike, Narke, and Pie, seeing the two of them together made it surprisingly obvious how similar their atmospheres were. Elias had some traits in common with Ulrike, but Leonard and Zähringen had both been raised as quintessential members of ruling houses, so they had a similar air about them. They almost felt like siblings.

I could afford to think about it this leisurely, but the situation itself was anything but. There was a reason Zähringen had said what he did earlier.

Ulrike suddenly stepped between Leonard and Zähringen with his sword drawn, widening the distance between them as he tried to take the box Zähringen was carrying.

CLANG—!

The razor-sharp sound scraped against my ears, sharp enough to make my skin crawl. Zähringen conjured a sword and caught Ulrike’s blade horizontally. After exchanging a glance with him, Leonard backed away and slowly headed toward the surveyor’s house. Meanwhile, Narke took off first and disappeared into the alley leading that way.

Zähringen asked Ulrike, “Coming back from the brewery?”

“Why?”

“Because it looks like our class president made a wasted move.”

Ulrike didn’t seem bothered. He put more force into his sword.

Green mana sparked.

SKREEE—!

A flash of lightning-like light raced along the blade and burst into the air. Zähringen, who had been blocking Ulrike’s sword horizontally with both hands, instantly tilted his own blade backward, letting Ulrike’s sword slide off it, then spun around and leaped behind him.

BOOM—!

Ulrike turned with him at a speed that was difficult to follow, the tip of his sword grazing the front of Zähringen’s clothes. Ulrike’s eyes tracked Zähringen’s body like a predator following its prey, and the corner of Zähringen’s mouth twisted into a smile.

“Catch, class president.”

At that moment, the box Zähringen threw sailed over Ulrike’s head. Leonard quickly flicked his fingers, using mana to alter the flow of the air, and snatched the box out of the air. With a smile at Ulrike, he ran toward the alley where the surveyor’s house was located.

Before Zähringen had even finished speaking, Ulrike clicked his tongue and stamped the ground, turning toward Leonard. But Zähringen stepped into his path.

“Not so fast.”

Ulrike tried to kick off the wall and vault over Zähringen’s back. Before he could, Zähringen grabbed him by the clothes, swung him around once, and pulled him into an embrace.

Then he simply threw himself onto the ground.

“…!”

CLANG!

Horrified that his friend might get stabbed, Ulrike dropped his sword. Zähringen took him down with him, and the two of them rolled sideways across the ground. Before Ulrike even had a chance to grab onto a protruding stone—

“Waaaaaah—!”

They went tumbling down the hill.

Zähringen was falling right alongside him, laughing freely the whole way.

SPLASH—!

A scream came from somewhere in the distance. I sighed and snorted with laughter. Looking down, I saw Ulrike rolling around in the shallow stream, furiously complaining at Zähringen.

“I trusted you! I trusted you~!”

“Thanks.”

Even with Ulrike so irritated he could barely speak, Zähringen answering with a thank-you was proof enough that Julia was still Julia. I watched as he peeled a freshwater snail off a rock, just as Narke had earlier, and stuck it onto the back of Ulrike’s hand.

Ulrike pretended to examine it with interest, then suddenly let out a shriek, sprang to his feet, and took off running.

Perhaps Ulrike wasn’t Zähringen’s real target after all. Still laughing, Zähringen swept his hair back and abruptly turned his head toward me.

I wasn’t his target either.

It had to be Narke.

From the top of the hill, I pointed Ulrike toward the direction we were supposed to go next, then followed after Narke.

“Run faster!”

“Huh?!”

I shoved Narke forward from behind, and he started running faster. He tried to hold back his laughter, but before long, he was laughing openly. Every now and then, he would return to that hopelessly subdued expression—at least, that was how it looked to me, even though he was still smiling—but I kept urging him forward, thinking about Zähringen chasing us from behind.

“Let’s go to the ranch next! Don’t stop!”

“I was thinking the same thing.”

Narke laughed at my deepened voice and answered in a soft voice.

And so, we had to finish the game not long afterward. About an hour later, when it was around four in the morning by the outside world’s time, the five of us lay sprawled across the field, gazing up at the sky with the sun hanging slightly off-center.

Perhaps Leonard didn’t want to keep lying there, because he went to the stream to wash his face, then returned and sat by our heads. It was fascinating how the color of his eyebrows and eyelashes was just as light as his hair, which had fallen loose. With his bangs hanging over his forehead, he looked much more like a teenager than he did when he swept his hair back.

In the meantime, Pie woke up, so I set him down in the clover field.

While I was looking away, Ulrike, who was still looking at Leonard upside down, blinked and muttered, “You’re really handsome.”

“…….”

Leonard was at a loss for words and gave him a polite smile. It was a gentle smile that seemed perfectly harmless on the surface, yet Zähringen let out a low laugh. I heard him mutter, “So this is it.”

Leonard immediately started looking at Zähringen with the stern gaze of a class president, as though scolding him.

Ulrike had said it without a second thought, so he just as casually changed the subject, curling up and rolling from side to side as he began to complain about how unfair it was.

“Three to three? Aaah…”

“Haha.”

At Zähringen’s brief laugh, Ulrike made another strange noise and pressed both hands over his eyes. Apparently, he was still upset about being sent rolling down the hill.

“I wanted to win.”

“I wonder what you intended to do if you won.”

“Make you listen to what I had to say.”

Zähringen propped his head up with one arm and turned onto his side to look at us. There was no mistaking the look on his face—it was clearly the face of someone wondering what Ulrike had wanted to say.

Ulrike slowly looked up at the sky and said, “…Let’s meet here whenever we can all get together. And when we get tired of this set, we can get a different one and play here again.”

“I think I could agree to that even without you needing to win.”

At Zähringen’s words, Leonard rested his chin on his hand and smiled. I agreed as well.

“Exactly. What about Narke?”

Narke’s lips moved slightly before he lowered his eyes.

“If you’re going to ask me another 101 times, I suppose I should agree before you do.”

“Yay~”

“Good for you, Luise. Right?”

Leonard muttered the words shortly. Ulrike sprang to his feet, clenching his fists with an expression that seemed to ask what he was even talking about. Narke smiled and got up as well. Ulrike clapped his hands and shouted, “Should we go look for a four-leaf clover?!”

He was suggesting that we look for something that would disappear the moment we left this place. Yet no one objected.

Zähringen and I, who had remained lying down until the very end, exchanged a glance before smiling and getting to our feet.