Vol 4. Chapter 61: Not as Important as You
“Oh my~ I was planning to leave, but once you lay down, Vinny, you latched onto my hand and refused to let go. You kept mumbling things like ‘Don’t leave me alone,’ so I was stuck in quite the dilemma. I couldn’t leave, but I couldn’t exactly stay forever either. And then after waking up, you pretended not to recognize anyone at all. Even now, your hand still won’t let go of mine, but your mouth is harder than bedrock.” Aesphyra smiled beautifully, lips curling.
“Y-you!” Vinny choked on his words. His face burned red. This time, he couldn’t even keep up the act of acting tough.
“What kind of nonsense are you saying?? When did I ever mutter anything like ‘don’t leave me alone’?? You’re trying to trick me again, aren’t you? I don’t remember any of that at all!” Vinny hurriedly let go of Aesphyra’s hand and looked away.
Even so, his gaze still drifted, on and off, toward the hand that had just been clasped tightly with hers.
For some reason, it felt like her scent still lingered there.
A cold floral fragrance, something between rose and wild rose.
The moment that thought crossed his mind, he had no idea whether it was shame, irritation, or both, but his face turned even redder.
“Oh? So you don’t remember?” Aesphyra seemed to have expected that answer already. She pulled a Recording Stone out of her skirt pocket, a meaningful smile hanging at the corner of her lips. “That makes sense. You were delirious then, so it would be perfectly normal if you didn’t remember. Would you like me to help refresh your memory?”
“Hey! You white-haired nutball, don’t tell me you actually recorded it with a Recording Stone? Was that really necessary??” Vinny couldn’t help blurting out.
“Oh, there was nothing to be done. You were just so adorable back then, Vinny~ I couldn’t help myself.” Aesphyra grinned.
“Tch! You’re obviously lying again! There’s no way I said anything like that, and you didn’t record anything either. That Recording Stone is empty. Don’t try to scare me with it!” Vinny insisted stubbornly. Aesphyra had pulled this kind of bluff more than once.
“Ahh, if that’s what you say.” Aesphyra shook her head with a sigh of regret. “Vinny, you said that yourself, so you can’t blame me.”
With that, she activated the Recording Stone and played the image stored inside.
In the image, the blue-haired young man was lying on his side on the bed beside the heater, clearly uncomfortable. From the angle of the shot, it was obvious that he had been gripping the recorder’s hand the whole time, while broken fragments of words slipped from his mouth.
“Don’t... don’t leave...”
“Stop! Stop, I said stop!” Vinny crossed his arms in front of his chest in a panicked X and shouted for her to cut it off, face blazing.
“Hm? But you were the one who didn’t believe me and insisted I play it.” Smiling with narrowed eyes, Aesphyra put the Recording Stone away.
“Okay, okay! I get it already!” Vinny snapped in embarrassment. “Did you really have to play it out loud? I was just—I was just saying things!”
Ahhh, so he really had said something that embarrassing while he was unconscious??
Great. Now Aesphyra has another humiliating memory to hold over him.
...Wait.
Why did he think another?
“Mhm. I merely wanted to prove that I never lie to you.”
“Tch! A stinking sea-queen like you only knows how to say pretty things. You say you don’t lie—who would believe that?” Vinny shot her a glance.
“By the way... where is this, exactly??” Vinny finally realized this didn’t seem to be an inn room at all. The surroundings felt strangely familiar.
“Didn’t I just tell you? We’re on the way back to the Academy.”
“The unicorn carriage??” Vinny stared. “Why am I on the unicorn carriage? What exactly happened after I passed out??”
“After you fainted, the Academy’s search-and-rescue team called for reinforcements and had the Academy send an investigation team to examine that underground research institute. As for what exactly happened down there, though, they’ll probably need you to explain it in detail.” Aesphyra straightened her posture a little as she spoke.
“The Academy? The Academy knows about this??”
“Yes. The Academy people came with me,” Aesphyra said.
“Was it because you received my distress signal and informed the Academy?” Vinny was silent for a moment before asking.
Before Aesphyra could answer, the door was pushed open. An old man entered the room. He wore a monocle, immaculate formal butler attire, and had a full head of white hair, but his posture was still ramrod straight.
“Young lady.”
The sharp-eyed old man glanced over the blue-haired youth who had already woken up, then bent respectfully and gave Aesphyra a proper bow.
Young lady?
If he was addressing Aesphyra that way, then was he one of the Galathus Family’s people?
Vinny looked at the old man dressed as a butler, then at Aesphyra, silently asking what exactly was going on here.
This was the Carillian Academy unicorn carriage. Under normal circumstances, outsiders shouldn’t have been allowed aboard at all.
“I have already instructed the staff below to prepare a meal for you and this gentleman,” the butler reported to Aesphyra with perfect courtesy, hands folded behind his back, completely ignoring Vinny’s questioning look.
“Mm. Thank you for making the trip all the way here, Mr. Brill,” Aesphyra said with a nod.
“To serve you is simply my duty.” The butler placed one hand across his chest and replied calmly.
Once the old butler called Brill had the two maids bring in the food, he withdrew from the room.
The room was once again left with only Vinny and Aesphyra.
“They’re your family’s people?” Vinny asked.
“Yes. The elderly gentleman called Brill is my father’s personal butler. He’s served our family for decades. He’s absolutely reliable,” Aesphyra answered.
“Uh... you were the one who called him here?” Vinny asked a question so obvious it barely qualified as one.
“Yes. I had my family provide me with a little assistance.” What Aesphyra meant by “a little assistance” was self-explanatory.
“There’s a spatial transfer point inside the Academy, but it can’t be used except in emergencies. After all, it can only send one person at a time, and once it’s used, it takes several days to recharge. If that slot gets occupied at the wrong time, there’s no telling what might happen.” Aesphyra explained calmly.
“I asked the Academy for your assessment location, then contacted a group of trustworthy subordinates from the Galathus Family forces stationed near where you were. Mr. Brill happened to be there as well. Before I reached Gaflei Fort, I informed him and had him bring people over to arrive shortly after me, just in case.”
Vinny said nothing.
So when Aesphyra came to save him, she had mobilized her family’s power too?
And there was no way things had been as simple as she made them sound. Setting everything else aside, persuading the upper ranks of Carillian Academy to let her use the emergency transfer point absolutely could not have been easy. Even if she was first in the year, the Academy’s upper ranks were hardly going to hear one sentence from her and immediately conclude that it was a genuine distress signal from him.
“This was all to prepare for the worst. There’s no way decisions like that could have been made on the spot,” Aesphyra said.
“Then what happened after that? How did you know I was in the underground research institute beneath Gaflei Fort?” Vinny asked curiously.
“You couldn’t exactly vanish into thin air, could you?” Aesphyra gave a soft laugh. “You left behind so many traces in that castle that it would’ve been harder not to figure out where you were.”
“...When you got there, were you alone?”
“I was. The Academy’s large-scale spatial teleportation array can only send one person at a time, so I came first.”
“But even if you found the basement, you still wouldn’t have been able to enter the underground research institute, right?”
“Of course I had a way.” Aesphyra curled her lips into a smile.
“A way?” Vinny hesitated. “A spatial scroll?”
“You’re only half right. Even with a spatial scroll in hand, without the exact coordinates, it would be useless. And depending on the situation, it could be fatal.”
“...”
Vinny fell silent.
Right. Recklessly using a spatial scroll to transport yourself underground was obviously dangerous.
If there had been no underground chamber where she guessed there was one, or if the space down there had been smaller than expected, even a tiny mistake could have cost her life.
“Aesphyra... thank you.” Vinny pressed his lips together. “Before I knew it, I guess I ended up owing you again.”
“Mhm. It’s good that you remember that~” Aesphyra said with smiling eyes. “Make sure you pay me back when the time comes.”
“Of course I know that! Did you really need to remind me? I’m not the type to owe someone and pretend I don’t know it!” Vinny replied irritably.
“So, to summarize—I found your exact location, teleported down there with precision, brought you out, got you settled, and gave the Academy’s investigation team a foothold for what came after. I ended up doing the Academy a great favor.” Aesphyra let out a light laugh.
“And because of that, the Academy made an exception and allowed my family’s servants to board the carriage as well.”
“So right now, Carillian Academy is investigating that underground research institute?” Vinny asked.
“That’s right,” Aesphyra answered.
“Aesphyra, that mysterious research institute beneath Gaflei Fort seems to have been built by the Tyrelis Ancient Empire.” Vinny looked at her as he spoke.
“Yes, I thought so too. The Academy had already suspected as much,” Aesphyra replied. “As for what it was actually used for, the Academy is still investigating.”
“Aesphyra, do you know what that underground research institute was used for?” Vinny asked.
Aesphyra looked at him. “It sounds like you learned quite a few things on this trip.”
So she had known the secret of that underground research institute all along?
“I always knew that such a research institute had once existed. I just never knew where it was. Before this, I’d even suspected it had already been destroyed.” Aesphyra explained.
“Is it important to you?” Vinny was silent for a moment before asking a question loaded with meaning.
After all, Vinny knew that Aesphyra was a descendant of the royal line of the Tyrelis Ancient Empire.
She, however, did not know that he knew.
The hidden meaning in his words was obvious: if it really mattered to her, then would it not have been better, for her sake, if that place had never been discovered at all?
If that were the case, then maybe she should never have let the Academy know about it. Maybe that underground research institute should have been left buried in silence forever.
“I was just thinking that you know all sorts of weird and obscure things, so maybe you’d be interested in this kind of stuff,” Vinny added.
“It’s nothing but a dead relic buried in the dirt.” Aesphyra did not seem surprised by the question at all. Then, half jokingly, she added, “Nowhere near as important as you are, Vinny.”
“Wha— y-you, what kind of nonsense are you saying now? Are you teasing me again?!” Vinny had only just managed to get his body temperature back under control, and now it shot up all over again.
Too direct. Way too direct!
What the hell is this woman even saying??
Ah, ahhh, calm down, Vinny. Calm down! She’s definitely messing with you again. She has to be!
“Y-you can just talk normally, you know! Why do you have to say weird things like that??” Vinny tried to cover his embarrassment.
“It’s just that if there are things you already know, Vinny, then I may as well say them properly.” Aesphyra crossed her long legs wrapped in black silk, and the stockings whispered against each other with a soft, silky rustle.
“On this trip, you must have found out what that place was originally used for, didn’t you?” Aesphyra asked.
“Yes.” Vinny decided to tell her. He let out a sigh. “Honestly, I was pretty shocked too.”
“And then? What happened after that? Judging by the state of that place, you seemed to have been fighting something extremely dangerous. And a very intense fight at that.” Aesphyra asked.
“I was fighting a Demon Pillar minion.” Vinny answered. “That thing was insanely strong. Other than an actual Demon Pillar, it was the most troublesome thing I’ve ever encountered. I was just about dead.”
“No... if nobody had stepped in to save me, I really would have died.” As he spoke, Vinny’s eyes dimmed.
Aesphyra said nothing.
When she found Vinny, she had noticed that there was more than one bag at his side. That alone told her he hadn’t entered the underground research institute alone.
And yet, the only person she found down there was Vinny.
“Milian. The two of us ran into that monster from the Demon God Abyss, and in order to save me...” Vinny didn’t continue.
He didn’t need to.
Everyone knew what came next.
“Without her, I’d already be dead.”
“That monster wasn’t afraid of water or fire. It had black bony spikes growing out of its arms, and no Soulcaster’s armor—no ordinary person’s armor either—could stop those things from punching straight through. After it attacked us, we ended up in some bizarre anomaly space. There... there...” Vinny began to recall the landscape of the Demon God Abyss he had seen before. But he had only managed to grasp a few scattered fragments before a bolt of pain stabbed through his skull like a thousand needles, cold sweat bursting out over his body.
“Enough. Don’t think about it anymore.” Seeing that, Aesphyra helped Vinny lie back down on the bed. “Before this, you must have looked directly into the Demon God Abyss.”
“That creature you described was most likely something that came out of the Demon God Abyss—a kin-beast personally created by a Demon Pillar.”