Intermission: Lorraine’s Choice
“You picked up an unusual magical item?”
I, Lorraine Vivie, found my curiosity piqued by the words that Rentt had just uttered after returning home.
Naturally, being an adventurer who made a living from delving dungeons, Rentt came across magical items on a daily basis. However, the only dungeons he could challenge around these parts were the Water Moon Dungeon and the New Moon Dungeon, and the varieties of magical items that could be found in those were long since fully documented.
Rentt was more or less capable of identifying such trinkets, and even if he wasn’t, he could always bring it to the guild, where they could identify most things that he couldn’t.
However, he sometimes ran into some exceptions—and today appeared to be one such occasion.
“Yeah. Here, take a look. Well, I said it was unusual, but it just looks like a regular ‘Mirror of Youth.’”
Rentt turned the mirror to me, whereupon I saw myself of ten years ago looking back at me. That really took me back—I’d only just come to Maalt around that time.
“It looks like one to me,” I said. “Is there something strange about it?”
Rentt shuffled over, and his reflection joined mine in the mirror. It wasn’t his monster self, of course, but the Rentt of ten years ago, back when he’d still been human. When I turned aside to look at the real thing however, I still saw a man in a skull mask.
Mirrors of Youth did not actually return a person’s youth. This was all they did: show you a reflection of your younger days. It was interesting as curiosity, but since there were married noblewomen out there who could become obsessed with the mirrors—or distressed by them—they were considered items to be handled carefully.
“Keep looking. It should happen soon enough,” Rentt said. “Oh, there it goes!”
I turned my gaze back to the mirror. “Wow. What? But I’m not moving...”
My younger self was waving her hand, and so was the younger Rentt. However, neither the real Rentt nor I were moving.
“I’m not wrong about this, am I?” Rentt asked. “The guild’s appraiser said it was a regular Mirror of Youth, but it can’t be...right?”
“Of course it isn’t. Those only show you your past self; the reflections in them definitely don’t move on their own. Where did you get this...?”
“Just on one of my regular trips to the Water Moon Dungeon. I fought a pack of goblins, and one of them dropped it. I know Mirrors of Youth don’t fetch much, but I brought it back anyway thinking I could trade it in for a silver...and that happened when I was looking at it on the way home. Talk about a surprise.”
“The Water Moon Dungeon, huh? If that’s where you found it, I suppose it’s not all that weird...”
The mysterious person Rentt had once encountered was based there, after all. It was also in the Water Moon Dungeon that Rentt had obtained his powerful robe and the Map of Akasha which wrote itself. Consequently, it would make sense to find other unusual items lying about in there.
“That’s what I figured,” Rentt agreed. “Anyway, I brought it here hoping you could look into it, as well as tell me how much I could sell it for.”
“I don’t mind having a look, but as for the price...I’ve never even heard of an item like this. I suspect you could sell it for a fortune, but if you want an exact figure, I couldn’t—wha?!”
Something absolutely shocking occurred right in the midst of our conversation: the Rentt in the mirror had gotten closer...and reached his hands out of the mirror to grab us.
“What in the—?!”
“Hey, isn’t this kind of a bad sign...?”
The very moment that Rentt and I uttered those inane lines, we were pulled completely into the mirror.
◆◇◆◇◆
“Ow...”
I shook my head and looked around. I must have bumped it on something, because it hurt slightly—but it didn’t seem that serious, so I let it be while I took in my surroundings. Or at least, that had been my intention...
“There’s nobody here...not even Rentt. In fact, there’s nothing around at all...”
I was surrounded by a completely empty void. Yet for some reason, I could still put my feet on the “ground,” as well as see myself with no issues.
I didn’t know what was going on, but I began to chant a light spell, hoping to make use of a little illumination before I tried anything else. However, the magic fizzled out.
“What...?” I mumbled to myself, confused.
Then, I heard voices echoing from out of the darkness.
“I told you, that’s wrong!”
“How should I make it, then?! This is perfect!”
It sounded like an argument. When I turned my gaze in the direction of the voices, I noticed I could see into a room that hadn’t been there before. The room was spacious, as though it belonged in a mansion, and it contained an enormous number of books—as well as two individuals who were facing each other. One appeared to be an elderly mage, while the other...
“That’s...me. When I was younger...”
It looked like my seven- or eight-year-old self. But though I could see the resemblance, her expression was rather cheeky, as though she was fully convinced that she was a hundred percent in the right at all times.
I suppose I was like that back then, wasn’t I?
I remembered the elderly gentleman—it was my old mentor, under whose tutelage I had learned all things magical and academic. In other words, someone deserving of my respect...not that I had shown an ounce of it at the time. I wondered what he was up to these days. I assumed he was still alive somewhere, at any rate. He wasn’t the type to just keel over and die.
As for what he and my younger self were arguing about...
“If I remember right...we were arguing over how I’d made my wand. And next, I...”
“Stupid, stubborn old man!”
My younger self hurled the wand at the old man. The next moment, he focused a dense swirl of mana into his hand and launched it back toward her as a spell. It was unbelievably quick work—almost superhuman—and I doubted that I would be capable of it even today.
I wanted to tell him not to cast such a spell at a child, but there was no point. It grazed my younger self’s ear, and she passed out as the spell pierced the wall behind her.
“Which one of us is really the stubborn one here? Good grief, child...”
After gently checking that she was not seriously harmed, my old mentor repaired the hole in the wall and used a spell to carelessly hurl my younger self onto a bed.
“I think it’s both of us, honestly...” I muttered, unable to hold myself back.
The next moment, the view changed. This time, it was...
“The administration office in the First University...”
Now, it was the place where I used to work.
I saw myself sitting in my old chair, looking bored. Scholars came and went constantly, giving me reports that I had somehow dredged up the motivation to listen to. However, their faces were utterly featureless. No matter how hard I tried to recall what they looked like, I couldn’t remember.
I supposed that meant that these scenes were based on my memories—the things I didn’t remember were vague and unclear.
I approached my younger self to get a better look at her desk and saw a number of reports, the details of each of which were clear and precise. In conclusion, I definitely remembered those.
Back then, I hadn’t looked at people. I’d only had eyes for knowledge.
Now that I was aware of that fact, it felt like I was being confronted with exactly how blind I’d been to my surroundings back then.
Things were different these days, though—and that was because I knew that being confronted with my past didn’t have much of an effect on me.
The scene continued to play out. A young female scholar entered through the door and began relaying some manner of report to me. Unlike the others, her features were distinct. I did know who she was: my past subordinate.
“Lorraine, aren’t you exhausted?”
“Not really...more importantly, have you finished compiling the report I asked you to? Also—”
“Don’t worry, I’ll have it all done soon. You prioritize taking it easy for once. Why not go on a trip somewhere from time to time, just as a break from work?”
“I...don’t need anything like that.”
“Honestly...well, if you ever do want a break, just let me know. I’ll figure out a way to help you budget the time.”
“Sorry to make you worry, but really, I’m fi—”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever you say. Don’t forget to let me know, okay? Whenever you feel like it.”
The woman left.
“A break, huh...?” my past self muttered when the door closed behind her subordinate.
A single sheet of paper fluttered off the desk. On it was a variety of information about frontier towns and the rare materials in those areas that couldn’t be found elsewhere.
That’s right...back then, I got curious about those materials and...
“I’d like to go one day, but my hands are full right now. One day, though...”
Hmm? I didn’t remember ever saying that. In fact, I recalled saying...
“I suppose I will take a holiday.”
I whirled around, surprised by the voice from behind, and came face-to-face with my child self looking up at me. When did she...?
“Right...that is what I said,” I agreed, trying to keep my composure. “I still remember. Then I went to Maalt...and met Rentt.”
“But aren’t you curious about what would have happened...if you hadn’t done that?” my younger self asked.
“Hmm? A little bit, I suppose, but...”
My child self snapped her fingers, and a flood of information rushed into my head: a rapid procession of the actions I likely would have taken if I’d never gone to Maalt.
I saw myself conducting research into multiple fields at once, achieving meritorious results in all of them, and getting promoted. In the end, I sat in the chair of the university’s director, respected by all the scholars around me.
That had been what I’d wanted once. If my past self had seen this, she would have declared it her goal without any hesitation. But now...
“In here, you can have it,” my child self said. Her voice had taken on an ethereal quality, and it seeped into my thoughts. “You can live out that same dream as many times as you want.”
“All that glory...” I murmured. “As many times as I...”
Having my theses recognized, lauded, and praised—then being promoted because of them? That would certainly feel good. There was no denying that it would be fun, in a sense.
Back then, as I worked toward that dream, I felt something in my heart that was close to satisfaction—no, completion. So repeating a life like that, over and over, might not be such a bad thing...
“Still, that doesn’t hold a single bit of charm for me now.”
My child self stared at me, shocked. “What? Why? The hypnotism should already have started to take effect...”
“I knew it. I’ve been feeling something strange ever since I got here, like a lightness in my head... You’re a monster, aren’t you? Not a magical item. You’re so rare that I didn’t realize at first, but you’re a Specular Fiend. You lurk in mirrors and make the reflected world your own... The illustrated examples of you in books are much more sinister, so I suppose that’s another reason I didn’t figure it out. I certainly didn’t expect you to use a Mirror of Youth as a disguise.”
Now that it had been exposed, the form of my child self melted away to become a hideously emaciated goblin-like figure. It bared its teeth, reached out with its claws, and leaped at me.
“Thank you for the nice dream,” I said. “It was fun.”
I stepped past the Specular Fiend in one smooth motion, drawing the sword from my hip and slamming the hilt into its head as hard as I could. Cracks began to spread all over its body, growing larger and larger, before...
Crack!
With a loud shattering noise, the void world broke apart.
Before I realized it, I was in the living room of my own home, with the broken remnants of the Mirror—no, of the Specular Fiend—at my feet. Rentt was next to me.
“Me?! A Mithril-class adventurer?! But—huh? Wait, where am I...?”
Evidently he had fallen for the Fiend’s trick. However, since I had killed its main body, he had returned along with me.
“That was an illusion...” I told him. “Don’t tell me you didn’t figure it out?”
“No...I did,” he replied. “It was just that I was having so much fun I figured I could enjoy it a little bit longer. I guess I’m back now, huh...?”
He sounded disappointed. So he had purposefully allowed himself to be tricked, despite knowing what was happening? Talk about dangerous.
Not that I was really in a position to talk. I’d essentially been doing the same thing for about half the time.
“So, what did you see, Lorraine?” Rentt asked. “In my illusion, I became Mithril-class.”
“Me? I had a dream where I became the director of my university.”
“Just a dream? If you tried, I bet you could actually make that happen.”
“It wouldn’t be impossible, sure, but I’ve no particular inclination to do it. I quite like my life the way it is now.”
“Some would say you’re weird for thinking that.”
“I don’t want to hear that from you.”
From then on, it was business as usual. Over dinner, we had a fun time talking about our experiences inside the mirror. In addition, analyzing the illusion that had been placed on me gave me a starting point for the creation of a new spell, so all in all, it had been a very satisfying experience.
If I could have one wish, it would be for days like this to last forever.
The choice I’d made that day had led me to the life I led now—and for that, I would always be grateful.
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