Volume 2: Chapter 039: Ulysses: The Promised Place
Author: かっぱ同盟/友麻碧
Link: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n3862be/
Translated by Zzonkedd
Edited by Gumihou
Gumihou: Some of the dialogues were rather weird and stilted. Adjusted. There were too many small changes, so I did not bother to include detailed notes. Otherwise, I’d have to tag nearly every line…
“That’s right, Tooru-kun, there’s something I would like to ask you.”
“What is it?”
“Do you know about the Residual Magic Spaces here?”
Ulysses here.
There was one other thing I had to do. My promise to Shuma.
I have yet to reach that ‘promised place’.
Just what had Shuma seen in that place? What made him call it a ‘promised place’?
Since Tooru-kun’s expertise is in spatial magic, I believe he would be the best person to help me.
A familiar cube formed above the back of his hand. Magic spread out from it like the ripples of a wave.
“Well?”
“Actually… it’s quite incredible. There are a lot of Residual Magic Spaces in this area, ranging from small to large. Just what happened here…” Tooru stared in wonder at the countless dots that had appeared on the cube.
As expected.
“Come to think of it. Professor Medite, you seem to know an awful lot about this place, yes?”
“Hmm… well…”
After letting out a long slow exhale of smoke, Lord Medite’s answer came.
“As you know, this was where the Sacred Forest was. During the Age of Myth, back when all the continents were connected, it was believed that this whole area used to be a forest… This was also where stories of a youth from another world first appeared. According to the rumours that have been around for years, this was where the gods of Maydea first came together in Vabilophos. That is why the remnants of their magic remained here for so long. It’s possible that the gods first started playing about with their powers here and forgot to, ah… turn their magic off, so to speak. [1] Perhaps only children could enter these spaces because the gods were experimenting with their powers as children back then!”
“That makes sense.”
My answer to Lord Medite’s overreaction was rather mild, I think I have gotten used to his dramatics [1].
Lord Medite took another long drag of his pipe and added, “The power of Chrondor, the God of Time & Space is also strong here, which meant that, unlike ordinary residual spaces, even time appeared to exist on a very ambiguous dimension. In short, it is all very, very dangerous.”
“… …”
Magical spaces are not something that disappears over time.
It is more difficult to erase a space than to create it.
In a situation where magic could collapse the relationship between reality and time… when the created space was separated from its creator, it could still retain the warped time and rules constructed by the mage. In short, people who become lost in these spaces may never get out.
[1] As Prince Ulysses, I had once searched out the ‘Promised Place’ that Shuma had shown me back then.While the geography of this place had changed since 2000 years ago, the general outline of the coast had not altered much. Therefore, it did not take me long to lead Tooru to the location.
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“I believe it’s here…”
Hidden behind a small rocky cove was the space that Shuma had once led me to. Although I could not sense it, Shuma had insisted that this was where it was.
[2] “Can you see it?” I asked. [2] “Vaguely,” said Tooru. “Yes, it’s there. What do you want me to do?” [2] “Is it possible to make it so that I can enter?” [1] “Well, since it’s a space made by someone else, I can’t adjust the rules of reality inside, but if you want to go in. I can widen the entrance.” [2] “Widen… so you’re saying I can’t see or sense the space because the entrance is too small?” [2] “Yeah, that’s the gist of it…” [1] “Very well, please widen the entrance, Tooru-kun.”“Hey, why don’t you attach Reela Cotton’s thread so that you don’t get lost in there?” said Makia.
It was a sound suggestion. Therefore, I summoned Reela Cotton in their spinning wheel form and attached one of the threads to my finger.
“Ulysses!! I’m going too!!”
Percelis seized my sleeve insistently.
Her eyes were filled with determination.
I frowned but remembered that Shuma had once said that this ‘Promised Place’ meant for ‘our family’, which meant that Percelis had a right to go if she wanted to. Although I had some misgivings, I tied a piece of Reela Cotton’s thread to her finger.
“Don’t leave my side,” I said.
“Un,”
Tooru-kun’s cube split itself into four pieces, before attaching themselves to four corners of [1] what I presume must be the entrance. The four cubes stayed in place for a moment before slowly expanding outward.
“You’re good to go.”
At this, I took Percelis’s hand and we stepped through the entrance.
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“… …”
The world was pale green and marble-white with tall trees arranged in an orderly, yet strangely unnatural way. It felt like we had stepped into an abstract painting created from marble.
Percelis and I stood in place for a while, lost in the quiet and mysterious space.
This was definitely not reality. It was like a scene out of a fairytale, a cold and lonely world forgotten by others.
“I can’t see the sky…”
“I think there isn’t a sky at all. I wonder what went on in the mind of the person who created the world filled with pale trees…”
Only the gods of the past would know.
This was our beginning.
Far away, a high-pitched, rolling sound thundered from above.
We had been walking for a while, thinking that we were completely alone in a world devoid of living beings when a faint sobbing sound reached our ears. Percelis immediately pressed closer to me and I stepped in front of her, looking in the direction of the sound.
“…?”
There was a figure in the distance.
It was pure white.
A child.
“Is that… a lost child…?”
As the figure grew clearer, neither Percelis nor I could believe our eyes
The child that appeared before us was about 10 years old with white hair and green eyes dressed in pure white clothes.
He was crying as he stumbled forward towards us.
“Shuma.”
My chest felt hot and cold at the same time.
The contrasting feelings roiled around my heart, condensing into a single droplet.
It felt as though many things, both known and unknown to me at this time converged and my eyes suddenly felt hot. I cannot speak the words stuffed inside my chest. Percelis grabbed onto my clothes and muttered ‘why…’
“Hic… hic… father… mother”
Shuma had gotten lost in an abandoned magic space once.
He must be crying because he did not know the way home.
I carefully approached him and asked, “What’s wrong?”
Shuma appeared to finally notice us and his little body flinched once, and his face distorted when he saw us.
“Uwaaaa—!”
“There, there,” I said reflexively. “There, there… are you lost?”
I reached down to stroke his hair and knelt to meet his gaze. Like I had always done with children.
This calmed Shuma down and he stared at me closely.
“There, there, you must have lost your way. Do you know the way home?”
“I was exploring and… and got lost…”
His chest was heaving up and down with emotions.
It must have been very scary for a child to be stuck in a place like this all alone. Still, it was not a place that Shuma could resist exploring…
That’s what I believe at least.
I cupped his little cheeks, wiped his tears with my thumbs, and gazed down at his dear face for a long moment. Shuma looked a little shocked.
“Shuma–!!”
Percelis could not hold back anymore as she rushed forward to hug him tightly.
Then, she started crying. As loudly as Shuma did just now. She put her arms around him and hugged him so tightly that Shuma’s eyes popped wide open.
“Elder sister? Were you lost… too?”
Shuma asked Percelis, who was rubbing her cheek against his. When she finally let go, she continued to hold onto his sleeves, trembling in place.
Of course, to be able to see and speak to her once-dead child from a previous life…
…was a great miracle.
“Um… this, uh, e-elder sister got lost once, but found her way back after trying very hard…” said Percelis as she wiped away at her own tears with a smile.
I nodded slowly and said, “How about we find the exit together? I’m sure your father and mother are… waiting for you…”
“Okay…”
Shuma’s green eyes looked a little moist. As I looked at him, another tear escaped his eye.
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“Where did you come from, elder brother? Elder sister?”
“Oh… haha, from somewhere far away…” I said vaguely.
Somewhere far into the distant future.
Our meeting was made possible thanks to this residual magic space.
Shuma slipped his right hand into mine and held Percelis’s hand with his left. There was something immensely endearing and nostalgic about having him trot between us like this.
Even though our relationship was a distant past, it was clearly there.
“Elder brother, elder sister, where did you come from?” Shuma was staring up at us oddly. “You look very much like father and mother.”
“Haha… is that so?”
“Fufu, but I’m sure we’re a lot younger, right?”
That’s right, I’m sure we looked like younger versions of his parents, Yunosis and Eltear. Still, I’m happy that he recognised us in any capacity at all.
He certainly is a sensitive child.
“Do you… like your father and mother,” Percelis suddenly asked.
“Yes. I love them a lot. I want to be with them forever.”
“… …”
At Shuma’s answer, Percelis and I narrowed our eyes as we grew silent.
If we return with Shuma to that time and deal with the events that happened then…
The thought flashed through our minds only for a moment.
“I see…”
[1] We said nothing, but our thoughts were the same.The only thing we could do was return Shuma safely to Yunosis and Eltear.
There was nothing else we could do.
Eventually, we came to a glowing square. [2] The square was the same size as the one Tooru had revealed to us before he forced it to expand.
As expected, the entrance was only accessible to small children.
[1] Neither Percelis nor I could get out that way.“Look Shuma… that’s how you got in, right? You can go back to your parents now,” [1] I said with a determined smile.
“Are you not coming?” [1] Shuma asked hesitantly as his grip tightened around my hand.
“We can’t… leave ‘this Place’.”
The threads on our fingers led us in a completely different direction. The exits for different eras exist in different places.
“Shuma…” Percelis held on to Shuma’s clothes, unable to bear letting go.
Shuma looked up at her and, then, hugged her tightly at the waist. “Sister… you smell just like mother…”
“… …”
“Why are you crying? Are you hurt somewhere?”
It was probably impossible for Shuma to know the real meaning behind her tears. Still, he was anxious for her and tried his best to comfort her.
Percelis shook her head, unable to bear the thought of leaving Shuma.
“Percelis… we can’t. We have to return Shuma to them.”
“But… but… I don’t want it… I don’t want to see that child in the ‘coffin’…”
“Percelis!” I stopped her immediately.
Percelis turned her large trembling eyes at me, and all I could do was shake my head.
We can’t do anything about it.
Finally, Percelis let go of Shuma.
I crouched down to Shuma’s eye level and stroked his head. Then, I told him something difficult for him to understand.
“Shuma, you are a very intelligent child. Your Father and Mother are very proud of you, I’m sure. So…”
Will I regret my next words?”
“You should do what you think is right. Protect what you want to protect…”
Shuma nodded.
I could tell that he must have understood some of what I said. His eyes were clear as he smiled at me.
“Promise?”
“? Ah, that’s right. Let’s make a promise.”
“Then, this place will be our ‘promised Place’.”
“…that’s right…”
“Will you reward me for keeping my promise?”
“Hm, I’ll think about it…”
“Will we meet again?”
“… I will always be by your side.” It was the only thing I could promise.
“Then, can I ask… one more thing?”
“What is it?”
Shuma took in a deep breath and asked.
“Are you my father and my mother?”
“… …”
Light shone through the gaps of the unnatural white trees. Though there was no real ‘sky’ in this place, light somehow shone down, illuminating this strange world in its gentle light.
This world, though unnatural, was very beautiful. There was a certain organic freshness to this world despite its alien looks.
“Will you believe my answer?”
“I believe you because that is the only answer.”
“Shuma…”
I let go of his hand.
Shuma, perhaps believing that he would be meeting us again soon, waved at us before heading off to the exit.
Percelis gripped my hand as desperately as she had held on to Shuma’s clothes earlier. I squeezed her hand back.
“Do make sure to prepare the reward,” he called back.
“Alright.”
“You promised.”
“Yes, I promised.”
Shuma then waved his little hand at us one final time… and disappeared into the light.
The rectangle bit of light he disappeared into somehow overlapped and I saw the boy sleeping in his coffin. My mouth trembled.
Ah, in the end… there was no way for us to change that child’s destiny.
“Goodbye… Shuma…”
Goodbye.
And…
Thank you.
You kept your promise and did your best to protect the Sanctuary and your mother.
In that chaotic time, you even resorted to sacrificing your little body.
Yunosis never knew.
The man who searched for the ‘Promised Place’ with Shuma did not know. Had he known, he would have abandoned everything, his mission, his sin, his guilt and stayed within the Sanctuary.
He would never have gone after the Hero.
“… …”
I cried with Percelis for a while, just the two of us.
We had no words of comfort to offer the other as we surrendered ourselves to the wretched misery of watching our child run helplessly towards his doom. We could only cry like children and find solace in the warmth of each other’s hands.
This is the Promised Place.
I have finally made it, Shuma.
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“Ah, they’re back!”
Maki-chan’s voice was the first thing we heard the moment Percelis and I stepped through the exit.
I felt relief at hearing that voice. Reela Cotton’s thread had led us safely out of that magic space.
“What’s wrong… were you crying?” Maki-chan sounded shocked.
“Ha-ha…”
It’s not like we could hide it, especially since we cried so hard for such a long time.
“Shuma…was there.”
“Eh?”
“I finally understood why that child said that he met his father and mother in that space. The ‘Promised Place’ was real.”
I pulled Percelis by her hand as we stepped away from the exit. Tooru retrieved the magic that was used to widen the opening. The square of light shrank to its original size.
“I’m done analysing the place. I can destroy it if you want. What do you want to do about it?”
“Yes… let’s just destroy it,” I said.
Percelis looked a little saddened, but she clasped her hands to her chest and nodded.
[3] The destruction of a magic space as it broke apart and collapsed into itself was hauntingly beautiful. ‘Something’ shattered in the sky, like a glass shaking itself to pieces through high-pitched frequency. The ‘glass shards’ did not fall. They slowly dispersed as mist that eventually turned into pinpricks of light that floated into the sky. [3] Eventually, all the light disappeared and it was dark again.As I watched, I wondered what sort of reward I should give to Shuma.
“Percelis, I believe… it is time for Shuma to return to the earth.”
“…what do you mean?”
“Let us free that child from the coffin.”
“… …”
There was a complicated look on Percelis’s face. However, after a struggle, she let out a long, long sigh and nodded.
I will never see that child again, but… his role is finally over.
It is only right for his body to return to where it belonged. The earth.
He should not be tied down to the system of this world. Percelis looked exhausted but relieved at the same time.
“Can I sleep next to the child… just for today?”
“That’s fine, well, you’ve been sleeping next to Shuma… even though you did not remember it.”
In that mossy green Sanctuary, I often found her sleeping with her face buried in the soft grass by his side.
At times, I felt pain in my heart.
Even so, a tender feeling welled up inside of me. A feeling of pure love.
“Will you sleep by me, Ulysses?”
“……Yes.”
The sky was white. The sun had not yet risen, but the sky had already taken tints of colour that heralded the sunrise.
We finally came to the end of a long, long day… much too long, really…
“Good night, Shuma…”
Percelis and I returned to the Sanctuary and laid down next to Shuma’s coffin.
We closed our eyes and surrendered ourselves to drowsiness, falling swiftly into a pure white sleep that left no room for dreams.
It was a deep, deep sleep of liberation for our little family.
2000 years ago, back when the Sanctuary was still above ground, a child’s lovely smile crossed beneath our eyelids.
And, although he had gone far away, I did not chase after him.
I just saw him off.
[Gumihou: I worked really, really hard on this, okay?]
[1] Maintain in-character reactions [2] Adjusted details, it repeated something pointless and left out a crucial detail. Adjusted [3] Yeah, I’m gonna take some liberties in the description
The beauty of the light that splits the space. Both loud and delicate. It becomes thinner, sparkles like glass grains… Then, it becomes a transparent mist that rises high into the sky. Eventually, all the pillars of light will disappear.
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