This is a house in the Dolknes territory. A whole day had passed since Yumiela, the owner, disappeared.
With autumn drawing to a close, winter is near. Patrick stared at the moon in the night sky, not caring about the coldness.
“I thought she’d be back by the end of the day….”
Once she had flown off with Ryuu, spouting nonsense about going to the moon, Patrick followed her, using his magic to create a breeze.
He still fears heights; even with his magic, he doesn’t want to fly too high in the sky.
But Yumiela was concerned that she might go to the moon and not return. This was primarily due to his fear about the damage to the surrounding area when Yumiela crashed, plus she might say something troublesome.
“Why didn’t you come after me? Do you want me gone? She might say something like this.”
After a mixture of complications, he chased after her, but his hand didn’t reach Yumiela. Although it was good that he could stop Ryuu, Yumiela continued to ascend further alone.
The air is so thin it becomes difficult to breathe just below the altitude limit of the dragon, the supreme champion of the sky. Even with Patrick’s magic of manipulating the wind and thus the air, it will be less effective.
To reach even greater heights, it would require pure momentum. Patrick figured a high-level fire mage could fly, but the flame would be weakened if the oxygen were thin. He had no aptitude for the fire attribute and could only produce a lighter-sized flame, so it was inevitable that he could be mistaken.
“Should I continue on without thinking about the consequences?”
While Patrick was blocked from using wind magic, he could follow Yumiela’s back.
Like hers, it is a method of flying through reaction by injecting only pure magic power. This method seems similar to the technique used by a high-ranking fire mage, but the reality is entirely different.
The fuel consumption is terrible, awful.
Humans move through muscle contractions, and the necessary energy is transported by blood. If we compare the usual attribute magic to running, the method used by Yumiela is equivalent to moving by spraying blood.
It was an insane method that no average person would even think about and would cause them to run out of magic before their body could even move.
Being from a noble family, Patrick has an immense original magic power. Plus, the bonus from leveling up further increases his magic power. But he estimates he will run out of power in less than a minute.
Patrick turns his head back and ponders about Yumiela’s whereabouts.
“The higner we go up into the sky, the harder it will be to breathe. Higher than that, we might not be able to breath like we were underwater. The distance to the moon would be closer than the starts, but….”
He couldn’t imagine how far away the ground was from the moon.
If the stars and the moon were the same size, the moon would be much closer. But a tiny star could be close by, a large moon or a huge star could be far away. What about the sun? Wouldn’t it burn if it got close to that amount of heat?
Patrick had never thought about them before. He abandoned the thought, “Let’s leave it to the scholars, what’s the point of knowing?”
In retrospect, Patrick realized that Yumiela seemed well-versed in natural sciences.
On one occasion, she told him why the sky is blue and how the world is made up of microscopic particles of matter.
While I had dismissed it as a joke, there might be a brown cow that serves coffee milk or bamboo tableware, such as disposable chopsticks.
Since Yumiela said this with complete conviction, the story that humans from another world have landed on the moon may be true.
Once again, Patrick looked up at the moon in the sky.
“Yumiela, are you there?”
He asked, knowing that she wouldn’t reply.
But there was an answer. A voice comes from the shadowy ground at his feet.
“No, it’s impossible. No matter how much she wants, she can’t go to the moon.”
“…Remn?”
“I don’t think we’ve ever had a one-on-one talk before.”
It was dark enough that you could call the shadows everywhere, but Remn, the God of Darkness, carefully emerged from Patrick’s thin shadow.
His face twisted at the boy’s appearance, who looked shady and always seemed to be up to something nefarious.
“Huh? Did I do something to make you hate me? Ah, are you the jealous type who hates all the men around Onee-san?”
“Given the chances, you would kill Yumiela, wouldn’t you? Am I also your target?”
“Nu-uh, it’s different for you. I know I’m late, but congratulation on reaching level 99.”
“You don’t deny about Yumiela.”
“There’s no way I could let such a dangerous individual that can rewind the world’s time and travel between parallel worlds go unchecked, right? Since the level limit is no longer in effect, there’s nothing I can do about it. I won’t antagonize her until I can find a way to counter her.”
Remn’s nonchalant answer almost caught Patrick off guard, but he didn’t let his guard down.
This black-hearted god doesn’t come out of the shadows for no reason. He came out only now in the absence of Yumiela.
“If you have business with Yumiela, you can visit again later.”
“I thought if I stay in the shadows, Onee-san will notice me and I could step out now. Just come to visit for no reason. Did you say she went out?”
“She’s going to the moon.”
“To the moon…. No matter how high she physically flew, there was no way she could get there.”
Patrick nearly convinced himself that it was impossible to go to the moon, but Remn’s words made him feel uncomfortable.
“Even if you physically few higher? Are you suggesting you could get there some other way?”
“Onii-san wants to know where she is right now, right?”
Remn makes an understandable tangent, but Patrick isn’t interested in knowing how to get to the moon. He is taken aback by the almost knowing way he speaks as if he knows where Yumiela is.
“Do you know where she is?”
“Well, she’s still on the ground. She’s at Onii-san’s place now.”
“So, back in the frontier?”
“No, farther. That means she’s alone with Onii-san.”
At first, Patrick thought she was at the frontier and Remn was referring to him.
As the conversation continued, he realized it wasn’t referring to him. Remn’s stubborn refusal to provide the person’s identity was troublesome.
“Who the hell is this Onii-san person?”
“Onii-san is Onii-san.”
“Tell me more about him.”
“He’s Onii-san’s Onii-san.”
Assuming that Remn was deliberately speaking in a way he didn’t understand, Patrick dismissed it as useless to have any further conversation.
He only knew that Yumiela was being taken care of at some guy’s place. Patrick was frustrated and felt he had nowhere to go.
There is also a sense of impatience that a man other than himself existed who had no problem hanging out with Yumiela.
A whirlwind of mixed emotions clouds Patrick’s facial expression. He doesn’t even notice that Remn is snickering and smirking mockingly at him.
“Oh, it looks like someone’s here. I’ll leave it here then. Bye!”
The shadows were flickering slightly when Patrick checked where he had been.
He could hear hoofbeats if he listened intently. Night visitors to this residence are rare. The fact that they came by horse means that they must have come from out of town.
Patrick walks towards the main gate.
He looked at the closed gate and lightly jumped onto the front street fence.
The sounds of hoofbeats approached in the darkness. Soon, a well-built warhorse could be seen, and his eyes fixed on the figure riding on the horse.
“Is that… Rufus?”
Rufus is one of the Ashbaton family’s vassals. He is about ten years older than Patrick and remembers playing with him.
His arrival as a liaison is unnatural, prompting him to speculate whether his brother had something to say to him privately.
The warhorse slowed and came to a stop in front of the estate.
Rufus stepped down from his horse and spoke to Patrick.
“Excuse me for coming late at night, I’m from Ashbaton Frontier—Patrick-sama?”
He finally recognized Patrick’s face as he approached.
He quickly pulled an envelope out of his pocket, wondering why he was standing at the gate at night.
“I’m not sure if it was you, Rufus. Why are you here?”
“Here is a letter from young master. You can’t read it he—”
“It’s all good. I can read it here. It’s urgent, isn’t it?”
Patrick swiftly opened the envelope and began to read the letter, relying on the moonlight.
Rufus peeked over the letter to not cast a shadow but tilted his head, unable to read it all.
Patrick reads his brother’s letter, assuming he must know its contents as he peeks in.
After a quick read-through, I remembered my brother’s face and mumbled.
“Losing the war with Remrest?”
You can blame Remn all you want.
The truth is hard to grasp and said with 100% malice.
Thanks for the chapter
Poor Patrick, he doesn’t know where to place his worries