“Heh heh. Why the long face, Robert?”
“…….”
After parting ways with Jaes, Robert calmly answered the question Damian posed on their way back.
“……It is nothing.”
“Do you not like that boy Jaes?”
“No. That is not the case. I believe there is a strong possibility that he will prove useful to us…… however.”
“However?”
“……I simply dislike his attitude toward you, Lord Damian. He is merely a commoner, after all.”
“You were born a commoner too. Are you looking down on him for being one?”
“That is not what I meant. However, even so, he seemed far too casual in your presence. He does not even seem to understand what an honor this opportunity is.”
“I thought it looked like confidence. As you said, he is merely a commoner. Would he be able to behave that way in front of me without something to rely upon?”
“Are you not evaluating him too highly?”
“But you saw it as well. He endured the magic of Instructor Grayker, who is known to be a Fourth-Tier Mage, even if only briefly.”
“That was only because Lord Raiden arrived in time.”
“Even so, he appeared to be rather close to Raiden. If that is the case, there is a high possibility that he is no ordinary boy.”
“……He certainly appeared reasonably intelligent. We have been watching him closely lately, yet we failed to discover anything particularly suspicious. Unlike Bele, he also appears cautious.”
“Exactly. Therefore, we have nothing to lose by bringing him over to my side while we have the chance.”
Judging from Jaes’s reaction moments earlier, Damian believed there was a sufficient chance that he would accept the proposal.
Damian’s judgment was not particularly mistaken.
……However, at that very moment.
Just as Damian expected, Jaes had been considering his proposal favorably. However, the appearance of yet another completely unexpected visitor had left his thoughts more tangled than ever before.
“Hey~ Jaes, hello?”
“……Huh? Lady Sharan……?”
“Yes. It has been a while, has it not?”
A woman appeared before Jaes with a giggle just as he was about to end his exhausting day.
She was a female Mage named Sharan, whom Jaes had often seen during the brief period when he had worked at the Mage Tower.
She possessed an enchanting smile.
“What…… brings you here?”
“I came to see you, of course.”
“To see me……?”
“Yes.”
Sharan.
She was one of the few female Mages Jaes had frequently encountered at the Mage Tower.
When Jaes had first been dragged there to work, she had been the first person to show an interest in him and approach him.
Her curly hair was a mixture of blue and green, while her long eyelashes and heavy eye makeup gave her an air of decadent beauty. Combined with her vivid red lips and slightly sensual attire, those features had also made her one of the most uncomfortable people for Jaes to deal with at the Mage Tower, in a certain sense.
‘……What could this woman suddenly want with me?’
Unlike the other Mages, who generally appeared to possess little interest in other people, Sharan had casually approached Jaes whenever she pleased.
She had even introduced him to Ryujin, the Mage who first taught him about magic, and Nasram, the Mage who taught him about Spirits.
Even afterward, Jaes had occasionally felt her gaze upon him while working at the Mage Tower, which had made him somewhat uncomfortable. Apart from that, however, he had no particular connection with her.
For her to suddenly appear at a time like this and claim that she had come specifically to meet him left Jaes flustered enough to swallow nervously.
Unlike his conversations with Raiden and Damian, this encounter with Sharan fell entirely beyond the range of situations Jaes had anticipated he might experience.
Experience had taught him that such situations usually led to problems he could not handle.
After all, nothing was more frightening than an event whose cause he could not even begin to imagine.
Unfortunately, Jaes’s ominous prediction proved correct once again.
“I watched you just in case, but you completely surpassed my expectations. It seems the knowledge from your original world is proving quite useful?”
“……?!”
The unexpected question struck like an ambush.
“What…… did you say?”
“Ahaha. You are adorable when you panic and pretend not to understand. But that reaction confirms it beyond doubt, does it not? Jaes, you came here from ‘that other world,’ did you not?”
“What are you…….”
Jaes had considered in advance how he should behave in most situations so that he would not appear out of place in an unfamiliar world.
Even he, however, could not avoid revealing an opening in response to such an abrupt question.
‘What in the world is going on?!’
Once he recognized his mistake, Jaes could tell from the certainty in Sharan’s eyes that any further denial would be meaningless.
Nevertheless, his instinctive defenses compelled him to continue feigning ignorance as his thoughts raced.
“I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“Ho ho. There is no use pretending. I only said it because I am already certain. Still, to help you lower your guard, I may be the only person in this world who knows that other worlds might exist.”
“…….”
“‘Computer,’ ‘artificial intelligence,’ and ‘metaverse.’ What do you think? Those are all terms used in the world you originally came from, are they not?”
“……!”
There was no longer any room for doubt.
Sharan was not merely probing him. She truly knew about the world Jaes had originally come from.
Only after finding himself in this situation did Jaes realize anew just how complacent he had been.
‘That is right. I thought it was strange from the beginning. This world exists, yet I can read and write without any difficulty, almost as though everything is being translated automatically. There are also far too many similarities between this place and the fantasy worlds depicted in novels from my original world.’
Adapting to daily life and securing his safety had been his immediate priorities. He had also become absorbed in the fascinating existence of magic, so he had temporarily set those questions aside.
However, as an engineer, they were matters that could not simply be dismissed as mere ‘coincidence.’
Then what truth could best explain why they were not coincidences?
‘……I was not the first. Regardless of how it happened, if some sort of connection already existed between the two worlds, it would explain my current circumstances far more clearly. It would also explain why this place feels so similar to the fantasy worlds depicted in my original world.’
Jaes had assumed that he was the first person to undergo this mysterious experience because it had most likely been caused by his own experiment.
That assumption had created a blind spot he had failed to notice.
The thought had occurred to him suddenly, but Jaes began to believe that it was highly likely to be the truth.
The female Mage named Sharan standing before him appeared to know something about that truth.
“Oh, do not look so tense. I did not come here to hurt you.”
“……How am I supposed to believe that? I have already experienced what could be called betrayal twice.”
“Ho ho. I am also a ‘Mage of the Mage Tower,’ you know. Had I intended to harm you, you would already be dead even here. Would it be easier to understand if I told you that I am a Mage of the same rank as Raiden?”
“…….”
“So do not misunderstand and summon him again as you did earlier. I am not trying to do anything bad, so it would not truly matter, but he is far too inflexible and would probably only get in the way. You would also be better off hiding the fact that you are ‘a person with knowledge from another world’ from him whenever possible.”
Jaes agreed with that.
In his original world, films and comics were full of urban legends and rumors about governments secretly abducting people with unusual abilities and conducting human experiments upon them.
Jaes was not inclined to believe such stories.
However, this was also a world inhabited by ‘people.’ If the truth became known before he had acquired enough power to protect himself, he had no idea how he might be treated.
Therefore, he had never intended to reveal it.
……Although he had never imagined that he would encounter someone who already knew his secret in this manner.
‘It may be an unfair prejudice, but wizards and Mages who pursue the truth seem entirely capable of conducting all sorts of bizarre experiments. I have actually seen people like that at the Mage Tower.’
“……Then why did you come to find me after learning the truth?”
“Yes. I would like to ask you for a favor. Hmm, no. I suppose it would be closer to a transaction.”
‘What now?!’
“First, you can rest assured that I have no intention of telling anyone about it. However, there is one condition.”
“What is it?”
Sharan smiled brightly.
“My hobby is observing people who break free from convention. I particularly enjoy watching boys and girls whose potential for growth remains limitless. In fact, I only joined Duke Ailin’s Mage Tower because I was told that doing so would allow me to teach whatever classes I wanted here at Ielhas Magic Academy. But that became boring, so I quit a long time ago.”
‘That makes sense. Graduate students sometimes have to teach classes while working as teaching assistants.’
“There were still plenty of interesting things happening in the early days, perhaps because the system of magic had not yet been fully established. These days, however, everything has become almost completely standardized. Watching it is truly so~ boring. On top of that, Duke Ailin is going to be away for some time, and that rigid Raiden is apparently taking charge of the academy as well. That makes it even worse! But then I started thinking that perhaps you might be the one to relieve my boredom♡”
‘……What?’
“The idea came to me when I heard you talking privately with that child from House Duschfeldt. Ah! This could make things interesting!”
“Then…….”
“Yes. Jaes, enter the Trelas tournament. Then do your utmost to win. Otherwise, I will reveal your secret to every one of my colleagues at the Mage Tower who enjoys strange experiments♡”
“…….”
Jaes had prepared himself to take Sharan’s words seriously, only for her to casually deliver the threat as though she were playing a prank.
Frankly, he was so dumbfounded that he could barely process it.
Someone who knew his greatest secret had suddenly appeared, leaving him more tense than he had ever been.
Yet after revealing that fact, all she wanted was for him to participate in the Trelas tournament for her own entertainment.
‘Is she a child?! No, I already knew that the Mage Tower was like a graduate school, so I should not be surprised no matter what sort of morally bankrupt eccentric its members are. But after bringing up something like that, is this truly all she wants?!’
For a moment, Jaes wondered whether Sharan was connected to Damian or House Duschfeldt and had approached him to force him into accepting Damian’s proposal.
However, the sight of Sharan bouncing excitedly before him like an overenthusiastic schoolgirl made it seem far more likely that she had raised the matter solely for her own amusement.
That realization only frightened Jaes further.
He could neither predict her actions nor prepare for what she might do next.
The type of person Jaes feared most—and wanted least at his side—was someone who might do anything on a sudden whim according to her mood at the time.
Sharan appeared to be precisely that sort of person.
“Ah. Of course, I am not asking you to do it for nothing. If I want to motivate you, I naturally have to provide a suitable reward, do I not? If you truly manage to win the Trelas tournament, I will honestly tell you everything about the matter you are most curious about right now. Namely, how I know all of this.”
That was unquestionably the information Jaes wanted most.
It was not that he desperately wished to return to his original world immediately.
Now that he had secured a minimum degree of safety, his current life—learning magic in a fantasy-like world—was far more enjoyable and interesting than the slave-like existence of a graduate student in his previous world, even if he had been close to graduating.
‘It is not as though I have family or friends I miss anyway.’
However, there was still something he knew nothing about.
As an engineer, he could not suppress his intense curiosity to learn ‘why’ this had happened to him and ‘how’ this world was connected to his own.
“Is that truly all you want?”
“Ho ho. Yes. Conversely, however, that also means I will never tell you if you do not work hard enough to satisfy me. Therefore, it would be best for you to give it your all. After all, I am certain this is a story that will shock even you once you hear it.”