I Paved a Flower Path for My Nephew and Ended Up Becoming the Hero
At the bright man's voice that had suddenly come to him, Alex's gaze went of its own accord to the glass marble in his hand.
Going by his career of adventuring with the Hero's party (though the Hero's party had not known it), the cause of an incident like this was usually some suspicious object.
And as if to prove it, the green smoke or flame or whatever it was that had been inside the glass marble was gone.
'This is a little ominous....'
No. Not a little — a lot.
Nine times out of ten, things that vanished after contact like this ended up clinging to whoever had touched them.
Like a curse spell.
[Huh? My field of view got narrower?]
[Looks to me like I've gotten inside the otherworld human friend's body?]
And just as Alex expected, the cheerful, bright man's voice was coming not from the glass marble but from inside his head.
[Still, thank goodness! I thought I was going to be looking at nothing but the sky and trees and grass forever.]
[How does not a single person pass through here?]
[Animals came by now and then, but they're skittish, so they wouldn't come close.]
Alex, who had at some point risen with a body gone perfectly sound and sat down on the ground, pressed a hand to his forehead. Without even a moment to be glad he was alive, his head had started to ache.
'It really seems like I'm alive because of this thing....'
He had no idea what it was.
The word 'otherworld' it had said a moment ago bothered him too.
He did not care in the slightest about being called a 'human.' It was obviously not a human being.
"What are you?"
[Oh. I'm Two Hundred.]
[Originally I was called Number 200, but my big brother said that isn't what a name is, so I changed it.]
[Neither of us has any sense for naming things, so all we did was drop the 'Number'!]
Even the name was no ordinary matter.
[What's the otherworld human friend's name?]
Otherworld.
That was something he had heard of at the Mage Tower Federation during the Age of Ruin.
A mage had once put forward the opinion that they should escape the continent and evacuate to another world. But the existence of an otherworld could not be proven, and there was no method of travel either, so the opinion had been buried as it was.
'And now I get to confirm that an otherworld exists like this.'
If only he had agreed with that opinion about fleeing to an otherworld back then.
But even if Alex, in his ghost's state, had agreed with the opinion, no one would have been able to hear him.
Right now, though, he needed to learn about this 'Two Hundred' rather than about otherworlds.
'I want to go to Leo right away, but....'
He could not bring a suspicious being like this along with him.
"What are you, really?"
[Now, now, otherworld human friend.]
[A conversation is something you give and take. I gave you an answer, so you ought to answer my question too.]
At Two Hundred, who seemed like he would not answer any questions otherwise, Alex frowned slightly and then opened his mouth.
"I'm Jayden."
Of course, he was not so stupid as to give his name to a suspicious being like this.
[That's a lie!]
But he was caught out immediately.
"It's true."
Yet Alex answered shamelessly.
[No.]
[I'm telling you, I can feel that you're lying right now.]
[Look here. I'm Three Hundred!]
And at the same moment, Alex could immediately feel that Two Hundred's words were a 'lie.'
Alex squeezed his eyes shut.
It seemed that when that suspicious being, Two Hundred, had entered his body, some sort of function had come with it that let each of them tell whether the other's words were true or false.
"...It's Alex."
[Oh, this time it's true! Nice to meet you, Alex!]
"So what are you?"
[I'm a lich.]
[And what's in your hand is my life vessel.]
"...A lich?"
Alex's face froze on the spot.
A lich.
A dangerous being born when a black mage who has reached the extreme turns himself into a monster in order to climb to a higher stage.
And a lich would separate off his own soul, make it into an object like this glass marble — a 'life vessel' — and keep it stored in a safe place sealed with all sorts of protective and offensive magic.
Because as long as the life vessel was intact, a lich could change bodies and come back to life at any time.
A lich that came back to life no matter how many times you killed it had been a powerful enemy of the Hero in the Age of Ruin, and therefore a being that had been Alex's enemy as well.
"A li, ch, you said?"
[That's right!]
[Have you seen a lich before?]
Perhaps not noticing the cracked, trembling quality of Alex's voice, Two Hundred answered breezily.
"A lich,"
Alex's gaze went to the life vessel gripped in his hand.
"is inside my body...."
His heart began to beat fast.
But the firm mental fortitude and cool judgment he had trained while accompanying the Hero's party in the 'future' finished his thinking quickly.
"Let's die."
Alex's light green eyes flashed eerily.
"Let's die before we get in the way of Leo's path."
He thought himself cool-headed, but this was an Alex who was nothing of the sort.
[Huh?]
[Hey, human friend? Alex? Calm down. Calm down, I said.]
At Alex reacting as though something had touched a trauma, Two Hundred hurried to settle him.
[I'm not that bad a lich.]
At that, Alex ground his teeth.
"Ha! Not a bad lich? I've never seen one of the bastards who says that not stab you in the back."
The low, rough voice spoke of Alex's rage.
Alex had lived in an age where black magic was evil and monsters and demonkind were to be killed.
And those monsters and demonkind had put Leo and his friends through terrible hardship, too.
'And now that thing is inside me.'
Just imagining that he might be controlled by a lich and attack Leo made Alex want to die.
At the sight of Alex like that, Two Hundred spoke.
[The lunatics in my world were doing human experiments, and I was their 200th test subject.]
At the sight of Two Hundred speaking the 'truth,' the expression of Alex, who had looked ready to die on the spot, eased a little.
Even in the Age of Ruin, there had been bastards who kidnapped people and experimented on them now and then.
Recalling the wretched state of the people and other races who had been locked in cells and experimented on back then, Two Hundred was nothing but a victim.
[Of course, becoming a lich was my own choice!]
...Or maybe not.
Alex's face hardened again.
At that, Two Hundred hurried to add:
[No, I was going to get revenge, but there were so damn many of them that a human body wasn't going to be enough to kill them all!]
[So I became a lich.]
[But I didn't kill any good humans!]
At the 'truth' he felt in his soul, Alex felt revulsion and, at the same time, a certain sympathy.
Even in the Age of Ruin, there had been people who made irreversible choices in order to avenge family, lovers, and friends.
'I would have, too....'
If only he had been able to, Alex would have offered up his soul to help Leo, even if it meant becoming demonkind or a monster — no, even if it meant becoming a tool.
[Besides, you're alive thanks to me getting into your body.]
"What?"
[I mean the magic that killed the wolf and healed you.]
At Two Hundred's words, Alex recalled the green flame that had burned the wolf and even his own blood. And the magic that had healed every wound on his body.
[I'd put all kinds of magic on my life vessel to protect it, you see.]
[My soul moved over into your body, so those spells mistook you for the thing they protect — for the life vessel — and activated.]
[It's like, dying to a wolf versus living together with a lich's soul!]
[Which one do you like better?]
"I hate them both."
Alex spoke with disgust.
...Still, if he had to choose, it would be the latter.
'Because I have to be alive to meet Leo.'
The fact that he was alive because of Two Hundred, and that Two Hundred was not a bad lich, did soften Alex's hostility considerably.
[Well, if you hate it, nothing to be done.]
Two Hundred, who had been snickering at the sight of Alex's disgust, said,
[I can just move back into the life vessel.]
At Two Hundred's words about leaving obligingly of his own accord, Alex found himself thinking that he really was not that bad a lich.
[So I move my soul into the marble like this... huh?]
"...!"
Just then.
The glass marble in Alex's hand began to crumble to powder and vanish.
Before the startled Alex and Two Hundred could try anything, Alex's hand was left completely empty.
[...It's gone?]
"...Insane."
The vessel that was to hold the lich Two Hundred's soul had vanished.
Alex asked in an anxious voice,
"Can't you make it again with magic?"
[Hmmmm.]
[Nope.]
[Well, this is something. No other magic works at all, either.]
Two Hundred spoke frankly.
Though of course he had been excessively frank from the start.
[Maybe it's because I'm inside your body, Alex?]
At that, Alex clutched his head in both hands.
"So I have to live like this? Sharing one body with a lich?"
All sorts of thoughts flitted through his head.
He had returned to the past and survived the wolf, so all that was left was to make Leo happy — and now there was a lich inside his body.
If the Church of Solenium found out, he would obviously be attacked and killed.
'And besides....'
Leo could suffer for the crime of having an uncle like this, too.
'No way!'
He had gone to all the trouble of returning to the past and surviving, and now he was set to be hunted by the Church of Solenium.
Unlike the anxious Alex, Two Hundred looked not merely at ease but positively delighted, despite having ended up living inside Alex's body.
[Oh. I didn't even get hit by a truck, and here I am with an otherworld life.]
[This is going to be fun, isn't it?]
Because to Two Hundred, a lich who lived eternally unless his soul was annihilated, the few decades a human lived were like an instant.
[When you die, I'll put the body to good use.]
[I'm counting on you, Alex!]
Alex, who at some point had become scheduled to have his body taken from him after death as well, felt everything go black before his eyes.
***
"...Let's head back for now."
Alex stopped thinking.
Since the lich Two Hundred could not use magic, he would not be able to do Leo any harm, so for the moment he was reassured.
'If I go back over my memories of the future....'
He might be able to find a way to drive this lich out of his body.
So he decided to return to the village for now.
The truth was that ever since a while ago, he had been at the point where he could not bear how much he wanted to see his nephew Leo.
Only once he saw Leo's face, perfectly sound and alive, did it seem he would really feel that he had returned to the past.
"Ah!"
Of course, before that, he had to make preparations.
He had to wash the body and clothes that were filthy with his own blood so that Leo and the villagers would not worry.
If he went back to the village covered in blood enough to look like he had bled out, there would probably be a whole commotion.
Fortunately, the green flame had burned up all the blood that had filled the place where the wolf attacked him, leaving not a single drop, so there was no need to clean up after himself.
He had no idea what kind of magic it was, but it was black magic, all right.
Alex staggered to his feet and walked toward a nearby stream.
[Why are you staggering?]
"It's been a while since I walked."
Having flown everywhere for the twelve years he spent as a ghost, using a physical body felt a little strange.
But he got used to that quickly enough too.
Reaching the stream, Alex washed the clothes he was wearing and washed his blood-soaked body as well.
[Agh! Cold!]
[...?]
[Huh? Did I just say it was cold?]
[Insane! I haven't felt a sensation like this even once since I became a lich!]
[It looks like whatever you feel, Alex, I can feel too!]
[Then does that mean I can taste things too?]
[Let's eat something good! Let's eat meat! Alex!]
Just like the lich Two Hundred, who had no sensation because he was nothing but bones, Alex, who had lived in a ghost's state, found the touch of water and the feeling of cold remarkable after so long.
But more urgent than such impressions was meeting his nephew Leo.
Having put on his considerably cleaner clothes, Alex walked in the direction of the village.
His steps, calm at first, gradually grew faster, and at some point he began to run outright.
"Leo!!"
Calling the name of the beloved nephew who would be alive, Alex ran with all his might.