“...So how long have those two been at it?”
“About... eight hours.”
Elizabeth stood at the threshold of the study with Jack, peering inside.
By now, every kind of book imaginable had been pulled from the shelves, and the room itself was a complete mess.
The curtains Hamilton had proudly said were newly installed had already been burned into the shape of a butterfly, leaving them nearly impossible to recognize in their original form.
“How do you even burn something like that?”
Jack did not need to answer Elizabeth's question.
“Exactly! Mana is the power of nature! The more faithfully you reproduce its form, the more perfectly you can bring out its strength....”
That was because Paul was still relentlessly lecturing Aroha, whose eyes had long since gone half-glazed.
Apparently, he had told her to create flames in the shape of a butterfly, even reproducing the force of its wingbeats, but....
For such a simple-sounding instruction, an enormous number of formulas had been written all over the desk.
Why so many numbers and geometric shapes were necessary to explain that was beyond Elizabeth.
“Our Head Butler's going to cry.”
In any case, that much Elizabeth knew for certain.
Still, hearing that it was magical theory did spark some interest in her.
When Elizabeth had been very young, even the last remaining mage in Carcosa had died of old age.
To her, magic was something like a fantasy from a distant memory.
“That mage studied at an Academy, right? Can anyone attend an Academy as long as they pay enough money?”
Jack had experienced both life inside and outside Carcosa, so he understood exactly what the Domain's isolation meant.
Assuming Elizabeth knew little about common knowledge on the continent, Jack gave her a detailed answer.
“No. Money is certainly important, but most people need talent to attend one.”
“Really? Then how impressive is it to rank first at an Academy? It doesn't have to be magic. Any field is fine.”
“That depends on the school and the field. Even at the smallest Academy, you could assume they're at least within the top ten percent of their age group.”
Elizabeth nodded at Jack's explanation.
Just then, beautiful snow crystals began falling through the study like soft hail.
“So that's how it is....”
“...Yes, but shouldn't we... stop them soon?”
The two of them had originally come here because Alex had tasked them with stopping Paul and Aroha before they destroyed the study.
Did this count as destroying it, or was this still within the acceptable range?
“Maybe His Lordship already expected this much?”
Jack fell silent for a moment at Elizabeth's words.
“I... have absolutely no idea what His Lordship considers acceptable.”
Alex was an incredibly difficult person to understand.
It was hard to tell exactly how much he knew or what he was thinking.
And because Jack had always been confident in his own ability to see through other people, Alex was all the more difficult for him to make any definite judgment about.
Elizabeth chuckled at his answer.
“Well, he's definitely bolder than most people....”
But before Elizabeth could finish her answer, a tremendous explosion erupted from inside the study.
BOOM—!
“Ah, shit...! I'm done! Damn it. You've been all talk this whole time and haven't shown me a single thing yourself!”
Aroha's irritated shouting followed, along with the sound of several bookshelves toppling over.
Now Jack and Elizabeth could say for certain.
They needed to stop this.
“Wait! Wait, wait! Calm down! Your ankle still isn't completely healed!”
Elizabeth rushed into the study and barely managed to put herself between Paul and Aroha.
But she could not stop Paul's mouth.
“Oh...! Oho! What perfect symmetry...! The force of the wind striking the bookshelves on both sides was exactly equal! To awaken three elements in only a single day...! As expected of the perfect master and perfect student—mph!”
Jack followed her in, stepping around the books scattered across the floor, and blocked Paul's mouth.
He was not kind enough to use his hand.
He merely shoved one of the books lying on the floor into Paul's mouth instead, but it worked remarkably well.
“His Lordship said you worked hard today, so you should get plenty of rest!”
Looking utterly fed up, Aroha glared furiously at Paul after hearing Elizabeth's words.
“Are all mages like this? Are all the mages on the continent like this?!”
“No.”
Jack hurriedly answered, worried that Aroha might develop a prejudice against the continent itself.
Strictly speaking, the results had been excellent for such a short period of time, but Aroha was mentally exhausted.
“Then why did it have to be a bastard like this?”
Watching Paul flail his arms and legs to express, ‘Three isn't symmetrical! It's not beautiful! Let's learn just one more!’ only made her more exhausted.
Unable to endure any more, Aroha finally left the study, trembling with all the irritation she had been unable to vent.
Elizabeth handed her a letter as she went.
“Oh, right! Aroha. His Lordship told me to give you this.”
He said it's important, so make sure you read it right away!
Only Elizabeth's voice echoed through the corridors of the Lord's castle behind Aroha as she walked away.
Jack sighed at the sight and quietly complained as well.
“...I have to wonder where His Lordship finds these things... no, these people.”
Jack was not particularly strong himself, but the frail mage was even weaker than he was and could do nothing but struggle helplessly after being easily restrained.
Watching them, Elizabeth could not help bursting into laughter.
From her perspective, Jack, who had abruptly packed his bags and moved into a Domain that had practically nothing, was just as strange.
***
While those belonging to the Domain gradually formed bonds in their own ways, Alex remained as busy as ever.
Carcosa changed almost every day, constantly producing new work that needed to be done.
But apart from tending to the residents of the Domain, Alex also frequently walked around the inner castle, lost in deep thought.
And so, another two days passed.
One night, Alex suddenly gathered Jack, Hamilton, and Elizabeth together.
Seeing Alex carrying a far graver air than usual, Elizabeth cautiously spoke.
“...Is something else about to happen?”
Hamilton continued after her.
“From what I can see... it seems there is still something that has not yet been resolved.”
Alex looked toward Hamilton at those words.
Just as he said, the ominous disaster indicated by the compass had not even begun yet.
“There must have been a reason you barely rested and acted as though every second mattered.”
Hamilton served Alex at his side every day.
Naturally, he must have noticed Alex's impatience.
But Alex had no way to explain the System windows he could see or the strategies from the original game, so there was very little he could properly tell them.
What exactly was the ominous presence coming from the east?
Why did he believe that ominous presence would be the phenomenon known as the Black Star?
What kind of disaster would the Black Star bring in the first place, and how did he know any of this?
None of it could be explained.
“That's right. But... it would be difficult to explain everything.”
Seeing the trust in their expressions left Alex with a strange sense of guilt.
He had long since abandoned the thought that they were nothing more than NPCs, but that only made it harder for him to be completely honest about this.
[Loyalty 48%]
When had it reached this point?
The number had gradually risen by one percent at a time as the Domain stabilized and achievements accumulated, and before he knew it, it was nearly halfway full.
As the number changed, Alex increasingly realized that seeing something merely as a statistic and actually feeling what it represented were two entirely different things.
Jack watched Alex's expression and answered calmly.
“My Lord, you were never particularly inclined to explain things in detail in the first place.”
Jack spoke jokingly, seemingly trying to lighten the atmosphere on purpose, and Elizabeth giggled.
From her perspective, seeing Alex wearing such a gravely serious expression was amusing.
He was the Lord.
In truth, he did not need to explain anything at all.
He was in a position where he could simply give orders, yet every time, he still tried somehow to persuade them and help them understand.
“That's true. You usually just come up with... a plan we can accept. A plan that will succeed.”
That was not because he was simply a compassionate and considerate person.
If his actions had come purely from kindness, it might actually have been harder to trust and believe in him.
A kind heart could not save everyone.
Elizabeth had seen that reality over and over again through the Lord who had ruled before Alex.
‘If we're thrown into a plan without understanding it, we might act differently from what he intended.’
Alex had always tried to explain the situation as thoroughly as possible, as though to prevent exactly that.
He simply raised the odds of success as high as possible in every situation.
“And you always seemed to succeed.”
Hamilton responded to Elizabeth's words.
Whether Alex's astonishing tactics came from his own talent or were connected to some inexplicable secret, as he claimed, did not matter.
What mattered was that he truly had succeeded at one extraordinary thing after another, almost as though he had already experienced the future.
Everyone gathered here had personally witnessed those results.
Through them, they had developed trust and Loyalty toward Alex.
By now, they trusted him enough to believe in his plans and carry them out even without unnecessary explanations.
“So what's next?”
“Just tell us what you need us to do.”
“We will follow your wishes.”
Elizabeth, Jack, and Hamilton expressed their faith in him one after another.
Alex looked over all of them once, then nodded.
“...All right. Listen carefully from this point on.”
Every possible scenario, from the worst to the best.
Alex began laying out a long plan before the loyal people who would act as his hands and feet to bring every one of those possibilities into reality.
***
Time flew by like an arrow.
No matter how much he prepared, it always felt insufficient.
But Alex knew the truth.
He had already done everything he possibly could.
[Ominous Compass]
[Time Remaining: 00 : 07 : 38]
[The compass is currently pointing east.]
Alex looked toward the walls of the inner castle, keeping his expression as calm as possible.
For decades, those walls had been sturdy enough that the area around the Lord's castle had remained firmly established as a safe zone.
In particular, the wall separating the Old Quarter from the Lord's district looked as though it could easily stand for another thousand years.
“My Lord. The nearby residents have been evacuated toward the Farmland.”
Hamilton spoke in a voice not much different from usual.
Alex's decision had accounted for even the most unlikely possibility, and Hamilton simply followed and carried it out.
But he could not completely conceal the concern for Alex in his eyes.
From their perspective, it was impossible to guess what their Lord, burdened with information unknown to them, had been thinking when he arranged all these precautions.
“The administrators have been evacuated too, and the mage is stationed on top of the wall. The guards and Dark Elf warriors are all standing by.”
Elizabeth approached with a sharp look in her eyes, her usual playfulness completely gone.
She had actually felt more at ease when charging into a deadly situation alone with Alex.
At least compared to simply waiting for something to happen like this....
“Good. Hamilton, go inside as well and have the gate sealed.”
The moment Hamilton went inside, the gate shut firmly behind him, sealing off the inner castle.
Outside the gate stood Alex, Elizabeth, the guards, and the Dark Elves.
“What the hell is going on...?”
Paul muttered as he took in the surrounding atmosphere and the strange situation.
Paul had been roughly informed that something was going to happen, but he found it difficult to understand why everyone was acting so grim.
Still, the trust they showed toward one another was not unpleasant to look at, so he merely watched.
Since he himself was here, it could not be that low-class a place.
Then suddenly, the sky overhead began to darken.
[Time Remaining: 00 : 02 : 03]
It was still morning.
Alex narrowed his eyes and looked up at the sun in the east.
A Black Star larger than the sun appearing in the sky.
That was what this world called the phenomenon, but in truth, it resembled a solar eclipse.
‘Though that... doesn't seem to be the moon.’
Of course, this world had a moon that rose at night as well.
But whether the object currently covering the sun was actually the moon remained unclear.
“The Black Star is rising....”
At the voice of a guard behind him, Alex lowered his head.
The sun would remain obscured like this for the next three hours.
Something several times larger than the moon, far too enormous to simply call a moon, gradually began covering the sun.
Considering that it affected Magical Beasts, perhaps it was not a moon at all, but something entirely different....
“....”
Alex cut off his tangled thoughts and stared straight ahead.
As if it had been waiting for this exact moment, the instant darkness spread in every direction, a faint tremor began approaching through the ground.
At the same time, several small butterflies formed from Aroha, lighting faint flames here and there.
From the distance, something seemed to ripple toward them like a black tidal wave.
But Alex knew exactly what they were.
“Magical Beasts are coming! Mage, prepare!”