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Radis woke up to Robert’s voice calling her name.
“Radis.”
When she opened her eyes, Robert had already arranged his bags, prepared to leave posthaste.
Robert glanced over to her and said,
“You slept well, considering that you said you won’t sleep.”
As she was staring up at him blankly, Radis hurriedly stood up from the ground.
“How long was I out?”
“About three hours.”
“Oh my goodness. You should have woken me up, Captain.”
Radis took off Robert’s cloak, then she rolled it up before returning it to him.
Taking the cloak, Robert closed his mouth tightly and slowly put it on.
“…You slept so well that I didn’t even want to wake you up.
As Radis was arranging her bags, she felt her face turning bright red.
Now carrying her bag, Radis suddenly opened her lips with a smile.
“I had a dream.
“A dream?”
“A dream where I met again with everyone. Tez, Thierry, Rusty, Laszlo… Everyone came running to see me just like you, Captain.”
Cleaning up the bonfire, Robert frowned a little after hearing that.
“I didn’t run.”
Radis pouted and narrowed her eyes.
“Well, alright. You didn’t come running to me, Captain, but everyone in my dream did. Is that fine?”
“…Sure.”
Robert stepped on the embers to put them out completely, and after that, he hit the wall with the soles of his feet one at a time so that the ashes could be shaken off from his boots.
Then, he spoke again.
“I advise you against keeping your hopes up. Miracles don’t happen that easily. They probably don’t remember us.”
Radis shrugged.
“I think so, too. But I’ll still be happy enough to see them alive again.”
Catching up to Robert, who already began to walk forward, Radis asked,
“Captain, when you came into contact with the dragon’s magic stone, by any chance, did you get your blood on it?”
Robert tried to recall his memories for a moment, but he soon shook his head.
“I just stabbed something under its inverted scale with my sword. I’m not sure if it’s the dragon’s magic stone.”
“Then, perhaps with blood…?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Captain… This is just a guess, but would you like to hear it?”
Radis talked about the magic stone she had brought from underneath the Underworld Tree at the end of her previous life.
Listening to her silently, Robert nodded.
“I also think that magic stones are the key here. When I went to the Tilrod manor to meet you back then, it was a mess. I heard that the magic stone had disappeared. At that time, I thought that it was Arachne’s magic stone, but… maybe it was something else.”
As bad memories of the past arose, Radis felt a bitter taste in her mouth.
She deliberately spoke in a more serious tone so that she could shake off the painful recollection.
“But Captain, even if we go to the forbidden region now, the same magic stone won’t be there anymore.”
“Did you check it?”
“Yes. And not only that… The whole area felt strange. The monster that lived near the Underworld Tree had weakened—almost as if it had aged.”
Radis recalled what had happened in the forbidden region back then.
“If it was the same as before, Arachne should be powerful, considering how strong that monster should be in ten years’ time. However, I saw it die with my own eyes, almost as if it had self-destructed.”
Robert stopped in his tracks suddenly, and Radis’s face almost collided with his back.
“Captain?”
“…Arachne? Are you saying that you went to the forbidden region and crossed paths with Arachne?”
“Yes.”
“Who did you go to the forbidden region with? Did you go with the Marquisate’s subjugation squad?”
“Um…”
Radis tried to gauge Robert’s reaction.
Examining his expression, Radis was sure that she’d be in trouble if she were to tell the truth.
Still, Radis decided to mix some truth in her white lie.
“…With a couple of mercenaries.”
Gorz and Luke were mercenaries after all.
However, as she gauged Robert’s reaction again, the white lie didn’t seem to prove effective.
Almost resignedly, Robert said,
“You’ve just returned from death’s door, but it seems like you’ve received two such miracles. Don’t bank on there being a third time, so promise me that you won’t do such reckless things ever again.”
“Yes, sir.”
Fearing that Robert would nag her more, Radis hurriedly continued her story.
“In any case, Arachne died after I set down the egg where I picked up the magic stone in the past life.”
“Egg?”
“Well…”
Radis was about to say that she heard Arachne call the egg with the name ‘Kronos’, but she just trailed off.
She couldn’t very well say that she could somehow understand the monster’s language. It still bothered her quite a lot.
“…It was a shining egg.”
Robert answered,
“So it changed.”
“Yes, it changed. Arachne is dead, and there’s an egg where the magic stone should have been.”
“Something might have changed again by now. We’ll be able to confirm it soon.”
At Robert’s words, Radis looked ahead.
The end of the long passageway finally appeared, and there lie the stone gate that served as an entrance to the forbidden region.