“Phew...” I let out a heavy sigh and wiped the sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand, but there was so much that it just dribbled down my wrist instead.
Dyphon looked up at me in concern. “Are you okay, darling? Aren’t you tired?”
“I’m fine... Wait, you can tell?”
“Tell what?”
“That I just finished making a spell.”
“Uh-huh. Of course!”
“Wow. I guess I shouldn’t have expected any less of a divine dragon.” I’d made the spell while the sensations of that near-death experience were still fresh, though it took a lot more time and effort than usual. It seemed like Dyphon had seen right through me all the while.
“No, that’s not right,” Dyphon said, much to my surprise. “It’s not because I’m a divine dragon. It’s because I’m watching you closely. You always look really happy whenever you finish a spell.”
“Oh...” I thought that she’d picked up on the flow of my magic or something, but it turned out she was just watching my expression. I gave my cheeks a few pats. Am I really that expressive?
“What will you do now?” Lardon asked. She was standing a short distance away.
I turned to face her. So did Dyphon, though her eyes were narrowed into a sharp glare, which Lardon breezily brushed off. Sheila looked a little unsettled by the tension between them.
“Oh, right. Sheila, come with me—and bring your magic sword.”
“Very well.”
“Also... Ice Needle!” I cast a beginner spell, stabbing a pillar of ice as thick as a withered tree into the ground. Exposed to the wind, it slowly began to melt and trickle to the ground.
“Good. Next up...” I took a deep breath, gathered my focus, and cast another spell. A door-like spatial rift manifested right before my eyes.
Lardon hummed. “Is it Another World?”
“Not exactly, but it is based on it.” I turned to Sheila. “All right, come on. Follow me.”
“Understood.”
“And you two, please wait outside,” I told the dragons.
“Very well.”
“Good luck, darling!”
With Lardon and Dyphon seeing us off, Sheila and I entered the door that looked a lot like Another World’s. The inside was also much like the original—it was nothing but a wide, empty space.
Sheila looked around. “Where are we...?”
“This is a magical space that’s segregated from the outside. What happens in here will stay in here.”
“My. How convenient.”
After backing away from Sheila, I turned back around to face her. “Sheila.”
“Yes?”
“Come at me with everything you’ve got.”
“I don’t mind...but why?”
“I’ll explain later.”
Sheila huffed. “Very well, then.”
After a short moment of hesitation, Sheila brandished Crimson Rose and charged at me. Her swift speed and sharp slashes were fiercer than ever before. But this time, there was no surprise attack. I was fully braced for her attacks—mentally and magically.
For just a bit under an hour, our battle continued. With no secrets or surprises in store, dozens of clashes came and passed with no clear conclusion.
Finally, Sheila leaped back and asked, “What is the meaning of this? We are hardly getting anywhere. There is little we can gain from a rematch at this early stage.”
“Ah... I guess you’re right. Let’s head back, then.”
“What?” Sheila lowered her sword, knitting her sleek eyebrows. For the first time, suspicion and frustration seeped into her expression. Her gaze was subtle yet prickling.
She looks like she wants to ask what we even came here for...
“What have we even come here for?”
Oh, there it is. “It’ll be easier to explain outside.”
Sheila’s face scrunched up momentarily, before she begrudgingly conceded. “Very well.”
We stepped back out together, where Lardon and Dyphon greeted us.
Lardon hummed, calm as ever. “Oh? Back already?”
“Welcome back, darling!” Dyphon crowed, clinging to me with oozing affection.
In contrast to them both, Sheila followed behind me with a pinched expression. “So? How does being here answer my question?”
“Take a look at that,” I instructed, pointing to the side—to the icicle I’d made.
Sheila stared at it for a while, until realization finally dawned on her. “The icicle...hasn’t melted?”
As she said, the icicle was still majorly intact—even though an hour had passed since we entered the space.
Sheila quietly gasped. “Wait, don’t tell me...”
I nodded. “Lardon, Dyphon, how long has it been since we went in?”
“Hardly ten seconds,” Lardon answered.
Sheila’s wide eyes turned to me in disbelief.
I simply nodded again. “With my near-death experience, I made this space where time flows differently from the outside.” It was the opposite of Dust Box, and it could allow living beings inside to boot. “I guess you could call it...a space for living in the moment.”
With this, Sheila could take all the time she needed to learn a new spell.
✦ ✦ ✦
I stood a short distance from the spatial rift as I waited for Sheila to come out. Lardon was already back inside of me, while Dyphon was standing right by my side.
After a minute or so, Dyphon suddenly said, “Darling, you shouldn’t let humans use that too much.”
“Huh? Why not?”
“They age much faster inside. I doubt that side effect can be rectified through any sort of revisions.”
“Ahh... I guess you’re right.”
I couldn’t have put it better myself. This was actually an issue I’d noticed while making the spell.
In a way, this spell helped people learn something “instantly.” Sheila could step inside and take all her time learning Contract Summoning with hardly any time passing outside. But for a human to cultivate a skill, they needed to physically experience growth. Thus, for this spell, I couldn’t just nullify the passage of time for the human body. As Dyphon said, it wasn’t a matter of revising the spell—it was just a fundamentally unavoidable side effect.
“She’s a young human girl,” Dyphon continued. “A few times won’t do much harm, but she might regret it down the line if she overuses it.”
“Oh... I see.” Now this issue, I hadn’t thought about at all. Sheila was a beautiful young woman, so it only made sense that she wouldn’t want to age so soon. “Got it. If she ever asks for it again, I’ll make sure to explain the risks first.”
“Mm-hmm.” With that, Dyphon walked away like nothing ever happened. She seemed to have lost all interest in what we were doing here now that I wasn’t on the brink of death.
“I never would’ve noticed that if she hadn’t pointed it out...”
“Me neither,” Lardon agreed.
“Really? You too?” I was a bit shocked. I mean, it didn’t take much explaining for me to understand. How could Lardon not have thought of it before me?
“Aging is a human concern,” Lardon explained. “That one is becoming more human in order to bear your child. It stands to reason that she understands such matters better than me.”
“Oh, I guess so.” Though I still found it kind of funny that Lardon was as lost as I was for once.
Soon, Sheila emerged from the rift. She’d spent around five minutes in total there. “Apologies for the wait.”
“Have you learned it?”
“Yes. Look.”
Sheila held up her hand and cast Contract Summoning: Sheila, summoning her clone—a perfect copy of herself. The only striking difference was her clone’s lack of a magic sword.
✦ ✦ ✦
The two identical girls looked at one another.
“It appears to have worked,” Sheila mused.
Her clone hummed. “Indeed. What a...fascinating sensation.”
“Oh? Whatever do you mean?”
“You should understand once we return to normal...right?” Sheila’s clone turned to me.
I nodded. “That’s right. All of your clone’s memories and sensations will be shared with you once the spell’s undone. You’ll know sooner or later, Sheila.”
“Then I suppose there is no need to ask now.”
Now that Sheila was content with that explanation, it was time for me to get an explanation of my own. “Why did you wanna learn this spell?”
“I plan to leave my clone here.”
“Here? In this country?”
“Indeed. She shall serve as my proxy.”
“What for...?”
“For two reasons,” she began. “First is to serve as the diplomat of my nation-to-be. After all, who better to trust as a plenipotentiary than myself? In case of trouble, ‘I’ would be right here to handle it. Most importantly, delivering information to myself will now be a simple matter of undoing the spell.”
“Wow... When you put it that way, it almost sounds like this spell was made for this.” I was genuinely impressed. Much time had passed since I first learned it, but it never came to me to use it this way. “What’s the second reason?”
“To observe you from up close as you develop cutting edge magic.”
“Cutting edge...?”
“She is not wrong,” Lardon mused, though Sheila couldn’t hear it herself. “That is what keeps me entertained day by day.”
Well, I guess Lardon did seem to be enjoying herself all the time. Entertaining a divine dragon... Is that all it takes for magic to be classified as “cutting edge”?
“Hence, I shall leave myself behind for my own growth,” Sheila continued. “To learn from you, to steal from you, and finally...to develop countermeasures against you.”
“I get it.” That was Sheila for you.
“With all that said...” Sheila and her clone exchanged a look before turning to me with identical grins. “We look forward to bearing witness to your grand magical endeavors henceforth.”