“Hmm. Indeed, a thousand years might have been an exaggeration. With the Sovereign Queen Lorde we can achieve the sorcererification of the entire North in a much shorter period. Fifty years. We will accomplish it in fifty years!” Like a subject ashamed of his own shortsightedness, Ide calmly restated the number. He advised his queen as a chancellor bearing the weight of a nation.
That only drove Titee deeper into her trauma. “Ide! That’s not right! That’s—”
“I am not lying, Sovereign Queen Lorde. There are no significant pieces left in the Southern Alliance. In the past, there were many enemies, such as the Apostle Deiplachra, Nosfy Whoseyards, Lorwen Arrace, Tida Rands, and Fafner Hellvilleshine, but now there are none left! Now, the Northern Alliance has become the side manipulating the war! By escalating the conflict, pushing the troops to their limits, forcing them to pay the price, and selecting the talented while fostering the growth of the people, the number of those who undergo sorcererification will naturally increase! As will those who fear the sorcererified and despise the true humans! We’ll reach out to the newly born sorcerers! Ah, there is only one outcome awaiting us in the end! The Northern Alliance led by the sorcerers will triumphantly defeat the Southern Alliance! Ha ha, ah, how exciting! Finally, the world will be unified, and true peace will arrive! Finally, the long-cherished wish of the people of the North will be fulfilled! By none other than the Sovereign Queen Lorde, my own hands, and the oppressed sorcerers, we will finally reach paradise!”
Ide’s words were filled with madness. They were filled with abnormalities and contradictions, and it was not something the chancellor of a nation should say.
Titee accepted her brother’s insanity with sadness. She couldn’t even feel anger or astonishment, only sadness. “Is that what you truly desire now? Is that really your lingering attachment?”
“If you’re referring to the lingering attachment of a Guardian, then there’s no other option. The preparations are already complete. We can make the transition at any moment, O true queen who rules the North.”
Though his face was hidden, I could tell that Ide’s mouth was twisted into a smile. He must have been laughing with certainty at the moment, sure that Titee would return as the Sovereign Queen Lorde. He must have believed that she would understand his perfect plan. And that expectation was tormenting his sister.
I glanced at Titee’s face. For a moment, I considered offering assistance, but it seemed unnecessary. Titee was saddened, but she had not yet lowered her head.
“I understand your wish. But I will tell you mine.”
“Yes. Just say it. Say ‘I will return as the Sovereign Queen Lorde.’ Then the story will end, and everything will begin.”
Titee’s voice was strong as she spoke. “My only wish is this! I want to give up being the Sovereign Queen Lorde and just be a normal girl again! That has always been my dream, both now and in the past! I don’t care about the North or the South, war or peace! I just want to go back to my old house on that familiar prairie! I want you to come with me on that journey home! It’s lonely to go back alone, so let’s hold hands and go back together! I will give up being the Sovereign Queen Lorde, so will you also give up being the chancellor and come with me? As my little brother Ide?” As she spoke, Titee was on the verge of tears. However, to correct everything that had gone wrong a thousand years ago, she held back the tears welling up in her eyes and spoke.
“Give up being the Sovereign Queen Lorde?! What do you mean give it up?! What does that mean?!” Ide was confused by this unexpected reaction, but Titee kept shouting at him.
“It’s simple! Listen, my brother! I’m saying we should give up everything and return to our home! World peace is too heavy a burden for us children! The legend of the Sovereign Queen Lorde and the northern lands are too much for us to bear! Because we can’t bear it, we’re now wandering as ghosts in the world a thousand years later! So stop it already! As your older sister, I beg you! Come back to me, Ide!!!”
“As my sister? No, that is not right. You are not just an ordinary girl. You are the legendary Sovereign Queen Lorde who dominates the North.”
“I’ve come to reject that title!” Titee hurled everything she had sworn to the people of the North in the Dungeon at the last remaining Northerner. She discarded the toughness she had maintained all along and confessed that she’d never been fit to be a ruler. The answer, filled with a thousand years of suffering, left Ide speechless. “The Sovereign Queen Lorde and the chancellor were just games we played! They’re not our true selves. I’m sure I should have been a gardener and you should have been a professor! That would have been a good life. Let’s remember that prairie, Ide.”
Ide’s voice trembled as he took in Titee’s words. “What do you mean ‘games’? What prairie?” He repeated each word like he was chewing them. The voice of his sister reached the Guardian Ide, although he’d fallen into madness. Though his face was invisible, it was clear that his heart was trembling. Indeed, to resolve his lingering attachment as the Thief of Wood’s Essence, his sister Titee would be indispensable.
“Yes, that’s right. Let’s return to being siblings and go back to our home on that prairie.”
The voice came again from the Pieris Aicia tree. “Return... Return to being siblings...”
Only the voices of the brother and sister echoed through the trees. Neither the Sovereign Queen Lorde nor the chancellor, who had continued to deceive themselves, were here now. It was a gentle conversation.
“It’s not too late, even now. Let’s go back together and end it all. Then, our lingering attachments will be resolved. We can die satisfied with our lives. I am certain of that.”
It was truly a very gentle conversation, but I still hadn’t let my guard down. Indeed, if this was the end, then I was fine with that. Guardian Ide would be reunited with his sister and everything would end. If that was the case, it would be fine.
“End it all?”
Ah, I had a premonition. My heightened senses from activating Dimension: Calculash—Recall, my Responsiveness skill, which read the flow of the world, and my experience battling previous Guardians all warned me that this wouldn’t end so easily.
“Is this the end of everything? Am I returning to being a younger brother?” Ide’s voice continued to tremble. Then he spoke again. “Master Kanami?”
He quietly called out my name. Not the name of his home town or the name of his sister, but my name. At that moment, I was certain my premonition was correct. It wouldn’t be easy.
Titee was here now. That was probably a necessary condition for convincing Ide of anything. But it seemed that my presence beside her was a mistake. When we’d met before, he’d said he didn’t hate me, but that seemed impossible. Probably, the fact that my existence was mixed into Titee’s new determination was, for Ide, more than anything else...
“Sovereign Queen Lorde. Did you make this decision after being advised by Master Kanami?!”
“Yeah, that’s right! Kanamin helped me sort things out! I was able to let go of all my burdens and now my body feels so much lighter!” Titee, lacking the skill to intuitively grasp situations, answered Ide’s question in a genuine, bright voice. Thinking her plea had reached her brother, she happily began recounting everything that had happened up until today. “Thanks to Kanamin, I could finally cast off the title of Sovereign Queen Lorde. Along the way, as just a girl named Titee, I saw all sorts of things. It made my heart leap, remembering the times I traveled with you! In the Allied Nations, we browsed all sorts of shops, crafted custom weapons for me in a workshop, and boarded ships bigger than I’d ever seen! At sea, we fought giant fish monsters; on land, we battled enormous insect monsters; and we even saved two princesses from this era! And then—”
“MASTER KANAMIII!!!” Ide let out a roar—no, a scream—that interrupted Titee.