While Miharu was talking to Lina in the dreamworld, the Miharu of the real world was in a bedroom of Rio’s mansion at the Galarc Castle. Lina was currently controlling her body and using it to speak to Rio. Rio had no way of knowing that Lina was talking to him and the sleeping Miharu in her mental world at the same time.
Lina had pulled out an earring-style magic artifact from somewhere and used it to transform into her original appearance. Using Miharu’s body, she had pushed Rio down onto the bed and straddled him as she gave him three pieces of advice.
“First, searching the labyrinth for clues about what happened a thousand years ago is pointless. If you’re going to look, you should search elsewhere. Second, you should get more disciples besides Sora. If you don’t make new disciples, you may end up regretting it. And the third: In my opinion...the first new disciple you should get is Christina Beltrum.”
The advice was completely unacceptable to Rio, which was why a long silence had fallen over them.
“Well? Will you choose Christina Beltrum as your disciple?” Lina asked, grinning seductively as she straddled Rio.
“That’s impossible,” Rio refused.
“Why?”
“She’s the first princess of the Beltrum Kingdom. She’s responsible for the Restoration and the future of her home kingdom.”
Disciples were the servants of transcendent ones. The moment they became disciples, they were removed from the logic of the world and no longer remained in people’s memories. It was why Rio flatly refused to make Christina a disciple of a transcendent one.
“Right,” Lina agreed easily.
She agreed? So why did she suggest it in the first place?
Rio looked confused. He couldn’t imagine her answering him even if he asked, but he decided to try anyway.
“Will you explain your reasoning?”
“Unfortunately, no. I don’t want to say something that could unnecessarily affect the future.”
“I see...”
“As you should know, it was merely advice. The final choice is yours. You can take what I say with a grain of salt—as long as you consider it seriously.”
“...”
“Well, just keep it in mind for now. Of course, the faster you make a decision, the better.” Lina smiled brightly at the silent scowl on Rio’s face; it was clear that he felt a strong aversion to the idea.
At least she’s giving me time to think. But even then...
There was nothing to even consider—making Christina a disciple was out of the question. He had no intention of making anyone a disciple.
“By the way, you can have a maximum of six disciples. If we exclude Sora and Christina, you can make another four disciples.”
“I thought each transcendent one could only have three disciples?” Rio asked, eyes widening as he recalled what Sora told him.
“You have the divinity of the Dragon King and the divinity I entrusted to Aishia. You currently have the divinity of two people, so you can have the disciples of two.”
“I see,” Rio replied, but he instantly felt warier.
Don’t tell me she wants to create the maximum...
He had felt so repulsed at the thought of creating a single disciple—making five others besides Sora would be entirely impossible.
“We can discuss the other four at a later time. Focus on Christina first,” Lina said, as though she knew what he was thinking.
Rio couldn’t say yes or no.
“That aside, you retrieved the golem cores, right? Can I have them?” Lina seemed to be done with the topic of disciples, as she swiftly moved on.
Rio pulled himself together with a sigh and used the Time-Space Cache. “Dissolvo.” The space by his hands distorted, and two transparent orbs that were roughly ten centimeters wide appeared in each hand.
“Thank you. I’ll look after this. Repono.” Lina uttered a spell, and space distorted once again. The two orbs in Rio’s hands vanished.
“You don’t have a Time-Space Cache, right?” Rio asked in surprise.
“Correct. I just created something similar using magic,” Lina explained simply.
“I see...”
Rio was dumbfounded. The sorcery sealed in the Time-Space Cache was extremely complex. As far as Rio was aware, that spell was yet to be converted to obtainable magic, yet she had done it so easily. It seemed she hadn’t been a Wise God in her past life for nothing.
Rio swallowed his surprise and belatedly asked the question on his mind. “But isn’t Miharu a spirit art caster?”
Spirit art casters were unable to cast spirit arts if they took any magic spell formulas into their body. Miharu had trained in using spirit arts, so she shouldn’t be able to use magic. Since they shared the same body, this should have applied to Lina too.
“That’s why I’ve made her into a sorcerer,” Lina said, overturning Rio’s assumption.
“You made a spell contract for her? Just when...”
“A few days ago. When she was asleep.”
“Does Miharu know that?”
“She probably hasn’t noticed yet. I can’t be bothered to tell her, so you can explain it to her,” Lina said nonchalantly.
“Can you communicate with Miharu?”
“Only when she’s asleep, through her mental world. I am merely the shadow of Ayase Miharu, so I can only come out like this when she’s asleep.”
“R-Right...”
“So don’t think I can come out whenever I want. In fact, I don’t plan on interacting with any of you more than necessary, so keep that in mind. I’ll be the one to reach out if needed. Just like I’m doing now,” she said with a smile.
“Why?”
“Firstly, this state is really energy inefficient. Miharu has a lot of magic essence, but if I remain in possession of her for a prolonged time, she’ll run out. The time I spend active is time Miharu’s body isn’t resting properly, and simply being in this state is a burden on her.”
“Makes sense.” Rio didn’t want to see Miharu suffer the burden of Lina’s magic casting either.
“The other reason is because I don’t want to be dragged to the forefront to solve problems. I can’t answer most of your questions, and I don’t want to change the future for the worse. Transcendent ones aren’t meant to be so actively involved with the people of this world. You’ll have to explain that to everyone else.”
“‘Aren’t meant to be actively involved with this world...’ Right. I understand.”
Lina’s words seemed to weigh heavily on Rio, as he nodded with a docile look.
“You really have a serious personality, huh? You’re just like the Dragon King was a thousand years ago, even though you’re meant to be a different person.” Lina looked down at Rio with a faraway look, smiling fondly at an old memory.
“I-Is that so?” Puzzled, Rio tilted his head curiously.
“Yes. But in your case, you should just enjoy this moment to the fullest. As long as you’re within this barrier, you’re Rio, not the Dragon King. You have the right to that. After all, even Ayase Miharu acts irrespective of me,” Lina said in a playful tone.
“All right,” Rio said, nodding with a wry smile.
“So, is there anything you wanted to ask me? You won’t have a chance like this often, and as long as it doesn’t affect the future, I don’t mind answering you.”
“Will the golem cores you retrieved be usable again?”
It was a question involving the future right off the bat, but Rio asked it anyway, as he had no idea how tolerant Lina would be to begin with. Lina smiled in satisfaction, seeing through his intentions.
“It’ll take some time, since they’re protected, but eventually,” she answered.
“Who activated the golems?”
“The future may diverge greatly if I tell you that right now, so it’ll need to be a secret.”
The question itself was about a past event, but it seemed the answer would affect the future. Lina refused to speak, hoping to stick to her desired future.
“Got it.”
Rio would have liked to know the answer, but he understood Lina’s conditions. It was information that wasn’t obtainable through other means, so he reluctantly accepted her answer.
“Is there a way to remove an upper high-rank spirit from a hero?” he asked next.
“Unfortunately, no. Spirit contracts fuse the spirit and the human at the soul level. Once the spirit contract is bound, it cannot be broken until the contractee dies.”
“I see... My next question is this—can the masks be replicated?”