It really was nice to have him meet Falke, though. Lara didn’t actually say it out loud, but she’d been glad to be able to show her son to her mentor. Reynaud had taken her in as a child after her parents’ death, so he’d been like a father to her; she’d even shed tears at his passing.
“How do you think you reach the Hadal layer?”
“Beats me. Maybe by making sure not to neglect the basics?”
“That’s such a cliché answer.”
While Sazaki and Lara were reminiscing, a group of students engaged in lively conversation passed next to them.
“The basics, huh? When Falke was only tall enough to reach my knees, he was already trying to move stones.” Sazaki thought back to when their son had been a toddler.
“Heh.” Lara grinned unconsciously.
Back then, Falke had made cute groaning sounds as he pretended to try—and fail—to move a rock with magic, before he had even formed any mana of his own.
“If I remember, at that time, didn’t you poke the rock with your finger?”
“Bwa ha ha! ‘Daddy, no!’ I remember him scolding me, then hitting me repeatedly.”
Moving objects with magic was the most basic of the basics for mages, and an exercise that all of them undertook. However, even though Falke was Lara’s son, he’d obviously been unable to use magic while still a toddler, so the rock hadn’t budged an inch. Sazaki had been unable to just watch and poked the rock with his finger, so like the little kid he was, Falke had gotten angry, wanting to move it himself, and had hit his father’s leg with his tiny fists.
“This sure takes me back. Now, the two of us are great-great-grandparents, while Falke and Agnes are great-grandparents,” Lara mused.
“So what? None of us have changed a bit,” Sazaki declared with a grin.
“I’m not so sure about that.” Her expression was difficult to describe.
You care about our family, after all.
You’ve never stopped caring about our family.
Although this couple was difficult to understand in various ways, in this case, they each held the same opinion of their spouse. To those who didn’t know them well, Sazaki seemed like he’d cast away everything besides alcohol, while Lara looked like just a moody old woman, but their love for their family was stronger than most. That was probably why they were still getting along so well even after the better part of a century.
“Oh, that’s right. I don’t have enough booze to drink with Falke. Do you mind tagging along?” Sazaki suddenly remembered the lack of drinks and invited Lara.
“Not at all.”
“All right, let’s go buy some, then.”
Their date continued for just a bit longer.
“It’s so quiet now,” Falke muttered in a wistful tone when Connie and his friends returned to their dorm.
“You see Connie often at the academy, don’t you?” Agnes shrugged, acting like her normal self now.
“Well, that’s true, but we’re purely student and teacher there.”
Unlike Falke, who was a teacher at the Magic Academy, Agnes was a member of the Magic Council and thus couldn’t visit often with their great-grandson, who was living in the academy dorms. On the other hand, Falke also had to conduct himself as a teacher at the academy, not a great-grandfather.
“Well, this is all for Connie to learn social skills, so I can put up with it,” Agnes said and shrugged again, picturing Connie’s face.
Since Connie had been partially taught by extraordinary associates of Sazaki and Lara, there was little for him to learn at the academy. Even so, his parents had made him enroll there and live in the dorms, just to have him live in a different environment from his usual one and learn about society.
“Still, one of his friends was caught by the entrance exam’s safety measures,” Agnes continued.
“I’ve never met Udo, but he’s as eccentric as the rumors say,” Falke added.
“Right? I never imagined that, in this day and age, someone would teach magic meant for war as basic magic, nor that their student would believe them. When you combine an eccentric teacher with a child prodigy, crazy things happen.”
“I don’t know the details because this happened before my mother’s generation, but it seems that there was a truly terrible event that was the reason those safeguards were established.”
“It took place in another country, but I happened to read the records about it. Apparently, at least thirty people disappeared without a trace, and part of the school building was cleanly gouged out, so I think it was probably annihilation magic or some magic that affected space. No matter how you look at it, it wasn’t the kind of magic anyone should use at an entrance examination.”
Even for Falke and Agnes, who were digging up their old memories, it was a little unexpected to hear that the academy’s safety measures would ever have to be activated in this era, which showed just how eccentric Udo was and how exceptional Emmeline’s talent was.
“Now then, my dad was calling for me, so I’m heading out for a bit.”
“All right. Don’t destroy the estate.”
“I’ll be sure to tell my dad.”
The couple had known each other for a long time—all the way back to their teens—but Falke decided it was about time and stood up, Agnes seeing him off.
That depends on what he wants, though, Falke thought. Agnes had only been joking when she told him not to destroy the estate, but Falke didn’t know why it was that his father had called him out to the garden on his way back from his walk, so he was beginning to worry about the safety of the estate after all.
“Hey, there you are. Come on, what are you looking so annoyed for? You’re gonna make your old man cry. Right, dear?” Sazaki said with a sniffle, putting on the act of a poor, old father to try and elicit sympathy from his wife.
“I’d have a normal expression if you weren’t going around lying down in alleys with bottles of booze in your arms. Right, mom?” Falke replied, referring to events unrelated to the current situation.
“I’d say you should stand up to your father more, Falke, but there’s no point really.” When both her son and husband sought her approval, Lara sided with her husband.
Sazaki picked up one of the wooden swords leaning against the garden walls and tapped Falke on the shoulder with it. It was no wonder that Falke looked so annoyed, having already played around with his father so much just a few days ago.
“Wasn’t that good of a father...” Sazaki suddenly started talking about something unrelated.
“What?”
“I wasn’t. I worked you and my apprentices really hard.”
Falke’s and Sazaki’s apprentices had been born not long after the end of the great war, in an era when nightmares still lurked right around the corner. Sazaki had barely been worried about the return of the Great Demon King, but he’d been concerned that a different, similar entity might be born. As a result, he’d worked Falke and his other apprentices hard. It had been fine for his apprentices because they’d wished for this, but Falke had been forced into his training. Lara’s magic lessons hadn’t been particularly taxing on the body, but Sazaki’s training had definitely been very intense.
“From my perspective, there was nothing wrong with it,” Falke said.
“Well, I also think it was necessary, but that was from an adult’s perspective.”
Looking at it objectively, it had been a necessary measure to ensure Falke’s survival in the chaotic postwar era, but that was much easier for Sazaki to say.
“Why are you suddenly bringing this up?” Falke asked.
“Because I only have about a decade left. I didn’t know when my next chance would be, so I wanted to apologize,” Sazaki replied bluntly.
Even for someone without any deep connections to magic like Sazaki, there were several methods to prolong his life. However, he was a member of the Hero’s party, who’d all decided that things wouldn’t turn out well if they got too old, and he didn’t have many chances left to apologize to Falke for the past. But this wasn’t actually the first time he’d apologized.
“You used to apologize all the time when I was a kid, remember?” Falke’s expression was beyond words as he thought back to his childhood.
“Oh, you remember that?” Sazaki looked surprised for a moment.