Epilogue
A FEW DAYS AFTER my duel with Yanagi, I visited the Remote Magic Tower.
“It feels so long since I was last here, somehow,” I said softly.
The structure still towered high above me. One week had passed since it first appeared. With some of the novelty worn off, fewer people were there to investigate it. It was a lot easier to avoid the researchers, approach, and attempt to enter the tower.
“Let me try it,” I said, placing my hand on the tower. “Dungeon Teleportation.”
I waited, but my skill never activated. I wasn’t surprised, honestly.
“It really does work differently from other dungeons,” I said. I checked my stats display for the description of Dungeon Teleportation.
Dungeon Teleportation LV 20
Required MP: 1 MP × Distance (meters)
Conditions: Teleportation can only occur in dungeons that have already been visited.
Teleportation Distance: Maximum 400 meters.
Activation Time: 0.8 seconds × distance (meters)
Scope: User and user’s belongings.
Sub-skill: Time Zero
Paying 100 MP allows the user to teleport instantly within a ten-meter radius. (This ability is obtained when Dungeon Teleportation reaches LV 20).
Yup, there it was in writing: maximum distance four hundred meters. The tower’s walls weren’t nearly as thick as that, so entering should be possible. Why couldn’t I?
I had a hunch.
“This dungeon did have unnatural elements.”
For one thing, each level of the interior looked like a completely different world! Some had skies of all things, as if I wasn’t inside a specific structure. Maybe I wasn’t inside the tower at all. What if, unlike other dungeons, it didn’t exist where I thought it did? Its insides could exist somewhere else entirely.
“A dungeon that exists in a space outside of our world,” I mused. “Is that how the Remote Magic Tower works?”
If my guess was correct, that would explain why the distance exceeded the maximum requirements for Dungeon Teleportation. In short, I couldn’t grind the Remote Magic Tower like I had other dungeons.
“I figured this would be the case, but it leaves me in a bind.”
I beat the tower, but I didn’t receive the third reward. Look, I wasn’t complaining about Battle Barrier, or a strong weapon like Greed, nor the fact it warned me Hana was in danger as a consolation prize, but…I chafed knowing there was more to gain. Call me a completionist, but I wished I could’ve learned what the prize was or the conditions I needed to satisfy to receive it.
Well, there were no time travel skills, as far as I knew. Dwelling on it would get me nowhere.
“Why did the system give me information about Hana as a consolation prize?”
At the time, I assumed the information would relate to the mysteries behind the existence of dungeons and the level system, not events happening inside one. The system showing me that Hana was in danger suggested it hadn’t read my mind so much as read my heart. That shouldn’t have been possible for a machine-like system.
Another aspect of the system bothered me. That day Hana was in danger, as I left the tower, right here…
I could’ve sworn I heard these words:
“You can do it, Rin.”
I knew the sound of the system, though it was not its usual mechanical voice. The words had emotions behind them, and…somehow, the voice felt familiar.
With my hand on the tower, I asked slowly, “What in the world are you thinking?”
If the owner of that voice was connected with the dungeon and level system in our world, I wanted to know the reason. No, I had to know.
Unfortunately, the system didn’t respond to me. I sighed in frustration, but I couldn’t change its decision. I would turn my attention elsewhere, for now.
“Better head back,” I decided. “The more dungeons I dive, the more similar circumstances are bound to turn up. I’ll ask the system when the time comes.”
I smiled to myself and turned on my heel, leaving the tower behind me. I raised my face toward the sky and strode forward, toward a new future.
That’s when fate put her in front of me.
She immediately snatched my attention. Her long silver hair reflected the sun, fluttering in the wind as she walked. She had fairy-tale skin as fair as snow, and eyes as bottomless and blue as the deep sea. Before I realized it, I was standing still. She approached me without hesitation and stopped close enough I could have reached out and touched her. She parted her lips to speak.
“You’re Amane Rin, aren’t you?” she said. Hearing my name put me at a loss for words, but she continued as if my response wouldn’t have changed anything. “I never expected to meet you here, but this is quite a fortunate miscalculation.”
She regarded me with a soft smile. “My name is Claire,” she said. “Amane-san, I came to meet you.”
In the distant future, time and time again, I recalled this moment where I met Claire—and how much this instance changed my life.
✦ ✦ ✦
Thus, the curtain closes on this long prologue. From this moment forward, our story will accelerate to a whole new level.