Chapter 32: Other than Current

We made landfall the following day, just past noon.
Just in case, we had Tia cast Concealment on us right before landing.
If she cast it on everyone we might lose each other, so only Rin—transformed into a human—and I went ahead visible.

「That said, it’s been thirty years… If we run into someone who knows my face, we’re toast.」

Rin, unable to speak, tilted her head with a look that said, “Really?”

「If it were just me, I could maybe get by with, ‘People say I look just like my late father in his youth.’ But with you along, I don’t think that excuse will fly. One visible marker is enough—why don’t you hide under Concealment too?」

At my words, Rin shook her head vigorously. The message was plain: “No.”

「All right, all right. Let’s just try not to get spotted…」
「It’s amazing you two can hold a conversation like that.」

A voice spoke right by my ear, and I jumped.

「Tia. Are you perching on my shoulder?」
「Yep. This way we won’t get separated.」

She’s definitely just being lazy. I kept that to myself and kept walking.

「…There.」

After another half day on foot, just before sunset, we finally reached the cave.

「Ruful, you keeping up?」
「Mm‑hmm, I’m fine, Sensei.」

I called back, and Ruful’s form appeared right beside me. Tia’s Concealment even erases footfalls, so you truly can’t tell where anyone is.

The cave isn’t big enough for Ruful to enter, but fortunately the mural is right by the entrance.
Peering in from outside, she began to chant.

「O unmoving thing. O unshaken thing. O unforgetting, that can speak. Thou, earth spirit, Gnome—answer my voice and answer my questions.」

With the chant, a small figure appeared—more finely formed than before.

「Gnome. It’s been a while. Do you remember me?」
「I remember.」

In a halting tone, the Gnome nevertheless answered clearly.
…It worked!
Suppressing my rising excitement, I asked him:

「Then… what about the person who drew this picture?」
「I remember.」
「What kind of person were they?」

At my question, the Gnome looked troubled.
Spirits, to be honest, aren’t very smart. From how they talk, they’re about at a three‑year‑old’s level.
They can’t handle complicated questions well.

「Sorry, let me change the question… Was it a woman? Or a man?」
「Woman.」
「One person? Or were there several people drawing it?」
「One.」
「Then… do you know the name of the person who drew it?」

I asked the question at the heart of it.

「Don’t know.」

The Gnome shook its head. Fair enough—if she drew it alone here, there might never have been a chance for a name to be spoken.

I decided to change tack.

「Do you know what this picture shows?」
「Tree.」

Tree… A tree, huh. Now that he says it, it could be a tree…

Hm. No, it’s still poorly drawn. It doesn’t really look like a tree. What I took for a devil’s hand could be branches, I suppose, but…

「When was this picture drawn?」
「A long… time ago.」
「More specifically? Do you know how many nights have passed since then?」
「Don’t know.」

Being an earth spirit, its memory itself isn’t bad.
But the kind of intellect needed to count things or infer isn’t there in a Gnome.
We tried every question we could think of, but learned nothing substantial, and so we cast Concealment again and headed back to the boat.

「…Sorry. You came all this way for nothing.」
「Too bad, Sensei.」
「It’s fine. The voyage was kind of fun anyway.」

I apologized for spending years on this with no results, and got comforted instead. Pathetic.

「Since we came all this way, want to bring back a souvenir? Maybe there are some unusual nuts or fruit?」

On the way back, Tia kept up a lively chatter, maybe to cheer me up. This time Rin and I also had Concealment hoods on, so it probably helped keep us from getting separated too.

「Maybe… I don’t recall ever seeing any. Rin, what about you?」

I addressed Rin, who should have been walking at my side, but no reply came.

「Ah, right. You can’t talk while you’re in human form. While you’re under Concealment, couldn’t you take mermaid form?」

Even so, I heard nothing from her.

「…Hey, I’ve got a bad feeling about this.」
「Me too…」

What a coincidence. So do I.
The instant I thought it, our fears came true.

『Sensei, can you hear me?』

It was a scale‑mediated message from Rin.

「Rin. Where are you right now!?」
『Back at that cave. There was something I forgot to ask.』

…I knew it!

「I’m coming now. Stay hidden until I get there.」
『It’s okay, Tia’s magic is still active.』

True, we were still invisible. The spell’s effect shouldn’t change whether Tia’s nearby or not.

『Hey, tell me, Gnome.』

Spirits don’t vanish when the spell effect ends.
Once called, the shape remains—like a crease in paper.
Just as Yuuki summoned the Jack Frost Ai had bound, Rin could easily call the Gnome Ruful had just summoned.

『What did the person who drew this call this picture?』

That was the question that had slipped clean out of my mind.
No one introduces themselves when they’re all alone. But if they weren’t alone—if it was one person and one thing—there’s a chance a name was spoken.

Magic is born of a wish, and takes form by a name.
If that picture was that person’s wish…
Then it must have a name.

『The Place of Promise. The Place to Return To.』

The Gnome said it in a stumbling voice.

『Sensei’s House.』
「—Ah!」

I couldn’t help crying out.
That… of course.

Wood. Just as the Gnome said—yes, it’s made of wood.
Not sawn timber, but a tree itself.

The lines spreading left and right are branches. And the square above them isn’t a demon’s face but a little hut with a window. The thing that looked like a maw with jagged teeth is the fence at the entrance.

The mock log house I first built. The first school.
Before there was even the predecessor to Hiiro village, let alone Hiiro itself.
The tiny little house where Nina, Ai, and I lived together.

Ai was here. She lived here… and she didn’t forget me.

『There! A monster!』

That was when such shouts reached my ears.

『Eh—no way, how…?』

Rin’s bewildered voice.
We were still invisible, so she should be invisible too.
The duration doesn’t change even if you’re away from Tia herself.

But she had definitely been found. Tia’s Concealment fails the moment someone points to your presence. And… since she was speaking, her form wasn’t human. It was her true mermaid body.

『No… stop!』

Rin’s pained scream rang out—not fear, but pain and anguish.

「Rin!」

This was no time to worry about appearances.
I reverted to dragon form and shot into the air, snapping trees as I went.

The half‑day’s walk vanished in an instant; I saw villagers holding up flames. In the center of their circle of fire, a magical light flickered.

『One caution. This Concealment makes your body like a shadow. So you make no sound, carry no scent, and give no tactile impression. But if light shines on you, the shadow alone will show. Be careful.』

Tia had warned her just yesterday—and yet Rin had lit a light.

I came down at full speed, practically dropping out of the sky. The villagers scrambled back from the unabashed dragon form, so I didn’t crush anyone—but that was sheer luck.

Because my eyes had already fixed on it.

A body lying on the earth, with a beautiful waist fin and blue tail fin and supple arms.
But above those shoulders, what should be there was not.

It lay a short distance away, rolled on the ground.
A human head—with blue hair.

「You… killed her…?」

I asked. No one answered. The humans only stared at me, stunned.

「Was it you! Did you kill Rin!」

My shout turned into a mass of fire that slammed into the ground and exploded.
At once the humans screamed and scattered like spiders’ young.

I won’t let them leave alive.
If I breathed fire at full power, I could turn the entire village into a sea of flame from here with ease. I moved to do it without a second thought—

But at the last moment, I stopped.

It wasn’t because I was afraid to kill. Nor because the faces of the couple who welcomed us flashed through my mind.

It was only that I didn’t want to risk harming Rin’s body—not even by the slightest chance. That alone was the reason.

「Rin…」

I took human form, tottered forward, and sank to my knees before her body.

「Phew, I thought I was gonna die.」

With a light motion,
As if slipping out from under a futon, she flipped up her own body and emerged from inside it—Rin herself.

「W‑what…? R‑Rin?」
「Ehehe. Sorry for making you worry.」

Rin slipped out from within her own headless body as if molting. She was a size smaller, but not a single wound marked her—no, there was one change: hair that had reached her waist was now cleanly cut around her shoulders.

「Ta‑da. Actually, that was my hair.」

Rin picked up the head lying on the ground and gave it a light shake. It turned into a mass of long blue hair and fluttered down onto the earth.

「Rin!」

I couldn’t help myself—I pulled her into my arms.

「H‑hey, Sensei! That hurts! And it’s embarrassing! I’m not wearing anything right now!」

Now that she said it—true enough. Her clothes were covering the shed, counterfeit body like a husk, and the Rin before me was, in the literal sense, stark naked. But that didn’t matter right now.

「When you overcame old age… you paid with your memory, didn’t you?」

No matter how many times I’d asked about the price, she had always dodged it.
But now it was finally clear. She hadn’t simply grown childish from rejuvenation, nor become scatterbrained; she had, if anything, cleverly hidden it all along.
There’s no way—even for her—that she would forget a critical warning she heard only yesterday. If so, then this wasn’t ordinary forgetfulness.

「Tell me—just how much did you give up?」
「…New things.」

Rin murmured it softly.

「When the day turns over, I forget—most of what happened that day.」

So that’s… how it is. Having shed old age, she no longer has a tomorrow. And she, who had been so curious and loved new things…

「Please. Promise me you’ll never do something this dangerous again.」
「…Sorry. I want to promise, but… I might not be able to.」
「Because even if you promise, you’ll forget?」

Rin shook her head, then looked down at her now smaller body.
…Right. No one undergoes such an abrupt change with no price to pay.
It wasn’t merely that she’d gotten smaller.
What she had just overcome was death. Rin was not only ageless—she had become immortal.

What could you possibly put on the balance scale to make it even?

「From now on I’ll probably… forget why I mustn’t do dangerous things… no—forget what’s dangerous in the first place.」

What Rin set on the scale was—

It was every tomorrow—and every yesterday.