The Magic Academy's Physicist-Chapter 98: The Golden-Eyed And The Golden-Eyed (3)

There was a white-haired, gold-eyed girl standing in front of me.

She seemed greatly surprised. Her mouth was slightly open, and her focus didn’t stay fixed but looked me all over.

My reaction was something similar. It was actually unbelievable. Height, facial structure, even the physique–a girl looking exactly the same except for opposite hair color was standing in front of me.

It was symmetrical as if there was a mirror placed at the door. We stared at each other, mouths opening and closing at the same time.

Who are you.

Why do you look like me.

Why are you here, what were you doing with Lotte.

Countless questions surfaced in my mind, but my lips didn’t move as I wanted. The first word that came up when I saw her burst out on its own.

“... Kasha?”

Akasha, my younger twin sister.

I drew the word out from hazy memories. It was an unfamiliar name, yet fond somehow.

It was strange. I didn’t have a younger sister, only an older one I’d left back on Earth.

That meant that this girl wasn’t mine but Aether’s sister. Unfortunately for her, she was someone who virtually had no relations to who I was now.

“S-sis?”

The girl called me sister as she strode up to me. We were only a few feet apart. She covered the distance in an instant and opened her arms wide.

There wasn’t even a chance to continue my thoughts. I was embraced from the front like a fish being sucked into a trap.

“Aether! I didn’t think we’d meet here like this!”

Her reaction made this seem like a family reunion.

I’d sensed it when I first saw her, but even the voice was the same as Aether’s. That gave me goosebumps. Whether she sensed that or not, the girl buried her head and kept talking.

“You know who I am, right? Your twin sister, Akasha. The two of us were always one. We promised to be together until death so why did you leave all of a sudden.... Anyway, your memories are back, right? Hm? Aren’t they?”

Me leaving, regaining my memories, etc. I didn’t understand any of it.

If I had asked Vermel whether Aether had any siblings, I wouldn’t have been shaken by this kind of situation.

“We should go home eventually. Don’t go anywhere anymore, okay?”

Squeeze.

The girl hugged me tighter. It crushed my chest as a result, and felt like my diaphragm was being pulled up. This wasn’t a strength coming from a human.

I was slightly short of breath. At the feeling of my lungs being squeezed, I grimaced and looked over the white-haired girl’s shoulder. Lotte was watching me with a grim expression, not seeming too happy for some reason.

Squeeeze.

“Ku-kuhk...! Hey...!”

“Ah, sorry! I was squeezing too hard, right?”

That was when the girl gradually loosened her arms.

I coughed up the air that had gathered in my lungs and regained my breath. Once my breathing stabilized, I immediately organized my thoughts.

First, this girl called Akasha was definitely my younger sister. But I didn’t know who she was. The only thing I remembered was her name, and even that was information from the original owner of this body.

I also got information about the original Aether from her. The real Aether had lost her memories, and it seemed I’d taken her place. This part was still ambiguous, so, moving on.

Lastly, her appearance. I didn’t know why she was randomly staying at the Saliere mansion, but I understood why the people who saw me back had been bewildered. Indeed, this must have been where the whole dyeing thing came from, too.

After quickly grasping the situation, I cast my eyes around to different areas of the study, not seeing anyone else besides Lotte. Lotte was glaring at me, face even more complex than earlier. It was an expression I’d never seen before.

This chapter is updated by freēwēbnovel.com.

[.......]

Even the hardcover, who always had something to say, kept its mouth shut as if recognizing the severity of the situation. The only people who were conversing ended up being just me and this girl, which made me seriously uncomfortable.

“Sis? Why aren’t you saying anything?”

Akasha asked while grasping my hand. She must be mistaking that the original Aether had regained her memories.

Unfortunately, I didn’t know her. I had to make this part clear.

“Sorry, but I don’t know who you are.”

“... Excuse me?”

“I remember that your name’s Akasha, but there’s nothing else besides that.”

The girl’s bright smile crumpled instantly.

“Y-you’re lying, right?”

“I’m not.”

In response to her stuttering question, I reaffirmed my answer with a light shake of the head. It would be miserable for someone who hadn’t seen their family in a long time, but this was the truth. Most of all, I wasn’t the Aether that this girl remembered.

“Th-that’s alright. You know my name, at least. You can remember the rest later.”

She was optimistic. It would’ve been troubling if she’d made a fuss here for not remembering her.

“Anyway, I’m your sister. You get that much, right? So, should we go home?”

There was expectancy in the bubbly voice.

“Home?”

“Yeah, the house where we live. You must’ve been through a lot while you were here. Don’t stay somewhere like this and come live together with the Golden-Eyed, okay?”

A place where the Golden-Eyed live together... I knew of two locations like that.

One was the south and west part of the Elankaya Cordillera near the Demonic Lands.

And the other was the southeast part of Kaurelia, the country of elves.

It was clear which of the two places Akasha was talking about–the area close to here. Thinking about the geography, I could picture how harsh that location where the Golden-Eyed were gathered must be.

I didn’t hear anything from Vermel, but it was probably... not so great. I decided to make an appropriate excuse.

“Sorry, but that won’t happen either.”

“Why?”

“School’s going to start soon.”

“School?”

Akasha huffed a laugh, her reaction one of incredulity. I was kind of offended by her response myself.

“You mean attending the Academy?”

Taking one step back, the girl asked as she crossed her arms. Her tone was a little curt.

“What’s the point of staying in a place where humans study? You already know most magics. Just drop out of there.”

It was a repertoire I’d heard from somewhere before. Come to think of it, it was similar to what Prince Klion had said when he tried to buy me.

Chairman Robespierre had tipped me off about a Beast infiltrating in the Imperial court. If the Second Prince’s attitude wasn’t coming from his natural temperament, then that meant his attempt to get me expelled was solely the work of a Beast.

“Huh.”

I see, that was what had happened.

When I got back, I was going to press that elf who didn’t tell me properly. The corners of my lips slowly curled up.

“Drop out? No.”

“Why?”

If there wasn’t a good answer to give, then the subject had to be changed. That meant it was time to bring out the sentence starting with the conjunction ‘more importantly’.

“More importantly, you’re the one who took the tokamak in the storeroom, right?”

“... Huh?”

Akasha’s pupils began quivering slightly at the sudden change in topic. I’d hit it right on the head.

It wasn’t actually difficult to guess. Lotte or Senior Lorewell wouldn’t have bothered to touch my things, and same for the servants in this house. Why would they steal the tokamak when it was heavy and difficult to figure out?

If there hadn’t been any other outsider while I was gone, then she was the culprit. She looked and acted like me, so her reaction to seeing the tokamak would have been the same as well.

─ Wow, jackpot!

She would’ve tried to take it like that. Because apart from me being a physicist, it seemed that the original Aether also had the ability to design a tokamak.

“Th-the tokamak, you mean?”

“I said the acronym, but you know what it is.”

“Of course, that’s what you said to call it. I was there at the time so how could I forget?”

Akasha’s eyes turned bright again after being momentarily shaken; she must have thought of something. Glancing at Lotte, Akasha continued talking.

“Ah, I remember back then. You’d been waiting and waiting to make a device that could confine magnetic fields, but it just wouldn’t work out and you were struggling with it. So do you know how you were inspired?”

“What....”

“The elf, the elf. When you went there to meet your friend, you happened to see an elf making a magic equipment similar to the one you were working on so you secretly followed them. You seemed... a bit like a pervert at the time.”

The fuck? The owner of this body went around stalking people for research? What a crazy ass bitch.

No, it couldn’t be. The tone of a lying person spoke was different from their usual. There was no logical basis for it but I instinctively realized that Akasha was weaving lies into her words.

“Anyway, I didn’t know you were still researching the tokamak after losing your memories.”

This kid, looking closely, had the same style of speech as well. She’d used ‘anyway’ to subtly change the topic in her favor. Like this, I was going to lose control of the conversation.

Maintaining a poker face, I asked for what I needed.

“Nevermind about that so if you took the tokamak, give it back.”

As soon as I finished, Akasha took a few steps back, her gold eyes looking over Lotte’s face. Lotte, who kept missing the opportunity to speak up, continued to let out small groans.

Akasha distanced herself meters away from me. There was only one door in and out of here so I didn’t know why she was distancing herself backwards.

Thinking that, I was just about to take a step forward.

“Hm, give it back?”

Akasha curled her lips slightly.

“I don’t want to.”

Then she broke through the window and escaped.