"It took a long time for me to sit here and write this again. A lot has happened. There were times I thought I never wanted to leave another record. But in the end, I picked up my pen again and found some paper, because if my guess is correct, one day, this might help someone. No... maybe it’s more accurate to say I hope it will."

The ridiculous feeling Yuder had felt the moment he read the first sentence vanished in an instant. He continued reading the rest of the writing.

"There is something I want to write down first. Maybe whoever reads this in the future will dismiss it as a fantasy, or a delusion. And maybe... they wouldn’t be wrong. But what’s important is that when I first heard this story, I believed it with all my heart, without a single doubt." 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

Yuder felt a strange premonition, as if he already knew what would come next. And the writing that followed proved that feeling to be right.

"From being born a child abandoned under a lemon tree, to awakening a power unlike others, to giving it the name of magic, and to becoming the magician who stood at the right hand of a new emperor—it took a very long time. It wasn’t an easy journey, but I never felt it was unbearable, because there was always one friend by my side."

"Yes. The only friend who recognized and guided me. The first person who told me I didn’t have to be ashamed of my power. Someone who never flinched no matter what happened, and a mysterious existence who supported the path of myself and other magicians. My lord, who gave me children connected by soul, though I could bear no heirs of my own."

"I used to think that his calm, as if he knew everything in the world, that gentle and sorrowful smile he always gave me, and even his extraordinary abilities, were all simply things he had been born with. At least, until the day death approached him, when he confessed that it wasn’t so."

Yes. As expected, it was a story related to the founding emperor’s last words.

How different must that day have looked from Luma’s perspective compared to his son, Oblik van Ta-in, the first Duke of Ta-in? Yuder’s heart pounded with the thought that he might finally learn something real and definitive.

"He spoke of how reckless and foolish he had truly been. He mentioned several incidents that we had managed to overcome without much difficulty, and talked about how all of them had been catastrophic failures. He even described events he’d never experienced as though he had lived through them. According to him, he had once been nothing more than a wretched swordsman who lost everything, unable even to properly wield his once-proud blade. At first, I thought it was all the delusion of a man close to death."

"When I told him that those things had never happened—or had long since ended well—he smiled."

"‘No, my friend. Those things all did happen. It’s just that now, they’ve become things that never were. Because I stopped myself from repeating the same mistakes. That’s all.’"

"He spoke again about ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) the final catastrophe that had struck the Empire. What remained for me as the last battle we triumphed over together, remained for him as a memory of a pitiful death. Most of those alive now weren’t present back then, and he claimed that I had used some sort of magic on him when he was fatally wounded in that final battlefield."

"‘It was a magic I’d never seen before, not before or after. You, with the same face you have now, made a final request to me. To please make sure this never happens again...’"

"And so my friend said he went back again. Back to the past, before he met me. To a brilliant time when he still had every opportunity. To a miraculous moment when those who had died were still alive."

He’d pressed down so hard he nearly tore through the page. Yuder felt a cold yet searing tremor run down his spine.

Finally.

He had finally come face-to-face with it.

Someone who had experienced exactly what he had!

He’d suspected it before, of course, but the feeling of knowing—of confirmation—was a completely different experience from mere speculation.

“It really... was true.”

"Yuder?"

Perhaps noticing the sudden intensity of his breath, Kishiar turned around from where he was reading. Looking into Kishiar’s eyes, Yuder tried his best to speak calmly despite the flushed heat rising to his face.

"I think we’ve finally found the information we most wanted to find."

"...Could it be?"

"It’s written here that the founding emperor truly did return to the past like me, using Archmage Luma’s magic."

"As expected... so it’s true. Can you show me?"

Yuder opened to the relevant passage and showed it to him. Of course, Kishiar couldn’t immediately decipher the part written in the code Luma had created, but he still nodded, his eyes gleaming.

"So, did you find anything about the ‘choice’ Oblik van Ta-in wrote about?"

"No. Not yet."

"Keep reading, and if you find anything new you want to share, tell me right away. I really want to hear it."

"Yes."

He knew he needed to keep reading, but it was hard to calm down. Yuder placed Luma’s journal on his lap and leaned his head against Kishiar’s back. Emotions and thoughts he had pushed aside, since nothing had been completely certain before, surged through him like a flood.

The founding emperor, thought by all to be a godlike figure, had actually been someone who turned back time like him. And he’d spoken of a terrible failure, saying he hadn’t even been emperor at first—that it was all changed.

If he’d failed and everything had ended then, what would have happened? The Orr Empire likely wouldn’t even exist. Magicians wouldn’t have been treated with the respect they now enjoyed. And his descendants wouldn’t have been able to live on as they did.

Which meant... there might never have been a person named Kishiar la Orr.

The fact that a single person’s return to the past had changed the future so drastically hit him viscerally, through the warmth he felt against his back.

Yuder placed his hand on the one belonging to the man quietly sitting upright like a pillar. The feel of skin beneath that crimson-stained bare hand was so vivid, and yet... in another version of events, it might never have existed at all.

"...Suddenly I feel grateful to Archmage Luma and the founding emperor."

"Because... thanks to them succeeding at their second chance, I was born?"

"Yes."

Kishiar let out a small laugh, his shoulders shaking slightly at Yuder’s firm answer. Yuder furrowed his brow and squeezed the man’s hand more tightly.

"I mean it."

"I know. I wasn’t mocking you. I just smiled because it’s so strange and wonderful."

When Yuder didn’t reply, wondering if it was really true, Kishiar stopped smiling and gently pressed their heads together as he explained.

"Think about it. How many times do you think I’ve heard people say they’re glad I was born?"

"I don’t know exactly... but probably a lot."

"Yeah. From the moment I was born, people called me the Empire’s good fortune. But that was all because of this face."

He spoke without a shred of embarrassment, pressing his head more firmly as he joked.

"In other words, that’s the first time I’ve ever heard someone say they’re glad I was born for a reason like that."

"......"

"There were times when I used to think, what’s so great about being born? Shouldn’t I just thank my mother and be done with it? But... it seems that since my birthday this year, I might start thinking about it a little differently."