15

“…Shiala?”

Sophia sensed something was wrong the moment Shiala’s words cut off.

“Shiala!? What happened!?”

No matter how strongly she called out, Shiala did not respond—and there was no black flame lit at her chest.

Sophia grabbed Shiala by both shoulders and shook her, but Shiala’s knees buckled, her head lolled, and her small body fell limply to the ground.

“…No way… just like Lord Ains said…”

Had she died?

The words Sophia had been spinning in a trembling voice did not make it to the end.

Slowly, Sophia laid Shiala’s small, light body on its side and closed her eyelids.

There was no breath, no pulse, no heartbeat.

It was as if she had fallen asleep without pain.

“…Why?”

Even if it was what Ains had feared, Sophia could not understand it.

Shiala had not taken a single enemy attack, and even while manifesting her sorcery, she had used it with a calm, unbothered expression.

The cause was undoubtedly the moment Shiala took the pendant into her hand—just as Ains had said.

It happened in an instant. In that single instant when Shiala grasped the pendant, something Sophia could not perceive happened to Shiala.

Before she knew it, Shiala had stopped—her heart no longer moving, without a single external wound.

“Sorry, sorry—I’m late.”

Ains arrived at Sophia’s side as she sat in despair.

His tone was, if anything, cheerful, and his steps were light.

“…Lord Ains, Shiala…”

Lowering her gaze, Sophia showed Ains Shiala lying quietly still.

Ains’s blue eyes—along with his cloudy-white one—stared at Shiala, who looked as though she were sleeping peacefully.

Ains’s attention settled on the pendant resting in Shiala’s right hand.

“I see. She ended up taking it.”

“I’m terribly sorry. Even though you warned me beforehand, this still happened.”

Sophia had been told in advance by Ains what she should do—what actions she should take to prevent Shiala’s death. And yet it happened anyway.

Sophia could not regret it enough.

Without throwing words at Sophia, Ains gently pried open Shiala’s right hand, which still held a faint warmth, and carefully took the pendant from inside it.

As he looked at the cheap pendant—hardly something one could call expensive even as flattery—Ains spoke.

“No, this couldn’t be helped. Sooner or later, Shiala would have arrived here.”

“What do you mean, Lord Ains? Why did Shiala…?”

Sophia still could not take her eyes off Shiala’s body lying there.

“Shiala violated the ‘Restriction’ placed on her. For a sorcerer with the power to interfere with the world’s laws and warp them, there is one absolute principle that must never be broken—‘Restriction.’ Shiala broke it.”

A sorcerer who possessed overwhelming power could not wield that power without limits.

Restrictions were imposed, and the destination for any sorcerer who violated them was death.

That was what Sophia had heard from Ains when Rito had become a sorcerer.

The phenomenon that had happened right before Sophia’s eyes—Shiala dying in an instant—Ains said its reason lay in a violation of Restriction.

“Then you knew Shiala’s Restriction, and you knew that the moment she took that pendant, it would become a violation?”

“No, I wouldn’t say I knew for certain. But Shiala wasn’t the first person to reach a sorcery that wielded black flames.”

“Huh?”

Sophia reflexively asked again.

Just as with Ains’s right arm, she could not hide her shock that a sorcery with such overwhelming power was not something unique.

“The root of sorcery is one’s true desire. It has always been so—and the desires of those who manifest black flames have, without exception, been cruel.”

Holding the pendant, Ains stood up and continued speaking.

“And the Restriction imposed to oppose that… seems especially harsh for sorcerers who wield black flames. ‘Black Flame Sorcerers’ were all short-lived.”

So by experience, Ains concluded, he could roughly predict what Restriction had been placed on Shiala.

‘A flame lit at her chest. And black, at that. With that alone, it was easy to imagine what the source was. And therefore, the Restriction imposed in response, too.’

To Sophia, who still did not try to stand, Ains spoke in a calm tone.

“At least for now, I want you—Sophia—to be the one who mourns Shiala’s death.”

“I want to bury her, but…”

“…There’s no need.”

Ains lightly shook his head and refused Sophia’s request.

From Shiala’s quietly sleeping body, a shimmering light like sparkling dust began to emanate little by little.

“Lord Ains… what is this?”

Sophia stared wide-eyed, as if seeing such a phenomenon for the first time.

“A sorcerer who dies by violating Restriction—a sorcerer who twisted the world’s laws—is not even permitted to be mourned. No corpse remains, and that death is conveniently rewritten so it conforms to the world.”

Ains watched the fantastical scene—glittering motes of light drifting around Shiala—as if he were used to it.

In the windless commercial district, light scattered across the area where Ains and the others stood.

As the dust-like light increased, Shiala’s body gradually dissolved into the space around it, as if in inverse proportion.

Without thinking, Sophia tried to scoop the floating light up with her hands. But it slipped through her fingers and simply drifted there. Every mote had been emitted by Shiala’s body—and not a single one returned to that small body.

“By the time Shiala scatters into fragments of light and her body melts completely into space, the rewriting will be complete. And once that happens, those who live by the world’s laws won’t even be able to grieve.”

The sun had already set, and streetlamps lit the area under the curtain of night. But the drifting light was more dazzling than the lamps.

Warmer than lamplight, those shimmering motes were more numerous than the stars, burning countless points of light.

They rose to a height beyond their reach, and the candlelike glow enveloped them.

Sophia, who had been quietly stunned, accepted what was happening and fell silent, mourning Shiala’s death.

Beside her, Ains murmured in a voice so low Sophia could not hear it.

“…Even if you needed assistance, you still became a sorcerer. Shiala’s sorcery certainly interfered with the world tied to you and warped its laws. As a fellow sorcerer, I’ll show my respect as well.”