Searching For Shia

I ran all around Father’s estate, but even then, I couldn’t find Shia.

I ran into Father along the way, but seeing him acting as he always did told me that Shia wasn’t here.

“Shia… where in the world did you go…?”

Just as I thought that, a golden light suddenly appeared in front of me and formed an oval.

It was Shia’s gate magic, which I had seen several times before.

“Shia!”

Thinking she was on the other side, I instinctively jumped through the gate.

The scenery changed in an instant.

A manor smaller than the one I had just been searching appeared before me, and I immediately realized it was my own estate.

I looked around, but Shia was nowhere to be seen.

There was no doubt she had connected the gate for me, and yet she wasn’t anywhere around.

I looked right, left, and even behind me, but she wasn’t there.

“What… is going on…?”

Had she gone out of her way just to send me back to my estate? But then why wouldn’t she show herself? That was when a thought struck me. If Shia was anywhere, perhaps she might be inside the manor.

I rushed through the entrance and sprinted through the halls at full speed.

When I burst into my room, Tanya was standing there.

“Nova-sama? You’re already back from the Ark Gate estate?”

“Tanya! Shia… has Shia come here!?”

“N-No… she hasn’t…”

Judging by Tanya’s wide-eyed surprise, Shia clearly hadn’t come here.

And if I asked Gill-san, I would probably get the same answer.

Then where was Shia? Had she gone back to the Ark Gate estate after all?

“Ark… Gate estate…”

Shia had suddenly started acting strangely after we talked about her mother.

And then there were the last words she had left behind: “I’m the same.”

I didn’t know what was happening to her, but there was no way I could simply leave her alone.

“That’s right—Aura-chan and Yuti-san!”

I pulled some stationery out of my pocket.

There was the black-bordered stationery I always carried with me, as well as the pink and white stationery I had received today.

For a moment, I considered using the black stationery, but I chose the pink one instead and sat down at my desk.

I grabbed a pen and quickly began writing.

‘Aura-chan, it’s me. Nova. Has Shia come back there?’

I wrote only the essentials and stamped the Ark Gate family crest three times.

Maybe because I was panicking, I accidentally stamped it four times, but the magic seemed to activate normally and the stationery disappeared.

I stared at the reply sheet and waited. It should only have been a brief moment, yet it felt incredibly long.

Maybe Aura-chan hadn’t seen the letter.

She might have been busy too.

Should I send one to Yuti-san as well, since she was probably working?

Just as I started reaching for the white stationery, the sound of writing echoed across the paper.

It seemed Aura-chan had sent me a reply.

‘Hello, Nova-onii-sama. Isn’t Onee-sama with you? At the very least, I don’t think she’s come back to the estate.’

“Damn it…”

Reading her reply, I clenched my back teeth.

Shia hadn’t returned to the Ark Gate estate.

Then where had she gone?

Back then, Shia had definitely entered the gate of her own free will.

The sound of a pen moving across paper rang out again.

It seemed Aura-chan was continuing her reply.

‘Did something happen?’

Before I could even think, I grabbed another sheet of pink stationery and quickly wrote back.

‘Shia disappeared. She used a gate and went somewhere alone. I thought she might be at the Ark Gate estate, but it looks like she isn’t.’

I sent the stationery to Aura-chan the same way as before.

Seeing how desperately I was writing letters, Tanya, who had been peering over with concern, spoke up.

“Le… Shia-san is gone?”

“Yeah. I had her come with me to Mother’s grave, but when I asked her about her own mother, she suddenly…”

As I answered Tanya, the sound of writing echoed once again.

‘I understand that this is an emergency. I’ll come over there by gate with Yuti-onee-sama.’

When I read that, I thought, Huh?

I was pretty sure I had heard that Aura-chan couldn’t use gate magic, yet she had written that she would come here through a gate.

I wondered what that meant, but before I could ask, more words appeared.

‘Nova-onii-sama, did Onee-sama ever tell you the coordinates for that place? Even if we’ve never been there before, we can go as long as we know the coordinates.’

But when I read what she had written next, I frowned.

I didn’t think Shia had ever told me anything about coordinates.

Before I could even worry about how they intended to open a gate, this meant they couldn’t connect one here in the first place.

I spread out another sheet of pink stationery for the time being, but my pen hovered uselessly in the air.

“Coordinates… coordinates? Shia never said anything like that… not even once…”

I desperately searched through my memories of the days I had spent with Shia, but I still couldn’t think of anything.

“Maybe it isn’t a number, but some kind of word? Even then, I don’t remember Shia ever saying anything like—”

“Nova-sama, give that to me!”

Behind me, Tanya suddenly raised her voice.

Startled, I turned around, and she was looking at me with an intensely urgent expression.

“Hurry!”

“R-Right!”

When I handed her the stationery and pen, Tanya used her own palm as a writing surface and quickly scribbled something down.

Then she stamped the Ark Gate family crest three times and activated the magic.

Watching the magical stationery turn into light and disappear, I looked at Tanya on the other side of it.

“Tanya… what exactly is going on…?”

I understood that she must have written down the coordinates.

What I didn’t understand was how she knew them.

When I stared at her with my eyes wide in surprise, Tanya lowered the corners of her eyes as though resigning herself to something.

“…I promise I will explain everything. But for now, please focus on Shia-san.”

“R-Right…”

“…I’ll take you to the place. This way.”

Following Tanya, I left the room.