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Chapter : 12
The Repeating Event
After lunch, Leon said he had some business to attend to and left the estate in a carriage. Thanks to that, Lowell finally had her first stretch of research time all to herself.
“Then I’ll be in the study, so if there’s anything you need to tell me, please knock.”
Thinking this was a good opportunity to properly study magic, Lowell took the doorknob of the study and said as much to the servants.
“…Yes.”
The reply sounded faintly displeased, but it wasn’t anything worth worrying about, so Lowell simply closed the study door and went inside.
After that, all kinds of magic floated through the study. From search magic that instantly found the books she needed, to attack magic that pulverized the apples she’d brought as snacks until no shape remained—Lowell handled everything without difficulty.
“Hm… As expected, it’s much easier to use mana without incantations.”
She muttered while looking at the various odds and ends floating in the air.
Just as Leon had said, Lowell was poor at using incantations. It wasn’t simply that she couldn’t memorize them; the act of connecting mana to an incantation itself was extremely difficult for her.
‘This won’t solve the fundamental problem.’
In the end, Lowell grabbed one of the floating apples, took a crunchy bite, and let out a long sigh while pressing her forehead.
She needed to undo the time magic placed on Aria, and to do that, she needed a basic understanding of magic incantations and how to apply them.
But as she was now, she hadn’t even truly begun.
“No, wait! There’s still time, so it’ll work out somehow.”
Just as her thoughts grew longer and anxiety threatened to creep in, Lowell pulled herself together and stood up. As long as she had a clear goal, she wasn’t someone who would give up easily.
“First, I’ll go grab one more apple and then practice again.”
After all, you couldn’t concentrate when you were hungry—snacks came first.
“Honestly, how did we even end up here?”
That was when Lowell opened the study door and stepped outside.
“Right? It’s so irritating. We have to work for someone who got kicked out and his wife? If you think about it, their status isn’t even higher than ours.”
The servants’ conversation drifted to Lowell’s ears.
Standing at the entrance to the kitchen, Lowell instinctively pressed herself against the wall. Something about this felt like… if she stepped out now, it would become unbearably awkward.
“Apparently that woman didn’t even have a family name before marriage. They say she’s an orphan?”
“What? Then she just seduced the young master with a pretty face? I thought maybe she came from a rich family or something.”
“Hey, what ‘young master’? He was kicked out of the family ages ago. He should be grateful they even let him keep the surname.”
“Still, just endure it a little longer. The marchioness said that if we bring back some useful information, she’ll let us work at the main house again.”
As the gossip dragged on, Lowell—the subject of it—found herself increasingly stuck, unable to move one way or the other. It felt strange to suddenly reveal herself now, but turning back wasn’t an option either, since other servants had already gathered in the hall.
Just as Lowell was being swallowed by confusion, a familiar voice rang out.
“What are you talking about, right now?”
A sudden, anger-filled tone. When they looked toward the voice, Leon was standing there, though no one knew when he had arrived.
“Y-Young master.”
The servants froze at Leon’s abrupt appearance.
“You know exactly what nonsense you were just spewing.”
“……”
“If you’re that dissatisfied being here, I can send you back to the main house.”
The words squeezed out between Leon’s clenched teeth.
“Though I don’t know if there’ll be a place for you when you get back.”
Leon’s cold gaze swept over each servant in turn.
“It’s astonishing that people with no basic manners were ever employed at the main estate.”
With that final remark, Leon turned away.
“……”
While all this was happening, Lowell stood there with her lips pressed together, as still as a pillar. It wasn’t intentional—she just still hadn’t found the right timing.
“You…”
No, “like a pillar” wasn’t quite right. Leon, who looked as though he would simply leave the kitchen, stopped in front of Lowell and opened his mouth as if to say something.
“…Never mind.”
But when Lowell blinked and raised her head, Leon swallowed whatever he was about to say and merely frowned.
After meeting Lowell’s eyes for a brief moment, Leon clicked his tongue and turned to head up the stairs.
‘Being expelled from his family must have hurt him deeply.’
Watching Leon’s retreating back, Lowell thought as much.
Of course, the fact that Leon had suddenly appeared right when the gossip turned to her—even if she didn’t know how long he’d been listening—was something worth thinking about…
Shaking her head, Lowell brushed the thought aside. In any case, she was hungry, and now she could comfortably make her way to the apple basket in front of her.
“I think I need to go out tonight.”
Leaving behind the brief commotion of the afternoon, as the sunset began to color the sky, Lowell closed the book she’d been reading and turned to Leon.
But when no response came for a while, Lowell eventually stood up and waved her hand in front of Leon’s face.
“Did you hear me?”
Only then did Leon lift his head from where his gaze had been fixed on the edge of the desk. His face clearly showed signs of exhaustion.
“I said I’m going out.”
Lowell spoke while observing Leon’s somewhat sluggish state. Judging by his lack of response, it was obvious he hadn’t heard her.
“Are you okay? You look really tired these days.”
After waving her hand a few more times in front of him, Lowell noticed the deep shadows under Leon’s eyes and asked worriedly.
“Well…”
For a moment, Leon’s weary eyes stuck to Lowell’s face.
“Yes?”
Leon scanned Lowell’s healthy-looking face. She was blinking rapidly, wearing an expression that seemed entirely unrelated to the cause of everything, and just looking at her made his headache worsen.
“More importantly, I found the book you mentioned last time.”
So Leon changed the subject. If he didn’t, he felt like he might blurt out something embarrassing like I haven’t been sleeping properly lately because of you.
“Oh! Really?”
When Leon handed over the book he was holding, Lowell sprang up and took it immediately.
“……”
After silently reading for a while the book titled The Attributes of Time Magic—Regression, Lowell suddenly spoke as if she’d realized something.
“So the reason Miss Aria keeps repeating her regression is because someone has fixed her to the time axis and cast a regression spell on her.”
Lowell spoke with a complicated expression. A faint tremor crept into her voice.
“Right. So if we find that person and destroy the magic formula for the regression, it should end.”
Leon summarized the answer Lowell had found.
“Who on earth would do something like this?”
“Who knows. But someone showing this level of obsession will inevitably appear before your master. We might as well wait for that moment.”
“……”
Lowell scanned the contents she’d just read once more, her eyes burning as if she were trying to engrave every word into her mind.
‘I have to meet the one who fixed Miss Aria to the time axis.’
Clutching the corner of the book tightly, Lowell reaffirmed her resolve.
When night finally came, the night Lowell had mentioned, she stood up, making her already resolute expression even firmer.
“Are you leaving now?”
Leon, who had been sitting on a chair in the bedroom, squinted as a sudden gust of cold air rushed in. Through his narrowed vision, he saw Lowell wearing the expression of someone heading to a battlefield.
“Yes. I’m going now to wait there.”
With the window half open, Lowell tightened her cloak and replied resolutely.
“Alright…”
Leon initially let her excessive enthusiasm slide—but when the window opened even wider, he spoke again.
“But why are you opening the window?”
No matter how he looked at it, Lowell opening the window of a second-floor bedroom while saying she was going out didn’t seem natural.
“If I go down the stairs, the servants might look at me strangely, so I’m planning to jump out the window. It’ll be fine if I protect myself with magic on the way down.”
As if she’d anticipated the question, Lowell even clenched her fist proudly as she spoke.
“……”
Naturally, Leon’s headache returned at the sight. There truly wasn’t a single predictable thing about this woman’s behavior.
“Just use the stairs. I sent a letter to the main house asking them to replace the servants. There won’t be anyone left who’d spread strange rumors outside.”
“Oh, is that so?”
At his unexpected words, Lowell turned back to Leon with one leg still hooked awkwardly on the window.
“By the way, where are you going?”
As Lowell struggled to pull her trapped leg free, Leon asked casually. Come to think of it, he realized he didn’t know the most important detail.
“To the duke’s residence. Today, Miss Aria’s former lover will barge in. The day when the repeatedly occurring event I told you about happens—that’s today.”
As she finished speaking, Lowell tried to pull herself free and momentarily lost her balance. A small “Oh—” slipped from her lips.
Thud.
Fortunately, she didn’t end up face-first on the floor.
“Then I’ll go with you.”
Because Leon said that while grabbing Lowell’s arm as she was about to fall.
“Huh? That’s okay—”
“No. I’m coming with you.”
Leon emphasized it again as he looked down at her. Perhaps from tension, Lowell’s mana flow was in complete disarray. If he sent her like this, unpredictable as she already was, who knew what she might do… Just thinking about it made his headache flare up again.
