The Extra’s Academy Survival Guide - Chapter 258

There was something called a “thoughtography recording magic device.”

Back when Cleoh was still an assistant professor, she had used it to investigate the details of the occupation of Ophelis Hall.

It was a magical device managed by Silvenia Academy, larger and heavier than a fully grown man. That was why it was normally disassembled and packed into several bags whenever it had to be transported.

Since it had been engineered using the limited knowledge available on Celestial Magic theory, it was both unstable and delicate. It required only the highest-quality materials to function properly, and the school’s best scholars and researchers were constantly maintaining and repairing it. It could easily be considered one of Silvenia’s greatest treasures.

In other words, if you wanted to use it, you needed to go through a strict internal examination by the Academic Committee.

The cost of the device alone was extraordinary. It was practically equivalent to hauling around an entire mansion.

The only reason such a valuable item had been allowed to leave the school at all was the influence carried by the name Ed Rothstaylor.

Thankfully, Silvenia Academy had been as understanding and accommodating as possible, and they allowed me to bring that single absurdly expensive device outside.

“Normally, it would be difficult to see anything past a year, no matter how much magic power you put into the device. However, if you are capable of Celestial Magic power, it’s a different story.”

We were in the middle of the square in Torren Village.

I needed the villagers’ help to set up and prepare the device.

We installed the massive device in the middle of the square. Gears all across its frame began to spin, and the mana gem set at its center started to glow with a mysterious light.

Even with the help of the villagers, it took nearly half a day to install.

“When Cleoh was an assistant professor, there was only so much she could do with it. But with my Celestial Magic and the additional research I’ve done on the subject, we can push it much further now. It may even be possible to glimpse a few hundred years into the past.”

“Th-that far? Isn’t that incredibly groundbreaking? Then if you wanted to, couldn’t you solve every unsolved case in history…?”

“Of course, looking so far into the distant past is no easy feat.”

If only things in this world were really that simple.

If I wanted to look into the distant past, I also needed a suitable medium to help me.

I wiped my hands as I looked around.

The villagers who helped with the installation sat around and watched. Yennekar was also there next to them, looking up at the device.

“Now that I’ve collected all of the basic information I need… It’s time to take a look into the past.”

Not only did Yennekar ask me to look into it, but it was also a part of my official academic research for the school. I needed to do my job properly to make a living.

And there was someone who could serve as the medium I needed.

I quietly lowered my head as I gathered my magic power. Letting out a deep breath, I focused on my spiritual resonance as I felt my entire body heat up.

Whoosh!

A powerful gust swept through the square as a massive wolf suddenly manifested. Even just standing there, her sheer presence was enough to silence the villagers.

Whoosh.

Merilda stood there with quiet dignity as the wind from the mountains passed by, ruffling her pure white fur.

Everyone in the village gulped as they looked at her. For most of them, it was the first time they had ever seen a high-ranking spirit.

“Th-that’s impossible… A wolf…is the size of a house…”

“Shhh… be careful! You might get eaten…!”

For a moment, the villagers were so nervous they could barely breathe. The wolf let out a short sigh and summoned a breeze that wrapped around her body.

Her form began to shift, and by the time she touched the ground again, she had taken the shape of a young girl with her white hair tied up.

[I guess this is how things ended up.]

Merilda patted her skirt as she looked up at Yennekar and me. She let out a heavy sigh as she shook her head.

[You’re right. If you use my magic power as a medium, it will be enough to observe the past that’s connected to Silvenia. After all, I am able to share quite a bit of my magic power with you.]

“You are being more cooperative than I expected.”

[It’s not like I can fight back. You two won’t listen to me.]

After glancing at the confused villagers, Merilda let out another sigh as she turned around.

[I suppose we can’t have you going back to the school empty-handed. You need to bring back something, so let’s go look into the past… and the terrible ending the ultimate wind spirit faced.]

After she spoke, I gathered my Celestial magic power.

The villagers were startled upon seeing Celestial magic power, as it was something they had never seen before. As I faced away from them, I clenched my teeth and poured that dark red magic power into the device with all of my might.

Then the device began absorbing the dark red magic. I closed my eyes as a scene started to take shape in my mind, as though a memory were being imprinted directly into it.

* * *

Katin Palerover was just an ordinary girl who loved to occasionally go to the mountain ridge and tend to the pansy flowers.

She was the sort of girl who found contentment in life simply by watching the beautiful flowers sway in the mountain wind.

She had braided hair. She had long, braided hair that fell past her waist. Her reddish hair was as beautiful as the flowers, and the villagers always complimented her on it.

The girl had been born with a trace of spiritual resonance, but nowhere near enough to be considered special.

Occasionally, she could sense the presence of a liquid spirit or exchange a few words with a weak low-ranking one. But that was the limit of her talent, and it showed no sign of growing further… She was a girl destined to live out her life as an ordinary villager’s wife.

That is, until she found Tyrcalaques unconscious in the forest with a fatal wound on his body.

* * *

The scene unfolded before my eyes through the thoughtography device as though it were real. I had heard that it imprinted memory directly into the mind, but I had never realized it would feel this vivid.

There was a strange feeling of floating in midair. I still was not used to the sensation of observing the past through the device.

And because of that, the shocking sight Katin Palerover had discovered in the forest felt all the more real.

* * *

The girl was walking through the forest with a basket full of eggs when she found a young man lying unconscious beneath a large tree.

He barely had enough magic left to maintain his manifested form much longer, and all around him was an unimaginable amount of blood—far more than any human could survive losing.

However, what stood out most was the corpse of a giant snake. Just looking at the snake’s dead body lying next to the unconscious young man was enough to make her feel nauseous.

* * *

I recognized that snake. If you’d ever studied Elementalism, it was a name you would surely have heard before.

The high-ranking dark spirit, Pulkrox.

If Glasskan didn’t occupy the position of ultimate dark spirit, he would likely have sat there instead. He was exceptionally strong amongst other high-ranking spirits and was infamous for his cruelty. His name still showed up in the history books.

The records claimed that he had disappeared naturally over time and simply ceased to appear. In truth, it seemed he had been slain by the ultimate wind spirit Tyrcalaques.

It had the strength to put up a close fight against an ultimate-rank spirit. The poison and curses of that snake were supposed to last for hundreds of years. In the western continent, there was even a city that had been completely destroyed by Pulkrox’s poison. Though that was a very old tale.

Tyrcalaques was the one who defeated Pulkrox…?

That alone was a major discovery—one that would force many history books to be rewritten.

I could already feel that this alone would earn respect in the field of academic research.

* * *

“Wh-what happened…?! A-are you okay?!”

Katin Palerover was shocked upon seeing the state of the collapsed young man, and she ran over to give him first aid.

Tyrcalaques had manifested in the form of a human to minimize his consumption of magic power. However, due to the curse Pulkrox left behind just before he died, Tyrcalaques was unable to properly control his magic power.

Spirits didn’t have a concept of death. They had what was called ‘Natural Regression’, which was a cycle that returned them to being a fluid spirit of nature.

Pulkrox was well aware of that fact, so just before he became a fluid spirit himself, he placed a curse on Tyrcalaques.

He did it to trap Tyrcalaques in a weakened human form. With his magic suppressed, he would be forced to suffer endlessly from the pain of a wound that would never truly heal.

Not having the concept of death was both a blessing and a curse. Because of the curse engraved on him, he was unable to properly control his magic power. Thus, he was constantly suffering from the agony of his wounds.

The purpose of the curse was to wear down his mind, driving him mad through a constant struggle against pain.

For Tyrcalaques to be found in that state by a third-rate elementalist like Katin… it must have been some cruel joke of fate.

Everything passed by quickly afterward.

Katin Palerover had been born and raised to live as a villager’s wife. That meant she was skilled with her hands and used to all kinds of practical work.

Seeing the young man struggling with his pain, she gathered grass to make him a bed. When that seemed lacking, she went and gathered wood to build him a shelter.

Despite her small frame, there was something impressive about watching her build things with her own hands.

However, Tyrcalaques didn’t want to be seen by humans. Spirits were extremely wary of being associated with humans who were not spirits. The reason was obvious. Nothing good happened to spirits that ended up becoming closer than necessary to humans.

Katin understood his feelings, so every time she went to the forest, she made sure to take care of him by herself.

She brought cotton and cloth from the village to make him a proper bed.

In case it got cold at night, she would make a fire to warm him, and in case it rained, she would set up a proper tent to cover him.

Pulkrox’s curse weakened little by little with each passing day, but the process was far too slow. Realizing she could not continue caring for him in the open like this, Katin remembered the abandoned cabins deeper in the forest.

Long ago, they had been used as base camps by hunters. But with time, they had fallen into disuse and been abandoned.

Katin dragged the young man’s heavy body there over the course of two days.

She lit a campfire in front of the cabin as she brought over a few tools, and from then on, she continued to take care of him.

The sun continued to rise and set. It rained and snowed, but all that time, Katin sat in the cabin next to Tyrcalaques, taking care of him.

She brought over cooking utensils to make him hot soup, but the young man never took a bite. For a spirit, eating served no purpose.

In order to untwist his twisted flow of magic power, he had to rely on Katin’s skills as a weak Elementalist.

She sat on the bed next to him every day, observing the flow of his magic power. In doing so, her spiritual resonance also improved over time.

That was because it was a rare opportunity for anyone to be able to observe an ultimate spirit so closely.

In order to help Tyrcalaques, she also had to increase her understanding of spirits. At some point, she had become capable of communicating with mid-ranking spirits. The people in Torren Village began to praise her for becoming a real Elementalist.

Over time, Tyrcalaques’s condition improved, and he gradually became able to take care of himself.

He wasn’t in his completed state yet, but he was at least strong enough to manage the cabin on his own without Katin’s help.

He would drag his tired body across the camp to check on his physical condition and magic power. Over time, his condition improved, and he was able to prepare firewood and fix the cabin himself.

Tyrcalaques lived his life as a human for a short amount of time.

For an ultimate spirit, that period of time was just a fleeting moment. But for him, those brief memories would forever be imprinted in his heart.

He would always remember Katin sitting at his side and caring for him.

She always rolled up her sleeves, helping in any way she could. She was a weak human girl, with a lifespan of less than a hundred years.

Even though he knew he shouldn’t, as it would only hurt his heart in the end, he couldn’t help but think about following her around.

As they walked across the ridge, looking up at the mountains of Pulan together, he felt a strange sense of calmness.

The mountain range at sunset. Tyrcalaques enjoyed the scenery.

Holding a picnic bag, he walked behind Katin, who was humming along. The view of that mountain remained in his heart like a painting.

“Did you know the people of our village call the pansy flowers that bloom along the ridge ‘Wind Flowers’?”

“Wind Flowers? You mean those pansies?”

“Yes. These mountains always have a breeze passing by, and if you look down at them, you can see them swaying back and forth in the wind.”

They sat on the roadside fence and enjoyed the passing breeze. Tyrcalaques’s dark red hair fluttered in the wind, just like Katin’s.

“They are looking in the direction of the wind.”

“Is that so…? I never knew humans gave such meaning to these things…”

“Haha. It might seem pointless to you, Tyrcalaques. It might be hard to understand, but humans enjoy giving random meanings to things like this! Look at that.”

Katin smiled brightly as she jumped off the fence, looking at the pansy flowers on the roadside.

The swaying pansies were facing towards the direction of the wind.

“These flowers are so beautiful and pretty. We can’t help but want to give meaning to them.”

“Do you think the same?”

“Hmm… Well, I give them a different meaning.”

Katin looked at the swaying flowers as she slowly closed her eyes.

“The wind moves freely all across the world, but these flowers can only stay where they are, their roots buried in the ground. All they can do is watch the wind pass by from the same spot.”

“…”

“The reason they flow in the direction of the wind is probably because they want to play with it, but if the flower gets uprooted and flies with the wind, it will die.”

The feeling of a flower gazing up at the wide-open sky.

It was like an ordinary person longing for someone they could never reach, no matter how hard they tried—truly yearning for someone unattainable.

Someone who could easily travel across the world and do as they liked, just like the wind. Compared to someone who was grounded in reality, only able to watch them from afar…

The flowers blooming there seemed to carry that same sense of longing and yearning.

* * *

Was it like Katin’s love for Tyrcalaques? Or was it like Yennekar Palerover’s love for Ed Rothstaylor?

Or was it both of them?

* * *

“Will you be able to handle the curse on your own soon?”

“Yeah…”

“Remember to come and play with me! From a spirit’s point of view, humans are weak creatures that quickly die when you don’t see them for a bit. So make sure to never forget about me and come as much as you can!”

Tyrcalaques burst into laughter as he pounded his chest.

He could no longer deny it. What he felt for this girl was more than a simple bond.

Even though he knew those feelings were poisonous to a spirit that lived for a near eternity, he couldn’t help but admit it was true. Of all the humans he’d ever met, she was the most special.

So, he wanted to make memories with her while he could.

That was the only thing Tyrcalaques believed he could do.

That was until he saw an engraving of Pulkrox’s curse on the back of Katin’s hand.

* * *

[The reason Pulkrox’s curse was able to destroy an entire city was because it spread through magic power.]

I closed my eyes as I heard Merilda’s whisper in my ear. It seemed the rest of the story wasn’t pleasant.

I knew that as well. This story was never going to have a happy ending.

That was why Merilda didn’t want to tell Yennekar about it.