I Was Just Having Fun With The Time Limit – Chapter 135

Chapter 135

Sermon burst out laughing.

“Puhahaha! How funny.”

“What’s so funny?”

“Look. Look in the mirror. See how insignificant you are.”

“Insignificant?”

Isabel pressed her lips together.

“That’s because you don’t know me, older brother.”

“I don’t know you?”

“I may look like this, but I’m actually very scary.”

Sermon chuckled for a while before raising his bandaged arm and stroking Isabel’s head.

“I wasn’t mocking you.”

“Now you say that?”

“I was trained not to feel fear or terror.”

Isabel’s eyes widened involuntarily.

“There’s such training?”

“Yes. I’m being trained as the First Shadow. A shadow shouldn’t feel fear, right? So, I received training to eliminate unnecessary emotions.”

“You call that training?”

Well, there are people in this world who can fly.

There are people who can spew fire pillars with chants.

Even I can summon Arctic shaved ice with magic.

In a world like this, I can’t say such training is completely absurd.

“But I’ll still be scary, right?”

“So you have to try to look scary?”

“No. There’s no need for that.”

Isabel picked up a pen and wrote something down in her notebook.

『AB=BA=E』

“Look, here, we’ll define the matrix that results in the identity matrix E when multiplied by matrix A as the inverse matrix of A. So B becomes A^-1.”

『B=A^-1』

Isabel was confident.

This will surely be scary.

“If we express it in the form of a linear equation.”

『a11x1+a12x2+……+a1nxn=b1』

『a21x1+a22x2+……+a2nxn=b2』

.

.

“So, in 3D space…… if you do det（A）…… it can be expressed as sigma（Σ）…… This is a very basic concept. Then, using this, can you easily find the inverse of a 3×3 matrix?”

Isabel looked at Sermon with a triumphant expression.

There’s no way he wouldn’t be scared of this.

‘When I was 11, I was really scared when I saw this.’

It was a distant fear.

There’s some ‘basic concept’ that I can’t understand?

Everyone else is studying this easily? I don’t understand math?

That gave Isabel tremendous fear.

Sermon, who had been thinking deeply after hearing Isabel’s words, finally opened his mouth.

“But, Isabel.”

“Yes, tell me.”

Hurry up and say you’re scared.

“What should I be scared of?”

“……”

“That can’t kill me.”

Sermon snapped his fingers.

At the same time, dozens of small needles popped out from somewhere, tore the paper to shreds, and stuck into the table.

Sermon asked with genuine concern, filled with only goodwill.

“Isn’t this what’s scary?”

The parts that touched the needles had turned blackish and rotted away.

✦✦✦✦✦✦

There was an unbridgeable gap between me and older brother Sermon.

Still, Sermon was a very transparent person, so as long as we recognized that we were different, conversations went well.

“Come visit sometime. The Glass Lake in the Bladock Dukedom is rumored to be the most beautiful place in the world.”

“How can the Bladock Dukedom itself be rumored to be the most beautiful when it’s shrouded in secrecy?”

“That’s why I said it’s rumored to be.”

“……”

Anyway, I decided to visit Glass Lake someday.

Glass Lake is said to be incredibly deep, but you can see right through it like a glass marble, making it a mystical place.

At night, it’s said that the lake reflects the stars in the sky, as if it’s holding them.

“Okay. Invite me later.”

“Sure. I promise.”

I handed Sermon a thick notebook.

“Make sure to do the homework I gave you. I’ll check it later. I wrote the homework list on the first page.”

I gave Sermon homework.

1） Try refusing minor orders from the Bladock Dukedom.

From what I heard, Sermon was strictly following the Bladock Dukedom’s upbringing guidelines.

I don’t know for sure, but it seemed like if he continued to follow them, only the shell of the ‘First Shadow’ would remain.

So I gave him the homework of trying to refuse minor things.

It was based on the vague idea that it would be the first step in finding himself.

I wish I had studied psychology or the mind.

2） If you meet someone crying, try to comfort them.

Sermon was somehow broken.

I gave him this homework hoping that by comforting crying people, he might be able to empathize with their sadness or pain a little.

“I just have to make them stop crying?”

“Yes.”

“That’s easy.”

I can just kill them.

I covered my ears because it felt like I could hear those words.

Fortunately or unfortunately, my older brother, who ‘intellectually’ understood that I disliked such talk, didn’t utter those terrible words.

“Just with words. No threatening or violent actions. Try to understand with your heart why that person is crying.”

3） Try writing a diary.

Wouldn’t he feel something if he recorded himself every day?

I decided to hold onto a little bit of hope.

Sermon tilted his head but accepted the notebook I handed him.

“You’ll keep your promise, right?”

“Promises are meant to be kept.”

He was as diligent as he was transparent.

He will definitely keep his promises.

Actually, I don’t know if these things will help Sermon find himself.

Honestly, I don’t think he has much passion for finding himself.

But it didn’t matter.

The homework I gave him was actually an excuse.

“If you don’t do your homework, you’ll get scolded.”

“Okay.”

You like getting scolded, right（? It was my little gift for Sermon.）

Sermon made a face like he was looking at an insignificant opponent again, then grinned and said.

“I think I know why Michael suddenly challenged me to a duel.”

“Older brother Michael did?”

“Yeah. He often challenged Kaman, but that didn’t happen much with me.”

“……Why?”

“Because he could really die?”

I, I think I shouldn’t have asked.

“I’m not good at stopping midway.”

According to him, Michael went to the Bladock Dukedom and picked a fight out of the blue.

He said he had to meet me or something.

“It seems Kaman changed after meeting you. So he insisted that I had to meet you too. When I refused, he pointed his sword at me.”

“……So?”

“He almost died. He was lucky to survive.”

“Are you hurt?”

“I wasn’t hurt, but Michael was seriously injured.”

“S, seriously injured?”

“He’ll have to recuperate for at least 8 weeks. He’ll be hurt more than I was. Father used a wooden sword, but I used a real one.”

I was in a state of shock.

Come to think of it, he didn’t show up except for the day he first came to pick me up.

He wasn’t even seen when Dad and older brother Sermon had their duel-like spar.

I thought he was causing trouble somewhere else, but it seems he was recuperating.

‘But then how did he come to pick me up?’

There was definitely a sandstorm then.

He seemed perfectly fine on the outside.

When he talked to me, he was just like an excited honey badger.

How was that possible?

‘Maybe he forgot the pain for a moment because he was happy to see me…… That can’t be it, can it?’

His brain couldn’t be that clear, right?

He’s still human.

Yeah, that can’t be it.

……Probably not.

✦✦✦✦✦✦

King Valkio of Jirdel said.

“The negotiations have been concluded. Narmore, no, Representative Narmore, I look forward to working with you.”

“I look forward to working with you as well.”

The TeyIsabel Transfer Gate agreement between Jirdel and Bilotian was signed.

It was the second official agreement after Alphea.

After Narmore left, Valkio had a secret meeting with Rahella of Alphea.

Rahella said.

“The agreement ended sooner than expected, didn’t it? I thought it would take a lot of time to coordinate the details.”

“I intended it to. But the Empress herself made a move.”

“What? The Monarch of Gentleness?”

“Yes. The big commotion she caused by beating up the prince at the Jirdel Base Camp was probably a smokescreen.”

That was the most logical interpretation.

Otherwise, Emperor Ron’s eccentric behavior didn’t make sense.

“The Empress herself said it. It seems she plans to distribute the TeyIsabel Transfer Gate worldwide. More aggressively, I mean, ehehehee!”

“……”

“Ehehehee? Isn’t it funny? My Chief Aide, Gabrizen, burst out laughing.”

“Don’t lie.”

“Tsk.”

Rahella, unfazed by Valkio, returned to the main topic.

“You’ve been putting Isabel at the forefront until now, haven’t you? Why is she suddenly moving so aggressively? She’s not usually like that.”

“It must mean that all preparations are complete. She takes a long time to make decisions, but once she does, she moves faster than anyone. She’s also the type to accomplish whatever she sets her mind to.”

“Let’s keep it a secret between us for now that the Empress made a move herself.”

“We should. She even went so far as to sacrifice the prince to visit us secretly, ehehehee!”

“……”

“Still not laughing? Ehehehee? H, hey, Rahella! Answer me!”

Rahella didn’t answer and walked out into the hallway with me.

Her heart was pounding.

‘The lion that has been crouching for 500 years has started to stretch.’

The Bilotian Empire is changing.

More aggressively.

It was clear that the balance of the world that had been maintained until now would soon be broken.

‘At the center of that transformation is Princess Isabel.’

The thread connected to Isabel must never be let go.

She had to create as many connections as possible.

‘Was the name of the child who became friends with Isabel, Asellia?’

She happened to be a child from Calfoa Village in the Alphea Kingdom.

‘I should build a relationship with that child as well.’

And time flew by.

Winter came, and the year changed. Spring arrived, and the frozen ground thawed.

Isabel looked at the calendar.

‘Time flies!’

Her ninth birthday was now only a month away.