A Returner’s Magic Should Be Special - Chapter 64

Episode 64. Summer Break (5)

The instant Romantica deployed Wind Magic, Dezir simultaneously unleashed his own Wind Magic to create a counter-current. He hadn’t nullified the spell by dismantling the magical formula itself, so it wouldn’t quite qualify as a reversal.
The ball suspended in midair dropped straight down toward the floor.
There was no way she could send it back.
That was what Romantica thought.
“……!”
Azest bolted past Romantica toward the ball, moving at such superhuman speed that wind whipped around her.
She slid forward in a crouch and thrust her palm between the ball and the ground.
Thump!
The ball burst upward with a crisp report.
The rebounding ball soared over the net and landed on the opposite court.
Dezir and Fram, caught off guard, could only stare blankly at the ball as it rolled across their side of the court.
Silence fell across the entire beach.
“……We won.”
After a long pause, Romantica broke the silence, her voice alive with excitement.
“We won! Dezir, you haven’t forgotten the deal that the losing side prepares dinner, have you?”
Azest’s speed exceeded what Dezir had anticipated. Her physical prowess now seemed comparable to Fram’s, a Knight-rank Warrior.
And though the match ultimately came down to Azest’s finishing move, it was Romantica who had orchestrated the game’s closing stretch.
He could sense that Romantica’s Mana Control had become quite refined.
“Fine, I concede defeat.”
Dezir felt a pang of satisfaction as the party leader, even as a wry smile crossed his face at the prospect of preparing the evening meal.
Romantica picked up the tube she’d set aside and spoke cheerfully.
“Then I’m counting on you for dinner tonight!”
“……Well, a promise is a promise.”
Dezir lay his weary body down beneath the parasol.
The sound of the sea drifted through the air as Dezir and his companions spent a peaceful afternoon.

That evening, at the villa, Dezir and Fram prepared dinner.
Fram was quite the capable cook. He knew many recipes and understood well how to handle ingredients.
Dezir assisted him from time to time. Though Dezir wasn’t particularly skilled at cooking himself, after being worked mercilessly by Jepran in the Shadow World before, he’d become remarkably adept at providing support.
The meal they completed together won praise from both Romantica and Azest, and even drew admiration from the villa’s own chef.
After dessert, Dezir stepped outside for some fresh air.
The sea breeze was refreshing. Romantica’s villa overlooked the ocean directly, which seemed like extraordinary fortune. It was sunset. The entire world was drowning in golden light, and he could witness the spectacle in full.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
When had she followed him out?
Romantica, dressed in a flowing gown, had her eyes fixed on the golden waves breaking indifferently upon the shore.
“It is.”
“No matter how many times I see it, it takes my breath away. It really does look like melted gold spilling across the water.”
It was breathtaking—the boundary between day and night. In that final moment before the sun vanished completely, a miraculous landscape flickered into view.
“Dezir, do you know why the sea of Deltaheim glows golden instead of blue?”
“……Because the sea contains mana that reacts to sunlight.”
“Tch. Most people who aren’t locals wouldn’t know that, but you really do know everything, don’t you?”
Romantica took his hand and pulled him forward.
“Over there, Dezir. There’s a place with an even better view than this—want to go?”
Dezir nodded.
They walked along the beach as the sun descended.
Their footprints appeared in the sand only to be erased by the waves—this cycle repeated several times before they arrived at a half-crumbled fortress.
The stones comprising the fortress looked as though they had half-melted before hardening again. They climbed upward, treading on broken stone fragments that had broken away from the structure.
Romantica spoke as though something had just occurred to her.
“This is probably something even you don’t know.”
“Tell me then.”
“A very long time ago, there was a volcanic eruption here.”
……
This was indeed the first Dezir had heard of it.
“In ancient times, there was apparently quite a thriving city here. But the volcanic eruption destroyed it completely. The explosion was so massive that the surrounding sea was entirely filled with volcanic ash, they say.”
Romantica’s expression read: you never told me that?
“Yeah, that’s definitely the first I’ve heard of it.”
No matter how thoroughly Dezir studied the histories of each nation to prepare for the Shadow World, he couldn’t possibly remember every detail of what had happened in any given region.
The stairs ended abruptly. Romantica leapt across first, and Dezir followed in her wake.
“But according to the scholars’ findings, the mountains here aren’t actually volcanic. And yet, strangely enough, there are traces everywhere of what looks like a volcanic eruption. This fortress is one of those places bearing such marks.”
At last they reached the summit. The vista that unfolded before them was breathtaking.
The sky split open, and golden light bloomed in every direction.
“How a volcano could ever erupt in a land with no flowing magma is a riddle that will never be solved. But some storytellers have made up their own theories about it.”
“Though that’s how it works—legends are created to explain phenomena we don’t understand.”
That was how myths came into being. Faced with something inexplicable, people fashioned stories to fit the phenomenon into their understanding, making it real.
“Many of those storytellers say a great demon clawed this land and destroyed countless cities, so this sea has another name. The sea once trampled by demons—that name is…….”
“Istakkar Sea.”
Dezir finished Romantica’s sentence.
Istakkar. In the ancient runic tongue, it meant calamity.
Romantica’s eyes widened.
“You’re seriously unbelievable. Is there nothing you don’t know?”
Dezir shook his head.
“No. I just heard about it from someone long ago.”
“What? So there’s someone else you know from the Frilechia Kingdom?”
“……It’s been so long, I don’t quite remember.”
The rippling golden light of the sea faded as dusk began to fall, and within a memory thick with the stench of blood, a voice echoed.

“Of all places, it has to be my homeland, the Frilechia Kingdom.”
Soon a heavy darkness descended.
The voice that reached his ears faintly was filled with anguish—each word expelled with great difficulty, as if suppressing grief.
“Dezir?”

“There was a villa near here. Yes, it was such a beautiful place—the sea would turn golden every evening as it darkened.”

Dezir felt his breath catch. It was like being cast into an endless abyss.
“Are you all right? You don’t look well.”

“I don’t want to die in this place.”

This was not Dezir’s first time beholding the Istakkar Sea.
He had been here before. But the sea he had seen then bore no resemblance to beauty. That sea had lost its natural color and turned black.
‘I never thought I’d end up coming here like this.’
The golden sea visible from Deltaheim, the capital of Frilechia, Istakkar Sea—was one of the quest backgrounds of the Shadow Labyrinth.
And it was where Romantica had lived, and where her former self had met her death.
It was too cruel to dismiss as mere coincidence.
“Hey, Dezir? Do you want to go to a hospital or something?”
At the moment his gaze met her worried eyes, Dezir steeled himself. He couldn’t let her worry.
‘It’s only the past. It hasn’t happened yet.’
Dezir drew a deep breath, exhaled slowly, and let his agitation subside.
“I’m fine. More than that, Romantica…….”
Yet even so, the moment Dezir saw her, he felt his lips go dry.
A threat that would one day come to pass.
No one would be left to die.
The moment Dezir had returned, he had sworn this oath.
Humanity, Hebrion Academy, his party, Romantica—all of them were included in that vow.
“One day a threat will come that you can’t handle.”
After composing himself, Dezir continued.
“It will be a threat so vast you can’t even imagine it now. And when that moment comes, if I order you to run, you must obey that order. No matter what the circumstances are.”
“Huh? What are you suddenly saying?”
“I want you to survive.”
“Wow, that’s quite a coincidence then? I feel the same way.”
“Can you promise me?”
Romantica, who had been about to brush it off, looked into Dezir’s eyes and realized this was no joke.
Those were the eyes of someone carrying profound sorrow, weighed down by tremendous loss.
What ordeal must one endure to wear such an expression?
“I promise.”

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