The sound of carriage wheels rolling on the bumpy ground filled the air, and the three people inside remained unusually quiet, nobody speaking.
One leaned against the carriage, sleeping soundly. Another gazed at their own palm in thought, while the third watched the sun gradually rise outside the window.
After everyone finished reading Will’s book, “Quest System,” which spoke of the “future,” the night before, and after a heated argument on the first floor about their respective “ideals” and “convictions,” the three of them could roughly guess each other’s feelings. The more they understood what the others were thinking, the less they had to say to each other as rivals.
However, this special road to the “Dust Bone Corridor” dungeon, proposed by Treya, was not as smooth as it should be. At least, it wasn’t as smooth as a carriage serving royalty should be—
As they traveled, and the sun had just begun to rise, the wheels made a cracking sound as if they had hit a hard object on the ground. The carriage shook violently and even drifted significantly to the sides.
“M-Master, please be careful! Leave any attacks on the carriage to Iaar!”
Iaar, who seemed to be dreaming of something, woke up momentarily due to the shaking. In the narrow carriage, she instinctively extended her hand and cast an ice magic spell at Liya, a spell cast unconsciously.
Of course, Treya, sitting opposite, was also affected.
“Calm down… No, it’s cold enough. Perhaps, I should say, wake up a little?”
*Clang.*
Treya directly drew the sword at her waist, counteracting the spell with a bit of demonic magic.
“She’s not just waking up a little, she’s dreaming of a few years ago.”
After all, it was magic cast by Iaar, who specialized in defense. The attack wasn’t “that” strong, but for Liya, who was looking down without holding onto anything and had just bumped her head against the carriage, there was no room to dodge.
She rotated her half-frozen wrist, using her own flames to warm it so she could move freely.
“It’s dripping water and will stain my carriage.”
“Then why don’t you ask the instigator sitting opposite?”
“Iaar… Iaar just now…”
Iaar, whose eyes were pierced by the sunlight outside, finally realized what a foolish thing she had done during the violent jolt.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I had a very, very long dream. It felt like it started from… from when I first arrived at the Hysterm Family. I really should have slept properly last night, and shouldn’t have… shouldn’t have…”
Iaar covered her head, still groggy from sleep, and stammered, unable to finish her sentence.
“Shouldn’t have read the book Will left for us?”
As Treya sheathed her sword, she seemed to intentionally break the unspoken tension among them—or perhaps, as was her usual habit, she never read the room and spoke directly.
“…As expected, you two read it too, didn’t you? Oh, of course, I could tell from your sleepy eyes and slightly red eyelids this morning.”
“Yes. And even though you used heavy eye makeup to hide those marks, it was still easy to see.”
“Right, right, me too, me too.”
Liya, exposed by Treya sitting beside her, didn’t “refute” or “hide” her feelings and admitted it directly.
“It’s impossible not to cry. He wrote such… such outrageous things in it. You, you must have seen it too!”
“It wasn’t ‘outrageous’ things. For him, it was the most normal thing. It’s precisely because… precisely because it was what he should do that I shed tears upon seeing the colors.”
Neither of them explicitly stated what Will had written that made them cry the night before, as if they were still putting on a brave face till the end.
They were putting on a brave face about the one thing “he would definitely do for everyone,” and still holding onto a trace of uniqueness in their hearts.
But Iaar didn’t. She lowered her head, caressing the collar around her neck, and asked tentatively but carefully—
“So, you were also crying because of the ‘future’ Master wrote about… were you?”
As soon as these words were spoken, the carriage fell silent again.
The carriage seemed to have finally moved from some unknown path onto a proper road. The regular sound of wheels rolling came from beside them, and the sunlight shining through the window into the carriage flickered at a fixed frequency, interspersed by the regularly planted street trees.
“It’s not solely that.”
Liya spoke first, her slightly red eyelids, hidden by makeup, seemed to have a trace of sparkling tears again.
But her arm was propped on the car window, and she turned her head to look outside.
“It’s also because of how he changed me.”
Treya glanced at Liya and, as always, confidently gave what she considered the “perfect answer,” believing in it completely, without any doubt.
“I don’t know if the ‘ending’ he wrote about the past truly happened. But what I do know is that if I hadn’t met him and he hadn’t done what he did, I would have met the original ending.”
As Treya answered, she gripped the hilt of her “Shadow Nightmare Sword” tightly.
“Being able to sit here today, and become the me I am today, is because of him.”
Listening to Treya’s words, Liya and Iaar, though they didn’t vocally “agree,” both thought of the “failed them” and “tragic endings” Will had written on the first page.
Whether it was the timid Iaar, the Liya who only knew how to hide and deny, or Treya who never truly saw herself and the world clearly.
Whether they fell before the flames of the Fire Dragon, knelt before the Ice Wall of the Ice Demon, or fell under the blade of the Ghost Swordsman.
They all knew that without Will, who changed them, they would have been their past selves, and the ending they would have inevitably reached.
“And… his ‘true past’ written in meticulous detail.”
Liya didn’t deny Treya’s words, but added as a supplement.
“Although he actually knew all of this and acted ‘according to plan.’ But… but he was truly observing us at every moment, watching our every bit of growth, and… making plans to change for our changes.”
“That’s too unfair, you foolish student. If you write down a plan, you must implement it. Looking at the entire enrollment history of Entak First Academy, there aren’t many like you.”
“B-but, after all, it’s the future he wrote that… that makes Iaar cry so much…”
Iaar spoke with a slight sob, her head lowered. She watched her tears fall onto the back of her palm.
“If, if Master really… really died in that dungeon, just like the ‘important events’ he never wrote incorrectly, then all of this… all of this future, would just be a mirage.”
“He would be more upset than… more upset than us! Those are goals he wouldn’t get to see—”
Iaar said loudly, giving a very “Iaar” response in the confined space of the carriage.
What made her saddest after reading it wasn’t just her own heartache, but the thought that even a dead Will would be sad.
“So, that’s what I meant by the most outrageous part.”
Liya’s voice also trembled slightly.
“My mother once told me. When someone close to you dies, what truly makes you remember and shed tears isn’t the happy past. It’s…”
As she spoke, she clenched her fists in a somewhat resentful manner.
“It’s the picture of a future that can never be reached, existing only in plans and illusions.”
“Y-yes, that’s right. He… he also wrote 35 tasks for Iaar to complete… Iaar counted them one by one.”
“…He wrote 44 for me. Even more.”
“He… wrote 53 tasks for me.”
“L-let’s not compete over such strange things—anyway, it’s too much, incredibly too much. When… when I see him again, I’m going to slap this stack of papers in his face and scold him properly as a teacher!”
“However, i-it’s okay. As long as… as long as we can clear that dungeon, the future he predicted will simply not happen…”
“That’s right. It’s just a B-rank dungeon, what could it possibly…”
However, Iaar and Liya’s confidence in their upcoming trip was shattered by Treya’s words—
“What if… he’s already gone?”
Treya spoke calmly.
“What…?”
“Do you have to say something so disheartening at a time like this?!”
Liya stood up, looking at Treya and questioning her.
“It’s not that I’m saying something disheartening…” she sighed, “From a timing perspective, he left the Hysterm ancestral home and headed for the Dust Bone Corridor. It’s perfectly timed.”
“That doesn’t mean—”
“From a motive perspective, what have we, whom he changed, wrote about so earnestly, and placed so much hope in… what have we done for him?”
“You… you think you can absolve yourself by pretending to be clear-headed at this moment?”
“So, I used… ‘we’.”
Treya looked up at Liya, and in Liya’s gaze, she saw, for the first time, a hint of “regret” in Treya’s usually unemotional, half-purple, half-dark blue eyes.
“Master, Master would never… never be like that…”
“Isn’t the him you described at the end already indifferent to life and death?”
“B-but Iaar thinks… thinks if it were… if it were him, he would surely have more complex feelings— look, after all, we only truly understood everything he had done until we received the ‘Quest System,’ didn’t we?”
Treya didn’t immediately refute Iaar’s fragmented reasoning.
Iaar always answered questions based on her “intuition about Will, whom she had known for a long time.” But for Treya, who had gradually come to understand the world and herself over the past three years, she believed more in logic.
“Are you… are you saying this now to discourage us?”
“No.”
Treya raised her eyes and surveyed Liya and Iaar.
“You should also be prepared. Because if ‘the him who writes the future won’t die,’ then ‘there’s no need to cry over it’.”
“…You’re right.”
“I-is that so?”
Liya sat down. She indeed understood Treya’s meaning…
She wasn’t “heartlessly” revealing the secret that the other two in the carriage refused to uncover—although saying it directly was somewhat cold, she was merely…
Stating a possibility that all three had instantly guessed—
“Will Systom, he might… have already headed to the Dust Bone Corridor, towards his death.”
“We all know this possibility.”
“I do too.”
Treya’s eyes drifted to the window.
A tear rolled down from that light blue eye.
