Chapter 123
Bizarrely, after meeting Kaiden, the fog slowly began to dissipate, as if it had finished its job.
"Are you hurt anywhere? Any pain? Didn't run into any Monsters?"
At my questions, Kaiden finally looked up at me and smiled sheepishly.
"It's nice to have Margaret worry about me so passionately."
He didn't answer and changed the subject. I ended up not asking more and checked his condition. Enoch, who had been watching with his arms crossed, also asked Kaiden how he was.
"The fog was quite thick, so I was worried. Were you really okay, Lord?"
Kaiden finally turned to Enoch and scratched the back of his head with an embarrassed look.
"Should we find a place to settle down and talk first?"
We gathered to find a place to talk, away from the Monsters' attention. We planned to sort out the situation first and then leave to find a safer place.
"First, Kaiden, tell us what happened. How did this happen? I met Enoch not long after the fog appeared. You were alone in this fog all day."
At my words, Kaiden looked at me and Enoch with a bewildered expression.
"A day has passed? I didn't even realize time had passed like that."
He ruffled his hair with a tired face and squeezed his eyes shut.
He frowned as if recalling his memories for a moment, and then calmly explained to us what had happened during the day.
"I kept following the Cabin. But at some point, the Cabin disappeared from my sight. But that Cabin had a very strange aura, so even if I couldn't see it, I felt like I knew roughly which direction it was in."
He sensed the strange aura of the Cabin.
It seemed similar to how Asdal could sense the flow of Mana. Kaiden was perceptive and sensitive, after all.
The strange aura he felt might have been Zenas's aura.
"-So I kept trying to go in that direction, but the fog kept blocking my vision. Later, I even saw hallucinations. It was as if something was trying to prevent me from finding the Cabin."
I recalled what Zenas had said as he pushed me out of the Cabin. He had definitely said that an uninvited guest had arrived, and he pushed me out while apologizing.
"It definitely felt like something was trying to confuse me so I couldn't come, but when I came to my senses, I was in front of the Cabin. I thought you would be in that Cabin."
The story continued. The story of the silver-haired woman he encountered in the Chamber of Rest, and the silver-haired boy he encountered after being dragged out of the Cabin.
I was so surprised that I lost my words.
The Chamber of Rest was definitely locked. But Kaiden said he opened the door. And there was really someone inside.
Kaiden sighed.
"It didn't feel like that long had passed, but it's surprising that a day has already passed."
He seemed somewhat dazed. It was very unfamiliar to see him react like this. I quietly looked at him and opened my mouth.
"……Maybe it's true that something is trying to prevent us from finding the Cabin."
Kaiden looked at me with a puzzled expression. Enoch, who had been listening to the conversation with his arms crossed, also looked at me.
I had promised to tell Kaiden about Zenas when we reunited, so it seemed like now was the time.
"I also spent a night in that Cabin. With an archmage over a thousand years old. The young boy you met seems to be the archmage who was with me."
"An archmage over a thousand years old? What are you talking about?"
Kaiden stared at me with wide eyes as if he couldn't believe it. Right, I wouldn't believe it either if I were him.
"It's true, even though you can't believe it. And his name was 'Zenas Ingram'."
"Wait, what? Zenas Ingram?!"
Kaiden was even more surprised than before and jumped up from his seat. Startled by his sudden movement, I leaned back, and Enoch reached out to support my back.
"What's wrong, Lord?"
Enoch asked with a frown.
Kaiden covered his mouth and remained silent for a long time with a thoughtful face, then suddenly took something out of his pocket.
It was the Pendant that had been passed down through the Magic Tower Lords. The very Pendant that had hit my cheekbone when I first met him.
I looked at him with a puzzled expression.
"Why that?"
"The one who made this Pendant. A Wizard named Zenas Ingram."
"……Huh?"
"……And an ancestor of our Family. Zenas Ingram Rohade. An archmage and the first head of the Marquis Rohade Family. Damn it, I thought he looked familiar."
"What?!"
I shouted in surprise at Kaiden's shocking remarks.
I finally realized why Zenas had silver hair and red eyes. It seemed to be a Rohade Family trait.
"Zenas died a thousand years ago, how is he here?"
This time, Kaiden asked me back. I shrugged.
"I don't know. But, according to him, he has lived on this island for a thousand years. He can't escape. I don't know if we can believe what Zenas said."
"He was trapped here? That genius Wizard?"
Kaiden retorted.
I nodded and told them what I had experienced in the Cabin.
Someone pulled me out of the river, and that's when I found Zenas. He took me to the Cabin and healed me, and I discovered a strange 'Gate' and 'Chamber of Rest' in Zenas's Cabin.
Now that I think about it, Zenas was holding a coconut when I first met him. He said he could live without eating.
At that moment, Kaiden, who had been deep in thought, said to me.
"But the Zenas you're talking about seems quite different from the Zenas in the stories I've heard in the Family."
"What kind of person is the Zenas you know?"
"First of all, Zenas doesn't look like a child. He's a full-grown adult, and I've heard he's a pervert who enjoys killing. There are even documents that say he may have been a demon because he severely lacked human emotions."
"……."
Indeed, the Zenas that Kaiden was talking about was very different from the Zenas I met.
"Is there a possibility that it's just someone with the same name?"
Enoch asked Kaiden, and Kaiden shook his head firmly.
"He was from the Ingram Dynasty era, and he was a Wizard who even changed the balance of his body so that he could live without consuming food. Zenas was the only Wizard who could implement such high-dimensional Magic in that era."
Kaiden drew a firm line. Enoch raised a question again in a calm voice.
"Then did that Wizard create the fog around the Cabin? But Mana can't be used on this island."
At Enoch's words, I pondered over what Zenas had told me.
"Could it be that he can change his body? If Kaiden is right, he originally has the body of an adult, and he may be able to use Mana when he has the body of an adult. He told me that 'in this body, Mana is being controlled'."
"Then why is he in the form of a child now? Is it to protect his body? But if he can't use Mana in that state, how did he create the fog?"
Kaiden muttered with an incomprehensible face and fell into thought. I asked him again.
"Kaiden, why was the door to the Chamber of Rest, which you said you entered, open? I couldn't enter because the door was locked. And it clearly said 'Seal' on the door."
"I don't know why the door was open, but it seems that the place was sealed. That woman was tied to a magic circle."
"Is that also the work of the Wizard Zenas?"
At Enoch's question, Kaiden narrowed his brow, rubbing his temples as if recalling his thoughts.
"I'm not sure about that. That woman told me to run away. At that moment, I was thrown out of the Cabin. Immediately after, I met a short-haired kid. According to Margaret, that kid seems to have been Zenas."
Run away.
From what? From whom are we supposed to run away?
"Ah, now that I think about it, Zenas said he had an older sister. Her name was Anata……."
"Anata? Anata Shanet Rohade was here too?"
Kaiden asked me back in surprise.
"Zenas spoke as if she was dead. But if the woman you saw in the Chamber of Rest had silver hair and red eyes, she might be Anata. It matches the Rohade Family's appearance."
Why was Anata sealed in that place? Why did Zenas hide that fact? Could it be that Zenas was the one who sealed Anata?
There were too many unanswered questions.
"Margaret."
At Enoch's call, I, who had been lost in thought, looked up at him.
"You said there was a 'Chamber of Rest' there. And it was also written as a Seal."
I nodded in affirmation.
Enoch stroked his chin as if recalling something and frowned. Then he opened his mouth in a low voice.
"……There is a custom in the Ingram Dynasty that if you create a Chamber of Rest and seal a person alive, their Soul becomes a Guardian deity."
Enoch seemed calm and firm, as if he had not been particularly shaken by the flood of shocking stories.
He continued calmly.
"Perhaps the source of the fog surrounding the Cabin is not Zenas's Mana, but the Mana of the sealed Soul."