This was the part that turned out to be the biggest pain.
First, the mirror-faced man. The man who'd been puppeted by the Fool King of Edda from the Phantom Unit was alive.
His memories were fuzzy, but I captured him.
I returned on Etrangé.
Narcissus worked herself into a huge fuss, and Megadia fled straight to the bottle, but I ignored it. Ignored it completely.
First thing, I reported to both families and the Guild that the remnants of Jinryu had been wiped out.
They were shocked, naturally. An entire organization getting destroyed right after we'd just talked about it...
Even I, the guy who actually did it, thought it had to be some kind of joke.
Just to be safe, I'd brought along the puppeted man and the mirror fragments as proof.
The rest was up to them. I had things to do.
I immediately headed for the Forbidden Land on Etrangé.
In the treasury, I used the [Ring of Fortune].
The search target was "Phantom Unit" — oh boy.
This just kept going from one thing to the next... reaction after reaction after reaction.
"I can't handle this one alone."
I'd need more people. So Heizen... no wait, this was Hydrangea.
Actually, I'd heard the maids were supposed to be coming back around now.
So I figured I'd check if they were around and ask for help.
I went through the passage from the lab's storage area. Huh? Nobody in the lab?
Unusual. Thinking that, I passed through the gate and headed home—oh right. I should report to the witch.
I'd tell her about the save and all sorts of other things and get her advice.
I passed through the gate and went straight to the witch's house.
"Excuuuse me…"
Since she never uses the front entrance, I always get a little nervous.
Everyone else was used to the witch's house and didn't seem to mind at all.
But my past-life sense of propriety always made me feel awkward about it.
"My, my, my—young Wof. What a rare hour for you to visit."
The witch, who'd been lounging in the living room, gave me a gentle smile.
"Oh, right about that."
She pointed it out, so I checked my pocket watch.
It was already evening.
"Hmm hmm. Did something happen?"
The witch held her cup and shifted her legs.
She'd apparently just had a bath—wearing her usual thin clothes with a fluffy white gown thrown over them.
"Something did. More like, way too much happened."
I said with a wry smile, and the witch gestured for me to sit on the sofa.
The living room was, as always, a cluttered mess.
But even so, she'd at least kept the walkways clear.
Or was I imagining it? Compared to before... there seemed to be slightly fewer things around?
"Well, well, why don't you tell me what happened? I'm looking forward to it."
"First, I ran a check on the save."
"Oh my, oh my, how did it go?"
"Yes. It worked smoothly without any issues."
"Mhm, mhm. Good, good. I'd like to try out Con for real someday too."
Come to think of it, the witch still hadn't entered the dungeon.
The witch shifted her crossed legs and brought one fluffy tail forward.
"How's work going?"
"Mmm, mmm. So-so, I'd say. Things will work out once what I ordered from Verent is done."
Verent is a dwarf blacksmith.
He runs a shop in the smithing district of Hydrangea.
His blacksmithing skills are absolutely top-tier. His true specialty is OOPArt restoration.
His proud daughter Kikka is active as a swordsmith.
But since dwarves don't have daughters, she must be his adopted daughter.
"Are you eating properly and getting enough sleep?"
"Well, you see, Munieca is... around, so..."
"Then it should be fine."
Sounds like things are being managed properly.
The witch gave a slight, wry smile.
"And on top of all that, Shiro has started living there again too."
"Oh, is that so."
Then that would be the all-white storage room under the stairs.
A very small room with nothing but a bed in it.
So they were living together as three again.
Even in Hydrangea — no, one of the continent's most beautiful women, single, sharing a place with two others.
The world doesn't always go the way you'd expect.
Oh, did the witch know about Shiro's true identity?
"Did she?" my foot. The witch definitely knew.
Ah, I hadn't talked about that either, had I?
"Well then, young Wof. Shall we get to the main topic?"
"Y-yes. Um, first, in chronological order—"
I told her about Lady Yomido and the search for the successor to the Wind Dead King.
I hesitated about revealing Ambrosius's identity, but she already knew, just as she had with Shiro.
They had been acquaintances since long ago.
Since long ago... no, never mind.
"Hmm hmm. How very interesting. A Yomido who resembles Pakira quite a lot."
"It's beyond 'resembling' — you'd believe it if someone told you they were twin sisters."
"And yet, Shiro didn't say a word about it. She was perfectly composed when we met at the bath, too. But that girl has a way of never showing what's on her mind, so it's hard to say."
"Ah, ah, but now that you mention it, she does have a way of quietly keeping an eye on Pakira. Despite being so incredibly shy around people."
Come to think of it, when she accompanied us to the fire dungeon, she had helped out with Torquetam.
But was that because she wanted to help Pakira?
Still, it definitely felt like something out of the ordinary.
"So there really is some connection. Yomido was a name I'd never heard before."
"Well, well. Hard to say for sure."
The witch brought the cup to her lips, then paused in a thoughtful gesture.
But the goddess of knives seemed to know something.
Yomido had told me to bring her along next time, so maybe I should think about it.
Before that, I still hadn't met with Pakira.
Torquetam was going to challenge a dungeon soon, so I'd try talking to her when the timing was right.
"So, moving on to the next topic—do you know about Phantom Units?"
"Hmm, hmm. They're in the undead category, the unit type. What about them?"
"Well, you see..."
I told her about what had happened today.
The witch nodded along, her eyes gleaming with interest as she stared intently at me the whole time until I finished.
For some reason, it felt like the witch's gaze was admiring me.
No, I was imagining it. She was just absorbed in the story because it was interesting, nothing more.
Even just being listened to that intently somehow felt like being acknowledged, and it made me oddly nervous.
When I finished, my throat was bone dry.
I took out my flask—the crescent-shaped vessel—from my pouch, opened the lid, and drank.
"I see, I see. Actually, there's an interesting theory about Phantom Units."
"Oh, is that so?"
"Exactly. Sealing a soul into an object is apparently a form of punishment."
"A... punishment?"
I blinked in confusion.
*That* was a punishment?
The witch smiled.
"Mhm, mhm. The Foolish King of Edda mentioned in the story is undoubtedly King Acro from the El Dorado records. Though he was never officially recognized as a king, of course."
"You know about him? Wait—he wasn't a real king?"
At my question, the witch pricked up her fox ears and began to speak.
"Once upon a time. Back when Edda was king. There were twin princes. The elder was brilliant and kind, and he strongly opposed how Edda enslaved other races. The younger, however, argued that every race besides Edda should be made into slaves. The king deemed his views too extreme and would ruin the kingdom, so he stripped the younger brother of his right to succession. Still, he didn't exile him—and that sealed the king's fate. The younger brother killed the king and staged a coup with the support of allied nobles. But fewer nobles joined than he'd expected. Not only that—even his own wife and daughters didn't support him. That sort of barbarism was already a thing of the past, you see. In the end, the royal army led by the elder brother crushed the coup in the blink of an eye. The younger brother was captured but not executed—he was imprisoned. Yet even after years passed, he never changed his ways. If anything, he grew worse, and even began calling himself king."
"......"
So it was all self-proclaimed?
I'd always thought it was strange how he kept going on about being king.
Was it because he really wasn't one?
"And then, and then—the elder brother, as king, should have had him executed... but he was kind to the very end. Even so, he couldn't leave his brother as he was. So he decided to inflict upon him an ancient punishment. That punishment was to seal his soul into an object. And so the soul of Acro was sealed away inside a thing. And they all lived happily ever after."
"...It was because of the elder brother's kindness?"
That's how it felt. I could understand wanting to protect your family.
But from where I was standing, it was nothing but a hassle.
The witch raised the cup to her lips, swallowed with a soft gulp, and set it down.
She blinked once, then parted her slightly damp lips.
"Well now, well now. The texts did say so, but who knows. If you can stuff a soul into an object, that means the person hasn't really died. You could look at it as them having escaped the death penalty. But that soul can't return to the Sea of Souls. Even the worst of criminals can return to the Sea of Souls when they die. And from drifting there, they eventually come back to the world as new life. But they can't even be given that. In a way, you might call it a punishment harsher than death."
"............"
Thinking about it that way, it does feel far heavier and harsher than death.
But he was able to revive, as he was, still himself. And he did, in fact, revive.
It was a hassle for us, though.
What were my brother's true feelings about it, I wonder?
But that's something only he would know.
Probably forever.