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How old was she when she first saw that boy?

It must have been around three or four years old—just when she was starting to become aware of the world around her.

In a dream she had one night, that boy—whom she remembered being a little older than her—was looking at her with black eyes that shone like obsidian.

*“Come on, Chiiko. It’s time to eat.”*

Smiling brightly, the boy held out what looked like a small grain toward me with something resembling a white spoon.

*—Wait, what? Are you telling me to eat this?*

The grains had been soaked in water and were slightly mushy. No matter how she looked at them, they didn’t look appetizing at all.

But in the dream, she was devouring them with the utmost joy, as if it were the greatest pleasure in the world.

Since it was a dream, she couldn’t tell what they tasted like, but she could clearly sense that eating them left her feeling incredibly satisfied.

And as she watched her dream self eat the grains, the boy with the dark eyes was also smiling happily.

For some reason, she found herself wanting to see that happy expression on the boy’s face a little longer. So she kept eating the grains offered to her until her stomach was full.

.

Standing before a large gathering of believers, Calcedonia passionately delivered the word of God from the podium.

The commandments and words of the gods recorded in the scriptures. Sharing these with the faithful is one of the most important duties of the priests who serve the gods.

In this world—the world to which Calcedonia had summoned Tatsumi—the vast majority of people cannot read or write. Therefore, in order to convey the teachings of the gods, priests must speak them aloud, just as she was doing now.

Of course, it is not only Calcedonia who delivers these sermons; other priests and pastors take turns doing so as well. However, the temple’s chapel is always filled to capacity with believers whenever it’s her who preaches, just as it was today.

Their purpose is to hear the blessed words of God spoken by the priest. Yet there were also those who came to the chapel for other reasons.

At the very back of the chapel, on a slightly elevated pulpit that overlooks the entire space, more believers than usual gather whenever it is her turn to preach, hoping to catch a glimpse of the “Holy Maiden” as she solemnly speaks the words of God.

However, those believers who came to catch a glimpse of the Holy Maiden felt a slight sense of bewilderment.

Normally, the “Holy Maiden” would convey the words of God calmly, enveloped in a solemn atmosphere. But today, things were a little different.

.

After that, she would occasionally dream of that boy.

As she had that dream over and over, she realized that my dream self was an incredibly tiny being. What’s more, it seemed she wasn’t even human.

She was placed in the boy’s palm and lifted up to the level of his eyes. Then, she happily pecked at something that looked like a seed he held out to her with her beak.

Right. It seemed she was a little bird in the dream. Her feathers were a grayish-silver, and something seemed to stick out from the top of her head; whenever she shook my head, she could feel it swaying back and forth.

She deftly cracked open the seed the boy offered with my beak and ate only the kernel inside. Then she let out a happy little “cheep!”

*“Was it delicious, Chiiko?”*

The boy called out to her with a laugh. “Chiiko” seems to be her name in this dream.

The boy was always there with her.

On the boy’s shoulder. On the boy’s hand. On the boy’s head. In her dreams, she was always by the boy’s side.

As her real self grew older, the boy she sometimes met in her dreams seemed to grow older as well.

And then, before she knew it, she began to develop feelings for the boy in her dreams.

The boy was always by her side, and she was gradually drawn to him, filling her heart with warmth.

Time passed, and when she was nearly ten years old, she suddenly realized something.

The dreams she sometimes had of the boy. That they were not merely dreams, but a past that her former self had experienced. That she was reliving her past self in the form of a dream.

That realization triggered a flood of memories from the past. Among them, the face of the boy—her owner and master—who had stared intently at her just before she met her end, with an expression as if the world were ending, shook her heart violently.

.

Chalcedonia was delivering her sermon from the podium as usual. But for some reason, she seemed different today.

Normally, without ever losing her dignified composure, the Holy Maiden” would speak the word of God ceaselessly, like flowing water. Her own followers would gaze at her beautiful, noble figure with fervent eyes, but today they looked at her with confusion.

She, who usually delivers her sermons with a steady, measured tone while maintaining a faint smile without ever changing her expression, today had a strangely glazed look in her eyes—as if feverish—and spoke the words of God in a halting manner. And from time to time, a seductive sigh would escape her lovely lips, as if harboring the passionate feelings she kept hidden in her heart.

The believers and her colleagues watched this uncharacteristic Holy Maiden with puzzled expressions, tilting their heads in wonder.

Among them, however, were some believers who found themselves captivated by the strange allure she exuded even more than usual today.

Amidst all those gazes, Calcedonia’s heart was completely filled with thoughts of a single boy—the one she had literally dreamed of and had finally reunited with.

.

Two thoughts welled up within her heart: the desire to find a way to reunite with that boy—her Master—once more, and the sorrow she felt for the profound despair he would face if he were to lose her very existence.

So, she made up her mind. She would find a way to learn magic and use it to return to him.

In the world she now inhabited, the art of magic existed. As a child, she naively thought that if she used it, she might be able to reach him.

At that time, she did not yet know that while magic capable of crossing worlds certainly existed, it was a legendary-level spell that had long been forgotten and was extremely difficult to wield.

Unaware of this, the young girl first consulted her parents.

She had been telling her parents about the boy in her dreams all along.

At first, her parents watched over their daughter, who harbored a faint crush on the boy in her dreams, with a smile. But as time went on and she continued to talk only about the boy in her dreams, they gradually began to find it unsettling.

Then, suddenly, their daughter announced that she wanted to learn magic. And when they asked why, she said it was—once again—for the sake of the boy in her dreams.

Her parents finally concluded that their daughter had lost her mind, and they resolved to disown her.

She and her parents lived in a remote, impoverished village on the outskirts of the Kingdom of Largovere.

If strange rumors were to spread in such a small, remote village, not only the girl but the entire family risked being viewed with contempt by the villagers.

So her parents warned her not to talk about her dreams outside the home. Yet, being only a young child at the time, she apparently did not heed their warning and would occasionally tell other villagers about her dreams.

The villagers’ attitudes gradually grew distant. Because of this, her parents decided to abandon their daughter.

Unable to bring themselves to sell their beloved daughter into slavery, they decided to entrust her to a traveling priest who happened to be passing by.

They gave the priest their meager savings and begged him to take her to an orphanage or some other facility in some other town. Meanwhile, they offered a convincing explanation of: “This backwater village is no place to study magic, so we asked a traveling priest to take you to a bigger town where you can learn” to their young daughter.

During the journey, the priest barely spoke to her. Having heard from her parents that she was mad, he saw no need to treat her with any respect.

Providing her with only the bare minimum of food and rest, the priest continued on his way. The destination they eventually reached was the capital of the Kingdom of Largovere: the city of Levantis.

This priest belonged to the Temple of Savaiv in Levantis. He had been summoned away from the capital to serve as a witness at the wedding of the son of a local influential figure, which was being held in a certain town.

At weddings for local influential figures, it is sometimes customary to go out of one’s way to summon a priest from the central temple to serve as a witness—as in this case—as a means of flaunting one’s wealth and power.

This journey of his was also a request from such a local influential figure. It was on his way back that he was entrusted with her.

Upon arriving in the city of Levantis, the priest simply dumped the young girl at the church to work as a servant.

The money entrusted to him by her parents was intended to cover her food and lodging expenses. However, since the priest had spent only the bare minimum along the way, a considerable sum remained in his possession.

Smirking to himself over this, it didn’t take long for her to fade from the priest’s memory.

There were children of similar circumstances at the church—those who had lost their families for one reason or another, or who had been abandoned by their families. The girl was simply one of many of such children, and the priest held no further interest whatsoever in her.

However, this turned out to be a stroke of luck for her.

For while working as a temple maid, she happened to catch the eye of the temple’s Supreme Pontiff, who recognized the rare magical talent she possessed.

.

“…I didn’t know…”

After hearing from Giuseppe about Calcedonia’s background, Tatsumi muttered those words in a daze.

“Despite appearances, that girl has gone through quite a lot.”

The events leading up to Giuseppe taking Calcedonia in as his adopted daughter were far more burdensome than Tatsumi had imagined.

Even after Calcedonia left to give her sermon, Tatsumi and Giuseppe remained in the reception room, continuing their conversation.

“Even after becoming my adopted daughter, that girl has worked incredibly hard. Her daily training as a mage, her duties as a priestess… and various other things besides. She has carried out all of these without cutting corners for years… and has finally achieved her long-cherished goal.”

She revived the summoning ritual that had been buried in a corner of the royal library’s archives, spent years preparing, and finally succeeded in summoning Tatsumi. It is precisely as a result of her accumulated efforts that Tatsumi is here now.

“That is why, my son. I must thank you once again.”
“Huh?”
“Because you accepted her. From your position, you could have easily scolded that girl without hesitation, and no one would have objected.”

It’s true that if someone were suddenly summoned from another world without any prior consultation, it would be natural to complain.

But Tatsumi, far from complaining about the summoning, was actually grateful to Calcedonia. Giuseppe was deeply impressed—and at the same time, grateful—that Tatsumi had accepted Calcedonia so readily.

“If possible, I’d like you to actually become that girl’s husband.”

Giuseppe laughed cheerfully, “Ho ho ho,” as he always did. But Tatsumi was far from laughing.

At first, he couldn’t make sense of what Giuseppe had said. Gradually, the meaning of the words sank into his mind, and when he finally grasped exactly what Giuseppe meant—

Tatsumi blew the tea he was drinking out of his nose in a spectacular fashion.

.

The dreams continued from then on, though only occasionally.

Having been taken in as the adopted daughter of the Supreme Pontiff of the Temple of Savaiv, she was finally able to begin studying magic in earnest. She blossomed into the mage she was meant to be, worked tirelessly to hone her skills, and simultaneously searched for a way to cross over into another world.

Of course, she fulfilled her daily duties as a priestess, and at times, she would cast healing spells on the wounded.

Amid such a busy life, the dreams she had of him—re-experiencing memories from the past—were her greatest joy.

After all, she was able to reunite with her beloved master, whom she had thought she would never see again, even if only in her dreams.

As she grew, the boy in her dreams grew as well.

Perhaps the god who had extended a helping hand to save both her and the boy had reincarnated her so that she would be the same age as him.

Even at such a young age, she came to this conclusion and gave thanks to God Savaiv—since she lived in a remote farming village, Savaiv was the only deity she knew at the time.

If she and the boy in her dreams were the same age, she would naturally feel a greater sense of kinship, and her feelings for him would grow stronger as a result.

Every time she saw the boy—her Master—in her dreams, her feelings for him grew stronger day by day.

However, not all her dreams were happy ones.

She remembers it clearly, too. The time her master lost his family.

Her master and his family had suffered serious injuries somewhere far away. At the time, that was the extent of her understanding, but as she recalled those events anew in her dream, she was overcome with grief as if it were her own.

Although the boy in her dreams was her only master, she loved his family just as dearly.

Just like him, his family had doted on her. To think that his entire family had lost their lives all at once, leaving only him behind.

At the time, she had only been aware that the days went by without her being able to see him or his family, but now she fully understood just how severe his injuries had been back then.

In that world, healing magic like the kind found here does not exist. Therefore, if one sustains a serious injury, it takes a considerable amount of time for it to heal.

During that time, a familiar neighbor took care of her. It was someone she remembered greeting many times, like when they went for walks with him riding on her shoulders.

And after a long time had passed, he finally returned. He came back alone, enveloped in grief.

He and she moved from the house where they had lived with his family to a smaller one. That was when it began. That was when she began to dream of him every day.

So she hurried with her preparations. The parting from the boy who remained in her memory—that moment was surely not far off. Worried about him after she was gone, she rushed to prepare to summon him.

Moving several steps ahead of her plan and taking only the bare minimum of rest, she finally completed her preparations for the summoning. Amidst all this, the time for their parting had finally arrived in her dream.

In the dream, the boy who had lost her was consumed by deep sorrow. Wanting to encourage him. Wanting to be of some help. Wanting to be by his side. She began the ritual to summon the boy.

The ritual had to be performed non-stop for several days. No matter how gifted she was with magic, or how much physical stamina she had for her age, there was no guarantee the ritual would succeed.

Moreover, she could only attempt the ritual once. If the summoning failed, she would have to spend several more years starting the preparations all over again.

As she concentrated on the ritual, the image of the boy after she had lost him to death floated into her mind.

Why did his image appear so clearly while she was awake? She didn’t know the answer herself. Perhaps performing the ritual had created some kind of connection between them.

Seeing him, having lost all hope in the world and all will to live, was heartbreaking. With dull, vacant eyes, the boy spent his days doing nothing but staring blankly at the small cage she had once occupied.

If things continued like this, wouldn’t the boy waste away and die? Or, overcome by grief, might he actually take his own life?

Her heart tightened with such worries, yet she pressed on with the ritual.

And then.

And then, her wish reached him.

She would likely never dream of the boy again. For the boy who was so dear to her—whom she could only meet in her dreams—had now appeared before her in reality.