Cider still gazed intently at Esperanza's eyes as she held his hand and remained wary of Cyrus. Those kinds of eyes seed like they wouldn't beco tireso even after looking at them for a hundred years or so.
But he had no intention of the three of them sitting around wasting any more ti.
"Now. Let's start with the Golden Claw story. We need to check if this ti travel was worthwhile, don't we?"
"...Understood."
A sigh escaped naturally.
Since the situation had co to this, he had no choice but to be dragged along as they wished. He hadn't intended to fight for control, but being dragged along like this wasn't pleasant either. However, since there was no alternative, Cyrus took out the Golden Claw and placed it on the table.
"Though I've replaced so parts several tis, this is exactly as it was when the 'Golden Claw' was first discovered."
Was this the first ti seeing it up close? Esperanza stared at the body of the 'Golden Claw' she had been searching for ever since falling into this place. The machine that emitted a faint golden light from its entire body looked like a sacred object.
"To be precise, it was a scythe. The scythe of the god of ti."
Cider, who had said this, slowly picked up the Golden Claw. Long fingers wrapped around the magical tool. Slowly, as if reluctant.
"Can you eliminate it?"
Cyrus asked with an anxious face. Cider opened the smooth machine's outer shell.
The interior of the machine, smooth like a beast's teeth or claws, was composed of parts so complex they hurt the eyes. Without moving even slightly, as if ti had stopped.
"The problem would have been separating the central control device without magical intervention. While suppressing the magic stone's own magical output, there also couldn't be any external magical intervention..."
His fingertips brushed past the machine parts as if counting them.
Cider stood up, brought so paper, and quickly wrote sothing down. Since she had seen so of it before, Esperanza could recognize a few things, but the paper turned before she could grasp the context. After writing through three sheets of paper in an instant like that, Cider finally looked up.
Two pairs of eyes were waiting for his answer.
"I can eliminate it."
Having answered while leaning back in his armchair, he next turned his gaze to Esperanza. When he just looked silently without saying anything, questions arose in Esperanza's eyes.
"What's wrong?"
Cider looked into Esperanza's eyes for a long ti. They were eyes purely filled with affection and trust. Cider, who had grasped her cold and soft hair between his fingers as if letting it flow, scribbled sothing on a blank part of a page, then tore it off.
"Esperanza. I have a favor. Millen is in the room at the end of the corridor. Go and deliver this to him."
Cider, who had placed the twice-folded paper in her hand, smiled broadly.
Now? Suddenly?
"Won't it be dangerous? If it's necessary, just calling Millen directly would be..."
"Esperanza-nim, I have no intention of harming the Count."
Esperanza still didn't withdraw her suspicious gaze, but Cider was unexpectedly firm.
"It's important business. Don't worry about and go."
Esperanza had no choice but to get up from her seat. Thinking she needed to return quickly, her steps down the corridor were hurried. But when she reached the room at the end of the corridor, she had a different thought.
'Did he have sothing to say after sending away?'
There are words I shouldn't hear? In this situation, suddenly?
She couldn't guess. She hadn't been without thoughts of 'what if...', but in such a case, the one Cider should interrogate wouldn't be Cyrus but Esperanza.
Let's do what needs to be done first. Esperanza knocked on the door and went inside.
"Miss Esperanza?"
"Cider asked to deliver this."
Millen unfolded and opened the paper.
"Ah..."
His usually blunt and unchanging expression showed bewildernt for the first ti. Millen, who had been looking back and forth between Esperanza and the note, let out a conspicuous sigh.
"There was, um, an item, an item to give to the Count. Please wait a mont while I retrieve the item."
Cider had said it was important business, but Millen clearly showed no sign of having been given any prior notice. Sothing was definitely strange. However, before she could ask what item it was, Millen went into the inner room and closed the door.
'This is definitely. It seems right, doesn't it?'
Cider had undoubtedly told Millen to keep Esperanza here. What could there be to discuss alone with Cyrus?
Could he really be trying to ask about things like when he actually died?
She needed to check first. Esperanza opened the door leading to the inner room where Millen had entered, and grabbed the shoulder of Millen, who was muttering 'What should I take?' in front of the shelves, to turn him around. The note tucked in the front pocket of his tight-fitting vest instantly ca into Esperanza's hands.
"When on earth did you..."
Esperanza, who had moved far away before he could snatch it back, unfolded the note.
So it was true. Esperanza bit her lips. There were two paths. Return to the study, or pretend not to know and play along as Cider wanted.
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The study with only two n left was briefly quiet.
"What's the reason for sending Esperanza-nim out?"
Cider looked at Cyrus with surprised eyes. As if saying, 'You figured that out?' It only beca clear how much that genius magical engineer had underestimated Cyrus.
Cider, who had been looking down at the Golden Claw, slowly opened his mouth.
"A skilled technician can estimate a magical tool's usage just by looking at the wear state of the control device. I'm not a technician, but."
He looked up toward Cyrus.
"Golden Claw. Indeed, it's worn enough to break. How many dungeons per day? Even if you made a thousand per day, it couldn't wear down this much. Moreover, there are traces of parts being replaced. They're not parts I use. I guarantee that the entire parts were replaced at least twice."
The cold gaze seed to pierce through Cyrus, but his lips still drew a light arc.
"What exactly you did with soone else's invention to make it this way... I'm not particularly curious about. Your world conquest plans and such would be clichéd and boring."
He seed about to get to the point but didn't, which was frustrating. But Cider clicked his tongue softly as if pitying Cyrus for not being able to maintain composure.
"There are unsolved mysteries. The world 13 years later, the group called Hunters—to my ears, it all sounds very unrealistic and full of contradictions. What you did with my machine to create such a world... I'm really not curious about that."
So what exactly is it?
Cyrus couldn't hide his frustration and frowned. Cider's lips, which had been drawing an arc, closed coldly. He asked with eyes devoid of humor.
"What happens when you return?"
"What do you an?"
"If everything succeeds and you eliminate the Golden Claw as you wish and return to the world 13 years later, Daria will be very angry, won't she?"
"She's probably already very angry."
"Right. So such a person in power will be very angry. Then what's the possibility of my magician being retaliated against?"
If Daria's influence on the world 13 years later and Hunter society was that great, retaliation would be a natural course.
Moreover, Hunters were professionals who cleared dungeons to obtain byproducts and save people. If the Golden Claw disappeared and dungeons vanished too, the profession of Hunter would lose its reason for existence. People who had already tasted the life of vested interests wouldn't happily accept that fact.
To calm the chaos, Cyrus would inevitably beco a public enemy, and Esperanza would be grouped in the sa category.
The world 13 years later was dangerous for Esperanza. Cider judged so.
"Esperanza herself might be fine. But what about her family? Hasn't retaliation already begun?"
That's why he couldn't speak in Esperanza's presence.
"I need a definitive answer."
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Her heart pounded frantically. Her head leaning against the door was confused. Gripping her dress hem, she quietly, inaudibly drew breath.
Cider had co close to the secret. If he had thought a little more, he might have reached the correct answer.
'But he made a wrong guess.'
It wasn't because he was lacking. It was because he worried about Esperanza's safety above all else. Her safety when returning to 13 years later. And if her family had already been retaliated against, the pain she would receive when learning that fact.
If he had just looked away a little, it could have remained sothing he never knew forever. He didn't do that.
Though he had spoken as if parting was like dying. Those words from that ti saying it didn't matter weren't lies, but they weren't complete truth either. Strength entered the hand gripping the door handle. Esperanza, who forced herself to steady her rough breathing, opened the door.
Cider turned around with a surprised face. Esperanza forced her lips up to create a smile with difficulty.
"That... I... I think I can tell you."
If there was an appropriate ti to tell the truth, it would certainly not be now. But even so, now was the ti it had to be said. She felt cornered.
"How much did you hear?"
"Everything I needed to."
Cider frowned. She knew he had sent her out so she wouldn't hear, and she had listened knowing that.
"...I won't be retaliated against. Daria won't be able to have any influence on or my family. Right?"
Cyrus hurriedly answered the question that had suddenly co to him.
"Yes. That will be the case."
Cider quietly looked up at Esperanza. His now-calm eyes beca entangled with Esperanza's gaze. Esperanza's hand gripping Cider's fingertips was cold.
"Is it my turn to ask for the reason?"
"...Daria is probably a trendous person in power both now and in the world 13 years later. She can move Hunters, and probably has connections with the royal family, maybe the governnt or military too. There are probably only a handful of people that powerful in Osdern. But that's only 'in this world.'"
Though those words would have been sufficient, Esperanza slowly moved her reluctant lips.
"We ca from a different world."
Cider's gaze seed to gauge what aning this had, then soon seed to shatter like glass fragnts.
"Cyrus and Daria created a ga called 'Golden Claw' in that world. We Hunters ca to this world to play a ga. We don't eliminate dungeons and save people out of so great sense of mission or for livelihood. It's just play. Our real lives are in our world outside this world. There, Daria probably has a lot of money, but in our world she's neither a magician nor a great person in power. She can't seek out and harm , who has different nationality, and won't have the luxury to do so. So..."
She finished speaking as if that was the point of this entire story.
"So I too, and my family too, will be fine. Daria can't retaliate against us."
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