The Returning Spring
After riding west for two days, they reached barley fields.
With no tall vegetation to obstruct the view, the open fields stretched wide, glowing golden as autumn approached. The barley planted in spring had ripened, and in one corner, farmers worked busily harvesting.
Roberta, Fritz, and Ulrich passed along the field path, taking in the surroundings. It truly was a rural place—nothing but fields in every direction.
Ulrich had said he had business with Roslayen's former master, so they had left the Duchy of Sirkaf and come to the County of Roslayen. Yet instead of heading toward the modern city where the current lord resided, his horse was pointed toward a certain estate.
"This is where I entrusted the children."
Ulrich halted his horse and spoke.
The children were Akean and Moira—the siblings. The two offspring of a dissolute emperor, after losing their mother, had passed through Ulrich's hands and been adopted by a farming couple.
"I heard they were wealthy farmers."
"They were. All of this land belonged to them."
"All of it?"
Ulrich nodded with a quiet hum.
"So, noble in all but title."
Looking over the vast barley fields, Roberta clicked her tongue in amazement.
She had thought it excessive to have imperial children adopted by mere farmers, even if they had been cast aside—but she had been mistaken. By land alone, they rivaled nobility.
"After defeating the lord of the dead—that magician—I told the two children about their birth. Akean immediately went to his father and claimed the throne. Moira followed him and helped, but not long after, she returned here."
And she remained by her adoptive parents' side until the day they died, inheriting her hometown. She received no inheritance from her biological father—that legacy went entirely to her brother. Moira received only the title of Count of Roslayen, earned through her role in defeating the lord of the dead.
"Even after becoming Count of Roslayen, she spent most of her year here. And after the title passed to someone else, even more so. If she is still alive, she would still be here now."
Roberta turned her head, lingering on the phrase if she is still alive. She had felt someone's gaze.
On a distant hill stood two figures—an old woman sitting on a stump with a cane, and a middle-aged woman standing behind her.
With the harvest in full swing, such leisure suggested they were not farmers. Curious, she tried to take a closer look, but Ulrich continued speaking.
"And that over there is the house where the children lived."
At the center of the estate stood a residence instead of a fortress. Though it was only two stories tall, the stone building covered a considerable area. The surrounding wall, broad and nearly as high as a person, gave it the air of a noble's villa.
"It doesn't feel that old."
"With time being what it is, it must have been renovated."
Still, Ulrich remarked that its overall form had not changed.
"It looks much the same as when I last saw it."
"You said you haven't come back since settling in Dithmarschen?"
"That's right. It must have been half a millennium."
Ulrich urged his horse toward the estate.
Following behind, Roberta glanced back at the hill. Perhaps they had descended while she wasn't looking—there was no one there now.
***
"What business do you have?"
When they reached the front gate, a servant came out to ask.
There were no guards. The gate stood wide open, and between it and the manor, several servants tended the garden.
"I've come to see the matriarch. Is she inside?"
"And your name?"
"Kirchner."
At that name, Roberta tilted her head.
It was unfamiliar. She had expected that if he used an alias, it would be one of the eleven knights—but the name he gave was not among them.
The servant reacted the same way. After thinking for a moment and apparently recalling nothing, he asked them to wait and went inside. Soon, he returned more quickly than before and led the three into the reception room.
Inside sat an elderly man with white hair. Roberta caught the faint confusion on his face.
Without even inviting them to sit, the old man scanned their faces. After hearing a whisper from the servant, his gaze fixed on Ulrich.
"What did you say your name was?"
Suspicion colored his voice.
"I would prefer to avoid pointless disputes. There's little meaning in proving who I am here, or in repeating a false name agreed upon between us."
Ulrich met his gaze calmly.
"I've come only to see Akean's sister—Moira."
At that, the old man hesitated, then rose to his feet.
"…My apologies. My name is Padnan."
Padnan bowed deeply.
"My elder brother is the Count of Roslayen. I manage this place in his stead and attend to Lady Moira. I did not expect you to return, sir, and so I have been discourteous."
"And why did you think I would not return?"
"It has been so long since your last visit, and at that time, you spoke as though you would not come again."
"You misheard."
Ulrich shook his head.
"Why would I not come, when that child—Moira—is here? As long as she lives, I will return again and again."
He added that he simply could not promise when.
"Then… what name should we address you by now? Shall we use the same as before?"
"Call me Ulrich. Ulrich of Dithmarschen—that is the name I use now. Do not use any other names. You may have read them in your records."
"Understood."
As everyone took their seats, Ulrich spoke once more.
"Is that child doing well?"
Padnan hesitated before answering.
"I'm not sure how it would seem to you, sir."
"Is there anything unusual I should know?"
"No. There isn't. In that regard… she is ordinary."
Ulrich nodded.
"I see."
A moment later, knock knock—the sound of someone knocking echoed, and the reception room door opened.
Two people Roberta recognized stood outside: the old woman and the middle-aged woman who had been on the hill earlier.
"I heard there were guests."
The middle-aged woman entered, supporting the old woman.
"Ah, yes. Go on, greet them."
Padnan introduced them to Ulrich's group.
"This is my mother, Anna, and this is my younger sister, Miriam."
"It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Miriam."
After exchanging greetings, Roberta carefully observed the old woman.
Her face was full of wrinkles. As the mother of a white-haired elderly man, she appeared to be at least in her eighties.
Her limbs, wasted by age, were like the branches of a dead tree. Her eyelids drooped, as though she could barely see, and she had lost most of her teeth, leaving her lips twisted.
But more than anything, it was her behavior that stood out.
"I'm sleepy."
The old woman whined, tugging at the middle-aged woman's sleeve.
"Mother, are you tired?"
"Yes… tired. I want to sleep."
Drool slipped from between her mumbling lips. The middle-aged woman gently wiped it away with a handkerchief, soothing her softly and asking her to endure just a little longer. But the old woman twisted her body in refusal and let out a loud cry.
"My apologies… my mother is quite old."
Ulrich nodded.
"It's fine. I've seen her face—that's enough. You may go."
The middle-aged woman led the old woman out of the reception room.
Roberta remained seated, replaying the old woman's appearance in her mind.
It was unmistakable—the appearance of an elderly person with dementia, regressed to infancy.
The old woman had shown no reaction upon seeing Ulrich. Not like someone meeting him for the first time—rather, like someone who didn't even care that he was there.
He said she was neither ageless nor immortal.
Ulrich had said that Moira was neither ageless nor immortal, yet still alive. Was that what he meant?
If so… why?
Why had she become like that?
In Dithmarschen, an aged knight named Rashid had poured an alchemist's elixir over his son's corpse. The result had been a nameless parasite consuming the body.
That parasite possessed low intelligence. Even as the boy's father aged into an old man, the creature grew—but its intelligence continued to regress. It was no different from a beast.
Had Moira undergone something similar?
Was her regression caused by something akin to what had happened to Rashid's son?
Yet she couldn't begin to guess what it might be.
If it had been the same cause, she would have become a monster—and Ulrich would have intervened. Since that hadn't happened, there must be a different reason.
"Since when has she been like that?"
"I've heard it has been since my great-grandfather's time."
Roberta pressed her dry lips together as she listened.
"To be precise, that's when she lost all her memories. Records say that even before that, she had already remembered almost nothing."
"That must have been when it reached its extreme—around the time of my last visit, which you seem to have mistaken. From then on, not a single shared memory remained between me and that child. No matter how hard she tried not to forget… she eventually did."
"Even so… back then, she still retained many other memories. She guided us with them."
The old man gave a bitter smile.
"Now even those are gone. In the end, what remains is only her body and the records—though she sought eternity, just as you have."
"Even that body is not immortal. And though she possesses great talent, without your guidance, she is no different from a mere child."
"Yes. I know. I've seen it myself."
Padnan nodded.
"I witnessed her becoming a child at the end of aging. To me, she was no different from a grandmother—yet I saw her babble, unable to remember a single thing."
"Does it not feel futile? It will repeat in the future as well. As long as your descendants continue to care for her as you do now, they too will witness it across generations. Do you feel nothing else?"
"How could we?"
Roberta sensed both sorrow and reverence in his tone.
She had lost her memories and regressed—but the time she carried spanned nearly a thousand years, while her current state had lasted only about a century. Then what had she done before that? What had she, who possessed such wisdom, accomplished in this land?
"You entrusted the title of Count of Roslayen to our family, sir—but not once have we ever thought of ourselves as its true masters."
The old man asked: who had restored the ruins left behind by the armies of the lord of the dead?
"Who brought back the people who had fled, turned barren land into fertile fields, and bound our family and our neighbors together to preserve peace? The master of this land has always been Lady Moira. For nearly a thousand years, we have merely been the outer shell for her sake."
Padnan declared that the current Roslayen count's family had begun as Moira's retainers and remained so—serving one person across generations.
In his unwavering words, Roberta felt a strange familiarity, as if she had heard such sentiments many times before.
"A person who lived such a long life, who possessed wisdom and compassion, cared for our entire lineage… How could we harbor different feelings just because she has lost her memory and become like a child?"
And the source of their devotion was not merely her wisdom and compassion.
"Above all, she was our mother. Our sister—and our daughter as well. She was not merely someone we served or owed—she was a bond we could not sever, as if we shared blood."
Ulrich stroked his chin and murmured to himself.
"A sister… a daughter…"
Roberta and Fritz said nothing, but they pondered the same thought.
Looking at the old woman's appearance, they couldn't understand how she could be considered a sister or daughter of the lineage.
Was it a metaphor?
At first, that was their assumption. Just as Ulrich had called Moira his godchild, perhaps it was simply another way of expressing the family's reverence.
"There is a very small jellyfish that lives in the southern seas."
But that was not the case.
As if reading their thoughts from their expressions, Ulrich spoke.
"It's called the immortal jellyfish. Under certain conditions, it can regress its body back to a juvenile state. For a time, it gave hope to those who pursued immortality."
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