I should have been dead.

My weakened soul had been driven out by Cecily’s magic.

Even if my hostless soul were to return to my original body, there was no way my weakened form would be able to survive.

Thus, I was expecting to quietly meet my end by old age within the cold crystal inside the cave.

“Why… am I still alive?”

“Because I brought you back to life.” My question was answered by an old man who playfully shrugged. “Well, I wish I could have said that in a cooler way.”

“You are…”

The man’s face was hidden by a ragged, hooded cloak. His back was a bit hunched, but his needlessly overflowing charm was strangely familiar.

“—The one who pinned those false charges on me!”

“That did happen, too, didn’t it? It already been sixty years since then?”

Now that he mentions it, the wrinkles on his neck are all scrunched up and the hand stroking me is wrinkled and dry.

I could infer that he must have been quite the handsome man in his younger years… but now he was just an old man on the verge of his final days.

We were inside the cave where I had been sealed. The crystal was shattered, but judging from the magic lingering in the shards, that seemed to have been recent. Also, from the mess of documents stacked in the corner, the sleeping bag, and other daily necessities scattered about, someone had been using this place for research or something.

Right, that someone being this old man, I suppose?

My eyes were fixed on him.  He gave a wry smile and licked the base of my neck.

“Don’t stare at me like that. I was confident back in my teens, but not so much at this age.”

“Could you—”

I didn’t know which was faster, my speaking or my yanking off his hood.

His face was covered in wrinkles and he had a beard, but there was no way I could mistake his cat-like eyes and seductive smile. Even in his old age, he still smiled joyfully at me.

“We meet again at long last, my queen.”

“Eivind Dahl!?”

Despite my pointing at him with all my might, he didn’t tell me off. He simply took in my confusion with delight.

“Eh? What is the meaning of this? If Eivind has aged this much—”

“It’s been sixty years since you parted from Cecily Travasta. I’m seventy-eight now. Although, for you who has lived for more than 800 years, that may not seem all that long.”

No, no, no, it has been sixty years since then?

I had no doubt my body, Nora Noz, would have reached its limit during that time.

Regenerating a physical body—at least with proper magic from that era—should have been impossible. The rejuvenation potion I made might’ve been fine for someone actually 80-years-old, but it was never meant for someone who’d been sealed in a crystal for 800 years.

In that case, what exactly is my current vessel?

“Would you like to take a look in the mirror?”

No sooner had the elderly Eivind said that when he used his magic to conjure a full-length mirror.

My reflection left me surprised for the third time.

Behind the long black hair were familiar violet eyes reminiscent of Nora Noz.

Well, I suppose being completely naked comes from a researcher’s quirk. At the places where joints should be found were bonding marks like those of a doll’s joints. At the chest, most crucially, was a red magic crystal.

There was some discomfort in how my arms and legs felt when I moved them, but they were actually a bit light…

I felt as if I, the Great Sage, were using magic to manipulate a puppet.

“The body of a doll… and judging from this magical sensitivity, a Killing Doll?”

“Correct. As expected of the Great Sage.”

“Even if you praise me, that won’t make me happy in the slightest right now.”

I sank deep into thought, setting aside the beaming, elderly Eivind. It seemed that Eivind had applied the same experiment he had conducted for his mother. Seeing what he accomplished, there was no denying that what he did was incredible.

I took another good look at my face. There was something more to it… I felt a sense of déjà vu.

Right… I absentmindedly formed a circle with my fingers in front of my eyes.

And then, it all made sense.

“Isn’t this Hana?”

“That ‘Hana’ was you all along.”

“Haa~?!”

No, no, no, don’t say that so casually, Eivind Dahl. If everything you’re saying is true, then that would mean this is what’s going on, wouldn’t it!?

Eivind imbued the Killing Doll with my soul.

If that was all, well, Eivind had completed this sort of experiment using his own mother back as a student. The details aren’t that important, but either way, it’s not that surprising.

However, only two Killing Dolls remained at that time. One I destroyed, and the other was used by his mother… and was then also destroyed by me.

So then, how did he get this original doll.

It’s possible that Eivind created a new doll with the same capabilities as the Killing Doll, but if so, why did I see a 60-year-old Eivind back we when we were still students?

Furthermore, if what Eivind said is true, doesn’t that mean he transferred this ‘Hana who is me’ 60 years into the past?

Eivind kindly provided a thorough explanation to the doubts in my mind.

“In regards to time travel, I completed the spell 30 years ago. The doll I used for your body is the very same Killing Doll you kindly smashed to bits back when we were students. Those pieces were saturated with your magic. I thought there couldn’t be a more perfect vessel to anchor your soul into.”

Indeed. While this field wasn’t my specialty, I was also a researcher. I understood the logic.
In other words…

“That Killing Doll rampage incident was also—”

“Yes, I was the mastermind behind it ♡.”

Someone as old as you shouldn’t say that while making such a cute face! But in the end, it turns out Eivind Dahl was the root cause of everything!

I poured all my anger into my magic and threw a random shockwave at him.

To an attack of this level, Eivind didn’t simply block it, he absorbed it without any trouble… That’s the same trick I did during the Killing Doll incident, didn’t I?

Damn it…

But I also learned something from our scuffle—this Killing Doll’s body was much easier to handle than I’d imagined.

As for Eivind’s body…

I wouldn’t touch on that just yet. Instead, I’ll continue getting more confirmations for now.

“I believe magic regarding time travel was still incomplete back then, though?”

“Hence I said I completed it. The foundation for the theory had already been set down by that Scum King. From there, I used the curse-reversal magic you used back then, along with my own body and the Scum King’s corpse as research materials… Well, I can’t use it repeatedly, but I managed to get it to the experimental stage.”

I smiled wryly at his smug expression.

“Wow, the tenacity of a genius is scary.”

“I don’t want to be told that by a genius who surpasses me.”

At that moment, he started to cough. It was a heavy one, a cough with phlegm lodged in his throat. There were a lot of cigarette butts lying around. That must have been how he vented his stress. There was no way he didn’t know how bad they were for his health.

“Have you been working alone this whole time?”

“Resurrecting the dead as dolls, time travel… do you think research like that could be made public?”

When I crushed the butt of a cigarette underfoot in place of a reply, he laughed.

“Well, I’m already old now, but before returning to ‘those days,’ I want you to grant an old man’s final request.”

“How heavy.”

“I’m sure you’ve known for 60 years now that my love is heavy?”

This sort of light banter, we could enjoy it endlessly, but…

Once I returned to the joyful days of the past, would become of him? Left behind? Aging alone?

The old man, having accepted his fate, tried to woo me with a joyful expression.

“Just like I promised Cecily, I’ll take you back to ‘those days.’ So for just one final night, could you give me a bit of your time? Slowly… just the two of us talking, alone… that’s all I’ve ever yearned for since long ago.

It was such a modest request after all he went through.

I responded with a sweet smile.

“Yeah, nope ♡.”

“So cruel!!”

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