I made a nonchalant question to the speechless Eivind.

“By the way, do you know where Anita currently lives?”

“…She should be recuperating at the hospital that was built on the former site of the Travasta estate.”

“Is she unwell?”

“Well, we’re all already old now.”

I see… Well, it makes sense considering everyone is the same age.

Even so, I was shocked somewhere in my heart. Eivind meanwhile gave me a wry smile.

“By the way, the one who built that hospital was Cecily’s older sister.”

“Seriously!?”

Cecily’s older sister, as in that incredibly self-centered Neria from back then.

Indeed, if the hospital was built on the former site of the Travasta estate, it wouldn’t be strange that the land rights would belong to her. I wondered if she had been able to become a royal maid after all that. What kind of life did she lead after that to consider the idea of building a hospital on her family’s territory.

Come to think of it, it’s been sixty years since then. What is Cecily doing now?

I wondered if she had succeeded in finding true happiness… That said, I didn’t ask Eivind about it.

Instead, I slapped both cheeks with a pan, and resolved myself.

“Alright, I’m off then!”

“Where to?”

“I’ll be back soon.”

Then, I used teleportation magic. As expected, the doll was incredibly efficient at using magic. I was sure its creator, Eivind, adjusted it with great care.

Showered by the love of such a genius and his dumbfounded gaze, I took off.

The distance was quite long, but I seemed to have successfully managed it.

When I opened my eyes, I found myself in a simple yet clean room.

The nighttime scenery outside the window looked a bit familiar, but maybe not… Well, it was a view I only saw briefly when I visited that one summer sixty years ago.  Of course it would’ve changed.

As I tucked my hair, which had swayed in the night breeze, behind my ear, the bed’s occupant spoke.

“Barging into another’s bedroom without even knocking… You’re still the same as always.”

“I’m sorry, Anita.”

Her once-lustrous long blonde hair had become thin white strands. Her skin had lost its firmness, she was a little smaller and plumper, but her noble way of speaking and core of real magic remained unchanged.

The elderly lady lying in bed slowly tried to get up, but her body must had been in pain. I gently eased her half-raised upper body back down.

“You can recognize me?”

“Honestly, I can barely see anymore. But I’m not so cold-hearted that I’d forget the presence of someone as brazen as you.”

“Am I supposed to take that as a compliment?”

From my perspective, it felt like only a few weeks had passed… but for Anita, it must’ve been decades since we last met.

Even so, Anita still spoke to me the same way, and I loved her for it.

While I gently stroked her head, I asked the question I came for.

“Sorry to be so abrupt, but do you happen to still have the necklace I gave you?”

“Honestly… you have no sense of sentiment. Well, I figured you’d be showing up around now anyway.”

While pouting, Anita pointed to the small bedside drawer. Inside it rested a single velvet case which housed the heart-shaped pendant containing red liquid. It had been kept exactly as it was back then.

My eyes welled up before I could stop them. To think that she’d treasure something I made so casually between lab classes for decades. Anita really was…

I asked, trying hard to keep my voice from trembling. “I know it’s something I gave you once, but… would it be alright if I asked you to return it?”

“Don’t worry about it. I never had any intention of using it in the first place.”

“I’m sorry. If you used this, you could’ve become young—”

At that moment, a sharp pain ran through my hand. Anita had apparently slapped me. It hurt in a subtle, annoying way.

The one who slapped me had no trace of ill intent.

“Please don’t mock me. Do you really think I lived a life I would regret?”

Even though she couldn’t move from her bed, her noble spirit remained unchanged from her youth.

I simply couldn’t stop loving her.

“Ah, honestly… My friend is just so lovely today as well.”

“Hehe, you know, you’re the only one who’d still call me ‘lovely’ at this age.”

“Well, I’ve thought that ever since we met.”

We didn’t say anything more after that. Due to what I was about to do, I couldn’t risk asking her about her life until now. Her hardships, her joys… I was going to share in all of them from here on.

As someone who still knew nothing, I had no words I could even say to her.

And, as expected, Anita was perceptive.

“Come on, hurry up and get going. Someone precious is waiting for you, right?”

“…Yes.”

“I’m glad I got to see you again before I died… Nora, my dearest beloved friend…”

I gently took Anita’s hand as she slowly drifted to sleep. Her hand, marked with all its wrinkles, was so, so precious to me. Then, I noticed something.

Anita called me by my name.

Realizing the relationship we had walked together up to this point, I smiled

“I love you too, Anita.”

Riding the night breeze that rustles the curtain, I returned to the continuation of the youth I spent with you.

However, before that…

“Eivind, I’m ba—ck.”

“Wow, you really returned like it was nothing…”

Grandpa Eivind glowered at me, but nope, I didn’t flinch. After all, I had just met a wonderful Anita. I was getting even more excited.

“Alright, won’t you drink this?”

“Eh?”

I popped open the pendant I got from Anita and poured it into my mouth. Then, I pulled Eivind’s cheeks towards myself and passed it to him, straight from my mouth.

Those perfectly round eyes of his were just like they were when he was young. Although, l had never seen him blush like that before. I may have enjoyed it a bit too much.

He, however, seemed to have forgotten that Nora Noz was the Incorrigible Villainess.

“Ugh… agh! Gaaaaah!”

Soon after, Eivind, collapsed on the ground and began to writhe in agony.

Now then, I wonder if he remembers the medicine I gave to Anita?

It was the Ultimate Rejuvenation Elixir. I gave it to Anita when she was devastated, having lost all hope of entering the Royal Institute of Magic, as a way to start her life over. It was a potion that forcibly regenerated the body at the cellular level.

Well, it can’t be used on Nora Noz, a pesudo 800 year old woman. A proper 80-year-old man like Eivind Dahl, however, might just be able to manage.

That was, if he could endure pain beyond despair.

Eivind, groaning in agony, reached out to me with what little strength he had.

“Just… kill me…”

“No way♡. Let’s relive our youth together.”

“You…”

Judging by the movement of his lips, he seemed to be trying to say villainess.

You don’t have to say it, I already know that.

The groans of a man who had become a genuine genius sage echoed within the cave in the middle of the night.

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