Ludger reached his hand toward Gariel.
He didn’t need to say what he was trying to do—Ludger could feel it instinctively.
That was why he had to stop him.
But the moment his hand reached out, Gariel’s figure had already vanished.
A still silence swept through the laboratory.
It was a sensation both cold and alien, like the chill of dawn dew settling over one’s entire body.
As if—
The single second that had just passed felt as though it had lasted decades.
Ludger slowly lowered the hand he had stretched out.
Then, with measured steps, he walked out of the laboratory.
Step. Step.
The sound of his shoes striking the wooden floor spread through the predawn building like the ringing of a bell.
Creak.
Ludger quietly opened the door to the room next to his.
The room where Rine was sleeping.
Beyond the slowly opening door, he saw her lying peacefully on one side of the bed.
Ludger pushed the half-opened door fully wide.
On the opposite wall from the bed stood a long sofa.
At one end of it sat an old man with long white hair, gripping a cane weakly in one hand.
Step. Step.
Ludger walked over to the sofa and sat down on the empty end across from him.
The old man and Ludger sat at opposite sides of the sofa, silently gazing at the bed where Rine slept.
“How long,” Ludger finally broke the silence, “has it been?”
“Well.”
The old man’s voice was frail, cracked with age.
He rubbed the snow-white beard hanging beneath his chin with his fingers.
“After thirty years or so, I stopped bothering to count.”
Though he spoke lightly, Ludger understood.
That old man—no, Gariel Cosmo—had nearly exhausted the rest of his life.
“Why?”
Ludger couldn’t help but ask.
“Why did you go that far?”
Perhaps the question caught Gariel off guard.
He glanced at Ludger briefly, then turned his eyes back to the sleeping Rine.
There was a warmth in those eyes he had never shown before.
“Why, you ask.”
Gariel let out a faint, self-mocking laugh.
There were many meanings in that reaction, but the greatest of them was likely—
Are you really in any position to ask that?
“If you had been in my place, you would have done the same.”
“No. I wouldn’t have been able to.”
“......”
“Only you could do it.”
It was the first time.
That arrogant man—who had always seemed incapable of acknowledging anyone—was now praising him.
Gariel felt a strange tickle in his chest.
Once, he had wanted recognition but never earned it. Yet now, merely for doing what felt natural, he was being acknowledged.
Realizing that change, the difference between past and present, he could only sigh at his own foolish younger self.
“I’m a mage of time. A time mage is freer within time than anyone else. But foolishly enough, I was the one who lived trapped in it more than anyone.”
Gariel pulled something from his robe with his thin, scarred hand.
A glass vial filled with a transparent liquid.
“Everyone else moved forward, but I didn’t. I kept circling in place, refusing to leave. My time stopped the day she died.”
He looked at the vial with trembling eyes.
It was the medicine—the treatment for Rine—that he had finally succeeded in creating through his own hands.
Ludger sensed it immediately.
He hadn’t even told Gariel the proper stabilizer ratio yet, nor had the research been finished.
And yet he had completed it. Which meant that after finding the ingredients, Gariel must have spent countless years continuing the research alone—
Abandoning his own time.
Consuming his own life.
“So now, I’m going to let it flow again.”
For as long as he’d been bound to the past—
For as long as he’d postponed and stopped himself—
Now, he wanted to shake it off and move forward.
“This is what I’ve reclaimed for all the time I’d frozen.”
Gariel slowly rose from the sofa.
Even though his legs trembled with age, he refused to stop.
Using his cane as a lever, he stood and began to approach Rine.
“So this will # Nоvеlight # be my last.”
He uncorked the vial and carefully poured its contents into Rine’s mouth.
Drop by drop, slowly, so as not to wake her.
It was a simple act, but for the aged Gariel, it consumed the last of his strength.
Ludger did not help him.
He couldn’t.
This was Gariel’s choice.
All Ludger could do was watch—engraving every moment of it into his eyes.
At last, when the vial was empty, Gariel smiled faintly in satisfaction.
“U... uh...”
With a faint murmur, Rine—who had been asleep—slowly opened her eyes.
“...Teacher?”
Perhaps because she had been unconscious too long, her eyes were still hazy.
Even so, she immediately recognized the old man looking down at her.
“You finally woke up, sleepyhead.”
Gariel chuckled warmly as he looked at her—
Just as naturally as when he used to teach her long ago.
“Teacher, you’ve grown so old.”
“You rascal. Of course I have. It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? Even I’ve aged plenty.”
“It feels like... I had a long dream.”
“What kind of dream?”
“I can’t... quite remember.”
“Oh dear. That won’t do. If you go back to sleep, maybe you can pick up where it left off.”
Gariel smiled gently.
Rine found that expression unexpected.
She had always remembered her teacher as a stubborn, eccentric old man—
But also as someone who, though never straightforward, cared for her more deeply than anyone.
He must have grown softer with age, she thought.
“Ah, I just remembered part of the dream. It was when I lived with my mother.”
“...I see.”
“And...”
Rine’s faintly opened eyes slowly closed again.
“I remember playing happily with my uncle too. Uncle Gariel, he was so good to me.”
“......”
Gariel opened his trembling lips to speak, but no sound came out.
Without realizing, he had covered his mouth with his hand—
Because if he hadn’t, he might have burst into tears.
He had thought he’d already shed all his tears long ago, back when time had stopped for him. But maybe... a few had still remained.
“I remember that day’s scenery. I played with my brother, fished with my uncle, and made new friends.”
Gariel swallowed his sorrow and asked quietly,
“Were you happy?”
“Yes.”
Rine answered with her eyes closed.
“The end of the dream was terrible, but... at least in those moments, I was truly happy.”
“Then I’m glad.”
“Teacher, I worked really hard at Seorn. I met good people, made friends, experienced so many strange things. There were hard times too—lots of assignments, and so much to study.”
But even so—
All of it—
Had truly been joyful.
Rine spoke with quiet certainty.
“But I’m scared. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to be happy again.”
Gariel understood why she said that.
That was why he didn’t ask.
If Rine, who never wanted to burden others with her troubles, was saying such words, it meant her heart was deeply unsettled.
“Rine,” Gariel began gently. “This teacher of yours hasn’t lived a life worth offering advice to anyone else about. But there’s one thing I can tell you.”
“What is it?”
“My life was nothing but a series of regrets and avoidance. Whenever something hard was coming, I pretended not to see it or ran away. Because hardship is frightening, and comfort is easier.”
“That’s not true, Teacher...”
“Even so, I couldn’t keep running forever. The world, cruel as it is, cornered me and forced me to choose. Honestly, even then, I could have run again. I could have turned my back as always and ignored it.”
Gariel’s tone was calm.
“But this time, I just couldn’t.”
“......”
“So I didn’t run away. I didn’t turn my eyes. I faced it head-on, raised my fists, and fought. And do you know what happened? The thing I thought was so terrifying ran away in fear of me.”
Recalling it, Gariel let out a dry chuckle.
“That’s how it is. No matter how scary something looks from the outside, you never really know until you face it yourself.”
“Why are you telling me this...?”
“Rine, I don’t want you to run away. Even if it’s painful right now, I want you to fight and overcome it.”
He knew.
Words like that didn’t really give courage.
Hadn’t he been the same?
People had said such things to him, but he hadn’t truly understood them until he’d lived through it himself.
Still, he had to say it.
Because this was all he could offer her now.
“You can dismiss it as the rambling of an old, senile teacher. I won’t insist you obey it. Just... remember this one thing. When life becomes hard someday, remember what I told you today.”
“Yes.”
Rine didn’t know why, but she could hear the earnestness in Gariel’s voice.
“I understand.”
“Good. I’m glad. You still have many years ahead of you, you know. There’ll be hard times again. Maybe even right away.”
Gariel slowly rose from his chair.
“But if you endure for a while, things do get better.”
“Teacher.”
“Go to sleep now.”
Rine couldn’t ask where he was going.
A wave of irresistible drowsiness pulled her mind back down into deep unconsciousness.
After confirming that she was fast asleep again, Gariel quietly stepped toward the door.
“You’re leaving?”
Ludger had been waiting outside, giving them privacy.
Leaning against the wall, he asked when Gariel came out.
“Where are you going?”
“As you can see.”
Gariel lifted his hand.
His thin, scarred fingers trembled like aspen leaves in the wind.
“I don’t have much time left.”
“So you’ll just disappear somewhere no one remembers you?”
“You remember me.”
Gariel chuckled softly.
“Why the concern? That’s not like you. We were never the type to worry about each other.”
“......”
Ludger didn’t respond to the jest.
But Gariel, seeing the look in Ludger’s eyes, realized what he was feeling and gave a faint, rueful laugh.
“So I finally see it, now that I’m old. That’s right... you were always that kind of man.”
“If you receive treatment, and manage your condition, you might live a few more years.”
“But I’d spend those years lying in a hospital bed. I don’t want to live like that.”
“So you’ll just die, then?”
At Ludger’s sharp question, Gariel hesitated before answering.
“The history of time magic runs deeper than most think. Tracing it back through my teacher, and my teacher’s teacher, it goes surprisingly far. But most time mages never live out their natural lives. You know why, don’t you?”
Because their art consumes their life—
their very time itself.
Gariel’s own master had gone senile young and met a miserable end.
“A mage who controls time... yet can’t control his own. That’s why many of us meet an ending we never wanted.”
Perhaps that was why Gariel wasn’t afraid of death itself.
He had long accepted that the day would come when his time would end.
What he feared... was that his end might become like theirs—
a pitiful, meaningless one.
“I just want to choose my own ending.”
So he had used all his remaining time to save Rine.
There was no regret.
How could there be?
“The handful of time I have left... I’ll use it for myself.”
It would be enough time to walk toward his grave.
“I...”
Ludger opened his mouth to speak, then slowly unclenched his fist.
There was only one thing he could say now.
“I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you that.”
“What, you’ve been holding that in all this time? I’m the one who should apologize. Her death wasn’t your fault, but I was too stupid and blamed you for it.”
“You’re really leaving now?”
“Yes. Dying as payment for saving the girl.”
“The old man dies, the girl lives. Quite a fair trade.”
“That’s what time is.”
Gariel gave a faint wave toward Ludger.
“I’ll be going then.”
“...Alright. Farewell.”
With that farewell, Gariel stepped outside.
The city lay in ruins, but he paid it no mind.
Leaning on his cane, he walked until he reached the outermost edge of Isla Machina’s third floor—
A small artificial graveyard built on the mechanical island.
Beyond its railing spread a sea shrouded in mist, and the morning sun was just rising over the water.
Gariel looked at the dawn and sat down before one of the graves.
“Hey. I kept my promise. Rine will live well from now on.”
He spoke toward the tombstone, his breath uneven.
“It was hard, you know. You should’ve seen it. I don’t think I’ve ever tried so hard in my life.”
His head slowly bowed as he gripped his cane with both hands.
“So now... I’ll rest.”
That’s alright, isn’t it?
His eyes slowly closed.
As the world darkened around him, Gariel heard a woman’s voice.
—Yes. You’ve done well.
Was it an illusion?
Or a memory from the edge of death?
It didn’t matter.
Because he’d heard her voice again—
the one he thought he’d never hear anymore.
And so, in a quiet corner of a small graveyard built for one person alone, an unidentified old man breathed his last.
Later, the one who first discovered his body said—
There was a peaceful, happy smile on the old man’s face.
