"U...... bullshit. ......

　Muttering again, I approach the mirror, which is broken and only its frame remains.
　Hundreds of fragments of the mirror, cruelly broken and scattered on the floor.

It's ...... such a ............　

　I pick up a piece of the mirror with my fingers and pick it up.
　I look into it, but it's just a mirror, just a reflection of my face.

　Unable to give up, I begin to arrange the mirrors one by one.
　If I rearrange them all neatly and glue them together, I might be able to fix it.
　It's almost like a puzzle without an answer, but it shouldn't be a task I can't do.

'...... Ah!　This ...... is alive!

　In the dismembered mirror, I found one piece that led to the other side.
　It's the largest of the shards.
　The mirror is cracked on the other side as well, and instead of the entrance to the room as usual, it is angled from a low position to show the basement entrance area.
　But now the future is connected: ......!

'Yay ......!　Good: ............

　Of course, the piece is too big for me to cross over there myself.
　I could get through to the other side if it was just an arm, but it would be dangerous since the automata would still be hanging around. The automata were only targeting me, so even if my boys came back, they would be harmless. Otherwise it's just a dangerous thing (berserker).

　But ......, but.
　What are we going to do now ......?
　Looking into the mirror, which continues to reflect a dimly lit basement, I think with my completely non-working brain.

　The answer was - the obvious.
　But I am .......

　I ...... didn't want to think about that answer for even a moment.


　◇◆◆◆◆◆.


Oh, yes!

　Suddenly I remembered.
　There was a teleportation to Clan Benefits.
　Teleportation to home.
　We can go back!

Teleportation!　To Clan Home!

　He shouted at Cranling.

　He was in a hurry.
　He didn't even have a glimpse of the fact that if he went back, he might not be able to return to Earth again this time.

　But the result was silence.
　Nothing happened.

'Whoa, hey!　Teleport!　To Clan Home!

　No magic circle appears.
　The vocation board doesn't pop up either.

''Kook, crank run!　Vocation, vocation, vocation!　Hey!　Come on, ......!

　This is Earth.
　It's not a different world, a fantasy world, or anything else.

　There are no spirits.
　You can't use teleportation.
　On the contrary, there was no vocation board.
　In this world, I had no vocation, no unique vocation, and no skills.
　That was the reality that was here now.


　◇◆◆◆◇


　I was still rearranging the mirrors.
　There was nothing else I could do, and now that the teleportation had failed, it was the only thing I could hope for.

　The mirror had been reduced to dozens and hundreds of pieces.
　Slippery red liquid floods my fingers and my hand slips to pick up the pieces of the mirror.

'd*mn it, it's ....... ......

　I noticed that my hands were covered in cuts.
　The mirror has barely been restored.

''Ugh......ku....... d*mn ...... fufu ......gu ............

　The tip of my nose tingles and I can't hold back what's building up.
　In my burning vision, I just peer into the shards of a mirror that continue to reflect the dimly lit basement. Light shines through the wooden door I left open, and it continues to reflect the pieces of the world that are now unreachable.
　I can't see the automaton.
　Has she gone somewhere, or is she standing at an angle that is not reflected in the mirror?

　There is no one in the mansion.
　I don't know how the parade went down, but I'm sure they would have done well without me.
　It's possible that Dida's guy is up to something, but he's already accomplished one of his goals. He won't be messing with the parade.

　Everyone's wondering why I'm not there.
　Can they do without me?
　As for the parade itself, I don't know about the party afterwards.

　No, they're all good. They'll do just fine without me.
　How many more hours will it take for us to get back to the mansion after everything is over?

　Deanna or Mr. Shamash will find that the mansion's wards have been broken. And they will notice that the mansion's mirror has been broken, the basement door is open ---- and that the mirror is broken.
　That I'm not there. The mirror is broken. You'll notice the connection.

　The late-afternoon sunshine streaming in through the window illuminates the dark room in a noh-ish way.
　It illuminates the six-mat room of an unemployed, virile, over-20-year-old man of no consequence.

　My mind goes blank.
　My mind turns bright red.

　Just a tiny piece of magic.
　A mirror that leads to that world.

　Why ......?
　Why ......?
　How did this happen ......?

　It's not like this.
　It was Dida, of course, who was to blame, but I had been naive myself.
　I thought I was going to make it in that sweet world, that I was going to make it work in whatever way I could, that I was going to be that happy forever.
　Or, I didn't think anything of it.

　I guess I wasn't being realistic after all, whether I listened to Aeon or Isaac.
　Maybe they didn't need to expose Aeon to the public eye if they chose the best, or maybe they didn't even need to do something as conspicuous as a parade of knights. Maybe it would have been better to get carried away and not summon a dragon.
　If you stand out, you attract bad things too.
　You should have known that all along.

　My heart palpitations won't stop.
　The tips of my hands and feet are numb.
　Regret bubbles up from my toes, and I can't stop it from flowing out in nausea, sweat and tears.

　I puke all over the room, and as my head gradually cools, reality catches up with me, the reality that the mirror has been broken.

　A shattered mirror, reflected beyond my blurred vision.


　◇◆◆◆◆◆.


　A little. When I had cooled down just a little bit, I inspected the only mirror that had survived.
　Still, no one came back.
　I stumbled around the room, coated in regret and self-loathing, thinking it had been hours, but it had only been about two hours.

　The mirror was still alive, though it was now just a tiny twenty-five centimeter square.
　He could at least get his arm through to the other side, and he could send things to the other side.
　If it hadn't completely lost its function, then there might be hope.

'Yes, that's right. There's Deanna's magic, and there's Shamash, too: ....... Hey, good. Good. It's okay, it's okay ......!

　I muttered to myself.
　If I didn't do that, if I didn't believe that there was still hope, still a future, I was going to be really crushed.


　............ ...
　.................. ...
　........................

　How much time had passed?
　At the end of what seemed like an infinite amount of time, there was finally movement in the mirror.
　I don't know what happened to the shards on the other side, but the shards overlap with each other, just slightly angled, and I can see the entrance to the crypt.
　The light was blocked out by a figure, and the one who appeared in the retrograde was Deanna, who had changed her blood color.

'Deanna!　Deanna!

　She screams at the mirror.
　Deanna finds the mirror shattered and stands there dumbfounded, covering her mouth with her hand.
　She is followed by Marina, Rebecca, Elepippi, Etowah, Orica, Ion, Shamash, and Shero.

　Everyone is standing there, stunned.
　I meet eyes with Marina.
　Marina, Aeon and Shamash are the only ones who can see this side of the world.
　Marina shouts something and rushes over to us.
　On the other side, my face is reflected in the mirror as if I'm trapped in it.
　Marina shouts something again, and Aeon and Shamash take turns looking in the mirror, as if to confirm it.
　I shouted, hoping that my voice would at least be heard, without regard to the neighbors' inconvenience.
　But my voice is not heard.

　I see Shamash-san notice the automata, or maybe he noticed it all along, and open his back and take out a spirit stone. Shamash-san may have known what the automata were.
　Shamash-san takes out a spirit stone and hands it to Deanna, who is still standing there stunned.
　She shakes her shoulder and shouts something.
　Marina is sobbing and hanging on to Deanna.
　Deanna has a determined look on her face and comes towards us.
　She can't see this side of the mirror.
　I reach out my hand.
　I reach out my hand from the mirror.
　It feels cool. It's Deanna's cold hand that I've squeezed a few times before.
　I grip it tighter and tighter, squeezing it back. We confirm to each other that the magic is not yet closed.
　Letting go of the hand, Deanna in the mirror sends a spell to the spirit stone with eyes wet with tears.
　Through the mirror, Deanna's spirit magic floods out of the mirror.
　It's probably the spirit magic that rewound (・・・・・) Marina's wounds back to their original state and fixed them.
　This magic will fix it.
　It will fix the mirror.
　And then, things will be the same again.

　It was a prayer.
　And it was the only hope we had for now.

　Even if the light leaking out of the mirror stops.
　Even if there is no change in the mirror.
　Shamash who gets down his head in the mirror and looks down in the mirror.
　And Deanna who is shaking her shoulder by Marina with empty eyes in the mirror.

　Everything, in the mirror.
　It was a dream.



　◇◆◆◆◆◆.



　Regret washes over me.

　Why did I have to go to a legal meeting?
　I should have refused.
　The parade was much more important.

　Why hadn't I asked someone to wait for me at the mansion?
　For example, if you'd asked Shamash to wait for me, none of this would have happened.

　Why did I have to talk to Dida?
　I should have just ignored that guy.
　And if they tried to do something to you later, you could've done something about it if you were with us.

　Why did you run to the house?
　Maybe I could have escaped to the city and someone would have come to me.

　Why did I decide to run away from the mirror after the warding was broken?
　I was faster than you, so why didn't you run through the forest and into the city?

An endless stream of "what ifs" kept popping up in my head.
　If only I had done this then.
　If only I had done this then.

　It's no use crying over spilt milk.
　There will never come a day in my life when I will be able to chew on these words as much as today.


　◇◆◆◆◆◇.


　I don't feel like doing anything.

　I just sit in my room, looking at the mirror, rearranging the broken pieces, ruminating in my mind about the memories I had in that world, holding Deanna's hand as the days pass.

　The piece of mirror has always been Deanna's to carry around with her.
　I could always reach out and touch Deanna.
　I stroked her head and wiped the tears from her cheeks.
　I took her hand in mine and touched her chest.

　But it was like touching a fragment of an illusion that he could no longer reach.
　The world is separated from the world through a single mirror.
　The distance between them is so close.
　You can even touch it.

　If they weren't connected...
　For a moment, that thought comes to mind.
　There's nothing more we can do.
　The only thing we can do is to have them find a way to fix the mirror on the other side.
　I'm sure that Rebecca, Hetty, Shamash, and the priestesses will be looking for us, I'm sure.
　I don't have any choice but to believe them.
　Because there is nothing we can do from here.


　◇◆◆◆◆◇.


　Even after the mirror was broken, both Rebecca and Hetty showed up frequently.
　Marina would also give me daily reports with a smile that I could tell she had forced herself to make.
　Occasionally, Etowah would come by and report on the status of the store with drawings on paper. The stock of goods still seemed to be okay, but I sent as much as I could from the mirror to all the stock that was in the room.
　Shamash seems to be studying the structure of the mirror. I can't tell because of his gestures, but he's writing some kind of magic formula on a piece of paper that I don't understand and holding his head in his hands.

　For now, I'm relieved to see that Dida's shadow isn't there, but I've spent my days with no place to go.
　I can't go on like this either.
　I know that, but I haven't been able to take a step forward.

　I haven't opened my computer for days.
　The item I had put up for auction must have been sold long ago, but I didn't feel like doing the transaction. It would get a "very bad seller" rating, but that didn't really matter to me.

　On the other side of the mirror, Deanna was crying every day.
　I wondered if she was eating properly, or if she was stuck in her room all the time and it was bad for her health, but that was the same for me.
　I'm already locked in my room all the time.
　Toilet and, at best, a trip to the convenience store in the middle of the night to get some food.

　My mother worked nights and wasn't home much, but she seemed to notice something was wrong with me and started talking to me, but I couldn't bring myself to do it.

　Nothing else mattered.
　I even wanted to let the whole world go to hell.

　I don't think that's a good idea. They're doing the best they can over there. I had to do what I could.
　I knew it in my head, but I couldn't do it.
　I knew it was in my head, but I couldn't do it.


　One day, after a month of these days, I put my hand in the mirror as usual and was handed something that looked like a bunch of paper and a rock.

'...... letter ......?　And is this a spirit stone?

　A crystal spirit stone that I had obtained a long time ago after achieving guidance.
　And a letter.

　On it was written in broken Japanese, "Dear Sir, From Orica".

　It was a letter from Orica.