"Because if I forgot that child, where else could that child go?"
In this world, perhaps only my younger brother and I still remembered that dog.
Once forgotten, that child would vanish in that instant. Even the fact that it had once existed and been known would disappear along with it.
People built gravestones precisely so they would not forget the dead. Whenever they saw a gravestone, they recalled how that person had been in life.
Proving that someone had once lived was just as important as sustaining life itself.
So, if I forgot...
That child would have nowhere to go.
Gravestone
"Isn't that a feeling completely divorced from a magus's rationality? That's why you're no good, Sister."
At those words, Fiore's breathing stopped for an instant. Then she slowly nodded.
"That's true. I really am no good. Perhaps I've been too indecisive."
She should have forgotten. Yet nothing terrible would happen if she did not. She had used her own talent to conceal that contemptible ambiguity behind the lifestyle of a magus.
But that had reached its end as well. Her childhood had long since passed, and now she had to choose whether to climb the stairs or descend them.
She should climb. She should continue down the path of a magus.
That was the correct course of action. The most rational judgment, completely without error.
At dusk, she had made a gravestone. After all these years of wind and rain, it had likely been buried somewhere beyond recognition. Even so, she and her younger brother had indeed made a gravestone.
They had mourned that dog before its grave, grieving over its death. She did not have the courage to erase that fact, wear an indifferent expression, and call herself a magus.
Yes, that was right. She lacked courage.