Ian's gaze was drawn to the apple, so dazzling it looked like a work of art.
Pandero urged him on from beside him.
"Quick! Eat it! Before the old witch sees you—she'll definitely snatch it away!" As he spoke, Pandero rushed over and shoved the Golden Apple into Ian's mouth.
"Cough, cough!"
This was Ian's first time trying to eat something from Limbo. Pandero was a little rough, and Ian nearly choked, but thankfully, the apple, bigger than a fist, melted in his mouth.
"Ian's glowing!"
Ariana cried out.
Ian couldn't see her expression.
All he could feel was a warm, peculiar force flowing through his body. The strange sensation was like having his soul cleansed, and he couldn't help closing his eyes to savor it.
It was as though his body had been infused with vitality and vigor.
"Boom~"
It wasn't Ian exploding. Somewhere in the hall, something made of iron had slammed into a wall. Right after that, Ian faintly heard Pandero's somewhat panicked voice.
"That woman heard me call her an old witch! Run! Run!"
"Ian, we'll wait for you in town!"
Ariana and Pandero's voices mingled together.
They gradually drifted off into the distance.
Ian had no idea how much time had passed. When he opened his eyes again, all the furniture had returned to the hall, and the witch was watching him with a complicated look.
"I never thought they'd actually find one..."
The witch sounded amazed.
"I remember you saying, Teacher, that you cut down the last Golden Apple Tree in the world?" While Ian was in Limbo, he hadn't been able to check his changes through his status panel.
Now, his mind felt clearer than ever before.
"Clearly, someone smuggled a seed here before I cut down the last Golden Apple Tree." The witch's explanation made Ian's eyes widen.
"Someone else managed to do this before me?" Ian was quite surprised.
But the witch shook her head.
"Foolish little thing. No wizard is as special as you, so none could receive the same favor you do. I only meant that someone brought a seed here."
"I don't know how they did it, but there have been so many astonishingly gifted wizards throughout history. Any number of legendary figures from the past might have managed something that defied common sense."
The witch gazed at Ian's youthful face.
She murmured softly.
"After all, what makes a legend a legend is the ability to create impossible miracles." The tapestries on the walls seemed to tremble slightly at the witch's quiet words.
The flames depicted in the scenes seemed to burn more fiercely.
"Perhaps I can find some useful information in the school library." Ian nodded thoughtfully. Of course, there couldn't have been many wizards throughout history who could be called legends.
"You'd be better off asking that damned butcher friend of yours. If he could bring you this Golden Apple, then he must have known where it was growing all along."
The witch rolled her eyes at Ian, looking at him as if he were an idiot.
"He doesn't have much of his memory left."
Ian answered helplessly. He had, of course, considered that possibility.
"Then he's truly pitiful."
The witch gave a humorless smile.
"Teacher, I apologize to you on his behalf. He's always been incredibly reckless." Ian spoke with utmost sincerity, his attitude considerably humbler. "I promise I'll find your mirror, as well as the other things you want, as compensation for the offense he caused you."
At that,
the witch's expression softened a little.
"I only want my mirror."
After a brief pause, she added,
"And the Dragon he promised to capture!"
Good grief!
Just as expected!
The witch really had been hiding deep in the castle, eavesdropping the whole time!
"Of course!"
Ian quickly nodded in agreement. His aggrieved teacher's expression had softened again, but she still couldn't help cursing Pandero some more.
"Damn meddler! Wicked executioner! Disgusting, despicable looter!" She kept piling one nasty insult after another on Pandero.
"Was he an extraordinary person when he was alive, too?" Ian ventured to ask.
He could tell that the witch knew a great deal about Pandero.
"My foolish apprentice, why do you keep asking such idiotic questions?"
The witch shot Ian a disdainful glance.
"The answer has been right in front of you all along. You simply chose to ignore the truth." The witch sighed heavily, but her words left Ian utterly bewildered.
What had he ignored?
Why couldn't he see it?
"Teacher, I admit I'm an idiot. So, could you tell me who he is?"
Ian couldn't hold back his curiosity.
"You're a Pig, but I'm not."
The witch gave a mocking laugh. "If I told you, you'd just tell him, and once he remembered, he could keep bouncing around here for many more years. Do you think I'm the sort of person who'd make trouble for herself?"
Teacher Mara clearly couldn't stand Pandero.
She made a very good point.
Ian didn't know how to respond.
"Do you know? Everything in this castle, along with the abilities I've shown you, isn't magic. It's all a kind of shaping brought about by cognition."
The witch suddenly began musing aloud.
"Cognition?"
Ian felt a little surprised.
"Yes. In this land, so far removed from the mortal world, cognition determines what you can do." The witch nodded and patiently explained.
"I believe in the power of knowledge, while he believes he can do anything he wants... Three times, he proved that his conviction was stronger than mine."
The witch tactfully explained why she had lost to Pandero.
Her voice held a note of reluctance and...desolation.
"That's possible?"
Ian could hardly imagine someone using the power of "I believe I can do it" in Limbo.
"Yes. How unreasonable—to think that knowledge could actually lose to conviction. Isn't that an impossible miracle in its own right?" The witch began sighing in dismay.
Just as Ian was wondering whether her words contained some sort of hint,
the witch raised her head.
Her gaze turned to the scattered pieces of armor outside.
"You'll be responsible for rebuilding these guards."
Another abrupt change of subject.
Ian couldn't help but freeze. They had been talking about Pandero just a moment ago. How had Teacher Mara made a complete one-eighty all of a sudden?
Tsk!
The way old women's minds worked!
"Huh? Wasn't he supposed to find you a dead Dragon to guard the place?"
Ian widened his eyes, looking completely innocent.
"That's compensation. This, meanwhile, is your duty as my apprentice." The witch sneered and picked up one of the copied Potions textbooks Ian had brought in.
"I only know how to mold little figurines. I can't build moving steel men."
Ian spread his little hands.
The witch answered with a cold laugh.
"If you can't, then learn."
What familiar words.
"Is this a new assignment?"
Ian could already feel his presence starting to fade.
"I don't expect you to learn it in a few days, but I'll check your progress regularly." As the witch picked up the Potions text, she tore another corner from her dress.
"Next time, go back to that little girl's town first, then come see me." With a light toss from the witch, the scrap of dress covered in densely written runes landed in Ian's hands.
"I'm afraid there won't be enough time."
Ian's figure had already begun to fade.
"There will be. Things are different now." The witch's voice was calm and certain. She didn't look up again, keeping her eyes on the copy of the textbook Ian had brought in.
"Tick-tock~ Tick-tock~ Tick-tock~"
The clock was turning.
Ian's eyes snapped open in the mortal world.
Unusually, he didn't look at the time on the wall or at the piece of dress in his hand. Instead, he immediately opened his status panel.