"...."
What kind of person was this girl's sister? Instead of asking again, Leonardo stared at Signe with such a look.
The characters sporadically engraved on the stone tablets were clearly ancient language. However, in the story of navigating this maze, the sisters were both clearly young. It was hard to believe that at that age, she knew how to interpret ancient language.
"How did your sister know ancient language?"
"She was smart, so she could speak other languages from a young age. Not perfectly, though."
"Then you should also know what the content written here means, right? You must have heard it beside her."
"Uh... well."
Signe scratched her cheek while rolling her eyes upward. Leonardo, who had been watching her awkward gesture, hardened his expression and threatened:
"If you say you don't remember, I swear—"
"Ah—, it's not that I don't remember, but I don't remember well either. That was years ago! And don't lower your voice like that. It gives me chills, like a training instructor!"
"...That's the problem? Think hard. We need to get out of here."
"I got it, so wait a moment, let me think. Let me think."
Signe, who had retorted grumpily, squatted down in place and stared at the content of the stone tablet. She also rubbed the star-shaped mark engraved on the side with her hand. As if trying to return to that moment, she groaned with wrinkles between her brows.
After moaning for a while, she suddenly clapped her hands.
"Ah, right! There was a word that was particularly repeated on each stone tablet, so we just kept following the places where that word appeared."
"A repeated word? Does the content differ for each stone tablet?"
His fingertip touched the worn surface of the stone tablet. Signe, who had been taking her time, answered in an uncertain tone:
"...Probably different. If they were the same, my sister wouldn't have stopped to read them every time."
"Hmm..."
"I remember the repeated word meant 'gift.' But that gift wasn't the gift we talk about now, but a somewhat ambiguous word expressed in the ancient sense. Mu... Mu... what was it?"
"Muṛiël."
"Oh, that's right! It's the same pronunciation my sister used! And she also talked about the words 'present' and 'time,' and my sister said all three were connected. I still don't know what it means, though."
Present, time, gift.
It was a combination that could appear in some ancient myth. However, it was also evidence that the person called her sister really knew ancient language.
Connecting the three words contextually, it would form a maxim that often appears in philosophy books, such as 'The present time is a gift.' 'Muṛiël,' which means gift in ancient language, also carries the meaning of the moment of existence, the flowing now. In the end, the maxim completed with that one sentence could also be expressed with just the single word Muṛiël. It's similar to how 'the present' is referred to as 'The present' in today's language.
Since philosophy also contains the essence of human figures, history, and truth passed down from ancient times, it wasn't particularly strange that such words were on the stone tablet.
'But what does this mean?'
Leonardo looked at the stone tablet in front of him again. The stone tablet with ancient language written on it wouldn't be placed here for no reason. Like the phrases on the monuments erected in the four directions based on Peak 118 on the peninsula, it must have been created with some purpose...
The problem was that unlike the ancient language at that time, which was relatively easy to interpret, the ancient language in this stone tablet had a considerable level of decoding. Ancient language derives multiple words and meanings from a single word, which is why even though the appearance is similar, the meaning can change, or the same word can be used ambiguously, leading to various directions of interpretation. Not only that, unlike the monuments erected by the gatekeepers of the peninsula to spread the will of the Sun King, this stone tablet had unfamiliar and abstruse vocabulary, as if trying to hide its meaning.
It was like writing high-level wordplay that only intellectuals would understand. Nevertheless, as a few clues were caught, sentences began to be read sporadically with shallow knowledge. Fortunately, the sentences on the stone tablet weren't that long.
"Time is not broken pieces..."
"Time is not broken pieces. It is a flow connected around the present."
Just as Leonardo was about to stammer and connect, Signe added two sentences from beside him.
The two were silent for a moment. The first to turn his eyes and look at her was Leonardo.
"What was that just now?"
"Hearing your words, I remembered the sentence my sister said."
"...Is that the content of this stone tablet? Is there anything else you remember?"
"...Hmm."
Signe just blinked her eyes again with an awkward expression. The silence continued for a while.
That sister complex, she doesn't seem to know anything except about her sister. Leonardo, who sighed without showing it, stood up from his place. Then he headed to where another stone tablet they had discovered on the way would be.
Signe, who was left alone, exclaimed in surprise:
"Teo! Where are you going? What if you get lost!"
She limped after Leonardo as if she were walking with three or four military packs on her back. Meanwhile, Leonardo began to search through the field that Signe had trampled with her military boots as she came. Another stone tablet that soon appeared was unfortunately mostly erased.
He tried to read as much as possible based on the previous clue, but he barely recognized only the new combination of 'God's gift.' Since there was the word gift and the mark left by the sisters, it was correct that they were heading in the right direction according to the past standard. However, it was frustrating that there was no further progress. Leonardo roughly brushed back his hair and muttered:
"Ha, damn... need to see something to interpret or not..."
"I remembered, I remembered! Go a bit slower!"
Signe, who grabbed Leonardo's forearm while panting, sat down as if collapsing on the ground. Leonardo, who barely held her, carefully lowered her to the ground and asked:
"What else did you remember?"
"Huff... Earlier, you asked if the word 'Romance' was related to this area. So I thought about it, and my sister said this maze was a riddle. She said we had to solve the riddle to get out."
At that moment, Leonardo's eyes subtly hardened.
'A riddle?'
That's an element Alec Siles truly loves. He was convinced that even this situation of wandering in the field was that man's scheme and experiment. Leonardo, who wiped his eyes with his dry hand, sat down with a thud beside Signe and asked, thrusting his face forward:
"What does that have to do with 'Romance'?"
"She said if you say the name of the owner of the gift, the owner's name, you can reach the gift. But we didn't know the owner's name, so we just kept following the word gift."
Signe added, regulating her breath:
"At that time, the letters on the stone tablet were clearer than now. My sister said the contents of these stone tablets were like love letters. You know, like when lovers give gifts and write letters. It says this gift is all for you, and there are phrases sent to the recipient..."
As a truly unexpected topic flowed out, Leonardo silently questioned with just his expression. Beginning and end, Bermuda, disappearing corpses, distorted space-time, philosophy about time, God's gift, etc... Amidst all sorts of profound elements popping up, suddenly love letters? His head was momentarily dazed, and it took quite some time to understand what she meant.
Does that mean they are now wandering in someone's love letters that span several centuries? Are those words about the present time, God's gift, or whatever, their passionate serenade?
Though he couldn't understand at all, since the meaning implied by 'Romance' in the memo had a similar texture to it, Leonardo only moved the tip of his lips and couldn't say anything for a while.
"Actually, I thought my sister was lying because she was afraid I wouldn't go. So I had completely forgotten about it... Where did you hear the word Romance?"
"...From the guy who called me to this place."
He soon sat next to Signe in front of the stone tablet and stared at the scenery beyond the swaying wildflowers. He gazed at the vast lake, the stagnant sky, and the foggy area visible beyond. As he recalled the word 'gift,' the old castle that would be there and the treasure said to be inside intuitively came to mind. No, if one were to consider the range of the gift, it wouldn't be wrong to include the entire magnificent landscape where these stone tablets were spread.
'Then is even the distorted space-time a device created by the person sending the letter? To prevent anyone except the owner of the gift from approaching.'
Leonardo muttered blankly in the wind that brushed his hair and cheeks:
"...The scale of this love letter is incredibly large."
The letter and gift he had given to His Grace were a drop in the bucket. To present the entire majestic land as a letter to someone, they must have been at least a grand noble or royalty of that era.
"I know, right? If this is really a letter, I'd like to receive something like this too."
Signe, who was beside him, listed a great wish. Seeing her making frivolous remarks, her condition seemed better than before.
"But the content of the riddle itself might have been misunderstood by my sister. She found a sentence that could lead one to guess that the owner of the gift is 'God,' and we tried all sorts of god names we knew, but nothing happened."
Leonardo, who had been taking in the scenery, turned to Signe.
"Or maybe the correct answer was among the names we said, and that's why we were able to reach the old castle?"
"The owner of the gift is God?"
"That's what my sister interpreted."
"Are you sure? The order wasn't reversed?"
"Uh... it might have been. My sister was young too. She didn't know everything."
Leonardo once again stared at the stone tablet placed in front of him and Signe. The only phrase he could recognize here was 'God's gift.'
If, from the sentence interpreted by Signe's sister, 'the owner of the gift is God,' one were to extract only God's gift... God's gift is the owner, the owner is God's gift...
Suddenly, Leonardo recalled the only 'God's gift' he knew. A noble bloodline and royalty, someone worthy of receiving the huge piece of land right next to the central region where St. Linar was located as a gift. Someone who had been maintaining the seal beyond eons of time at Peak 118.
Leonardo traced back the cause of the unpleasant sense of déjà vu he had felt, similar to what he had experienced on the peninsula. Since he had shattered the magic circle there, it would have been stranger if he hadn't felt his energy.
"I think I know. Who the owner of the gift is."
"...What?"
"The Sun King, God's gift."
He painfully uttered the familiar name that rolled off his tongue.
"Theodore."
At that moment, the small bag where he had put the gold bracelet began to shake violently. From the narrow gap, an unknown brilliant light gushed out, dyeing the field of vision pure white.