"Not... sis...ter..."
"Signe."
"Said... sister..."
"Signe, wake up now."
Leonardo called her repeatedly while rubbing his face, as she continued sleep-talking. Signe, lying on the bench, merely mumbled something with a frown on her face, showing no intention of opening her eyes. Leonardo, who had been holding her shoulders and shaking her, hesitated for a moment before lightly tapping her cheek with the back of his hand.
"Won't you take responsibility if you're late for enlistment?"
"That approach probably won't wake her up."
At that moment, a shadow approached Leonardo's side. He was holding Signe's military gear with both hands, struggling with the weight.
The station attendant leaned the military gear against the bench inside the station building and put it down, then leaned his back and let out a short sigh.
"She's fallen asleep before while playing with her sister in the field. I was a newly appointed station attendant then and went out to find them myself because I was worried, and the memory is very vivid. I was concerned she might have lost consciousness because she wouldn't wake up no matter how much I tried."
"...Is that so?"
"Yes. She's always been a heavy sleeper, but... I didn't know she would still be like this as an adult."
He looked down at Signe with eyes that seemed to say she was hopeless. Then he shook off his hands, which had lost circulation from being pressed by the heavy military gear.
"If you don't mind, may I try to wake her up?"
"Of course."
Leonardo nodded willingly and moved aside to make room. Then the station attendant, bending at the waist, brought his face close to Signe, who was lying on the bench. There was no time to stop the distance between the two that had narrowed more than necessary. He whispered softly into Signe's ear.
"Signe, your sister says she's leaving without you if you don't get up."
It was a strange spell.
Leonardo stared at the station attendant with bewildered eyes. As the man had said, he wondered what kind of act this was for a grown woman.
But at that moment, Signe's sleep-talking, which had been mumbling, stopped in an instant. Her twitching eyelids also creased fully. Seeing her response, Leonardo decided to watch the station attendant's actions a bit more.
Just as the word 'sister' flowed from his mouth again, Signe's eyelids flung open.
"Gasp―."
"She's awake."
The station attendant straightened his bent upper body with a satisfied expression. As he did so, he shrugged his shoulders towards Leonardo.
"It's a method I used to use often, and it still works well. The next train is scheduled to pass through the station in about 30 minutes, so I'll issue tickets for two right away. I need to contact the conductor in advance to make it stop. I'll be back shortly, so please take care of Signe."
"Ah, yes. Thank you."
After briefly conveying his business, the station attendant returned to the station office to get tickets for them. Leonardo, who had been following his retreating figure, turned his eyes back to Signe. He put his hand on the backrest of the bench, bent his waist, grabbed her shoulder, and shook it gently.
"Signe, are you a bit conscious now?"
Just then, Signe, who had abruptly raised her upper body, looked around. Leonardo managed to pull his body back to avoid a collision of heads.
"...Um, where's sister?"
"Hey, give some warning before you get up. And stop looking for your sister, she's not here."
While giving a scolding mixed with relief to her who was showing sister-complex tendencies even in the midst of confusion, Leonardo picked up the canteen inserted on the side of the military gear.
"What kind of person are you to not even stir once on the way here?"
He naturally opened the lid and handed it to the dazed Signe. Signe blinked her eyes and then, recognizing her own canteen, reflexively took it. But she didn't drink the water. She just looked around with a blank expression.
A moment later, realizing that the sister in her dream was an illusion, she asked in a locked voice:
"Is this... the station?"
"Yeah, I brought you here. When I went looking for you earlier, you were collapsed in what looked like a backyard. Do you know how surprised I was?"
"Collapsed? Me?"
Signe, who questioned with a puzzled look, moved her lips and then moistened her dry mouth with water from the canteen. While doing so, her wide-open eyes busily scanned the neat floor of the station building. She also looked out the large glass window behind.
Leonardo picked up the beret that had fallen to the floor as Signe stood up. After patting the dust off with his hand, he tossed it to her and added:
"My divine beast suddenly returned to my mana, so I went to the place the guy last remembered. And there you were, lying on a stone chair nearby. At first, I thought something was wrong because you weren't breathing, so I immediately carried you out... If I had known I would just hear sleep-talking, I wouldn't have come in such a rush."
Leonardo grabbed his stiff nape and turned it left and right. When Signe was complaining about her body being heavy, he couldn't feel anything, but when he carried her on his back, who was affected by gravity, he could indirectly experience the strong gravity of this area.
When he hurriedly lifted her body, thinking something might have gone wrong, it felt like carrying a rock weighing over 300kg. The pressure was at its peak just as they left the castle, and he felt it gradually lighten as they approached the station. It was a moment of understanding Signe's behavior when she was struggling while moving towards the castle. At the same time, he also realized that her physical strength was by no means weak.
The fortunate thing was that the return path was unexpectedly simple. The scene Leonardo encountered as soon as he stepped outside the castle was right in front of the stone tablet where he had been solving the riddle with Signe.
He hurriedly ran back the way they had come, carrying Signe on his back. The grass was lying on the ground, making it relatively easy to find the markers. After crossing the stone bridge over the stream, he didn't even walk. He immediately used teleport to lay her on the bench inside the station building and requested help from the station attendant, including CPR and checking the inventory of oxygen respirators.
Until he heard her sleep-talking as if fighting with her sister, both of them had been quite serious. Leonardo, who was recalling the return process with a short sigh, sat down with a thud beside Signe.
"Anyway, are you hurt anywhere? Why were you like that there? What happened?"
Just then, Signe, who had drained all the water from the canteen, wiped the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand and stared at him blankly. Soon, with a furrowed brow, she looked down at her upper body and ran her palm from her chest to her abdomen.
"Um... I don't think I'm hurt anywhere... I don't know why I collapsed either. I've never collapsed in my life... Did I just fall asleep?"
"It can happen when fatigue accumulates. But, it's dangerous to lose consciousness carelessly in an unknown space. Weren't you the one who said you were afraid of encountering treasure hunters or whatever? I even attached a divine beast to you, but how did you two get separated—."
"What? Afraid? When did I say such a thing? I never did! Besides, what's this divine beast you've been talking about? And what's this stone chair?"
"The divine beast is the one I sent with you. The chair is, it's elongated and made of stone... Hey, don't you even remember where you were lying?"
Leonardo, who had been explaining, asked with a frustrated tone. Signe's gaze then turned to the field and lake spread out like a picture beyond the huge glass window. Beyond the hill they had crossed, fog was thickly gathered again.
"Where I was lying?"
Leonardo also followed the end of her questioning gaze. The surrounding scenery he had clearly seen from inside the castle was a clear and bright landscape with not even fog, just a piece or two of clouds floating. But upon coming out, the Castle of Romance was once again hidden behind a thick curtain, making it impossible to find any trace of it from the outside.
As if trying to remain as a legend in rumors, it seemed to deliberately draw in fog to conceal its existence.
However, Signe didn't seem to question any of these things.
"Why can't I remember well? Am I not fully awake...?"
She basically knew what a divine beast made of mana was, but she seemed to have forgotten that she had moved with the divine beast. No, she continued to make statements that suggested she had forgotten not only the fact that she had entered the castle but even the process of approaching the answer to the riddle.
"Weren't we wandering between the field and the lake? There was a stone chair... Oh, are you talking about something like a stone tablet or a stone bridge?"
"...."
"I remember lying down using the stone tablet as a pillow because I was too tired... Wow, I must have been really exhausted. I didn't even know I fainted right there."
Suddenly feeling something strange, Leonardo stopped speaking and stared at the side of her face. Signe just touched the back of her shortly trimmed hair with an embarrassed expression, saying she was sorry for causing trouble. She also awkwardly asked if he hadn't found her heavy, since her weight must have increased a lot recently due to muscle training.
Leonardo had to feel a sense of dissonance once again in her behavior. As if the middle process had been completely cut off, Signe's memory seemed to remain at the point of wandering in the field.
'What's going on?'
Leonardo asked again to check the range she was aware of.
"You... don't remember that? Suddenly there was light in the middle of the field, and we together went to the castle—."
"Four tickets total, including a transfer ticket to Port Bellmayer. Let's get ready soon."
Just then, the station attendant who had issued the tickets approached the two again. The station attendant shook Signe's coin purse familiarly and handed it to her. Leonardo instinctively closed his mouth.
"I took the fare myself. You should keep your wallet safe."
"Oh, uh..."
Signe, who received the wallet from the station attendant, felt her uniform pocket with a surprised look. She had heard that pickpockets were rampant on the train, but she hadn't noticed at all that her own wallet had disappeared. The station attendant smiled gently and entrusted the four tickets in his hand to Leonardo.
"You're still the same, sleeping oblivious to the world. If it weren't for your friend here, you could have been in big trouble. It's good to come and appreciate the scenery anytime, but it would be problematic if you sleep and are late for your enlistment time."
Signe, who had been responding with an awkward smile, suddenly looked at the military watch on her wrist. After staring at it for a while, she almost jumped up after about 20 seconds.
"Oh, when did it get this late?"
Signe, who was startled, closed the lid of the empty canteen and stuffed it into her military gear, then hurriedly shouldered the heavy shell on her back. The station attendant reassured her, saying there was still time until the train arrived, so she could take it slow.
"Teo, sorry, but I think I have to go now!"
Leonardo raised one eyebrow as if finding it strange and stared at her. He was just as perplexed. Soon, his gaze turned to the old castle hidden in the fog in the distance.
Her transparent reaction, which couldn't be suspected of acting, brought confusion to his cognition.
It was as if everything that had happened inside there was like a dream. If it weren't for the guy's note in his pocket, he would have surely mistaken it as such.