"Did you know there was a letter here?" Jibril asked in a low voice, turning slightly to prevent Tet—who was peeking from behind the pillow—from seeing her face directly.
"Of course not. Didn't I tell you? Since my birth and departure, this is the first time I've returned to this palace. I was born in an empty room," Tet replied with a muffled voice. "Trust me at least on this. How could I knock while the master is away?"
"Is that so? I understand," Jibril said matter-of-factly. She closed her eyes and held her breath, as if searching for something in that self-imposed silence.
"Do you regret it?"
Tet voice continued to drift through the air.
"Do you wish you were with them? Do you feel the wait is unbearable?"
"Do you regret not coming here sooner to find this letter? Do you feel dejected by your three millennia of hesitation? Or do you regret not coming to this palace right after the war ended, before I was born and the Pledges were set?"
"You didn't get to say goodbye. There were no final looks exchanged... Flügel, do you feel remorse?"
"For your own indecision."
Tet words were like a succession of death-omens, or heavy, invisible chains—a dense net falling over Jibril. This time, however, Jibril did not silence the talkative Old Zeus with words or violence.
Silence. The calm before the storm.
"...How much did that fellow give you to say those things?"
"You won't even say his name."
Jibril voice, which she had finally managed to summon after a long silence, was cut off by Tet blunt remark. This time, the silence stretched on indefinitely.
The pendulum of the clock in the living room swung with steady, mechanical precision. The click-clack of the gears seemed unusually loud in the quiet, until Tet began to mumble again.
"Well~ if we're talking about 'benefits,' the Star Grail was probably the biggest one... Though it's all been a lot of trouble. That guy said he was just letting me 'look after' things, then he leaves for three thousand years... It's been so boring..."
The One True God, immersed in loneliness and boredom, sprawled out on the bed and buried His face in the duvet, complaining in a small voice. At this moment, He looked exactly like the human child He appeared to be, kicking His legs and making the duvet go poof-poof.
Troubled by the complex emotions in her heart, Jibril ignored Tet presence. She strode quickly toward the palace gates. To this meeting with the revered One True God, she left only one final sentence.
"Don't stay too long."
——————————————
Jibril didn't choose to leave via spatial manipulation, a specialty of the Flügel. Instead, she chose the most blunt method: straight-line flight. She flew at the absolute limit of her raw power, breaking the sound barrier and tearing through the sea of clouds like a sword piercing the sky.
Showing no restraint, the pink-haired Flügel didn't even use Elementals to protect her body. She chose to face the roaring wind and rain head-on, just as she had when that man took her for a "joyride," or when she had taken him flying at top speed through his screams.
Tsk, is it because of the letter? Uncontrollable memories...
She stopped mid-air, completely disregarding inertia. Such a sudden change from extreme motion to extreme stillness didn't even ruffle Jibril hair. She merely clicked her tongue in dissatisfaction at her thoughts, which were so active they were almost unmanageable.
Over the years, though she had only occasionally passed through a few areas, she had become intimately familiar with all of Disboard. More accurately, she was familiar with this region. After three thousand years of development, what was once a No Man's Land had been incorporated into the Elven territories.
Those "Weeds" who viewed natural landscapes as the height of beauty had been ecstatic when they discovered this "wonder." They had refused to give it up even after competing in over a dozen Pledge-games against other races who also wanted the area. Ultimately, they had secured it.
Jibril wanted to remind them that this wasn't a "natural" landscape, but the site where a Old Zeus had fallen. But she had no interest in talking to those boring scraps, so she hadn't bothered.
The Flügel, whose nation was the Phantasm Avant Heim, didn't need to participate in the foolish territorial disputes of the terrestrial races. Nor would the surface races refuse the presence of such a powerful being as a Flügel, especially one with no interest in their land.
From her height, Jibril gazed at the distant mountains and plains where white crystals hovered. Her Flügel sight was sufficient to see everything in the area. Many curious races were playing on those crystals.
She didn't know when it had started, but she had lost interest in looking down from those crystalline peaks. It had been at least several centuries since she last visited. She had once thought it was simply because she had visited too many times and grown bored, but now she knew it wasn't that simple.
It's no fun if I go alone.
Jibril realized this truth. She had even taken her noisy eldest sister, Azril, there once. The jade-haired Flügel had been so moved she was practically in tears. Yet, on that day, Jibril had found herself lacking a certain... passion.
She couldn't get excited; it just wasn't interesting.
The same was true now.
Withdrawing her gaze from the crystalline land, Jibril chose not to go there. She simply began to fly at high speeds again—perhaps as a way to release the pressure building inside. The wakes she left in the clouds formed beautiful lines in the sky, and the winds she stirred made even the races on the ground feel a sudden, sharp chill.
Jibril returned to Avant Heim.
The city built on the back of a massive, ancient Phantasm. Large and small white cubes were stacked together—the dwellings of the Flügel. The interiors and exteriors were decorated with skulls of all sizes; the most impressive trophies were naturally hung outside the doors.