Rudger, Rene, and Freuden often hung out together.
For Rudger, it was more like he had nothing to do and was playing with Rene, and Freuden also had nothing to do until he was sent back to his family, so he spent time with Rene.
As for Rene, she was just happy to have gained one brother and one friend.
Gabriel visited occasionally, but since Gabriel hadn't fully mastered time magic yet, he often had to return to where his master was.
So Gabriel usually visited only on weekends.
At first, Gabriel was relieved that Rudger and Freuden were there.
When they weren't around, he felt quite sorry for Rene because he lacked the time to play with her.
Whenever Gabriel left, Rene would feel disappointed, but now she no longer felt such loneliness.
For Gabriel, this was fortunate, yet he also felt a bit regretful, as if Rene had been taken away from him.
Still, he thought it didn't matter as long as this peaceful daily life could continue.But there was something Gabriel hadn't anticipated at all: Rene's mother was becoming increasingly emaciated as days passed.
She coughed frequently and frowned, perhaps due to pain.
At first, he thought she was just in poor condition, but as time went on, Gabriel began to notice the increasingly serious symptoms.
"Are you really okay?"
"What do you mean?"
"You're sick. It would be better to go to the hospital now. For your sake, and for Rene's."
"Haha. It's just a mild cold."
"You're taking strong painkillers. Is that what you call a mild cold?"
"...So you saw."
She scratched her cheek with an awkward smile.
Gabriel felt an unwarranted sense of betrayal at the sight.
"Why didn't you tell me? Am I that unreliable?"
"It's not that."
"Then why?"
"Just, this is an illness that's pointless to tell anyone about."
As she spoke, she looked much weaker than usual, perhaps because she was haggard from the pain.
The sense of resignation was visible on her face, which usually smiled brightly and cheerfully.
For some reason, Gabriel didn't want to see that expression and unconsciously averted his eyes.
"...I'll help you. I could also ask my master."
"That won't be enough."
The one who answered instead was Grandel, who had just entered the room.
"You are..."
Gabriel now knows how extraordinary a magician that blonde girl is.
She's not even human to begin with. She's a transcendent being who has lived for so long that no one knows how many years, and has refined her magic over those long years.
The magical knowledge and power she has accumulated must be something that even he, a magician of time, dare not compare to.
"What does that mean? Not enough!"
"With all my knowledge and solutions, all I could do was extend her lifespan. But even that is coming to an end now."
Gabriel looked at her as if asking if this was really true.
She nodded weakly with a shamefaced expression.
"I'm sorry for hiding it until now."
"How long... I mean, how long were you supposed to live originally?"
"When I was first diagnosed, they said my life would end around age 20."
"What? But you're now..."
"Yes. I've held on for five more years."
She said this while gazing through the window beyond her bed, toward where her daughter had gone with Rudger and Freuden.
"But if I die, my child will be left all alone and lonely with no one, won't she?"
"You..."
"I wanted to try hard to hold on. So I asked Grandel for help."
"Well, I never expected someone would actually come looking for me, believing only in uncertain legends from ancient manuscripts."
Grandel sighed as if she herself found their first meeting preposterous.
But despite her words, it was ultimately Grandel herself who had made it possible to extend her life by five years, which would have been impossible otherwise.
"Then, is there truly no way now? Really?"
Gabriel asked Grandel, almost pleading.
"There isn't. There's not enough time to check her physical condition. Besides, the magic I practice is more about killing people, not saving them like this."
Even for an outstanding magician, analyzing the sudden arrival of non-attribute magic power was a daunting task.
"Being such a great magician, why..."
"Because it was magic I didn't need."
Grandel is an ancient true-blood vampire who doesn't die even if killed.
Magicians typically learn various types of magic, but Grandel didn't necessarily need to.
It was often enough for her to learn magic casually, just by watching over shoulders or eyeballing it.
Her magical talent made that possible.
But in cases like this where deep diving was needed over a long period, even Grandel had no proper solution.
"There is one method that could be called unique."
"What is it?"
"Giving her my blood."
"Blood?"
"Yes. If she becomes my subordinate, she won't die. But this isn't a method I recommend."
"Why not! It would be better than dying."
Grandel snorted at those words.
"Young one. Sometimes it's better to die."
"What do you..."
"You, a human, wouldn't understand because you haven't experienced it but sometimes death itself is the most sincere blessing."
Grandel's voice was uncharacteristically heavy as she spoke.
Gabriel felt his words catch in his throat.
"Besides, even if I make her my subordinate, it won't solve the fundamental cause of her pain. She just won't die, but she'll continue to feel the pain of her body splitting and tearing from the inside. Do you have the confidence to live in eternal pain?"
"Then, how much time does she have left..."
"Well, she probably knows better than I do."
Gabriel turned to look at her with a face that seemed to say, please tell me it's not what I'm thinking.
She smiled faintly, as if self-deprecating that the situation had come to this.
"At most, I have less than a week left."
"...A week? A week, you say?"
"I'm sorry for hiding it. But I had no choice."
Gabriel’s lips trembled.
To think that the lifespan of the person he loved was terminal with only a week left.
Gabriel had never felt so much resentment toward himself for having lived blissfully unaware until now.
Even if she hadn't said anything, he should have noticed on his own.
Was I so stupid that I couldn't even check on the condition of the person I love?
Gabriel clenched his fist tightly.
"...I'll find a way."
"Gabriel. I appreciate your feelings, but this is impossible."
"So you want me to just sit quietly and watch?!"
Gabriel shouted in fury.
Seeing Gabriel, who usually treated her with a smiling face and generosity, genuinely angry, she widened her eyes in surprise and averted her gaze.
"...I'm sorry. But there's nothing we can do."
"Is this why I came all this way..."
Just as Gabriel was about to say more, Grandel defused the situation.
"The children are coming."
Under the unspoken pressure to stop talking, Gabriel bit his lip tightly.
"...I'll be going."
"Gabriel."
Gabriel, who was about to go outside, stopped at the voice calling from behind but he didn't look back.
"Don't worry. I'll find a way somehow and be back soon."
With those words, Gabriel disappeared from the spot.
He used time magic right away, even though he normally conserved it, saying time was precious.
That showed how precious every minute and second of the remaining week was to Gabriel.
"So he left after all."
"Yes, he did."
"It seems he took the diary of your physical condition that you diligently recorded. He has quite the sticky fingers."
"That's because he cares for me so much. This is why I wanted to hide it until the end."
"Did you know?"
To the question of whether she knew Gabriel liked her, she nodded with a faint smile.
"How could I not know when it's so obvious?"
"Yet you still don't accept his feelings until the end, is it because of your physical condition?"
"That was certainly true before."
Seeing that meaningful smile, Grandel raised an eyebrow.
"You, as I thought..."
"Shh. Say no more. The children are coming soon."
"..."
Grandel turned her head away as if she had no intention of saying anything anyway.
"A vampire who wants to die and a human who wants to live. What a peculiar fate."
To Grandel's pointed remark, she nodded as if in agreement.
"Indeed it is."
After returning to the distant workshop, Gabriel immediately devoted himself to research.
The time left was only 7 days.
It was woefully insufficient time to save someone, but Gabriel couldn't give up.
"I must save her."
She was his light, the blessing that had helped him endure difficult years.
Even though she suddenly disappeared one day and when they met again, she was with Rene, his love for her remained unchanged.
So he would save her.
He would save her even if he had to use all the time he possessed.
With such thoughts, Gabriel pondered ways to save her for several days, staying up night after night.
But no matter how much he racked his brain alone, no suitable method came to mind.
While searching through old books in his master's room, Gabriel finally found one document.
"Time Freeze?"
Time magic, despite its grand name, cannot fast-forward or rewind time.
All it can do is stop time for everything around the user except the user themselves.
But Gabriel suddenly felt such regret.
If one could stop everything in the world, couldn't one also specifically stop just one being?
Being unfamiliar with how this might be applied, Gabriel could only imagine.
But now, Gabriel had discovered a clue right before him.
"Disciple. What are you doing now?"
"Master?"
Gabriel confronted his master, who appeared as an old man.
"This magic. Is it real? This Time Freeze! Is this magic really possible?"
"That is..."
"Why didn't you tell me anything about it! Why were you hiding such an amazing magic!"
"It's magic you don't need. No, none of us need it."
"What does that mean? What could be more necessary for us than this!"
"Do you know what it means to stop someone else's time?"
"Is that so important?"
"Of course it is! Who will make the stopped time flow again?"
"Of course I will..."
"Even if it means you die the moment you use it?"
"..."
Gabriel’s eyes widened in shock.
"This magic isn't simply about stopping someone else's time. It's about applying all the time you have to someone else. Sacrificing one person's time to stop another person's time."
"So the moment I use this magic, I will consume my remaining time and die?"
"Yes. Time Freeze magic is magic that costs the life of a time magician to use. And once cast, the spell can never be undone unless the caster undoes it."
The person who can undo it dies the moment they cast this freeze.
In other words, it's a curse from which one can never awaken.
Without eating, sleeping, closing one's eyes, or breathing.
Trapped in the wax of frozen time, forever fixed in that moment.
Can that really be called living?
"And you want to use that on a person? It's not just throwing away your life, it's virtually killing that person too. I taught you this magic to help and save people, not for you to commit suicide!"
"Then what am I supposed to do!"
Gabriel shouted at his master.
At those words, the master widened his eyes.
"Y-you..."
"Didn't you say we should use this magic to save people! That's how you taught me! But what's the use of time magic if I can't even save the person I love!"
"..."
His disciple had always been snippy with him, but this was the first time he had expressed such anguish.
Gabriel’s master, Morris, looked at his disciple with a complicated gaze.
"Disciple. This power exists to help people, but that doesn't mean we can help everyone."
"..."
"This is unavoidable... Yes, truly unavoidable. There are such things in the world. No matter how much you struggle, there's something invisible that's hard to escape."
"So you're telling me to just stay still?"
"You should keep struggling. But I want to tell you that the method shouldn't be wrong like this."
Gabriel’s tightly clenched fist trembled but he couldn't offer any counterargument to his master's words.
He couldn't remember when he had ever felt such desperate helplessness.
"The only advice I can give you is to at least spend the remaining time with that precious person."
Morris said this while gazing steadily at Gabriel.
Gabriel gritted his teeth once and disappeared from the spot.
Seeing this, Morris put his hands behind his back and raised his head.
"She was that important to you."
Morris muttered bitterly about the fact that this was all the advice he could give as a master.
"I'm sorry, my disciple, that this is all I can say to you."
Gabriel ran through the stopped world.
Panting several times, catching his breath, he didn't stop his footsteps.
He had to go to where she was, to where everyone was waiting.
His master's words were cruel. But they were also reality.
There was nothing he could do right now.
In the stopped world, Gabriel wept.
Tears flowed down the path he walked, fixed in the air without falling in the stopped world.
In the distance, he could see her house.
A picturesque meadow and forest, a small cabin on a hill where cool winds blew.
He once mentioned that if he were to marry her someday, he would want to live in a place like that.
It was the house of his dreams, but Gabriel didn't want to see it.
When he opened the door and entered the house, there was no one inside.
It was the middle of the night, so where could they have gone?
Gabriel immediately looked around and headed toward the nearby forest.
For some reason, he had a feeling that someone would be there.
As he pushed through the undergrowth, Gabriel discovered a small, familiar back.
A girl with short ash-gray hair.
It was Rene.
Next to Rene was the little child called Freuden, who seemed to have guided her there.
Why are you two here?
"More importantly, what are you looking at..."
Gabriel turned his gaze in the direction the two children were looking.
She was there.
The woman he loved so much was lying with her eyes closed, with a peaceful expression.
And Rudger Chelici was piercing her heart with a dagger.