The Immortal Had a Guardian Spirit Chapter 32

“Altair…! I’m sure I told you to bring Master here properly!”

“I brought him.”

“Ha, you call slinging him over your shoulder ‘bringing him’? You should have at least carried him in your arms properly!”

“…I thought you two weren’t on good terms…”

Raven watched their squabble in bewilderment for a moment, then muttered with a somewhat softened expression.

He’d thought they’d cut ties and lived as strangers, but that didn’t seem to be the case. It was truly a relief that things weren’t as bad as he’d feared.

Lib, who somehow managed to catch his muttering amidst the rising voices, shot Altair a sharp look as if to say “You told him that too?” before completely changing her expression and replying in a gentle tone.

“We’re just not on good terms, but we keep in touch. I’m sorry if we worried you.”

“It’s a connection born of necessity. Better to have some jerk you know in the Association Head seat than some stranger you don’t.”

“Altair, thas enuff…”

…What a fossil. A thought that would only come out of the heads of elders in some stagnant organization was now coming out of the mouth of his small, innocent disciple, and Raven’s eyes shook violently.

Lib, looking embarrassed, cleared her throat and glared at Altair.

“First, can you put Master down?”

“Oh.”

He was so light I forgot.

Altair dropped the man he was carrying over his shoulder as if tossing him aside. Despite the rough handling, Raven lightly regained his balance and looked back and forth between the two who were bickering again, then fixed his gaze on Lib.

The shaman’s eyes, having spotted a problem with her body, narrowed slightly.

“…So, why did you kidnap me?”

“Huh? Kidnap!?”

Startled, Lib quickly waved her hands in denial.

“I just wanted to have Master with me! You’re such a precious person to me, and I felt so guilty for having forgotten you all this time, and I want to spend as much time together with you from now on…”

“…Really?”

Doesn’t seem like it.

“You have no idea how much preparation we’ve done to make sure we never forget Master again.”

Ignoring Raven’s expression, which laid his inner thoughts bare, Lib motioned for him to follow and walked into the mansion. Raven followed without much thought, but upon spotting a certain door, he stopped dead in his tracks.

An extremely ornate door, rivaling even the gates of the imperial palace, caught his eye. More precisely, rather than the ornamentation, it was the food slot attached to the door.

‘Surely not.’

Lib’s steps seemed to be heading that way, but it was probably his imagination.

…That faint hope was absurdly crushed as his second disciple opened the door wide and beamed at him.

“This is your room, Master. It even has a bathroom inside, so you can live comfortably without having to step outside.”

“…There’s a food slot on the door.”

“Haha.”

No, before that, ‘without having to step outside’—why such an assumption…

He sidled over and peeked inside.

“…There’s no window?”

[The guardian spirit ??? says not to go in.]

“Hahaha.”

A windowless room and a door with a food slot. And the door itself looked to be at least twenty centimeters thick.

Did they think it was fine as long as the outside was flashy and the inside was nicely decorated? Raven muttered with a dumbfounded expression.

“Just tell me honestly that you wanted revenge. That you resented me.”

“How could I? Please just take it as a disciple’s sulking after meeting their Master for the first time in a long while.”

That’s a pretty brutal way to sulk.

‘Then again, is this actually tame for a reunion after ten years of disappearing without a word…?’

I’d have to have experienced it to know.

“Would you like to go in? It’s not cramped, and I think you’ll like it.”

“…Uh…”

Lib, having approached from behind, smiled and subtly pushed Raven inside.

Unable to use force against his weakened disciple—having noticed Lib’s physical condition the moment he saw her—Raven wore an uneasy expression but had no choice but to step into the room.

And then—clang. The door shut.

After staring blankly at the door for a moment, his vivid green eyes rolled and reflected Lib, who was smiling beside him.

“Lib…?”

“Yes, Master?”

[The guardian spirit ??? says this is beyond just sulking.]

“What are you going to do about getting out if you come in here too?”

[The guardian spirit ??? says there’s no need to indulge her and to leave without hesitation.]

“Altair’s outside, so even if you get past me, you’d have to fight properly to get out. Surely you wouldn’t knock out your own disciple?”

[…The guardian spirit ??? is measuring the angle.]

No. Rather than me, my guardian spirit seems more likely to knock you out.

Angle, what angle? The angle to swing a sword down? Is he calculating what angle to slice you into pieces at?

Given that you’re my precious disciples, he’s only sending messages for now—if this were a real kidnapping and imprisonment, he’d have come down and danced with his blade long ago.

Raven, still looking unaccustomed to the situation, looked back and forth between the guardian spirit’s messages and Lib, then pressed his hand to his forehead and let out a deep sigh.

“Lib, my dear… I’m sure you have a lot of pent-up feelings and things to talk about…”

“…”

“For now, could you step outside for a bit? I think I need some rest.”

Setting aside resolving their grievances or leaving, he needed to calm the guardian spirit down first.

∞ ∞ ∞

She’d come all the way out here, only to be told that the Master she was looking for was already in the capital.

Roweina, Raven’s third disciple and the Warrior Association Head, who had come out herself to confirm the person presumed to be her Master and bring him back if so, received the news and immediately turned around.

Despite the hint of disappointment, her steps were rather light.

‘Still, they’ve got him secured for now—better than not knowing his whereabouts at all.’

She hadn’t shown it, but she too had been wanting to meet her Master directly.

Just by returning, the Master she’d been searching for would be there. The thought made her spirits lift.

Even without memories, the records remained, so it was inevitable. After all:

‘Just what kind of person was he, that the past me was dead set on marrying him?’

Her diary had been filled with an obsessive determination to marry her Master.

Her courted Master seemed to have dismissed it as the cry of a child who didn’t understand love—something like ‘I wanna marry Daddy!’ that would be forgotten and laughed off upon reaching adulthood. But after reading the diary, Roweina knew.

Even if it wasn’t romantic love, the determination to spend a lifetime together was real.

And so, with a dangerous smile, she muttered under her breath:

“If I like him when we meet, I’ll propose.”

Because I trust the past me.

If I wanted to spend my whole life with him, there must have been a reason.

∞ ∞ ∞

Several days passed since he was confined to the room.

Despite the guardian spirit’s concerns, there was absolutely nothing inconvenient.

The fact that he had to secretly dispose of food because he didn’t eat was his own doing, so he let that slide. The new-style bathroom, said to be made from processed mana stones, allowed him to use water at any temperature he wanted whenever he wished. The bed was impossibly plush, so he was actually living in greater luxury than he could have asked for. What more needed to be said?

They’d even readily provided history books related to the Mythological Era without any questions when he asked for them.

Though he hadn’t obtained the information he wanted, the environment itself was perfect.

‘The guardian spirit ultimately respected my opinion too.’

Lying on the bed with a book open on his chest, Raven blinked vacantly. With no one around and nothing to do, his cloudy grey eyes, showing themselves for the first time in a while, held his thoughts instead of the world.

“Just a little while. Just a very little while. I want to spend time with them.”

As always, the guardian spirit respected Raven’s opinion.

“They said they prepared so they wouldn’t forget me. Of course, I know that’s not their real reason, but still.”

“It’s me who left those innocent kids without a word and vanished.”

He could clearly sense a hint of frustration, but…

“Isn’t that okay, brother?”

Anyway, he’d calmed down, so that was that.

He felt sorry for his guardian spirit, who must be exasperated, but his connection with his disciples wasn’t over yet. Even though he’d disappeared on his own, even though their memories of him were gone, they’d relied on a single record and found him in the end.

‘If it were simply that, I wouldn’t have reacted this way.’

It wasn’t as if no one had ever come looking for him based on records before.

But his connection with these children was different. It had begun out of a desire to create someone who would stay with him for a long time, who would remember him, after he’d been consumed by a terrible loneliness.

In other words, since he had initiated this connection intentionally, it was right for him, as the one who started it, to see it through to the end.

‘Either forget me so completely that not even a trace of attachment remains, or one of us dies.’

Well… since he’d intended from the start for this connection to last a long time, he had grown particularly attached, which was why he was being softer on the children.

Raven turned his head while still lying down. His eyes, now with that peculiar greenish tint, were aimed precisely at the door.

Then came a knock—knock.

“Master, it’s Lib.”

“Come in.”

The door opened and Lib shuffled in with a reluctant expression. Behind her stood Altair, with something tucked under his arm.

A black… something with a familiar shape… a crow.

‘…A crow?’

Raven pushed the book off his chest and sprang up.

“Were you reading? Sorry if I interrupted.”

“No, it’s fine. I was getting bored anyway, so this is good timing.”

He’d already read all of them anyway, since there were only a few. And even those were all full of vague “it is said that…” statements.

It wasn’t that his Association Head-level disciples lacked the ability to get proper history books. It was simply that records related to the Mythological Era were pathetically scarce. Which was precisely why it wasn’t recognized as official history and was called the ‘Mythological Era.’

“More importantly, that thing Altair’s carrying…”

“A gift.”

“Caw.”

The crow was suddenly placed in his arms.

Raven reflexively caught it like holding a doll. The crow, which had been pecking at Altair’s arm continuously, flinched and froze.

He held the creature up to eye level and looked at it, then spotted a familiar look in the way it gazed back at him. He muttered in an awkward voice.

“Don’t tell me…”

“Yes, it’s the youngest.”

“It was lurking around nearby, so Altair caught—no, brought it.”

So it was caught.

Raven silently examined the crow, turning it over. He was checking for injuries, but—chomp! His finger got bitten.

“…”

Quietly, he used his other hand to carefully pry the beak open and free his finger.

It wasn’t as if the finger had been torn off, nor was it bleeding, so he calmly stroked the crow as if nothing had happened, but a subtle gaze could be felt.

“…When Altair said there was a new youngest sibling, I thought he was talking nonsense, but I guess it’s true. A new youngest sibling after ten years.”

“Yo—you don’t have to force yourself to accept it.”

Bitterness and envy were mixed in the eyes that could see soul shards.

She probably felt her mood sink just from looking. Raven, who had a rough grasp of her situation through her physical state, glanced away awkwardly.

And besides…

“A father who disappeared, showing up after ten years with a new younger sibling in tow… I wonder how the others will react when they find out…”

Because Altair’s words crossed his mind.

Lib, noticing the guilt rising on Raven’s face, smiled lightly and shook her head.

“No, it’s fine. Since we’re fellow soul shard holders, I should take better care of them. Would it be alright if I taught them the little things? I may not look it, but I’ve got quite a bit of experience, so I think I’d be useful.”

“If you’re willing to do that, it’d be convenient for me, but…”

“Then I’ll do that. Thank you, Master.”

His second disciple smiled brightly.

…She grew up well. He looked at her silently for a moment, then slowly blinked.

“What about the others?”

“If you mean Roweina and Hwan, they’re both away right now. They went to personally verify the news that someone presumed to be Master had been found. I’ve sent word that Master has been secured… ahem, brought to the room, so they should be back soon.”

“…I see.”

So I was secured.

[The guardian spirit ??? asks if it wouldn’t be better to leave after all.]

‘Still, I should at least see the others’ faces before I go. Leaving now would be unfair to the ones who haven’t arrived yet.’

He planned to leave when the time came anyway, so there was no need to rush.

Raven shook his head slightly and adjusted the crow in one arm for a more secure hold, then crossed one ankle over the opposite knee. As he rested his chin on his hand, Lib, sensing his mood, spoke up.

“By the way, Master. There’s someone who wants to see you—would you be willing to meet them? Of course, you’re free to refuse.”

…Given how hesitant she looks, she seems to be hoping I’ll refuse.

Even as she spoke, her face twisted with reluctance. Wrinkles from laughter and wrinkles from irritation greatly affect one’s appearance—at this rate, she’d ruin her pretty face. He reached out and gently smoothed her brow. Lib’s eyes went wide.

Raven quietly looked at her, then asked calmly.

“Who is it?”

“De—”