Chapter 69

… 30 minutes ago.

Symposium evaluator’s waiting room.

“Louina unnie. Is this answer real?” The Ethereal-ranked wizard, Rose Rio, asked out of suspicion.

Louina shrugged. “What do you mean?”

“Did Deculein really write this answer?”

Rose Rio was an Ethereal-level mage with impressive short pink hair, but she was actually younger than her, hence why she called Louina unnie.

She was a support and healing genius who only stayed in the Magic Tower for six months, climbed up to the Isle of Wizard’s Wealth afterward, and reached the Ethereal rank at 25 years old.

“Yeah. Deculain wrote it himself.”

“…”

Rose Rio still couldn’t believe it. Gindalf, sitting quietly in another chair, asked, “Really? I’m suspicious of Deculein’s nature. I know his situation, after all.”

Gindalf, who was now in his 70s, was the personification of old wizards in fairy tales. He wore round glasses and had long grey hair and a beard.

“No, this bothers me more than that.” Rose Rio pointed to the last part of Deculein’s Theorem.

[… In addition, 48 runes were successfully interpreted and organized, but they were not published since they didn’t fit the topic.]

“Is this for real? He said he interpreted several runes? That’s got to be a lie.”

Louina laughed bitterly. “I already took a look at his interpretation paper. I even saw it recited.”

Deculein had shown her some of the rune interpretation paper.

Of course, they might think he was wrong, but it was surprisingly easy to tell whether it was correct or not.

He had to memorize the pronunciation. The runic language itself was imbued with magic, so just speaking it correctly would consume mana.

“That guy, Deculein, has linguistic talent. I heard he speaks ten languages.”

“Huh, really? I can’t bring myself to believe that.”

Rose Rio’s eyes remained squinted as Gindalf chuckled, stroking his beard.

“Rose, feel free to think about it as you deem fitting~”

In fact, runes weren’t even her current priority.

The five-year period Deculein demanded was still stuck in her head.

‘It can’t be, right? There isn’t a disease that can’t be cured even with Yukline’s financial and political power.’

Even after repeating that in her mind, she couldn’t think of any other way to explain it.

‘… I promised, didn’t I? Five years. You will not be my stumbling block, and I will not be your stumbling block.’

Why did he promise five years?

‘Aren’t you four years younger than me? You still can grow a lot, so time is definitely on your side.’

Why did he say that?

“… It doesn’t make sense.”

Time was definitely on his side.

If it were the usual arrogant Deculein, no, even if it weren’t, he wouldn’t say things like ‘time is on your side’ while solving the Symposium problem.

The honor and feat of interpreting the runes would shine brighter as time went by.