Up to this point, it was exactly the same as what Esperanza remembered. The only thing that had changed was the destroyed interpretation system. Cider stopped in front of the interpretation system where restoration work hadn't even begun, with only the fragments cleared away.
"Although more research will be needed, it seems the form isn't that important. Looking at how the central unit alone can produce that level of performance, perhaps all those many machines might be unnecessary."
"But we're not Daria. In the end, we'll need them all."
Esperanza took a few more steps forward and placed her hand on the Golden Claw. She felt tingling magic power.
She caressed the smooth golden blade that touched her hand. It didn't feel like a machine at all. However, instead of rashly infusing magic power, she felt the residual magic power remaining in the component with her fingertips.
Daria knew the most about the Golden Claw. More than Cider, its creator, Daria who had held this blade to her chest for years and experimented with it to its limits would know better. What the fourteen-year-old Cider Claiborne had created.
An overwhelming creation as if a god had briefly possessed him.
Esperanza didn't remove her hand and swept it down to the machine below.
However, what the twenty-five-year-old Cider had created was a human work. He knew what he was making, and even on days when the pain was unbearably agonizing, he didn't lose his reason. So this was an even greater invention than the original spacetime machine.
This machine would surely be able to send Esperanza back to her original world.
Esperanza checked her inventory. A return ticket that hadn't been there until yesterday was occupying a spot. When she reached in to take it out, it was different in form from typical return tickets. It was a plate-shaped object with something like a control panel attached, but after examining it for a while, she couldn't figure out what it was, so she handed it directly to Cider.
"You can adjust the coordinates with this."
"How do you use this?"
"I don't know."
Cider frowned. As if asking who would know if you don't. But from Esperanza's perspective, it was the opposite.
'How would I know when even the expert doesn't?'
"I really don't know."
"Then what do we do?"
"...We'll have to ask someone who knows."
Coincidentally, the originator of all this trouble was still in this mansion. Cider summoned Millen. Millen confirmed that the guest was in the reception room. The two went down to the reception room through the roofless laboratory without hesitation.
The reception room wrapped in sunlight as always.
Cyrus was sitting in front of a chessboard. Though he didn't know how to play chess properly, he just held the black queen in one hand and blinked blankly. He too seemed unable to quite realize that the quest had ended.
"Ah, Esperanza-nim. Is your body alright?"
"I'm fine."
The one who didn't look fine was Cyrus. He had become noticeably gaunt in just one day. He looked like someone whose soul had departed.
"Does he look okay to you?"
"Not at all."
Cider, who replied as if completely uninterested, naturally took the head seat. Esperanza sat on the sofa to Cider's right and stacked cushions on her knees up to chest height.
Cyrus shuffled over. The black queen was still in his hand. He sat down and put down the queen. Clack. The chess piece made a clear sound as it stood upright then toppled over with a thud.
"Ah."
"What's wrong?"
As soon as she asked without thinking, she realized. While Daria had been an enemy to Esperanza and Cider, to Cyrus she had been family.
"It's nothing. ...More importantly, what brings you here?"
She felt a bit embarrassed, as if he knew they wouldn't come without a purpose. Even Cyrus himself thought this was an acceptable situation, but treating people harshly required mental strength.
"Because of this."
Cyrus, who received the return ticket, exclaimed in admiration.
"You have to connect it to the machine to use it."
Cider, who tried operating it as Cyrus taught him, nodded.
"I see."
When Cider pressed several of the densely packed buttons, a green light came on and the red needle on the central gauge moved to both sides. The needle that wandered like that for about 10 seconds slowly found its position. The small gauges attached below were the same.
"Is it ready?"
"It's ready. We'll have to try connecting it, but... this worked out well. I'll need to change the connection part while fixing the interpretation system."
Cider seemed to have thought of something and took out paper from a drawer, beginning to write busily. He had done the same when she first saw him. Esperanza looked down at the pen moving ceaselessly. Eyes shining with mischievous interest. The eyes that had sustained Esperanza's one year.
Not wanting to break his concentration, she carefully moved to the opposite end of the sofa. Cyrus also tactfully moved seats.
"You said it was because you wanted to make money."
"...Yes."
"It wasn't just that, was it?"
The fact that their methods were wrong didn't change. It was still cruelly inhumane, speechlessly so. But Daria had said she chose that path to escape from strangling poverty. That was different from causing such trouble simply because she wanted to be rich once. Even if the results were the same, the two couldn't be placed on the same level in terms of blameworthiness.
However, Cyrus had deliberately let the misunderstanding stand. He had chosen to be despised instead.
"Did Daria tell you?"
"Roughly."
"I didn't really want to talk about it. It's not a story that can be justified by such reasons. Being despised is better than receiving pity."
"I don't pity you."
In fact, she couldn't sincerely empathize. Saying she empathized would itself be deception.
Esperanza's life hadn't been without shadows. She had been injured at a young age and lost her parents just after turning twenty. However, she had never been so hungry it was painful or starved from lack of food. She had never experienced unpayable debt or inescapable poverty.
"If it's not pity, I'll bear the rest."
Silence followed after that. A maid belatedly brought tea. They held the steaming teacups to their lips and savored the reception room in what remained of the afternoon.
When the teacups showed their bottoms, Cider put down his pen.
"This should be enough. They said the ceiling repair would take about two days, so the laboratory will be difficult to access for two days. Shall we go out?"
Esperanza brightened.
"Where are we going?"
"That's something to think about from now on."
Though she couldn't wear a summer outing hat, she could spend the remaining time without waste. Esperanza hugged the cushion tightly.
'Remaining time.'
She seemed to hear the sound of a second hand moving. Leaving still didn't feel real. It seemed like it could be postponed a bit more. A few years if possible. But that was only Esperanza's selfish feeling.
If she was going to leave, it would be better to leave quickly.
The smile on her lips faded. Esperanza, who had been fiddling with the cushion tassels, raised her head.
"Cyrus. What will you do?"
"There's a place I need to go. I'll return before the machine repair is finished. You can send contact to the hotel address where I stayed before."
He stood up immediately without much hesitation.
After Cyrus left, Esperanza, who had been blankly staring at the teacup left without an owner, suddenly spoke.
"I need to say goodbye... I need to say goodbye."
"To whom?"
Cider, who had gotten up, came to the seat next to Esperanza.
"To Annie, Cordelia, Jack, and Lord Sterling too?"
If she counted carefully, there would be more. If time allowed, she'd want to say goodbye to Cordelia's friends or the Duchess of Schodny too, but there probably wouldn't be such leisure. She didn't want to cut into time to spend with Cider.
"There are quite a few."
"Right. I thought you only had me."
There was only one person she could completely rely on, but she had met more people than expected. There were friends here, enemies, and people who were neither.
That was fortunate. People cannot bear the weight of one person alone.
But.
'You should have other people besides me too.'
He had no one to call his name and embrace him.
Caressing his sculpted cheeks and handsome jawline with her fingertips, Esperanza realized how desolate a life this beautiful man had lived. Though he himself didn't seem to care much about it, there would surely come a time when such things would be needed.
Esperanza took a deep breath. Then she exhaled as if pressing down all the words she wanted to say and embraced Cider's back. She pressed her cheek against his firm shoulder and stayed still for a while before suddenly opening her mouth.
"We should go on a picnic even if it's a bit cold."
Cider burst into laughter. He hadn't expected Esperanza to keep that story in mind.
"Yes. Let's try everything we can do."
❀⋆｡°✿☆❀✿°｡⋆❀
It wasn't picnic season. The wind was cold and the sun set early. However, Esperanza's body was insensitive to temperature changes and Cider wasn't particularly sensitive to cold. An out-of-season picnic wasn't bad either.
On a quiet suburban hill, Cider drew pictures while Esperanza lay on his lap taking naps or making trivial small talk. They played with each other's hands and briefly kissed, avoiding people's eyes.
They consumed their last leisure as preciously as they treasured it. Down to the very bottom. That night they played chess with obvious outcomes and drank brandy. For the next two days they indulged in debauched living, going to sleep only when morning dawned.
Eyelashes shining under morning sunlight, and beneath them, transparently visible pupils. Every time she saw his smile slightly drunk on sleep, Esperanza thought about how she would lose this if she returned.
Two days passed in an instant like a dream. The ceiling repair finished, and Cider rebuilt the spacetime machine's interpretation system. While Daria had personally confirmed that the Golden Claw and spacetime machine could be connected, there were several more aspects to consider in terms of stability.
Because of this, most of the day was spent in the laboratory. A brief grace period until the spacetime machine was completely fixed. He didn't try to delay it.
Esperanza mostly stayed in the study. When she showed no signs of wanting to go out even after several days, Cider asked.
"Didn't you say you were going to say goodbye?"
"Shall we go?"
To her question that couldn't hide her disappointed expression, Cider laughed and shook his head. Worried she might really leave, he sat close to her on the sofa and pulled Esperanza's knees onto his legs. Esperanza, resting her head on the armrest, giggled saying it tickled.
"I like it best when you stay here doing unproductive mischief and then come to disturb me."
"You don't know what real disturbance is..."
"And you. You're not even sincere about it, are you?"
"I haven't said this until now, but those kinds of jokes aren't funny."
Cider seemed accustomed to self-deprecating jokes and lightly tapped Esperanza's cheek with an unconcerned face.
The hand that had been caressing her lips cupped her cheek. Their touching nose tips crumpled, and naturally like flowing water, he took her lips. The tongue that traced her teeth was firmly entwined to the roots. Large hands wrapped around below her waist. After breathlessly indulging, they separated their lips as if waking from sleep.
"So, you're not saying goodbye?"
After asking the question, he kissed her again before she could answer. Esperanza, with her nails buried in Cider's shirt hem, struggled to gather the scattered answer in her head.
"By letter, I'm going to do it by letter."
"Hmm. Not a good way to say goodbye."
Esperanza replaced her answer with a bitter smile. Annie, Cordelia, and Alastair would probably have some idea. Nevertheless, not meeting in person to say farewell words...
No. She wouldn't say uncertain words.
"I bought stationery too."
"Fine, if that's what you want, do it that way. But it's not my preferred way of saying goodbye. I trust you understand what I mean."
Cider kissed both of Esperanza's cheeks and lips again, then got up from his seat. He didn't let rest encroach on his research schedule. He was obsessively thorough. It seemed to be his way of adapting to this situation.
Because of this, the remaining time was shrinking even faster. The less time remained, the more frightening leaving became.