Clever

It seems like there are too many types of items. Let's try again after reducing the number of types.

Clever is still deep asleep. Be careful not to awaken him.

Clever scribbled a map on my hand. It looks like the place where the books are.

I see Clever working hard with his writing tools. It must be the new history report.

[Clever]

Mm? Who are you? You aren't a visitor. Guard~!!! Guard~!!! There is a suspicious person here! What are you doing not taking him away?!

Hmm, In any case, I've never seen you before. Why are you here to visit me?

Oh~ Really? Ok, you get out of here. I'm going to start torturing the guard. Let's see... Alright, I'll sing to him!

As soon as Clever starts singing, the guard looks at me in exhaustion. Of course, it was torture for myself as well.

Hmm?

For what crime? Why do you ask such a boring question?

I thought you were kind of interesting, seeing how you come to visit a stranger. How disappointing~ I'm going to sing the rest of this tune.

I saw real fear and despair in the guard's face. The prisoner known as Clever was getting ready to sing.

[Prison Guard]

Please, I ask you. Please shut Mr. Clever's mouth. I've been listening to him for a year now and it's driving me insane. I can't beat a prisoner either...

Don't you look elsewhere~ Don't you talk with other prisoners~ Look at me, only me~~ Be good to me when I'm with you~~

The prisoner is singing a song that seems to come from another dimension.

Hmm? Why? Do you have an interesting story?

Hmm. What do I want to eat? I have lots of things I want to eat. After all, I've been eating stale prison rice all this time. I had one thing in particular.

At one point, some adventurer shared with me as a present some Grape Extract Herb Tea and it was really refreshing.

If you bring me 1 cup of Grape Extract Herb Tea, I'll tell you various gossip stories of Eclage in return. How's that?

Alrighty~ It was nice meeting you. I'm going to sing the rest of this tune.

Ho~ Ok, then shall I wait for you getting some sleep?

Hmm hmm.. Let me think for a bit...

Hmm...

Sorry~ I'd rather be singing!

Snore snore...

He looks like he won't wake up until I bring back some Grape Extract Herb Tea.

Wow, you really brought me some. In any case, did you even request a visit? Hey~ Guard!! Don't you have to see if this guy came here with a formal visitation request? Random people can't be in here!

NO I DON'T HAVE TO! I DON'T HAVE TO CHECK!

The guard's irritated voice screamed from afar.

Well, the guard says it's ok. Thanks for bringing it to me. Since I am a prisoner, I don't have much to give aside from praying for a blessing upon home tree.

Upon receiving the blessings to home tree, you gained experience points and job experience points.

Whew~ How refreshing. You are the only visitor I could appreciate this entire past year of imprisonment.

Oh?

Yes, that's right~ I did promise you that.

There's so many. Why don't you choose one among these topics.

This is a secret gossip related to the old king. Have you heard about a first-rate criminal named Florence? He was a first-rate criminal, but he was the father of an old king named Seneth.

What crime did he commit? Haha, no one knows that. But in Eclage, it's actually prohibited to mention the name Florence.

If you mention his name, you might be in the same situation as I am.

There's also a secret tale about Florence's son, King Seneth. Because of his low self-esteem related to having a criminal father, he is a king who implemented radical policies.

There are also rumors that he had a mental illness, I don't know to what degree that is true. I heard that he actually chewed through the stem of Yggdrasil.

Can you imagine? What it could mean for the Mayor to cause harm to Yggdrasil? It's a terrible thing.

There are rumors that after disconnecting himself from Yggdrasil, he grew sicker and sicker, and ultimately set himself on fire.

Of course, it's just a hearsay, so I can't guarantee that it's true, but I'm positive that he was the first Mayor to break the relationship with Yggdrasil.

This is a story that most Laphines don't recognize. The assistant chief of staff Shenime's real name is not Shenime.

But no one remembers what is real name is. It's the same with me. It's as if a giant eraser stormed through the mind.

All I know for sure is that Shenime is not his real name. So I conjured up an interesting story. Do you happen to know what it means to control the public?

If you have a strong ability in controlling the public, I could make you believe that not just my name but my face also are my original ones even if they really weren't.

Shenime formed that kind of identity... Or rather, changed into such an identity. But this is also one of many rumors. Heh.

I don't mean to brag, but I used to be a historian, researching the Alfheim continent along with geography, biology, and archaeology.

Recently, they discovered a suspicious rift in this vicinity. Because of how I am now, I couldn't check it out myself, but my colleague participated in the research team here and seemed to have brought back something.

I think so. I don't know if you understand this, but if you utilize a dimensional rift fragment, you can travel through time or different dimensions.

Oh, that's right. You are a human traveller from Midgard, so you would know more about this than I do.

In any case, the discovery of a rift in this vicinity is an absolute secret.

How fun would it be to return to the past with the rift fragment~ I would be able to do whatever I want out of this boring prison.

Hmm~ I've said too much. I think I talked to much for a cup of herb tea. I'm going to rest a little bit.

Oh right. You showed some interest when I talked about the dimensional rift fragment.

If you are wondering about something, you can go find my friend Hiel. He's as crazy as I am, but he's a good guy, hehehe.

Thanks for being my ears. I don't have the strength to talk any more, so I have to rest up.

Clever seems to be in deep sleep.

I have many other gossip stories. What else do you want to hear about?

Hey hey, who's this? You're my friend from earlier. Hehehe.

What? You don't find any inspiration from hearing my voice? That's sad.

Hold on... Keep your voice down. What did you just say?

I can't believe it. Did you help him? Wait, that's not the important part. The most important thing is understanding how that was possible.

Even a non-engineer like me understands that if the rift fragment reacts to pressure, it releases a force beyond understanding.

But I couldn't experience anything related to the rift from here. That means...

Yes, I see that Hiel must have resolved all technical aspects. Did something happen after the reaction? Could you tell me whatever you saw?

Two Laphines related to home tree appeared? I have to look for the history records that I organized. Wait here.

This is the area of interest I used to research prior to imprisonment. The history of the birth of Eclage. And they are parts of history that have not been recorded in the official history documents.

Even if there are great accomplishments, there are times when those can't be recorded in the history.

If there were oppositions among Dona forces of nobility, or slaughtering among Dona forces, those acts cannot be recorded as official history.

Even if you don't want to reveal it, history is history. There is unofficial history as handed down among historians like me.

Of course, there would be thorny pieces of history among the higher-level members of Dona forces. There are a lot of facts distorted for political reasons. My job is to discover those aspects and correct them.

No, I was only imprisoned for defacing properties...

I digressed a bit there. The story of the birth of Eclage is actually an unofficial history record handed down as classified material. But there have been parts of it that were incorrect.

First, the figure with the short hair. He must be the Dona named Etran who was recorded in the unofficial academy. He is the one who argued for Bifrost's recovery.

And the figure with the long hair, I'm sure he's a Dona named Robert. He's the head of the group that promoted the recovery of Bifrost and restored home tree.

They were excluded from the official history records for their deep antagonism despite their profound contribution to the birth of Eclage. However...

How does it seem from your perspective? Eclage is operating so peacefully. It's way too normal for a city that has been antagonized by high-class Donas.

Really? But at least take a look at this place's home tree. It's doing just so well! And all of the plant life in Bifrost are vividly alive... If there was an antagonist force, it should have been impossible.

Yes, it is just as you say. This place's home tree is alive and well. And the plant life of Bifrost are also vivacious...

If there was really as much antagonism as to be excluded from the history, Eclage and Bifrost could not be the way they are now.

The explanations would not be enough with just the documents in this jail cell. Hold on a minute. I will let you know where there are book references that you can use to look it up yourself.

You are here.

Looks like you read quite a bit. How did you like that journal? Others claim that it is a third-rate journal, but the information in that journal is actually more accurate than legitimate journals.

It's not that the journal itself is very systematic, but more so that it's not examined by the superiors because it's so negatively criticized for being a third-rate.

Really?

I thought that you were a savvy adventurer, but I guess I thought wrong.

Hoh~ You seem like you discovered something. Great, what did you find there?

No, Dona and Papang are just words for distinction, not discrimination. Some without thought use them for fun but no one really thinks that way.

If you walk around talking about those things without caution, you'll become like me. Yes, certainly, I'm not in here because of that. Like I said before, I was charged for anonymous defacement of properties...

I ended up imagining Clever's daily life of spray painting the walls, remembering the ones I saw in Monthly Eclage.

Oh, you talking about Mayor Jun? Just call him His Majesty. He is an idol-like existence to us.

Of course, pure scholars like Hiel and I don't care much for him. I heard he was very beautiful, but I don't really care about the current world.

Along with that, Clever rattled on about things that I had no idea about like 'Valkyries are best. Uncle loves so much'.

You even looked up stories about Etran and Robert. In fact, we know that most Laphines here were established by the elder assemblies that influenced the noble forces at the time.

However, the real history was built on the sacrifices of the young Laphines. At first, as a historian, I could not accept that truth.

Unofficial documents that are being constantly discovered always talk about the sacrifies of two young Laphines, so how could they be believed as legitimate?

So I tried to present on the topic by writing a related paper but... As expected, the outcome was terrible.

I mean what else could be done? It must have been ridiculous for them since a young scholar was insisting on his ideas just because he didn't like the recorded history.

After losing my mind due to the presentation's failure, I was imprisoned after spray painting all Yai's of Eclage with 'Eat dirt you Laphine Official Aacademy scumbags'. Well, I could have avoided being caught.

This guy... He's a pit bull.

He's a pit bull to his roots.

Hold on, the prison guard is looking this way. Let's see how he's doing and change the subject for a minute.

Hmm? It wasn't anything? I thought he had a problem with our having this conversation...

(No, that's not it!! It's actually the opposite!)

Well, let me make one thing clear. What I'm going to tell you from now, I never told anyone else until now.

If you don't like something about it, or don't want to involve yourself, just forget everything I told you. But if my story interests you, or you have an inkling of desire to help me...

Could you promise me that you'll keep everything that you hear from me a secret and help me out?

That's too bad. You are the only adventurer that I ever told this much. I guess I can't do much about it. Come back to me when you change your mind.

Great. That's a deal. First, I thank you for this favor. I hope that home tree will have many blessings.

The reason why Hiel was researching rift fragments is because he has the same goal as I do. He wants to resolve things by directly meeting the Laphines of the past by transcending the space-time continuum.

For me, it is to find out the truth about history and for Hiel, it is to obtain one of the limited copies of the interior architectural planning of home tree.

Let him be. He's an engineer, so he has that passion only engineers have. While he sometimes lacks the sense of conventionality, but his ability as an engineer is considered outstanding.

Well, even a person like you are far from the normal Laphines, aren't you...? The thought just crosses my mind.

While we were talking about history this way, I bet the guy figured out dozens of ways to operate through and apply the dimensional rift.

He might be already talking about the engineering manual with the Laphines of the past.

Since we're talking about this...

I ask that you would use Hiel's rift tool to meet with the past's Etran and Laphines.

And it's fine if they're trivial. I just ask that you would record them all in detail and get back to me.

You're here.

Yes, did Hiel's research find good outcome?

Yes, I see.

As expected, the sacrifices of Etran and Robert, two young Donas, built this Eclage. Now it's for certain that the official history is recorded incorrectly.

Thank you so much.

Oh, wait... The two friends reunited together again, right?

Yes, I guess we wouldn't know that at this point.

Well, I guess that doesn't matter anymore!

I feel like I accomplished something truly significant! Shall we sing?!

I can see Etran's face through Clever's smile. This must be from the joy he's feeling.

Thank you for hearing me out all this time. Thanks to you, after my release from prison, I have much to record into the history with full confidence. In return, I will pray for home tree's blessings.

Upon receiving the blessings to home tree from Clever, you gained experience points and job experience points.

Clever is diligently transcribing things on paper.