The Extra Prince Sets Out To Conquer The World

Sillua opened her eyes in Geor’s memories.

In front of her eyes, a white-haired girl resembling herself raised both arms and shouted.

“Wahh! Ehehe! Surprised?”

Sillua recognized at a glance that the girl in front of her was her older sister.

“Nice to meet you, my sister.”

When Silvia hugged Sillua, Sillua stiffened as if her body froze.

Not only did she fail to grasp the sudden situation, but upon meeting the sister she had thought she should become and wanted to be, she didn’t know how to react.

Whether she knew or did not know Sillua’s feelings, Silvia smiled happily while rubbing her cheek against Sillua’s face.

“Uhihihi! It’s my sister! Sister! You know what! Sillua! I begged Mom that I wanted a little sister. But Mom said…”

“Silvia, you’ll startle Sillua if you do that all of a sudden.”

At the voice coming from behind, Sillua flinched.

It was a voice she couldn’t forget even if she wanted to, so she couldn’t bring herself to look back.

She was afraid that if she looked back now, they might disappear like an illusion.

“Long time no see, Sillua. Our daughter.”

Jaeolin, who approached from the side, matched Sillua’s eye level while stroking her head.

“M-mother.”

“Yes. It’s Mom.”

Jaeolin hugged Sillua, who was being held by Silvia.

Feeling the warmth all over her body, Sillua didn’t know what to do.

“Mother, this… isn’t a dream, right?”

At Sillua’s question, Jaeolin made a troubled expression.

“Well… it’s ambiguous.”

“Pardon?”

“This place is a place that is a dream yet not a dream, reality yet not reality. How should I explain this…”

As Jaeolin was troubled, Geor approached and stroked Sillua and Silvia’s heads.

“No need to explain it in a complicated way. She’ll naturally understand when she connects.”

“Father?”

When Sillua looked up at Geor, Geor showed a faint smile.

It was the smile Sillua had wanted to see so much for the past 10 years.

“Sillua, do you see that tree?”

Sillua nodded, looking at where Geor pointed.

“Bring your forehead to that place. Then you’ll understand where this is, and what kind of beings we are.”

At Geor’s instruction, Jaeolin and Silvia let go of Sillua.

After looking at the three alternately, Sillua carefully approached the tree and placed her forehead against it.

Then, the magic circuits engraved on Sillua’s body sparkled with violet magic power and connected to the tree through her forehead.

As magic circuits spread on the huge tree, the tree began to glow.

“Ah…!”

All the information recorded by the tree, the core of the Archive, flowed into Sillua’s head.

If it were an ordinary person, it wouldn’t be strange for their brain to melt at that vast amount of information, but Sillua didn’t feel such pain.

It wasn’t because she was a doll.

“So this place… was the Archive.”

This place, the Archive, was a magical space existing in Sillua’s mind, so the current task was closer to recalling forgotten memories rather than accepting memories.

“This is what Yuan oppa meant when he said Father doesn’t need to teach magic anymore.”

She had already mastered all of Geor’s magic, so Geor no longer needed to teach magic.

“And as long as I don’t forget that fact, I’m no longer alone.”

Recalling Yuan’s whisper, Sillua turned around and looked at her family.

She was no longer alone. Her family was within her.

“Father, Mother, Sister… are real yet not real.”

Even if they were fragments of souls, not the actual ones, her beloved family was together.

Sillua just wanted to become family.

She wanted to become Silvia’s substitute.

So she followed her sister’s actions while she was alive.

Endlessly, continuously embroidering messy stitches like Silvia, carrying firewood, and bringing food to the table.

“Ha, haha… I’m a fool.”

Sillua couldn’t help but evaluate herself that way.

She had already been a member of the family, yet she strived to become family.

Imagining how much Father must have worried about her because of that made her feel so foolish.

She was so embarrassed she wanted to find a mousehole and hide.

“I’m sorry, Father. For being foolish, for being stupid…”

Geor, who approached the apologizing Sillua, hugged her.

“No, I’m the one who’s sorry. I lacked and couldn’t give you faith.”

Sillua burrowed into Geor’s embrace.

Stroking Sillua’s head, Geor spoke.

“Go quickly. Don’t you have something to tell that incompetent disciple?”

At Geor’s words, Sillua hesitated for a moment.

Her father’s embrace was so warm, her mother’s side was so dearly missed that she couldn’t bring herself to leave.

Seeing such Sillua, Jaeolin smiled.

“It’s alright, we won’t disappear. You can come anytime you want. Now you don’t have to spend the long nights alone anymore.”

At Jaeolin’s words, Sillua’s eyes reddened.

Dolls cannot sleep.

To magical dolls, sleep was no different from being dead.

So when Geor fell asleep, Sillua had to spend the long nights alone.

But now it was okay to not secretly enter Geor’s room while he slept, stay in his arms, and leave before he woke up, enduring loneliness alone.

Silvia waved at Sillua.

“Come back soon! My sister!”

Because from now on, she would be with family during the long nights.

Sillua closed her eyes for a moment in her family’s embrace.

And when she opened her eyes again, Yuan greeted Sillua.

“Welcome back, Sillua.”

At Yuan’s greeting, Sillua shed tears.

She endlessly shed tears that couldn’t possibly flow.

Sillua’s tears fell to the ground, permeated with magic power and became solid crystals.

Originally, magical creatures like mermaids or vampires cannot shed tears.

The same goes for magical dolls like Sillua who are infinitely close to humans.

When something that shouldn’t exist in the world happens, people call it a ‘miracle’.

Miracles are imbued with all sorts of incomprehensible magical elements and simultaneously hold magic power, and in the magic world, those are collectively called ‘Crystals of Miracle’.

“Thank you. Yuan oppa.”

At Sillua’s thanks, I stroked her head.

Sillua’s father, Geor Philip, never activates his final legacy ‘Geor’s Memories’ in until the end.

Even though showing what happened as it was is more definite than a hundred words in making Sillua understand she was family from the moment of her birth.

One thing that can be asserted is that the reason Geor didn’t activate the memories was solely for Sillua, who was left alone.

After Sillua sees the memories and realizes she is family, what awaits her?

An empty house where no one remains, that’s all.

Only Geor and Jaeolin’s memories remain here, with no one to welcome or hug Sillua.

It’s easy to predict which Sillua will choose between the empty house and the Archive with family once she knows that fact.

Because the family in the Archive was real yet not real.

Geor wished until the end for Sillua to exist and stand on her own.

Because parents are beings who always wish for their children to escape their shadows and be happy even in a world without them.

So I smiled at Sillua, who returned to reality.

“I’m the one who should thank you for coming back.”

Sillua, who nodded at my words, looked at her father lying still with tears.

“Father is… gone, right?”

That question contained so much.

So I couldn’t answer right away.

“…Yes. If you met your father in the Archive, …he’s gone.”

At my cautious answer, Sillua slowly approached the bed.

“I can meet Father anytime. I can meet Mother and Sister too. But… why does my heart hurt so much?”

“That’s probably because you’re your father’s daughter.”

Hearing my words, Sillua lowered her head and shed endless tears.

The tears that became Crystals of Miracle rolled on the floor, and she soon cried out loud.

“It hurts…! My heart hurts so much! Father, it hurts so much!”

Sillua wailed, burying her face in Geor’s gradually cooling chest.

It was an inevitable, painful, and arduous cry, like a bird breaking out of its egg, like a pupa becoming a butterfly.

The process of accepting her father’s death was the process Geor so dearly wished for Sillua to rise on her own.

A doll thus began to grow into a person.

I brought my hand to the handle to open the desk drawer in Geor’s room.

“Hoho, is this the final test? Teacher.”

As I grabbed the handle, a firm sealing magic activated.

The seal, which looked complicated at a glance, seemed to contain the essence of the magic Geor had taught me so far.

“What a stubborn old man.”

Undoing the seal was quite tricky.

But after a few attempts, I succeeded in breaking the seal.

Inside the drawer was a thin notebook that could be used infinitely through magic.

The notebook read:

‘Research Journal.’

It wasn’t a grimoire containing Geor’s essence.

It was just a journal recording his research, but it might be even more valuable than Geor’s grimoire.

Because this research journal would be filled with the trial and errors that couldn’t be included in the grimoire.

I skimmed through the research journal, and when I reached the last record, I stopped my hand.

The title of the last research was ‘Theoretical Discourse and Practical Conception for Developing High-Density Magic Circuits’.

My teacher’s final research was research for me.

The next day, Geor’s funeral was held modestly in the yard.

The only attendees were Precia, Gilbert, the chief mourner Sillua, and myself.

If he hadn’t secluded himself like this, his funeral would have been held as grandly as possible.

Not only high-ranking mages of the Magic Tower, but also major figures in politics and business.

Even the king would have come to pay respects in person, that’s how grand it would have been.

The current funeral was too humble to be called the funeral of a sage, the pinnacle of mages.

But the old man lying peacefully in the coffin looked more relaxed and happy than anyone else, as if none of that mattered.

“Elder, I’ve fulfilled your last request, so rest in peace without worry.”

I offered a pure white chrysanthemum and silently paid respects for a moment.

Precia comforted and hugged Sillua, who lost her father, and Gilbert finally burst into tears after holding it in.

The Zillian series carefully buried the coffin containing Geor next to Jaeolin and Silvia’s in a corner of the yard.

Sillua showed a mournful expression but soon smiled.

“Rest well, beloved Father.”

I stroked Sillua’s head and said,

“Let’s go inside. I’ll bake delicious madeleines for you.”

“Wow! Really? Ah, but Mother always baked madeleines when there was a joyous occasion. On a day like today…”

“I’ll still bake them.”

We should celebrate the fulfillment of Geor’s last wish.

Now no one knows how to bake Jaeolin’s madeleines deliciously.

Except me.

As I went inside, I uncharacteristically prayed.

If there is a god in this world, please don’t blame his soul for being lacking.

Please forgive the small lingering attachment for his daughter left alone.

“…If there is such a thing as a god, that is.”