Chapter Index





    Ch.161Unconventional (3)

    “So what happened to your head in the end?”

    Ruide walked forward with a gentle smile.

    In this completely different atmosphere from before, beads of cold sweat fell from the Emperor’s face.

    “You madman. Hey Dellin, kill him.”

    Dellin raised her staff.

    A black beam of destruction struck Ruide directly.

    BOOM!

    The magic destroyed an innocent area instead.

    Rumble, stones tumbled down.

    The Emperor’s gaze followed the stones.

    He stared at Dellin with a blank face.

    “What are you doing?”

    Dellin aimed her staff once more.

    However, just like before, Dellin’s attack hit a strange location.

    “Damn it, what kind of magician can’t hit one little kid!”

    “It’s not that you missed me.”

    Ruide walked forward, neither slowly nor quickly.

    An inexplicable pressure.

    The Emperor stepped backward.

    “What do you mean by that!”

    Once again, Dellin aimed her staff.

    Flames engulfed the area at a speed too fast to follow with the naked eye.

    But before reaching Ruide’s body, the flames moved elsewhere and exploded.

    “Space just shifted, that’s all.”

    “Space… shifted?”

    Just before the attack made contact, he redirected the spatial coordinates elsewhere.

    That’s all there was to it.

    Ruide stopped in front of Dellin.

    Dellin tried to raise her staff again, but looked at her hand with an indifferent face.

    Her hand was gone.

    “Huh, huh.”

    The Emperor fell over.

    Dellin’s right arm was attached to Ruide’s hand.

    “Thank you.”

    Ruide looked around calmly.

    “For using such magic in front of me. I’ve completely perfected the 5th Magic.”

    The 5th Magic controls space and time.

    It reverses time and manipulates space.

    So, he simply manipulated the space around Dellin’s arm and moved it to his own arm.

    Truly a godlike realm.

    A feeling of omnipotence wrapped around his body, as if he could do anything.

    “And I’m sorry.”

    Ruide bowed his head to the Emperor.

    “Until now, I mistakenly thought everything was ruined because of you. But that wasn’t it.”

    He spilled water from a glass.

    It was something he brought upon himself, not anyone else’s fault.

    He had known that from the beginning.

    He just didn’t want to admit it.

    “…I shouldn’t have gotten involved from the start. The indolent Ruide should live up to his name. Sleeping in the forest, doing nothing. Occasionally helping when the mood strikes would have been appropriate.”

    Ruide, called the non-standard one.

    Having possessed such a character, he seemed to have gotten carried away.

    He thought he could do everything as he pleased.

    He thought it would be fine to act a bit selfishly.

    “I should never have become the protagonist from the beginning.”

    He shouldn’t have turned Justin, the original protagonist, into a corpse.

    Even with incomparable power to Justin’s, he was the only one who could make this world normal.

    “Everyone has their role in life. Why did I ignore that?”

    Ruide’s cloudy pupils stared at something.

    “Hey, are you listening?”

    It was flesh.

    Thousands of small pieces of the First Emperor’s flesh.

    At that moment.

    Crack, crack-

    Dellin’s power, Gehenna, broke.

    With the First Emperor’s death, Dellin’s magical power weakened.

    Whoosh-

    The space collapsed and returned.

    Back to the devastated North.

    Nothing was visible.

    Only snowflakes fluttered.

    Ruide smiled faintly.

    “A sad ending, huh.”

    Magic is power in itself.

    When Gehenna was activated, he felt magical power beyond his comprehension.

    Perhaps everyone had died.

    “If I could start again…”

    Ruide stopped speaking.

    “There’s no way I could do better.”

    He clenched his fist.

    Turn back time and try again?

    Then what about the people now?

    Now that he understood the 5th Magic, he knew.

    Turning back time meant abandoning the current world.

    All the connections he had made.

    Damon, Hersy, and his family.

    It would be like betraying them all just so he could laugh happily.

    There’s no way he could do such a trashy thing.

    [This…]

    Thud!

    “I forgot to kill you.”

    Winter pierced through Dellin’s body.

    Ruide looked at Dellin indifferently and put Winter back into subspace.

    Dellin, with her stomach pierced, lay coldly on the snow.

    Without checking, he could tell she was dead.

    Ruide walked with a blank face.

    Plop, plop-

    His feet sank into the deeply accumulated snow.

    It’s difficult for a young child to walk through such thick snow.

    Still, Ruide walked steadfastly.

    The first place he arrived at was where Victoria was.

    “…Charlotte.”

    Ruide’s head spun.

    Charlotte was there.

    In the pure white snow field, she was quietly lying with her eyes closed.

    Covered in blood, she no longer breathed.

    “Ah, ah.”

    Ruide shook his head.

    Looking up, he saw the familiar back of someone.

    It was Victoria. Victoria stood firmly with her sword stuck in the ground.

    “M-Mother.”

    Ruide ran. He ran and embraced Victoria.

    “Mother, Mother.”

    But her fingertips were cold.

    Moreover, there was no response.

    “Mother…?”

    Victoria was frozen.

    Ruide reached out with tears in his eyes.

    If he broke the ice, then…

    ‘…What would happen?’

    He couldn’t be certain of anything.

    “I-If I turn back time…”

    He failed with Sophia.

    But now, perhaps it might be possible.

    “Just in case, Ella…”

    Ruide turned around.

    If she was at the first line of defense, she might find an answer.

    However.

    Whoosh-

    Beyond the endless ridge.

    And the large Windsor Castle that should have been visible.

    Nothing was visible.

    Everything had frozen.

    By his own magic.

    Thud.

    Ruide sat down.

    It felt like he would never be able to get up again.

    “Rui.”

    At that moment.

    At the dreamlike voice, Ruide stood up abruptly.

    “Sister Irene.”

    Irene was walking through the snow field.

    With her usual enigmatic smile.

    She stood in front of Ruide.

    “You’re safe.”

    Many thoughts crossed his mind.

    Why had Irene done such a thing?

    Why…

    But more important than that.

    He was simply happy that Irene was alive.

    Ruide embraced Irene.

    “Sister, Sister.”

    “Yes. Sister is here.”

    Irene gently stroked Ruide.

    After hugging for a long time, Ruide looked up and asked.

    “What about the others?”

    That was a hopeful expectation.

    “Is Amelia okay? She’s safe, right? You protected her, right? Right?”

    Irene maintained her smiling face and said nothing.

    “…Sister?”

    After maintaining silence for a while, she finally spoke.

    “I have something to show you.”

    **

    They walked through the snow field where nothing was visible.

    He didn’t know where they were going or where they were headed.

    He just held Irene’s hand tightly and walked.

    How much time had passed?

    Irene looked down at Ruide and asked.

    “The journey is long. Won’t you tell me? What happened?”

    Ruide closed his eyes.

    If he told the whole story, how would Irene react?

    “Dellin, Dellin appeared.”

    “I see.”

    “…The First Emperor appeared too. He was stronger than I thought. So, so…”

    Ruide couldn’t bring himself to speak.

    Ruide’s magic.

    Its strength was beyond imagination.

    Too much for this world to accept.

    Conversely, this meant that Dellin’s magic, empowered by the First Emperor’s command, was of equal level.

    To kill her, even stronger magic was needed.

    When two beings beyond life forms used extreme magic against each other, the balance of elements forming the world’s core broke, causing this phenomenon.

    “Did they die?”

    Irene stopped walking.

    “Huh?”

    “The great magician Dellin and First Emperor Ian. Did you kill them both alone?”

    She matched her eye level with Ruide.

    Ruide slowly nodded.

    “How did you kill them?”

    “…I shredded the First Emperor, and stabbed Dellin with Winter.”

    “I see.”

    “…Do you think it’s creepy?”

    Irene looked back.

    Ruide was startled.

    “Why would I?”

    Irene was smiling.

    Not with her habitual smile, but with the most sincere smile ever.

    “I think it’s wonderful.”

    Goosebumps rose on the back of Ruide’s hand.

    ‘Did Irene… want me to become like this?’

    As Irene started walking again, Ruide followed.

    While absentmindedly watching the white breath coming out, it happened.

    “Here we are.”

    Irene stopped at a certain place.

    To Ruide, it looked like an ordinary flat area in the snow field.

    “…What did you want to show me?”

    “That.”

    Ruide’s gaze followed the tip of Irene’s hand.

    Through the endlessly falling snow.

    What was faintly visible was red blood.

    Blood. Yes, blood.

    It didn’t take long to realize it was the blood of someone familiar.

    “Amelia!”

    Ruide ran like mad.

    A blonde woman lying in the snow field.

    Someone more precious to Ruide than anything.

    The “real family” he had gained since coming here.

    Amelia was lying there, holding her pierced stomach.

    “Sister, Sister…”

    Ruide shook her frantically but-

    He could only feel her unbearably cold body temperature.

    She did not return.

    “She didn’t die from Ruide’s magic.”

    Irene gently stroked Ruide. She nuzzled his cheek and tidied his hair.

    “What killed her wasn’t magic, but a spear. Look carefully. At the wound.”

    There was a hole.

    Ruide covered the hole with a blank face.

    “The culprit is Damon.”

    “…Damon?”

    “I don’t know what happened between the three, but sister saw it. Damon ambushing Amelia from behind.”

    Who the culprit was didn’t matter at all to Ruide.

    His concern was only one thing.

    ‘…I might still be able to revive her.’

    Ruide’s eyes burned blue.

    “The 5th Magic.”

    He had failed with Sophia.

    It was because he didn’t know how to revive a soul.

    Even now with the 5th Magic perfected, he knew that the soul would not return.

    But at least… the body.

    “Resurrection of the Dead.”

    Numerous magic circles spread behind Ruide’s back.

    Irene looked at them with somewhat ecstatic eyes.

    The center of those magic circles glowed partially, then instantly entered Amelia’s body.

    The blood that had melted into the white snow went back into Amelia’s body, and the torn skin healed.

    This wasn’t healing. This was Amelia’s body returning to its state from a week ago.

    And-

    Thump.

    Amelia’s heart began to beat again.

    “Really.”

    Irene embraced Ruide.

    A little stronger than usual.

    So he couldn’t move at all.

    “You can revive the dead.”

    “…?”

    “This makes things… a bit difficult for sister.”

    Ruide felt an ominous feeling.

    An extremely unsettling, spine-chilling ominous feeling.

    “What do you mean?”

    It was then.

    “Step away from her, my friend.”

    With a heavy voice, Irene drew her sword.

    Clang!

    A spear was blocked by Irene’s sword and fell.

    But it quickly rose again and returned somewhere.

    There stood Damon.


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