Ch.24Black Mage (3)

Familiar. That was my first impression.

Bone fragments surging over collapsed buildings, murky floodwaters reminiscent of thick swamp mud.

It was something massive yet blurry, not clearly visible.

Yet somehow, it felt familiar to me. Only after staring blankly did I realize what it was.

Something I had seen countless times in the game.

Mock Transcendent.

A powerful ritual used by some mages of the Research Faction.

It forms by drawing power from human death and its traces. It’s the solidification of accumulated human deaths, emotions directed toward them, and magical energy.

Though it didn’t possess the rank of a Transcendent, it had a Transcendent’s power. Normally, if one manifested, there would be no chance of victory without a party of max-level players.

I need to run. The thought came instantly, but something inside me abruptly stopped it.

Something felt different.

Though I’d only seen it in the game, proportionally something was off.

It was smaller. Less destructive. Compared to its overwhelming majesty, it seemed shabby.

Despite being the same magic I’d seen in the game, it was different. I could notice something there.

The city hall was a coffin. A stone coffin I had personally broken and covered. That thing was something that had flowed out because it couldn’t be contained.

What should have been a sea of death born from countless graves and stolen lives had been reduced to something comparable to a lake or stream.

It worked. What I did wasn’t in vain. As I realized this, chaos spread around me.

The natural human response when facing death.

Running away, screaming, instantly abandoning everything to preserve one’s life.

Not many people remained. Only those too frozen to flee, or those with exceptionally strong will.

And I was no hero.

I was a monster. A twisted monster unable to feel danger in the face of death. That’s what I thought as I watched death surge forward.

Thanks to what I did, I prevented everyone within range from dying the moment that thing emerged.

The dark mage had no choice but to hastily bring it out.

It wasn’t meaningless. People survived because of it. I felt something welling up inside me, but quickly suppressed it.

“There’s something I need to do.”

When I spoke, the mayor turned to look at me blankly. He seemed to have never seen anything like this before.

That was natural. Due to dark mages’ notorious reputation, ordinary people live without knowing anything about them.

They don’t know what magic they use or why they turned to dark magic.

They don’t know why dark mages call their organization the Research Faction. Because they don’t know what fearsome beings lurk beyond this world, beyond that high sky.

I didn’t reproach the man who thought to build a city hall on a columbarium.

“Start evacuating. If you delay, many will die. And that thing will grow larger.”

“…My lord?”

“Actually, I’m not a Black Knight.”

Lying didn’t suit me well. Confessing made me feel better. The mayor’s face showed confusion amid his blank expression, but I had no obligation to explain.

Instead, the white-clad woman approached me and grabbed the edge of my cloak.

“Isla.”

“…You’re going to run away, right?”

An uncertain voice. I looked at her tail drooping to the floor and her ears standing on end.

Normal humans or shapeshifters—beings with finite lives—seemed unable to think clearly when facing that entity. They were overwhelmed and paralyzed.

In other words, I was the only suitable person to step up in this situation. I pulled pieces of armor from my cloak and put them on.

“Right?”

“No.”

“…Why?”

Her tail drooped lower. Though we hadn’t known each other long, Isla seemed afraid that her fellow monster companion might die.

I could understand. I too had longed for my parents, beings I’d never seen, for a long time.

It wasn’t exactly the same, but similar enough. So I understood Isla and took her hand.

The mayor, interpreting this as hesitation, hastily spoke up. He was wasting time trying to persuade me when he could just run away.

“Then, you should flee. If you’re not a Black Knight, there’s no way you could possibly…”

There was an error in his thinking. Even Black Knights couldn’t handle that thing. Though it had weakened because I had buried it alive, it was still a monster that couldn’t be dealt with without level advantage or stat advantage.

Even then, it wasn’t something a single human could handle. That fact was clear even to those who knew little about dark magic.

The words urging escape.

The prediction that no human could withstand it.

All true, but I was different.

I knew the ritual’s weakness, and I had a monstrous body capable of executing a plan.

The method was simple to explain. There was a dark mage controlling the ritual at its center, and killing them would solve everything.

It was just normally impossible because one would have to break through that death to get there.

“I still have to do it.”

“…Why?”

The mayor questioned my resolute answer. As I searched for words, he grabbed my gauntleted wrist.

“I cannot let you walk into certain death. Thanks to you, we’ve gained time, so it’s my duty to let you escape.”

How frustrating. I shook off his hand, but the mayor still moved to block my path.

They seemed unwilling to let me go without an explanation.

So I thought about my reasons.

Because people are dying.

If I don’t do it, who will?

What about people who pass through here later if that thing remains?

Because this is something only I can do.

That doesn’t seem quite right.

Because it’s my duty?

That doesn’t seem right either.

Various reasons and clichéd explanations rose and fell in my mind.

After pondering briefly, I pushed aside all the plausible words and looked at what remained.

There, beneath the pretenses and excuses, lay my true feelings.

“How far has the evacuation progressed?”

The mayor scanned the surroundings despite the sudden question.

“There’s no time to count, but probably…”

His expression hardened, and he shook his head.

“No, I don’t know.”

It was consideration. He was trying not to tell me out of consideration. He didn’t want me to think people would die because of me if I fled.

He was a good person. I felt bad for deceiving him. Even as I thought this, I spoke.

“If I run away, many will die, right?”

“…Well.”

“Many will die and get hurt. I’m not sure if that’s right.”

That was me. Not eloquent enough to say something impressive.

But even if it was vague, I shared my true feelings.

“But even if I manage to escape from here, I think I’ll keep thinking about this.”

Before becoming like this, I didn’t realize it, but I was a person with strong guilt.

“When I try to sleep, when the wind feels nice and cool, when I’m laughing and talking or eating something delicious, I think it will come to mind often.”

Even now, I couldn’t forget the anguished face of the Cannibal Baron, the dejected expression of the mercenary known as the Star Blade.

They would probably stay with me forever. I suppressed a wry smile.

“Then life wouldn’t be much worth living.”

“…Ah.”

I removed Isla’s hand from my cloak and approached the ruins of the city hall.

Death was still surging, crying out as it tried to escape the weight pressing down on it.

“I don’t want that. Rather than ending up like that, I want to do something.”

That was my reason. I was doing this for myself.

I was too selfish for noble self-sacrifice.

“So Isla, don’t follow me. Wait here. I’ll be back soon.”

As I approached, death surged toward me, extending its hand.

Death wrapped around my wrist like tentacles, enveloping my body.

Thoughts that weren’t mine poured into my head like fragments, spreading throughout my body.

“…Ugh.”

Emotions and pain followed the thoughts. A sharp, chilling sensation like my hair standing on end.

My body was gradually pulled in.

A sensation of restriction, like being submerged in water. With the feeling of being sucked in from where I was grabbed, I was pulled into death, hearing someone calling my name for the last time.

It felt like being swallowed alive by a swamp. I’d never experienced such a thing in my life, but the strange pungent feeling made me think it might be like this.

Even that didn’t last long. Soon, countless things poured toward me, battering my entire body.

Pain of skin being torn, the burning of flesh being flayed, agony like every nerve cell being ripped apart swept through my body.

It wasn’t mine. I knew from experiencing it in the game. This was an illusion created by the Mock Transcendent “Death.”

It was something created by gathering the lingering thoughts of those who had died and been buried. So it didn’t really exist, but…

It was still terribly painful. The pain automatically connected to my memories.

The most painful memories of my life. The darkest shadows of my life that I didn’t want to recall.

The bullies I met on my way home from the cafeteria with dinner.

The instant curry they stole and smashed on the ground, which I had to gather into a bag and take home as an elementary school student.

Having to bring my hard-working sister because I had no parents, and still being unable to avoid the taunting.

Becoming accustomed to life and no longer measuring loss, naturally discussing “absence” in middle school.

The resentment I felt toward my sister despite that. The harsh words I spoke to her, which I regretted.

Tears, guilt, throwing punches when I couldn’t endure the finger-pointing directed at my immature, brief running away from home.

The humiliating experiences of having to come, repeatedly bow, kneel with my sister to apologize, and beg for leniency.

Memories that once ate away at me suddenly resurfaced. The personal deaths long buried under dust grabbed my ankles, pulling me deeper into death.

Ah, so this is why you die if your stats are insufficient. The fresh memories naturally showed me the path I needed to take.

I needed an escape.

So deliberately, desperately, I recalled happy memories.

I had my first friend. He was a good guy who didn’t mock my family circumstances or poverty.

He would give mature answers to my immature worries, but also share his own childish concerns with me as an equal.

He moved away without leaving any contact information, and I never saw him again, but he gave me courage.

His face was blurry, but his words were engraved in my memory like text.

‘Yes, I love my sister too.’

I also recalled a heart-to-heart conversation with my sister. The memory of her smiling and affirming my expression of affection as I hugged her and apologized for saying harsh things.

It was right after an argument, but my sister’s embrace was warm and taught me what the word “mother” might feel like.

Even the conversation itself was blurry, but I was able to live earnestly based on what I felt then.

The sense of becoming a better person.

Wanting to work hard.

And working hard.

Memories of trying somehow to overcome this shitty life.

Having nothing, and destined to have nothing.

Just because I chose the wrong race, even the only thing I had was taken away, yet I still had reason to do my best after falling here.

So I steeled my will and broke through to the very bottom of death.

I had clearly become a monster due to choosing the wrong race, but…

That wasn’t all I was.

THUD!

I fell through the thick, murky death to the floor. As I got up after rolling on the ground, someone was standing facing me.

A dark mage whose ten fingers on both hands had been cut off, worn down by frequent torture and pain.

Yet still a scholar trying to complete what they had been researching.

A person who, unlike me, had surrendered to reality and chosen the wrong path.

“…How?”

I faced her.