Ch.305Episode 12 – The Strongest Mage in History

Black monsters attack from all directions. They swarm like ants along the narrow alley and crawl eerily on the exterior walls of buildings.

Their skin, reflecting the faint moonlight, shines like obsidian. Their limbs, covered in black carapaces, are gaunt, elongated, and bent at unnatural angles.

“Swoooosh!”

A sound cuts through the air as something flies overhead. It’s a wizard riding a broomstick.

A series of explosions follows.

BOOM! Flames erupt and fierce winds sweep past my body. The wizard who bombarded the residential area banks sharply and gains altitude. In the wake of the magic, screams and cries fill the air.

Sounds are everywhere. Blaring sirens and battle noise, with evacuation announcements murmuring against a backdrop of agonized screams.

I can’t tell if this is a dream or reality.

“What the hell…”

Just as I try to stand on unsteady legs, Francesca grabs my shoulder.

Pushing her shoulder under my armpit and lifting me up, she supports me with effort and says, “I’m sure you have many questions, but the situation isn’t good. Let’s move to somewhere safe first.”

Details later. After saying this, Francesca throws a vial at the monsters.

The vial shatters against the wall.

Liquid mixed with fragments flows down the wall, soaking the skeletal vines and weeds that survived the harsh winter.

CRACK!

The plants grow instantly.

Regaining their vibrant color, they flourish abundantly, firmly entangling the limbs of monsters entering the narrow alley.

“Hero!”

“I know!”

Camilla, gripping flames in her hand, sets fire to the vines.

The flickering flames dart like tongues, spreading throughout the alley in an instant.

Amid the sweltering heat, acrid smoke, and screams stained with pain and tears coming from all directions,

“Let’s go!”

I frantically escape the alley, leaning on Francesca’s shoulder.

Episode 12 – The Most Powerful Wizard in History

I open my eyes to find the whole world burning.

Orbents, always quiet due to the lockdown, is now filled with noise.

“Aaaaargh! Run!”

“Don’t push! Stop pushing, damn it!”

“Father! Where are you, father? Mom! Stay close with the younger ones! I’ll be right back!”

The city has fallen into chaos.

Having just escaped the alley and frantically looking around, I snap back to reality at the sight of Orbents’ chaotic streets.

This wasn’t a dream but reality.

As my scattered wits return, I can view the situation more objectively.

Blood flowing from my head, bandages wrapped around my skull, my body smelling of gunpowder, and Camilla carrying my personal firearm. The demon is nowhere to be seen. Before that, I wonder why I was face-down in an alley when I had been on a rooftop.

Leaning on Francesca’s shoulder while observing the chaos, I ask in an irritated voice, hoping anyone would answer:

“What the hell is going on here? What are those monster bastards, and why is the city in this state?”

“That’s a long explanation. How much do you remember, Officer?”

“Remember…”

Just as I’m about to speak, my eyes meet Camilla’s worried gaze, and I instinctively close my mouth.

I subdued the demon, searched the surroundings, and returned to the group.

I entered a building with an open door, climbed the stairs, and met Camilla on the rooftop. She didn’t answer my questions, and as soon as she turned around, she suddenly started choking me.

I remember it. The monstrous grip squeezing my windpipe. The black eyes grinning.

Camilla’s blackened eyes were chillingly identical to the demon’s.

I vividly remember not just the choking fingers but also the scenery of the stairs I climbed to meet her and the feel of the breeze up there.

As the memory of crossing the rooftop threshold surfaces, a thought suddenly strikes me:

Is this really my memory?

“…”

Various hypotheses came to mind, but no clear answer emerged. I decided to simply share what had happened.

After hearing my account, the group fell into serious contemplation. Then Lucia, who had been quietly listening, spoke in a calm voice:

“It was a hallucination. You seem to have been bewitched by the demon.”

“…A hallucination? So it was all a lie?”

“Yes, it was false.”

Lucia nodded firmly.

“After subduing the demon, you did go to scout the area as you remember. But what you experienced after returning to the clearing differs greatly from what we recall.”

“What happened then?”

“You jumped off the rooftop.”

“What?”

“You heard me correctly.”

The truth Lucia revealed was more shocking than I had imagined.

“You said you returned from scouting after 5 minutes? But in our memory, you were gone for over 15 minutes.”

“I didn’t return for 15 minutes…?”

“Yes. The support that should have arrived didn’t come, and we were about to search for you since there had been no contact for too long. Then suddenly you returned.”

“And then? What else happened?”

“You didn’t answer when the administrator asked if you were alright. Without saying a word, you walked past us and headed straight for the building the hero had entered.”

The story she told next was markedly different from what I remembered.

According to Lucia, I didn’t say anything when I returned from scouting. I did go up to the rooftop where Camilla had gone to send a signal, but I never asked where she went or said I would bring her back.

Seeing me walking like someone out of my mind, Lucia moved to stop me. That’s when I suddenly started running toward the rooftop.

Francesca recalled that moment:

“You were too fast to catch. You climbed the stairs two or three at a time with your gun and gear. When I tried to follow, you suddenly pushed furniture down the corridor. The Saint and I almost got crushed on the stairs because of that.”

“…”

At the mention of throwing furniture, a memory flashed through my mind. It was a tactic I often used to shake off pursuers during my field days.

“By the time we cleared the furniture and reached the rooftop, it was too late.”

When the two arrived at the rooftop, I had already thrown myself into the air.

Camilla sensed something was wrong and tried to grab me quickly, but I shook off her hand and jumped right off the rooftop.

Fortunately, I survived because I collided with various obstacles like balconies, outdoor units, and walls on the way down, but I suffered a severe head injury and lost consciousness for a while.

I lightly pushed my helmet and touched the tightly wrapped bandages.

“…I have no idea what happened.”

“In my personal opinion, you were bewitched by the demon. You were alone and relaxed, which created an opening.”

“It might also be a curse. Even though the necromancer is dead, there might be someone here targeting someone like you, Officer.”

“What do we do now?”

As Camilla asked while holding her rifle and scanning the surroundings, I interrupted the conversation, unable to organize my complicated thoughts.

“Wait, what about the monsters? No, before that, what about the demon? What happened to the demon?”

“…”

“Did you kill it?”

The group fell silent.

I looked at the three silent people against the backdrop of the chaotic city, breathing heavily.

“Say something.”

“…”

Francesca and Camilla’s gazes shifted sideways. The alchemist and the hero silently watched the Saint, who remained quiet.

Seeming burdened by the three pairs of eyes, Lucia took a deep breath.

“The demon…”

Then, with a deep sigh, she continued in a subdued voice.

“It escaped.”

*

“It escaped? How, why did it escape?”

On the chaotic streets of Orbents, standing slightly apart from the commotion, I pressed the group.

“Tell me in detail.”

“…We don’t know the exact circumstances either. We only know that the seal was broken by an external shock.”

Lucia and Francesca left their posts to catch me as I ran to the rooftop. The three, including Camilla, rushed down to the alley as soon as I fell.

“While healing your wounds, I sensed the seal was shaking. Since a demon couldn’t break such a sturdy seal on its own, I thought perhaps a resident trying to check the outside situation had disturbed it.”

When Lucia hurriedly returned to the clearing, the seal was already broken.

She doesn’t know how the seal was broken. Perhaps no one knows except the demon itself.

But what’s certain is that the demon was freed from its restraints.

“Why didn’t you pursue it?”

“I’ll explain that.”

Francesca spoke up.

“When the Saint returned to the scene, I stayed with you to tend to your injuries, and the Saint and the Hero decided to track the demon. We made the plan as soon as we realized there was a problem with the seal.”

“But you didn’t pursue.”

“Of course not, because a battle broke out.”

“A battle?”

“Didn’t you see them earlier? Those monsters.”

Right. I saw them. Those bizarre monsters.

The monsters had human forms but were far from human. They wore hard carapaces reminiscent of minerals, moved limbs that were twisted and elongated in bizarre directions, and climbed building walls.

They were less like monsters and more like wooden puppets made by a collector with a nasty hobby.

“…”

I stared blankly into space.

Could this all be part of a plan? Push me off the rooftop, make Lucia leave her post, break the seal and escape, create monsters to hinder our pursuit.

“…That bastard.”

He’s really good at fighting dirty.

Many hypotheses came to mind, but again, no clear answer emerged. Sighing, I quickly nodded in acceptance.

In this crazy world, what’s a monster or two? We already have demons.

“Fine. Monsters have appeared. Fucking fantastic. Demons, necromancers, and now monsters.”

Regret gets us nowhere. We need to request support from the military command immediately, bring Veronica, and kill the demon. That should end this chaos.

As I was nodding like a madman and about to speak after organizing my thoughts,

“Well, strictly speaking, the monsters didn’t ‘appear’.”

Camilla, who had been scanning the surroundings, blurted out.

“What do you mean?”

“The monsters didn’t ‘appear.’ They ‘arose’.”

Francesca, standing beside her, continued:

“Remember those homeless people we saw initially? The ones killed by the demon.”

“Yes.”

“The monsters are those people.”

“…What?”

Camilla raised her rifle and shouldered it stylishly.

“The homeless people got up and started attacking Lucia and me. We caught three, but one escaped. It fled through the alley to the street and killed other civilians there. And those bitten civilians ended up the same way.”

“…”

“Like zombies.”

*

The demon broke free from its restraints.

It breached the demon-sealing formation and the barrier. After escaping, it massacred the military that had formed a perimeter and killed four more civilians while fleeing.

We pursued and barely subdued it, but it ultimately broke its restraints and escaped again.

The civilians killed by the demon became neither living nor dead and harmed other civilians. We had to kill them a second time with our own hands.

It’s a horrific reality. A reality too tragic and devastating to be described merely as “horrific.”

Unfortunately, we had no time to mourn this miserable reality.

For every tear that falls, a bucket of blood flows in this world. That’s the kind of world it was.

“…”

Having barely regained my composure, I silently observed the surroundings. Orbents, shrouded in darkness, was like an abyss where one couldn’t see a step ahead.

The once-quiet roads are now packed with people.

“We have to go! We have to go!”

“Shouldn’t we leave the city now? Martial law or not, we need to survive first.”

The crowd that poured into the streets at dawn as heavy snow fell was occupying the roads and fleeing in all directions.

Their appearance was shabby, as if they had just woken up.

Those with means wore thick coats over their pajamas, but many wore only thin sleepwear or didn’t even have shoes.

The six-lane road was blocked with people. Screams and desperate calls for lost family members could be heard everywhere.

“Move aside! Don’t block the way!”

A citizen in a car raised his voice. An old sedan carrying a family honked its horn. Behind it, countless vehicles were lined up bumper to bumper.

They were people who had brought out their cars during the chaos. Whether due to luck, planning, or other reasons.

Their circumstances for bringing out their cars might differ, but their predicament of being unable to move an inch on the road packed with people was similar.

Then, an explosion sound reached the ears of citizens lingering on the chaotic road.

BOOM!!

Ratatatatat! Ratatatatat!

Despite the ambient noise, the gunfire and explosions were clear enough for even those with poor hearing to hear.

At the sudden boom, citizens stopped what they were doing and looked around. Hopeful thoughts flashed in their eyes, wondering if they had misheard or if this was just a dream.

Those thoughts were shattered by the intense machine gun fire that sounded nearby.

DUDUDUDUNG—!!

“Monsters! Monsters have appeared!”

“Run!”

Ratatatatat. Ratatatatat. Bang bang. Boom! Rumble! The consecutive gunfire and explosions were incomparably more intense than before. And the confusion felt by the citizens was equally more powerful than before.

Through the noise of battle in the distance, a siren sound pierced the eardrums.

-‘Attention all citizens. Combat is currently taking place in downtown Orbents. Please move to the nearest shelter and listen to broadcasts. I repeat.’

The broadcast was drowned out by the surrounding noise.

People were rolling on the road, entangled, perhaps due to a crushing accident. Curses, shouts, screams, and tears soaked the area. There was no order among the citizens fleeing in panic.

To avoid getting caught in the chaos, I led my group into the first floor of a nearby building.

“Shouldn’t we go out and help those people now?”

Lucia, unable to take her eyes off the chaos visible from the entrance, spoke up.

But I firmly shook my head.

“If we get caught up wrongly, we’ll be trampled to death. And if we’re unlucky, they might even threaten our lives.”

“That seems a bit extreme…”

Lucia trailed off. Her character, profession, duty, and life trajectory made it impossible for her to turn away from the tragedy outside.

“Those people just need help.”

Not wrong.

But my thoughts differed.

Pointing at the chaotic streets of Orbents with my finger, I said:

“Right now, they might all look like people desperately trying to evacuate, but in 30 minutes, someone will definitely cause trouble. They’ll put a knife to a stranger’s throat to save themselves, their family, lover, friend, or those around them.”

This isn’t about lofty philosophical discussions like human nature being good or evil. Save that cloud-catching talk for the psychology exams during promotions.

In my experience, whether it’s war or disaster, when a major event shakes the social system, the place becomes a mess eight times out of ten.

I’m not talking about the U.S. embassy burning in the Middle East or Africa.

While terrorists mixed among citizens at memorial protests killing Western volunteers or attacking embassies often make the news, a robber stabbing a passing citizen to death and fleeing with their bag doesn’t even make the news. It’s common in conflict zones.

And now the North is a conflict zone recognized by the international community and even the Imperial Court.

“I understand your desire to help, but now is not the time. If problems arise there, I won’t be able to help either.”

“…”

“If you really want to help, let’s catch the escaped demon first. If we send it back to hell, we can at least start resolving this situation by tomorrow.”

“…Yes, I understand.”

After alternating her gaze between the window and me for a while, Lucia nodded in reluctant agreement.

It might seem like she was agreeing unwillingly, but that didn’t matter.

Once people cooperate once, they find it harder to refuse afterward. Even the intelligence agencies of the always-feuding U.S. and Russia agree on this point. Different races, but human psychology is ultimately the same.

“Good.”

I peeked out to assess the situation.

The streets, once filled with evacuees, were now relatively empty. There were still civilians, but not enough to hinder movement, so leaving now wouldn’t be a problem.

Taking out the pistol from my holster and disengaging the safety, I turned to the group and said:

“It seems to have cleared up, so let’s move.”

“Should I return your gun?”

“No, keep it. We don’t know what might happen.”

Camilla hung the rifle’s sling around her neck and adjusted its length. Her natural, flowing movements made me think the rigorous training had paid off.

I left the building with my pistol drawn. Francesca, Lucia, and Camilla moved as quietly as possible, slightly hunched over.

The gunfire that was once distant now comes from all directions. Judging by the varying distances, it seemed like scattered Imperial troops engaged in combat.

Crouching behind an abandoned car, I quietly began while scanning the surroundings:

“There’s gunfire everywhere.”

“Not good.”

Camilla, holding her rifle, bent one knee. Her thick coat pockets were filled with magazines loaded with ammunition.

“All those troops wouldn’t be scattered and shooting just to catch one demon… Could there be another problem?”

“Skirmish? Maybe. The difference is that this is the Kien Empire, not a third-world country, and it’s not a place where soft bastards like Boko Haram or ISIS run rampant.”

According to the group’s testimony, civilians killed by the demon came back to life and attacked people.

Those attacked by them became the same kind of monsters, and these transformed individuals attacked people around them.

Lucia, taking out knuckles and a rosary from her pocket, asked:

“Could the demon have fled elsewhere and attacked citizens?”

“That’s highly possible, but I think differently. The demon didn’t kill just four people, did it?”

At those words, Lucia’s movements preparing for battle stopped abruptly. After staring blankly into space as if thinking about something, she lowered her head with a dazed expression.

“…The people who first entered the city.”

When the alarm sounded, the division surrounding Orbents dispatched troops to the scene. They were the first response unit, and the advance team from the Church and the Magic Tower was with them.

That advance team was found completely annihilated at the scene. When we arrived, we were preoccupied with finding the escaped demon.

In other words, the bodies left at the scene were not recovered.

There’s no need to check what happened to those bodies. The gunfire echoing from all directions already provides the answer.

“Lucia, as you said, it’s a very cunning bastard. Every movement, every battle, was meticulously planned. It’s smart. I’m impressed.”

“Damn…”

Lucia slumped to the ground.

“Even if it took time, I should have performed the purification then…”

“If you had, the demon would have fled further or killed more people. It was bound to happen sooner or later.”

“It was my mistake. I shouldn’t have left the demon.”

I consoled the self-blaming Lucia.

“It’s not your fault, Lucia. There’s no need for self-blame.”

“…”

“By the way, is there a way to find out where the demon went? I heard the Inquisition secured records from exorcist priests. Is there a method to track demons written there?”

“Hmm.”

Francesca, who had been quiet, made a nasal sound.

“There is a way.”

With a mysterious smile on her lips, she stood up abruptly and brushed the snow off her knees. Then, very naturally, she whistled and extended her hand.

At that moment, a gentle breeze came from somewhere.

Her purple hair fluttered in the wind. The breeze swept over her hair and shoulders and moved forward.

As the wind wrapped around her outstretched hand and slender fingers,

A butterfly, which had appeared out of nowhere and was repeating elegant wing beats, gently landed on Francesca’s index finger.

Francesca brought her extended hand to her lips and smiled.

“Remember?”

She whispered in a very small voice to the butterfly on her finger.

“Find it.”

That was it.

The butterfly, sitting quietly on her finger, fluttered its wings once as if in agreement and flew vigorously toward the void.

A single butterfly soaring toward the dark blue sky where the Milky Way flowed.

The alchemist, standing rooted to the spot and staring at the butterfly, took a small deep breath and adjusted the rune sword attached to her waist.

“South.”

The direction she indicated was exactly where the butterfly had flown.

Francesca said:

“The demon seems to be there. Let’s go find it.”

Her voice was strangely confident.

“Let’s not let it escape this time.”