Ch.419Episode 16 – The Six Million Dollar Man

The shaman forming a hand seal swept his gaze around the surroundings.

‘Where is Salim?’

Salim, the wind shaman.

His colleague who controlled the wind was hiding behind debris, clutching his arm. Through his burned sleeve, his grotesquely distorted arm was clearly visible, oozing with discharge.

Tsk, was he hit by magic?

‘Fire mages and wind shamans have poor compatibility. Fire has a tendency to spread with the wind.’

Magic users and shamans entering battle must always consider their opponent’s attributes and respond accordingly.

Wind and fire boast the best synergy when they meet as allies, but become the worst match when they face each other as enemies. If one side is even slightly more skilled, they can use the other’s magic or shamanism against them for devastating attacks.

It would be better not to participate in battle at all if one cannot form hand seals.

Having finished her calculations, Fatima stared at her enemy. Fire and earth. Whether by combination or compatibility, she had the advantage.

Moreover…

‘Their power is diminishing. The casting speed of their magic is decreasing too. Early symptoms of mana depletion are showing.’

Her sharp lips curved into an arc. Meanwhile, Camilla firmly pressed her dry lips together.

Perhaps from inhaling sand during the fierce battle, her mouth felt parched. Her lips were bone dry, and her throat was burning.

“……”

Taking a small deep breath, Camilla glared into empty space with clouded eyes.

Her consciousness seemed detached from reality, floating. Time, once parallel to space, began to flow slowly as if taking a detour.

Separated from the battlefield, Camilla maintained her silence. And she thought.

‘What is it that I fear?’

To answer that question.

Episode 16 – The Six Million Dollar Man

Learning without questioning is mere blind faith, and a life without contemplation cannot think.

They say spending energy on impossible tasks is merely a waste, but for every decision, big or small, it’s best to think and contemplate endlessly.

Camilla pondered.

What was she afraid of?

The beginning of her contemplation was a question from a grand mage who had lived for over a century. Grand Duchess Alexandra Petrovna. The person who slew demons in the north and saved her life, and the mentor who taught her magic.

Personally, Camilla was more accustomed to addressing the Grand Duchess as “professor” rather than “mentor,” but she clearly recognized that their relationship was not that of an ordinary professor and student.

People interpreted the Grand Duchess’s decision to educate the hero as containing some political calculation,

but at least in Camilla’s view, Alexandra Petrovna harbored no self-interest.

To the Grand Duchess, Camilla was not the hero destined to save the world, but simply one mage.

For as long as humanity has followed new currents since the death of the saint who bore the cross, mages have nurtured disciples and passed down magic for thousands of years. So it’s fair to say that magic is a kind of legacy.

From that perspective, the Grand Duchess’s teachings were not merely fertilizer to help a girl grow into a proper mage.

It was her legacy, entrusted by a grand mage who had lived for a century to a young mage.

Why had the Grand Duchess entrusted her legacy to her? And to a complete stranger at that.

Camilla knew well how complicated the legal procedures for inheritance were. And the significance of a grand mage’s knowledge in magical society.

The Grand Duchess surely knew this too. She was a grand mage who had led the golden age of the magic tower, and one of the two great living mages.

Nevertheless, the Grand Duchess wanted to entrust her legacy to Camilla.

Why?

Camilla tried to understand the true meaning behind this legacy. And she sought to comprehend the intent behind the question left for her before departing for the Moritani continent.

Then suddenly, a thought occurred to her.

‘……’

If. Just if.

If she hadn’t suddenly fallen into this unfamiliar world, what would she be doing?

A world without magic, divinity, or mystery. If she had lived normally in a world where magic was dismissed as fantasy, rather than one where reality and unreality coexisted.

Perhaps she would have graduated from university.

She might have continued her studies gazing at Gothic architecture, England’s most splendid architectural heritage, from a bridge built by the great scholar who discovered gravity.

She would have attended lectures by enthusiastic professors from early morning, had drinks with friends at social clubs, and during vacations, clinked glasses with seniors working at “companies.”

She might have joined her sister on medical volunteer work. Or perhaps briefly worked at a news agency with help from her brother who graduated from the London School of Economics. Maybe she would have applied once more for that internship at the intelligence agency she so wanted.

Camilla constantly recalled moments from a past she wasn’t even sure she could return to anymore. And she pondered deeply.

Would she have been happy?

Earning a degree, tossing her graduation cap high, entering her dream workplace. She could have led an ordinary life like others, or perhaps attended the London School of Economics as her parents wished and inherited the family business.

But it seemed difficult to find true happiness in that life.

‘……’

Her contemplation continued. The first thing that came to mind was her father’s face, vehemently opposing when he saw her Cambridge acceptance letter.

Her father scolded his daughter for entering the Department of Conflict Studies. He asked why she would choose such a difficult path, abandoning a comfortable life. Her father urged her to give up, but she never yielded.

Why was that?

Looking back, her father wasn’t a man of much anger.

The only times the most affectionate father in the world got angry were when she applied to the Department of Conflict Studies against his opposition, and when she accompanied her sister on volunteer work in Afghanistan.

She didn’t understand then, but she could now. Why her father was so angry. It was a parent’s concern for their child’s well-being, and a father’s wish for his child to live a better life.

However, the one thing she still couldn’t understand was…

Her past self who maintained a firm stance and never yielded.

She had never opposed her parents’ decisions in life. More precisely, she lacked personal opinions.

She attended private school because she had no preference, and when a teacher assigned homework to explore career paths, she researched her parents’ professions—soldier and lawyer—because she had no particular dream.

A life without worries about the future or concerns about career paths.

So why had she been so eager to join an intelligence agency?

Was it because she was captivated by the attractive image of spies on screen? Or was it because she happened to watch spy films while contemplating her career path before university?

As her sister once said, perhaps her wandering through war zones was also a decision made out of fascination with the illusions shown on screen, as she had no particular dream.

Maybe even her decision to apply to the Department of Conflict Studies was an impulsive one made after watching a movie.

‘……’

Why spy films specifically? Why apply for an internship? Camilla tried to trace her memories to find the reason.

Then a memory suddenly surfaced.

Was it Afghanistan or Iraq? Since it was a region where ISIS was rampaging, it was likely Iraq. The city of Mosul.

On a trip abroad with friends from her department, she encountered refugees for the first time. A newborn wrapped in a bundle. An elderly woman extended the tear-soaked bundle to the volunteers.

Did she say it was her grandchild caught in a bomb attack? Though she couldn’t understand the old woman’s Arabic, she understood the request. Camilla carried the infant on her back, rushed to the hospital, and pleaded with a passing doctor to save the baby.

She still remembers the doctor shaking his head. It was already too late to save the child, he said. He also mentioned they lacked the capacity to admit more patients due to bed shortages.

As her tunnel vision suddenly widened, the hospital scene finally came into view. A police officer with a split head entered the emergency room supported by colleagues, while people wailed, clutching bodies covered with white sheets.

The scene she witnessed leaving the hospital was equally unforgettable. A boy not even 10 years old was pulling a cart containing a body. It was his father’s corpse, killed by indiscriminate terrorist sniper fire.

That evening, back at the lodging, Camilla blankly stared at the ceiling while watching news covering Iraq’s civil war on the wall-mounted TV. Al Jazeera’s announcer was reporting that an ISIS official had been killed in a coalition airstrike.

When her thoughts reached this point, she could be honest.

Did she want to save people? Did she want to end terrorists? Or did she want to change the world?

No.

If she had wanted to save lives, she would have become a doctor. Like her sister, she would have joined Doctors Without Borders, refusing positions with guaranteed salaries. If she had wanted to eradicate terrorist groups, she would have become a soldier like her father. She would have volunteered for Afghanistan and Iraq like him.

Changing the world was the same. If she had dreamed of change, she would have followed her brother working at a news agency or her mother working in court. Revealing truth through articles, defending innocent victims, and putting criminals in jail.

But she didn’t.

She rejected admission to the London School of Economics and medical school, entered Cambridge, traveled to conflict zones as a volunteer, and even interned at an intelligence agency.

Now she somewhat understood why she had always chosen to do what others told her not to.

It wasn’t the world she wanted to change.

It was herself, who could do nothing for a dying child.

Now everything made sense.

Going to war zones despite her father’s opposition, joining medical volunteer work with her sister, secretly applying for an SIS internship—none of these were decisions to change the world, but efforts to escape her past. Helplessness, skepticism, frustration. It could be expressed in any way.

She wanted to be someone who continuously moved toward a bright future despite frustration and loneliness. Like the spies in movies. Perhaps that’s why she tried to enter an intelligence agency. Because there was hope that something would change if she joined.

That’s why, in this unfamiliar world, she reached out to the intelligence officer.

Because she thought she could change. No, she thought he could change her. She wanted to escape her helplessness and become a new person. If someone had already changed her, she was willing to borrow their hand to change, even at a cost.

That judgment was correct. He had changed her. She learned about a world she hadn’t known, and came to know more. Traveling with him through worlds she hadn’t known before was happiness.

But.

When asked to return to the Empire in the face of crisis, she couldn’t hide her disappointment. She was disappointed once by his attitude of not trusting her, twice by herself for not earning his trust, and again by the reality that she couldn’t change anything alone.

A deep sense of skepticism set in. It persisted even after leaving the safe house, and on the way to the capital.

He advised her to go to the Imperial Embassy, but she couldn’t bring herself to do so. Retreating now would only mean running away.

Holed up in her hotel room, Camilla blankly stared at the ceiling, pondering.

And now, facing the shaman.

Only after being honest with her emotions did she find the answer to the question that had troubled her for decades and the Grand Duchess’s inquiry.

What was she afraid of?

A life that doesn’t change.

She feared her past where she could do nothing for a dying child, and a future where she would remain helpless forever.

A life without contemplation cannot think, and nothing changes without action. If something needs to change, one must at least try.

Starting right now.

“……”

Emerging from her thoughts, Camilla opened her eyes. As her sand-covered eyelids lifted, a pair of brightly shining blue eyes appeared.

What unfolded before her was pervasive death. The scene of Mosul, reduced to ruins by battles between ISIS and coalition forces, overlapped with reality.

She extended her arm. Her straightened arm pointed at the shaman. Standing tall over death, the shaman looked down at her with a cunning smile.

Her finger stretched out. Her index finger, extended straight, aimed at the target without deviation. The three fingers from middle to little finger curled, and her thumb pulled back. Forming her hand like holding a pistol grip, Camilla spoke in a serious voice.

“…The most foolish people are those who think they’re the most righteous in the world.”

Fatima replied.

“Are you talking to me?”

The shaman mocked the mage.

“All talk. Look at yourself. Your mana is depleted, your posture is disheveled. Do you think you can turn the tide with mere words?”

“……”

“But your eyes are still alive? They were cloudy earlier.”

As her thumbs met, complex seals were drawn in the air. The hand seals and incantations, combined over a long time, finally completed the most powerful shamanic spell.

Once cast, no one would survive. Neither the mage nor the war correspondent.

About to attack, Fatima spoke. With a smile containing the leisure of a victor.

“Yes. Those eyes. I don’t like them.”

“……”

“Foreign mages all have those eyes. As if they’re something special. Looking down on us.”

She didn’t like those eyes. It had always been so.

“When you die, I’ll dig out your eyeballs from your corpse. Mage organs have quite a demand. Brokers would pay well.”

Fatima grinned.

Extremists who indiscriminately shoot and bomb in their madness, and shamans who massacre dozens and reduce cities to ruins were surprisingly similar.

Toward such a shaman, she aimed her hand filled with mana.

There was no hesitation in her aim. Mana gathered into a point smaller than a glass marble. Magic with a reddish aura. Looking at the shaman with more serious eyes than ever, Camilla continued in a cold voice.

“…I don’t think so.”

Her finger tensed, and her entire body’s muscles tightened.

Pure mana pushed out the air and sand in her lungs. She felt the mana spreading throughout her body along invisible pathways connected like blood vessels.

Camilla closed her eyelids and concentrated.

Pure mana gathered into a single point. Like a bullet being loaded into a chamber, a bead formed at her fingertip. As Fatima’s fingers crossed and her thumbs touched, an ominous color burst forth.

A shamanic spell with power unlike any seen before. A spell emanating such malevolent intent that even ordinary people who couldn’t sense mana would feel it.

Even as the spell poured forth, Camilla didn’t open her eyes. She only concentrated until the attack reached her.

An alien light began to mix with the reddish bead.

It was a bluish hue.

Like paint stirred with a brush, blue energy seeped into the red bead. The clockwise-rotating bead gradually changed from red to blue.

Just before the shamanic spell fired to kill the mage reached her.

At the moment Fatima smiled deeply, certain of victory.

Camilla’s eyes opened.

– ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶!!!

At that moment, I, crawling up the debris with a pistol, witnessed it.

The scene of a flame piercing through the vast desert.

Camilla’s magic broke through Fatima’s spell and reached its target. A figure engulfed in flames writhed in agony and plummeted to the ground.

In the desert night under starlight.

Sparks fell from the sky like rain.

The flame that dispelled darkness and crossed the night sky,

was tinged with blue.