episode_0002

Crash!!

“Ugh!”

My body, callously spat out from a bright cluster of light like chewed-out gum, slammed straight into the ground.

Gritting my teeth, I forcibly swallowed the dizziness, which felt like an aftereffect of the long-distance spatial teleportation magic and the impact of the fall that rattled my entire body. I somehow managed to regain my balance, struggle to my feet, and survey my surroundings.

“Wizard-nim… Wizard-nim?!”

The moment we escaped the unstable sub-dimension, I checked for the Wizard-nim’s location, having lost track of her due to an unexpectedly strong rebound.

As if in response to my shouts for her, a large bush not far away began rustling loudly.

Surprised by that reaction, I rushed towards the bush.

“Ouch…”

The Wizard-nim was stuck headfirst and upside down in a large bush, as tall as an adult, completely tangled and unable to get out, her legs flailing.

Fortunately, the large bush seemed to have acted as a cushion; despite falling upside down, she appeared unharmed.

She was merely letting out a small, annoyed groan due to the discomfort of blood rushing to her head from being inverted.

“I’ll get you out now!”

I cautiously began cutting through the dense bush with the sword I carried at my waist for self-defense.

After cutting and tearing away some of the bush, the dense foliage thinned out, allowing the Wizard-nim to push her way out on her own.

“Are you alright?”

“Phew… I think I’m fine, except for being a little dizzy.”

Having emerged from the bush, the Wizard-nim vigorously shook the branches and dust from her cloak and hair.

Her cloak, which had always maintained its pristine white purity, befitting her moniker, ‘The White Wizard’, had now lost its brilliant luster and was heavily stained with dirt and dust.

“Tsk…”

No matter how hard she brushed with her hands, the stains embedded in her cloak didn’t easily disappear.

She eventually dismissed her wish to remove the cloak’s stains by hand with a click of her tongue, then took a deep breath and looked around.

“Situation report.”

Then, with a practiced double snap of her fingers, she demanded a situation report from me.

As her secretary, I instinctively began to calmly organize and explain the current situation as I knew it, in response to her gesture.

“First, all of Wizard-nim’s magic seems to have vanished, sealed within the pendant.”

I first informed her of the most important and serious fact.

The Wizard-nim, wrinkling her brow slightly as if displeased with my words about all her power vanishing, raised an index finger and spoke.

“‘All power’ hasn’t vanished.”

As she concentrated her consciousness, a faint shimmer of light barely bloomed from the tip of her raised index finger.

It was so faint and indistinct that I had to squint and focus all my five senses on her fingertip just to barely see it.

And even that shimmer only barely appeared after she squeezed every last bit of magic remaining in her body and concentrated it on a single fingertip.

“Then I’ll correct myself: you’ve weakened to below the level of an ordinary person.”

“……”

In response to my words, which objectively and accurately analyzed and reported her condition, the Wizard-nim merely frowned even harder without a retort.

“And it seems all your followers were annihilated in the surprise attack by the Demon Queen and the Empress.”

“Those scoundrels wouldn’t have died; they would have escaped just fine. They were opportunists quick to catch on, after all.”

The Wizard-nim shook her head, denying their demise, in response to my opinion that her subordinates had been annihilated.

Indeed, they were opportunists who had boldly and recklessly crawled their way in, volunteering to follow her just to pick up the scraps from the continent’s strongest being, so it seemed unlikely they would have died easily.

Those cunningly annoying yet quick-witted individuals would have managed to preserve their own lives somehow, either by siding with the Demon Queen or the Empress.

“Finally, there was a problem with our spatial teleportation magic…”

I paused my report, then slowly looked around to ensure I conveyed accurate information.

This was a dreadful forest, with repulsive green slime, the excrement of slimes, hanging or clinging thickly to every tree.

It was a sight impossible to forget once seen, yet the repulsive appearance of the forest, unrecorded anywhere, made my brow furrow involuntarily.

“I have no idea where this is.”

“Our destination was the Lime Forest in the continent’s southernmost region.”

At the Wizard-nim’s words, I searched my memories for information about the Lime Forest.

If my memory served me right, the Lime Forest in the continent’s southernmost region was a place with a bizarre ecosystem where slimes and the forest coexisted.

However, this place had long ceased to resemble coexistence, instead becoming a disgusting forest overflowing with slime excrement.

As I looked around as if disbelieving, the Wizard-nim reached out her hand into the air, tracing the faint, dissipating magical remnants of the spatial teleportation spell that had fulfilled its purpose.

“Only about five years have passed.”

“Five years have passed?!”

I couldn’t help but be shocked by the unbelievable fact that came from the Wizard-nim’s mouth after she analyzed the magical remnants.

The magic for spatial teleportation had twisted due to the Demon King’s attack, and it felt like we had merely lingered in the sub-dimension for a few seconds, but five years had actually passed!

Assuming five years had passed, I looked around the disgusting, slime-filled forest once more.

“Are you saying this is the Lime Forest, which supposedly coexists with slimes?!”

As I said before, this situation was no longer coexistence.

It was clear that slimes, having proliferated far beyond the forest’s capacity, were exploiting it to the point of destroying the ecological balance.

Simple slimes, without limit, were continuously decomposing almost all organic matter within the forest and multiplying.

I tapped a nearby tree with my scabbard, and I could feel a hollow, empty echo reverberating within the tree, as if its inside were hollow.

“Alright. Situation understood.”

Thinking my explanation sufficient, the Wizard-nim nodded emphatically, then clapped twice to halt my report, and vigorously stretched her arms together.

Relaxing the muscles tensed by the shock of the fall, she took another deep breath and began to prepare for departure.

“May I ask what your plan is?”

The Wizard-nim, whose magic was entirely sealed in the pendant, was no longer the world’s strongest being with absolute power, as she once was.

An ordinary girl. No, when it came to magic, she had become a frail existence, weaker than even an ordinary girl.

“Naturally, I need to retrieve the scattered pendant fragments and reclaim my power.”

In response to my question, the Wizard-nim shrugged her shoulders as if I had asked the obvious, and replied in a nonchalant voice.

However, at her nonchalant answer, I instantly felt my mind go blank, as if darkness had descended before my eyes.

“Wi-Wizard-nim. Did you really hear my explanation correctly?”

In response to my question, the Wizard-nim furrowed her delicate brow and looked at me, arms crossed, as if inviting me to speak my mind.

“Right now, Wizard-nim’s magic is weaker than an ordinary girl’s. Moreover, the Empress, who rules half the continent, and the Demon Queen, leader of the demon race, are undoubtedly searching for you with blazing eyes!”

“I know.”

My warning didn’t seem to register as a significant threat; the Wizard-nim yawned briefly and responded with a single word even shorter than her yawn.

At her shameless lack of urgency, I couldn’t help but frown.

“Furthermore, the fragments of the pendant that sealed Wizard-nim’s power explicitly split into four pieces and scattered, leaving traces of immense magic! Naturally, over five years, those fragments must have been found and are being kept by the Empress’s soldiers or the Demon King’s subordinates!!”

“Probably.”

The Wizard-nim’s lips moved slightly, and another short, shameless reply popped out.

Her repeated, shameless answers, as if she couldn’t grasp reality, naturally made my voice grow louder.

“In five years, all the followers who served Wizard-nim would have either died or been captured!! There’s no one to ask for help, and no one to give it!!”

“Be quiet.”

Perhaps my involuntarily raised voice, due to the Wizard-nim’s excessively shameless attitude, bothered her, as she frowned and, in a low voice, pointed out my increased volume.

Although all her magic was gone, having served by her side for three years, I instinctively clamped my mouth shut at her rebuke.

“Then what do you think is the best course of action?”

The Wizard-nim did not rebuke me for losing my temper and raising my voice impolitely in front of her; instead, she calmly asked for my opinion.

“How about settling in a small village on the outskirts of the continent, out of people’s sight?”

In response to her question, I racked my brain and proposed the best course of action I could think of.

Although the Wizard-nim had lost all her magic, her mind contained a myriad of mysterious knowledge.

That’s why even the Demon King attacked her directly after all her magic was gone, instead of retrieving the shattered pendant fragments that contained her power, desiring to steal her mysterious knowledge.

If she utilized that knowledge, she could live comfortably, receiving considerable respect even in a small outlying village.

“Hah hah? That’s a trivial suggestion not even worth considering.”

At my suggestion, the Wizard-nim let out an empty laugh as if dumbfounded, and looked at me with disdain.

Then, shaking her head as if disappointed by my judgment in offering such a pathetic, unworthy suggestion, she began to walk confidently, as if determined to carry out her decision.

There was only one way I could stop her from confronting the Empress and the Demon Queen to regain her power, which was nothing short of suicide.

“I… I cannot accompany Wizard-nim!!”

I made a bombshell declaration that I would not go with her.

Now, I was her only remaining follower.

Moreover, the Wizard-nim was now just an ordinary girl, with magic below average.

For the Wizard-nim, who had lost all her connections and power and possessed nothing but extraordinary knowledge, my refusal to accompany her, her sole follower, would surely be a considerably burdensome threat.

“Hmm?”

Had my threat worked?

Her confident strides came to an abrupt halt, and with a skeptical snort, she slowly turned only her head to look back at me.

“Are you serious?”

As if doubting her own ears, she poked her ear a couple of times with her pinky finger, then reconfirmed the veracity of my bombshell declaration.

“Ye… Yes, I am serious. Wizard-nim knows better than anyone that I am not remarkable enough to stay by your side while you attempt to oppose the Demon King and the Empress.”

That was right. I was an exceedingly ordinary person.

If I were to be described in one word, ‘supporting character’ would suit me best.

Someone who, when a hero swings their sword, vigorously cheers for them from afar, even knowing they cannot be heard.

Someone whose role is to gape in continuous admiration or ramble on with explanations about a grand wizard’s ultimate spell when it’s unleashed.

I was merely a person with just that much ability, strength, and knowledge.

There was no way I would have the courage or confidence to stand by the Wizard-nim’s side, who intended to oppose the Demon King and the Empress to retrieve the fragments of the pendant that sealed her power.

“That was truly a trivial answer and a pathetic excuse.”

The White Wizard-nim shrugged her shoulders as if my final, desperate threat was nothing, and turned her back.

There was not even a trace of lingering regret or disappointment in her steps as she walked away from me.

It felt as light as if she were discarding bothersome trash, like a read parchment or an advertisement, that she had been holding.

“Hmph. I had considered you a free porter… a bit of a shame for you… Eek?!”

Had she perhaps hoped I would belatedly grab her leg and beg to accompany her?

As she walked, checking my reaction out of the corner of her eye, she didn’t see a small puddle of slime gathered at her feet.

Ultimately, she stepped on the small slime puddle and, with a peculiar yelp, slipped down the slope.

“Wi… Wizard-nim!!”

The moment she stepped on the slime puddle and slipped, she instinctively reached out her hand towards me, as if she had believed I would catch her.

However, unfortunately for her expectation, I had no intention of begging to accompany her on what amounted to a suicidal act, let alone grabbing her leg.

Consequently, I was too far away to grab her hand.

I threw myself forward to try and catch her, even if belatedly, but…

“Aaaaaaaah!!”

The Wizard-nim was already tumbling loudly and spectacularly down the steep slope, accompanied by a pathetic scream.