episode_0112

“…….”

Standing so tall as to pierce the sky, a tower named for meaning to hide from the gaze of devils. Hermit.

Sitting at its peak, a man staring blankly down at the ground came into view.

On the ground, there was no longer any living being. Grotesquely shaped monsters chewed and tore apart every living thing, and resurrected corpses and souls wandered this world in search of the living (生者). Devils lurking under the dark curtain were frantic to absorb the remaining beings on the continent by unleashing their subordinates.

The man looked down upon all that scenery without showing any change in expression. Only the black electricity that intermittently surged represented his state of mind.

Regret. Grief. Despair. Resignation.

A thread of hope.

Distrust towards himself.

Pressure.

Anger.

All of that melded together to form one person.

A Great Mage who had devoured countless lives, making it ambiguous to call him a mere mortal any longer. A betrayer who forced his stopped heart to beat. An apostate whose weight of sin constricting his body could be compared to a devil’s, no, who had already become an existence similar to a devil.

He exhaled into the empty air.

“……Haa.”

His pure white breath rose towards the star-filled sky. Even in broad daylight, the clear constellations were shifting their positions as if drawing a single path.

It was the skill of the First Constellation Mage adjusting the constellations from below the tower. The man briefly recalled her cold face, then bowed his head and slowly rose to his feet.

“Great Mage!”

At that moment, a mercenary with red hair leaped towards the man. The man gazed at her with lifeless eyes and asked.

“What is it?”

“Th-the Constellation Mage said that all preparations are complete. She said that now we just need to execute it.”

“……Yes.”

After a long pause, the man replied in a small voice. Instead of engaging in further conversation with him, the mercenary bowed her head deeply and returned to the tower. The man looked up at the sky for a moment, then turned his body to follow the mercenary.

10 floors below the top floor.

Among the two mages remaining in this world, the laboratory and observation room used by the mage who wields the power of stars.

In front of a small sapling where a star was hung. The Constellation Mage, taking a sip of her last coffee, tilted her head upon seeing the man enter the laboratory.

“You’ve come.”

“I heard the preparations are complete.”

“That’s right. The flow of stars has finally stabilized. Now is the only time to perform the ritual.”

“…….”

Instead of replying, the man opened a liquor bottle rolling in the corner of the laboratory and quietly drank from it. The Constellation Mage did not specifically rebuke him and gestured towards the mercenary standing in the corner. The mercenary immediately walked towards her.

“You called.”

“Are you ready?”

“…….”

“It will be a difficult journey. I end here, but you and him do not. In a mortal body, you might have to repeat your life tens, hundreds. No, perhaps hundreds of millions of times. An ordinary person could never endure it. Are you prepared for that?”

“…….”

The mercenary was silent for a moment, then smiled bitterly and set down the bladed weapons she had hanging all over.

Among them was the sword symbolizing her fallen family.

“It’s an opportunity for me, just a third-rate mercenary, to become a hero. There’s no reason to refuse, nor reason to be afraid.”

“Just for a reason like that?”

The Constellation Mage said with a serious expression.

“It is true that you have the talent to cross imaginary dimensions, but that doesn’t mean your mind will instantly change like a transcendent’s. Countless deaths will chip away at your humanity. Frankly, if you can’t endure it and commit suicide, it will be no different than wasting an opportunity. That is what I am worried about. That you won’t be able to endure it.”

“Anyway, there’s no one else who can do it if not me, right?”

The mercenary chuckled and knelt down before the sapling. In front of her lay a dagger engraved with the markings of the sun and a great tree.

“If it’s something only I can do, then I have no choice but to do it. I even feel this way: perhaps the fact that I’ve lived like a cockroach until now was precisely for this moment.”

“…….”

“Finally, an opportunity has come for me, who is nothing special. Since hardship and adversity are like the symbols of a hero, I can gladly sacrifice myself for the world. I should become a hero at least once in my life.”

“……■■■■.”

“Preparations are complete. Great Mage.”

The mercenary turned her head towards the man and continued speaking. The man gazed at her with an expressionless face, then put down the liquor bottle and walked towards the mercenary.

The Constellation Mage let out a sigh and began preparing the ritual.

The man knelt down in front of the mercenary and picked up the dagger.

Then, clenching his lips tightly, he spoke softly.

“……The ritual begins.”

“Yes.”

The mercenary smiled brightly.

The man brought the dagger to her neck.

“Offer your soul to me.”

“Gladly.”

Without hesitation, the mercenary gently took the man’s hand and plunged the dagger deep into her neck.

The girl who began as a failure of her family, but wished to become a hero in the end.

Today, becomes a devil’s watchman.

***

“……Gasp!”

He woke from the dream. Asel flung his hand out as if shaking it off, eyes wide open. But the dagger and blood he seemed to have held did not fall away.

He hadn’t been holding them in the first place. Asel gasped roughly, touching his chest with an empty hand.

‘……My heart is beating.’

His heart, which had felt as if it had already stopped, was beating normally. As soon as Asel confirmed that, he let out a sigh of relief and bowed his head deeply. Instead of a cold body temperature, the temperature of a normal ‘human’ enveloped him and settled.

“…….”

For a while, Asel just stayed still, merely looking down at the blanket covering his body and steadying his disordered breathing.

‘A dream…… Was what I just saw really a dream?’

A man whose face was as if erased with a black monochrome, the Constellation Mage, and the mercenary. Faint voices. A sensation as if perception was distorted to prevent recognizing their identities. And…… a dream where he seemed to have become the man himself.

Was that truly nothing more than a simple dream? Or was it…… a memory forcibly injected by someone, taking advantage of the vulnerability when he reached the verge of death?

If so, whose memory is it, exactly?

“……Kuugh!”

The moment he tried to recall, he felt a pain like an iron skewer digging through his brain. His vision spun, and nausea surged. Asel clenched the blanket tightly with his fist, gasping roughly.

It felt like if he thought just a little more, he could reach the answer. But it felt as though something was forcibly cutting off his contemplation beyond this point.

From the start, it felt as though a giant fog had enveloped the dream itself. He could recall the overall context, but he couldn’t discern the faces, characteristics, voices, or identities of the characters at all. Asel realized that the cause involved the intervention of a transcendent.

However, knowing this changed nothing. At Asel’s current level, it was impossible to resist a transcendent’s power, or even to struggle briefly. Asel was well aware of that fact.

The problem was who the transcendent was who caused this phenomenon. Amusingly, Asel knew the answer without much thought.

The being deeply etched into Asel’s mind since a certain point.

“……The Devil of Possibility.”

It was undoubtedly his doing.

“Perhaps your head hasn’t recovered yet?”

“……!”

The moment he muttered to himself, a woman’s voice was heard from the left. Asel’s eyes shot open and he turned his head towards where the voice came from.

What first caught his eye was dark purple hair. Lighter red eyes than Elena’s and a playful face. A nun whose black habit and rosary hanging around her neck were impressive.

It was the cleric he had encountered on the day of the entrance exam, who moved together with a nun named Tina.

She gazed at Asel’s black eyes and tilted her head.

“A temporary regression of intelligence is suspected. Suddenly uttering the name of a devil…… Do you perhaps remember your own name? And a means to prove your intelligence?”

Asel instinctively realized that she was the nun who had healed him. So instead of asking her identity and where this place was, he obediently answered her questions.

“My name is Asel.”

“Hmm. You remember your name. As for your intelligence level—”

“In the case of Lightning Arts, while their classification itself is divided as a branch of Destruction Arts, their actual power and backlash are completely different from other Destruction Arts. Unlike typical Destruction Arts where backlash accumulates in the body the more magic is used, causing the magic circuits to burst, Lightning Arts use a well that holds lightning. Beyond eliminating backlash through the Thunder Reservoir (雷井櫃), the mage can even use the stored lightning in reverse—”

“Stop, stop! I get it, so stop.”

Seeing Asel’s frantic expression as he explained the magic, Irene wore a look of being fed up.

“Seriously, mages…… Do their tongues sprout thorns if they don’t show off their knowledge even at moments like this?”

“Didn’t the nun ask about my intelligence level first?”

“That was a joke.”

Irene sighed deeply and rose from the chair she was sitting on.

“More importantly, are there any parts of your body that bother you? We said we treated everything, but a mage’s senses might still pick up on something strange.”

“Hmm…… My severed wrists and ankles are both fine. My eyesight too…… isn’t particularly different from before.”

His eyesight, which had been enhanced by opening his Demon Eyes. Although it was broken and restored once, his eyesight was still perfectly clear. However, for some reason, a small annoyance was felt.

“I feel like something is mixed into my left eye. It’s a sensation that not just my magic but another energy has slightly entered……”

“Ah…… that.”

Irene scratched her cheek and replied to Asel’s words.

“In the process of recovering your eyes, your eyes entirely absorbed the holy power of one cleric. It’s probably related to that.”

“……Holy power, you say?”

Asel’s eyes widened as he asked.

“How can a mage possess holy power?”

“Why are you asking me that? You absorbed it.”

Asel was speechless.

Because it was true.

“Rather, I’d like to ask. Exactly how did a mage absorb the energy of a cleric?”

“I don’t know either.”

“How did you do it without knowing?”

“I don’t know either.”

“No, what kind of blasphemous nonsense is this—”

The moment Irene frowned and muttered that.

“Ah, no! The patient still needs rest!”

“We’re just seeing his face! Move aside!”

“Asel! Aseeeeeeeel!”

The private room set up inside the cathedral where Asel was lying. A commotion spread from beyond its door. Irene clicked her tongue as if used to it, and Asel wore a wry smile.

Simultaneously, the door burst open, and Grace and Evelyn, whose hair seemed a little longer than before, rushed in.

“He woke uuuup!”

“Our little brother!!”

Asel gazed at the two faces he seemed to be seeing after a long time and let out a small laugh.