Chapter 1 - Killing His Fiancée

There was one singular man who became a Great Mage through hatred alone.

His name was Ferda Rosnova.

Born the third son of Rosnova, a knightly house, he had always been especially frail.

Because he was the child of a concubine, and because he had blue eyes instead of the brown eyes passed down through the family for generations, even the servants of Rosnova often looked down on Ferda.

In the end, in the year Ferda turned eighteen, his father, Erembalt Rosnova, brought him a piece of news.

"Your engagement to Grand Duchess Valdrova has been arranged."

One might think it was a simple engagement ceremony, but to nobles, an "engagement to the Grand Duchess" was an idiom.

Put simply, it was a kind of death sentence.

It meant choosing whether to acknowledge that he would be dismissed from the family of his own accord, or die.

"I will leave as you wish, Father."

"Good."

For Ferda, whose life mattered more, choosing to live was only natural, and he had to cast aside the name Rosnova and leave.

A great sense of betrayal took root in young Ferda's heart.

He could not forgive his older brothers who had looked down on him, nor the servants.

The one who angered him most was, of course, his father.

'You knew how hard I was trying...'

To become a member of this household, he had forced his weak body to move.

Every day, he practiced until he coughed up blood and calluses formed on his hands.

His father's gaze had watched all that effort as though finding it commendable.

But as the years passed with no progress, that expression gradually changed.

As if what he had raised all this time had been a cuckoo's chick.

At last, when he drove Ferda out of the house, his father's expression was as if he were looking down at filth.

Even after several days passed, Ferda could still feel that gaze vividly.

'I won't forgive them.'

His sorrow gradually changed into anger, then blazed up as the flames of revenge.

'I will never forgive those who scorn me and look down on me.'

Ferda clenched his fists tightly.

At that moment, Ferda felt something stir and awaken inside his body.

It was the moment mana began rotating in a circle in his core, the moment known as opening a Circle.

On the day Ferda Rosnova was cast out of his family, he became a mage.

* * *

Awakening as a mage was a blessing.

That was because, on the Serdes Continent, merely being able to wield magic changed one's status.

But for someone like Ferda to awaken at eighteen was a regrettable thing.

It was far too late.

Every mage took the power within themselves as their driving force.

To fully master that concept, one had to train from childhood.

If one did not do it while young, one had to learn that concept in old age while suffering many times more.

That should have been the case, but for Ferda, even his late awakening was not a problem.

The driving force that drew up his mana was hatred and the desire for revenge.

["Acting up and saying he'll become a mage at that age?"]

["He said he'd do anything we told him, so we can just think of it as having gained one useful slave until graduation."]

What spurred that driving force onward were the senior mages who looked down on him, and the young juniors as well.

Because he had started so late, that driving force lay scattered all around him.

'Go on, bark all you want. I'll make every last one of you lick every inch of my toes!'

His desire to grow stronger and his obsession with revenge never went out, and as the days passed, they made him stronger.

Before long, he not only surpassed the promising senior mages, but even easily surpassed the master who had taught him.

For a time, his toes were so polished there was not even a chance for dust to settle on them.

And so, when Ferda rose to the rank of a 6th Circle opener, commonly called an Archmage, of whom there were not even a hundred on the continent, his revenge truly began.

He returned to the Rosnova family that had cruelly cast him out, and killed everyone there.

He placed swords in the hands of the servants who had insulted him and made them kill one another.

He drove a wedge between the eldest and second sons, making them hate each other, and in the end they destroyed one another.

And he made the father with whom his grudge ran deepest watch it all.

At the sight of everything he had built and everything he was supposed to protect collapsing miserably, Erembalt finally went mad and became decrepit, as though he had aged several decades more.

He became a ruined man, like a ghost wandering this world.

And so everything connected to the Rosnova family disappeared, except for Ferda.

'Revenge...'

It was the moment the revenge Ferda had longed for so desperately was achieved.

'...is not over yet.'

But by the time he realized that, he had already crossed a river far too wide.

Ferda, who had needed power for revenge, now began searching for revenge for the sake of power.

'If there is nothing to take revenge on, I can make something. If there is nothing to hate, I can make something.'

In that way, hating and avenging himself against everything by force, Ferda grew stronger and stronger.

To stop the twisted Ferda, people all over the continent drew their swords.

But trials always made him even stronger, and only became stepping-stones for his growth.

And so Ferda reached the highest realm a human could attain.

At the age of forty-five.

At a young age, he reached the 8th Circle, known as the Mana Lord.

No one could look down on him, and his power became so immense that even the emperor had to bow his head.

'I have to erase them.'

But he still was not satisfied.

Even though he had placed everything beneath his feet, his desire for revenge did not fade.

'Everything that rejects me... I will erase it.'

To create his own utopia, Ferda began to covet even the realm of the gods.

After five years of research, he discovered the ultimate ingredient needed to reach that place.

It was a dragon's heart.

As it happened, there was one dragon within reach of his hatred.

'Grand Duchess Valdrova.'

His fiancée.

The pretext Erembalt had used to cast Ferda out.

That being's true identity was a Red Dragon.

* * *

"Fate is truly a cruel thing."

Strangely enough, the one who said that was the dragon called the strongest on the continent.

Red scales and magnificent horns.

Its overbearing eyes and wings that seemed as if they could cover the world were things that symbolized its standing.

But now, it was different.

Its scales had been stripped away in places, and its horns were broken and snapped, with bright red blood pouring down from within.

The one who had driven a dragon, a creature capable of destroying a nation with ease, into such a state was none other than a single mage.

"To think my own fiancé would come to kill me."

Ferda smiled.

That smile was closer to a bluff, meant to show he held the upper hand.

As much as he had driven the dragon to the brink of death, his own body was far from intact.

"It would be better for you to die quietly by my hand, Valdrova."

"I know... I bear the name of a tyrant. However, for these past few decades, even before you were born, I have not shown myself even once. Nor have I ever harmed any human. And yet... I cannot understand why you show me such hostility."

"You say you did nothing?"

Valdrova's calm tone sounded like that of someone with nothing to worry about.

Irritation surged up in Ferda.

"You were the root cause that made my revenge begin."

From the time he became the victim of that engagement ceremony, everything about Ferda had twisted.

Ferda passionately poured out his emotions.

"Because of you...! Because of your useless greed in searching for a fiancé, the justification for casting me out of my family was completed!"

"That was... because of me?"

"Yes! Because you indulged in useless greed! Because you, a vicious dragon, were greedy enough to take a human as your mate, misfortune was born! Do you understand!?"

Ferda exhaled roughly, then gave a bitter smile.

"But at the same time, I am grateful. Thanks to that, I was able to climb to this place."

"I see..."

Valdrova's face twitched strangely.

Was she angry?

She might be preparing one last struggle.

Ferda focused on gathering the mana outside him and making it his own.

By expressing that hatred just now, mana had accumulated.

"Yes, so that is what it was. I understand."

Valdrova's enormous body moved.

She showed her claws.

Sharp, hard blades that could tear knights apart with a single swing.

Ferda reflexively prepared a magic circle.

It was late, but with this, he should at least be able to take her down with him.

She raised her claws, but they were not pointed at Ferda.

The place her claws dug into was her own chest.

SQUELCH!

Ferda could not understand that action.

What was the meaning of that self-harm?

Her tough hide was torn open as it was, and the organs within were exposed plainly.

"You said your magic needed my heart, did you not?"

SNAP!

The sound of blood vessels breaking.

Ferda understood.

She was trying to destroy her own heart.

"No!"

Ferda fired magic wildly at her face.

"No, you filthy bitch! Stop this instant!"

Ferda could not let her destroy her own heart.

This was the one and only chance to reach the 9th Circle.

He absolutely could not let this chance slip away!

The scales protecting her head broke into fragments and scattered.

But Valdrova's hand did not stop.

The sounds of blood vessels and muscle tearing rang out without end.

"You said you needed my heart, did you not?"

And then Valdrova's claws were pulled out from among her organs.

What came out with her claws was a lump of flesh larger than Ferda's head.

"... Her heart?"

Its shape was perfectly intact.

What she had done was not destruction, but extraction.

"Take it."

Valdrova's head, half of it gone, said so.

If it had been the usual Ferda, he would have thanked her and picked it up.

Yet even the twisted Ferda could not understand what she had done, and stared blankly down at the heart.

"... Why did you choose this?"

Ferda asked the question.

"If you had moved... you could have killed me easily, could you not? There is no way you did not know that."

"If I had made one last struggle... you would surely have died as well. I know that."

"Why did you not?"

"Because you became unhappy because of me."

Even in that moment, Ferda remained frozen.

Valdrova no longer had the strength to hold up her neck.

"I... hated myself for a very long time."

A thick sense of loathing stained her calm tone.

"I hated the vicious blood flowing through these veins so much. I hated myself, who felt anger without reason and carried an urge to destroy. What I hated most was that those things frightened people."

The color faded from her golden eyes.

Something swelled in her eye, then rolled down her cheek just like that.

It was a tear.

A dragon's tears were different from a human's.

Dragons were not sentimental creatures who shed tears over such things as sadness.

And yet that tear seemed as if it had been made from sorrow.

"If I died, everything would be solved, and yet I lived and wished for happiness... My foolish dream has caused trouble for too many people."

"..."

"Since you became unhappy because of me, mortal, my fiancé, I pray that you will find happiness because of me. That is... the last thing I can do for you."

With her final breath, her life faded away.

Thus the hidden tyrant of the continent, Valdrova, met her death.

Ferda stared blankly down at Valdrova, who had quietly closed her eyes.

For the first time in his life since becoming a mage through anger, he felt a strange emotion.

'Why does this feel so damn unpleasant?'

Without thinking, Ferda placed a hand on his own chest.

Ferda had come here over countless corpses.

He had killed everyone who obstructed him, stolen everything he needed, and increased his power.

He himself knew he was broken, lacking both conscience and empathy.

And yet, for some reason, her death was holding Ferda back.

As if it were a curse she had placed on him.

'Do not think, Ferda.'

Move forward.

Take what you sought to seize.

He picked up the thing she had drawn out.

The dragon's heart.

The source that could bring him to the 9th Circle, the dream of every mage.

It was an item that could let him surpass the existence of a Great Mage and enter the ranks of demigods.

He would absorb this.

And take revenge on everything.

On everything, though he had even forgotten the reason.

Ferda absorbed the essence within that heart.

As the essence of a dragon that had lived since ancient times flowed through his veins, his blood began to boil.

At the same time as immense power flowed in, Ferda sensed an anomaly.

'This is...'

A sensation that allowed him to feel Valdrova's life.

'Her emotions?'

Those emotions became a part of Ferda before he even had a chance to resist.

"Ah..."

Ferda let out an exclamation.

His mind began to clear to an astonishing degree.

The hatred and desire for revenge that had been the driving force of his power were disappearing.

Had her blood made Ferda's mind clear?

'No.'

The emotions he felt from that heart were closer to negation.

They were emotions that stood at the very edge of an abyssal pit, incomparable to Ferda's hatred or anger.

A Red Dragon who had lived for thousands of years, yet had never once been loved.

The wrath of uncontrollable power, the red evil dragon, the dragonslayer...

As titles based on infamy were overlaid onto her image, Valdrova became a perfect tyrant.

These were the curses she had accumulated as the years piled up.

And yet Valdrova loved those insignificant things.

That was why she chose to hide herself.

Because she loved everyone, she steadfastly endured loneliness and sorrow.

That was why Ferda's mind had become clear.

Because the anger and hatred he, Ferda, felt seemed far too insignificant.

"Ah..."

A small exclamation spilled from Ferda's lips.

Since becoming a mage, he had not once been in his right mind.

For the first time, he could be himself.

"What... have I done?"

Blinded by revenge, he had ultimately been devoured by that power and destroyed everything.

Was that what I truly wanted?

Suddenly, he recalled the dream he had held in childhood.

'What I truly wanted was...'

Was it to become a Great Mage?

'To live an ordinary life... and build a family.'

The sight of himself struggling for such a modest thing now brutally slaughtered Ferda's conscience, which had grown far too large.

"Ah..."

Ferda closed his eyes just like that.

Before him, a Circle was drawn.

As each Circle was completed, his life flashed past like a revolving lantern.

When he opened the 1st Circle, it was the sorrow of being driven out of his family.

The 2nd Circle was the anger he felt when he was mocked for having no talent.

Inferiority, resentment, jealousy, betrayal...

Ferda's Circles were all things built up from negated emotions.

To survive, he did not hesitate to betray, and to grow stronger, he repeated bat-like deeds.

In that way, Ferda became an 8th Circle Great Mage.

And the emotion he felt now that he had reached the 9th Circle was...

'Emptiness...'

It felt as if everything had lost all meaning.

At the same time, he was angry.

Because Valdrova, that woman, had turned everything he had done until now into a mistake.

"You stupid, idiotic bitch..."

Ferda tried resenting her.

But unlike before, he felt nothing that could become a driving force.

He knew very well himself that those words were not in his heart.

In truth, the stupid one had been himself for resenting her.

To begin with, being banished from the family had been inevitable, and she had merely been the pretext.

It was not as though he did not know that, yet he had taken his anger out on her.

Valdrova had accepted his foolish sophistry as her own sin.

And she had wished for one person to be happy.

Ferda laughed hollowly.

Contrary to Ferda's heart, the magic circle of the 9th Circle was shining brightly.

There was exactly one spell a mage who had reached the 9th Circle could cast.

'A wish.'

It was the absolute crystallization that defied the providence of all things, granting everything one desired just as it was.

A simple spell that required only a single word.

Though he held what he had wanted so desperately in his hands, Ferda could not speak, as though his throat had been completely blocked.

He reproached himself for having run forward for decades with nothing but revenge in sight,

he loathed his own pettiness in having remembered everyone's names for the sake of getting even,

and in the end, the emotion he could not express in words was understood by his heart.

"It has no meaning..."

The magic circle shone brightly.

When the light completely died away, the 9th Circle Great Mage had vanished without a trace.

* * *

"...rda?"

"..."

"Ferda."

No, his consciousness returned.

As the bright light cleared, Ferda opened his eyes at the voice calling him.

Before him sat not a bleeding dragon, but some middle-aged man.

"Ferda? Are you listening?"

"... Yes?"

"What do you mean, yes? This father of yours was speaking, and you have been sitting there in a daze this whole time?"

The middle-aged man in front of him frowned.

Ferda knew who this man was.

'Erembalt Rosnova.'

A being he had once affectionately called Father.

Unlike the last time Ferda had seen him, he looked hale and hearty.

Had Ferda died and come to the afterlife?

For that to be the case, everything felt too familiar.

'This place is... Is that what this is?'

Ferda was quickly able to understand.

A time when he was alone with the father who, in his previous life, had hardly ever had a proper conversation with him.

There had been exactly one such time.

"Your engagement to Grand Duchess Valdrova has been decided. It is something decided by the state, so I would like you to obey without complaint."

An engagement to Grand Duchess Valdrova.

'I did not die, but returned to this time?'

To that time he had considered the beginning of his misfortune.

To that moment that had become the starting point of his uncontrollable desire for revenge.

'Why?'

His mind could not yet understand.

But his heart already knew.

It knew what he had wished for in that emptiness.

"Hah."

An awkward sigh escaped Ferda's mouth.

"You brat, are you sighing while I am speaking?"

"I apologize. It is nothing."

"Repeat what this father of yours just said."

"You said there is an engagement to Grand Duchess Valdrova."

"You know very well what that means, do you not?"

"I do."

Get out of this house.

Understanding it that way, Ferda answered his father.

"I understand."

"Yes, you must be suffering greatly in your hea... hm?"

His father looked at him again, eyes wide.

"W-What did you just say?"

Looking down at the documents placed before him, Ferda answered once again.

The meaning of this regression was to face what I had not been able to do in my previous life.

"I will do it, that engagement."

It was to become engaged to Valdrova the tyrant.