Chapter 124 - A Half-Baked Magus (3)

Duke Comalon—■■■—suddenly recalled the past.

An ancient memory, so old that even its colors had faded. A fragment he could glimpse only on the rare occasions when he slept and dreamed.

It was a memory from when he had still been a disciple under his master, a Magus.

["Eat your vegetables. Don't leave any behind."]

["Do not neglect your manifestation practice."]

["Let's go on an outing."]

["■■■ is far better than you! Where did you find such a worthless good-for-nothing to take in?"]

There was nothing remarkable about the memories drifting past.

Eating with his master. Being scolded by his master over his magic. Going on a picnic together. His master defending him when he fell short of another Magus's disciple.

They were the sort of memories anyone might have, tucked away in some corner of their mind.

Unremarkable.

Yet to Duke Comalon, these fragments were more precious than anything else.

But the duke—■■■—did not particularly like recalling them.

Because these fragments always ended in one and the same thing.

The scenes Duke Comalon had been glimpsing would turn over, and his master's voice would reach him.

["There's nothing we can do, ■■■. Once the world's souls filled it to the brim, there was nothing more we could do."]

It happened now, too.

"!"

At the sound of that voice, Duke Comalon came to his senses. Realizing he had lost consciousness for that fleeting instant, he checked his condition.

It was not good.

His right arm had been blown off, and there was a hole in his abdomen.

But Duke Comalon's attention turned elsewhere.

He raised his head and looked ahead. A man stood there.

Marquis Pallatio, wearing an ink-black coat covered in dust, looked down at him with an expression devoid of emotion.

A half-baked Magus like himself stood barring his way in the ashen world.

"How in the world did you use a sentence?"

Marquis Pallatio betrayed not the slightest trace of emotion.

Duke Comalon could not understand it. The man had unmistakably used a sentence.

"Even if it wasn't a spell formula or Manifestation of One's True Nature, that was undoubtedly a sentence. You must be half-baked, just like me. How could you possibly do it?"

It was utterly incomprehensible.

He had certainly used a sentence. Even if he had not attained a spell formula or Manifestation of One's True Nature, it was still a sentence, and he had drawn out its effect.

Of course, that did not mean Marquis Pallatio was a complete Magus. Even if he inherited sentences and achieved Manifestation of One's True Nature, he could never become a Magus unless he ultimately attained a spell formula.

He was indeed a half-baked Magus. One who had inherited sentences from a Magus—a half-baked Magus like himself.

"... Ha."

That made it all the more incomprehensible to the duke.

■■■ let out a disbelieving laugh.

"You were even entrusted with sentences, so why are you standing in my way? In my way, when I carry the wishes of every Magus?"

Surely he had seen it.

The end of this world. Its inescapable demise.

And surely he knew that the Magi had saved this world from that end.

That was why he laughed. Faced with a half-baked Magus who sought once again to undo the world every Magus had given their life to preserve, he felt an unbearable emptiness and laughed in scorn.

And so, the instant he formed a hand seal—

"...!"

Sensing danger without warning, he hastily protected himself with Shield.

Then—

BOOOOM!

As he slammed into the ground, he saw her.

"Mentor! Sorry I'm a little late!"

The blood-drenched beastfolk woman who had crushed the great cause he had built.

But her joining the battle did not change what the duke had to do.

"Combination."

The duke—■■■—formed a hand seal to kill him.

####

The battle continues.

"Single Point, Dispersion, Scattering, Azure Sky."

Phrases spill ceaselessly from Duke Comalon's lips.

They are fragments of the magical arts he has accumulated over hundreds of years spent living in hiding. Magic belonging to him alone, a man without talent.

A Milky Way unfurls across the dark, ashen world.

An art he can perform precisely because he has not inherited sentences.

Thousands—perhaps tens of thousands—of spheres rise into the air at once, then fall to the earth like a meteor shower.

Along with them, a faded memory surfaces in the duke's mind, one he can now recall only in dreams.

A voice.

["■■■, I'm glad you never became a Magus."]

Even as that voice returns, magic rains down upon the beastfolk woman who ruined his great cause, and upon the half-baked Magus who seeks to undo the Magi's will.

["If you aren't a Magus, your death would only be in vain. So instead, I'll leave what comes after to you."]

The voice spilling from that faint memory troubles his ears.

And then—

CRACKLE!

A golden flash, and—

"Clear Light."

As he finishes evading the magic manifested by the marquis, whose indifferent expression suggests he feels no danger even now—

["You must survive. And protect this world. The world we Magi preserved."]

He recalls the final memory.

His master's final words.

That ancient memory.

"Whew..."

Duke Comalon let out a shallow sigh and looked ahead.

He knew. He recited phrases overwhelmingly faster. The speed of his magical manifestations was no different.

He was unquestionably stronger than the half-baked Magus before him.

Yet even so, his magic did not reach his opponent.

The fragments of magic he had honed for hundreds of years did not work against this fellow half-baked Magus.

This time was no different.

"..."

Duke Comalon looked at him.

The marquis certainly had more small wounds than before. Countless glass bottles lay on the ground, too.

But his expression remained impassive as he faced the duke with both hands in his coat pockets.

His dust-covered, ink-black coat fluttered with aloof dignity.

Duke Comalon, in contrast, was in poor condition.

The injury to his right hand, suffered in that earlier instant of carelessness, was steadily eating away at his mental fortitude, and the hole in his abdomen was clearly draining his life away.

Yet even with his life in peril, no pain showed on his face. Instead, he gave a disbelieving laugh and spoke calmly.

"Surely you know."

"How foolish your actions are."

"Even if you inherited sentences... If you survived because you did not receive a mental image, you must know, too. Soon, those things will rise, and the world will perish."

There was no emotion in his voice.

"There is less than half a year left before the souls fill it to the brim. Unless we deal with this world—with humanity—before then, those things will rise."

Not even a trace of anger.

"Knowing that, do you still intend to render this world, which the Magi abandoned everything to preserve—and their deaths—meaningless?"

"..."

He was simply calm. All he had done was ask, calmly.

Yet Marquis Pallatio's face remained serene even at Duke Comalon's question, as though he felt no sympathy whatsoever for the duke's words.

With every last trace of emotion erased, the marquis stared at him, then spoke for the first time.

"I am making the Magi's deaths meaningless?"

A plain question.

The duke let out another disbelieving laugh.

"Surely you know, too. This world has only survived through the Magi's sacrifice."

####

Alon silently watched Duke Comalon.

There was calm in his eyes. Paradoxically, that very calm seemed steeped in anger.

In that brief moment, Alon forced his sluggish mind to work.

Was what the duke had just said true?

He could not know.

Then was it a lie?

He could not know that, either.

Unfortunately, Alon was not the half-baked Magus the duke mistook him for.

He was merely a foreign presence. Someone who had encountered this world through a game called Psychedelia, who knew nothing of its hidden past—strictly speaking, nothing more than an outsider.

And so he could not judge a single thing the man before him, this half-baked Magus, was telling him.

Whether it was truth or falsehood.

"Answer me. Do you have a way to keep the Magi's sacrifice from coming to nothing?"

Alon remained silent at Duke Comalon's question.

Even if everything the duke had said was true, Alon could not presume to pass judgment. He was not so extraordinary that he could swiftly grasp this information about the world he had only just learned, information that might be true or false.

He was merely a foreign presence, after all.

But there was one judgment even he had made with certainty.

He had to stop the man before him, here and now.

Because Duke Comalon's aim would be the extermination of humanity, or some "great cause" tantamount to it.

"I see."

At Alon's silence, the duke murmured low in his throat.

Alon still did not answer.

They faced each other and formed hand seals. Both Duke Comalon and Alon had realized that any further conversation would be meaningless to them both.

Alon checked his mana.

Perhaps thanks to the several bottles of potion he had gulped down, his mana reservoir had already recovered a fair amount even during their brief exchange.

The instant he registered that, the two recited their phrases simultaneously.

"Diffraction."

"A Hundred Flowers."

This battle no longer judged right and wrong.

"Single Point."

"Bloom."

Nor was it a place to determine who was good—

"Condensation."

"Drifting Blossoms."

—or who was evil.

"Annihilation."

"Diffusion."

Now, this was merely a place where two different convictions clashed.

And as their magic reached completion—

"I will kill you and fulfill my purpose. The wishes of the Magi. My—"

Duke Comalon spoke.

"—great cause."

He manifested his magic.

The blossoms fluttering around him spread outward in an instant, eating away at the surrounding air and erasing everything along with it, as though rubbing it out with an eraser.

Amid those fully blooming flowers of mana, Alon thought for a moment.

Then, in a quiet voice—

"I..."

"—."

He snapped his fingers.

And with a stark-white ringing that ate away at everyone's ears, the two men's convictions—

—the convictions of the half-baked Magi collided.