Chapter 321
Chapter 321
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 321
Chapter Title: Can One Who Has Seen the End of the World Plant an Apple Tree? (26)
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Splash-!
Rakshasha raised her head at the water droplet sliding down her ear, gazing at the enemy's vanguard.
Boom-!
.
.
.
.
“Oh my.”
In the distance, sand dust billowing thickly as if from a magical explosion, accompanied by the sound of splintering wood.
These sights confirmed the report from moments ago, prompting Rakshasha to briefly reconsider their plan.
It was a plan so simple there was hardly anything to reconsider.
The two forces were evenly matched, or perhaps slightly in their favor.
Both sides had hidden forces yet to be revealed, and as always, the concealed blade was sharper than the one bared.
Thus, they would remain on this flagship to guard the key figures and control variables.
A straightforward strategy even a freshly enlisted recruit could grasp—rational and efficient.
And yet.
Her man, who had been scurrying about the deck until just moments ago, had suddenly plunged into the heart of the distant enemy lines.
When asked why, his response was simply, “It just happened.”
‘Does the Professor... have a habit of abandoning his woman and dashing off?’
Faced with behavior that defied common sense, Rakshasha could only tilt her head.
Ottman approached with a look that suggested he already knew, eyeing the mana-infused water droplet on the floor and Rakshasha’s expression.
“What did that guy say?”
To the question from the water mage, who looked haggard yet strangely brimming with energy, Rakshasha had to choose her words carefully.
“Hmm... I don’t even know how to put it...”
“Usually, it’s my role to explain that to others, so I can guess the gist. Just say it.”
“...He says he’s in the middle of the enemy lines?”
“Ugh... That damned rascal. Where, over there?”
When Ottman pointed at the warriors hanging from the kites, Rakshasha shook her head and indicated below them.
A bit ahead of the descending warriors. Ottman nodded as he spotted the rear of a warship rising toward the sky amid the sand dust, unsure what they had done to cause it.
“Indeed. Knowing the Professor’s there... it’s a highly credible position.”
“You seem used to this sort of thing.”
“Sadly. Anyone who travels with the Professor has no choice but to get used to it. If you don’t... you’d die of a heart attack or burst a blood vessel from frustration.”
Rakshasha chuckled lightly at Ottman’s jest, but upon seeing the hollow eyes of Ottman, Notum, and Idrasil, she realized it wasn’t a joke and sobered slightly.
Even she, tempered by serving the royal blood in the desert amid endless schemes and ambushes, was shocked. Yet these three nodded knowingly at the news of someone from their own ship now embedded deep in the enemy lines. What inferno had they traversed?
“Uh... You’ve all been through a lot?”
Gulp!
“...Rakshasha, I pray you and the Professor form a sacred bond.”
“Grroo. Desert woman, heart as vast as those big breasts.”
“...I never knew receiving empathy could be so comforting.”
Even a small word of solace made the elf swallow as if suppressing emotion, and the troll dabbed at its eyes. Rakshasha began to wonder if she needed to rethink her lover, the Professor’s, character.
“Well, it’ll be fine. That friend’s antics are always like this. Just when you think he’s staying put... he’s suddenly gone. Breaking something. Exploding something. He’s so baffling you can’t tell if he’s a saint of light or an apostle of destruction... but in the end, when it’s over, he was always where he needed to be, when he needed to be. A man who possesses truly bizarre flows. One who breaches dams and carves new channels.”
“Bizarre... flows?”
“Indeed. This isn’t just talk from a water mage—it’s the word of an old man who’s seen the world for over sixty years.”
Ottman gazed into the distance, as if peering at the desert and battlefield before them and beyond, continuing.
“Rakshasha. The world has flows. The flames of war ride on greed and hatred; merchants’ steps follow the flow of gold coins. All things flow along cause and effect, and our lives are but one such stream. The world is made of countless flows like this, and among them are torrents we small streams can never defy. Like water flowing from high to low. All the world’s flows converge into one mighty river. I simply call it the flow, but some name it fate. Or providence.”
In his youth, Ottman—already dubbed the Mage of River Flows and bearing the expectations of his family and mage tower—embarked on a voyage to witness the sea at age twenty, per the Lead Flow school’s tradition.
And there, he realized. No matter how deeply one holds water in their heart, comprehends it, masters it—they remain part of this grand flow, inseparable from the world itself.
That revelation halted the young genius mage’s enlightenment that very moment. Knowing that even a lifetime’s devotion would leave him a mere rivulet in the vast torrent, unable to grasp the whole, the 5th-circle mage Ottman Bodler never doubted he would remain at 5th circle forever.
Until he met someone in his later years.
“He is the counterflow.”
Ottman sensed that the warrior dispatched by the Church of Light—whom he had volunteered for to restore his school’s honor—had escaped his fated flow. A burly, talkative warrior who was also a fellow water mage. An unfathomable man, like a serene pond with raging currents.
“A cold current piercing turbulence, a stream ascending against the river. A fierce flow that snaps the frozen river’s spine and forges new paths. Thus, wherever he is becomes the place most in need of him. Because he becomes the center of any flow he enters.”
Back in the Empire, he received letters from his Lead Flow disciples. The mage tower’s honor was more than restored, and the Church of Light was aiding its reconstruction as recompense for the warrior’s mission. With high mages essential for the tower’s architecture, they pleaded for Ottman to end his perilous journey and return.
Ottman smiled warmly at the long-overdue letters from his disciples, then let them drift away on a passing stream.
He had unwittingly joined that fierce flow.
Simply drifting along. The sight of one swept up thus carving new tributaries into the world’s unstoppable current thrilled him to the core.
Lost in fond thoughts of his most unpredictable friend and disciple, Ottman rose as he sensed masses of moisture rapidly entering his sensory range.
Having already gathered all water within his reach upon entering the battlefield.
As Rakshasha and the others instinctively felt the cabin air grow heavy and prepared for combat, Ottman meticulously infused mana into each finger, forming mudras.
“So. He’s gone to his place, and we must do our duty from ours.”
Having boarded the rapids that open new paths—how could he complain of his own flow crashing on rocks or wallowing in mud?
Drip, drip-
Boom-!
The lifeforms that closed in instantly burst through the sand, thrusting their heads out, and from trumpet-like maws, large and small creatures poured onto Nullak’s flagship.
“Monsters! Monster attack!”
“To close combat positions! Enemies landing on deck!!!”
The crew, accustomed to desert beast ambushes, prepared without panic. But what they faced wasn’t wild monsters, but another race entirely—not predation, but Mutation Blood elites charging as intelligent beings.
At minimum 4th rank: elite mutants used as commanders for low-tier specimens on Lordric battlefields, up to 3rd and 2nd rank highest elites birthed not from chamber maid artificial wombs, but gestated directly.
No named ones, but all thinking entities equipped with ‘Handlers’—shield-type mutants boasting metal-surpassing hardness and self-repair—as combat specialists.
Slash!
Crunch!
Their prowess was proven in seconds by the thick, rising stench of blood.
An assault by Mutation Blood’s strongest specimens, excluding named guards and the queen.
And...
Thump.
Thump-!
“Hmm... This presence.”
“Grroo. Those guys from before. Scary ones.”
Following them, an aura incomparable to the prior mutants.
Ottman, who had learned from experience that minor spells couldn’t even scratch their hides, abandoned calculating enemy numbers and his remaining mana.
“Rakshasha, Notum. Cover me.”
As a 5th-circle mage, the most powerful spell he knew.
No—something even stronger.
“Teaching and learning advance together. A true master must learn from their disciple’s growth.”
...Crunch!
Pain as his thumb crushed. Blood-soaked hands formed mudras, his mana pouring unstintingly into the gathered water.
Inspired by the Professor’s instinctive blood magic, adapted to water magic in his own way.
The spilled mage’s blood, seeping into the water, remembered its original path and rebuilt its flow within. Arteries rose in the water orb. Capillaries. All flows reconstructing.
Above the mage’s mudra-forming hands, another hand of water and blood emerged.
“Ottman Bodler’s, [The Mage Who Reaches Out].”
Click, drip, crack.
Flesh-and-blood fingers bent at joints, weaving the spell as intended.
The water-and-blood hand, per the mage’s will, formed another mudra, weaving a spell.
Dual incantation. A technique deemed possible only at the cusp of 6th circle. Where self-born comprehension transcends thought into unconsciousness, perfectly separating two images for dual spells—the domain of supreme mages.
After his youthful shock stalled his progress, Ottman’s relentless effort and research yielded this: briefly surpassing his circle via auxiliary rites.
Lacking enlightenment for 6th-circle spells, but for water mages who weave abbreviated spells via mudras, more fingers meant more complex abbreviations, enabling broader, finer spell control—an extension spell.
Ottman planned to summon twin massive counterflow waterfalls with this, shielding the ship alongside Nullak’s shamanism.
『Roooar-』
Until wave sounds, illusory, reached his ears as the spell formed.
‘Again... this image.’
Images must be nearly tangible to manifest as magic, so mages always guard against stray thoughts.
What scattered the magic in Ottman’s hands was such—a memory from encountering the sea that confined him lifelong at 5th circle. Always appearing in varied forms, leaving similar emotions before fading: his sea.
‘Of all times, now!’
Snapping from reverie, he heard vividly: blood and metal spraying, elf bowstring drawing, troll shaman’s vines ripping, enraged roars with viscous blood bursting.
Enemy violence surged like a tsunami; his painstaking image had long scattered like dust.
No time to rebuild an image and weave a spell.
‘...If I fail anyway, we all die!’
Crack!
Ottman gripped not his self-made image, but the glaringly vivid stray thought—the mirage-like wave sounds—into his finger joints.
Madness no one with even a speck of magic knowledge would attempt.
Seizing a non-self-born image, an instant stray thought, to manifest in the world.
Unknowable form, uncertain completion within the mage’s capacity.
An image beyond the mage’s comprehension would shatter their logic upon grasp, crumbling enlightenment and life with it.
Even if luckily composed of comprehensible elements, an out-of-capacity spell would drain all mana and life force in formation, exploding unfinished.
Weaving a non-self-made image into a spell was such an act. Beyond personal suicide, ensnaring surroundings in irresponsible, criminal fallout.
Yet, as Ottman grasped the hazy image into a spell, an inexplicable conviction welled—beyond his understanding.
‘Someone... is helping me.’
Not a stabbing stray thought, but a gentle bloom, as if someone held his hand to draw it.
In truth, since arriving in this desert, Ottman had been ensnared by dreamlike subtle images.
In the silent crew quarters while all slept. Or tending seasick Idrasil and Notum, when surroundings hushed.
The image came like a dream, a mirage.
The faint image crossed sand seas, passed oases, grew vivid incorporating desert stars and secrets.
First felt: longing. Alien, source and speaker unknown.
A gaze. From below to above. From darkness to shattering light. Or encompassing the whole.
After the sand shark attack, sand sharks swam into the image.
On oasis arrival, diverse grasses and trees grew within.
And after gasping out with the Professor atop the watchtower, sharing secretive ancient desert kingdom legends and dragon tales.
Atop it all, a great being swam a blue world, contemplating existence.
The completed image conveyed to Ottman:
Longing. Memories of once-green days, and that final moment.
Great beings ascending toward a warped sun.
“Yes... so that’s what it was.”
The spell’s form, unconfirmed by him, revealed at last. Fully grasping the borrowed image via his hand, Ottman could only marvel at its nature.
‘Water endlessly changes but never vanishes, eternally cycling. Every droplet, every cloud wisp—part of the primordial world.’
Not an image—a memory.
To water’s return in this endlessly drying land since the ancient cataclysm, a proffered memory.
Faced with the ‘Desert’s Memory,’ awe curved Ottman’s lips.
A pact: mages receive their kept memories; in return, mages redraw for the parched earth the scene it so longed for, once more in the world.
The sea floor that once bore infinite life before dubbed desert—its final witnessed scene.
No enlightenment, ungradable by circles. Not magic, as the subject is something innate in nature. Merely a natural phenomenon borrowing a mage’s hand.
This once-sea land’s final reflection upon its surface: great beings spreading wings ablaze in the distorted sun’s heat, taking flight. Their memory.
“Arcirclearc. The Desert’s Dreaming [Dragon Surge].”
His mudra hands released, mana and spell descending upon the desert simultaneously.
『Kwaaaaaaaa-!!!』
Two roaring, spiraling colossal water pillars burst sand asunder, surging skyward.
Tremble, trembretremble!
Valiant desert warriors strained not to drop cherished weapons over life.
Thud. Thudthud!
Shamans who understood and wielded desert power collapsed or fainted before the incomprehensible phenomenon.
Amid this dramatic shift, Rakshasha turned to the sole satisfied face.
The mage elder gasping, collapsing.
“No way... you?”
“Not so grand... Impressive show, but power doesn’t exceed 5th circle.”
Borrowed hand of another, yet structured as 5th-circle spell.
Lacking attack enlightenment, Ottman’s version lacked full visible might. At best, stripping ship-clinging mutants and flinging them.
Yet the spell’s target was the desert itself. Sustained not by his mana but the desert’s, the twin surges wouldn’t fade, continuously ensnaring mutants.
So long as caster Ottman stayed conscious.
Ottman smiled feebly watching surge heads pierce skies then reverse, cascading waterfalls onto mutants.
‘Fateful. A water mage come to desert, and a once-sea desert... I too flow to where I must be.’
Buying time for hard-pressed warriors to catch breath. For shamans to hastily stack proper spells beyond impromptu rites.
Above all, granting Nullak—most swarmed, in dire straits—precious time.
Flash!
In blurring vision, Ottman saw Nullak’s shamanism clash with four-armed mutant halberds, red lightning sparking, and bit his cheek’s flesh for blood.
Crunch-
Jolting pain somewhat restored fading consciousness.
‘Just... a bit longer...’
Forces evenly matched. Nullak or his spells crumbling meant defeat like sandcastles in waves.
‘Please, that friend on time...’
In hazy mind, Ottman could only pray the Professor, leaping into enemy arms, would shatter them first.
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