Chapter 5
Chapter 5
There’s a bottom even beneath rock bottom!
“What is this… the future… changed?”
—Bzzzt. Crackle!
The afterimage of that dazzling, brilliant [vision] etched into my retina began to shatter, distorted by grotesque static like a broken screen.
A massive silver meteor shower. The overwhelming might of a great mage that wiped out tens of thousands of magical beasts in an instant.
Those radiant silver fragments corroded into a dull, murky amber glow, repainting the scene into something entirely new.
“Bubble, bubble.”
“…Huh?”
The newly overwritten future was a small log cabin in some nameless, quiet rural village.
A modest kitchen bathed in warm afternoon sunlight.
And there stood Camellia, wearing an old but neatly patched apron.
She hummed softly as she stirred a steaming pot. Inside the bubbling stew were large chunks of meat, and her cheeks were flushed with a gentle, peaceful vitality.
There was no trace of the dignity of a great mage who would shake the world.
Just… an ordinary, happy housewife you could find anywhere.
The moment I confirmed that vision, something deep in my mind convulsed violently.
“…Are you kidding me?”
My vision went dark, and my breath caught in my throat.
What kind of catastrophic bad news is this?
A confirmed future of becoming a world-conquering archmage—how the hell did it crash into some apron-wearing countryside wife?!
A drop in market value?
No. This isn’t a drop.
This is a complete change in the company’s core identity.
It’s like a top-tier unicorn IT company destined to dominate the world suddenly switching overnight to selling homemade jam in a local shop!
Seriously, what the hell is this? Stop messing around and give me back my archmage.
“This… this kind of cozy slice-of-life healing ending can’t possibly be my profit model!”
I dragged a trembling hand down my face.
The best stock of my life, the one I believed would skyrocket someday without fail.
Camellia.
Seeing her reduced to an ordinary rural woman living a simple, happy life made everything inside me crumble into nothingness.
“…Wait.”
I stared blankly up at the night sky.
It felt like some invisible system—or this damned world’s god—was whispering to me.
[ You thought this was the bottom? But… ]
[ There’s a bottom even beneath rock bottom! ]
“Shut the hell up…”
It’s been two years.
Two years of clawing through the slums, doing whatever it took to earn money to raise this girl into a great mage!
I smuggled goods while dodging soldiers. I never slept more than four hours a day. To feed her mana potions, I survived on stale bread. And tonight, I even burned my precious magic scroll to get here!
Every time I coughed up blood, I told myself—
This blood and sweat would return a hundredfold in the future.
That my brutal “value investment” could never be wrong.
And the result is… a happy country girl making potato stew?!
“I refuse this future… I absolutely refuse!!”
With my mentality shattered to pieces, I began desperately negotiating with some imaginary force in my head.
“Hey, you damn fate! Fine, I’ll admit it—seeing her smile like that isn’t bad.”
But!
“If she becomes a great mage, she’ll be way happier, damn it!!”
If she becomes a great mage, she won’t live in some log cabin—she’ll live in a luxurious marble mansion, starting every morning with premium steak!
And that’s not all. Wealth brings fame.
She could live far more extravagantly than she ever did as the daughter of House Valentine.
And above all… revenge.
Those nobles who destroyed her mana circuits and beheaded her parents—she could reduce them to ashes with a silver meteor shower!
She has the talent to have it all—
and you’re telling me to accept a future where she’s satisfied stirring stew in some countryside?!
For her true happiness—and for recovering my investment—
I have to stop that cheap, fake ending.
“N-Nasus…? Why is your expression like that? Are you hurt—eek!”
Camellia flinched in my arms.
“Camellia.”
I grabbed her slender shoulders tightly.
If I wanted to prevent that horrifying “stew ending,” where my investment exploded into nothing, I had to fix her mindset right now.
“Listen carefully. Look straight into my eyes.”
“Y-Yes…”
Staring into her trembling, puppy-like eyes, I poured out everything boiling from deep within me.
“You… are not someone who should be satisfied with a place like this.”
“…What?”
“You’re going to shine brilliantly! You’ll become a light so radiant that no one will dare look up at you! You have infinite potential—no, even that word is too small for you. You’re a one-of-a-kind gem in this world!”
I wasn’t exaggerating.
Camellia truly had the potential to become a great mage in the future.
My ‘blue-chip stock’ that would turn my life around.
“Ah… um…”
After my relentless barrage, her cheeks turned red like a tomato, and her eyes darted around in confusion.
“N-Nasus… I’m just a useless—”
“Don’t you dare call yourself useless! You’re amazing! The best! The strongest! Got it?! I… I’ll make sure of it!”
“Eek! O-Okay! I get it, so please calm—”
Her flustered, embarrassed reaction.
“Good. This should make it clear how highly I value her. Now she’ll never dream of some peaceful countryside life and will fully commit to the path of a great mage—”
—Gulp.
“…Ugh!?”
Something hot surged up from my stomach.
“Cough! Cough!”
Dark red blood spilled through my fingers and splattered onto the ground with a dull sound.
“N-Nasus?!”
The color drained instantly from Camellia’s face, turning pale as paper.
That was the last thing I saw before my vision went black.
Everything spun.
The world twisted as if gravity itself had warped, and my knees gave out.
“No, Nasus! Stay with me! Please, stay awake!”
Her desperate cries sounded distant, like they were coming from underwater.
“Damn it… I really pushed too hard lately, trying to pay off that growing debt…”
Poor meals.
Little sleep.
An untreated illness.
Running everywhere just to earn scraps of money.
The moment I felt relief that I had fixed her mindset, everything I had suppressed came crashing down on me at once.
As I collapsed onto the cold ground, I could feel my consciousness fading.
…My stock that would rise someday.
But that “someday”…
Was it after I’m already dead…?
…What a damn life.
“Sniff… no, Nasus! Please, please open your eyes!”
Camellia’s hands cupped my face, trembling uncontrollably.
“Don’t die. Not again… not in front of me… not like this… leaving me behind again…”
As her desperate sobs echoed into the abyss,
within my fading consciousness—
I felt it.
From her small hands holding my face, a faint but warm pulse began to bloom.
A gentle light wrapped around my frozen cheeks.
This feeling…
I remember it.
Back when I was injured working construction at the royal site,
a novice priest used it on me.
< Low-Level Healing >
The moment I recognized that light, I twisted my bloodied lips into a smile.
“…Ah. Just as I thought…”
Two years.
For some, a short time.
For others, unbearably long.
After those two years—
A stock chart that had hit rock bottom…
Kicked off that very bottom…
And finally began to rise, forming a soaring upper limit.
“…Holding…”
“Nasus? Can you hear me? This is just emergency treatment—”
“…wins…”
With those final words, I completely lost consciousness.
Certain of the birth of something radiant—something that would save my life.