Chapter 96
Chapter 96
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 96
Chapter Title: The Genius Who Lost His Light (5)
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“Master! What happened? Was the experiment a success?”
“Yes, it was a success! Our magic was a success!”
But Alpheas couldn't rejoice. No matter how he looked at it, something was wrong with Erina.
“But why is my wife like this? Honey! Pull yourself together!”
Checking the gauges again, Arcane was shocked. The balance of each item was normal, but her overall bodily rhythms were dropping simultaneously. It was as if life itself was fading away.
“Wh-why is this happening? It wasn't like this in the clinical trials.”
“Honey! Erina! Open your eyes!”
Erina's eyes fluttered open as she gave a faint smile.
“Honey… I'm alright.”
“Erina! What happened? What's wrong? Where does it hurt?”
“A rejection reaction started in my peripheral nerves. It seems the human brain is different somehow. But you've accomplished something truly amazing. With just a little more research… *Gasp*!”
Erina gasped for breath, convulsing.
“Honey! Don't talk! I'll do something! I'll save you, no matter what…!”
Alpheas cursed his own intellect, which already knew it was irreversible. But he had to say it.
Erina slowly shook her head. She knew what her husband knew.
“Honey… hold my hand.”
Alpheas gripped his wife's hand tightly. If there had been even a one percent chance, he would have tried it. But now, all he could do was stay by her side.
“Erina, this can't be happening. How could this…?”
Erina gave a sad smile.
“Honey, I'm sorry.”
“What are you sorry for? What have you…?”
“For being a fool.”
Alpheas's heart shattered. To think he had tried to change his wife. How could he have forgotten her words—that she was beautiful just by existing?
“No… Why are you sorry? What are you apologizing for! It's me! I was the fool! I was the fool!”
“I'm so glad I met you.”
Erina could finally understand her husband. A magnificent world governed by rationality. This was where he lived. She was happy to have been with him, even for a brief moment, and to leave with memories of him.
“Honey! Open your eyes! Please… It's my fault, honey!”
As Erina's eyes closed, Alpheas clutched her face and sobbed.
“Aaaaargh! Honey! Honey!”
Arcane bowed his head, his expression grim. What made the human brain different from an animal's? If they had conducted human trials from the start, this tragedy might have been avoided.
But it was a meaningless hypothetical. Erina had set one condition for experimenting on herself: they must never experiment on anyone else.
That was why they had poured their hearts into it. The data they had gathered would be invaluable for humanity.
*'I am sorry. I will not let your sacrifice be in vain.'*
A dull thud echoed. Turning his head, he saw Alpheas slamming his head against the wall.
“Aaaaargh!”
With each impact of his forehead, a cracking sound rang out. It was impossible to tell if it was the wall or his head that was breaking.
“What? The light of the Mirh family? Light? Light!”
*Thud! Thud! Thud!*
After repeatedly slamming his head, Alpheas's body bounced back like a rubber ball. But he didn't stop. The horror of having survived alone, leaving his wife behind, churned his insides.
“Arrogant Alpheas!”
Alpheas charged at the wall again.
*Thud!*
Klumpf grabbed Alpheas. If left alone, he would surely die.
“Alpheas! Snap out of it! What are you doing!”
“Let go! Damn it! Aaaaargh!”
Even with all his strength, Klumpf struggled to hold Alpheas back. It was as if he were burning his very soul, hurtling toward death. But eventually, shock seemed to set in, and his pupils rolled back as he lost consciousness.
“Erina… Erina…”
Seeing him call his wife's name even while unconscious, Klumpf also shed tears.
* * *
Erina's funeral was held. Only family members were present, and Alpheas was barred from attending by her relatives. They had never held a wedding ceremony and had no heir. In the end, the two parted as strangers.
Alpheas sat listlessly in front of the funeral hall. Then, around sunset, he rose like a man who had lost his mind and started walking somewhere.
He arrived at Arcane's dungeon. The equipment from two years of countless experiments remained just as it was.
“Erina…”
Alpheas picked up a can of oil and began splashing it all over the laboratory. With every splash of oil, tears streamed from his eyes. The moments he had spent laughing and talking with her were as vivid as if they had happened yesterday.
When the oil can was empty, Alpheas slumped against the wall. This was knowledge that should not exist in the world. How could human beings perform such cruel experiments?
“Have you come, Alpheas?”
Arcane entered the laboratory. He knew that Alpheas hadn't even been invited to the funeral. In a way, this place was his wife's tomb.
“I am sorry about Erina. For now, take care of your body and mind. Then, come back and with me…”
Arcane realized something and turned his head. The smell of oil was too strong to have come from the machinery.
“Alpheas… you don't mean to?”
Alpheas stood up, his eyes dark. A single fire spell would be enough to blow up the entire laboratory.
“No! What are you doing!”
“Master, this was something we should never have started.”
“I understand that your wife's death has made you weak! But you're wrong! The experiment was almost a success! Have you forgotten Erina's will? To destroy this place is to turn your back on her sacrifice!”
“None of it matters. Now that my wife is gone… I have nothing left.”
“Even so, you can't! This isn't just yours and Erina's. My life's work is also accumulated here! These are documents you cannot destroy without my permission.”
Alpheas cast a fire spell. Arcane absorbed it with dark magic, but he couldn't do anything about the temperature rising above the ignition point.
Flames engulfed the room.
Thousands of pages of documents, precise magical devices, and volatile alchemical substances all began to transform.
Watching the flames dispassionately, Alpheas left the dungeon.
But Arcane couldn't leave. He had to put out the fire. No, even if he lost everything else, he had to protect the experimental data.
“No, no!”
Dashing in and out of the fire, Arcane was preoccupied with saving the documents. Eventually, the flames reached a box containing vaporizing substances, and an explosion occurred.
The entire laboratory was blown away, and a shockwave powerful enough to shake the whole underground dungeon spread out.
The fire, ravenously consuming the air, raced through the tunnels.
“Aaaaargh! Alpheas! I will not forgive you, Alpheas!”
Arcane gritted his teeth. Losing the data right before completing his magnum opus was more agonizing and infuriating than death itself.
“I will… I will survive. And I will have my revenge. Just you wait, Alpheas!”
Even as the fire consumed him, Arcane hated Alpheas. Arrogant Alpheas was arrogant to the very end.
Surviving on his thirst for revenge, he stockpiled his power and used every connection he had to search the continent. But no one knew of Alpheas's whereabouts.
Alpheas reappeared in the world seven years later.
At the main house of the Ogent family in the city of Creas.
“Alpheas! Hey, you bastard! What in the world happened to you?”
Klumpf stared blankly at Alpheas, who had become a completely different person. His once-clean face was gone, replaced by a madman's beard. He was dressed in rags, and his skin was burnt dark.
Klumpf took Alpheas to the bathroom and washed him himself. Countless scars were etched into his body. As a swordsman, he could tell them apart: wounds from wild beasts, scars from torture, and the unmistakable marks of self-harm.
“Were you wandering around looking for a place to die?”
Alpheas, his face hidden by his wet hair, didn't answer. Only after a long while did he finally speak.
“I wasn't particularly trying to die. But I wasn't trying to live, either. I just wandered aimlessly.”
“I see…”
“I heard. You became a certified swordsman. Congratulations.”
“What's with the congratulations between us? I was the last of our peers, man.”
Klumpf replied awkwardly. He didn't feel particularly proud of an achievement he'd earned while his friend was experiencing hell in the wilderness.
“Sorry. This was the only place I had to go. I'll be in your care for a bit.”
Klumpf looked sorrowfully at Alpheas's withered back.
How on earth did it come to this?
He, who was once called the supernova of the magic society, had now been cast out of his family and reduced to a vagrant with no noble acquaintances.
After the bath, Klumpf had the maids prepare a meal. But Alpheas couldn't eat much, as if even his stomach had shriveled.
Klumpf knew. Alpheas wasn't the type to show up just because he had nowhere else to go.
He took Alpheas to the study and offered him a glass of liquor. Alpheas didn't even look at it. But for a fleeting moment, the intelligent glint in his eyes from seven years ago returned.
“Tell me. You must have shown up because your wandering is over. You need to get back on your feet. I'll help if I can.”
Alpheas said bluntly.
“Lend me 100 million gold.”
“One hundred million… gold?”
It was an enormous sum.
Of course, by passing the certification exam, Klumpf had earned the right to succeed as head of the family. But even if he were the head, there was a limit to the funds he could invest.
“I'm not asking for it all at once. I'll withdraw it over four years. Hire a financier. If you set a monthly limit of 7 million, you should be able to manage it without taking a major hit. I'll pay interest, too. But no compound interest. Instead, I'll give you a 20 percent annual rate. I should be able to start repaying the principal after a year.”
The repayment method was usually set by the lender, but Klumpf didn't care. The Alpheas he knew would have come up with the most optimized terms of trade long before arriving here.
In the end, he was saying he would generate a profit of 80 million gold in four years, excluding the principal. Klumpf was more curious about how on earth he planned to do that.
“What's your plan? Did you develop a new kind of magic?”
Alpheas shook his head.
“I no longer have any passion.”
“Then what are you going to do with 100 million gold?”
“I'm going to build a school.”
“What? A school?”
Klumpf's eyes went wide. Alpheas, who believed himself to be the greatest being between heaven and earth, was going to teach others?
“What in the world are you thinking…?”
Seeing the tears streaming down Alpheas's cheeks, Klumpf couldn't finish his sentence.
“Never again… should someone like me exist. I will atone until the day I die by teaching students. I will live by feeding on my own pain, so that no talent is trampled by a moment's mistake.”
Alpheas covered his face with both hands and sobbed. Yet he couldn't stop the tears from flowing.
Klumpf's eyes reddened as well.
Erina, the Bastard. Alpheas would probably never forget her. He might have to live in anguish for the rest of his life.
But that was why the decision was easy.
If the pain Alpheas had to endure could be sublimated into someone else's growth, if that could really happen, then perhaps this friend, who had dreamed of happiness more than success, might one day have a reason to smile.
“I'll lend it to you. 100 million gold.”
Alpheas established a school named after himself in the city of Creas. During the construction period, he worked as a mage to pay off the interest and studied at night to earn his teaching certificate.
And four years later.
Headmaster Mirh Alpheas of the Alpheas Magic Academy paid the Ogent family 180 million gold in full.
* * *
When the effects of Abyss Nova completely faded, Alpheas slowly opened his eyes. All his memories had returned, but he remained silent for a long time. The forty years he had relived were so long and heavy.