Memories of Notre Dame Cathedral
After Angelica finished her incantation, our bodies were enveloped in light and vanished simultaneously. When I opened my eyes again, we stood amid nameless ruins. I asked the nun who was calmly watching me where we were.
"Here? The Lobelia Kingdom."
"What?"
The Lobelia Kingdom lay in the east. We had been at Notre Dame Cathedral in the Gallia Kingdom, which existed in the south. In other words, Angelica had just teleported over a thousand kilometers—while carrying me.
"...Your mana reserves are fine?"
"As you can see, I have not even used ten percent."
"Both your mana and that teleport... How the hell did you do it?"
"What do you mean?"
"Don't play dumb. A human couldn't possibly pull that off. You're a dragon, aren't you?"
She lifted the corner of her mouth and smiled mischievously. "No, I am not."
"Liar. After moving that far, you still have over ninety percent of your mana left—and you used multi-casting on top of it. If you're not a dragon, what are you? A god?"
"Please speak properly. Mentioning only the multi-casting hurts my feelings. I wove the teleport, coordinate shift, place designation, and confirmation together into an entirely new formula before casting it."
"I don't really understand what you just said, but your pride is definitely dragon-sized. First time I've ever fought a dragon."
I spun my circles. Converting all my mana into lightning, I let it flow through my entire body. All right—let's see what you've really got.
Angelica handled supreme-grade spells and offensive magic with the ease of a true dragon. The weather shifted to a bitter cold. Snow blanketed the ground. The sky filled with clouds, and shards of ice drifted through the air. The falling snow grew larger, clumping together before raining down on me in a single, crushing wave.
Watching the spectacle, I raised my sword vertically and sliced through the snowballs. The cascading snow vanished like dust. Delusion Cut. My innate ability, present since birth.
Olga Lewis. The legitimate heir of House Lewis had been special from the moment he was born. For some reason, his heart bore the unique ability Delusion Cut, which erased magic and spells. Of course, if that power had only affected others, Olga could have become a mage-killer who slaughtered wizards. The very name sounded terrifying—a mage who nullified every spell his enemies cast while raining his own magic upon them.
But the ability erased his magic as well. That was why, despite possessing mana since childhood, I had never been able to use spells or incantations. The moment I tried to activate magic, my innate power wiped it away. My father, displeased that the child who had killed his own mother turned out to be such a defective product, abandoned me at the estate when I was six and marched off to war, never to return.
"Worthless trash."
"....."
Those were the last words I ever heard from him. Yet I did not despair. The average lifespan of a demon was nine hundred years. I was still nothing more than a newborn whelp. Countless days stretched ahead of me. I had always been an optimistic child. I noticed that while magic itself was erased, mana remained untouched. If magic was impossible, why not try wielding mana in its raw form?
For the next several years I never left the estate, devoting myself entirely to research. Perhaps that effort bore fruit—seven years later I discovered how to manifest pure mana into the shape of a weapon. Weapons forged from mana possessed excellent conductivity. So the first thing I attempted was using such a weapon as a medium to cast magic.
Lightning. Lightning. Lightning.
Of course, after hundreds of tries, I failed miserably. Even magic triggered through the weapon was instantly erased by my innate ability. Still, I refused to despair. The world knew of magic swordsmen—warriors who imbued their blades with elemental mana and wielded it like spells. What if I tried the same with my highly conductive weapon?
It was worth attempting. And it worked. My innate ability did not erase elemental mana.
"It worked..."
Elemental mana was essentially magic itself. Infusing a sword with fire let it burn like flame; water let it flow like a river. Yet it was not magic. Strictly speaking, it was mana. For the first time since birth, I could use something resembling magic. The joy was indescribable.
Once I could handle elemental mana, I honed my swordsmanship. Since I could never cast spells, my goal became that of a magic swordsman. I decided my future at a young age. Afterward, I entered the demon academy without difficulty. I was a little older than most, but fortunately I possessed many talents. My unchanging handsome appearance after age seventeen easily won people over, allowing me a smooth school life free of troublesome interference. Teachers who came to instruct me were shocked by how quickly I grew stronger than anyone else.
Later I worked to earn recognition from the family. Though young, I was clever and knew exactly how to charm the elders. Within a few years, the senior members of House Lewis began treating me as the rightful heir. Time flowed on. Even in the demon realm, where seasons barely changed, the blue demon flowers eventually bloomed. I celebrated my sixty-fifth birthday. I had held a faint hope, but it was never fulfilled.
"Young master... A message from Brigadier General Basil. The Fourth Legion has been annihilated by the Hero and the kingdom's army. Legion Commander, Lieutenant General Berks, has fallen."
The following spring, my father lost his life to the Hero.
"Haa... haa... Is that it?"
"No. I expected as much from your heart, but seeing it with my own eyes is even more astonishing. I used supreme-grade spells and magic, after all. Well, I suppose I will simply have to try another method."
Angelica was not merely skilled with magic. Her swordsmanship was also first-rate. Of course, when it came to pure blade work, she was slightly inferior to me, a magic swordsman. Even so, her monstrous strength remained unchanged.
'I trained for seventy-six years...'
Even while exchanging blows with her, I could not properly block her sword. I could only deflect or dodge. Had I not cloaked my body in lightning and enchanted my eyes, several attacks would have killed me instantly. As I said before, this was not because Angelica's swordsmanship was superior. Her physical abilities were simply monstrous. Her speed rivaled that of transcendents in the demon realm, and her strength was at least twice what mine had been as Olga. Worse, even as her sword strikes flew, magic would simultaneously stab in from blind angles. What kind of unbalanced monster was she?
Couldn't I just cut the magic away? If that had worked, I would never have fallen to the Demon King's magic in the first place. The more mana used to cast a spell, the greater the force required to sever it—and the longer it took for the spell to disappear. The Demon King had once blocked my Delusion Cut by drawing on centuries of accumulated mana within his castle. Angelica, however, was firing off spells difficult to cut using only her own mana. At this point, wasn't she more like the Demon King than I was? The difference in our faces alone made the suspicion reasonable.
Enduring an endless barrage of magic, I prayed for her mana to run dry, but she continued hurling supreme-grade spells without strain until the battle ended. Was she really a dragon? She seemed to possess more mana than even the ancient dragons I had seen in my youth. At this level, I could almost believe a god had descended to the human realm for amusement.
Thud. An ice spike struck me squarely in the side. As I watched my entrails spill out, I realized there were far more powerful beings in this world than I had imagined.
After being healed from my crushing defeat, I eventually pressed my forehead to the ground and begged for forgiveness. Angelica merely smiled in silence. A sliver of hope flickered within me. Perhaps she would forgive me. If I behaved well, maybe she would pretend the spell brand had never happened. But that was only my wishful thinking. My apology meant nothing to her.
In the end, Angelica carved her spell into my back. A searing pain, as though an iron were being pressed into my flesh, shot through me. I screamed and pleaded for her to stop, but she paid no heed. After dozens of minutes of shrieking, a palm-sized spell mark was finally etched into my back.
She embraced my now-lifeless body and spoke the same words as always.
"You suffered a lot, didn't you, Sirmiia? It is all because I love you. I care for you so deeply that I had no choice but to brand you. You understand, don't you?"
Even after enduring such torture, my answer remained the same.
"Yes..."