Chapter 645: Black Magic, White Magic, and Gray Sorcery - 4
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 645: Black Magic, White Magic, and Gray Sorcery - 4
In the era when magic was just dawning. A time before the word ‘mage’ had even entered the lexicon.
Those who wielded the mysteries of nature were met with both reverence and fear.
They were wise and wealthy, eccentric yet useful. Their mystical arts were a ray of hope blooming in this harsh, cold land. The domains they created by twisting reason protected people from the unforgiving environment.
In the open lands of the northern continent, they became the center of human society.
However, the world is home to an emotion called inferiority. Humans are capable of harboring feelings akin to hatred for no other reason than someone else’s success.
Mages were typically intellectuals who had devoted considerable time to their studies, leaving them unskilled in Qi Arts. People consumed by inferiority attacked mages freely, without fear of retaliation.
If your toes froze with frostbite and had to be amputated, it was the curse of an ice witch.
If a spark from the bonfire spread and burned your house to the ground, it was the arson of a flame witch.
If the boat you left by the river was swept away by the wind, it was the mischief of a wind witch.
If your secret, shameful private matters became the talk of the entire village, it was the work of a sound witch.
Every misfortune was twisted into an act of magic, used as justification to hunt mages. Trials were held one after another in the villages, and witches were dragged into the square to suffer all manner of torment. Witch hunters roamed from city to city, continuing their hunt.
Until Saint Rene wove the lands together to draw a map.
“The term ‘ignorant masses’ refers to a majority of foolish humans. You call them ignorant for the sole reason that they don't know magic, but from my perspective, there's no difference between you and them. Even if a bee buzzes to insist it's different from an ant, aren't they both just insects?”
The witch hunts were an atrocity of the ignorant masses that should never be repeated. The mages’ tradition of ‘dueling’ as a way to compete with knowledge, and the principle that a crime is not acknowledged unless the existence of magic can be proven—it all originated from that time.
White Magic with black mana? Without a gem as a medium, and without using Alchemic Gold. Where did he draw the mana from? How did he weave it so invisibly?
Temperus tried desperately to analyze my magic. It was a futile attempt, but as an enforcer of the Celsius family, he could not admit defeat.
For the more foolish must never dare to judge the more brilliant.
That bastard definitely inscribed a magic circle on the card! But the problem is the mana! The reason he could convert that black mana into white mana is…!
“Unique Magic! You drew out the mana with Unique Magic! You bastard, you were a mage!”
“Is that what you think? Hmm. A convenient guess to make when you don't know the answer.”
It was a reasonable one, too. In a sense, he was right about it being Unique Magic.
“I don’t know why you would dabble in black magic when you’ve awakened a Unique Magic, but you’re mistaken if you think you’re the only one who has one! The long and storied House of Celsius has four mages, all of whom have mastered the family’s exclusive combat magic! Don’t think you’re the only one who’s special!”
“Oh. That’s what I wanted to say.”
For him to summarize it so simply. He saved me the trouble of saying it myself, didn’t he?
“I found it quite distasteful, watching you act all high and mighty, all special, just because you’ve fed on the scraps of magic! Mages are a dime a dozen, and you’re not particularly special among them. You’ve merely climbed a tower that others have built.”
“You…!”
“Just because you exist within the order doesn’t make you the order itself. Everyone is so deeply mistaken, aren’t they? Then again, it is because they are foolish and ignorant that they are human.”
I sighed and shuffled the cards in front of him.
“What are you all doing! Seize him now! You have my permission to kill!”
The guards, having regained their senses, began to move. But Hilde was a step faster. Before they could even readjust their grips on their spears, she had already closed the distance, stepping into their midst.
“Haaah. See, I’m the one who has it the hardest~.”
Thud, thud, thud, thud.
Hilde’s footprint was stamped onto one man’s chest. As the guard’s body crumpled, she used him as a springboard to launch herself at another. In the blink of an eye, the bodies of all four guards collapsed.
The Mage Federation is a nation where magic is power. There is no power to spare for foolish Qi Practitioners who train their bodies. Naturally, the quantity and quality of their Qi Practitioners fall short of other nations.
Even so, Hilde’s skill in felling four men in a single breath was exceptional.
Temperus was horrified.
“A mere housekeeper defeated my guards?”
Hilde untied the kerchief from her head and let it fall, saying, “A professional housekeeper is expected to have the combat power of four warriors, you know. Isn't that common sense?”
“What kind of common sense is that! You were a guard disguised as a housekeeper. Tsk, useless fools! This is why the ignorant masses who only use their bodies are…!”
The fallen guards were merely the vanguard, hired only to buy time for him to cast his spell. Having finished his incantation in that time, Temperus drew a magic circle from the gem at the tip of his staff.
The magic circle glowed in the air. Hilde was about to attack before Temperus could complete the spell, but she stopped when she saw my calm demeanor.
“Master of the Permafrost. Coordinator of Phases. Celsius Archive, Set! Abridged magic circle, chant omitted. Mana control backup!”
In that brief moment, Temperus completed the magic circle.
The rules of the Celsius domain. With its backup, he could partially omit the chant and simplify the magic circle. He skipped the condensation-conversion phase of the circle, converting all the mana that would have been used for it directly into power.
In that short time, having filled the magic circle with mana, Temperus slammed his staff down as he uttered the spell.
“Freeze. Al Asus!”
An omnidirectional freezing spell. The air extending from his staff froze white, and a fierce chill rushed toward me. I braced myself against the cold.
Frost formed over my skin. My shoes were already covered in ice, rendering me immobile. It felt as if my body had become a single, massive icicle.
“This is the magic of Celsius!”
It was an attack launched without any regard for his own guards. Hilde had shielded herself by stacking two of them, but I was caught directly in the blast. A quick glance showed jagged ice growing out from behind me.
And yet, I could still speak.
“The magic of Celsius appears to be cryomancy, but it's actually magic that controls the phase transition between solid and liquid. Crystals may look cold, but they are surprisingly far from true cold. Its essence is the storage and release of heat and mana through forced phase transition. Though it looks like I’m frozen, my body is largely unharmed.”
“That’s enough of your posturing! That ice is a solid mana crystal. You won’t be able to move a single fingertip now! If you try to break it by force, that power will tear your body to shreds!”
Was that so? I shrugged and replied.
“You should think a little harder. I understood your magic. Did you really think I wouldn’t have prepared for it?”
Crack, crack. Broken ice clattered to the ground. My body was still covered in it, but I took a step forward as if nothing was wrong.
Temperus stared in horror as I approached, still encased in ice.
“…What? How are you moving?”
“That’s for you to figure out. What do you think I did?”
“Wh-what kind of Unique Magic is that! You didn’t even use any other spells…!”
“What? You couldn’t even see what I was doing? Hah. And here I had expectations for a mage who walks with his head held so high…”
Temperus stumbled backward. The ice he had created had certainly hit me, and I had frozen just as he’d expected. But contrary to his calculations, I could still move.
“You don’t know? Can I take that as a declaration of your defeat? I’m not a very patient person, so I can’t wait long.”
“Grr, ggggh! Not yet, it’s not over! Not…!”
What spell should I use? Crystallization doesn’t work. Then a crystal explosion? No, he’s already figured out my crystal magic! Should I use a different school? But without the backup, it won’t work on a mage…!
“Too late.”
He took too long to think. Unavoidable, I suppose, for a mage whose thoughts are his skill.
I walked steadily forward and reached for Temperus’s staff. Panicked, he hastily used a spell. A path of ice formed behind his heels, and a gust of wind pushed his body back. It was an escape spell that mages weak in close combat usually kept prepared.
But just before the spell ended, Temperus tripped on something and tumbled gracelessly to the ground. A single card was embedded in the floor beneath his feet.
“Gasp, gasp! Since when!”
“Knowing isn’t all that important. The world is full of things we don’t know, after all. You may strut around, but you don’t know any of the real truths, do you?”
Temperus knew nothing. He didn’t know what magic I had used, or how I could walk while covered in ice. He didn’t know when that card had appeared.
He didn’t know why he had become an enforcer, why he was treated with respect, or why he had to deal with black magic.
Of course he didn’t.
Because I had deceived him invisibly.
“The mages of the Federation aren’t just a group of powerful elites. If power was so precious to them, they would have hidden and monopolized it, not shared the opportunity with the ignorant masses in the remote school districts. So, is their goal to spread magic far and wide to enlighten all of mankind? I doubt it. If so, there would be no reason to so cruelly abandon the unranked or the remote districts, would there?”
“Guh…!”
“Black magic isn’t a good thing, but there’s no need for such a convulsive, allergic reaction to it alone. Mages don’t believe in religion or like the Sanctum in the first place, do they? And yet, when it comes to black magic, they maintain a united front. This, despite their own history of being persecuted in the witch hunts.”
“What are you trying to say…!”
My hand, still caked in ice, reached out and grabbed his neck. I didn’t even squeeze, but the ice around his throat made him choke and gag.
“It means that you, who merely follows orders like a scarecrow, are nothing more than one of the ignorant masses.”
The feeling of defeat from not understanding my magic, the pressure of my presence, and a primal fear.
It was too much for a fragile mage to bear. Unable to withstand it, Temperus’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he fainted.