Chapter 192
Chapter 192
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 192
Chapter Title: Each One's Stage (6)
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Raniel walks toward the rift.
She sees all sorts of scorch marks etched into the floor.
They are spell-like scorch marks. Traces where spells clashed and clawed at the floor. Raniel imagines the mage who fought desperately here.
The madman, Kelrhalim.
He sacrificed his own body to devour the shadow.
He protected the children targeted by the shadow.
Next, Raniel sees the sword scars etched into the floor.
Following the trail of bloodstains from those sword scars leads to Kalt, leaning against the wall with his eyes closed. Looking at him, Raniel thinks.
The knight, Kalt.
He staked his life to confront the disaster.
He succeeded in buying time from the disaster.
"...A feat."
Kelrhalim, Kalt.
All of them fulfilled their roles faithfully. They accomplished what they had to on their respective stages.
'Then, what must I do.'
It was already decided.
'To ensure the time they bought isn't meaningless.'
'To prevent their resolve from being trampled.'
'So their feats can shine.'
Putting the final period on it all—that must be her role.
"......"
Raniel gazes at the rift leaking shadow.
Beyond it lay her stage.
2.
Aila walks through Aphria shrouded in darkness.
It's not a movement brimming with grace. Nor is it her usual confident stride, or the elegant steps mindful of others' gazes. Aila advances with the same stride as any other girl.
She is not the Fourth Princess.
Nor the child beloved by the stars.
Just a girl named Aila gropes her way forward through the darkness. The stars' prophecies do not reach her, but the stars still bestow their blessings upon Aila.
Step.
One step, another step.
With each anxious yet unhalting step, light settles in. The light leaking from where her feet touch becomes a signpost.
A signpost for those awakening from nightmares.
A light for those who will follow.
Leaving such footprints, Aila heads toward the altar.
"To cleanly resolve the current situation, we must destroy the altar. That will be the key."
"But I cannot destroy the altar."
Aila recalls the request she received.
"The special barrier surrounding the altar—I cannot endure inside it. Most mages wouldn't be able to either. What's inside is a poison that corrupts mana."
She had said this to Aila.
"But you, Princess, are different. The star's blessing you possess dominates the surrounding flows. It means you can withstand even within the barrier."
This is.
"Something only you can do, Princess."
Something only you can do.
So, I'm asking you.
She had whispered this to Aila.
'That's what she said.'
What is the identity of the woman who left those words?
Aila thinks of the woman called Lania van Trias. Events from their first meeting up to now flash through her mind.
Thinking back, there were plenty of hints.
She had said similar things in similar situations, looked at her with familiar eyes... and approached her without reservation. These were all too familiar occurrences.
'That's why I kept suspecting.'
Until now, the stars had denied Aila's suspicions.
Aila's intuition had been stamped as 'wrong.'
Having lived relying on the stars, Aila hadn't dwelled deeply on it. If the stars were wrong, then they were wrong.
But today.
Not on this day when she chose to ignore the stars' voice and advance on her own two feet. Aila affirms her own intuition. She accepts what she feels as is. With that, Aila reaches a conclusion.
'Lania van Trias.'
That professor with ashen hair and blue eyes.
'Is Raniel van Trias.'
She is the same person as the benefactor she admired.
The mage who became the sole color of her childhood.
"...Really."
A smile forms at the corners of Aila's mouth.
The ashen mage, Raniel.
She became her teacher, her companion in words, and always looked upon her without reserve. Just thinking of her makes Aila smile.
She was her lifesaver.
Her idol.
The first person she ever held in her heart.
That person told her: I need your help, this is something only you can do. Those words hold a value worth a thousand gold to Aila.
'Not just someone to protect.'
It was different from back then.
She saw her as a companion to stand alongside.
That fact delights Aila.
'So.'
She will live up to that expectation.
Crunch.
Aila stops walking. Standing before the swirling barrier, she turns back. Looking behind, she sees the long trail of footprints she left.
Signposts glowing faintly in the darkness.
A single thread of light left so those lost in nightmares can awaken, and so they can follow her.
Two people approach, groping along that light.
Their faces are obscured by the darkness, but even without seeing, Aila knows who they are.
There are only two in Aphria who can sense the starlight she left behind.
"Come on."
Aila flashes a soft smile.
The princess who chose to advance on her own confronts those who will be her strength. Turning back, there stand two girls.
Resti Eleanor.
The one who reads the stars' context, the Watcher.
Chloe.
The child chosen by the stars, the Brave.
Those who arrived here following the light through the darkness. Facing them, Aila begins her explanation. About the current situation, and about what they gathered here can do.
"...There doesn't seem to be any other way."
Resti nods.
She has faced a similar situation before. Thus, she instantly understands that the central core must be shattered.
"If I can help, I want to."
Chloe clearly conveys her will.
"That must be why the stars chose me."
Still young and immature, she understands the power she holds and the responsibility that comes with it. Understanding this, she gladly stands by Aila's side.
"Yes."
Aila nods.
She points to the swirling barrier.
"Shall we go together?"
With her at the center, a cluster of stars blooms.
It is a flower with buds. For years, Aila's starlight had taken that form. And now, Aila blooms.
Pop.
The budded flower clusters begin bursting one by one. Star flowers blooming in the darkness adorn Aila's side. They are not brilliantly shining flowers. Nor are they flashy. Just flowers bearing a soft light.
"Stand by my side."
The soft light drives away the darkness.
Her surroundings are already a starry realm. In Aphria shrouded in darkness, a small light is born.
The child loved by the stars, Stella.
However, the child becomes an adult.
She chooses not to blindly believe in the stars' love, but to advance on her own. She steps out from the stars' protection on her own feet, choosing to live her life as one human.
The stars respond to that will.
The stars no longer dictate her path ahead.
Instead of prophecies, the stars illuminate the path chosen by the child they love.
Even if it is the wrong answer.
A path chosen by oneself is the right answer in itself.
"Follow me."
The child of the stars walks at the very front.
Farther ahead than anyone else.
The world calls such a one a leader.
3.
She tears through the rift in twisted space and enters the otherworld.
The world loses its color in an instant. Entering the monochrome realm, Raniel walks without stopping.
One step, another step.
She follows the black mist flowing across the ground. With each step, her heart pounds fiercely. The curse pooled in her heart reacts to the mist. This doesn't surprise her much.
'I already expected it.'
The mist carpeting the ground is a fragment of the Demon King.
She had anticipated that her heart, filled with the Demon King's curse, would react to it. Raniel overheats the circuits etched across her chest.
A burden falls on her body.
Her already broken body breaks a little more.
For a moment, pain surges, causing Raniel to stumble. But only once. Quickly regaining balance, Raniel continues walking.
It had been a long time.
Raniel recalls the day she encountered the Demon King. The memory of that day, when she placed half her lifespan on the scales, is unforgettable. She had to chew over the helplessness felt that day countless times in the years since.
Demon King.
An incomprehensible concept.
A being that denies providence itself by its very existence.
All that Raniel had built held no meaning before the Demon King. Thus, Raniel's life was thoroughly denied there, in that moment, in that place.
There was nothing she could do.
Before it, she was merely human.
Just a human who must accept death.
'But.'
Raniel did not forget herself.
She is a mage. Even if all she had built was denied, the fact that she was a mage did not change. Thus, Raniel sought an answer.
'Find the answer.'
Understand the incomprehensible.
Confront the unconfrontable.
Accomplish the impossible.
"Yes."
Raniel stops walking.
"You must have done the same."
She looks ahead.
There is the origin of the black mist. A human bearing that black mist stands there.
"You tried to find an answer too."
A human who lived over a hundred years.
A superhuman who writhed in madness seeking an answer.
A mage who absolutely had to find an answer.
"Right?"
Raniel looks at him.
"Kelrhalim."
The madman, Kelrhalim.
He slowly turns his head. Eyes lost to reason turn toward Raniel. Mist leaks from him, spreading thickly across the ground.
Screech, grind.
Twisted circuits float around Kelrhalim.
From within dozens of circuits, Kelrhalim opens his mouth.
"Do you know me?"
The voice of the madman echoes like boiling rage.
His appearance is just as Raniel predicted.
'All restraints shattered.'
Kelrhalim is freed from all constraints, lost to reason. He sees all approaching things as enemies. With even the shadow at his side, confronting him will require quite the hassle.
"...I do."
Answering his question, Raniel steps forward again.
"I remember the name of the guy who beat me and ran. Honestly, that duel was kinda meh? Hard to even call it a proper match..."
Muttering complaints, Raniel closes the distance to Kelrhalim.
At that moment, Kelrhalim reacts. He swings his hand, and a completed spell shines. The black mist infused in the spell savagely claws the area.
Shrrriiiip!
A spell like a fierce storm.
The shadow-infused spell ignores all magical interference. No means a mage possesses can block it, nor pierce through it. Thus, nothing should remain where the spell claws past.
The madman unconsciously expects as much.
"So, like."
However, that expectation misses the mark.
"This is our rematch."
The place the shadow clawed past.
A human strides directly through the churning black mist. The usual blue mana does not shine in her hand.
"You and whatever you're carrying too."
The ashen mage, Raniel.
What shines in her hand is ashen mana.
"Four years since my defeat."
Years someone might have wasted in despair.
But for someone...
"Plenty of time to find an answer."
Enough time to find the answer for victory.
Clap. Raniel claps her palms together. The circuits etched across her body ignite.
Crack.
The ashen mana rising from her clapped palms devours every one of the hundreds of Stocked spells.
"Spells with spells."
She curls the corner of her mouth.
"Curses with curses."
Cursed Mana.
The mage who survived gnawed by curses eating at her has obtained a way to confront curses. This is the answer Raniel found.
"Rematch, Kelrhalim."
Mage versus mage.
Superhuman versus superhuman.
Human versus disaster.
And again, human versus human.
To settle it, the two charge at each other. Spells clash, shaking the otherworld. Curses and curse-devouring mana tangle, tearing space apart.
A place no one's gaze reaches.
One step removed from the world, behind the stage.
That was the stage given to them.