Chapter 196
Chapter 196
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 196
Chapter Title: After the Curtain Falls (2)
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A short distance from Aphria, deep in the forest.
Was it because no human feet had trod here? There was only a single set of footprints pressed into the carpet of fallen leaves on the ground. I followed those neatly spaced prints and came to a halt before a tree stump piled high with leaves.
Rustle.
I brushed the leaves off the stump and perched on it. Facing a pleasantly cool breeze, I let out a short breath. Before inhaling again, I lifted my head and looked straight ahead.
The madman, Kelrhalim.
The man I had promised to meet here.
A person with whom I had quite a bit to discuss.
"So."
I opened my mouth while gazing at him, seated across from me. A faint bitter smile tugged at my lips.
"You caught on, huh."
"It'd be weirder if I hadn't."
Kelrhalim pointed at me with his fingertip.
"A mage who knows how to deal with the Shadow and can impose restrictions on me... There can't be anyone but the Ashen Mage."
It was a voice brimming with certainty, and I had no particular intention of denying it. In the end, one more person had learned my secret... but that was unavoidable. Truly.
'I had to face the Shadow; there was no leeway to hide my identity.'
It was a situation demanding my full power.
Not an enemy I could afford to take lightly. I clicked my tongue briefly, as if regretful.
"I was hoping to keep it hidden if possible."
"Were you even trying to hide it? Surprising."
"...What?"
"Want an honest answer, Ashen Mage?"
I blinked.
For a moment, it felt like the temperature in Kelrhalim's gaze dropped sharply.
"I had a hunch from the first instant I saw you. Suspicion arose. Wasn't certain, but I guessed. Exactly one minute after our eyes met."
"Uh..."
That soon?
I thought I'd been careful.
"...That quick?"
"That quick."
Kelrhalim nodded at my question.
"If you really meant to hide, you'd be wise to watch your behavior more closely. Your spell formats could use some tweaking too."
"...Really?"
"Amazing you haven't been found out till now..."
Amazing, my foot.
"From the start, it's an absurd notion."
I shrugged.
"Changing flesh and soul is impossible. It can't happen. Against providence and plain common sense, so only a scant few would suspect it possible."
The more you know, the harder it is to believe. I muttered that as I tapped my chest with my fingertips.
"Only people like you or me—who've encountered beings that make the impossible possible—would suspect."
The existence called the Shadow.
A concept defying providence.
"...The Shadow."
Kelrhalim murmured.
Though just two syllables on his lips, that single word surely held more meaning to him than anything.
"...I owe you a lot this time."
I slowly opened my mouth.
"Thanks to you, Aphria and the students are all safe. That was originally my job."
"No need to thank me."
Kelrhalim shook his head.
"A hundred years ago, I vowed it before the ashes of my homeland. It was my duty—something I had to do."
"That means..."
"My country went through the exact same ordeal."
He raised his arm.
Gazing at the cracked skin—a side effect of harboring the Shadow—he continued.
"Do you know the name Celestia?"
"The spirit summoner from Artia, called the prodigy of talent? I know the name."
"That she received the star's blessing too?"
"Didn't know that far."
Kelrhalim clenched his fist tight.
"Celestia was a Watcher and a Stella."
"...Two blessings at once? Possible?"
"It was. She had the brightest starlight of anyone. A shining child. Everyone anticipated her brilliant future."
Was that why?
"It was trampled."
Heat crept into his dry voice.
"The day she came of age, graduated Artia, and stepped into the world—that day, Celestia was crushed."
An apostate appeared.
In the same manner as the calamity that engulfed this academy, Celestia was devoured by the Shadow.
After saying that much, Kelrhalim let out a short breath.
"And I couldn't do a thing."
His voice carried regret.
"Not when the star abandoned her, not when the Shadow made her its vessel, not even when her soul finally corrupted and she crumbled..."
I just watched.
I had no choice but to watch.
I listened closely to Kelrhalim's murmuring. It was the history of a scholar descending into madness. He was recounting his life.
"I've always regretted it."
Kelrhalim said.
"Was there no other way? No way to save my disciple right there? Nothing I could have done? I thought and thought."
A man who had lived over a hundred years alongside madness.
"No easy answers. Took sixty years to faintly grasp one. Another forty to make it viable."
A mage who had wandered a hundred years seeking an answer.
To me, with just twenty-seven years under my belt, that span was unimaginable; I could only groan.
'...They resemble each other.'
In Kelrhalim, I saw overlapped someone I knew all too well.
「A hundred years from now.」
「Hundreds of years.」
「Maybe even thousands.」
An elf who had endured an immortal life, prepared to wait millennia. The total time differed, but to me, Cardi and Kelrhalim seemed alike.
"And so a hundred years passed."
Kelrhalim said with a sigh.
"And."
He looked at me.
Still expressionless, yet somehow smiling... he said to me.
"My hundred years weren't meaningless, it seems."
Ashen pupils.
"I said thanks, Ashen Mage. No, it's not you who owes me."
He shook his head.
"Rather, I want to offer my thanks."
Slowly, very slowly, he bowed his head.
"Thank you. Raniel."
Calling my name.
2.
Bowing his head, Kelrhalim reflected on his life. It hadn't been an easy one. An arduous one. For long ages, he had endured by questioning himself relentlessly.
Did this life have meaning?
Did an ageless life hold value?
He felt himself shedding humanity with every passing moment. The apostate's whispers haunted him eternally as nightmares.
「You resemble me, child.」
A woman steeped in madness.
A madwoman who hated the stars and sought only to drag everything down to her level.
In the apostate, Kelrhalim glimpsed his own future. He always feared becoming like her someday.
Because he feared it.
Because he rejected that future.
Kelrhalim had to vigilantly guard himself without end. He imposed restrictions, tamed his madness. He strove not to treat others' lives lightly, as the apostate had.
'There were easy paths.'
Easy paths appeared time and again. Succumbing to madness wasn't the only easy way.
'Compromise.'
"This is enough," that sort of compromise.
Rationalizing the sacrifice of the few for the greater good.
Paths of rationalization and compromise shimmered before him repeatedly. Sacrificing just one person would yield dozens of answers.
Yet he didn't choose them.
Couldn't.
'Because I had to keep my vow.'
Celestia wouldn't have wanted that kind of life for him. To honor his vow, Kelrhalim had become superhuman—and he never forgot it.
Thus he had walked a hundred years.
A life of immortality walked to keep one promise, to verify the answer he himself found.
A life walked in doubt and vigilance.
A life endured amid regrets.
A life weathered against madness.
Did that life have meaning? To that question, Kelrhalim had no answer until now. But here today, he could declare proudly.
"It had meaning."
Because he had saved her.
"My hundred years had meaning."
Because he had witnessed a different ending with his own two eyes.
"And."
Kelrhalim regarded the mage before him.
She was a being who had found a different answer.
"Thank you for showing me another answer—for presenting a new possibility."
He had concluded the Shadow was something "impossible to confront." Thus, he had sought answers only in binding and restraining it. But the mage before him was different.
「Ashes to Ashes.」
Amid madness-clouded consciousness, through blurred vision, he clearly remembered that flame.
「Curse to Ashes.」
Ashen flames burning the Shadow.
Beams of light sweeping away the darkness.
They presented Kelrhalim a new path.
"My plan had failed. I succeeded in devouring the Shadow, but couldn't contain it fully. In time, it would have broken free from me."
Not a perfect plan.
By rights, Kelrhalim should have failed once more, despaired at his hundred years' meaninglessness. But it hadn't happened.
"Thus, my plan merely bought time."
Buying time.
For someone else.
"The value of the time I bought..."
"Falls to the one who carries it forward."
Raniel responded to Kelrhalim's words.
"The time you bought was taken up by Kalt. The time Kalt bought was passed to me."
And then to the next, and the next.
"The result is this. All the students safe, the Shadow's remnant that appeared here fully incinerated and gone... and even you're safe."
Raniel pointed at Kelrhalim.
Then tossed a playful question.
"How's the new collar?"
At those words, Kelrhalim could only smile wryly.
"Well..."
Kelrhalim touched the nape of his neck. He heard a faint clink. And... surely the girl before him heard the same.
"Feels familiar."
"Tried applying it just like I read before—if it fits well, good."
Raniel shrugged.
She had memorized every restriction she'd glimpsed during their duel. Reimposing them posed no great difficulty.
"...One thing's different."
As he toyed with the chains, Kelrhalim became aware of the platinum chain binding his heart. The inscription on the chain that once resided there had read "Devour the Shadow"—but no longer.
Same conditions, same situation.
Yet the directive for action was now etched in different words. Kelrhalim read the crudely scrawled letters aloud.
"「Call the Ashen Mage.」"
That was inscribed on the chain.
Raniel flashed a sly grin.
"A proper Battle Mage with roots will come running to help, so just buy time."
"Why not engrave 'Great Ashen Mage' up front?"
"......"
Raniel slyly averted her gaze.
Her face was oddly flushed. As if eager to change the subject, she pressed on.
"So, what're you gonna do from here?"
"Rest a bit more till my mana recovers. Still gotta finish those promised lessons too..."
"And after?"
"Probably."
Kelrhalim said.
"Head back to the battlefield."
"...You know your output's down? Won't even hit half your old spell power."
"I know."
At that time, Raniel's spell had burned away all of Kelrhalim's mana contaminated by the Shadow. Several conduits had been completely incinerated in the process.
"Generously, maybe thirty percent at best."
"And you're still going back to the battlefield?"
"Plenty of people still need me."
Weakened or not, he remained a superhuman.
And the battlefield still needed superhumans.
"I haven't found a way to solve the root problem like you, so I have to buy time at least."
"...You caught on, huh?"
Kelrhalim nodded.
"Seeing the students you've raised gave me the gist. Solid lineup. Till they all mature... buying time is a role even this body can handle."
But, Kelrhalim trailed off.
"I just hope those kids don't put too much faith in the stars."
"...Aha."
Raniel smiled at his words.
Kelrhalim couldn't grasp the meaning of that smile.
"...Why the laugh?"
"There's a student I think you'd like."
Raniel said, looking toward Aphria.
"The Fourth Princess, Aila."
"...You mean Stella?"
"Yeah. While you're at Aphria, go see that princess. I bet you'd approve."
With that, Raniel brushed off her knees and rose. Then stood right before Kelrhalim.
"You did great work this time."
She extended her hand to him.
"It was an honor meeting you, Kelrhalim."
And then she gave her name.
"I'm Lania. For the time being, at least."
「I'm Raniel. Pleasure to meet you, Kelrhalim.」
Recalling the greeting they'd once exchanged, Kelrhalim chuckled softly and clasped her hand.
3.
"Oh, come to think of it, I forgot to mention this."
I turned back. We'd been leaving the forest when Kelrhalim called out to me.
"What?"
"The one who summoned me here."
"...The First Prince?"
I halted mid-step.
The First Prince—that was the one incomprehensible piece in this otherwise neatly resolved incident.
'The letter to Princess Luriel hasn't arrived yet; I was thinking of visiting soon...'
I shot Kelrhalim a glare.
"Why the First Prince?"
"There's something off about him."
Kelrhalim touched his chin.
"I've researched star cycles for the past hundred years. Days when starlight grows exceptionally strong, shining brighter on the blessed. I succeeded in inferring those are the days the 'ritual' occurs."
The reason he knew the Shadow would come to Aphria in advance and came here. As he explained, Kelrhalim's voice lowered slightly.
"It was the day I was drafting a letter declaring my intent to visit Aphria."
He slipped a hand into his robe.
What he drew out was a letter stamped with the royal crest.
"That's when this arrived."
The letter bore no other words—just the single line: Aphria Academy.
"Just as I planned to visit Aphria, a letter arrives ordering me there. The sequence seems misreported publicly... but you should know the truth."
"...The First Prince knows something?"
"Too contrived for coincidence."
Kelrhalim folded the letter and handed it to me.
"Judgment's yours."
I stared at the letter I'd taken. Along its edges was drawn a blood-red crest. Midway through eyeing it, I frowned.
"...Hey, Kelrhalim."
"What?"
"When you clashed with Skeval, you got exposed to magi... on everything you had, right?"
"Probably. That's why it was all purified. Something wrong?"
"This."
I shook the letter.
"I feel magi from it—like that skull bastard's."?