Chapter 311
Chapter 311
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 311
Chapter Title: What the Star Desires (4)
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When dealing with transcendent beings like stars, mages often describe it as feeling like time itself has stopped. And that's not entirely inaccurate.
Transactions with such entities always occur in the crevices between moments. The instant you hear their voice, you slip free from the world's normal flow.
Belnoa was experiencing exactly that sensation right now.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ Child, speak your desire. The screams pouring down had fallen silent.
No more wails from the curse dragon. No sound of Khelrhalhm etching circuits. No clatter of knights rushing about in their armor...
Nothing at all in this frozen world.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ Hurry. The only thing reaching him was a single voice.
And it wasn't the star's.
The star's voice was rigid and emotionless—an unknowable timbre without gender, age, or any hint of humanity. But what of the voice now echoing softly in his ear?
"Didn't you call for me?" It was the whisper of a woman.
The voice soon took shape. Though time stood still and Belnoa couldn't turn, he sensed her presence at his back.
Rustle.
Strands of hair cascaded over Belnoa's shoulder. Flowing locks like the night sky—inky waves that shimmered with an otherworldly mystery.
Squeeze.
A touch followed.
Fingers wrapped around his shoulder. Pale and slender, they gently enclosed it.
"You're the third." She whispered.
"My first contractor wished for the human world to arrive. Desperately so. And so, he made a pact with me to topple every false god. Truly impressive that he succeeded—but in the end, a dull man. He lied to himself until the last." Squeeze. Weight settled on Belnoa's shoulder.
"My second contractor sought to uphold his convictions. He wished for no one else to suffer as he had, for a world where children could smile. He wished it from the heart." A hint of anger colored her words about the first.
Nostalgia softened her tone for the second.
"Child." And. "My third child." Expectation laced the third.
"What do you desire?" The woman breathed into Belnoa's ear.
She draped her arm around his neck, slowly leaning her body forward. Through the cascade of black hair, her eyes gleamed.
Golden irises.
Vertical slits like a beast's pupils.
Locked in their hypnotic pull, Belnoa mulled her question. She had asked what he desired—and instinct screamed he must not lie.
'What I desire.'
The deliberation was brief.
Belnoa already knew his answer.
"I don't desire anything grand."
Belnoa spoke.
No lofty ambitions to reshape the world.
No unbreakable convictions he must defend.
Nothing of the sort.
How could there be?
From boyhood, he had thrashed just to survive. Dirtied his hands. Did whatever it took. For one forged in such a childhood, grand dreams were a luxury that didn't exist.
'Survive.'
That was Belnoa's paramount value.
He would bend convictions for it. Bend anything that could bend. Let them call him craven. That was his foundation.
"But."
Even so, for a wretch like him.
For a slum orphan who crawled the gutters.
"I do have one small wish."
There was something he wanted to protect.
In the halted time, Belnoa gazed at the girl before him. At her back. The girl pressing onward—Chloe.
"What's your name?"
The girl who had given him life.
Irreplaceable to Belnoa.
A human who shone brilliantly, unlike him.
'At first, I thought to protect her.'
Keep her untainted. Unsullied by the world. Belnoa had deemed it his duty to shield her. But that was his arrogance.
Chloe pressed on.
She grew on her own terms. Changed as she willed.
The girl he'd sworn to keep pure now burned even brighter. Belnoa no longer harbored delusions of protection. He simply wished—desperately.
"I want to stand by her side."
Belnoa said.
"I want to go with her. Walk the same path. Aim for the same goal and advance together. Without falling behind. Together."
His first true confession.
"Ah." The woman let out a laugh at the boy's wish.
"Truly a small one." "But," she murmured, gliding forward through the air like a swimmer to face Belnoa directly. She smiled.
"That was my first contractor's true desire too. The liar buried it beneath grand ambitions, but you... you don't hide." The boy who resembled an ancient dragon mage.
The girl who echoed Gletus of Discipline.
She glanced at them both and smiled.
"Whether the star's whim or fate, who can say." She reached out and grasped his chin.
"I like it." Her lips parted.
"I am the master of the shadow dragons." "Lord of the dragons that once lived and breathed upon this land. And also a primordial god." She whispered to Belnoa.
"A god(?) answers origins." "I have heard your wish." "I accept the deal." She tapped the balance hovering before Belnoa. Its form shifted into something bizarre. She placed her finger upon it.
Squeeze.
The balance tipped of its own accord.
"First, let's topple that pride-less wyrm." Shadow spilled from the balance.
It pooled at Belnoa's feet. Leaving it behind, the woman crumbled into scattering motes. With them, the world reclaimed its time.
"...Hoo."
Belnoa let out a short breath and stared at his finger. Blood trickled from the mangled joint—proof of fragile human flesh.
The offering was complete.
The god had answered the human's wish.
Now remained only to prove himself.
Belnoa flexed his finger slowly. The pooled shadow rippled in response.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ 2.
Chloe mulled Khelrhalhm's teachings.
A mage must always remain cool-headed.
If no path appears, forge another. Agonize. Ponder. Until the answer reveals itself.
'...A way.'
Chloe looked to the sky.
A horrific curse dragon soared there. Khelrhalhm was holding it at bay for now, but the limit loomed. She sensed it keenly.
The dragon beat its wings.
Each droplet of filth raining from them was a human life. Evaporating at a terrifying rate. Not vanishing—but offered up.
Offering.
Piling haphazard payment onto the balance. No proper transaction. Inefficient. Lives hemorrhaging wastefully. A savage bargain, its outcome unpredictable.
'It'll break through.'
Khelrhalhm and Chloe shared the thought.
Khelrhalhm reversed the circuit's flow. Desperate to deflect the strike, he wrung out mana far short of his prime.
And Chloe...
"......"
She closed her eyes.
In this desperate pinch, her mind turned to the one who had taught her what it meant to be a hero.
"Those who face reality and still choose to advance—that's who the world calls a hero."
A human who challenged the impossible.
Recalling the light he held at the end, Chloe clenched her fist. Starlight gathered in her palm. She prepared a strike to turn impossible into possible.
Creak, screee.
Amplified starlight converged.
Cold sweat beaded as she wielded it. Unthinkable alone—but Khelrhalhm was buying her time.
'But...'
She sensed it.
The starlight building now was far too slow. It wouldn't reach the dragon overhead. This blow was meant to incinerate the darkness cloaking the ground below.
Grab.
That instant—someone approached her side.
"...Belnoa?"
Chloe turned.
A boy dragging shadows stood there, gazing skyward.
"Keep gathering."
Belnoa turned to her.
He smiled at Chloe beside him.
"I'll drop that thing."
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ 3.
'So this is my limit.'
Khelrhalhm clapped his palms together.
The backlash from harboring shadow in his body was no small thing. His maximum mana had visibly dwindled; he couldn't stall as long as hoped.
But...
'It was enough.'
The mana flow from behind felt extraordinary.
Back at the academy, they'd been mere children. Yet in this short span, they'd grown leaps and bounds.
Children change.
They grow at an astonishing pace.
As an educator at heart, Khelrhalhm took joy in these young heroes' progress. And as an adult paving their path, he squeezed out his remaining mana.
Swirl.
Khelrhalhm traced a circle.
Hundreds of splintered circuits were sucked into it. The contracting ring dwindled to a single point. A red dot formed at his fingertip.
"Prepare."
He aimed at the dragon.
Targeting the curse spilling from its maw, Khelrhalhm chanted.
"Ilso." At that moment, the curse dragon's spell completed as well.
The dragon spewed its filth. As the hex born of human souls neared the ground, a flash erupted from Khelrhalhm's fingertip.
The blaze consumed the filth entirely.
Creating a fleeting void.
Mana drained to nothing, Khelrhalhm stepped back. In his place, Chloe wielding starlight and Belnoa grasping shadow advanced.
Belnoa raised his broken finger.
So easily snapped, bleeding—frail human flesh. Moving it, he recalled his predecessor's teachings.
"A curse is desire. Shadow solidifies your desire into form."
Desire.
What form did he desire?
"Recall it in perfect form."
Belnoa looked skyward.
The flying curse dragon had forgotten its pride. A pride-less wyrm was imperfect. Not the pitiful thing he needed to envision.
"Those who swept regions with a single flap, scorched earth and sky with one breath... perfect beings."
Ones with pride.
Like the curse master from the trial.
Ripple.
The shadow at his feet surged. It replaced the broken finger and torn skin. Wounds knit with fresh growth.
Not human flesh.
Dragon scales enveloped his finger—rippling like shadow. Belnoa lifted the scaled hand.
'Beings that summoned storms with a single flap.'
He envisioned the storm.
'The black storm, Belial.'
He crooked his finger.
The hooked talon clawed empty air. Squeeze—it dug in. Not empty—wind rushed.
He hooked the wind's grain.
Felt its flow. Knew instinctively how to wield it. Just like shadow.
Creak, screee.
Belnoa swung his hand.
The ensnared wind obeyed. He replicated Belial's curse from the trial.
Crunch, cruuunch.
One swing stripped every scale. His finger tore free. A long, perilous road remained, but Belnoa had successfully mimicked that strike.
Whoosh.
A blade of wind sliced low.
It gouged the piled snow, rising gradually. The gale intensified, pulverizing the flurry into nothing.
Graaaawr!
The ferocious wind engulfed the pride-less dragon.
The black dragon's wing that returned all to nothingness tore the wyrm's wings away.
💥 ROAR 💥 ■■■■■, kye■■eeeeek!
The curse dragon shrieked, flapping futilely against the gale. Its wings shredded. Spilling black filth, it plummeted into the tundra.
BOOM!
The colossal wyrm crashed to earth.
The ground quaked, snow erupting in plumes. Belnoa spat a mouthful of blood and twisted his lips in a grin. He had brought the dragon low.
Now came the hero's role.
"Blast it, Chloe."
Chloe nodded at his side.
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