Chapter 48
Chapter 48
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: Elves and Lifespan
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Yonia screamed the moment she regained consciousness. It had been just a few minutes since Enoch had cast Cleanse on her and laid her on the bed in the magic tower.
"Hey────!! Enoch────!!!"
It wasn't a joke—her scream nearly shattered his eardrums. Enoch stared at her with wide eyes.
"What's wrong?"
"Are you fucking insane!?"
Yonia couldn't calm her rage no matter what. The image was still vivid in her mind: the terrifyingly brilliant torrent of power exploding outward. If she'd been caught in it, she would've vanished without a trace.
"How do you have zero sense of caution!? Don't you value your own life!?"
"It's precious to me?"
Her fury peaked at his expression, as if he'd asked something obvious. She snapped.
"You goddamn son of a────!"
A masterful barrage of elven curses. Enoch, who had memorized them well, patted her shoulder.
"Calm down. Getting angry is bad for you somewhere, right?"
"Does this look like a calming situation!?"
Yonia bellowed, huffing and puffing.
"Eri! You listening!?"
[Yes.]
Eri popped out from Enoch's chest as if she'd been waiting and landed on Yonia's shoulder. Enoch instinctively sensed it: now it was two against one.
"Does that make any sense? A guy who says his life is precious just launches that without a second thought?"
[Of course not! Dad needs to be more careful with his body!]
"Right!?"
[Yes…!]
The elf and spirit united, glaring at Enoch. He scratched his cheek.
"Well… I don't want to die either."
Yonia ground her teeth and barely managed a deep breath. Then, whoosh… She took a big inhale and exhaled to settle her mind.
"I'm not joking. I'm dead serious. You don't really care about your own life, do you?"
"Hmm…"
"That's a sickness. A sickness of the heart. Solving any problem starts with realizing it yourself—never heard that?"
He had heard it. From Leone. And in the stories of the past she'd told him. Hadn't she said the same to her father?
But Enoch had his own retort.
"I'm special."
"…What?"
"So it's fine. Being different from others isn't a sickness. It's just what I think."
"You really…"
Yonia furrowed her brow. Eri floated up from her shoulder into the air. Enoch and Eri's eyes met. Eri spoke.
[Dad. Please think about it seriously, just once. Everyone's worried. Me, Yonia, Undine, and… Mom too.]
"……"
[If you get hurt, everyone will be sad.]
"…I know."
He remembered Leone's worry. Her despairing figure in his hazy memories. Her rage as she lost her reason.
"That's why I'm being careful. Though I slip up sometimes."
He didn't want to die. That was genuine. Dying before achieving his goals would be regrettable.
But it was also inevitable. He was born under the Star of Heavenly Slaughter. A fate to kill everything and ultimately tear the heavens apart.
In fact, didn't that "everything" include himself? Enoch often wondered.
But that wasn't all Eri meant.
[Also, Dad, it seems like you try to find all meaning in Mom. You don't really care about superior elves praising you, do you?]
"That's a bit true."
There was an insurmountable wall between elves and humans. No lie there.
[…That's not it. You know what I mean. Dad has to live Dad's life. It's always Leone this, Leone that. Mom isn't living your life for you.]
"……"
Yonia, who had been listening quietly, spoke up.
"Now that I think about it, you were Leone's fiancé once, right? Do you love her?"
She held back a torrent of words on the tip of her tongue. A love that burned even oneself wasn't what Leone wanted. Love wasn't like that. You had to stand tall on your own to give love. She had much to say.
"Love…"
Enoch's eyes darkened, and
"…What is love, anyway?"
when he turned the question back on her, she couldn't help but falter. But it wasn't a question she couldn't answer.
"What else? You miss them when they're not around, you keep thinking about them, you want to do something for them—stuff like that."
She couldn't explain in detail since she'd never experienced it herself.
Yonia stared intently at Enoch, and he opened his mouth.
"What's the difference from friendship? You can feel that way about a close friend too."
"Tch, you don't think about kissing your friends."
"That's lust."
Enoch's blunt words came with a cold expression. He was usually near emotionless, but this had a sharper edge.
Yonia swallowed an inward groan.
'Is there some bad memory…?'
It felt like she'd touched a reverse scale. She took a step back.
"Ah, anyway. Next time you do something like that, at least warn me. I end up in danger too."
"Yeah."
Enoch nodded and left the room. Yonia rolled her eyes awkwardly and looked at Eri. The spirit seemed lost in thought too.
"…I didn't say something wrong, did I?"
[Probably not.]
"…Good."
[Haa…]
Eri sighed, her body dissolving into lightning and scattering. She seemed to have returned to Enoch's side.
"I didn't mess up, right…?"
Yonia groaned miserably.
*
Enoch walked the corridors of the magic tower, pondering. It was a topic he often mulled over.
'Why does Leone cherish me so much?'
He couldn't help but wonder. She'd lived for ages. She used to go on adventures back in the day. Hadn't she met someone in his situation during that time?
Was it simply because he was under the Heavenly Slaughter Star? Because of his talent? Just for that?
"Tch."
That was an uncertainty. Something he couldn't be sure of, and truthfully, didn't want to dwell on.
Enoch left the magic tower and stepped out into the plains beyond the city. A hideous crater. So deep that even the blazing sunlight couldn't reach its bottom—it was a trace he'd made himself. Like his own heart, which he couldn't peer into.
Boom-!
He stomped, and the earth plasmized, rising around him.
[Dad.]
He knew. Be careful with his body, right? He nodded to Eri, who had returned, and silently manipulated the plasma.
His training remained perilously dangerous all the same.
*
Enoch hadn't just taken from Iris. As she wished, he'd learned a few spells and helped with experiments.
"Ooh…! Finally, the precise wave equation…!"
"This will advance quantum magic several times over! Thank you!"
Amid the excited commotion of the mages, Yonia stealthily checked Enoch's mood. Seemed like he'd cooled off? She approached boldly and spoke.
"What're you doing?"
"Hm? Nothing, just…"
His usual blank look drew a sigh of relief from Yonia. Then Iris approached with steady footsteps.
"I need to talk to you for a sec."
At her gesture, Enoch and Yonia exchanged glances. Yonia whispered.
"…This because you wrecked the stuff in front of the castle?"
"Oh."
It made sense. Still, they followed confidently, and she led them into a quiet room.
"I assume you already know."
Iris began calmly.
"Haken Wert will almost certainly come after you."
"Huh?"
Enoch, who hadn't considered it at all, tilted his head. Iris sighed, now used to it, and explained.
"Not you two… well, you, Enoch, but anyway—Adolf and Grey are executives in Haken Wert."
"So?"
"So obviously Haken Wert will chase you down. For revenge or reputation. And those guys are pretty pragmatic. This time, a top executive might even show up."
Adolf and Grey had impressive power. But power was relative. Among Haken Wert's executives, they ranked low.
Enoch's strength wasn't something to scoff at anywhere, but he wasn't ready to face a top executive yet. If they met, it'd be certain defeat. Not good.
"Of course, you're safe here. They're not crazy enough to start a war with the magic tower.
This is just a branch, but the empire has countless magic towers. Their combined might alone is no joke, but the one thing Haken Wert fears most is undoubtedly one.
The master of all magic towers, the Myriad Tower Lord, Ronaldph Magision.
"Magision?"
"Oh, you know that much?"
Iris nodded, surprised.
"The father of mages, descendant of Pagandal Magision."
"The guy who made the Circles, right?"
"Yep."
"I heard he was an elf."
Enoch remembered clearly. Leone had taught him Pagandal Magision was an elf.
"Right. But one of Pagandal Magision's descendants married a human."
"Oh."
Interest flickered in Enoch's eyes. He urged her wordlessly to tell more, and Iris gave a wry smile.
"I don't know the details. It's too ancient."
"Shanak Magision."
Yonia spoke up abruptly. Enoch looked at her, and she continued with a somewhat bitter expression.
"An elf who went mad loving a human."
"…Why?"
"Why do you think? Lifespan. Watching the woman she loved, her children, grandchildren, descendants—all wither and die before her eyes. What kind of feeling is that?"
Yonia gazed at Enoch more deeply than usual.
"That's why elves rarely get involved with humans. Their lifespans are far too short."
"……"
"Almost no elf who's loved a human has had a happy ending. For an elf, a mate is half their soul. A flame that blazes for an instant in their long life consumes the rest entirely."
Human marriage was mere formality. But elven bonding was different. It literally bound souls. They entrusted half their soul to their mate and received half in return.
If that mate died? It was like losing half their soul. The half received departed to the afterlife, leaving the elf with an irreplaceable void for eternity.
"Got it?"
Yonia's heavy gaze weighed on Enoch's shoulders. That wasn't all she meant.
"In your case, lifespan isn't an issue. The common trait among elves who loved humans and didn't meet tragic ends? They all loved talented humans."
"Transcendence…"
Once one transcended realms, lifespan differed little between human or elf. In fact, it often outlasted non-transcended elves.
Yonia hadn't watched Enoch long, but she knew his talent vaguely. Given time, he'd transcend someday.
"You get what I'm saying?"
"…Be more careful with my body. You just said that."
"I'm repeating because I know you won't listen. If you care about Leone, you really need to watch yourself."
Yonia snorted. But Enoch latched onto something else.
"So, what happened to that elf, Shanak Magision?"
At the question, Yonia rolled her eyes. After a brief hesitation, she spoke.
"God of Life and Death. Heard of it?"
A name Enoch had never heard. As he frowned, a reaction came from elsewhere.
"G-God of Life and Death…!?"
Iris's eyes widened enormously.
"The God of Life and Death was a Magision!?"