Chapter 124: The Half-Baked Magus (3)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 124: The Half-Baked Magus (3)
Duke Comallon—■■■—suddenly recalled a memory from the past.
It was an old memory, so distant that its colors had begun to fade. It was a fragment the Duke could only glimpse occasionally in his dreams.
It was a memory from back when he was still a 'disciple' under his Master, a Magus.
—'Eat all your vegetables.'
—'Do not be lazy with your Embodiment.'
—'Let us go on an outing.'
—'■■■ is far better than you! Where did I even find such a worthless husk like you!'
The flowing memories were nothing special.
The memory of sharing a meal with his Master.
The memory of being scolded by his Master about magic.
The memory of going on a picnic with his Master.
The memory of his Master defending him when he was inferior to the disciples of other Magi.
They were just the kind of memories anyone might have, tucked away in a corner of their mind.
Trivial things.
Yet, to Duke Comallon, they were fragments of a memory more precious than anything else.
However, the Duke—■■■—did not particularly like that memory.
Because the end of these fragments...
Always converged into a single point.
The scenes of the memory Duke Comallon was peering into flipped over.
—'It can't be helped, ■■■. The moment the Soul of the World is filled to the brim, there is nothing more that can be done.'
His Master's voice echoed.
It was happening now, too.
"!"
Using that voice as a signal, Duke Comallon snapped back to his senses.
Realizing he had lost consciousness for a split second, he checked his physical condition.
It wasn't good. His right arm was gone, and there was a hole in his stomach.
However, the Duke's attention was elsewhere.
He lifted his head and looked forward.
A man stood there.
Wearing an ink-black coat stained with dust, Marquis Palatio looked down at him with an expression devoid of emotion.
A half-baked Magus just like himself stood blocking his path in this ashen world.
"How on earth did you use a Sentence?"
Marquis Palatio did not show even a sliver of emotion.
Duke Comallon simply could not understand.
He had clearly used a Sentence.
"Even if it wasn't a Formula or Self-Embodiment, that was undoubtedly a Sentence. How could you, who should be a half-baked mage just like me, possibly...?"
It was a point he couldn't grasp.
The man had definitely used a Sentence. Even if he hadn't reached the level of a Formula or Self-Embodiment, it was ultimately a Sentence, and he had drawn out its effects.
Of course, that didn't mean Marquis Palatio was a complete Magus.
No matter how much one inherits a Sentence and achieves Self-Embodiment, one cannot become a Magus without reaching the level of a Formula.
He was, indeed, a half-baked Magus.
A half-baked Magus who had inherited a Sentence from a Magus, just like himself.
"......Ha."
Because of that, the Duke found it even more incomprehensible.
■■■ let out a hollow laugh.
"You... why are you stopping me when you've even inherited a Sentence? Me, who carries the yearning of all Magi?"
He must have seen it.
The end of this world.
The unavoidable apocalypse.
He must also know.
That the Magi were the ones who had protected this world from its end.
That was why he laughed.
He sneered, feeling an uncontrollable sense of futility toward this half-baked Magus who sought to render the world—which every Magus had sacrificed their life to protect—into nothingness once again.
The moment he formed a seal.
"......!"
Sensing an instinctive danger, the Duke hastily used a Shield to protect his body.
And then.
KABOOM—!
The moment he was slammed into the ground, what he saw was...
"Mentor—! You're a bit late!"
It was the blood-covered beastman who had crushed the Great Cause he had created.
However, even with her joining the fray, what the Duke had to do did not change.
"Composite."
The Duke—■■■—wove a seal to kill him.
* * *
The battle continued.
"One Point, Dispersion, Scattering, Blue Sky."
Phrases were chanted incessantly from Duke Comallon's mouth.
They were fragments of the magic he had accumulated while living in silence for hundreds of years.
A form of magic belonging only to him, who possessed no talent.
A Milky Way unfolded in the dark, ashen world.
It was a technique he could achieve precisely because he had not inherited a Sentence.
Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of spheres rose into the air simultaneously, taking the form of a Meteor Shower as they rained down toward the ground.
Along with them, a faded memory—one he could no longer recall except in dreams—surfaced in the Duke's mind.
A voice echoed.
—'■■■, I am glad you did not become a Magus.'
Even as that voice surfaced...
The magic poured down upon the beastman who had ruined his Great Cause.
And upon the half-baked Magus who sought to turn the will of the Magi into nothingness.
—'If you are not a Magus, it would only be a vain death. So, I will leave the rest to you instead.'
The voice flowing from the faint memory disturbed his ears.
And then.
Crackle—!
With a flash of golden light...
"Clear Light."
The Marquis evaded the manifested magic with an indifferent expression, as if he felt no sense of crisis even in this situation.
—'You must survive. Do so, and protect this world. The world that we, the Magi, protected.'
He recalled the final memory.
His Master's last voice.
A long-held memory.
"Whew—"
Exhaling a shallow breath, Duke Comallon looked ahead.
He knew.
His speed in chanting Phrases was overwhelmingly faster.
The same went for the speed of manifesting magic.
He was clearly stronger than the half-baked Magus before his eyes.
Yet, despite that, his magic did not reach his opponent.
The fragments of magic he had trained for hundreds of years did not work against a half-baked Magus who was just like him.
This time was no different.
"......"
Duke Comallon stared at him.
The Marquis's body certainly had more minor wounds than before.
Countless glass bottles were also visible on the ground.
But his expression remained emotionless, and he stood facing the Duke with his hands thrust into his coat pockets.
His dust-stained, ink-black coat fluttered loftily.
In contrast, Duke Comallon's condition was not very good.
The damage to his right hand, suffered during that momentary lapse earlier, was gradually gnawing away at his mental strength, and the hole in his stomach was clearly draining his life.
Yet, even in a life-threatening situation, no pain showed on his face.
Instead, he let out a hollow laugh.
"You... you must surely know."
He spoke calmly.
"How foolish your actions are."
He opened his mouth.
"Even if you inherited a Sentence... if you were able to survive because you didn't receive a Heart Image, then you must know as well. That those things will soon rise and the world will perish."
No emotion could be felt in his voice.
"There is less than half a year left until the souls are completely filled. If we do not clean up this world and its humans within that time, they will rise."
Not even a hint of anger was felt.
"Knowing that fact, do you intend to make this world—which the Magi protected by throwing everything away—and the deaths of the Magi, all for nothing?"
"......"
He was just composed.
He had simply asked calmly.
However, even at Duke Comallon's question, only serenity appeared on Marquis Palatio's face.
As if he didn't sympathize with the Duke's words at all.
The Marquis, who had been staring intently at him with every fragment of emotion erased, opened his mouth for the first time.
"I am making the deaths of the Magi go to waste?"
A simple question.
The Duke burst into a hollow laugh once more.
"You must know as well, for this world is one that has been kept alive by the sacrifices of the Magi."
* * *
Alon looked at Duke Comallon in silence.
He could feel a sense of composure in the Duke's eyes.
But paradoxically, because of that, they seemed to be steeped in rage.
In that brief moment, Alon forced his sluggish mind to think.
Was what he just said the truth?
He couldn't know.
Then, was what he said a lie?
He couldn't know that either.
Regrettably, Alon was not the half-baked Magus the Duke mistook him for.
He was merely an anomaly.
An outsider who had encountered this world through a game called Psychedelia and knew not a single thing about its hidden past.
Strictly speaking, he was just an outsider.
Therefore, he could not judge.
He couldn't judge a single thing the man before him—the half-baked Magus—was saying.
Whether it was truth or a lie.
"Answer me. Do you have a way to ensure the sacrifices of those Magi are not rendered into nothingness?"
Alon remained silent at Duke Comallon's question.
Even if everything the Duke said was true, Alon did not dare to make a judgment.
He was not such a great person that he could quickly grasp information about the world—which might be true or false—that he had just learned.
Because he was merely an anomaly.
However, if there was one clear judgment he had made...
It was that he had to stop the man in front of him right here and now.
Because Duke Comallon's goal was the massacre of humanity, or some 'Great Cause' equivalent to it.
"Is that so."
At Alon's silence, the Duke let out a low groan.
Alon, as expected, did not respond.
Alon and Duke Comallon faced each other and wove their seals.
It was because both Duke Comallon and Alon realized...
That any further conversation was meaningless to both of them.
Alon checked his mana.
Perhaps thanks to the several bottles of potions he had forced down, his mana hole had already recovered quite a bit of mana during that brief conversation.
The moment he realized that.
The two of them chanted their Phrases simultaneously.
"Diffraction."
"Bleaching."
This battle no longer judged right or wrong.
"One Point."
"Blooming."
It was not a place to discern who was a good person.
"Condensation."
"Raising Flower."
Nor was it a place to discern who was a villain.
"Extinction."
"Diffusion."
This was now simply a place where two different convictions collided.
And so, at the end of the completed magic.
"I will kill you and achieve my purpose. The yearning of the Magi, my—"
Duke Comallon opened his mouth.
"—Great Cause."
He manifested his magic.
The flower petals scattered around him instantly spread out, corroding the surrounding atmosphere, and along with it, erasing everything as if with an eraser.
Within those blooming flowers of mana, Alon...
Thought for a moment.
And then.
"I am,"
With a small voice.
"—an anomaly."
He snapped his fingers.
Soon, with a pure white tinnitus that gnawed at everyone's ears...
The convictions of the two men—
—the convictions of the half-baked Magi, collided.