Chapter 26
Chapter 26
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 26
Chapter Title: Breaking the Circle
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Since they no longer had a reason to stay, Rachel and Catherine had no choice but to depart after spending just one night.
Allen asked Rachel for a moment alone with Catherine before they left.
“Why did you ask to see me?”
“Regarding my brother… I am truly sorry.”
Her eyes looked hollow.
She had done everything for Julius, only for it to end in a broken engagement. Even after a day, the shock seemed to linger.
“An unmarried man and woman meeting alone could start strange rumors, so please make this quick, my lord.”
…It seemed she still had lingering feelings.
Judging that he could sway her, Allen smiled faintly.
“Lady Catherine.”
“If you have nothing more to say…”
Seeing her poised to stand up, he dropped the pretense.
“The annulment.”
She flinched.
“Wouldn’t you like to reverse it?”
At his words, she trembled as if she had been insulted and glared at him with venomous eyes.
“You will be held responsible for what you just said. If you called me here to insult me…”
“What if.”
Allen cut her off.
Her haggard face flushed with anger, but he paid it no mind.
“What if my brother isn’t the real him?”
“…What? What do you mean by that…?”
Catherine’s head snapped around.
“What if I told you his body has been stolen… by some demon?”
He looked into her eyes.
Shock, doubt, anxiety, and a sliver of hope swirled together in a dark vortex.
Her chaotic eyes reminded him of an unbloomed flower bud.
“Would you believe me?”
One whose final bloom was yet unknown.
“Please, sit. I suspect we have much to discuss.”
Her eyes darted nervously toward the door before she finally gritted her teeth and sat back down.
“Now, tell me, my lord. What do you mean?”
Allen looked at her and smiled, a pure, white smile.
Immaculately white.
***
An hour passed before she finally emerged from the drawing room.
Rachel didn't seem suspicious about how long they had taken…
“Tell me the truth.”
…or so he thought.
She glared at him and whispered under her breath.
Catherine, who had looked so lost before entering the drawing room, now seemed much improved. Rachel must have been certain that something had happened.
“What sort of nonsense did you fill her head with?”
To his relief, her line of questioning was different from what he had expected.
“She’s already going through a hard time. You know you shouldn’t give her false hope, right? Like… getting her back together with Julius, that scoundrel.”
“It was nothing. I just… apologized for my brother, expressed my gratitude, and we discussed how I might compensate her.”
“If that’s all it was, then fine…”
She wore an ambiguous expression, as if sensing something more. To divert her keen intuition, Allen changed the subject.
“Rachel, you should take good care of her. You said she was thinking of going to the academy, right?”
Fortunately, she took the bait without further suspicion.
“I was thinking the same thing. Honestly, I don’t know if she’ll be able to adjust, but I plan to help her as much as I can.”
“I’m sorry, but… unfortunately, I won’t be able to accompany you.”
She blinked her innocent eyes and smiled.
“It’s okay. You said you’d be there soon, right?”
“…Right.”
Allen replied with a bitter smile and stepped back.
With Catherine waiting in the carriage, Rachel couldn’t talk for long. She gave him a hug, then turned and waved.
“Well then, see you next time!”
She walked to the carriage and stepped inside. He exchanged a nod with Catherine, a promise of what was to come.
The next time they met, the preparations would be complete.
For both of them.
***
After seeing Rachel off, Allen left the city immediately.
Linbelle and Inellia would be educated by Laura, their mother’s head maid, during his absence.
‘If she gets bored, Mother will probably join in on their maid training too.’
Moreover, he had specifically entrusted Linbelle’s training to one of the family’s female knights, so she would be too busy to rest while he was gone.
Allen pictured Linbelle’s pouting face and chuckled, waving his hand.
*Splat!*
The head of a gnoll that had been baring its fangs was crushed.
The gnolls lost dozens of their kin before they could even get close to him. The few that managed to approach were swiftly decapitated as he drew his sword.
‘First-Circle.’
It was a paltry result for what had taken him decades to achieve in his previous life.
The power he possessed now, which he had barely reached before his death and had even made a pact with a demon to obtain, was unworthy of the rank he held.
It was the same even if the ring he possessed was unnaturally large for a First-Circle mage. The reason was simple.
It wasn’t enough.
Allen’s target was the Julius from before the regression—an adversary who had traveled the world averting disasters, literally walking the path of a hero.
Was it right to walk the same path that had already failed once against such a person?
When he couldn’t even face him head-on? And that was with power gained through improper, unconventional means.
The gap between them was vast.
‘He used elixirs and artifacts only mentioned in texts, and his growth rate was embarrassingly fast compared to mine.’
Of course, things might be different now, unlike in his past life.
Unlike before, Allen wasn’t suffering from the side effects of his magic. If he focused on it again from this point on, he might achieve even greater results.
‘But when would that be?’
Magic was not something that could be approached simply as an academic discipline.
To use magic, one had to accumulate knowledge in the relevant field, and it had to align with one’s own perception of mana.
To use fire-based magic, one needed knowledge of fire, and the caster’s perception of their own mana had to take a similar form.
This was because every individual perceived the form of mana differently.
Allen perceived it as a ball of thread, Prindal as a gentle breeze, Francisca as sticky darkness, and his brother…
‘He said it was like tiny particles.’
Prindal, who perceived mana as a gentle breeze, was skilled in wind-based magic.
Francisca perceived mana as a sticky darkness and was using it to create an entirely new school of magic.
‘If my brother’s Circle had never been shattered…’
What kind of magic would he have used?
His brother’s claim that all the mana in the world was composed of tiny, uniform particles was fundamentally different from Allen’s perception, who could only see it as a ball of thread.
It was something he would never know.
Allen shook his head. It was too late to learn a new form of magic anyway. That left him with no other choice.
‘I have to catch up to his growth.’
To even get a clue about how to save his brother, he had to be strong enough to join him on his journey.
He stopped walking.
A massive entrance loomed before him.
***
The Ruin of the Giants.
Allen didn’t know much about it.
It was an ancient ruin located southwest of the county, nestled between the great desert to the east and the Micelland Mountains that wrapped around the northwest.
Even in the era before the ancient empire, which had enjoyed a golden age before vanishing into history during the ‘Great Collapse,’ this place was treated as myth. Few records from that time remained today.
It was an age ruled by dragons and giants, an age overflowing with fantastical creatures now mentioned only in the pages of old tomes.
What he did know was that Julius had obtained a certain ‘sword’ here.
And after obtaining that sword, he…
‘He grew at an astonishingly fast rate.’
Besides that, the catacombs of this ruin held the remains of countless dragons and giants.
Allen planned to use those remains to perform a secret art, a method considered impossible in the current era.
The reason he had chosen this sword was also simple.
‘Until he obtained this sword, the growth of his swordsmanship was slow.’
Allen remembered it well—the sight of him growing, no, *transcending* in real time.
Even as his ability to manipulate mana soared, his swordsmanship itself remained ordinary. It was only natural; the Reinhardt family’s legacy was in magic, after all.
In terms of swordsmanship alone, the family’s martial arts were inferior to the secret techniques of other noble houses.
But as if to mock that fact, he had obtained the sword and displayed tremendous growth.
If that was the sword’s ability, then it would help him compensate for his physical weaknesses. If not, he had to come to this ruin for the secret art anyway, so he planned to retrieve it regardless.
Why would he pass up an opportunity to weaken his adversary’s future power?
The entrance to the ruin was like a black maw, gaping wide open.
‘How many years from now was it supposed to be discovered?’
It didn’t matter.
It would never be rediscovered again.
Allen stepped inside without hesitation.
The ruin was silent and dark. There wasn't even a common wild animal in sight.
The monsters that had occasionally attacked him before he entered the ruin had vanished at some point.
The walls were covered in faded murals, worn away by time, and only small insects scurried away, startled by his approach.
How far had he walked, relying on the light of a small lamp?
*Click.*
“Is this it…?”
A vast cavern opened up before him.
The cavern was filled with pitch-black darkness, and the desolate silence gave it an eerie feel.
As he shone his light, the remains of countless dragons and giants cast long shadows as if to welcome him, each presenting a different form.
A dragon with a shattered skull, a giant with both arms severed, a dragon leaning against a wall, a giant kneeling on the ground.
Countless corpses were intertwined, creating a scene reminiscent of a sublime work of art.
In the center of the chaotic remains, a massive pillar, no…
“Is that a sword?”
A greatsword, resembling a pillar, was embedded in the center of the cavern.
Instead of approaching the sword, Allen sat down on the nearby floor.
*Thump.*
“I don’t know how long this will take…”
A month should be enough.
The Circle near Allen’s heart began to spin madly.
A ball of thread continuously unwound around him, swirling in the air.
A common question among mages is this:
‘When did the Circle magic system begin?’
Why do mages form a ring in their hearts? Are there no other methods?
There are countless ways to store and use mana within the body.
Noble families use their own secret techniques, and even mercenaries can buy low-grade methods if they have the money.
So why does magic have a single, unified system?
Many mages pondered this question as they formed the ring in their hearts. The answer, of course…
‘There were.’
There were other methods.
*Vwooom—*
What Allen was about to do was one of those many forgotten secret arts.
‘The Dragonic Magic System.’
It was a magic system born from a single mage’s question: Why does a dragon’s heart look like a gem? If I could turn my heart into a gem, could I use magic like a dragon?
It involved turning the heart, the mana-flowing core, into a solidified gem, just like a dragon’s.
The required materials were few.
Just a gem or a medium with high mana conductivity. The more, the better.
The method was even simpler.
It began similarly to the Circle magic system. A ring is formed in the heart.
But after that…
‘You do not increase the number of rings.’
You do not circulate mana through the body.
You simply expand the size of that single ring endlessly. And when that ring has grown into an unnaturally large circle…
*Crack.*
You strike the ring.
Allen heard something cracking in his ears.
The mana that backflowed from the shattered ring would swirl around the caster, forming a mana storm.
If, at that moment, the prepared medium was crushed by the storm and absorbed into the body…
‘It would be a success.’
However, the end for those who trained in this secret art was never good. It was obvious why. It involved artificially modifying a vital organ like the heart.
Maintaining the large circular ring was not easy, and the quality of the absorbed medium was crucial.
If one desired a dragon’s core, they needed the body parts of a fantastical creature like a dragon’s bone or a top-grade conductor like orichalcum.
Even if they succeeded, their bodies often couldn’t withstand the output of the heart and would explode. Many also died from the immense pain that accompanied the training process.
This was, without a doubt, a failed creation.
And yet.
*Thud!*
He struck the ring again.
A crack appeared on it.
The very thing that could be called a mage’s life began to shatter. A sense of fear washed over him.
Not the fear of failure, or even of death, but the fear that this failure might cause him to squander the second chance he had been given.
Now, of all times?
‘You knew this would happen.’
Even though he had been preparing for this moment since his regression, he still felt it. Even though he knew that magic alone was not enough.
He wanted to stop.
In fact, he was still conflicted.
Was it really necessary to attempt such a risky method? Hadn’t the chimera creator said it himself?
*Do you wish for the impossible?*
The chimera creator would have known more about secret arts that mutated the body like this one.
So his words, regardless of their truthfulness, were close to common sense.
So, shouldn’t he look for another way?
Wouldn’t it be better to just follow the Circle magic system, go to the academy, and learn new knowledge?
Then he could break through the wall of the Fifth-Circle, the Sixth-Circle, maybe even the Seventh-Circle.
And eventually, reach him.
Just as his thoughts reached that point.
[Brother.]
A voice.
[This is a grimoire I found…]
He heard his brother’s voice.
He struck the ring.
*Thud!*
His family, his only brother.
The brother whose Circle had been shattered because of him.
After vowing to save his brother, who had turned into a scoundrel.
Was his ‘vow’ to save his brother not that desperate? Was it such an easy path that he could turn back to a more comfortable one?
No.
*Thud!*
That wasn't it at all.
What now, was he going to turn back? Was that all his resolve amounted to? Did he think his opponent would wait for him while he kept running away?
‘No.’
*Thud!*
Was he going to give up if an opportunity didn't present itself?
Was he going to keep saying it seemed impossible, that he was scared, that he was afraid? For how long?
‘You know it’s not enough.’
*Thud!*
Once, he had sacrificed countless residents of his domain to gain the inspiration of a genius, all because he wanted to save his brother. Now that he had regressed, was he going to think of it as a thing of the past?
No.
‘I felt it in the chimera creator’s workshop.’
*Thud!*
There is a way to pursue him.
There is a way to follow him, right here, right now.
‘My brother.’
The ring.
*Thud!*
‘Am I going to give up on him?’
He struck it.
His entire body trembled from the horrific pain, and his eyes began to turn bloodshot.
Allen let out a hollow laugh. The metallic taste of blood from his bitten lip sharpened his senses.
The cracks in the ring widened, and the circle began to tremble as if it would break. Mana started to leak through the fine fissures.
He steeled his resolve.
He ignored the fear.
He had plenty of time to come here before leaving for Hivel.
But he didn’t. No, it was more accurate to say he had been avoiding it.
At least, until he faced the chimera creator and saw the dead residents.
Was I faithful to them? Was I a proper noble?
No.
He keenly felt it.
He was forced to confront his own contradictions. He had abandoned his people to use his flimsy knowledge of the past. How was that any different from his adversary?
So what should he do now? Was he planning to lock himself in his room again? Like back then?
The answer was clear.
No. Now…
“Break.”
I will not run.
*CRACK!*
A tremendous roar echoed in his head as the ring shattered.