Chapter 4
Chapter 4
Magician (1)
Crunch.
Ain forced his way upward, driving his blade into the wall again and again.
He blacked out and came to more than once along the way, but he never stopped moving.
He would not die.
He would get back up.
He would reach her.
He would hold onto Amu Clia.
At times he lost consciousness mid-climb, only to wake again with the sensation that death was closing in from all sides.
Which would come first? Reaching the top, or dying here?
Crunch.
He drove the blade into the wall again and climbed another step.
Then darkness swallowed him again.
Upward.
Still upward.
Toward the light.
Crunch.
“Haa… haa…”
When he finally escaped the abyss and reached the entrance of the underground city—
“A…mu… Clia…”
Ain stood at the edge of death’s door.
And before his vision faded completely, he saw it.
A pillar of light erupting from the entrance of the underground city.
And a ring glowing so brightly that it seemed to rival that light itself.
“I thought you were dead, you idiot!”
When he opened his eyes again, he was in Heinkel’s office.
Heinkel was standing over him, furious.
“How long… was I out?”
Ain’s voice was hoarse.
“…Amu?”
Heinkel clicked his tongue and shook his head.
She had already left.
“And the city…”
“The Holy Knights came, confirmed you were dead, and left. Looks like their goal was only you from the start.”
Ain said nothing.
“Forget it,” Heinkel said, placing a hand on his shoulder.
“She was a light a scum like us in this underground city was never meant to reach.”
Two years passed.
Ain rose quickly within the organization, eventually becoming Heinkel’s right hand.
His eyes grew colder, his posture more rigid, his presence sharper.
Now he was no different from a machine built for killing.
“The higher you rise, the harder the fall feels.”
After the two of them cleaned up a small criminal faction, Heinkel stood outside and spoke.
He wiped blood from his hands while Ain shook his blade clean.
They worked well together now, capable of handling even small-scale wars without issue.
“I was once a knight myself,” Heinkel added.
“…I see.”
Smack.
Heinkel struck the back of Ain’s head.
“Listen when adults talk, you brat.”
He lit a cigarette.
“Treat it like a dream. That’s the only way you don’t break.”
Ain did not respond.
If I said that you were part of that fall too—
He might kill me.
Heinkel lowered his voice slightly.
“Don’t get any stupid ideas. Understand?”
“Yes, Heinkel.”
“Good. We move tomorrow. We’ll deal with Ivan’s crew and set an example.”
That was when the incident began.
And it would soon mark the return to the surface.
“This dump hasn’t changed in two years.”
The Hero appeared at the entrance of the underground city.
“The horns of holy war sound once more.”
The Holy Knights slammed their weapons into the ground in unison.
“Let your bodies become sacred shields, your crowns become holy light, your crosses become sacred blood!”
“Fight with valor and solemnity! Knights of the Holy Kingdom!”
The roar shook the air.
The Hero clicked his tongue.
“They’re still alive? I thought I killed them all that day.”
“They say the Saint candidate pushed him into the abyss,” a subordinate replied.
“Then we should’ve wiped the whole city out. No need to come back twice.”
The Hero rolled his shoulders.
“Do I really have to handle this personally?”
He pulled out a vial of black liquid.
“Break a sandcastle, and you don’t need a siege weapon.”
“Sir, that’s still in testing—”
“Perfect timing to test it.”
He opened the vial and poured the black liquid into the city’s entrance.
“Release all stored ghouls.”
At a mechanical workshop deep inside the city…
“Ivan, this is strictly business.”
Heinkel’s target was muttering to himself nonstop.
“Meaningless. Everything is meaningless. Meaning, meaninglessness, meaningless—”
“Ivan?”
The old man turned around.
His eyes were pitch black.
His body was melting.
“GRAAAH!!”
The moment Ain raised his sword—
“Move!”
A greatsword flew in from behind and pierced Ivan.
BOOM!
Black sludge scattered everywhere.
“Heinkel…?”
“Move, idiot! Someone dumped ghouls into the city!”
Ghouls were crawling out of the black liquid, as if it had a will of its own.
“The underground city Ertzhim is under a ghoul outbreak.”
Heinkel summarized the situation in a single sentence and ran.
“Here!”
“Ain!”
They moved through chaos.
Screams filled the streets.
The city had become hell.
Ghouls—skin sagging, bodies melting, endlessly mutating—devoured anyone they touched, turning them into more of themselves.
“Go! The freight elevator!”
“Why the city?!”
“What city? It’s all going to burn anyway!”
Explosions shook the distance.
Heinkel moved ahead.
“We get out alive. We rebuild.”
Ain nodded.
“I’ll kill them all.”
He closed his eyes.
The gray mana rose instinctively.
Ain’s sword was coated in ash-gray power.
Ain unleashed his technique.
He cut through waves of ghouls, carving paths forward.
But there were too many.
“Ahahaha… how pathetic.”
The battlefield turned into slaughter.
A massive ghoul formed from countless bodies rose from the mass.
Ain leapt onto it, slicing through its arm, then its shoulder, moving upward without stopping.
Then—
Boom.
Ain vanished from the ground.
He landed on its arm, then ran upward as it disintegrated beneath him.
He pierced its core.
The giant exploded into fragments.
Ain stood amid falling debris, breathing heavily.
“Haah… haa…”
Heinkel approached.
“Let’s go.”
But the elevator was already a nest of ghouls.
Ain clicked his tongue.
He raised his broken blade.
“Raaaagh!”
They surged at him.
He swung.
Again.
And again.
Gray mana filled the air.
The entire city began collapsing.
Then—
A voice.
“You’re still alive.”
The Hero stood above the collapsing roof, holding Heinkel by the neck.
“Ain!”
Heinkel was already dying.
“Your boss dies because of you.”
The Hero smiled and dropped him.
Heinkel’s body went limp.
Dead.
The world went silent.
Far away, at the edge of the southern continent, stood the Mage Tower.
The tower that touched the sky.
Inside, the Tower Master Daphne was half-submerged in water, bored.
She dried her hair and skimmed through letters.
Trash.
Trash.
Trash.
Then—
A shabby envelope.
“Hmm?”
Inside was a proposal for marriage from a man in a slum.
Daphne calmly wrote down his contact information.
The man’s house would soon burn.
Then a sealed letter from the Holy Kingdom.
A prophecy.
The underground city of Ertzhim would soon be attacked by ghouls, and the Mage Tower was requested to intervene.
“Future tense… again?”
Prophecies annoyed her.
But the last two years had been flawless.
So she sighed and prepared to leave.
“Fine. I’ll go.”
She got dressed.
And set out.