Wild Mage
Wild Mage
Aslan and Ereta reached the forest. The sun was creeping over the horizon by the time they stopped to rest.
A few hours at most—barely three. A short respite after the long hunt and pursuit, but sufficient for Aslan. Sufficient for Ereta too, who had done nothing more taxing than follow in his footsteps.
She shook off the blanket, pushed the lingering drowsiness from her limbs, and lifted her head.
Aslan had climbed a tree. He was studying the trail as dawn broke, eyes tracing the signs.
The tracks led deeper into the forest, into its darkest recesses. A viscous mana clung to them.
The same strain of mana that emanated from somewhere deep within the woods—ominous and wrong.
A low murmur escaped him, touched with fatigue and the remnants of sleep, as he dropped silently back to the ground.
"A wild mage... you said? Do we truly have to hunt it down right now?"
Ereta rubbed at her eyes as she asked. She could not sense mana, but she could sense malevolence, and it was sharp enough to raise the hairs on her arms.
They spoke while gazing into the forest where that malevolence had burrowed deep.
"If we don't take it now, it will grow stronger."
Aslan's words left no room for argument. A wild mage of this sort grew more powerful by the day, awakening to new facets of its magic. Left unchecked, there was no guessing how strong it might become.
But that assumed they chose to fight.
"...Are you aware there's a sanctuary of Cosmic Inevitability at the edge of this continent?"
Aslan nodded. The sanctuary lay on the peninsula at the easternmost tip of the Kingdom of Bida.
"Their domain extends across the entire kingdom. This forest falls within it as well. I think releasing this wild mage and simply moving on would be the more efficient course."
He had expected an answer along those lines, but he did not interrupt. He kept his gaze on her as if he were listening closely.
"If we let the wild mage go, it will inevitably clash with my former brethren. There's no telling how much it will grow, but we do know my brethren will suffer losses when they try to put it down."
A wild mage who worked with souls. Even an ordinary wild mage was horrifically powerful and warranted immediate extermination—this one would possess enough martial strength to pose a threat even to priests.
That was Ereta's point.
"It would bleed the forces of Cosmic Inevitability while costing us nothing. Wouldn't that be the more efficient path?"
A rational, efficient proposal. Aslan acknowledged it with a nod.
"That would be more efficient. But I can't do it."
"Why not?"
"This forest is a long way from that peninsula. There are dozens of villages in between, and plenty of traveling merchants. If we let it go, countless people will die—and their souls won't even find rest."
The notion was beyond Ereta's grasp.
"Killing it now is the right call."
"And what if you die in the process? If you die trying to save a handful of lives... your purpose will never be fulfilled."
Her voice carried a faint chill. Aslan turned his head slightly to meet her eyes.
His gaze held almost no emotion.
That was who Ereta was.
An evil person, through and through. A priestess by origin, which meant a fundamental disregard for life came standard.
But she was merely wicked—she was not an evil god who had stepped beyond human reason.
Aslan had no standing to pass judgment on a mere human.
He was only a man. A man from Earth who wanted to go home.
He sought to kill the evil gods and punish them solely because if he did not, no one else could.
It was closer to repaying what had been stolen from everyone the evil gods had wronged.
And Ereta standing before him—what of her?
Aslan offered her no forgiveness, no atonement.
She was wicked. She would remain wicked.
That was not reason enough for him to punish her.
If she attacked him, he would kill her. If she tried to commit atrocities before his eyes, he would stop her. But as things stood, with power too precious to waste, he could find no cause to end her.
To kill the evil gods who had abandoned human reason, he had to gather every human he could, regardless of their virtue or vice.
Punishing Ereta—or letting punishment find her—could wait until afterward.
He stepped closer. Only then did she seem to register what she had said. She flinched and went rigid. When she saw his hand rise, she shut her eyes.
Perhaps she expected to be struck. Her shoulders drew inward, harboring some faint anticipation. Aslan simply laid his hand on her shoulder.
"..."
When Ereta opened her eyes, he was looking straight at her.
"Your reasoning is sound. That would be the more efficient path. I know that. I've thought about it."
"Then..."
"But the path I'm set on isn't the efficient one. You know that already. You know it's an impossible path."
Ereta could not readily answer and closed her mouth.
Kill the gods. The goal did indeed seem impossible.
"Do you know what it takes to walk an impossible path? Not efficiency. It takes painstaking struggle and effort. Careful, deliberate action that treats every variable with weight."
He moved his hand from her shoulder. When he brushed it lightly against her cheek, Ereta's pupils trembled.
"I will kill every last god. I will change this world. If I start taking the easy way against a single wild mage, I'll never reach the road where gods die."
He gave her cheek a few soft pats and withdrew his hand.
"I've already accepted my trial. I've chosen to fight every adversity. So you don't need to worry. ...Still, thank you. For speaking in earnest."
Ereta stood dazed, touching her own cheek. She understood him a little better now.
Aslan possessed a deeply peculiar set of values, even if his pattern of action was hard to parse. Values that did not seem to originate in this world.
Belatedly, she noticed he had already started toward the forest and let out a small sound.
He glanced back. Ereta's mouth worked silently for a moment.
"What do you intend to do?"
He had declared he would kill the wild mage. He would not kill it recklessly or rush in without a plan.
True to that thought, Aslan did have a plan.
"We'll start with a conversation."
Ereta blinked at the plan. Aslan allowed himself a faint smile.
Hidden truths lurking beneath these "sub-quests" were, in fact, quite common.
Everything had cause and effect.
And as a gamer, Aslan found it only natural to map them out.
So first—a conversation.
He entered the forest with Ereta at his side.
The deeper they went, the thicker the trail grew.
It thickened until the very sources of the trail began to reveal themselves.
Wraiths. More precisely, wraith-like monsters shaped from souls.
Aslan watched the wraiths watching him and Ereta from the forest shadows, and pressed steadily inward.
The deeper he went, the more the woods twisted as if possessed of their own will. The warped forest threatened intruders with vistas invisible from outside.
Bent, coiled, grown around each other like pillars—trees that had stood in these grotesque forms for centuries, perhaps longer. They flaunted their deformities.
High above, the canopy draped shadow like a blackout curtain, and the forest remained stubbornly dark even beneath the climbing sun.
Aslan followed the chain of cause and effect until, at last, he met it.
In the forest's deepest heart, a nest where grotesquely twisted trees spiraled around one another and devoured the perimeter. And planted squarely at its center—a giant.
It had four arms.
Four long arms, each bent at a different angle, twitching constantly even at rest.
At the end of each arm, something that had to be called a hand bore twelve fingers and clusters of bluish boils.
The torso those arms sprouted from was worse: six breasts hung from it, each weeping pus that slicked the ground.
The legs looked short from all their bending and folding, but the head—the head was defiantly malformed even atop such twisted limbs.
Four eyes. Set into the forehead and the eye sockets, they rolled without pause, flipped backward, and streamed bloody tears.
The mana that pressed against Aslan's instincts told him the malformed giant before him was the wild mage.
A giant wild mage. A rare existence.
Mages were uncommon among giants to begin with, so a giant wild mage was possible.
He had simply never seen one in the flesh.
Aslan set his thoughts aside and addressed the malformed giant.
"I am Aslan. The giants asked me to find you."
The malformed giant merely rolled its eyes and gave no answer. When silence was the only reply, Aslan spoke again.
"Can we talk? I do not wish to harm you."
Again, no answer came. Instead, the giant took a step forward. The advance carried a thin current of killing intent.
Aslan's expression grew heavy. He lowered his gaze for a moment, then leveled his sword at the giant—over four meters tall—drawing without a sound.
"There's no room for it, then."
White light bled along the blade. It was unmistakably the divinity of an ancient god. The divinity of sorrow.
As power that could sear even souls blazed forth, the malformed giant faltered.
"Mother?"
This time it was Aslan who flinched. He frowned and almost demanded an explanation.
He meant to ask what the word meant.
But before he could, his heightened luck and sharpened sixth sense impressed a chill upon him. It was emanating from the malformed giant.
The sensation felt deeply familiar—as though he had encountered it somewhere before.
Aslan stopped speaking and stared at the giant, and then he realized: it was akin to the thing he now held in his hand.
A presence similar to the purity wrought by the ancient gods.
Ancient divinity.
Aslan's eyes widened in disbelief.
"Your... what is your name?"
At the question, the malformed giant rolled all four of its eyes and answered.
Haltingly. Pus leaking as it spoke.
"God... of... Burial."
The God of Burial.
Not one of the deities who now ruled Geladrion—a lesser deity of the ancient gods.
Lesser deities were weak compared to the major gods.
They held a single domain at most, and even that was never particularly mighty.
With little power and little domain, they were killed off one by one after the ancient gods fell.
Devoured and slain by priests and monsters. Sometimes killed by human hands.
Even through his heavy thoughts, Aslan could piece the situation together.
One of those lesser deities—the God of Burial—had possessed the giant wild mage.
He had to ask.
"How did you come to this?"
How had it come to inhabit a giant's body that held not a trace of divinity? How had it become a wild mage? How had it begun creating wraiths?
At Aslan's questions, the God of Burial rolled its eyes and haltingly laid out its story.
The words were clumsy and difficult to parse, but Aslan patiently interpreted them until the context emerged.
What he pieced together was not far from what he already knew.
The God of Burial had been killed by giants.
A story from a distant age—but the ancient god before him had died that way.
It should have been death.
Yet somehow, even in death, she had been able to seize another's body.
And now, in the body she had stolen, all she did was take revenge.
The hatred bleeding through the clumsy words was vivid. Aslan let out a sigh and tasted bitterness.
The ruin wrought by transcendent beings called gods. It was a pitiable thing. Even if it had happened in the far past, the fact remained that this ancient god had met death. Her grudge could not simply be dismissed as misguided.
"Is there... anything I can do for you?"
The malformed giant slowly shook its head.
"Happy... just... seeing Mother. Want... nothing."
He could not tell her he was not her mother, but he could guess at the context.
If this ancient god "understood" souls, then she would perceive his existence through the souls he carried.
And in the purity he held—the divinity of sorrow burning within it—this fallen lesser deity likely saw the very symbol of a mother.
That was why the lesser deity regarded him as her mother.
Aslan exhaled and made an offer.
"...Then how about this: call off the wraiths and go live among the giants. The giants who killed you died long, long ago. The giants living now know nothing of it. If anything... they would welcome you, if you came. They are simple folk."
They would surely be gladdened by the divinity this ancient god bore. Giants were creations of the ancient gods too.
But the being who was at once a malformed giant, a wild mage, and a lesser deity hardened her expression at his proposal. It was remarkable that a face nearly rotted away could still hold an expression at all.
"No."
"...Why?"
Aslan asked even though he already knew the answer—hoping it might somehow be different.
It did not take long for the reply to match his expectations precisely.
"All... must die. Kill them... all. Humans... giants... all die."
At those words, Aslan closed his eyes.
He mourned.
Watching a lesser deity who had only ever suffered helplessly transform into an evil god, Aslan slowly opened his eyes again.
"Your rage and your hatred... they are all justified. They are deserved. There is nothing wrong with feeling them. But..."
He raised his sword and leveled it. The evil god who had come close staggered backward.
"What you seek to do is not right. You are an evil god."
"Evil... god."
The words rewound like broken tape. The eyes that had been still began rolling again. Aslan reached for the axe at his back.
"I resolved to spare not a single evil god. I decided every evil god must die."
Chk.
He spun the axe from his back into his grip. With his right hand he angled the single-edged sword forward. Wraiths flickered across the blade.
"So I will kill you."
A matter-of-fact declaration. The lesser deity—the God of Burial—reeled.
At the sight of her mother declaring she would kill her. At the dense killing intent she sensed behind the words.
Grief flooded the God of Burial.
But the grief and shock did not last. Gradually, they turned to hatred and resentment.
Hatred for the mother who had not come to save her until she was reduced to this. Resentment toward the world that had killed and defiled her.
Her eyes churned wildly. Bloody tears streamed. The moment dark red tracks carved themselves over the stains of old tears—
"Dieeeeeee!"
The lesser deity lunged.