Chapter 71
Chapter 71
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 71
Chapter Title: Baldur's Nightmare (4)
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The sky was a deep crimson, as if blood were dripping from it. Dominic was frantically digging into the earth in the darkness.
Without fear of being discovered by other demonkin, he roamed the barren hills, merely stemming the bleeding from his left arm where blood flowed freely.
This was surely the last place where traces had been found.
If his master was still alive, he would be operating from here.
His mana depleted and his cursed eyes growing dimmer by the minute, he continued digging pits and clearing away trees and stones without even a moment to wipe the blood and sweat drenching his body.
How much time had passed? Dominic realized he had dug a hole large enough to easily fit a person.
"Haha..."
A laugh escaped him unbidden. He, a direct disciple of the Fantasy Duke, had his judgment so clouded after merely a few months of activity in the demon realm.
He slumped against a tree. The distant sounds of magical bombardment and the stench of blood filled his senses.
Bitter bile rose in his throat, and overwhelming drowsiness crashed over him.
His body had already reached its limit. Yet if he slept now, he felt he might never find his master.
"Ugh, urk...!"
After endlessly battling sleep and finally tumbling into a deep, dark abyss, he awoke on the sofa, his entire body soaked in sweat.
"Hah, hah...!"
It was a dream. The familiar first memory.
A nap, no less. He must have been utterly exhausted. He rose immediately.
He lit a cigarette from the desk and took a drag.
"Hoo..."
Bartudis in the afternoon was shrouded in thick indigo fog and clouds heavy with impending rain. Even the lofty spire of the magic tower couldn't pierce the murky veil.
Dominic opened the window.
Standing there, he reached out toward the distant black speck beyond the Storm Shrine. But his severed arm, cut off even from the encroaching fog indoors, couldn't touch it.
Ten years ago, the Great War had taken everything from his elbow upward. But the true sorrow stolen by the war wasn't some mere limb.
The master of Peckda Magic Tower, one of Penheim's five great dukes. After the Fantasy Duke's disappearance, Peckda's mental magic had fallen into decline.
The uncontrollable anomaly known as Baldur's Nightmare began ravaging the Bartudis region once more, and the mages, bereft of their tower lord, wandered lost like a ship with a broken compass.
Dominic too felt on the verge of collapse from the grief of losing his gentle, kind master. Yet the reason he still stood was due to Saya Rampling's parting words.
—We must always beware of illusions, Dominic. Because there, you can achieve anything you desire.
—Don't get lost in vain dreams. Mental magic is a lantern illuminating you, but get too close and you'll get burned.
Yet she herself had vanished like mist in the vast demon realm, without leaving a single hair behind. Only after the Snow Duke and Fantasy Duke perished did Penheim and Monarch realize that no single mage could stand against the demon king's four greatest generals.
"Master..."
The grieving mage's shoulders slumped heavily. But only for a moment—a resolute glint entered his eyes.
'I'm not so weak as to fall into an illusion...'
On the contrary... it would be the opposite.
As he straightened his clothes, a knock sounded.
—Liv Lavre, second-year Magic Division.
Come to think of it, there was an interview scheduled. He glanced in the mirror, adjusted his crooked glasses, and said in a low voice,
"Come in."
Peckda Magic Tower, where the tower lord's seat was vacant—the highest chamber even among the upper levels. Liv cautiously entered Dominic Atscents' private office.
A luxurious atmosphere with a purple carpet. Blue flames crackled in the fireplace, and a quill danced alone on the side table.
Geometric golden lines etched into the round window depicted the Pram Mobile celestial chart, and on the western wall where it met the terraria's branches below, a Tree of Sephirot sculpture was engraved.
A single room embodying the principles of the three primal elements. Dominic, seated in the corner chair, rose as Liv entered and gestured to the reception sofa.
"Welcome. It's interview time now, right?"
"Yes. But why up here..."
"I've been a bit busy with recent disturbances. Didn't have time to go down. Sorry to make you come up."
"No! It's fine, really."
As the blunt-ended sleeve fluttered in the breeze, tea poured into the rattling cups. When Liv didn't touch the tea before her, he asked curiously,
"Not interested in refreshments?"
"Not hungry. It's okay."
"Very well. Liv. I've received your academic records from the academy. Excellent grades. Not just in white magic, but a deep understanding of black magic too... Especially your evaluation of Professor Antonio's makeup midterm lecture was quite intriguing to me personally."
A stream of effusive praise. But Liv felt only discomfort.
The magic training period was when towers scouted promising students early. Sometimes direct offers for post-graduation entry or family alliances.
"Any thoughts on taking an apprenticeship here after graduation?"
She'd thought the vacant tower lord seat would mean no aggressive offers. Peckda, short on talent, was thirsty for recruits like her.
"Sorry. No plans for tower entry yet."
Of course, she refused politely.
A brief silence. Steam rose lazily from the cooling teacups.
"Considering somewhere else?"
"I thought about the 12 Leagues, but... now I'm thinking more carefully."
"Understood. Heading to the Storm Shrine today, right?"
"Yes."
"I have urgent business, so assistant Peter will lead instead. Be careful."
Urgent business? Come to think of it, the sirens in the tower lately had been oddly frequent.
Before Liv could speak, someone knocked outside.
—Excuse me, Vice Tower Lord. Observatory found the cause.
"I'll have to go. Well then, Liv."
"Yes?"
"Don't get too lost in the illusions."
Escorting her down the stairs, Dominic offered his usual admonition.
"We found it, Vice Tower Lord! Some lunatic punching the bare ground...!!"
"He's shattering the nightmares. The Storm Shrine?"
"The illusions that should disperse periodically are clumping unstably. We should cancel today's field trip..."
"No, it's fine."
Dominic donned his robe and overruled the observatory mage. He couldn't let the plan fail now.
"Proceed as scheduled."
"But..."
"It's fine. More importantly, time's running out for something crucial."
The mage flinched at eye contact, which struck him odd.
But seeing the nod, Dominic smiled kindly again.
"I'll be back shortly. Report any issues via communication crystal."
"Yes..."
A drizzle fell outside.
Dominic headed to the last spot where the nightmare had vanished, via teleport, and saw a man standing in the rain at the center of a massive crater.
The Goliath smashing nightmares recently? No iron hound in sight.
Either way, time was short.
Crack!
He kicked and shattered a demon god statue at his feet, then turned.
"Oh, you're here?"
A casual tone, like meeting an old friend for dinner.
"You're late. Sun's almost set, and you show up now?"
But the choking killing intent made Dominic thrust his left arm into the air. A blue beast's body materialized via mental magic, filling the void.
"This. You scatter it?"
"..."
Dominic didn't answer. Instead, gazing at the darkening sky and gathering clouds on the hill, he said,
"Baldur's Nightmare is a magical phenomenon encompassing the entire Bartudis region."
"..."
"Its core is veiled, but the energy leaking outward is always constant."
Right after the war, he'd abandoned everything else at the tower to study only that fog. A mirror reflecting the past, illusions showing the lost.
His sole obsession: to revive his master.
If he could go back in time, surely he'd meet the Fantasy Duke again.
"The statues fix the ever-shifting nightmare spatiotemporally. Shatter them into fragments and spread wide, and the demon beasts gathered at the Storm Shrine thin out, stabilizing the core."
"But the nightmare's spread widens. The locals die from it."
"Die? Haven't you seen how people Liv here?"
They'd placed statues and dragged past remnants into reality; barren land now yielded abundant food.
No one suffered from the active nightmare. Yet he still didn't grasp the deeper intent.
"You were taught not to get devoured by illusions."
"Exactly!"
Splash!
Dominic spread his arms. Rain lashed his face fiercely.
Beneath the darkening sky, every remaining demon god statue lifted its head toward the Storm Shrine.
"I'm not getting devoured by illusions."
Rumble—!!
"I'm making illusions reality."
Just a bit more. Many broken, but enough statues remained.
The gate at the Storm Shrine's heart was already outputting stably. With Baldur's Nightmare spread across the region, the boundary between there and here blurred further.
When reality and illusion coexisted, surely he could bring back his living master—
"You idiot bastard."
There is no magic to revive the dead.
Even mages who know that truth better than anyone sometimes lose rational judgment.
What can you do? They too lost loved ones to the war.
"Now I get it."
"Pardon?"
But this fool spouting madness before me had a different problem from the start.
"Disciple of the Fantasy Duke... With a Three-Leaf Medal, you've been to Helzev, and at war's end, the crumbling tower's sole hope—no one dared check you."
"What are you saying?"
I picked up the statue with only its head left. He felt no incongruity seeing it.
Chattering about statues as mere catalysts stabilizing Baldur's Nightmare.
"A mental magic user who doesn't know what drags over from the past when you make illusions reality..."
This guy's the real deal.
"Tch, that's why I don't talk with demonkin bastards."
"Demonkin? What?"
I hurled the statue's head at Dominic's feet. He wouldn't realize what he'd done until a heartbeat pierced his heart.
That in his zeal to revive his master, he'd summon a calamity threatening humanity.
"Hey."
The god-shaped sculpture is a signpost.
A signpost has purpose.
A signpost specifies time and space.
The specified condition summons calamity.
All calamities were extinguished by mortals.
Yet still, the world's rifts persist.
The great dukes' legacy.
The great dukes' sin.
And the great dukes' regret.
Activating the unique magic circuit within me, I spoke to the ghost buried in some Helzev mountain range, still unaware of what it was.
"You're the doppelganger, you idiot."