Winds of Change
Baron Teron looked up at the sky. At the same moment, a horrific pain washed through him. He tried to resist by casting magic, but it was utterly futile.
His hands began to melt. Agony like his body was being torn apart surged up from within. People around him screamed. A bizarre scene of humans and other races mixed together filled the man's vision.
Writhing in pain, Baron Teron shouted at McDeras.
"Cael! You said your name was Cael! I don't know why you're doing this, but there must have been some misunderstanding between us—"
He tried to reason with McDeras, but it was meaningless. McDeras's face held nothing but a hollow emptiness, stripped of every emotion.
McDeras looked down at the man kneeling in agony and spoke.
"Do I still look like Cael to you?"
At McDeras's gesture, the crimson rain falling from the sky began to stop—and even that only in the space around McDeras himself.
"Who... who are you...?"
Baron Teron was no fool. This space was one in which the trauma of the man called Cael was embedded. Being able to wield power here meant it was the power he had possessed at the time.
Simply put, the reason McDeras could command such unnatural force in this space was because it had originally been his own ability.
In other words, the man who had slaughtered millions in this unidentifiable realm was the man standing right in front of him.
He had to bow. Somehow, he had to get through this. This was not a disaster that a petty noble title could solve.
Baron Teron dropped to his knees and begged.
"I was wrong. I was truly wrong. From now on, I will never flaunt force or power over anyone again."
The man pleaded with open hands, but McDeras stepped in front of him and spoke.
"Why the change of attitude only now?"
"..."
"Until a moment ago, weren't you going on about killing me, turning me into a cripple, and all the rest?"
McDeras gazed blankly up at the crimson sphere in the sky as he continued.
"Everyone commits sins. Everyone makes mistakes."
"Th-that's right. I too failed to recognize a great mage and... acted rashly, and I regret it to my bones. I-I'll punish my son severely myself. So please... show mercy..."
"Mercy, is it."
As McDeras reached out his hand, thin, elongated needles drew forth from the sphere.
"It's far too late to ask for mercy. Don't resent me. If I had been weak, you would have killed me without a second thought."
"Aaaargh!"
Baron Teron screamed and tried to flee. But before he could take more than a few steps, McDeras's magic pierced his legs. He staggered, scraping at the ground with his arms as he tried to crawl away—a meaningless struggle.
The reason Baron Teron did not counterattack was simple. He knew that with his pitiful level of magic and mana, he could not so much as graze a hair on the man before him.
He had to escape. Somehow, he had to get out of this place. Because this was a trauma space, his body would not actually die—but the pain he felt was anything but fake. If the attacks continued like this, his mind would surely shatter and drive him mad.
"Stop... stop... stoooooop!"
Baron Teron's shrieks rang out. McDeras looked at him and spoke.
"Do you think I'll show you mercy? Look around you. This is no lie—it is something that truly exists in my memories. All these countless people also screamed for me to spare them. But I killed every last one. Do you know why? Because words wouldn't work. It wasn't the kind of thing that could be resolved through dialogue, so I used force. Regrettably."
Baron Teron began to beg through his tears.
"I'll live quietly... I won't step forward anywhere ever again. Please... please..."
"Too late. You had many chances, and you let them all slip away."
The sphere began to blaze with light, and Baron Teron's screams continued long after.
Thud.
Baron Teron collapsed. Levia, who had been watching nearby, and Baron Teron's party all stepped back as one.
"What just happened...?"
Seeing Baron Teron fall, the knights and mages who had come with him began to panic and assess the situation. But it did not take long to understand.
Because McDeras, who had been drawn into the trauma space with him, was staring down at the fallen Teron with cold eyes.
"You son of a bitch! How dare you lay a hand on Baron Teron!"
One of their party cast a spell, but McDeras swung his sword and dismantled the magic completely.
Then he severed Baron Teron's wrist.
Baron Teron came to his senses in agony. But McDeras looked at him and spoke.
"They're making quite a racket. Shouldn't you, as their master, settle this?"
"Everyone, stand down!"
When Teron shouted, McDeras turned to the others and spoke.
"What's the reason you follow Baron Teron?"
"..."
When the men did not answer, McDeras asked again.
"I asked you why you follow Baron Teron. If you don't answer honestly, I'll kill this one right in front of you and then kill the rest of you too."
A brief silence fell. But as a cold chill began to gather on McDeras's blade, people who realized those words were neither bluff nor empty threat began, one by one, to confess.
"Money... I needed a huge amount of money."
"I-I was being blackmailed over a weakness..."
They were long-winded sob stories, but they left no particular impression. There is no person or villain in this world without a story. Everyone lives carrying their own unfortunate circumstances. That does not make it a free pass.
"It must have felt good, swarming around in numbers and crushing the powerless with force. Even if you claim you were forced into it, you still felt belonging and that disgusting sense of superiority from your position of power. You had all your fun—and now that the situation has turned against you, you say you had no choice but to follow?"
McDeras shot forward in an instant toward the man who had been first to hurl magic, and drove his blade through both of the man's wrists.
The man's scream rang out, and McDeras whispered into his ear.
"You'll never use magic again. You said you were forced into it, so I've personally stopped your evil deeds for you. How about it? Grateful?"
Even as he screamed, the mage had no choice but to nod. McDeras's sword was pressed against his throat.
A mad terror began to take hold.
This man feared neither numbers nor force, neither power nor authority. He casually severed a noble's arm, dismantled magic with a sword, and committed criminal acts in broad daylight without a second thought.
There are those in this world who do not fear the law—and those whom even the law cannot touch.
In the mage's eyes, McDeras was the latter.
If you made an enemy of this man, the flimsy protection of the law would offer no shield at all.
"Th-thank you..."
Even with a blade through his arm, he thanked McDeras for not stabbing his throat. The men who moments before had charged in as if to kill now fell silent, no longer even thinking of attacking. Whether a comrade was taken down, their superior was taken down, or their own turn was next—there was nothing they could do.
McDeras flicked the blood from his sword with a sharp snap and spoke to Baron Teron and his party.
"Bullying the weak sours my mood. Get out of here right now. And if you dare blab about what happened today or try to take revenge on my friends, I promise I'll track every last one of you down and kill you. The nation itself will not be able to protect you. If that sounds like empty talk, ask Baron Teron. It'll make deciding how to act much easier."
Teron crawled away from the spot, managed to stand, and kicked his son Tebeston before shouting in a stuttering voice. His mind seemed thoroughly broken.
"You... you fucking... cripple of a son."
Leaving the unconscious Tebeston behind, Baron Teron and his party departed, leaving bloodstains everywhere in their wake.
Levia and Raykan, who had been silent, looked at McDeras. Then Levia took McDeras's hand and spoke.
"Thank you... for saving my brother... I'll repay this debt for the rest of my life..."
"Don't worry about it. I didn't even know what I was doing, honestly."
"I'll definitely make it up to you..."
"No need."
With that, McDeras left the scene. Behind him, Raykan followed, chattering about something or other, but McDeras did not listen particularly carefully.
He simply said they would see each other at the academy tomorrow.
In the place McDeras had left, Levia stared blankly at his retreating back. Her heart was pounding madly.
"What's wrong with me... I must be going crazy..."
The man who had only ever been uncomfortable to her was starting to look a little different now.
That evening.
On the Doomed Novel Gallery, a single post went up.
The winds of change had truly begun.
Whether in relationships, or in the times themselves.