Chapter 146
Chapter 146
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 146
Chapter Title: Frozen Beginnings
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Everything began three hundred years ago, when the young archmage's body was trapped in ice.
The boy's companions believed in him.
Because he had promised to return, he would surely come back—no matter how long it took.
The hero Rista stayed by the boy's side until the very end, during her fleeting reprieve from death.
The Bow Star Kies trained countless disciples to bless the path when the boy returned.
The shrine maiden Fride worked tirelessly for the world's stability, driven by one wish: to show the boy a beautifully changed world. She even personally took in his disciple and raised her as a shrine maiden.
The sun parrot Pipi began a solitary wait of centuries on Mount Seolhwabong, with no promise of an end. But.
"Is waiting really the right thing? Is it okay to just keep waiting like this?"
"Tureina."
"Your way is wrong, Master. Not just you—Lady Rista and Lord Kies too! They may lack shamanistic wisdom, but how could you, of all people, leave Master in that frozen frost?"
The boy archmage's first and last disciple, Tureina, could not believe that promise. To be precise, she could not trust the completion of Juyeo Soge Daeban.
That was why she thought she needed to help. Like a mother bird helping her chick hatch from the egg, she had to assist him in breaking free from that ice....
The Abyss approached such a girl.
The darkness that deceives and defiles the crumbling human heart amid mortal fate swallowed her fragile soul over centuries.
* * *
"Is this Tureina?"
The weathered wooden statue stood in the village center, benevolently gazing down at the passing travelers. Flowers and incense still bloomed before it.
For a craftsman's work, the skill was sorely lacking, but the worn bamboo hat and the dragon-embossed pipe were impossible to miss.
It was exactly like the illustration in the book... Pipi seemed to think the same, chirping fondly as it hopped between his shoulder and head.
"About forty years ago, when I was still a fresh young man. During the spring when the 'Yellow Lynx' plague rampaged. When that monstrous pestilence was killing every child and elder across the continent."
"...."
"Folks like us in the village couldn't hope to reach a healer, witch, or even a yellow dragon. We thought all that was left was dying... That's when the shrine maiden came to our village herself."
Tureina had cured every plague-stricken villager with centuries-honed healing arts. Without asking for any reward.
There was no need to hear the rest. According to the book, Tureina had created a rite to cure the 'Yellow Lynx.'
She sent her witches across the world to spread it, and the plague was completely eradicated.
"This is the least we can do to honor her. Every year, we pray for peace for her soul."
"Peace? Why?"
"Because she looked so terribly sad back then. So sad it seemed her emotions had dried up entirely."
"Really?"
"Yeah. I still can't forget that face. Maybe because it was the saddest I'd ever seen in my life."
If I could have seen my own expression then, I would have noticed a sadder smile than ever before.
"Awoo."
Aki, nestled in my arms, reached out curiously toward Tureina's statue, fingers wiggling.
I chuckled and absentmindedly stroked Aki's warm head with a hand that trembled poignantly.
Aki and Tureina might have been good friends... That rascal had been just as much of a troublesome brat as Aki.
'You think so too, right? You got along so well with Pipi.'
After offering a prayer for a sad farewell before Tureina's statue and tidying the flowers and incense at its base, I said to the village chief.
"Then I'll be off, Chief."
"No, leaving already? I wanted to treat you to more. You exterminated all those wicked beasts—how can I just let you go?"
No, this is reward enough.
With a wry smile, I gazed at the incense smoke rising before Tureina's statue.
Tureina, just praying for that tomboy's soul to rest, just remembering and commemorating that child—it's more than enough....
"That would be a bother. I can't stay long in one place. Especially not in a fragile village like this."
I'd already had lunch and dinner yesterday, and slept at the chief's house—an unusually long stay.
On my journey south, I avoided every imperial highway, sticking only to mountains and forests.
Yeriserika had said the era of the Abyss's eyes watching everything had come, so I decided to be as cautious as possible.
No pursuers so far from the central region south, but I could feel the times had truly changed.
Ominous rumors swirled in every village. Magical beasts suddenly swarming to raid them had become common.
The beasts seemed anxious about something... or joyful. Hmm, since my parents in the central region said nothing unusual, maybe the anomalies were concentrated in the south.
"Thank you, mage."
"May the gods bless your path."
"Stay healthy too, Aki—no getting sick."
Receiving the villagers' heartfelt gratitude (and heaps of dried fish, jerky, and other provisions), I spurred my horse out of the village.
As the last rays of sunlight twinkled, I caught sight of the grand Rose Highway stretching southeast in the distance.
Following that road would take me back to <Delaiten>, to daily life with the others... but now that my century-long journey had begun, I couldn't.
- [Delaiten's] top graduate gains the right to view Lin's remains. There's a note left by Rista there.
Skalji Ludwig had said that.
But the White Dragon Legion hinted that Lin's remains vanished during the Black Sun Incident. So no reason or leisure to go to that school now.
Time to let go of regrets.
Socrafres.
- Inheriting 'unique magic' research progress from the surrounding environment.
- Progress: 69.8%.
Before sleep during camp, I'd check Lin's notebook every night, but no good news.
It was 69.8% when I first entered Trident Point, and three months later, zero progress.
Because I haven't had a real fight? Didn't properly clash with the magic tower?
No point brooding over it, so I closed the notebook, hugged Aki and Pipi tight, shared our warmth, and drifted off.
The next day, heavy clouds blanketed the dawn sky, and rain began pouring.
I tucked Serethia’s front flap to shield him, but Aki poked his head out to watch the world through the rippling curtain of rain.
"You'll catch a cold like that."
The world was early December, but the season was still summer. The southern rain carried the same warm humidity as my school days.
Was the rain novel to him? Or did he like the warm water washing over him like Pipi?
Unlike usual, Aki quietly gazed at the downpour.
"Told you you'd catch a cold?"
The problem was it wasn't a simple shower but a monsoon. Rain drizzled steadily for the six days to the border.
Now Aki's nostrils dangled with snot, and he sneezed in succession: Achoo!
This meant changing plans to visit a city... At the crossroads, I turned left, heading the horse toward <Randklif> fortress.
"Sigh, what an ominous rain."
"Ominous, ominous, ominous."
"Boo-ooki! Boo-ooki!"
* * *
Amid thick rain clouds sprinkling drizzle, a crimson halo like flickering flames danced across the surface of the shrine built from red stone atop the cliff.
This was Shin Hwa Peak, the tallest and grandest summit of the Crimson Mountains.
Once the abode of the fire dragon Bel'Dakidun, and until the republic's theocracy collapsed, a holy site where shrine maidens resided to transmit the dragon's teachings.
"...."
Under the brim of a bamboo hat shedding endless rain, a woman with a pipe in her mouth gazed vacantly at the shrine.
As if proving the dragons' era was ending, not even a shadow of the crimson dragon that once ruled this peak remained.
Only weathered dragon statues watched as she and her seven heretic followers ascended to the shrine. Then.
"""Power of Null that soaks the skies, spirits of Flame and Vast enshrined in the sacred mountain, be liberated now by our command and dance!"""
The outlines of conical hats worn only by witches flashed in the lightning, and the multi-voiced chant raced through the rain.
The sacred litany warped the world's laws.
Valleys crumbled in landslides of boulders great and small, flames erupted from the ground, and rain scattering through the air turned to blades pouring down.
"...It can't end like this."
Amid the thick smoke of explosions, one witch panted, muttering. Goosebumps crawled up her neck moments later.
The 3-star rite chanted by twenty witches simultaneously... was completely blocked by the barrier from a man in a jet-black iron mask.
Not only that—there should have been eight below, but only five remained. The realization was her last moment.
"Ugh, urk—?!"
Whips coiled around three witches' necks in succession, and the venom flowing along them melted their bodies into slime.
Before the Black Sun Incident, when the Seven Calamities black witch group surfaced, she had been known among comrades as 'Number 4.'
No time to be shocked—another black witch behind her shed her clothes, her body instantly transforming into a shaggy, jet-black-furred beast.
She was called 'Number 5.'
The beast's fangs and claws tore the witches' limbs to shreds... Witches trying to counter-chant froze stiff, foaming at the mouth in convulsions.
"Any pretty thing here worth possessing for fun?"
A smirking youth in jet-black robes—'Number 7'—fondled his dice with lascivious flair.
To those with high mana sensitivity, the youth's mana would appear as tentacle-like tendrils grasping and violating the witches' souls.
It took less than a minute for all twenty-four witches guarding Shin Hwa Peak to fall, while Juliana, the North Republic's shrine maiden, was away.
"It's over."
"All done~!"
As blood, bone shards, and flesh mingled into puddles in the rain, something grabbed the ankle of the bamboo-hatted woman crossing the field of death.
A witch vomiting blood in agony, her lower body shredded, spine protruding hollowly.
Her consciousness fading red, enduring her final death throes, the witch barely moved her tongue.
"Tu... Lady Tureina... Why, why in the world...."
In the shadow of the hat, the eyes of the shrine maiden—once disciple to the ancient archmage and legendary shrine maiden—held something like cold sneer or bitter grief.
"For love."
Was it the last remnant of her humanity? The tobacco smoke Tureina exhaled flowed through the witch's airways into her brain.
The smoke instantly numbed all pain, ache, and sorrow, gently guiding the witch's soul to a quiet, peaceful death.
When the witch died, all her subordinates had gathered at the base of the wide, grand stairs to Belrakior (Blessing of Fire), the shrine on Shin Hwa Peak.
"Gwan, take Master to the Polantir Altar."
"Yes."
The Polantir Altar was originally for offerings and prayers to the fire dragon Bel'Dakidun, an altar imbued with ancient divinity.
Then a shamanic crow flew in from somewhere, perching on Gwan's shoulder. The feathers it scattered formed strings of text in the air.
Gwan immediately reported.
"We've found the dragon's guardian."
"Bellita and Ashu, go secure the true dragon's remains now. It'll be a tough foe, so use this when fighting."
Numbers 4 and 5 reverently received the death talismans Tureina tossed them, but Number 7 smirked and interjected.
"Haha, mind if I tag along? Of course you'll allow it, won't you, oh so kindly great Lady Tureina?"
Tureina glared briefly at Number 7's cheeky, irritating face, then clicked her tongue in annoyance and turned to ascend the stairs.
"Do as you like."
Now, it begins.
At last, it truly begins.