Chapter 145
Chapter 145
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 145
Chapter Title: The Starting Point of the Waves
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[Berddin, from now on, let me explain it.]
"Hagen?"
[That's right.]
"How did you get here?"
[How I got here doesn't matter. What matters now is how you take this story from here on out.]
"How I take it?"
[Yes, so watch my past carefully. These precious memories of mine won't come back a second time.]
Shiiik—
The space twisted, transporting them to some room in Glazer Castle.
There, Gratrete was bouncing up and down on the bed, venting her endless complaints.
Why were the beds wizards slept in so fluffy, and why was the food mostly vegetarian instead of meat?
And their main activities were just reading books, eating, shitting out what they ate, and sleeping when they got drowsy. To a nomad who hunted or trained her body 365 days a year, this was unbearably boring repetition.
"Stop reading books already!!!"
Gratrete grabbed a lit candlestick and spun it around before hurling it toward the study.
Not only that, she smashed every piece of furniture in the room with her rock-hard fists.
Bang! Bang! Bang bang!
The maid tried to intervene but was outmatched, so Hagen had no choice but to step in and bind her himself.
Charrlk!
Only after mana chains wrapped around her arms and legs did Gratrete's rampage stop.
"Let me go, you bastard!!!"
"Calm down. Nothing changes no matter what you do."
"Nothing changes like this? Oh, right, I got it wrong. Instead of breaking stuff here, I should kill you to make things change!"
"...Well, that would change things, but it'd be in a bad direction, wouldn't it?"
"A bad direction?"
"Yes. If I got even a little hurt by you, Gratrete, my father wouldn't just kill you—he'd wipe out the entire 'Modi' tribe in the west."
Gratrete's eyes went wide.
"Wha-wha-what?!"
"It's true. My father loves me dearly. Even a tiny scratch on my face, and it'll happen just like I said."
"...For real?"
"Yes. If you don't believe me, go ahead and try."
Hagen leaned in with an innocent smile.
"Gah, get that away, you lunatic."
"Lunatic? A slave like you is way too rude to your master."
"Slave? Why the hell am I a slave?"
"Because your father gave you to me."
"So that makes me a slave?"
"Exactly. What, did you think he gave you to me as a wife?"
"...No, not exactly, but..."
Gratrete bowed her head deeply mid-conversation and continued.
"Still, I didn't think it'd be as a slave. Sniff, sniiiif... Waaah!"
Suddenly, Gratrete burst into tears.
As she wailed loudly, Hagen looked at the maid with a flustered expression, as if asking what to do. But even the maid had no idea how to handle her reckless behavior.
"...Gratrete, how old are you? You look at least fifteen. You can't act like a child."
"Fifteen? Are you kidding me? I'm thirty this year!"
"?!"
"Even if you ate your age out of your ass, it'd still be more than yours. What the hell are you saying?!"
"Ah, no... You just look younger than I thought, Gratrete."
"Younger? Me?"
"Yes. To be honest, I thought you were fifteen or sixteen. Seventeen at most."
Gratrete stopped crying, wiped her reddened cheeks, and replied.
"...Really? So I look that young?"
"Yes."
She glared at Hagen for a long while, then her lips twitched into a small smile.
"Maybe because I'm a woman too, but hearing I look young feels nice."
Hagen stared blankly at Gratrete.
He didn't know what to make of the unfamiliar emotion surging through him. His heart pounded suddenly, time around him seemed to slow, and through his lengthened breaths, the scents of the surroundings filled him deeply.
"...You like that?"
"Yeah."
"I just said you looked young."
"I know. I like hearing it. Feels great. Keep saying it from now on."
"That's no big deal—"
"And do me one favor."
"A favor?"
Gratrete giggled and hooked her arm around Hagen's.
"Well, I don't know anyone here. So bring someone from my homeland to chat with. Just one."
"What for?"
"Just to talk."
"Talk for what?"
"...Are you an idiot? Why else would I want to talk to someone? I'm bored, obviously!"
Hagen tilted his head, not understanding.
To a wizard, wasting time on idle chat was better spent reading one more page of a book.
Still, he didn't refuse Gratrete's request.
"Got it. I'll ask your father to send someone who can come here."
"Yaaay! Make it someone fun if you can!"
"Has to be a kid?"
"Anyone not old is fine."
"Not old. Understood."
That very day, Hagen went straight to her homeland and brought back a man.
His name was 'Gradra,' not old as per her request, and rumored to be the funniest guy in the village.
"Let me know if you need anything else."
As Hagen asked while reading five books at once, Gratrete brushed back her long hair and answered.
"I want to go get my hair cut. I read in a book there's a place called a salon outside. I want to make it pretty there!"
"Salon?"
"Yeah, you don't know salons?"
"First time hearing it."
"...You're not nobility, are you?"
"Correct."
"Then how don't you know salons? It's where they cut nobles' hair!"
He really didn't know.
Wizards just snipped their hair with scissors when it got long or let it grow endlessly and tied it up.
"You want your hair cut, right?"
"Yeah, super pretty."
"Got it."
Hagen wiggled his finger, and tailoring shears flew from the drawer.
Before Gratrete could react, he chopped her hair into a bob.
Snip.
"...What the hell are you doing?"
"You said you wanted it cut, so I did it just like you wanted—"
Pfuk! Hagen's jaw spun around with the sound.
"You crazy bastard!"
He probably got an earful from Gratrete for half a day that day.
She'd clench her fists and try to kill him just for making eye contact.
Four days later, I went to see her again and asked.
"Do you... need anything else?"
Gratrete tossed the words out with a pout.
"You're not gonna pull some weird shit on me again, are you?"
"No. That was a misunderstanding. It won't happen again."
"Really?"
"Yes."
"For sure?"
"Of course."
She eyed him suspiciously to the end, as if she couldn't trust him.
"I want cake."
"Cake?"
"Yeah. In the book, it's like clouds—soft, sweet like ripe fruit, and the more you chew, the more ecstatic the taste."
Wizards don't eat that stuff.
Hagen wanted to say, but he just nodded lightly.
"Soft like clouds, sweet like fruit, ecstatic taste the more you chew, right?"
"Exactly! It melts in your mouth. Look, it's in the book you gave me."
Gratrete opened the book and showed it.
It listed cake ingredients, but Glazer Castle lacked the necessary oven.
"Eggs, sugar, flour over fire... baked with cream... Got it."
"Can you do it?"
"This is nothing. Even if I look like this, I'm a 7th Circle wizard. Think I can't?"
The cake Hagen made was black.
The cream was white, so how did it turn black?
The book had the method and ingredients but no picture, which was the problem.
Gratrete didn't know what cake looked like either, so she gulped at the blackened bread lump.
"Th-this is cake?"
"Probably? I followed the book exactly."
"...This is more impressive than I thought."
"Tell me about it. Took quite a while."
A sigh from Hagen echoed from somewhere.
[After eating that cake, I think I didn't see Gratrete for about a month.]
His monologue carried a sense of emptiness.
[But as time passed, she came looking for me again.]
Gratrete held open a book called Mythical Beasts Compendium and said to Hagen.
"I want to see this."
"...A unicorn?"
"Yeah, this horse has a horn on its forehead. You know I'm a nomad, right? But I've never seen one born till now!"
"Of course. It's not real. It only exists in myths, just like the book says—"
"So even you can't find one?"
"Pardon?"
"Even a wizard like you can't show me this. What was it you said? 6th Circle?"
"...7th Circle."
"Whatever, 6th or 7th, you can't even find one horse and act all high and mighty!"
A vein bulged on young Hagen's forehead.
"I can find one."
"Really?"
"Of course."
"Whoa, you really are a 7th Circle wizard!"
"...Yes."
"Then get it by dinner. Show it to me then? I've always wanted to see one!"
Gratrete hugged Hagen.
Hagen gazed into the distance and nodded slightly.
"A unicorn..."
Hagen pondered.
How could he procure a unicorn by dinner?
With all his accumulated knowledge, it was impossible.
No choice.
He'd have to make one.
Unable to find a way, he headed to the stables.
Then he infused mana into a 'gorgon's horn,' a material for advanced spells, and forcibly embedded it into a horse's forehead.
Kwajik!
As he stamped the forehead, the horse couldn't endure the pain and kicked Hagen's side with its hind legs.
Thud!
[That's why my ribs broke, and I lay in bed all day.]
As useless scenes continued, Berddin was about to curse in frustration.
Then he saw Gratrete laughing merrily while stroking Hagen's hair.
"What if you died doing that?"
"...Even if I died, it wouldn't matter. That would have been fate too."
"Fate?"
"Yes. Every human lives only as much as their fated time."
"You mean I have a set time I can live?"
"Not just you, Gratrete. Everyone."
"...I see."
"Yes."
"Then those stars up there will die someday too?"
Hagen turned to where she pointed.
The night sky filled with darkness, stars dotting it, and the moon shining intensely between them.
"Yes. Or maybe they're already dead."
"Already dead?"
"Yes. The great sage Gallin said that the stars we see have already died, but the light they shot toward us before dying flies from afar, so we keep seeing them. For a day, two days, three, four... even over a hundred days."
"Really?!"
"Probably."
Gratrete furrowed her brows intensely.
"So that's how it is."
"Isn't it wondrous? That's why my master said stars are like loved ones."
"Loved ones?"
"Yes. Even if someone you've bonded with finishes their life and dies. Even if forgotten in others' memories, they become the star in your heart, illuminating the darkness."
"Becoming a star... illuminating the heart."
"Exactly."
"Simple, but deep."
"Yes. That's what studying is."
Hagen smiled brightly.
They lay on the bed together, gazing at the night sky outside the window.
No more words passed. They just looked at the stars, the moon, and each other's eyes until they fell asleep.
But their happy times ended there.
The next day, upon hearing of Hagen's injury, his father Yulgen flew into a rage.
"You, who pursues the limits of knowledge—what the hell are you doing?!"
He ordered Gratrete's death.
But Hagen vehemently opposed it, staking his position.
No father loses to his child—or so they say. Unable to break Hagen's will, Yulgen relented and made a proposal instead.
"I'll give you one year. Complete 8th Circle magic."
"O-one year for 8th Circle?!"
"Yes. A realm others struggle a hundred years to reach. If you have the talent to slack on studies and play, I'll acknowledge your toy and spare her."
"...Gratrete isn't a toy."
"Right, just a slave."
Hagen couldn't refute his father.
And he had to fulfill the proposals.
Just wait a little, Gratrete.
I'll finish quickly and come back.
With that, Hagen headed straight to the Tower of Knowledge, devoting himself to study.
To save Gratrete, he had to complete 8th Circle magic by any means.
"I... I did it."
Exactly one year.
He completed 8th Circle magic within the time his father gave.
Eight chains made from the mana emanating from his body.
They danced like whips, slicing everything around.
Kang!
Even steel split.
"Amazing!"
He marveled at his own magic.
To tell his father, he rushed back to Glazer Castle in one step.
But by then, his father had already ascended to the heavens.
"In battle with the Strange Family Head..."
One of the vassals bowed his head.
Hearing the news, Hagen closed his eyes and looked to the sky.
"...Father."
He grasped the cold hand of his father lying in a coffin emblazoned with the Glazer crest.
"I'm sorry."
Then he closed his eyes and cast a flame spell, burning him alongside the forest spirits.
Watching his father rise as smoke to the sky, he prayed for the first and last time.
I don't believe in you, but I'll make one request. If there's a kingdom there and my father reaches it, tell him I fulfilled his will.
Hagen bowed his head.
Someone approached and lightly gripped his shoulder.
"Hagen."
He turned to see Gratrete.
"...Have you been well?"
"Yes."
They didn't talk long.
Just a brief greeting before parting.
A few days later, they met again.
Hagen visited Gratrete's room first to request a meeting.
"This baby...?"
An infant identical to her lay on the bed.
"My son."
"Son?"
"Yes."
Hagen couldn't comprehend.
I never slept with her.
Then who was the father?
No way.
His gaze slowly shifted to the man standing blankly beside Gratrete.
The man Hagen had brought from her homeland because she wanted someone to talk to: Gradra.
The eye color matched—the child was clearly theirs.
[The moment I saw the baby lying next to Gratrete, an inexplicable rage boiled up.]
[But I didn't express my feelings toward her.]
[It would've been laughable if I had. A noble getting mad over a mere slave's pregnancy.]
Berddin scratched his forehead.
Hagen let out a deep sigh and continued.
[After that, three more children were born between them.]
"Three? So you just watched Gratrete all that time?"
[What would you have done?]
Berddin fell silent at Hagen's question.
[Back then, I couldn't find an answer.]
[So I just waited for time to pass.]
[For all emotions to fade from my heart.]
"Emotions fading from the heart."
[As time went on, Gratrete's eyes grew cold.]
"Gratrete's eyes?"
[Yes. She said I had changed and stopped talking to me.]
"How did you change?"
[I don't know. We never talked about it. Anyway, we drifted further apart, and I had a child with the partner chosen by the family.]
"Edward?"
[Yes. I was blessed with a child. But as you know, Edward clashed with the children Gratrete had, and in the end...]
Shaaa—
Space twisted, showing the day after Edward massacred his half-brothers.
"Please... don't forgive Edward, Lord Hagen. He killed all my children!"
[I knew that.]
But the ones who first tried to kill him were Gratrete and Gradra's children, so as Glazer's last hope, I could only respect Edward's choice and guide him.
That's why I spoke even more harshly to Gratrete.
"You were just my slave anyway, weren't you? Unlike trash like you, Edward's the wife’s son, destined to be family head."
[Hate me, resent me, curse me. It's fine.]
"...But isn't he still guilty of fratricide?"
Her eyes reddened, tears welling up.
To hide my emotions, I turned away and replied.
"If they did something deserving death, they die. From what I heard, Edward suffered a lot from those kids too."
[I'm sorry, Gratrete.]
"Lord Hagen."
[Don't call my name.]
"Whatever. Just get out. I have no attachment to lowly-blooded brats anyway."
I'll release you from the Glazer name binding your limbs. Forget all memories here and start anew.
"Lord Hagen!"
Our bond ends here.
My star, my moon, my light.
"...Get out of this room now, Gratrete. I won't see you starting today."
My love, Gratrete.
"I wish I'd never met you from the start."
[And so we parted. Today, I showed you all this to make one request.]
Berddin crossed his arms and replied.
"What is it?"
[I'll tell you which apostle took your mother Verdandi.]
"?!"
[In return, take Gratrete from Glazer Castle to a safe place.]
"......"
[Please, Berddin.]