Chapter 626: Origins
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 626: Origins
Muen stepped into the flower sea.
This artificial zone, situated beneath St. Maria Academy, hadn't changed much following the recent upheaval in Belland. The flawless blue sky still stretched out like a painted scroll, dotted with drifting white clouds.
The only difference was the choice of flora. The multicolored roses were gone, replaced by a vast sea of deep pink tulips.
"You're here?"
Mela was currently tinkering with something in the center of the flowers. She didn't even look up when she sensed Muen’s arrival.
Muen came to a sudden halt.
He waited for a moment, but seeing that Mela had no intention of acknowledging him further after her greeting, he frowned. After a brief hesitation, he decided not to approach directly.
Instead, he began to circle Mela at a distance, keeping a wary eye on the "old loli" who was still dressed in her strawberry pajamas to maintain her youthful facade.
"What are you doing?"
Mela finally looked up, her amber-red eyes fixing on Muen’s guarded expression.
"Something’s not right..."
Muen looked left and right, speaking cautiously. "Teacher Mela, you rarely summon me personally. And even when you do, it’s usually to start a new round of torture. Why are you so calm today?"
"You make me sound like some unscrupulous teacher who takes pleasure in her student's suffering," Mela said, crossing her arms.
"Oh, so you actually have some self-awareness?" Muen rubbed his chin, looking shocked. "That’s a surprise."
"..."
Mela’s brow twitched. Then, she suddenly smiled. "You’re just too sensitive, kid. Have I really done that many terrible things to you?"
"Not many, I suppose. Just boiling me in a pot, cutting me thousands of times with a knife, throwing my head into the sky to fly around, and secretly plotting some terrifying scheme without telling me a single word about it."
Muen began counting on his fingers, his expression solemn. "Really, not many at all."
"..."
An eerie aura suddenly drifted over the flower sea.
Muen braced himself, but the expected retaliation never came. Mela merely blinked and let out a sudden sigh.
"You really have a prejudice against your teacher, don't you? Everything I did was for your own good."
"Was spying on my love life for my own good too?"
Muen caught sight of a half-eaten watermelon sitting nearby out of the corner of his eye. This wicked old loli had clearly been enjoying the show not long ago.
"As your teacher, I have to care about my disciple's romantic life. If you ever get dismembered by one of them, I’ll be there to pick up the pieces. Who knows, I might even be able to salvage something, right?"
Mela suddenly stepped aside, revealing the object she had been working on.
Muen stared in bewilderment. No matter how he looked at it, the thing was... a bed?
It wasn't the usual cold, sterile operating table. It was a proper bed, thoughtfully layered with soft quilts and printed with cute little pink strawberries—a perfect reflection of a certain old loli’s tacky taste.
"Come on, lie down." Mela patted the mattress.
"For what?" Muen immediately crossed his arms over his chest, looking suspicious. "You might look innocent, you old loli, but are you actually after my virtue?"
"One more word and I’ll beat your ass red," Mela said, her childish face uttering crude threats. "Get your butt up here, now."
"Fine."
Knowing that resistance was futile, Muen moved with trepidation, inching his way onto the bed.
He lay flat, fingers interlaced over his chest like a man in a coffin, waiting for the first handful of dirt to be tossed over him.
To his surprise, the bed was exceptionally comfortable.
The firmness seemed perfectly adjusted to his preference. The moment Muen lay down, his entire body relaxed involuntarily. It felt as though even his soul had found a place to rest, and he couldn't help but let out a comfortable groan.
"Alright, what’s the torture this time?" Muen asked, still trying to keep a straight face. "Are you going to cut me open, or install some weird mechanical parts? Just tell me the plot straight out—I can take it!"
"Stop talking like I’m some shady doctor in an underground clinic." Mela leaned against the side of the bed. "Does it hurt?"
"Hurt? What hurts?" Muen was taken aback.
It wasn't just the cryptic question; it was the way Mela was resting her chin on her hands by the bedside. Her baby-faced cheeks held a soft smile, radiating a gentle warmth reminiscent of a wife watching over her exhausted husband.
"Here." Mela tapped the space between Muen’s eyebrows.
"You forced yourself to manifest that Black Sun and use the Black Flame without pause. Your spirit was pushed past its limit long ago. Even if the Imperial Palace formation stabilized your mana later, that was only stabilization. it didn't increase your spiritual power, nor could it repair your scarred spiritual space."
"I guess... it does hurt a bit," Muen admitted, his lips twitching into a faint smile as he leaned back against the pillow.
In truth, that was an understatement.
The agony of having one's spirit run dry, of feeling it being crushed into nothingness, was no different from having one's body ground to dust. How could it be described as just "a bit"?
But Muen had grown used to such pain. Whether it was the countless deaths within the Black Book or his encounters with eldritch horrors, his mental fortitude was now leagues beyond the weakling he once was.
"Hmm, you’re tougher than I thought."
Mela tilted her head, studying him for a moment longer. Then, she broke into a smile as bright as a blooming flower. She gently stroked Muen’s head and whispered, "But don't worry. Your dear teacher brought you here specifically to soothe that pain."
"I see..." Muen breathed a sigh of relief.
It seemed he had misjudged Mela this time. No matter how twisted her personality was, she wouldn't...
"Of course... the process of soothing the pain might be a tiny bit uncomfortable. I promise, just a tiny bit."
Mela suddenly held up her thumb and forefinger, pinching them together to show a microscopic gap. "Just a teeny-tiny bit."
"Wait... you—!"
Muen’s eyes widened. A sense of "I knew it" and a dire premonition exploded in his mind simultaneously.
It was too late. This damn old loli had always been faster with her hands than her mouth.
Before he could get a curse out, Muen’s vision went black. He lost consciousness instantly.
*
"Hey, poor Assistant-kun, wake up..."
"Wake up, it’s almost time..."
"We have to go to *&%￥..."
In a daze, Muen heard a faint, ethereal voice echoing around him.
This is...
However, as he tried to find the source of the voice, a flood of static, distortions, and fragmented, unrecognizable images rushed toward him, as if he were trapped inside an old television screen.
He opened his eyes and saw...
"Ho, you're awake."
The punchable, baby-faced visage of the old loli.
"Ugh... how long was I out?" Muen frowned, suppressing the urge to throw a punch as he asked groggily.
"By the world's clock, three days."
Mela scanned Muen, even peeling back his eyelids to check his pupils before nodding in satisfaction. "Mm, the results are excellent. Your spiritual power is fully restored. There shouldn't be any lingering side effects."
"Restored that quickly? Three days... that’s a long time. I didn't feel the passage of time at all. And what did you mean by 'the world's clock'..."
Waking up, Muen had a mountain of questions.
But as he shifted slightly, he felt a smooth, rounded sensation against the back of his head. All his questions vanished instantly.
Based on Muen’s extensive experience, that softness and shape could only be one thing...
A lap pillow!
Yes, definitely a lap pillow!
But why was he getting a lap pillow? At a time like this, neither Celicia, the Senior Sister, nor Liya could possibly...
Muen’s eyes went wide.
Don't tell me this old loli finally couldn't resist her own desires? Was she moved by my handsomeness, so she...
"You seem to be having some weird thoughts again, kid."
Before Muen could say anything, Mela’s brow arched with a mischievous grin. "However, I suggest you get up quickly. Otherwise..."
"Otherwise?"
"Otherwise, your chastity really will be in danger."
Mela moved her head out of the way.
In that instant, as she ceased her intentional obstruction, a massive shadow blocked out the light, looming over Muen’s field of vision.
In the center of that shadow... was a face. A face full of bulging flesh and tusks, with saliva dripping from the corners of its mouth. Small eyes stared down at him, filled with nothing but bestial lust.
"What... is that?" Muen asked Mela, his voice deadpan.
"That is a magical beast that went extinct a thousand years ago. It’s called a Tak."
"A Tak?"
"Yes. This species has a unique trait. Because males are extremely rare and the females have... intense desires, they often kidnap males of other races. The more handsome the male, the more they adore them."
"Then I..."
"Ah, that. As your most loving teacher, how could I bear to let you lie on the cold ground? I happened to find one, so I let you rest on her lap for a bit."
Mela spread her hands, the very picture of a caring teacher looking out for her student.
Muen’s lip twitched. He slowly turned his head to meet the lust-filled, beady eyes of the Tak...
"You ugly monster, DIE!!"
A blade flashed with brilliant light. Roars and explosions shattered the silence of the wasteland, accompanied by a furious howl.
*
"Huff... huff... that beast... why was it so strong?"
Half an hour later, Muen stood with his hands on his knees, panting as if he’d been through the wringer. "Damn it, I almost lost. It looked like a common magical beast..."
"A beast that can survive by kidnapping males of other races isn't exactly 'common,'" Mela shrugged. "Well, they’re extinct now anyway."
"Extinct..."
Muen straightened up. "So, what’s going on? Why am I seeing extinct beasts? And this place..."
Muen looked around.
Red dust swirled in a cold wind from an unknown source, making visibility extremely low.
The ground beneath his feet was nothing but cracked sand and jagged black rock. There wasn't a hint of green; even the soil, the very vessel of life, was nowhere to be seen.
As far as the eye could see, there was only desolation and deathly silence.
"Remember the Sacred Tree from not long ago? I took inspiration from it. Using the Eternal Clock as a foundation, I created this."
"A phantom of the past?"
"In a way. But because I incorporated the interference of the Temporal Authority, it’s much more real."
Mela picked up a rock and crushed it, letting the fine dust slip through her fingers.
"So... is this a thousand years ago? During the era of the First King?"
"It is a thousand years ago, but an era even earlier than the First King."
Mela walked forward and pointed. "Look there."
Muen’s gaze sharpened. He followed her finger and looked up.
As the dust cleared slightly, what appeared before him was... a near-vertical, bottomless precipice.
The black-red rock was exposed, smooth and steep as if sliced by a blade. A pebble kicked over the edge fell for a long time without an echo. What shocked Muen even more was the sheer length of it, cutting across the horizon as far as he could see. And...
No matter how hard he strained his eyes to peer through the thick dust, he couldn't see the other side of the cliff. Its width was staggering.
"This is..."
"The Abyss," Mela answered softly. "The Abyss of now, and the Abyss of a thousand years ago."
"This is... the legendary Abyss?"
Muen’s mouth hung open in shock. He suddenly crouched down, running his hand over the smooth, sliced surface of the cliff.
"My father... he fought the Demon Race in a place like this? I always thought the 'Abyss' was some abstract concept. I didn't expect it to be literally... an impossibly large rift valley."
"Perhaps you were right. The Abyss itself does carry some abstract concepts."
Mela pointed again. "Look."
As the biting wind howled, the dust cleared a bit more. Muen finally saw twisted voids hovering over the Abyss—distortions that looked like cracks in reality, constantly opening and sealing themselves.
"A terrifying power nearly tore the space above the Abyss apart, making it, in a sense, isolated from the rest of the continent. Of course, this spatial tearing isn't everywhere, which is why the Abyss has several exits. The one your father guards is likely one of them."
"So..." Muen didn't dwell on that for long. After a moment of silence, he asked, "How did the Abyss come to be?"
"You’ve never heard?"
"No. But I have a guess."
"A guess is better than nothing. After all, the truth of this place isn't something that could be preserved in history."
Mela gazed into the Abyss, a complex light flickering in her amber-red eyes. "The so-called Abyss is actually nothing more than the scar left behind after the crusade against the First Evil God. To put it in common terms, it is... a World's Scar."
"The First Evil God... the Demon God?"
"Yes."
"If the Abyss was caused by the Demon God... then the Demon Race..."
"They aren't like magical beasts, which are just animals with mana. The Demon Race... they were originally the group of believers who worshipped the Demon God."
Mela lowered her eyelids, her fingers curling as if trying to grasp something within the depths. Her expression grew more somber.
"After the Demon God died, the corruption in those believers vanished, and their minds were no longer influenced by Him. But the physical mutations remained, as did the power the Demon God had bestowed upon them. Thus, they ceased to be human and became... what the world now calls the Demon Race."