The Empire is hell.
Ask the people living in the Empire now, and every last one of them would answer so.
The emperor was dying, and the imperial family paid no heed to the people as they fought to seize the next throne.
The lords endlessly exploited the people and drove them into war for the sake of their own luxuries and ambitions.
Unable to endure any longer, the people fled their hometowns.
Some became fugitives, some were killed by monsters, and some became bandits.
They had only struggled to survive, yet the people’s lives became even more miserable, even more painful.
If this was not hell, then what was?
“Please spare us!! Please, spare us!!!”
“Please… please, just don’t touch this child.”
“Khehehe! I’ll think about it depending on how you behave!”
Taking advantage of the dead of night, the mother and daughter had fled their hometown.
They had run from exploitation, fleeing to a domain where they might live even a little more like human beings—and waiting for them was neither guards nor monsters, but bandits.
“Hm?… Who the hell are you!?”
The bandit, excited at the thought of attacking the mother and daughter and amusing himself for the first time in a while, suddenly turned at the gaze he felt behind him.
There stood a person in a brown robe, holding a red staff.
“Don’t know who you are, but if you don’t want to die, mind your own business and get lost!”
The bandit shouted as he drew his sword.
Then, from within the robe that hid the person’s face, came a voice cold enough to chill the marrow.
“If you are the one who does not wish to die, then step back.”
The bandit ignored the warning and charged.
What followed happened in an instant.
Fwoosh!
“Kraaaaagh!!!!”
Before he could even touch the brown robe, the bandit was engulfed in flames.
The flames that burst forth in an instant turned the bandit’s body to dust without leaving even ash behind, and the world fell silent once more.
“I told you to step back…”
The mage who had used the flames headed toward the mother and daughter.
At that moment, the wind blew and the brown robe slipped away, revealing an elf with astonishingly beautiful short red hair fluttering in the breeze.
The little girl forgot that she had nearly died and lost her words at the most beautiful sight she had ever seen in her life.
“Little one, are you all right?”
Only when the red-haired elf mage approached did the little girl finally come to her senses and answer.
Bowing her head over and over, just as her mother had taught her, the little girl cried out.
“Thank you for saving us!! Mage!”
“Thank your mother. It was your mother’s desperate wish that called the spirits, allowing me to help you.”
“Yes! Thank you, Mom!!”
“Truly… truly! Thank you for helping us, Mage.”
“Not at all. I merely did what had to be done.”
Her name was 『Sharen Lirisia』.
She was a half-elf mage traveling through the Empire.
The reason she wandered the Empire was to help people.
As a rule, elves did not involve themselves in human affairs.
Living in their forests or studying magic in the Magic Tower—that was the way of the elven race.
But she could not stand by.
She could not simply watch as the Empire, her father’s world, collapsed and its people suffered.
In the end, she broke her promise with her master and threw herself into the human world.
She had stepped into the human world to use her abilities as a mage to help people and stabilize the Empire, but what she saw there was humanity’s “endless greed.”
“Um… if it is not rude to ask, where are you headed, Mage?”
“I wonder. Where should I go…”
She had traveled through countless domains in the east and west.
Some places welcomed her, while others rejected her.
But she paid such things no mind and used her magic to help people.
She healed people, drove away monsters, and made the land fertile.
When she helped people like that, the lords and nobles who ruled those places naturally came to find her.
If it was for the sake of helping people, she was always prepared to cooperate.
But what they wanted was for her to help not “the people,” but “themselves.”
They did not regard their subjects as people like themselves, and wanted her to use her magic solely for them and their own benefit.
In return, they offered her gold and treasure, but disappointed by their greed, she left them behind.
Even after that, she continued to travel the Empire and help people.
Believing that surely there must be someone trying to change the world with sincere goodwill, she kept wandering in order to become that person’s strength.
Bards praised her for it and sang of her.
They praised not a person who traveled the world helping others, but the half-elf red mage.
At some point, people began to call her this, with respect and reverence.
『Sharen the Red Mage』.
And so, ten years passed.
In the time of elves, ten years was a very short span.
But in the time of humans, it was enough to wear down one person’s resolve.
After witnessing humanity’s greed for ten years, she came to understand her master’s words and began to want to give up on humans.
“Um… Mage… if you have nowhere to go, come with us!”
“With you?”
“Yes! We’re heading south right now.”
“To the south? What is there?”
She had only been in the east and west.
Because of that, she knew little about the south and north.
At her words, the little girl cried out in great excitement.
“The bards told us. They said there’s a paradise in the south.”
“A paradise?”
Sharen did not believe the little girl’s words.
After all, rumors spread by bards were almost always exaggerated.
“They say there’s an incredibly kind and great lord there. He gives lots of money to his people, takes in everyone who runs away, and also… oh! They said he even jumped into the sea himself in the middle of a storm to save his people.”
“He jumped into a storm?”
Sharen was somewhat surprised by the little girl’s words.
She had heard stories of lords who fought dragons or killed a hundred bandits alone.
But this was the first time she had heard of a lord who had thrown himself into the sea to save his people.
“And the people there are kind, and everyone works together to drive off bandits and live in peace. We’re heading there!”
“So such a place existed…”
A place where a lord protected his people, and where people joined forces to create peace.
That was the world she had dreamed of.
But she found it hard to believe.
Trusting the countless songs sung by bards, she had traveled through many domains.
Yet her faith had always disappointed her.
“If you have nowhere to go, Mage, come with us!!”
As if sensing her hesitation, the girl clung to her and spoke.
Seeing those pure, clear eyes, sadness welled up inside her.
There had been a time when she, too, had held such hope for the world.
But now she was disappointed in everything, and she had even hesitated to save this mother and daughter.
How had she become like this?
Why had things turned out this way?
Was it truly, as her master had said, the inevitable order of things for the human world to become unhappy?
If so, then at least…
At the very least, Sharen thought she should protect this girl.
If she traveled with them, the girl would not be harmed.
And if the domain called paradise turned out to be nothing more than a false rumor, she might at least be able to take the two of them to her Magic Tower and save them.
“All right… let us go together.”
“Yes! Mom! The Mage says she’ll come with us!!”
At her words, the girl ran happily to her mother.
Sensing that Sharen meant to protect them, the mother thanked her over and over without pause.
And so, she headed toward the south of the Empire, a place she had never once visited.
* * *
Thus Sharen set out on the road with the mother and daughter.
She also learned their names.
The girl’s name was 『Laila』, and her mother was 『Aila』.
Sharen protected them as they headed south.
The road was not easy.
Bandits appeared once every two days, and monsters such as goblins and slimes attacked them as well.
Thinking that they would have died in less than a week if she had not been there, Sharen felt she had done well to accompany them.
Two weeks passed as they traveled like that.
Then she sensed something strange.
‘The spirits… are rejoicing.’
The farther south they went, the more spirits began to rejoice.
Spirits were sensitive to human emotions.
And elves could feel the emotions of those spirits.
This was also why she had left so many lords behind.
No matter how the lords tried to hide their people’s suffering and keep it from her sight, she could feel all of it through the spirits.
That was why she left, and that was why she traveled alone.
And yet now, she could feel the spirits singing joyfully, like birds waking in the morning.
This feeling… truly, it had been a long time.
“Lady Sharen, you smiled. Did something good happen?”
“I smiled because the spirits are rejoicing, Laila.”
“The spirits? Ah! Maybe the spirits are happy because we’re here too!!”
“Haha, perhaps so.”
At the happy emotions of the spirits, which she had not felt in so long, Sharen began to enjoy the journey with them.
It was a wondrous experience.
The farther south they went, the fewer bandits there were.
The rejoicing spirits grew more and more numerous, and monsters no longer attacked them.
And at last, they arrived at that place in the south.
“Wow!! We’re here, Lady Sharen!!!”
“……”
Sharen would never forget that sight until the moment she died.
Upon the vast land were countless people who had fled all the way here, risking their lives while carrying hope.
There were the warm hands of people welcoming them.
And there were spirits flying through the blue sky, feeling the hope and joy those people felt.
That place truly was 『paradise』.
That day, one of the greatest mages of the Novarens Empire, 『Sharen』 the Red Mage, arrived in Cron’s domain.