Night fell.
Hio was still nowhere to be seen.
Berga forced his poorly moving body into motion and searched the surroundings, but he found no noteworthy clues.
“Cough…”
It seemed he had gone and caught a cold for nothing in the chill air.
“You insolent rascal… Stop making your old master worry and come back already.”
He paced around outside for several more minutes, but his good-for-nothing disciple did not appear, so Berga had no choice but to go back inside.
He had lived here alone for nearly twenty years, and yet why did it feel so empty today?
He headed for the bed to sleep.
Lying down, he tried to soothe himself.
Once day broke, that disciple of his would return as if nothing had happened.
He would smile brightly as usual and tease him, asking if the old man had been worried.
If so, Berga would give him a proper scolding.
Well, the boy would probably just grin slyly and let it slide.
…But what if he did not come back tomorrow either?
The unease he had been trying so hard to ignore gathered and cast a small question.
What if, just perhaps, something like that day twenty years ago had happened again?
The question, once cast, spread out like ripples, and Berga’s thoughts continued, one after another.
Like that day when the two masters of this place became one, the day Berga’s master died so cruelly.
That day in the past, when his master, who had gone out as usual to find food, never returned.
The bloodstains he had found after falling asleep without much thought, waking up, and going out to look for his master.
The bloodstains leading into kobold territory. The torn hem of a robe. The blood that grew thicker and wetter.
That day when he had charged half out of his mind into the kobolds’ territory and barely escaped with his life.
Could the same thing have happened again?
In the end, after tossing and turning for a long while, Berga moved outside once more.
The cold night air stabbed deep into his body, and his coughing grew worse and worse.
“Cough! Cough…”
Even so, he did not stop walking.
How deeply had he regretted it that day?
If only he had not gone to sleep at night without a thought.
If only he had gone out to take a look, might he not have been able to help his master?
Stupid Berga. Pathetic Berga. Lazy Berga.
Move your body at once.
Leave no more regrets behind.
But no matter how much he wandered, he found nothing that looked like Hio’s traces.
By the time Berga, who had set out from the vegetable garden, finally returned to the vegetable garden again, dawn was breaking.
With bloodshot eyes, he stared into the distance.
He had searched almost everywhere. Yet he could find nothing.
There was only one place left where he had not gone.
The kobolds’ territory.
‘…No. That cannot be.’
No matter what, it was difficult to imagine Hio, who had been in the vegetable garden, going all the way to the kobolds’ territory on the opposite side, and so Berga shook his head and dragged his feet weakly back toward the house.
“Where have you gone, leaving this old man behind? You good-for-nothing disciple…”
He had lived alone for nearly twenty years.
It had only been a little over two months since he had taken in a disciple.
And yet… why did he feel so hollow and sorrowful?
* * *
It felt as though he had only closed and opened his eyes for a moment, but the day was already growing dark.
“Hio.”
Had it been too much for his old body to wander all night in the cold air?
His throat was cracked, and he seemed to have a fever, but before his own body, what came to mind was that good-for-nothing disciple of his.
“Hio. Are you there?”
He barely managed to rise and opened Hio’s door.
“…”
But what greeted Berga was only an empty room and lonely air.
Certainty rose in Berga’s heart.
Something must have happened to his disciple.
Even so, he did not lose his composure.
Calmly, he thought through the reason.
His first thought was likely correct.
What reason would Hio, who had been in the vegetable garden, have to suddenly run off, if not because he had encountered even a small rabbit?
The problem was what came after.
Hio, absorbed in chasing the rabbit, had ended up entering a place he must never enter.
The kobolds’ territory.
And what happened after that was…
The memory of that day painted itself before him once again.
The bloody lump he had found in the kobold territory he had invaded.
Amid the lump of flesh, torn and chewed and crushed here and there, the hem of the robe his master had worn had been sticking out.
This time, his disciple had suffered that fate.
“You bastards.”
At last, a fire ignited in Berga’s heart.
“You bastards who deserve to be chewed to pieces.”
Grief leaked through his cracked voice.
A sorrowful flame spread through the heart he had thought worn down to nothing.
“What… What did I do so wrong?”
The day he lost his master. After he had barely escaped with only his life, he dreamed of revenge.
He had made it his sole goal to achieve greatness in magic and sweep away those wicked monsters.
He thought that, in doing so, he would naturally be able to make known to the world the great magic his master had wished for.
…And yet.
For the twenty years since then, all he had accomplished was secretly hunting a few kobolds that had strayed off on their own.
It was bitter and grievous.
“Hio…”
The image of his disciple leaving with a bright smile for the last time shimmered before his eyes.
To others, it was only two months, but to one who had lived twenty years mad for magic and revenge, those two months had been far too warm.
“My disciple. Wait… wait just a little.”
The old mage no longer wished to live.
* * *
Was there anyone who knew kobolds as well as he did?
Territorial creatures that liked dark places.
They were more sensitive to smell and hearing than to sight, and unless they were extremely hungry, they rarely left their territory.
And the most important fact.
‘They do not move at night.’
They might be awake, but they did not come outside and move about.
That was why Berga’s plan this time could not help but be fatal to them.
Set fire to the entrance of the cave that was the kobolds’ habitat.
Then throw fire inside as well.
An extremely simple and easy plan.
But there was a clear reason he had not been able to carry it out until now.
Because, naturally, kobolds stood guard outside the cave.
It took time to start a fire.
Even if he used magic, it took time to produce the amount of firepower he wanted.
With Berga’s strength, he could not break through the entrance of a cave guarded by two or more and create such a blaze.
‘In truth… I knew the method long ago.’
A way to get past the kobolds and set fire to the entrance.
It was simple.
He only had to ignore them.
Whether they hacked his body to pieces.
Whether they beat him with clubs or trampled him underfoot.
Whatever they did, the fire would already have been set.
He had not been able to do it all this time.
Because he had a goal.
To make magic known.
To establish the prestige of magic.
To fulfill his master’s dream.
…And twenty years passed like that.
What had he accomplished?
What had changed?
He still struggled to defeat even a single kobold, and the world still disregarded magic. Mocked it.
Though he had studied and researched for twenty years, had he not ended up right where he began?
A deep sense of helplessness seized his entire body.
With the magic to which he had devoted his whole life, there was nothing he could do.
After leaving behind his master, reduced to a lump of meat, and now with his disciple having suffered the same fate, all he could do was die together with them.
And so, in truth, he had known.
Magic.
The magic that had been his very life.
This magic, which had been his lifelong wish, his hope, his goal, and his driving force!
In truth, it was useless trash good for nothing.
If he had acknowledged that a little sooner.
If he had put down his stubbornness a little sooner.
At the very least, would he not have dragged Hio into such foolishness?
At the very least, would the boy not have met such a miserable end?
“Stupid Berga. Pathetic Berga.”
In Berga’s trudging figure, there was no will and no meaning.
“What was it I lived for?”
It was the figure of a man whose entire life had been denied.
* * *
The sun had vanished completely, and even the moonlight was faint that night.
Without hesitation, Berga entered the kobolds’ territory.
As if they wanted to make it clear that this was their domain, bone fragments could be seen here and there amid a damp, rotten stench.
Somewhere here, somewhere deep within, Hio must be as well.
Come to think of it, the place where they had first met had also been around here.
Had Hio not saved him when he was struggling so miserably against a mere single kobold?
You should have found me pathetic and left instead.
Looking back, it seemed he had forgotten many things over the past two months.
The final bloodstains of his master that appeared in his dreams every night, and his revenge for him as well.
He had not shut himself underground for days and nights, declaring that he would prove magic, nor had he skipped meals.
Only then did he suddenly realize.
‘I… was simply lonely.’
They had all been excuses.
The proof of magic, and his revenge for his master.
Excuses to forget his loneliness.
Because of that voice that called him old man.
Because of those sparkling eyes that looked upon magic.
His lifelong goal and his lifelong revenge had grown faint.
—Grrr.
In the distance, he could see the entrance of the cave.
He could also see the two kobolds guarding it.
Whether fortunately or unfortunately, the wind was blowing against him, so they likely had not smelled him yet.
It did not particularly matter.
Because of his abnormally gaunt body, they likely had not heard his footsteps yet either.
That, too, did not matter.
Whatever the process, the result would not change.
The kobolds’ habitat would catch fire.
And he, old and without the strength to flee, capable of nothing but casting trash-like magic…
Would die here.
That was all.
And so he gripped the oil can in his hand tightly.
Slowly, but without hesitation, he approached a little closer.
The mana that had accompanied him his entire life had already finished its preparations.
“Let us truly end this now.”
At Berga’s mutter, the kobolds’ gazes turned toward him.
—Krrk?
But what their poor eyesight caught was a can flying toward them, scattering liquid.
The can passed them by and rolled at the entrance of the cave. The ground grew soaked. The smell of oil began to rise little by little.
And soon another identical can flew in, and for some reason, a heartrending voice was heard.
“May those who took everything from me be granted pain without end.”
Whoosh—the surroundings brightened.
“Fire.”
Three masses of flame flew toward the kobolds.
—Grrrrk!
The two kobolds hurriedly dodged them, but the target had not been them to begin with.
Fwoosh!
The entrance of the cave caught fire.
“Fire.”
Another fireball flew in and lodged itself somewhat deeper inside the cave.
—Grrrrk!
—Krrk! Grrrr…
The two kobolds, flustered by the flames that had suddenly erupted, looked around, and soon found the source of the incident.
One old human.
—Grrrk!
Kill him!
Even as the two kobolds charged at him, Berga did not budge from where he stood.
From the start, his gaze had been fixed on the cave entrance.
“Fire.”
As if the kobolds rushing toward him were not even worth his attention, he hurled fire only toward the cave.
What filled his vacant eyes was the brightly blazing flame.
And the kobolds’ shadows covering it.
The sinister eyes that drew close. The old clubs.
As if he had finished what he needed to do, Berga closed his eyes.
Crack—!
A sound rang out like a watermelon being smashed apart.