I wondered.
Having been cast out from time, just what have you been doing to live, and for what have you lived? What value have you clung to in your life, and what meaning have you not let slip away?
With naught but your mental strength, it must have been endlessly insufficient.
And it must have been vaguely tormenting.
……Mages are the most exclusive race on the continent.
A clan’s magic is preserved as a secret art, permitted only to their bloodline, not even revealing a trace of it to outsiders. They block the influx of commoners with the expensive system called copyright, and claim hollow equality. Having done so, they act as if they are the ‘chosen ones.’
Those who have truly received the ‘choice’—they possess a brilliance of talent entirely separate from that.
“Just now…… what did you say?”
However, even for such people, the master-disciple relationship clearly exists.
One mage becomes the master, and another mage becomes the disciple; the master teaches the disciple, and the disciple learns from the master.
Compared to the customs of the magic world, it is a rather heterogeneous phenomenon.
Master and disciple will not share the same bloodline, nor belong to the same clan, nor will they have any single common denominator between them.
Even so, in this field, the master-disciple relationship is accepted as a very definite custom.
A mage who has achieved a certain degree of success is always searching for talent that will become his disciple, and if he finds it, he teaches without hesitation.
Even if their relationship sours far in the future, even if they become a relationship of killing one another, the master does not regret the choice of accepting the disciple.
The disciple is not ashamed of the teachings received from the master.
That is the very reason the title of ‘disciple who killed his master’ is not rare, and why it is not uncommon for a disciple to proudly inherit his master’s school even after killing him.
———If that is so.
Am I, too, viewing this child in such a manner?
“……Do you believe? In me?”
The one blankly asking back is, in truth, a talent too great to be someone’s disciple. A vessel too large to remain as Dekyullein’s successor.
This child is precisely the mage who has received the ‘choice’—the product of such dazzling talent.
Therefore, right now, Ipeurin stirs Dekyullein’s disposition.
“Yes.”
‘Pride.’
The Ipeurin I taught as a professor—though not yet perfect—is enough to stir pride.
She will surely be ‘completed’ as a mage far superior to any other bastard’s disciple. Into a sky that no other bastards can even hope to reach, she will soar most perfectly.
“Since when.”
Since when did you believe. Ipeurin asked back with a trembling voice.
A smile even I could not understand formed.
As that question is foolish and naive, my answer is simple.
“From the very moment I saw you.”
“……Huh?”
“There has never been a time when I did not believe in you.”
I always believed in Ipeurin.
I trusted her potential and talent.
From the very beginning, until the last moment I know not when.
My faith will remain unchanged.
“Therefore, your belief is my belief.”
“……!”
Ipeurin’s lips trembled. Her breath shook. The tip of her nose reddened. Snot peeked out timidly.
It was filthy.
However, I no longer have the energy to care about such things.
A liquid of 100% pure demonic energy, injected into my body—the iron body. A pure liquid that would melt an ordinary person’s body instantly is gradually heating my blood vessels.
Soon, my senses and thoughts will accelerate rapidly, and my disposition will turn violent and rough.
“……Don’t. Your body…… it will hurt.”
She grabbed my sleeve. Her two fingers trembled pitifully.
As if she knows exactly what I am about to do.
I silently turned around. Facing the Cheoksalgwan, I placed Ipeurin behind my back.
Mayepeu gritted his teeth. His throat undulated.
“Aether Dekyullein. Do you intend to throw away your position.”
A threat that did not even sound like a threat.
I stared at them with a deep smile.
“My position is not granted by your Floating Island. Rather, it is the opposite, as I told you before.”
“……There is no mage who survives betraying the Floating Island.”
“That is something we will have to wait and see.”
My fist clenched, and my two feet dug into the road surface.
The refined demonic energy within Yukeurain’s body flares into overwhelming magical power, surging across the area.
“There has simply never been a precedent; it is not impossible.”
The magic of the opposing Cheoksalgwan rises into the air.
And then———
* * *
In this moment, Ipeurin’s time is stretched.
A mere 1 second, or perhaps only 2 seconds, billows and expands.
Within that cloud-like time, Dekyullein is swift. His stride tramples the stagnant road surface savagely.
Thud, thud, thud.
Is this what it would look like if a giant ran?
Steps that would carve mountain paths and topple cliffs.
Even amid this, one of the Cheoksalgwan fires magic at her.
———.
The ‘space’ around her throat warps sharply. It is a literal killing magic Ipeurin has never seen or heard of—using space itself as a blade.
At the same time, the blood in Ipeurin’s body suddenly boils. A killing magic that ignores human resistance and heats bodily fluids—this, too, is a murderous magic deviating from human ethics.
As expected of Cheoksalgwan trained and raised solely to kill mages, they unleash vicious and atrocious wicked schemes that would never make it into textbooks.
……Dekyullein’s words were right.
Even for her, she cannot face seventeen individuals who are little different from ‘killing machines.’
She cannot defeat them yet.
If she had been alone, the ones killed would not have been the seventeen Cheoksalgwan.
Only I would have died.
Click———.
Ipeurin dismantled their magic. To be exact, she rewound the magic’s time.
The space that warped like a blade scatters back into streams of mana, and the toxic magic that heated her body is expelled outside.
However, one Cheoksalgwan pierces through that interval.
Mayepeu.
The most tenacious, the most persistent stray dog of the Floating Island.
Ignoring Dekyullein—no, leaving him to his comrades—he clings to Ipeurin and attempts close-quarters combat.
“…….”
Ipeurin calmly rewound Mayepeu’s time. He had reached right before her eyes, but at some point, he was rewound.
The gap reset in an instant.
He was still far away. Unable to reach her.
“———!”
Even so, Mayepeu charged. Without a shred of doubt about the abruptly rewound time or the widened space.
He simply charged like a mad bull.
“……It’s useless.”
Ipeurin rewound his time again.
Mayepeu did not give up.
“———!”
Running like mad, he was rewound again right in front of Ipeurin’s nose,
“———!”
“Go back.”
He ran again and was rewound two steps away, rewound, rewound—countless repetitions.
Yet with each repetition, Mayepeu’s malice deepened.
“……Why.”
In that meaninglessness, Ipeurin asked back, gritting her teeth.
The killing intent Mayepeu exuded now, this incomprehensible obsession, gave Ipeurin a certain doubt and simultaneously, a ‘catalyst’ for realization.
“Why?”
The most basic virtue of a mage: doubt.
────!
Therefore, Ipeurin doubts the hatred, resentment, and malice contained in his strange screams.
She questions the killing intent pouring from his two pupils, freezing her heart.
Just what in the Floating Island reduced him to this.
Do they truly believe I will destroy the world?
“I told you it’s not true.”
Ipeurin said.
And she tried to rewind Mayepeu, who had approached right to her feet, once again.
……She tried to rewind him.
“———!”
The mana in his entire body rampaged. His skin turned black, and his figure transformed into something like a stray dog.
An extremely grotesque spell of self-modification.
With that, he endured Ipeurin’s ‘Time.’ He finally broke through.
“!”
Crossing the one step that seemed uncrossable, Mayepeu grasped Ipeurin’s throat.
He slams her body straight into the ground.
Kuung——!
“……Kuk!”
Though she wrapped herself in demonic armor without delay, her throat was choked shut. She released mana and magic to push Mayepeu away.
Gooooooo────.
Gravity surpassing hundreds of times crushes Mayepeu’s entire body. However, having lost his reason, blinded by madness, he endures all of it—no, even while ‘dying’ from that gravity.
Kung—!
He drove Ipeurin’s body into the ground.
“Kek!”
Grasping her throat, he impales her into the road surface.
Kung—!
The impact crashes throughout the demonic armor. Her occiput and waist feel as if torn apart.
Kkeudeudeudeuk——
Mayepeu’s hand, grotesquely transformed into a beast’s grip, lifts Ipeurin again.
And then….
Kkeuaaaak——!
A scream.
Neither Mayepeu’s nor Ipeurin’s own.
Simply the echo of terrible agony.
“…….”
With her throat gripped, pinned to the road surface, Ipeurin gazes for a moment to the other side.
Dekyullein is captured in her bleached retinas.
Covered in violet light, he is killing the Cheoksalgwan.
———KWAAAAH!
Shockwave.
A single punch to a person’s stomach makes the convection waver. The body of the first Cheoksalgwan targeted bursts like a tomato.
The next, the second Cheoksalgwan.
Dekyullein grabs his head and pulls it straight off.
Swaaaack——!
A fountain of blood hanging in the air. Cold pupils dead with only the head preserved.
In the moment he killed those two, Dekyullein’s form vanishes.
Immediately, he appears before the eyes of the third Cheoksalgwan.
Kwazzzzzuk———!
Dekyullein’s arm pierced through the third Cheoksalgwan’s chest.
The fourth had his waist broken.
The fifth Cheoksalgwan succeeded in counterattacking.
—Hwirilic.
He forged a magic sword in the air and plunged it into Dekyullein’s shoulder.
Kadeudeudeuk───!
The demonic sword gnaws at Dekyullein’s shoulder up, down, left, and right as if alive, but Dekyullein’s response is intuitive and efficient.
Simply attacking the ‘caster’ of the magic.
Pajjeuk──!
He threw a straight punch. His hard fist smashed the fifth Cheoksalgwan’s face. Fragments of teeth and skull flew everywhere.
……Thus, Dekyullein is crushing the Cheoksalgwan alone.
A villain smeared in blood is cutting down the Floating Island’s greatest forces entirely.
From seventeen to twelve, twelve to eight, eight to five.
He merely repeats killing with his hands, killing with his legs, killing and killing—before enemies can even attempt a counterattack, or while enduring counterattacks with his whole body…….
Is it one second?
Or two seconds?
At least not three seconds—a mere moment in which the second hand ticks only a few times.
The mountain slope has become a sea of blood from the corpses of the annihilated Cheoksalgwan.
Dekyullein stands quietly in the midst of it, suddenly turning his gaze to Ipeurin being suppressed by Mayepeu.
And then….
Kwagwagwagwagwa————!
Like a ghost, or perhaps like a dinosaur, he charges in, grabs Mayepeu, and disappears toward that distant cliff…….
….
…The silent mountain scenery.
The aftermath of battle, where all sound has vanished.
“Keok.”
Ipeurin, who had been looking up at the sky while coughing, slowly raises her upper body.
It is a feeling of powerlessness she has not felt in quite some time.
Is it because this is a space where most of her time energy is sealed?
Even so, to think she couldn’t defeat a single Mayepeu, let alone seventeen Cheoksalgwan.
“Pathetic.”
Ipeurin shakes her head and lifts her trembling lower body.
Standing on two legs, she looks toward Dekyullein’s trail.
His footprints engraved on the road surface.
“……Professor.”
Though the cracks are as violent as if an earthquake had struck, Ipeurin slowly follows his traces. She walks in tension that steals her breath.
“Professor…….”
Calling him with a voice completely hoarse.
Advancing through the scorched black thickets.
How far did she walk?
“……Professor.”
The edge of the sheer cliff.
There, at that dizzyingly cold place, Dekyullein stands. As if victorious over Mayepeu, looking down at the distant bottom. Still in neat attire.
“I…….”
Ipeurin placed both hands on her chest. She called to him with a trembling voice.
“Professor.”
He turned to look at her.
A complexion with veins turned purple. With clear omens of rampage upon him, he simply forms a small smile.
“Ipeurin.”
At those words, her heart pounds.
One corner hurts, and one corner stings and trembles.
“……Yes.”
Ipeurin approaches him.
One step, two steps—slowly but steadfastly.
Fortunately, the ‘Barrier of Time’ has not yet collapsed.
The lifespan of this great magic that has held her remains, if only a little.
She cannot waste that time.
“…….”
Yet, now that she was seeing him up close.
No words came out.
Even when they tried, they were swallowed back down in her mouth.
Was it because her throat had gone hoarse, or because her body hurt, or else because of her heart that felt as though it would burst?
Was it because of an inexpressible guilt and self-reproach?
“Epherene.”
Then Deculein called her name first.
“……Yes.”
A tiny reply.
He quietly looked down at her. Looked into her eyes.
“Believe in yourself.”
And told her to believe in herself.
For some reason, Epherene’s heart ached.
Because she felt that she would never be able to meet him again.
Because it felt like it meant he would never be with her again.
“……Can I do that?”
Because I was lacking, I relied on him.
Because I was inadequate, I leaned on him.
“You can.”
……But now.
“Because I believe in you.”
The person she had once hated, loathed, and despised the most.
The person she now trusted, relied on, and leaned on the most.
The person who had taken all of her emotions.
Told her that he believed in her.
That warm timbre reached her heart.
It fixed her heart, freed from time, firmly in place.
“…….”
Epherene looked up at him.
His eyes, now at the end of their strength, slowly closed, and his body collapsed askew.
“Ah…….”
As if she had been waiting, she caught him. She held him tightly in her arms.
So that, even like this, he could lean on her.
So that he could rely on her, even a little.
“……Professor.”
His clothes and body were smeared with something she could not tell was demonic energy or mana.
“It’s bitter.”
It was far too bitter.
Her mouth was so bitter that she felt like she might burst into tears.
“……And.”
Epherene bit her lip hard.
With Deculein in her arms, she looked around the area.
The tragedy in which seventeen Extermination Officers had been annihilated.
The historic crushing defeat of the Floating Island.
And that, a humiliation inflicted by just one man—Deculein.
“It was because of this.”
Epherene felt she knew.
Why he would fall.
Why he would be betrayed by the Floating Island, why all his achievements and theories would be denied, and why he would eventually collapse.
“It was because of me.”
Because he had killed the Extermination Officers for her sake.
Because he had defied the will of the Floating Island to save her.
“…….”
Epherene closed her eyes. Thin streams of water ran down both her cheeks.
───Tick.
The sound of a second hand rang by her ear.
This ‘time barrier’ was breaking.
“I—”
“Mm! How moving!”
Suddenly, a clear, ringing voice shattered the mood.
Epherene opened her eyes again and looked up there.
Adrienne of the Eternal rank.
That lofty Archmage, yet somehow familiar, was floating gently in the sky.
“But what should we do! There’s still one obstacle left, and that’s me!”
She glared back and forth between Epherene and Deculein. Narrowing her eyes like a cat, she shrieked—
“Doing something like this! Is a truly unforgivable mortal sin! So!”
Then she smiled cheerfully.
“I can’t let you go nicely! Hehe!”
It was an utterly happy face.
As though she had been waiting for this very moment.
As though she had found a ‘worthy rival’ to face with all her strength.
“……Yes.”
Epherene nodded as well.
Her opponent was certainly Adrienne, stronger even than Mayev, but she was strangely overflowing with confidence.
“Oh-ho?!”
What Epherene had lacked until now.
What she knew she lacked, yet had always wavered over, unable to maintain it.
‘Self-conviction.’
Today, Deculein had given her that, and so now her fear was faint.
“Chairwoman. I have no intention of going quietly either. I have to make sure you can’t do your part, so the Professor will be safe.”
“……Hmm. Is that so?”
At that, Adrienne’s expression turned quite serious as well.
Epherene laid Deculein down on the ground.
Carefully, carefully, so that not even dust would touch him.
“Rest comfortably…… Master.”
She pressed her lips to Deculein’s forehead.
……Chu.
That small, bashful sound was swept up in Adrienne’s mana and shattered.