Chapter 182
A Common Story
After guiding the guests inside, Lize waited outside the door.
Her role for the day was to escort Ferda and Erika, so she could not leave them unattended.
What could Father possibly be discussing with them?
Since she had no way of knowing what was being said beyond the closed door, she let her imagination wander.
A dragon spawn and a dragon’s fiancé had come all the way to the World Tree. Whatever their purpose was, it was surely something concerning the entire continent.
I never imagined I would meet the great hero, Lady Erika, like this.
Among the Twelve Heroes, Erika had been known for her intellect and had represented wisdom.
As the leader of the Iorga spawn, bearing the epithet Cold Reason, she had lived up to her reputation by supporting the expedition and helping it overcome every obstacle.
She looked incredibly intelligent.
As a member of the expedition that killed the Demon King, she possessed courage and boldness. As the Blue-Eyed Tower Master, she carried herself with charisma and dignity.
The sight of her had made Lize’s heart race.
She felt proud of herself for not trembling unnecessarily.
And the same was true of Lord Ferda.
Ferda was remarkably young, yet he possessed a solemnity that suppressed the vigor of his youth.
There was a mysterious dignity about him that did not suit his age.
He was someone she could not help but admire.
I wish I could become like him someday...
Her face grew hot.
She needed to stop entertaining such pointless thoughts.
Lize lightly slapped her cheeks.
They should be finished soon. Perhaps I should prepare the bouquet in advance.
Yes, that was what she would do.
Lize began singing in the elven language.
A beautiful melody flowed upon the wind, drawing spirits toward her.
Tiny, charming spirits appeared and circled around Lize.
They took the forms of earth, wind, and water.
—Lize! Lize!
“Hello. You all seem to be in a good mood today.”
—We’re happy because Lize called us!
—We were waiting for you to call!
—What should we play?
“I’m sorry, but could we play later? I have something I would like to ask of you.”
—What is it?
“I want to make a bouquet.”
—Lize made a friend?
—A fwiend?!
—Lize has a friend!
The spirits cheered.
Lize’s face turned bright red.
“N-no. It is not for a friend. I want to give someone a gift.”
—Lize has no friends.
—Still no friends.
—That’s Lize for you! No friends!
“...Could you bring me the flowers?”
—Okay!
—Since Lize asked, of course we will!
—We’re the friends of friendless Lize!
“Thank you, everyone.”
The tiny spirits scattered.
The blush brought on by their innocent words refused to fade.
Since they meant no harm, the best Lize could do was let the remarks pass without becoming angry.
Just as she was about to resume waiting for the guests—
Whoom!
Light burst forth, and something appeared in front of Lize.
It was Erika, still seated.
“Huh...?”
Something was wrong.
Erika appeared frozen in the middle of assuming a defensive posture.
“Lady Eri... ka?”
When she remained motionless for some time, Lize cautiously approached and called her name.
“Um...”
“Are you all right?”
Erika did not answer.
Her neck creaked like an unoiled machine until her eyes met Lize’s.
Lize flinched.
There was stillness within Erika’s eyes.
Yet it was the kind of stillness that seemed ready to summon a storm.
“...I see.”
Those were the only words that left her lips.
With the calm expression of someone who had understood everything, Erika carefully rose from her seat.
Then she trudged toward the tightly sealed entrance to the World Tree’s inner chamber.
“U-um, Tower Master Erika...?”
“Would you like me to open the door again? Perhaps I could at least make a request on your behalf...”
Erika did not answer.
Instead, highly condensed mana began rippling around her.
Two magic circles formed in her hands.
Opposing elements appeared in each palm and converged into one.
She aimed directly at the place through which she had entered.
It was a destructive sixth-tier spell.
“Elemental Demoli—”
“You mustn’t!”
Lize quickly threw herself in front of Erika.
Erika smiled viciously.
“Shall I blow you away with it as well, Secretary Lize?”
“V-violence is not the answer! Please calm your anger and—”
“And who decided that?”
“Pardon?”
“It is always the same, isn’t it? They do whatever they please, yank out an entire fistful of your nose hairs, and then when you try to punish them, someone blocks your path and says violence is not the answer.”
“I-I do not know what happened, but I am certain there must be some misunderstanding. Please calm yourself and—”
“Yes. I will fix it.”
“Yes, if you would do that, then I will speak with—”
“I will fix the spell directly on the center of the magic circle. Elemen—”
“That is not what I meant by fix! Please listen to me!”
Lize desperately struggled to restrain the fury of a dragon whose nose hairs had been plucked.
***
Meanwhile, unaware of the commotion outside, Ferda continued speaking with the Great Chieftain.
“Are you saying that the mana flowing through my body... belongs to the Demon King?”
Ferda asked again.
He wondered whether he had misheard or whether the Great Chieftain had some other intention.
“That is correct.”
But the answer did not change.
Ferda’s thoughts fell into confusion.
Is he trying to unsettle me?
No. That could not be it.
Had that been his intention, he would have told Ferda that he possessed the Demon King’s mana while Erika was still present.
He could have driven a wedge between them and attempted to provoke Ferda into losing his reason.
The fact that he had chosen to continue the conversation in private meant he had done so to prevent Ferda from being subjected to such suspicion.
For now, Ferda remained calm and continued the discussion.
“No one could use my mana to create demons.”
“I know. That substance was created through Rinne’s ability. It would be impossible with your pure mana alone.”
“Then how can you claim that my mana is the same as the Demon King’s?”
“Because his mana was also shaped by the same emotion as yours.”
“The same emotion...?”
Ferda’s mana consisted of two forces.
The Red Circle, which moved through love.
And the Shadow Circle, which moved through regret.
“Did the Demon King deeply regret something?”
“No.”
Ferda had asked while desperately hoping that his intuition was wrong.
Reality answered him cruelly.
“He was a mage who loved someone.”
Love.
An emotion that was both near and distant, simple and difficult.
Ferda found it difficult to believe that such an emotion had ultimately created the Demon King.
“The Demon King...”
Then he had to know.
“What kind of man was he?”
If what existed within Ferda truly had the potential to create another Demon King, then he needed to examine the man’s path.
“He was an utterly insignificant mage. Long ago, he learned magic through the love he felt for the woman who became his wife. However, he possessed little talent for magic. And so, he became a farmer, barely making a living by tending an orchard with his beloved wife.”
So far, it was nothing more than the common story of an untalented mage.
“But tragedy came to him. He lost his wife.”
That, too, was common.
“The man performed the proper rites and sent his wife away. Her ashes scattered through the sky, and her remains returned entirely to the earth, yet none of it filled the emptiness within his heart.”
That was also a common story.
“Regent Ferda.”
The Great Chieftain paused and asked him a question.
“Would you be able to forget so easily?”
Ferda placed himself in the position of the man who would become the Demon King.
He did not need to look far.
It was almost the same as Ferda’s own story.
Had he not sent his mother away in the same manner?
The man had lost his wife.
Ferda remembered losing his mother.
No one had ever filled the emptiness she left behind.
His longing for Anna Rosnova remained strong even now.
Then he replaced his mother’s image with Valdrova’s.
“I would not be able to.”
Ferda was certain that, like that man, he would not be able to cast such a loss aside so easily.
His memories of her would become thorns that could never be pulled free, forever reopening wounds that refused to heal.
The Great Chieftain continued.
“That man was the same. He could not forget his wife and drowned in the grief of longing for her.”
“And someone who felt that way truly became the Demon King?”
“How was that possible?”
It was a question based on magical theory.
The man had awakened a Red Circle through love.
If an emotion opposed to love took root within him, the Red Circle should have stopped moving.
“From what you have said, it sounds as though he entered a state of emotional backflow.”
Emotional backflow occurred when a Red Circle not only stopped, but began rotating in reverse.
Emotion was like blood.
If it flowed backward, the result was death.
“That is correct. In fact, he must have endured the backflow you describe several times.”
“And yet...”
“He did not die. Although he endured pain close to death again and again, the man survived. Eventually, that pain itself became his new source of power.”
The theory Ferda had known collapsed.
The circle rotating in reverse had become the man’s new form of mana.
Not only did he survive emotional backflow, but it created an entirely new circle?
Ferda had never heard of anyone surviving emotional backflow.
Every Red Circle mage he knew of had died without exception if their circle began to reverse.
Yet there was more than enough reason why such knowledge had remained hidden.
If surviving emotional backflow could grant someone enough power to become the Demon King, then it meant a second Demon King could be created again and again.
Ferda suddenly remembered a conversation he had once had with Alverdo.
Come to think of it, he said something similar.
The man, who had always silently slaughtered demons, had abruptly approached Ferda and declared that he possessed the makings of a Demon King.
Ferda had not understood him then.
Now that he had heard the Demon King’s story, he did.
The Demon King had loved someone.
Then he had lost her.
Ferda loved Valdrova.
If I were to lose Valdrova, I would be placed in the exact same situation as the Demon King.
It sounded like something from a dream.
Dragons were called immortals and ruled as absolute beings over the continent.
Silverwind and Godwin had died during the Dragon-Demon War, but even so, no one dared diminish the status of dragons.
Yet Ferda still did not know what the demons were plotting.
Just as they moved in the shadows to pronounce a death sentence upon the Cerdes Continent, they could possess countless methods of killing Valdrova in a single strike.
And if their goal was to burden Ferda with the emotion of loss, the possibility became even greater.
“Great Chieftain, may I ask you one question?”
“Speak.”
Ferda repeated the question several times in his mind, but the words did not come easily.
It felt as though he were reaching toward forbidden knowledge.
He wanted to know, yet feared that once he heard the answer, there would be no turning back.
“...How did the wife of the man who became the Demon King die?”
Ferda assumed there must have been some reason.
Perhaps an intruder had violated her before her husband’s eyes.
Perhaps she had been taken from him by the injustices of the world.
Such tragedy might have accumulated into rage against the world before finally erupting.
But the answer he received was not the one he had hoped for.
“It was merely a chronic illness. Even when they attempted to cure her, her body could not endure the treatment. It was simply the natural order of things.”
Ferda squeezed his eyes shut.
Even that painfully ordinary story drove him toward the worst possible conclusion.
The man had become the Demon King because he could not endure the death of the woman he loved, even though she had merely reached the end of her natural life.
Ferda could not stop imagining himself becoming that man.
“Are you afraid?”
The Great Chieftain asked.
“I am.”
Ferda revealed his honest feelings.
Her death still remained reflected in his eyes.
Even after being driven to the edge of a cliff by malice, she had remained kind and pure until the very end.
She had never ceased being a good woman.
“Her existence may remain unchanged, but I am a being who can change. That is what frightens me.”
Ferda was not like her.
He was weak and easily swept away by emotion.
The possibility that he might kill her again weighed heavily upon him.
“If it is yourself you fear, then there is a way.”
Ferda raised his head at the Great Chieftain’s advice.
“What is it?”
“Regent Ferda, you must delve into the source of your mana. You may already sense it vaguely, but you are different from ordinary humans.”
Just as the Great Chieftain said, Ferda knew that he was not ordinary.
Even for those with exceptional bloodlines, reaching the Eighth Circle was little more than a dream unless they were born in the right era.
He had simply never felt the need to investigate the reason.
“Regent Ferda, let us speak about your parents. What kind of person was your mother?”
“Will that help?”
“Bloodline is the source beneath all other sources.”
It was true.
There was little reason to hide it, so Ferda decided to answer.
“My mother was...”
Ferda pictured the face he missed.
“Anna Rosnova. She was gentle and devoted to her family.”
Then he remembered what Erembalt had said.
“And she was a follower of Sierra.”
“Sierra... the goddess of the moon.”
“Yes.”
“Then who was your father?”
His father was Erembalt Rosnova.
A coldhearted man who had treated Ferda like a cuckoo’s child and driven him from the family after his mother’s death.
“I do not know.”
According to Erembalt, Ferda had been a child Anna brought with her.
He had not merely been treated like another man’s child.
He truly was one.
“Then that means you know nothing of your origin.”
“That is correct.”
“In that case, may this old man offer you his assistance?”
The Great Chieftain raised one finger toward the ceiling.
The Threads swimming overhead gathered all at once and began forming a shape.
They created a hand twice the size of the white hands he had formed before.
Ferda understood what he intended.
“You plan to examine me with that hand.”
“That is correct.”
The Great Chieftain added,
“Of course, Regent Ferda, if you do not permit it, I will withdraw here. Knowing yourself must remain your own choice.”
Ordinarily, Ferda would never have agreed.
He hated the idea of another person looking inside him.
He feared that the weakness he carried would be exposed and later used against him.
But what frightened him more than that instinctive revulsion was repeating the past.
Once was enough for the tragedy he had inflicted upon Valdrova.
“Very well.”
Ferda granted him permission.
The Great Chieftain’s white hand gently wrapped around Ferda’s entire body.
It was composed of highly condensed mana.
Ferda felt clean and pure mana penetrate every part of him.
Then it happened.
“Hmm... I see... so that is how it is...”
The Great Chieftain murmured the information he sensed within Ferda’s body.
Suppressing his instinctive disgust, Ferda endured the touch.
“This is...”
“Hmm?”
The Great Chieftain sensed something strange.
“What in the world is this...? Ugh!?”
“Great Chieftain?”
“Guh...!”
The Great Chieftain’s body, which had remained seated like an ancient tree, suddenly bent forward.
The old man, who had maintained composure no matter what occurred, opened his eyes wide.
“What happened?”
He did not answer Ferda’s question.
The Great Chieftain’s green eyes trembled violently.
“N-no... that cannot be. How could this...?”
The way he looked at Ferda changed.
The indifference with which he had regarded a mere mortal vanished.
In its place was reverence.
And the Great Chieftain was not the only one who changed.
The white hand surrounding Ferda’s head lost its cohesion and began to scatter.
The blue mana illuminating the chamber turned red and started to tremble.
Ferda understood instinctively.
He had to escape the hand to save the Great Chieftain.
Ferda tried to force himself free.
The Great Chieftain gestured.
The hand moved and seized Ferda even more tightly as he attempted to escape.
Unable to move at all, Ferda remained trapped in the Great Chieftain’s grasp.
“Guh!”
The Great Chieftain struggled for a moment before coughing up blood and collapsing.
As his concentration broke, the Threads dispersed from the white hand and returned to swimming through the air.
The red illumination faded back to blue.
The plant fibers across the floor rose to support the Great Chieftain and gently lowered him to the ground.
The sealed door opened, and two women rushed inside.
“Great Chieftain!”
Lize screamed as she ran to his side.
Erika approached Ferda and demanded an explanation.
“Regent, what happened? Why did the World Tree begin trembling like that?”
Ferda could not answer.
He was just as stunned by everything that had happened.
There had been no time for him to organize his thoughts before responding.
Not long after the two women entered, the door opened once again.
Every high elf within the World Tree had sensed the Great Chieftain’s condition and rushed upward.
“Great Chieftain!”
“Mother preserve us...!”
They surrounded the Great Chieftain and began to sing.
Light enveloped his weakened body and began healing him.
Everyone ignored Ferda and Erika.
Everyone except one person.
The high elf elder who had disliked them from the beginning pointed at Ferda and Erika and shouted,
“Seize those suspects immediately!”