Chapter 33

Mana Fatalism

Valdrova’s daily routine was remarkably simple.

An enemy appeared.

She tore it apart.

She roared.

Then she went home.

Her deeds were more befitting a savage warrior than someone bearing the title of Dread Queen .

She had always devoted herself to protecting people and had never felt much aversion toward doing so.

Yet recently, even she had begun to hesitate over one thing.

“Rrroa—”

Roaring.

That triumphant roar, so perfectly suited to expressing the exhilaration of battle and proclaiming victory, had recently begun to embarrass her.

“Ahhh…”

Her voice dwindled to something as feeble as a mouse’s tail.

Valdrova left her sense of liberation only half expressed and cleared her throat.

Her eyes subtly shifted toward the place responsible for turning her into this.

Her gaze rose toward the summit of the Lonely Mountain.

Whenever Valdrova went to battle, Ferda had always stood atop the mountain.

He didn’t come today either…?

Yet there was nothing on the summit but the flattened patch of ground.

As before, he had not come to watch her from above.

Valdrova found Ferda’s gaze burdensome.

Whenever he watched her, she became strangely impatient and restless, which only made her look unsightly.

At times, she had even wished that he would stop watching her.

Perhaps this is better.

Valdrova spread her wings and returned to her lair.

The Lonely Mountain in the Far East.

She had chosen it as her territory precisely because it was difficult for humans to see her there.

When she entered the long cavern, Luri greeted her.

“You have worked hard, Master.”

Valdrova passed her without answering.

Seeing that she did not even respond to such a simple greeting, Luri followed her through the iron doors.

“Is something wrong?”

—It is nothing of importance.

Valdrova curled herself into a coil as though there were nothing to worry about.

“Please do not dismiss it. Tell this humble girl what troubles you. I shall do what I can to help.”

—Hmm…

Valdrova struggled for a moment before speaking.

—Has Ferda… grown tired of me?

“…Pardon?”

Luri stared at her in disbelief.

—He did not come today either.

Valdrova had thought it fortunate that he had not come.

Yet an even greater emptiness had taken root within her.

It was a day no different from any other.

And yet it felt as though something enormous had vanished.

“It has only happened twice. A single week. Compared to the long years you have endured, Lady Valdrova, it is hardly any time at all.”

—Of course. I know that as well.

Only one week.

Only twice.

Why did the word only feel so unbearably heavy?

“Lord Ferda has been extremely busy lately.”

Ferda had recently taken on a great deal of work.

He cooperated with merchants and dealt with proposals submitted by the regional lords.

Once he entered his office, it was common for him not to emerge until the moon had risen high into the sky.

—But… did he not continue coming even before?

Valdrova was right.

No matter how busy he was, whenever Ferda heard that Valdrova was going into battle, he came outside.

And whenever their eyes met, he always smiled at her.

—It must be… because I never spared him so much as a glance. He has undoubtedly lost his affection for me.

She lowered her head dejectedly and sighed.

Luri, however, did not agree.

If he had truly grown tired of her, he would never be working so hard.

Ferda worked to care for everything beneath Valdrova’s rule.

The driving force behind his efforts was unquestionably his affection for her.

—Luri.

“Yes, Master.”

Valdrova forced the words from her mouth.

—That thing… that young ladies are said to do.

“Do you mean a tea party?”

—Yes. That.

Luri was considerably surprised by her words.

Ever since the incident involving the prince, Valdrova had avoided contact with humans.

—Could you… ask Ferda to join me for a tea party?

She had taken a great step forward, resolving to face her own fiancé.

***

Ferda had become a Third Circle mage, possessing three overlapping rings.

The First Circle was a point.

The Second Circle drew a line connecting one point to another.

And those of the Third Circle manipulated those lines and wove them into a plane.

That plane was the magic circle—the stage at which a mage could finally begin casting true magic.

My Magic Library is gone as well.

The Magic Library was a mnemonic technique that dedicated an entire section of the mind solely to magic and spell formulas.

It could only be constructed after reaching the Fifth Circle, and it had naturally vanished when Ferda regressed into the past.

Even so, the magic remains within my body.

The spells rested beneath the realm of consciousness.

Like rummaging through the ruins of a collapsed library, Ferda decided to draw spells at random and see what he uncovered.

He concentrated his mana into his right arm.

Thanks to the three overlapping circles, the movement of his mana was swift and fluid.

Drawing a magic circle.

The Third Circle was the stage at which one became a true mage, yet was simultaneously not quite a mage at all.

It was the stage when serious training in drawing magic circles began.

The first stage is visualization.

Ferda recalled a standardized magic circle from his memories.

Ordinarily, a mage at this stage would look at a magic circle illustrated in a spellbook and visualize it while reciting the incantation.

The more proficient one became, the shorter the visualization process grew.

Ferda, however, approached visualization differently.

Without even knowing his objective, he relied upon his subconscious and began drawing a magic circle.

It was like casting a fishing rod into a lake and waiting.

Waiting until some enormous fish could no longer resist the bait and finally took hold.

I can feel it.

He moved on to the second stage.

Formulation.

Ferda imagined a pen dancing above his hand.

Following the pen’s movements, a simple magic circle formed over his palm.

The third stage: manifestation.

Now that the framework had been created, it was time to inject mana into it.

Once completed, the magic circle determined the nature of the mana and changed color accordingly.

The circle, which had been glowing a faint blue, suddenly burst into brilliant light.

This spell is…

Before Ferda consciously recognized it, his body moved first.

He extended only his index and middle fingers and pointed toward one section of the wall.

Then came the final stage.

The incantation.

“Elemental Bolt.”

The instant Ferda spoke the spell’s name, a piercing crackle of electricity rang out.

Crackle—!

A projectile of lightning shot forward in a straight line.

Alongside Mana Shot, Elemental Bolt was one of the most basic offensive spells.

That was dangerous.

Had he failed to aim properly, a piece of Ferda’s body might have been buried inside the crater in the wall.

Drawing spells from my subconscious is not entirely safe.

Even so, Ferda did not stop.

The more deeply ingrained a spell was in his subconscious, and the more natural it felt in his hands, the more frequently he must have used it in the past.

He emptied his thoughts, delved inward once more, and searched for another spell.

I can feel it.

Ferda again surrendered himself to his instincts and drew the magic circle.

He passed through visualization, formulation, and finally manifestation.

The faintly blue magic circle turned pitch-black.

Its attribute was darkness.

In other words, it was pure side magic.

What darkness-attribute spells did he know?

Before he could arrive at an answer, Ferda’s hand moved again.

This time, he brought the hand bearing the magic circle toward the candlelight.

Only then did the spell’s name emerge.

“Shadow Hand.”

At that instant, the shadow cast by the candle began bubbling like molten lava.

Ferda’s shadow swelled larger and larger, then peeled away from his body as though shedding its skin before attaching itself to his arm.

It was another hand, created through magic.

I can clearly feel the side effect as well.

There was a similar Third-Tier spell known as Magic Hand.

A detached Magic Hand floating through the air was more akin to an overlay—a glove.

After being connected to the right hand, it merely imitated that hand’s movements.

Shadow Hand, however, did not overlay an existing hand.

It created an entirely new one.

It has no price, but it does have a demanding condition.

High-performance side magic required one of two things in exchange for its efficiency.

A “price,” in which repeated use of the spell corrupted the caster’s mind.

Or a “condition,” in which the caster’s mental faculties were required to activate the spell.

The alien sensation caused by growing a new hand was the condition.

The caster would experience confusion over whether it was truly their hand or merely an imaginary one.

Unless they could accept it, they would fail to fulfill the condition required to use Shadow Hand.

A mage who failed to satisfy the condition would suffer excruciating phantom pain.

To Ferda, however, such danger was meaningless.

He had mastered Shadow Hand’s condition long ago.

Even so, it still does not feel completely like my own arm.

Ferda looked down at the black hand.

He tested it with smooth, intricate motions, making waves with its fingers.

It moved as naturally as his original hand.

Ferda turned his gaze toward a shelf.

Under ordinary circumstances, he would have needed to rise and walk ten steps to reach it.

Instead, he stretched out his hand.

An arm is something that can be extended.

Following Ferda’s imagination, which shattered the boundaries of common sense, the shadowy hand stretched far beyond its normal limit.

It extended across the distance of ten steps, seized a book from the shelf, and returned with it.

A Third-Tier spell, yet one too demanding for most Third-Tier mages.

Because it could be manipulated in such fine detail, it demanded tremendous imagination and mental strength.

That was the true nature of side magic.

It offered exceptional performance but demanded an equally exceptional level of ability.

Those who failed to meet that standard were spells that could easily drive their casters insane.

Once I reach the Fourth Circle, it should become more stable.

With that thought, Ferda murmured,

“The next stage…”

His feelings grew complicated.

This was a time when he needed ambition and a desire to improve, yet he lacked his usual motivation.

The amount of mana required to stabilize her completely is equivalent to the Fourth Circle.

That was how much mana he needed to fully suppress Valdrova’s violent bloodlust.

For that reason alone, he wanted to advance somehow.

Yet now, something seemed to be blocking him.

Reaching the Third Circle so effortlessly was part of the reason, but the greatest cause was the aptitude test he had recently undergone.

Mana fatalism…

Ferda had learned many things under his money-hungry master.

Among them was a theory known as magical fatalism.

It was a theory that resonated more strongly with owners of Red Circles than with those who possessed Blue Circles.

According to it, even if another version of oneself from a different timeline awakened through different circumstances and for a different purpose, the attribute one possessed would remain unchanged.

It was an idea derived from fatalism.

It was nothing but a pointless subject for debate.

It was every bit as meaningless as trying to prove the existence of utopia.

There was a reason it was called the spell for ending friendships.

However, Ferda had actually turned back time, so he could not simply dismiss the theory.

I no longer harbor hostility toward my family or hatred for the world.

Ferda had vowed to live solely for her, so he had believed his attribute would be different as well.

Yet what he had been given was darkness and lightning.

They were the exact same attributes Ferda had wielded in the past.

How did I feel when I first learned these were my attributes?

In any case—

He had been delighted.

There were two attributes that Blue Circle mages could not properly wield.

Light and darkness.

Light manifested in priests through an upright heart.

Darkness manifested from negative emotions, as it had with Ferda.

Having an affinity for darkness came with the disadvantage of being unable to use light magic or spells that healed others.

However, it also had the advantage that the power of one’s other elemental spells did not decline as drastically as it did for other Red Circle mages.

That was why Ferda had been able to wield every element except light almost as proficiently as the Elemental Masters.

But now…

It was no longer a good thing.

Now that Valdrova was involved, the circumstances were different.

The blessing that had once allowed Ferda to flourish now felt like a curse.

Valdrova suffers because of the Aspect of Darkness, and I possess the darkness attribute.

It had already been proven that injecting mana into her had an effect.

But what if Ferda was not merely stabilizing her?

What if he was watering another seed of darkness within someone already tormented by darkness?

If what he gave her ultimately led to her destruction, could it truly be called an act done for her sake?

What if the mana that killed her before kills her once again…?

If fate remained unchanged just as mana did—

Do I have the right to remain by her side?

Even for Ferda, who had once been a Great Mage and commanded heaven and earth, this was an unknown realm.

Whenever he stood before the unknown, he had always challenged it.

But now, it only plunged him into deep contemplation.

A mage’s research was directly linked to magic.

Ferda’s profound unease drew yet another spell from his subconscious.

Following his instincts, he formulated another magic circle.

Only once it had taken shape did he realize something was wrong.

What spell is this?

It was not merely something he had forgotten.

This was a form he had truly never seen before.

“……”

Runes densely packed among impossibly complex equations.

In terms of complexity alone, it rivaled a Sixth-Tier spell.

However, had it truly been Sixth-Tier magic, it would have collapsed during the formulation stage and never appeared before him like this.

More importantly, he would have remembered it.

There was no doubt that he had drawn the spell from his own subconscious.

Shadow Hand and Elemental Bolt had both emerged from his subconscious as well, but he had eventually recalled their names.

Yet even though this spell floated clearly above his palm, no name came to mind.

As though it never had a name to begin with.

He had no idea what it was.

Using the still-active Shadow Hand, Ferda retrieved a sheet of magic-copying paper from a cabinet.

He placed it directly over the magic circle he was maintaining and copied its form and patterns.

Then he examined the copied magic circle.

He tried to understand it, but it was something even his knowledge could not analyze.

Knock, knock.

Someone knocked on the door.

“It is Luri.”

Ferda rolled up the copied parchment and placed it to one side.

“Come in.”

The door opened, and the young maid entered.

As always, her face was expressionless.

“You look troubled.”

“I suppose that is what happens when one has too much on one’s mind.”

He gave a vague answer, glossing over the magic circle and his thoughts.

He did not believe Luri needed to know about the matter.

“What do you think of a tea party?”

Luri asked the question while they were eating lunch.

“A tea party? With whom?”

“Who else could it possibly be besides Master?”

Luri’s tone was rougher than usual.

“Master personally asked me to arrange it, which is why I am asking you. We can hold it this afternoon, should you wish.”

“A tea party with my fiancée…”

An image formed in Ferda’s mind.

Valdrova wearing a dress and elegantly lifting a teacup.

Valdrova sitting amid such a bright and refined atmosphere.

I definitely want to see that.

Proceed with it immediately.

That was how Ferda would ordinarily have answered.

“It is a fine idea, but I do not think the timing is right.”

“Pardon?”

Luri asked again as though she had misheard him.

Ferda repeated himself.

“There is no need to rush ahead. I need some time to think, so let us postpone it for now.”

Ferda spoke calmly, as always.

Luri stared at him for a moment before opening her mouth.

“Are you playing hard to get with Master?”

“Playing hard to get?”

“I mean the struggle between lovers to seize the initiative. Are you trying to make her fall hopelessly in love with you?”

“That is not what I am doing.”

Ferda was hardly capable of such advanced thinking when it came to romance.

“Then is something wrong?”

“Not particularly.”

“You were always singing about how much you wanted to meet her. Seeing you act like this makes me wonder whether you are about to die.”

“That is not the case, so do not worry.”

“I will not leave until you answer me.”

Because Ferda was behaving unusually, Luri became unusually persistent.

She looked ready to follow him all the way to the privy.

Ferda considered simply ignoring her, but then she asked,

“Have you grown tired of Master?”

He could not bring himself to do so.

The instant he heard those words, Ferda felt his heart plummet.

“Why would you say such a thing?”

“Master said so herself. She said you had recently stopped watching her fight. Since you had not shown so much as the tip of your nose, she thought you must have grown tired of her.”

Tired of her?

How could that possibly be true?

Ferda wanted nothing more than to see her.

It was merely that watching her no longer felt the same as before.

“Since you have not grown tired of her, I would appreciate an answer befitting that.”

Luri’s loyal eyes gleamed silver.

Ferda finally voiced the words that had been circling inside his mouth.

“…I have simply had much to worry about lately.”

“Even a blind man could tell that. What exactly are you worried about?”

“Darkness resides within my mana. I have been troubled by the possibility that it might harm her.”

“Is that so?”

Luri removed her glove and held out her hand.

“Then try it on me.”

“On you?”

Luri nodded.

“I am also a Spawn who inherited a dragon’s blood. It may only be a trace, but I should still be able to determine whether something would harm Master. Go ahead.”

Ferda did not hesitate any longer.

He took her hand and decided to test it.

It was the small hand of a child.

Yet it was not entirely soft.

Ferda injected his mana into it.

“How is it?”

Luri, who had been concentrating deeply, tilted her head.

“…I am not sure what I am supposed to feel. Is mana not simply flowing into me?”

“You feel nothing in particular?”

“No.”

The amount of mana Ferda had released was equivalent to a single Mana Shot.

In Valdrova’s case, even this amount had already caused a reaction.

“I will send a little more.”

This time, he released enough mana for five Mana Shots.

It was enough to reach her mana circuits and produce some noticeable sensation.

Luri’s expression changed subtly.

“How about now?”

“As you said, I can feel something now, but it does not feel harmful. It is merely mana.”

Luri furrowed her brow and looked up at Ferda in disbelief.

“You frightened Master because you were worried she might collapse from something this insignificant?”

“…Yes.”

“You turn people into dogs and break their fingers, yet when it comes to Master, you are remarkably timid.”

Valdrova, the Red Dragon who embodied an unstoppable force.

Yet before Ferda, she was merely a delicate woman, as fragile as a flower.

The thought that he might harm her was more than Ferda could bear.

“As the man who will become her husband, should you not relieve Master’s worries instead of creating more of them over such a trivial concern?”

“Yes. You are right.”

“Haa…”

Ferda nodded, and Luri let out a deep sigh.

Ferda could clearly sense just how much hardship she had endured while caught between the two of them.

“So, what will you do?”

What else could he do?

“I will accept her invitation. My fiancée personally requested it, so I cannot ignore her.”

He had no choice but to face the matter directly.

“Understood.”

After receiving his answer, Luri bowed politely and left the dining room.

Once she was gone, Ferda glanced toward the parchment he had placed to one side.

Trying to identify it now will only give me something else to worry about.

He could ask Mori and discover what kind of magic circle it was.

He could also request that Echidna, who was well versed in runes, decipher it.

Yet Ferda had a feeling that this was a magic circle he needed to understand on his own.

And so he carefully folded the parchment and slipped it between the pages of a book.

He would allow himself to forget it naturally.

Then, should it fall out one day when he happened to open the book, he would think about it again.

With that decision, he chose to put it out of his mind.

Honestly, he worries about the most pointless things.

As Luri walked down the long corridor, she grumbled inwardly.

He had arrogantly rejected the invitation, and his reason had been utterly trivial.

Why does he charge forward without hesitation at any other time, only to become like this in front of Master?

When he wanted something, he became a madman who would obtain it by any means necessary.

But when it came to Valdrova, there was no greater fool or coward.

He thinks his mana might harm Lady Valdrova…

Luri looked down at her right hand.

She had said she felt nothing, but in truth, she had sensed something strange.

And even now, that sensation remained in the hand Ferda had held.

I do not know what this is…

It felt peculiar, but she was certain it was harmless.

There is no need to mention it and frighten him further…

Luri put her glove back on and continued walking.

Even a loyal servant had to spend her days so busy that she scarcely had time to blink.