Chapter 12
Ice Magic (2)
[Those who learn ice magic are one of two kinds. Either fools who, even as adults, still dream of the legendary ice mage… or vulgar men who want to become filthy rich while walking the path of a mage.]
Such words were written in the book of the last ice mage recorded in magical history.
The tone was so full of self-mockery that Isaac remembered it clearly.
Wales William—a 5th-class mage who devoted his entire life to ice magic, only to fall into despair when he failed to surpass its limits.
The reason was simple.
Ice magic was not very practical.
Magitech related to ice magic was highly popular among nobles and wealthy individuals who used expensive ingredients.
But the actual capabilities of an ice mage were limited.
To create a fireball, one only needed to go through a single step: ignition.
In contrast, to create an ice crystal, one first needed a sufficient amount of water.
Then, magic to gather moisture from the air or shape water into a desired form.
After that came four additional steps: compression, condensation, expansion, and evaporation.
Each step alone wasn’t particularly difficult—
—but fulfilling all of them together was extremely troublesome.
As a result, its usefulness in combat was abysmally low.
In life-or-death situations, few mages had the composure to follow those steps one by one.
And enemies wouldn’t wait.
Even if one somehow bought time to complete the spell, it still lacked lethality.
At best, it could freeze a river or ice over wet ground to immobilize an opponent.
If one wanted to use ice as a projectile, a supporting mage was required.
The ice mage would shape the crystal, and a support mage would alter its phase and launch it.
At that point, commanders would rather hire ten archers instead.
Far cheaper—and far more deadly.
[If you cannot use any magic other than ice magic, congratulations. You will be welcomed in breweries and inns. After all, no one chills beer better than you, right?]
[Of course, if you are rich enough to have money rotting away, you could purchase frost mana stones and skip the cooling process. But before long, you’ll be forced to sell even the pillars of your estate. Those are materials the old men of the Mage Tower desperately seek. If you’re the buyer, you’ll need more gold coins than there are stars in the sky.]
It was only natural that William wrote in such a tone.
That was reality.
Unless under very special circumstances, ice magic had not been used in combat for a very long time.
Nor was there much place for it in daily life.
Magitech devices capable of automatically performing ice magic were already well developed.
In short—
Ice mages were completely rejected by magical society.
Despite this bleak reality, Isaac interpreted William’s writings differently.
He had plenty of time—and imagining endless “what ifs” in magic was one of his favorite pastimes.
If frost mana stones were expensive and mainly used for academic purposes, that meant no one seriously considered using them in combat.
Because it was a forgotten magic, it was harder to identify its nature or trace its caster.
And by its nature, ice magic was well suited for stealth.
Other types of magic left visible traces—light, sound, or something obvious.
In contrast, if used properly, ice magic could easily be mistaken for wounds caused by metal or blunt force.
And since ice melted into water, it became even harder to find evidence.
It had already been decades since Isaac first thought of this in an underground vault.
Now—
he was proving it with his own hands.
One shot at a time.
Each time an ice shard pierced the darkness and struck a bandit’s head, Isaac felt a surge of exhilaration.
It wasn’t joy from harming others.
It was the satisfaction of seeing his ideas take shape in reality.
That was what a mage was.
A fool willing to dedicate his entire life to making imagination real.
William’s book had said as much.
[No matter who you are—man or woman, young or old—once you walk the path of a mage, I know this much: you are a fool. And no matter how much I try to dissuade you, you won’t listen. Because in your mind, a beautiful, crystalline rain of ice is falling.]
Isaac let out a faint chuckle.
He, too, was one of those fools.
After all, it felt this thrilling.
At the same time, he felt a strange sense of relief and belonging.
In his past life, he couldn’t call himself a mage because of mana explosion.
But now—
he recognized that he was more of a mage than anyone.
A debtor to those he cherished—
and an incurable fool obsessed with magic.
“…You’re not going to kill them?”
Bill asked after confirming that the fallen bandits were still breathing.
“Even if I kill them, more like them will keep appearing anyway.”
Isaac glanced at the unconscious bandit.
“But they’ll just keep doing this again.”
“That’s why I’m letting them live.”
“…What?”
“There’s only one person I plan to kill.”
“…Who?”
“Niers.”
“…!”
Shock spread across Bill’s face.
“I have a role for you, Bill.”
Isaac said.
***
“Father, you’re not eating again today.”
With disheveled hair, Niers cut into the meat on his plate.
The rare meat dripped with blood and was so tough it resisted the fork.
Niers forced it apart with brute strength and shoved it into his mouth, chewing noisily.
Around him stood five or six bandits.
Each time he chewed, they either grimaced or fought back nausea.
Because it was human flesh they themselves had butchered and cooked.
“You should eat something, at least. You’re getting thinner.”
Niers stared across the long table.
There was no person sitting there—
only a skull impaled on a spike.
The upper half of the skull was shattered down to the forehead.
Niers stared blankly at it.
“You’re there, aren’t you? I always wanted to hear your screams, Father. I’m not quite strong enough yet… but wait just a little longer. I found a new necromancy text—it says I only need to eat five more fetal hearts.”
He wiped the dripping blood from his hands and stood up.
Several of the bandits flinched at his movement.
Unlike the scrawny wretches living in the sewer, Niers was massive—tall enough to nearly touch the ceiling, with a heavy build and long arms reaching below his knees.
A typical northern tribesman.
He slowly approached the skull.
“When that happens, your soul will be trapped in that skull forever. What do you think? You always wanted to live long, didn’t you? …No answer. Or has my spiritual power run out? Hey.”
“Y-yes!”
One of the bandits shouted in surprise.
“The soul’s power seems weak. Go drain some blood from someone useless. I think I’ll take a bath.”
“W-we only have goods left to sell to the merchants…”
“Hmm.”
Niers muttered.
Suddenly, his massive hand grabbed another bandit’s head.
“…Huh?”
He twisted the neck and shoulders in opposite directions—
Crack!
A corpse was created in an instant.
“Then I’ll use this one today. Though one body won’t fill the tub.”
Niers looked at the bandit who had answered him earlier.
The man trembled, unable to meet his gaze.
Then, as if making a decision, he drew a dagger and stabbed the bandit next to him in the neck.
“Ghk—!”
Blood splattered as he pulled the dagger out.
“I-it’s ready.”
“Don’t keep me waiting.”
Niers slowly walked past them.
The surviving bandits didn’t even dare to breathe until he completely disappeared around the corner.
Only after he was gone did they collapse onto the filthy sewer floor, gasping for air.
Their clothes soaked in the foul water—but they didn’t care.
“…Damn it.”
Someone muttered a curse under their breath, but no one responded.
Each of them was overwhelmed—
by the relief of surviving,
and the despair of continuing to live under a mad monster like him.
None of them believed that Niers could actually use necromancy.
But his madness and massive physique were already like a curse in themselves.
Thud—
Just as the bandits were beginning to relax,
a dull sound echoed from beyond the corner of the sewer.
Slice—
Rip—
At the same time, a noise like flesh being torn apart rang out.
The bandits exchanged glances.
Their bodies froze.
Was it their leader, Niers?
Or someone else?
They felt they had to check—
but their feet refused to move.
Tap.
One bandit nudged another.
Whatever it was, they had to confirm it.
Suppressing their footsteps, they crept toward the corner.
The presence had already vanished.
No sound came from beyond.
One of them grabbed a torch from the wall and slowly approached the bend.
Just then—
Roll…
Something came rolling from beyond the corner.
“Ugh!”
The bandit at the front fell back in shock.
Clang!
The others, startled, tried to draw their swords and hit the wall instead.
Fortunately—
nothing happened.
What rolled toward them wasn’t a bomb or a weapon.
“W-what… is this…?”
In the dim light, it looked like the head of a fur sack.
When the torchlight drew closer—
they forgot to breathe.
It was—
Niers’s head.
The man who had just gone off to bathe in blood.
There was a clean hole drilled through the center of his forehead, as if pierced by a sharp awl.
His head rolled on the ground, still wearing a puzzled expression.
“Hey. Mind bringing me some water?”
“…Hah—!”
Only then did the bandits realize they had been holding their breath.
The man standing before them—
his face smeared with blood—
was someone they knew well.
And yet—
he felt completely different.
“B-Bill…?”
Bare-chested, his entire body drenched in Niers’s blood—
it was indeed Bill.
The same groveling, pathetic Bill.
The bragging Bill.
And yet—
not the Bill they knew.
“Water. I said bring it, you bastards.”
Bill brushed back his blood-soaked hair irritably.
***
Just moments earlier—
Isaac’s four mana circuits had begun to operate smoothly, like flowing water.
Cooling. Cooling. Phase change. Phase change again.
The repeated cooling hardened the ice crystal beyond bone,
and the repeated phase changes accelerated it faster than an arrow.
Pfft.
With a light impact—
the long-armed giant’s head snapped backward.
‘A direct hit.’
The moment the ice shard pierced Niers’s forehead,
Isaac felt relief.
He had spent countless efforts mastering phase transformation—
and his target, having ruled as a predator for so long, had grown careless.
“…!”
Seeing Niers collapse right before his eyes,
Bill looked back and forth between Isaac and the corpse several times.
Isaac gestured for him to move.
“Whew…”
Bill took off his shirt, bounced lightly in place, and shook out his arms.
In his hand was a thick butcher’s cleaver.
His face was tense, but he steeled himself.
He approached Niers’s massive corpse, climbed on top of it—
and raised the cleaver high.
Then brought it down.
In the darkness, the sight wasn’t clear.
But the sounds of flesh and bone being crushed echoed loudly.
Hearing that—
Isaac suddenly recalled something Enette had once said.
—Anyone can commit something they never intended to do. At least once in their life. Everyone does. Even a saint would. Otherwise, there would be no need to believe in God so desperately.
Her words hadn’t ended there.
—You won’t be able to undo it. You won’t be able to erase it. It will follow you for the rest of your life, like a brand. You have two choices. Either suffocate under guilt… or struggle to live on, even for their sake.
Isaac remembered her voice as cold and dry.
She hadn’t said which choice was better—
or which was right.
She had simply presented an option Isaac had never considered.
Looking back, it wasn’t anything remarkable.
But at the time—
those words had helped him endure, even if just for one more day.
They had kept him from giving up on life.
Perhaps Enette could say such things because she had lost her friend, Clara.
But Isaac no longer needed to hear that advice again.
In this life—
Enette didn’t have to go through anything like that.
She didn’t have to lose her friend.
That was what Isaac believed.
What he decided.
And so—
that was how it would be.
Yes.
Even if it meant dirtying his hands as much as necessary.
***
That evening,
a single carriage arrived at the Goethe Estate.
Inside were three foul-smelling women.
They were the missing maids.