EP.196 After the curtain falls (2)
In a forest a little far from Aplia.
Is it because it is a place where no one has ever visited? There was only one footprint left in the fallen leaves on the ground. I walked along the neatly marked footprints and stopped in front of a tree stump piled with fallen leaves.
Rustle.
After shaking off the fallen leaves that had accumulated on the stump, I sat down on the stump. I let out a short breath as I was hit by the moderately chilly wind. Before I could take another breath, I raised my head and looked ahead.
The madman, Kelhalm.
The person I promised to meet here.
A person who has a lot of stories to share with me.
“so.”
I looked at him sitting across from me and opened my mouth. A slightly bitter smile formed on the corner of his mouth.
“It seems like you noticed.”
“It’s a strange story that you can’t get it.”
Kelhalm pointed at me with his fingertip.
“There is no wizard who knows how to deal with the shadows and can place restrictions on me… other than the gray wizard.”
It was a confident voice, and I had no intention of denying it. As a result, the number of people who learned my secret increased… but that was unavoidable. really.
‘I had to deal with the shadows, but there was no way I could afford to hide my identity.’
It was a situation where I had to do my best.
Because it wasn’t an enemy you could take your time with. I clicked my tongue briefly as if I was disappointed.
“I tried to hide it if possible.”
“Did you ever have any intention of hiding it? “That’s amazing.”
“···what?”
“Do you want to hear an honest answer, Gray Wizard?”
I blinked.
For a moment, it felt as if the temperature in Kelhalm’s gaze had suddenly dropped.
“I had a vague idea from the moment I first saw it. I had my doubts. I’m not sure, but I figured it out. “It was exactly one minute after I made eye contact with you.”
“uh···.”
Is that how much it was?
I thought I was being careful.
“···Is it that much?”
“That’s about it.”
Kelhalm nodded to my question.
“If you really want to hide it, wouldn’t it be better to be a little more careful about your actions? “It looks like the form of the spell you use needs to be fixed as well.”
“···Why?”
“It’s even more surprising that I haven’t been caught until now…”
It’s even amazing.
“In the first place, it doesn’t make sense.”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“It is impossible for the flesh and spirit to degenerate. It can’t happen. “There are only a handful of people who doubt that something that is providentially and common-sensely impossible is possible.”
The more you know, the more you know. While muttering that, I tapped my chest with my finger.
“Only people like you and me who encounter beings who make the impossible ‘possible’ have doubts.”
A being called shadow.
The concept of going against providence.
“···shade.”
Kelhalm muttered.
What was spoken was a two-syllable word, but that single word was probably the one that meant more to Kelhalm than anything else.
“···I owe you a lot this time.”
I slowly opened my mouth.
“Thanks to you, Aplia and the students are all safe. “This was something I was supposed to do.”
“There is no need to thank me.”
Kelhalm shook his head.
“Because I swore an oath in front of my homeland, which was reduced to ashes a hundred years ago. “This was what I had to do, this was what I had to do.”
“That means…”
“My home country followed the same process.”
He raised his arms.
Kelhalm continued, looking at the cracked skin that was a side effect of embracing the shadow.
“Do you know the name Celestia?”
“A spiritist from Artia who was said to be a star of talent? “I know your name.”
“And that the child was blessed by a star?”
“I didn’t know that.”
Kelhalm clenched his fist.
“Celestia was a Watcher and Stella.”
“···Received two blessings at once? “Is that possible?”
“It was possible. He was a child with brighter starlight than anyone else. He was a brilliant kid. “Everyone expected a bright future for that child.”
Was that why?
“They were trampled.”
The dry voice became more heated.
“The day that child became an adult, the day she graduated from Artea and went out into the world, Celestia was trampled.”
An apostate has appeared.
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In the same way as the disaster that struck this academy, Celestia was swallowed up in the shadows.
After saying that, Kelhalm let out a short breath.
“And I couldn’t do anything.”
It was a voice full of regret.
“Even when the star gives up on the child, even when the shadow uses the child as a vessel, even until it cannot bear it and collapses with the soul tainted…”
I just watched.
I could only watch.
I listened to Kelhalm’s voice mumbling like that. That was the history of a scholar becoming a madman. Kelhalm was talking about his own life.
“I always regretted it.”
Kelhalm said.
“Was there no other way? Was there any way to save my student on the spot? Was there nothing I could have done? “I thought and thought.”
A human being who has lived with madness for over a hundred years.
“There was no easy answer. It’s been 60 years since I’ve been vaguely trying to find the answer. “It took another 40 years to make the answer possible.”
A wizard who has searched for answers for a hundred years.
As someone who has only lived for 27 years, that time was not easy to guess, so I could only groan.
‘···It looks similar.’
In Kelhalm, I saw someone else I knew well.
“Maybe 100 years have passed.”
“Maybe hundreds of years have passed.”
“Maybe thousands of years have passed.”
An elf who has endured eternal life with the determination to endure even thousands of years. Even though the total amount of time was different, it felt like Cardi and Kelhalm were similar to me.
“That’s how 100 years passed.”
Kelhalm said as if sighing.
“and.”
He looked at me.
He spoke to me, still expressionless, but somehow smiling.
“It seems like my hundred years were not meaningless.”
Gray eyes.
“Did you say thank you, Gray Wizard? no. “It’s not something you should thank me for.”
He shook his head.
“Rather, I would like to say thank you.”
Slowly, very slowly, he lowered his head.
“thanks. “Raniel.”
calling my name
2.
Bowing his head, Kelhalm reflects on his life. He didn’t have an easy life. It was a tough life. For a long time, Kelhalm had to endure asking himself questions.
Is there meaning in this life?
Is there value in a life that never grows old?
Kelhalm had to feel every moment that he was breaking away from being human. The words the apostate whispered always became a nightmare and lingered by Kelhalm’s side.
“You look like me, child.”
A woman steeped in madness.
A madman who hated the stars and tried to bring everything down to the same place as himself.
Kelhalm caught a glimpse of his future in the apostate. Kelhalm was always afraid of his future, which would one day turn out like that.
Because I was afraid.
Because I didn’t want that kind of future.
Kelhalm had to constantly guard himself. He controlled madness by imposing restrictions. He tried not to take other people’s lives lightly like an apostate.
‘There was an easy way.’
Time and time again, the easy path appeared. Surrendering to the madness and becoming comfortable was not an easy path.
‘compromise.’
A compromise that this is enough.
Rationalization of sacrificing a minority for the greater good.
The path of rationalization and compromise flashed before Kelhalm’s eyes again and again. If you sacrifice someone right now, there are more than a dozen answers you could get.
However, it was uneven.
I couldn’t choose.
‘Because I had to keep my oath.’
Because that’s not the life Celestia wanted for herself. Kelhalm, who became a superhuman to keep his oath, never forgot his oath.
It’s been a hundred years like that.
It is an eternal life walked in order to keep one promise and to verify the answer that one has found.
A life of doubt and caution.
A life endured with regrets.
A life endured while enduring madness.
Kelhalm has never been able to answer the question of whether that life had meaning. However, I was able to speak confidently here today.
“It had meaning.”
Because I saved it.
“My hundred years were meaningful.”
Because I saw with my own eyes that there was a different ending.
“and.”
Kelhalm looks at the wizard in front of him.
It is a being that has found a different answer than itself.
“I am grateful to you for suggesting a new possibility to me by showing me a different answer.”
He concluded that the shadow was ‘something that cannot be dealt with.’ Therefore, the only way to find an answer was to bind and restrain it. However, it was not the wizard in front of me.
“Ashes to Ashes.”
Kelhalm clearly remembers the flames he saw through blurred vision in his maddened consciousness.
“Curse to Ashes.”
A gray flame that burned the shadows.
A beam of light that cleared away the darkness.
It presented a new path for Kelrhalm.
“My plan had failed. They succeeded in swallowing the shadow, but were unable to completely trap it. “As time passes, the shadow will eventually be released from me.”
It wasn’t a perfect plan.
As it was, Kelhalm should have experienced failure again. He must have been frustrated that his hundred years had been meaningless. However, he did not become like that.
“So, my plan was just to buy time.”
It takes time.
For someone else.
“Determining the value of the time gained…”
“It’s up to the person who continues that time.”
Raniel responds to Kelhalm’s words.
“The time you bought, Kalt took over. “I took back the time that Kalt gained back.”
Next, then again.
“This is the result. “All the students are safe, and the piece of shadow that appeared here has completely burned away… and you are also safe.”
Raniel pointed to Kelhalm.
And then he jokingly asked a question.
“How about a new leash?”
At those words, Kelhalm couldn’t help but laugh bitterly.
“well···.”
Kelhalm smoothed the back of my neck. A clicking sound is heard in his ears. And… this girl in front of me is probably hearing the same thing.
“It feels familiar.”
“I walked as I read before, and I’m glad it worked out well.”
Raniel shrugged his shoulders.
Raniel remembered all the restrictions he had observed during the duel. Therefore, he did not have much difficulty breaking the restrictions again.
“···One thing has changed.”
Kelhalm, who was adjusting the chain, became aware of the platinum-colored chain that bound his heart. Originally, the words engraved on the chain that existed there were “Swallow the Shadow.”, but not anymore.
Same conditions, same situation.
But the course of action to be taken then is written in different letters. Kelhalm read the words written in bad handwriting out loud.
“「Call the Gray Wizard」.”
Those were the words engraved on the chain.
Raniel let out a sly smile.
“A well-established Battle-Mage will come to help, so we’re just buying time.”
“Couldn’t you have engraved ‘Great Gray Wizard’ on the front?”
“······.”
Raniel secretly looked away.
His face was strangely red. Raniel continued speaking as if he was in a hurry to change the subject.
“So, what are you going to do next?”
“I guess I should rest a little longer until my mana replenishes. And, I still have to finish the classes I promised…”
“And then?”
“maybe.”
Kelhalm said.
“I will return to the battlefield again.”
“···Do you know that the output has decreased? “The power will be less than half that of the old spell.”
“Know.”
At that time, Raniel’s spell burned all of Kelhalm’s mana that had been contaminated by the shadows. In the process, several passages were completely burned down.
“I thought if I played well, I would get about 30%.”
“And yet you go back to the battlefield?”
“Because there are still many people who need me.”
Even though he has become weaker, he is still a superhuman.
And the battlefield still needs superhumans.
“I haven’t found a way to solve the fundamental problem like you, so shouldn’t I buy some time?”
“…Did you notice?”
Kelhalm nodded.
“Looking at the students I raised, I got a sense of it. The composition seems pretty good. “It’s just a role to pass the time until the children grow up… I guess I can do that with this body too.”
However, Kelhalm trailed off.
“I hope those kids don’t trust the stars too much.”
“···aha.”
Raniel smiled at Kelhalm’s words.
Kelhalm did not understand the meaning of that laughter.
“···Why are you smiling?”
“There is a student you might like.”
Raniel said, looking towards Aplia.
“Fourth Princess, Ayla.”
“…Are you talking about Stella?”
“huh. While you are staying in Aplia, please visit the princess. “You will be satisfied when you see it.”
While saying that, Raniel stood up, shaking his knees. And then he stood right in front of Kelhalm.
“Thank you very much for your hard work this time.”
She held out her hand to Kelhalm.
“It was an honor to meet you, Kelhalm.”
And then he says his own name.
“I am Rania. “Maybe, for now.”
“I am Raniel. It’s an honor to meet you, Kelhalm.”
Recalling the greeting they once shared, Kelhalm smiled and held his hand.
3.
“Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention this.”
I looked back. Instead of getting out of the forest, it was because Kelhalm spoke to me.
“What?”
“The one who brought me here.”
“···First Prince?”
I stopped walking.
First Prince, that was the only part of this neatly resolved case that I ‘didn’t understand’.
‘The letter hasn’t arrived from Princess Lruel yet, so I was thinking of going to visit her soon…’
I glanced at Kelhalm.
“Why the First Prince?”
“There’s something strange about him.”
Kelhalm smoothed his chin.
“I have been studying the cycles of stars for the past hundred years. A day when the starlight becomes exceptionally strong, a day when it shines more strongly on those who have blessed it. “I even succeeded in inferring that that day was the day when the ‘ritual’ was held.”
The reason why he was able to come here, knowing in advance that shade would come to Aplia. Kelhalm’s voice lowered slightly as he explained the reason.
“It was the day I was planning to write a letter to find out that and express my intention to visit Aplia.”
He put his hand inside his robe.
What he took out was a letter with the royal family symbol stamped on it.
“This letter arrived at that time.”
There was nothing much written in the letter. There was only one line of name written on it: Aplia Academy.
“Just as I was about to visit Aplia, a letter arrived telling me to head to Aplia. “It seems like the order is misunderstood in the world, but I think you should know at least.”
“···The First Prince knows something?”
“It’s hard to call it a coincidence.”
Kelhalm folded the letter and handed it to me.
“Don’t leave the judgment up to you.”
I looked at the letter I received. Drawn along the corners of the letter is a blood-red pattern. Instead of looking at it, I frowned.
“···Hey, Kelhalm.”
“Why are you calling me?”
“You were exposed to demonic energy when you fought Skebal, right? “Everything I have.”
“Maybe so. So, didn’t you purify everything? Is there something wrong?”
“this.”
I waved the letter.
“Here, I feel a magical energy similar to that of that skull bowl?”
A word from the author (author review)
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