EP.216 The Traces Left by the Catastrophe (3)
Raniel has a few special skills.
Among them, there’s one that doesn’t quite suit a mage, a skill she picked up on the battlefield.
Cha-rururuk!
It’s the handling of chains summoned by spells.
Chains.
The basic spell, Chain, simply summons chains that last for a short time. Naturally, the summoned chains wouldn’t have any special functions.
Cha-ruk!
A simple spell, indeed.
However, once it’s in Raniel’s hands… the chain becomes a nearly万能 tool. Raniel recalled her memories of wielding chains on the battlefield.
Binding the whimpering Sara and tossing her to Kyle.
Catching Kyle as he leaps down.
Creating a springboard for Kyle to jump.
‘Have I used it a lot?’
She had used the chains so often that they now felt as familiar as her own limbs. Wondering if this was what the knights meant by the unity of sword and wielder, Raniel swung her arm.
Cha-rururuk!
The slack chain becomes taut again.
The chain extending behind Raniel arcs high before shooting up.
Swaek!
Watching the chain skillfully weave through the floating piles of rubble felt almost like watching a performance. It was impressive, but…
“…”
For the person hanging at the end, it only made their stomach churn.
‘It’s quite nauseating.’
The elf, Cardi, hung at the end of the chain.
He grimaced with extreme nausea.
“Do you want me to lift you, or would you prefer to be tied up by the chain?”
Cardi had chosen the latter just a moment ago when Raniel asked. Even though he had long set aside all his titles, being carried on the back of a much younger junior felt rather embarrassing…
‘Besides, I’ve known him since he was little…’
So he chose to be bound by the chains.
And now, Cardi greatly regretted that choice.
Huk!
The chain jerked, and Cardi’s head was thrown back. His vision spun. He barely managed to look down. There, Raniel was leaping while swirling the chain.
Thud.
She kicked off the ground, swinging the chain.
With ruins looming ahead, Cardi’s body was pulled sharply to the left. He narrowly avoided the collision, but there were still many more fragments ahead.
Jumping over the fragments while pulling and swinging the chain repeatedly, Raniel kept maneuvering.
Cha-ruk, Cha-rururuk!
The chain twisted again and again.
Cardi’s head was bobbing up and down, side to side, like a fish caught on a hook. He felt extremely nauseous.
It seemed she had no awareness of binding a person.
He was treated like cargo to be moved, not a person.
Feeling a strange sensation, Cardi closed his eyes. The sound of wind whooshing past was unsettling.
‘The speed isn’t slowing down at all…’
Should he praise her for maintaining that speed even amid the chaos? While Cardi felt quite conflicted, Raniel spoke up.
“Hey, Cardi.”
Kwah-ruung, a series of thunderclaps.
As the voice broke through the rumble of thunder, Cardi opened his eyes.
“What is it?”
“I think we’re almost there, but it looks like there’s a barrier around the royal castle. What should we do about that?”
Cardi struggled to nod.
There was the barrier surrounding the royal castle. It was the barrier he had personally set up when he made a pact with Star.
“It’s the one I made.”
“How do we break it? It doesn’t seem like a barrier you can just smash through.”
“…In your mind, do you have any options besides breaking it?”
“Well, that’s the simplest option.”
Is he actually a mage after all?
In fact, he seemed more like a warrior than anyone else.
As those thoughts crossed his mind, Cardi spoke.
“No need for that. When I touch the barrier, it will deactivate. So just ahead…”
If you let me down, I’ll deactivate the barrier.
Cardi was about to finish speaking, but Raniel swung the chain with all her might before he could finish.
Huk!
Like a fish leaping out of water or a cannonball being shot, Cardi found himself flying through the air.
Cha-ruk.
The chain that had been wrapping around him loosened. With an unexpected sense of freedom and weightlessness, he looked ahead.
The main gate of the castle wall was approaching.
The speed was still unrelenting.
Realizing he had been used as a projectile to deactivate the barrier, Cardi muttered in despair.
“…This is maddening.”
Kwaaaang!
After deactivating the barrier, Cardi flew for a while before crashing into the castle gate. The ancient elf projectile smacked against the gate, which creaked open.
Thud-thud-thud.
From amidst the rubble, Cardi raised his body. Despite crashing as a projectile, surprisingly, it didn’t hurt. How come?
Woom.
A bluish protective shield wrapped around him.
Most likely, it was the protective spell Raniel cast just before the collision. Should he be grateful for his junior’s concern for her senior?
Thud.
After a brief pause, Raniel landed beside Cardi. She dusted off her wrist and looked at him.
“Since the lightning was striking so much, I didn’t want to get hit by a bolt. It felt like I would get struck if it continued.”
“…Was that the case?”
“Yeah. Calculating the timing of the lightning while seeing the fog below was really brain-breaking. The fog near the royal castle was denser too…”
In short, it meant she had her own thoughts.
Cardi sighed deeply.
“Alright, let’s get inside…”
What could one expect from a mere baggage?
2.
The Ancient Kingdom, Arcadia.
Walking through the interior of the royal castle located at its center, Raniel looked around. The castle was shrouded in darkness, and an ominous energy was writhing.
“…Is this really not the Demon Lord’s Castle?”
In old fairy tales, there are often scenes where heroes storm the Demon Lord’s castle. However, as far as Raniel knew, the current Demon Lord had no castle to speak of.
‘Atmospherically, this feels like the Demon Lord’s castle.’
As those thoughts ran through her mind, Cardi, overhearing Raniel’s muttering, gave a bitter smile.
“That’s not wrong. In a way, it could be called the Demon Lord’s castle.”
Still speaking in an ambiguous manner, Cardi continued walking ahead. Raniel silently followed behind. The castle was vast, and several paths branched out repeatedly before her eyes.
“This way.”
And each time…
“This is the way. Step aside. I’ll deactivate the barrier.”
Cardi took the lead in deactivating the barriers. There were an excessive number of barriers, and the structure of the castle was labyrinthine.
‘As if trying to hide something.’
Creeeak.
With a loud noise, another door opened.
Beyond the door was a corridor that exuded a different atmosphere from before. The moment Raniel stepped into the corridor, she felt the atmosphere becoming heavier.
And there was a slight sense of discomfort.
‘…Something feels familiar.’
Raniel felt a sense of familiarity from the scenery of the corridor that came into view. Even though it was clearly her first time entering, there was a sense of déjà vu, as if she had visited before.
The moment she realized the source of that déjà vu was when she stood before a specific door.
“Oh.”
Facing the firmly closed door, Raniel felt an ominous sensation. Facing the heavier air, she narrowed her eyes.
‘This…’
She had seen a door like this before.
In fact, relatively recently.
“The Red Palace.”
The residence of the First Prince, Izak.
The door was identical to the one she saw there. As Raniel muttered that, Cardi frowned and looked back at her.
“…How do you know the name of this palace?”
“Is it really the Red Palace?”
“Yeah. It’s a palace gifted by the king to the prince who had an interest in magic. So how do you know the name of this place?”
“Well…”
Raniel briefly explained.
About the existence of the ancient kingdom she encountered in the castle, and the unknown that shuttles between bodies…
“…That shouldn’t be possible?”
Frowning upon hearing the explanation, Cardi looked further ahead.
He touched the gate and spoke.
“For now, let’s keep going.”
Creeeak.
With a twisting sound, the castle gate opened.
A gust of wind blew in. The wind brought with it a stench of decay and a whiff of blood. Raniel grimaced.
‘What’s this?’
The air felt thick.
Breathing became sticky.
“Raniel, I told you once, didn’t I?”
As they moved forward, Cardi spoke.
“Everything is balanced. Life begins with death, the start leads to an endpoint, and everything possesses opposing concepts. But the stars are different.”
Something she had heard before.
“Stars shouldn’t have a balancing counterpart. Unless someone has observed that, or drawn it out as a concept.”
Something that was born and came to be.
“It should never have existed.”
Something that shouldn’t exist.
“A perfect concept that governs providence in contrast to the stars. A concept symbolizing imbalance and irregularity.”
Cardi halted as he walked down the corridor.
“The Shade.”
In the darkness, an ashen barrier glimmers.
The barrier emanating a faint light is not singular. Hundreds, thousands of opaque barriers held the space in their grip.
“That concept was forged by the hands of a madman. He believed imbalance and irregularity reside within humanity, and crafted alchemy using humans as materials.”
The ashen barrier.
When Cardi touched the barrier, it gradually became transparent. The barrier that had been too opaque to see through began revealing its inner contents.
Raniel gasped.
Her pupils trembled momentarily.
‘What the…’
What lay beyond the barrier.
It was a hell of sorts.
“From within, the Shade was birthed.”
Despite having wandered various battlefields, witnessing countless atrocities, Raniel couldn’t bear to look directly at what was inside the barrier.
Something so mangled it couldn’t be identified.
The remains of a broken human.
Those corpses reached out. Their outstretched hands scraped along the ground. Each scraped body extended endlessly. That was a path made of corpses.
Hand reaching.
A hand trying to pull something down, trying to scrape.
What surfaced in Raniel’s mind was the countless black claws that surged from the pile of filth when she faced the Demon Lord. Something resembling that was right in front of her.
It was suffocating.
It had to resonate with malice.
Even after hundreds of years, the remnants of thoughts lingered strongly. With her eyes narrowed, Raniel turned her head. There, Cardi bore the same expression as always.
“What is this?”
Raniel spoke in a trembling voice.
“What the hell is this doing in the royal palace?”
“I told you, Raniel.”
Cardi replied coolly.
“Arcadia is deeply interconnected with the Demon Lord.”
3.
“What does that even mean?”
Raniel the Ashen Mage.
She glared at Cardi with wide eyes. Grabbing him by the collar, she asked in a trembling voice.
“Explain, Cardi. What’s this all about? Why is this in your kingdom, and who is that madman…”
“I’ve told you all I can.”
To that question, Cardi couldn’t respond.
“There are all the clues here. Since the moment we arrived, I can’t tell you anymore.”
So…
“Look, understand, and uncover it.”
That was the only way.
“That’s how you get to the second contract.”
That was the true way to connect.
A word from the author (Author’s Note)
The ancient elf projectile was incredible!
