〈 Chapter 311 〉 What the Star Desires (4)
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When dealing with a transcendent being like a star, mages often use the expression that it feels like time has stopped. That’s not exactly a wrong expression.
Dealing with a transcendent being happens in the gaps of time. For just a moment, when you hear their voice, you escape the flow of the original world.
Belnoa also feels this sensation right now.
【Child, speak your desire.】
The screaming that was pouring in is gone.
No more cries of the Cursed Dragon, no sound of Kelharlem drawing circuits, no clattering of armor as the knights move busily… Nothing can be heard.
In a world where everything has come to a halt.
【Hurry.】
All that can be heard is someone’s voice.
It’s not the voice of a star.
The star’s voice is hard and emotionless. An unknown voice whose gender, age, or anything else cannot be discerned. In contrast, the voice ringing in Belnoa’s ears feels different.
【Did you not call for me?】
A whispering woman’s voice.
The voice soon takes shape. In the frozen time, Belnoa cannot turn back to see who is behind, but instinctively senses there is someone there.
Rustle.
Someone’s hair flows down over Belnoa’s shoulder. The cascading hair evokes the night sky. The midnight black tresses ripple mysteriously.
Squish.
Next, a touch is felt.
A woman’s fingers wrap around Belnoa’s shoulder. Thin, white fingers. The fingers gently clasp Belnoa’s shoulder.
【You are the third.】
She whispers.
【My first contract was for someone to wish for a world of humans. He wished for it desperately. So, he made a contract with me to overthrow all the false gods. It’s impressive that he actually did it, yet he was also a pitiful man. He deceived himself till the very end.】
A weight is placed on Belnoa’s shoulder.
【My second contractor wished to uphold his beliefs. He didn’t want anyone to experience the same pain as him, and he wished for a world where children could laugh. He truly wished for that.】
When she spoke of the first, there was a hint of anger.
When she described the second, it felt nostalgic.
【Child.】
And then.
【You are to be my third.】
The third came with expectation.
【What do you desire?】
The woman whispered into Belnoa’s ear.
She wrapped her arm around Belnoa’s neck and slowly leaned her body forward. Her golden eyes peeked through the cascading black hair.
Golden pupils.
Split vertical beast-like pupils.
Faced with those pupils that felt like they could swallow him in, Belnoa reflects on her question. The woman asks what he desires. Here, he instinctively senses he must not answer falsely.
‘What I desire.’
The contemplation doesn’t last long.
The words Belnoa must say are certain.
“I don’t wish for something grand.”
Belnoa said.
He has no great wishes.
This is a pure, untainted truth. He has no grand goal of achieving something against the world, nor is there a belief he must uphold. Belnoa holds nothing.
There can’t be such things.
Since he was a child, he struggled to survive. He stained his hands and did whatever he could. Having been through such a childhood, Belnoa has no splendid dreams.
‘To survive.’
That is what Belnoa values most.
To survive, he would bend his beliefs. He would bend everything that could be bent. It’s fine if they call him cowardly. That is his essence.
“But.”
But even for himself.
For the orphan who has lived struggling at the bottom.
“I do have a small wish.”
There’s something he wants to protect.
Belnoa looks at the girl standing before him in the halted time. He sees the back of that girl. The girl who continues to move forward is named Chloe.
『Hey, what’s your name?』
The girl who gave him life.
For Belnoa, she is an irreplaceable existence.
A human who shines brilliantly, unlike himself.
‘At first, I thought I wanted to protect her.’
To keep her from getting tainted, to make sure she doesn’t get dirtied by the world, Belnoa thought he should protect her. But that was Belnoa’s arrogance.
Chloe moves forward.
She grows and changes as she pleases.
The girl he thought would not be tainted by the world instead strives to shine even brighter. Belnoa no longer harbors the arrogant thought of protecting her. He simply longs earnestly.
“I want to stand beside her.”
Belnoa said.
“I want to go together. I want to walk the same path. I want to move forward with the same goal. Not falling behind, together.”
At last, he reveals his true feelings.
【Ah ha.】
The woman chuckles at the boy’s wish.
【Truly a small wish.】
But as she murmurs, the woman moves.
Gliding forward as if swimming through the air, she approaches Belnoa and smiles directly at him.
【That is something my first contractor truly wished for too. That liar hid his true feelings behind grand goals, but you do not.】
A boy resembling the Mage of Ancient Dragons.
A girl resembling Gletus of Regulation.
The woman glances at the two with a smile.
【I do not know if this is a game of the stars or destiny.】
She reached out and grasped Belnoa’s chin.
【I like it.】
The woman opened her mouth.
【I am the mistress of the Shadow Dragon.】
【Once, I was the master of the dragons that lived and breathed on this land. I am also the primordial deity.】
She whispered to Belnoa.
【A god (?) is one who answers origins.】
【I have heard your wish.】
【I shall respond to the contract.】
With a tap, she touched the scale that popped up before Belnoa. The scale shifted shapes. She placed her finger on the bizarrely transformed scale.
Squish.
The scale tilts uncontrollably.
【Firstly, let us try to drop the pride-lost dragon.】
Shadows flowed from the scale.
The flowing shadows pooled beneath Belnoa’s feet. Leaving that behind, the woman crumbles and scatters. With the scattering dust, the world regains its original flow of time.
“…Hoo.”
Belnoa took a short breath and looked at his finger. Blood flows from the worn-out knuckles. The blood flowing is the weakness of a human body.
The offering is complete.
The god has answered the human’s wish.
What remains is proving himself.
Belnoa slowly moves his finger. The shadow pooled beneath his feet ripples in response to his finger.
2.
Chloe ruminates on Kelharlem’s teachings.
A mage must always be cool-headed.
If the answer is not visible, take a different path. Continue to ponder. Think. Until you find the answer.
‘…A method.’
Chloe looks up at the sky.
Above flies the terrifying Cursed Dragon. Although Kelharlem is currently holding it back, the limit will soon be reached. Chloe senses this.
The dragon flaps its wings.
Every drop of muck flowing from its wings is human life. It evaporates rapidly. It is not disappearing.
Offering.
An offering is being placed randomly on the scale. This is not a proper method for a deal. It’s inefficient. Too many lives are flowing away. It’s a reckless transaction, but the results cannot be easily predicted.
‘It’s breaking through.’
Both Kelharlem and Chloe have the same thought.
Kelharlem is reversing the direction of the circuits. Somehow, he squeezes every bit of mana he has, which is far below his prime.
And Chloe.
“……”
Closes her eyes.
In this moment of being cornered, she recalls the person who taught her what a hero means to her.
『To those who decide to move forward even when facing reality, the world calls them heroes.』
A human who challenged the impossible.
Recalling the last light he held, Chloe clenches her hand. Starlight gathers in her palm. Chloe prepares a strike that will turn the impossible into the possible.
Chik, creak.
The amplified starlight converges.
With cold sweat pooling, Chloe manipulates the stars. It’s something she could never have imagined doing alone, but now Kelharlem is buying her time.
‘But…’
Chloe senses.
The starlight she is gathering is far too slow. It won’t reach the flying dragon. This is a strike meant to burn away the darkness below the ground.
Clunk.
At that moment, someone approaches beside Chloe.
“…Belnoa?”
Chloe turns to look.
There stands a boy dragging his shadow closer. Belnoa, looking up at the sky, says.
“Keep gathering.”
Belnoa turns his head.
He smiles at Chloe standing next to him.
“I’ll drop that one.”
3.
‘This is the limit.’
Kelharlem claps his hands together.
Indeed, the side effects of harboring shadows are immediately visible. His maximum mana has noticeably decreased, and he can’t drag it out much longer.
But…
‘Seems like it was enough.’
The flow of mana felt from behind.
That flow is unusual. When he saw it at the Academy, they were just children, yet within that brief time, they have evidently grown.
Children change.
They grow astonishingly quickly.
Kelharlem, as an educator at their roots, feels joy from the children’s growth. Also, as an adult trying to pave the path for those children, he squeezes every last drop of remaining mana.
Spin.
Kelharlem draws a circle.
The hundreds of circuits that had been divided are sucked into a single circle. The contracting circle soon becomes one dot. A red dot forms at Kelharlem’s fingertip.
“Prepare.”
Kelharlem aims at the dragon with his fingertip.
He targets the spell pouring from the dragon’s maw with his fingertip and begins to chant.
Isol (One?).
At that moment, the Cursed Dragon’s spell completes as well.
The Cursed Dragon spews muck. With the human’s departed souls as offerings, the spell attempts to hit the ground, when a flash erupts from Kelharlem’s fingertip.
The flash incinerates all the muck.
Thus creates a momentary void.
Having used up all his remaining mana, Kelharlem steps back. In his place, the starlight-dimming Chloe and shadow-clutching Belnoa step forward.
Belnoa lifts his broken finger.
The frail human body, which breaks so easily and bleeds. Moving that fragile body, Belnoa recalls the teachings of his ancestors.
『Sorcery is to wish. Shadows solidify what you wish in form.』
Wishing.
What he wishes for.
『To evoke is the perfect form.』
Belnoa looks up at the sky.
The sky is filled with the Cursed Dragon, which has forgotten its pride. A dragon that forgot its pride is imperfect. What he should invoke is not such a trivial dragon.
『An entity that sweeps the area with one flap of its wings, and with one breath, incinerates land and sky… a complete existence.』
Those who possess pride.
Like the sorcerer he saw during the trials.
Undulating.
The shadows that had pooled at Belnoa’s feet surge upward. The wound of Belnoa’s broken finger and tearing skin is replaced by shadow. The injury heals, and new skin emerges.
What sprouts is not human flesh.
Dragon scales cover Belnoa’s fingers. They are scales that ripple like shadows. Belnoa lifts his scale-covered hand.
‘An existence that stirs a storm with a single flap of its wings.’
He evokes a storm.
‘The Black Storm, Belial.’
He bends his finger.
With his hooked finger, he grasps at the air. Squish, a sense of probing into the air. No, it’s not empty space.
There is a breeze blowing.
Belnoa hooks the dragon’s claw onto the current of the wind.
He feels the flow of the wind. How to handle it, he understands instinctively. It was just like handling shadows.
Chik, creak.
Belnoa sweeps his hand.
The wind entangled around his finger begins to move. Belnoa recreates the spell of Belial he saw during the trials.
Crunch, thud-thud.
With one sweep, all the scales shed. His finger is torn away. Belnoa intuits that the path ahead is still long and treacherous. But he succeeds in mimicking the strike he witnessed in the trials.
Whoosh.
A gust of wind blows.
The low wind wipes away the piled-up snow and gradually ascends. The wind strengthens. It grinds away the swirling snow and grows even fiercer.
Kka kka kka kka kka, krah!
The fierce wind wraps around the pride-lost dragon.
The Black Dragon’s flap of wings that returns everything to nothing tears off the pride-lost dragon’s wings.
【■■■■■, kiyaaaaaack!】
The Cursed Dragon screams, flapping its wings, but cannot escape the wind. The dragon’s wings are torn. It crashes to the snowy ground, bleeding black muck.
Boom!
The massive dragon crashes to the ground.
The ground shakes, and the snowstorm rises. Belnoa spits out a mouthful of blood and twists his lips. He has indeed dropped the dragon to the ground.
What remains is the role of the hero.
“Fire away, Chloe.”
Chloe, standing next to Belnoa, nods.
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