Book 10 Chapter 25
Chapter 250
“Why did you not reveal it to the world, even after attaining the Truth, following in Emmit’s footsteps?”
Karenden spoke those words.
The Truth? Attain the Truth?
Ryuuken Ludwig attained the Truth? That can’t be. Ryuuken is recorded as a Great Archmage, not a Sage.
“Father of Truth, what reason could there be? It is because this sinful being was unworthy.”
“Unworthy, you say. Do you still hold your disciple’s matter in your heart?”
“That child taught me the Truth, yet I failed to guide that child down the right path. Even now, my heart feels as if it will shatter.”
It’s hard to follow the flow of the story.
Taught the Truth, you say? Does that mean Zernix has already reached the Truth?
‘Was that power, which manipulated elements at will, a power stemming from the Truth?’
I want to hear it too.
I want to know about that Truth too.
“If your heart is not at ease, speak your mind before you go. For a person’s heart is comforted simply by someone listening to their story.”
* * *
“Master.”
The reunion of master and disciple was quieter than expected.
Perhaps it was because living for a long time teaches one how to control emotions.
“Shirin.”
Fride smiled gently as well, watching her disciple approach with a pure smile, unchanged from her girlhood.
“You’ve grown quite old.”
“Master, you’ve become younger.”
“There are secrets to maintaining it, you know.”
In her later years, Fride stayed in the Holy City Library of the Red City, <Shuriganaquyus>, exploring the path to transcendence.
It was to achieve a limited form of immortality, and Shirin was an orphaned girl she took as a disciple during that research.
There were two older disciples besides Shirin, but Shirin was the principal disciple. Fride liked pure children like Shirin.
The sorcery Fride completed in the Holy City was only partially successful. She couldn't become a complete dragon.
That's why Fride entrusted that power to her disciples and left for <Flame Myriad>.
- If this fire is lit, know that I am alive. If it goes out, my life has ended.
Fride entrusted her soul flame to Shirin and left, and it was still burning brightly even after 200 years.
- If something you cannot handle happens, or if Rin comes looking for me here, call me through this fire.
When both conditions were met, Shirin called Fride… and now they have met again like this.
“Could you teach me a little? You see the wrinkles on my cheeks, right?”
Even as Shirin spoke, she knelt modestly beside Fride.
A magic circle composed of dragon speech surrounded Zernix’s body. The dragon’s flame was controlling the speed at which his body burned.
The principal disciple, who instantly understood what her master was doing and what needed to be done to maintain it, spoke.
“I’ll take care of this, Master. I’ve never been good at fighting anyway. And I can’t use the sorcery to turn into a dragon like my sisters.”
Fride fully trusted Shirin’s talent.
She stood up without even asking the ceremonial question of whether she could do it.
Smiling at her soul companion, who had been nuzzling against her non-stop.
“Then Pipi, shall we dance together after a long time?”
“Pipi, Pipi, Pipi, Pipi Dance, yeah.”
“Ah, Master. This.”
Shirin offered a scroll she had hanging from her waist.
The Psalm of Clarification and the Psalm of Five Gates, psalms known to have disappeared with Fride when she went missing. They would be necessary for battle.
Fride looked down at them with an expression of longing, then surprisingly, shook her head lightly.
“Kid, this Master doesn’t need such things anymore.”
* * *
“I am a sinful man, Father of Truth.”
Ryuuken knelt respectfully beside Karenden and began the story of his life.
“As you know, in my youth, I used magic solely for my selfish desires and looked down upon the humble and lowly.”
Although the Ludwig family was not a magical noble house at the time, Ryuuken was born of nobility.
“Perhaps pitying me, you sent that child to me. I found him the day I entered the deep mountain valley of the Eternal Mountains for training.”
He was a boy no more than five years old, and when asked about his parents, he replied that they had been killed in a monster attack.
So young, yet understanding death and speaking so skillfully?
With those small hands, he was digging the ground. His hands were covered in blisters, and his fingernails were broken and torn, yet he continued.
He said it was to bury his decaying parents.
- Do you know magic?
- …
- Your mind is ignorant, so you try to solve such things with your hands. If you can learn what I teach, try it.
The boy, to Ryuuken’s surprise, mastered arithmetic in a single day and understood even the principles of equations the next day.
He truly possessed innate talent, and not just talent; this child had something Ryuuken lacked.
Despite being at an age when he needed a lot of sleep, the child stayed up all night learning mathematics, and when asked why, he replied:
- My parents are rotting on the ground, and I feel sorry for them. They won’t be able to rest peacefully.
That was heart.
The heart placed in magic, the heart of compassion, the heart the gods held.
When he left that mountain, Ryuuken decided to take the boy as his disciple. He named him Zernix, meaning ‘enlightenment.’
Zernix was a child full of curiosity and a desire for exploration, and he talked a lot, loving to debate mathematics with Ryuuken all night long.
“Those were days when I learned more than I taught. I learned not just mathematics, but this world.”
Zernix’s growth was a marvel in itself, and the heart and wisdom he possessed represented the possibilities of this world.
In the days spent with that child, Ryuuken learned what happiness was.
He vaguely understood the heart of the gods when they created this world.
“I gradually began to understand what you intended to teach us by creating the theory of mathematics.”
After ten years, Zernix reached the same level as Ryuuken, a Great Archmage.
He wielded eight attributes freely, possessing a power truly like that of the Black Sun, Lord Karenden.
Before becoming so, that child was Ryuuken’s pride and a treasure beyond compare in this world.
- Master, why do you not ascend to the position of a Sage? I cannot accept being of the same rank as you.
The child found it strange that Ryuuken could not cross the threshold of a Sage.
From a certain point, he seemed to feel guilty that Ryuuken was stagnant at the level of a Great Archmage because he couldn’t pursue his own research due to teaching him.
- Master, I wish to leave your side for a while. I will return after attaining the Truth.
As his heart gradually darkened and impatience grew intense in all matters, one day Zernix left a short letter and departed.
“After that child left, I had much time to ponder, lost in longing. As you know, that was the moment I realized the Truth.”
A dry swallow burned in Rain’s throat.
What is it? What is it?
I want to know. What is the Truth?
Ryuuken soon spoke of the Truth, and while Rain absorbed that realization blankly, he began a tale of sorrow.
“But the day I could tell that child of my realization never came.”
The Water Dragon Yeriserica conveyed that Zernix had become obsessed with the abyss, harming hundreds of lives and offering them as sacrifices to ancient kings.
He had made a pact with the abyss to gain wisdom, and his soul had become corrupted.
The power he received from the kings was immense, and three blue true dragons had already died, it was said.
Upon receiving that news, Ryuuken sat alone all day. He sat blankly until his old friend Osarius came to find him.
- Everything is my fault. I should have expressed it in words. That I am no longer bound by the Truth, that a wizard’s rank doesn't matter much.
That now it would be enough if I could just live, live for a long, long time, and see you have children and ascend to the Truth yourself.
I should have always said that, but seeing me always dedicated to research, that child suffered from guilt and became like this.
- The Water Dragon conveyed Lord Karenden’s will. She said you have already awakened to the Truth, and to open this treasure of wisdom to confirm it.
The treasure of wisdom was a blessing from the World Tree that allowed one to know the knowledge most needed by that person.
It was said to have the power to clearly complete wisdom that had only vague forms.
Ryuuken did not use that treasure to know the Truth. What he wished for then was the power to give Zernix peace…
The power to nullify all the magic of his disciple, who had reached the pinnacle of magic through the abyss, and to grant them time for a slow conversation.
That desperate wish, manifested as power, was Bell Quirias.
Not long after embarking on a journey with Osarius, he was able to meet Zernix.
Only three years had passed, but the disciple had become a completely different person.
His once extremely lively personality had transformed into merely arrogant and presumptuous.
The scent of blood was deeply ingrained in the mana itself, which once had an innocent quality.
- Ah, Master. You’ve come. I was planning to visit you anyway, but the dragons kept bothering me, so I’m a little late, hahahat.
Zernix said there was no need to know the Truth, which had been disturbed by <The Ones Who Came>.
He claimed that the knowledge of the ancient kings was the unchanging Truth, and he would teach Ryuuken that power, telling him to reign as the absolute ruler of this world.
He also said he would wholeheartedly help with that. He also said that the gods never gave him wisdom, no matter how much he sought and prayed.
- Do you know what you’ve done? You killed people! Dragons who protect this world, and the heart of a master who cherished you so much!
When Osarius scolded him, Zernix told him to shut up and immediately used magic.
With intelligence that freely wielded the eight elemental runes, combined with the essence of black magic, its destructive power and speed were beyond description.
With one spell, providence collapsed, and the earth was overturned. Tears fell from Ryuuken's eyes, who had been speechless since their reunion.
- It’s all my fault.
At that very moment, a ripple of pure blood covered the world, and the power of Bell Quirias interfered with providence.
‘That.’
Zernix, whose magic and half his body had been blown into another world in an instant, blinked in disbelief.
‘The true power of Bell Quirias…?’
He began to pour out curses, citing that Ryuuken had harmed him, and that he had possessed such power but had not taught him.
‘He blew away a dimension, the dimension itself. Was it combined with spacetime magic? What terrifying power is this?’
No matter what he tried to say, it was buried by the curses, and no conversation took place.
The abyss had already corrupted not only his soul but his physical body as well.
There was no trace of the innocent, lovable boy who had dug the ground himself because he pitied his dead parents.
To protect the heart of that former disciple was to destroy the body of this disciple now.
“The day I stained these hands with my disciple’s blood, the Truth as good as left my side. I am a sinner.”
“…”
“Before I died, that is, just before my soul came here, Zernix sought me out. He seemed to have been revived by the power of the abyss.”
At that time, Ryuuken could not harm Zernix.
Ryuuken, who had lived a lifetime in deep sorrow, could not harm his disciple, who appeared in his youthful form, a second time.
“I failed to give him proper guidance, so this time I should have given him peace, but I accomplished nothing correctly.”
“…”
“That child’s soul will continue to be trapped in the abyss, groaning in pain, and through that child, many in the world will be caught in suffering. I am a sinful man.”
At first, Rain had only wanted to obtain information about the Truth, but now only the pain of shared suffering deeply pierced his heart.
He could understand Ryuuken’s feelings.
He could recognize Ryuuken’s sorrow.
His disgust or hatred for Zernix hadn’t dulled, but at this moment, he sympathized with Ryuuken’s pain.
Now he understood. Why, every time he read Ryuuken’s memories, only a deep sadness flowed through him.
“I, too, have failed.”
After a brief silence, Karenden spoke those words.
“There is something I wish to do on a day that cannot be confirmed now. I will use your descendant for that task. I promise you. That child will bestow peace upon your child.”
“…?”
“That is my apology for my failure, and the only comfort I can offer you.”
Ryuuken, who had been speaking his mind with his head bowed, briefly raised his face, then with tears in his eyes and a trembling voice, replied.
“Thank you.”
As if that alone was the lingering regret of his life, Ryuuken’s form blurred, then scattered into particles of light and vanished.
That tear-stained expression was so, so familiar that Rain bowed his head in solemnity.
Because when he heard that Tureina had entered Mirngadia’s soul, he too had shed such tears.
For a very brief moment, he closed his eyes and clasped his hands in prayer.
May Ryuuken, at this moment a thousand years ago, have received the same comfort in his heart that he had felt then.
Until Karenden looked straight at Rain and said this.
“Do you understand now?”