Book 17 Chapter 34
Old Rulers,
Ancient Madness Summoning the Sea Wind (10)
“‘Know thyself’, ‘A bird breaks out of its shell’? Is this kind of thing a hint?”
When I asked Tajirmum what I needed to do to awaken my power, that was the answer I got.
And half a day had already passed!
The water level, which had reached my ankles, felt slightly higher. If I couldn't break out of this space within half a month, would this water overflow and submerge me?
“Don't you know anything?”
“Gyung?”
“Argh, this Sbal punk is still truly useless.”
“Kyugyugyugyugyung!”
“How dare you talk back to your master. I am the master, and you are the servant.”
Fride, who had been engraving each sacred word of the Psalm of Creation into his eyes with desperate concentration, closed his eyes with a sigh and then burst out.
“Hey, aren't you going to take this seriously? Outside must be absolute chaos right now, and you're just chatting with Sbal all day!”
It had been so long since Fride had gotten this seriously angry (for the first time since he suggested switching Pipi and Sbal) that Rin clamped his mouth shut in a straight line.
“I really don't know, so what can I do…?”
Was his mind too nervously strained due to the pressing time limit? Fride, feeling somewhat sorry for Rin's reaction, said with a sigh.
“Right, it's not like you, who hasn't even learned how to communicate with spirits, would immediately understand just by hearing those words. Kneel down and sit.”
“?”
“Communication with spirits is communication with yourself. It's the mindset of knowing your own shortcomings, honestly facing your own ugliness, and seeking grace to compensate for it. You must abandon arrogance and possess the humility of knowing that everything was received freely from creation.”
Was Fride so brazen because he honestly faced that? He didn't utter that wordplay. Fride's mood was too serious.
“Now, close your two eyes. Instead, open the eyes of your heart. I will open that path for you.”
Suddenly, the path to enlightenment opened.
Is this a mental image (心狀)?
On the other side, a cliff path leading to light had appeared. A path where one misstep would lead to a fall from which one could never return!
“Now, you must face yourself. It's that thought that makes you step forward.”
Facing myself? Confronting my own shortcomings?
‘Had I ever been lacking?’
Never.
As someone aiming to be [The Strongest Mage], there was nothing lacking. Hadn't he easily defeated all enemies until now?
‘It was too easy for me, so I did it naturally, and then there were tons of people calling me a genius when they saw it.’
Everything was too easy. Could it be that life was so easy that he ended up with a goal like [The Strongest Mage]?
Woah!
Far from moving forward, his foot veered outwards from the path, and he nearly plunged to his death!
‘Crazy!’
But his eyes were still closed, and the cliff path remained. Rin struggled and finally managed to climb back onto the cliff path.
- You, be grateful. You would have died then if it weren't for Sbal.
Right, there had been times when he was lacking.
At most, that one time?
Then his foot started excitedly tap-dancing on its own again, threatening to step off the cliff!
‘No! There were several times!’
Moments when he would have been in danger without Sbal's power… like when he defeated the first [Seven Souls], and, well, a few other times…
Then, tap-dancing stopped! Master!
Instead, his next step firmly landed on the narrow, precarious ground of the cliff path.
‘Right, at some point, it became a power I used so naturally that I forgot how powerful and useful it was.’
But wasn't that like a reward I received for freeing that guy from Svalargh?
‘Then it's mine because I'm awesome, right?’
Then rhythms and melodies surged through his body again, and his foot performed a preparatory movement for tap-dancing! Crazy Master! Rin changed his mind again.
‘Not a reward.’
Tap-dancing stopped!
You crazy master!
‘What was I doing that led me to subjugate Svalargh? To put hanboks on the school's freeloaders.’
Why did I do that?
It was to please Dean Atlante.
For an orphan who originally couldn't afford even one hanbok in his entire life, where did such ability come from?
- You gave Rin an opportunity. An opportunity to live a new life.
Everything changed with the meeting with the Dean.
The world itself had changed.
And if that meeting, and all those subsequent meetings, were all part of the providence of creation… then is the power I wield truly under 'the dominion of the providence of creation'?
‘If so, then knowing myself, and breaking out of the shell… means acknowledging that what I had taken for granted all this time wasn't natural but rather received through the grace of providence?’
He absolutely did not want to admit it because of the last shred of pride remaining, but he had no choice but to admit it.
This realization…!
This very mindset…!
Weren't these the very things he always spoke of during those cherished days, all those years accompanying the Dean in the magic tower?
- The master of magic chose Rin.
- A heart that knows how to give freely because it received freely, that is the academic tradition of our school.
- When we meet again, I hope Rin will have become an adult who can joyfully share the light of magic with someone.
In the process of tracing back his memories, Rin's feet advanced along the cliff path with sure and confident strides.
One step, one step!
And so, he finally reached the threshold of light.
‘I see. My life, my existence… couldn't have gotten this far without grace.’
Was the reason Fride and Lyrsta were so sad when they saw the powerless and sick because they knew this…?
Their power…
Their ability…!
Was it because they had received it in place of such people, received it to protect and help them, and the guilt came from not being able to fulfill that calling?
‘If all encounters are under the order of that providence, then the encounter with Sbal is also one of the graces I received.’
No, I already knew how useful Sbal was to me. I just lacked the courage to acknowledge, and express… that feeling.
“Gyung, Kyugyugyung!”
The moment Sbal's urgent cry was heard, the cliff path ended, and the mental image Fride had opened vanished.
The water level was already up to his chin!
In that mental space, the flow of time had been several times faster.
‘If it's risen to my chin, then outside, two days have already passed, and the last day must be beginning.’
At that moment, Rin felt the tremor of power surging from his entire body, no, from the depths of his soul, as if exploding.
“This power, it's not mine… it was tied to my soul… Sbal, isn't it yours?”
That power was transmitted to Sbal along an invisible spiritual connection.
Then what a tragedy!
Cracks began to appear in Sbal's body. Each of its snowflakes, each of its ice crystals, started to crack, and then it split in half!
“!!!”
What is it? What? Did I do something wrong? Was this realization mistaken? Is that why Sbal vanished now? No, that, no…!
“Kyooong!”
But amidst the blue and brilliant scattering of ice crystals, from within that micro-universe's winter, it appeared.
Asrba.
The meaning of that name, personally given by the Black Sun Karenden, was none other than, One who endures winter! Its noble form was a dragon! The emergence of the first Ice Dragon, Asrba!
But it was only the size of a fist!
Too small to be called a dragon!
Most importantly, its skin, unlike other dragons covered in solid scales, was transparent hoarfrost!
‘Somehow, even without speaking, even without particularly saying anything, I feel like I can do it.’
The Osarius Rosary, materialized even in this spiritual space, elegantly rotated, weaving the flow of power.
Asrba receives it!
The lake, which had risen to his chin, surged sharply and rapidly froze!
“Kyugyu!”
The water surface stabilized into an ice sheet, easy to step on, and the surging iceberg pierced a hole straight through the spiritual space above.
This was, truly, the Master of Freezing!
Even Fride's condition, who had gradually started to struggle with reciting the Psalm of Creation due to the rising water level, rapidly stabilized!
‘With this, the debt for helping is repaid, Fride.’
Asrba rubbed its head against Rin's cheek as before, but what pain!
“Ouch! My flesh almost fell off!”
Rin immediately retaliated with a flick to the forehead!
But for some reason, his finger hurt as if it would break!
The hardness of ice can break a human finger.
“Kyoo-oong!”
Asrba's victorious flapping of its wings was extremely irritating, but for some reason, he felt several times more intimate with it than before.
‘Is it because I acknowledged myself, my heart?’
He would never, ever utter that sincerity aloud in his life, but still, it must have completed this bond.
“Then Fride, ‘we’ will go first.”
This was the first time Rin had used the pronoun 'we', linking Sbal and himself!
Since Sbal was always an entity that naturally followed him wherever he went, for the boy, there had always only been the singular pronoun 'I'.
But Rin was unaware of the change within himself. Only Fride, who was reciting the Psalm of Creation with the utmost concentration, couldn't erase the smile from his lips.
“Alright, you two go ahead. I'll follow soon.”