Book 21 Chapter 21
211th Episode
To the Land of Decisive Battle!
The City of Beginnings and Ends, The Decisive Battle of Laptas (15)
“What…?”
Before the silence that instantly replaced the commotion that was about to destroy the entire horizon, Zernix’s pupils trembled.
‘In this one strike, I used 50% of my magic.’
And now, he absorbed it?
Took it into his body?
He’s truly incredible. But how can this be? It’s not a power that a human body can endure.
“Idiot! It’s going to explode from the inside and soon engulf the entire area!”
Lynn had no intention of leaving things as Zernix claimed.
‘If I disperse this entire abyss throughout my whole body’s magical energy channels and also send it to the [Curse Knot] to continuously combine with newly generated magic…’
It might be possible to suppress it from exploding immediately.
It might even be possible to calm it down until the [Main Filter, Minor Calculation, Bag Reversal] (Juyeoso-gyedaeban) is activated.
“Ugh…”
No more, not even stagnant blood emerged.
The abyss hardened everything necessary for metabolism – all the contents of his blood vessels… thick… viscous… cold… hot…
He would have already died if Sval hadn’t been emanating a cold aura from within his body to block that flow.
Lynn collapsed like a stick.
“Lynn─────!”
Rista rushed over.
She tried to catch him before he fell onto the sand, but her body wasn’t in perfect condition, and she was a beat too late.
Frede and Kies also ran over frantically, panting.
“Frede, quickly! Lynn, Lynn’s body is turning black! Heal him!”
She was already kneeling by his head, checking his condition.
But…
It was fast. Too fast.
This speed of abyss transference, the speed of healing and purification, could not keep up.
“Rista, the poison is too strong…”
It was too fast…
No words came to mind to express the certain and distinct despair that was approaching…
Frede, with great difficulty, stammered and opened her mouth… conveying only the truth.
“Even I can’t purify it… This… he might… die.”
Kies’s face turned pale, and his eyes trembled with despair.
‘Lynn, why…?’
For the past five years, he had seen Lynn think of countless possibilities in an instant and arrive at the most reasonable conclusion.
‘Such a choice…?’
Did he think that the lives of his fellow hero party members were far more precious than his own?
The boy chose.
Not the path where he lived, but the path where he saved his companions.
“…”
Kies’s hand, gripping the bowstring of the White Spear Palace, trembled madly.
“This… instead of me, give it to our dean…”
Lynn raised his hand.
The Osarius rosary resonated with its owner’s will.
Just as when he received it for free, the rosary flowed into a wave of light and was woven into the shape of a book.
The 『Osarius Bibon』 was no longer in its previous unfinished state.
The insights the boy had gained during his journey were also etched into words, making it complete and whole.
It had been refined into a form that anyone could learn.
“And this too… to Leonia…”
With trembling hands, he barely managed to take out the Archmage Hurk’s book from his pocket and the Super Sapphire from around his neck, placing them on top of the 『Osarius Bibon』.
“What are you talking about, Lynn! What in the world are you saying! Why would we deliver those?”
Rista shook her head wildly and shouted.
“You deliver them to the dean yourself. Yourself…! To Princess Leonia too… Kies, find Master Shuan! Quickly, bring him here!”
As Rista frantically shook her head, a warm sensation fell onto Lynn’s cheek, who was dying amidst the chilling cold that enveloped his entire body.
It was Rista’s tear drop.
That cry left lingering attachment to Lynn’s life.
It was a hope he had somewhat given up on, as it was a gamble, but he thought he had to cling to it.
“I don’t want to die…”
He coughed up stagnant blood, only a few drops emerging as everything had stiffened.
He barely moved his vocal cords.
Using the little air left in his lungs.
“I know, I’ll never let you die. Just bear with it a little longer. Frede is using her power right now. Kies will find Master Shuan soon.”
As Rista cried out distraught, Lynn pulled up his shirt with his blackening hand, revealing his chest.
[Main Filter, Minor Calculation, Bag Reversal] (主濾小計袋反).
This, inscribed as a main enemy near his heart, was the magic of immortality, a culmination of all his understandings to save Rista, developed together with Frede.
“No… so, I created… magic before…”
It was a magic that involved completely freezing the body to enter a forced dormant state, then healing the body completely through healing amplification spells and purifying sacred texts.
He initially devised it for himself, but later researched and developed it with Frede for Rista.
‘Of course, it’s still incomplete.’
Therefore, its success or failure was unknown.
He might never emerge from the dormant state.
But what other choice was there?
‘This might be the end…’
So, he wished he could have spoken honestly.
That this magic was made for her.
But he had neither the time nor the courage to say such words.
“Because I’ll come back…”
Instead, he spoke.
Instead, he promised.
In the face of an extreme gamble, with a probability of success approaching 0.1%.
“Make sure to win…”
The time left in this body… was already at its limit without further calculation.
Before it was too late, he activated the [Main Filter, Minor Calculation, Bag Reversal], and his body began to be covered in ice, starting from his toes.
Tears, Rista’s face shone transparently with tears as she tightly grasped Lynn’s hand.
“You promised, Lynn. We’ll meet again, right? You promised to come back, right?”
He always thought Rista was pretty when she smiled. But looking at her now, she seemed even prettier when she cried.
Later…
When they met again, when he emerged from his dormant state, he would tell her this thought he just had.
“Back then, the four of us, together… let’s go see the world. Okay…? I’ll be waiting by your side until you wake up…!”
Hey, you idiot…
Why are you giving that answer now…?
‘I don’t even have the strength to say this…’
The ice, with the cold of death, climbs, covering his body. Shins, thighs, pelvis, back, neck…
Lynn smiled weakly.
Was this how one smiled? Was he smiling now? Like that first time he met Rista in the magic tower.
“Yes, I promise.”
Most of the goodwill the boy had shown his companions until now stemmed from astonishing coincidences or misunderstandings.
But at this time, at this moment, the boy chose the lives of his companions, not his own.
There was no coincidence or misunderstanding here. There was only a certainty, like fate.
‘I’m surprised myself…’
The boy was certain that even if he were presented with the exact same situation, the exact same mathematical problem, countless times…
‘I would write down the same answer as now…’
With that, his consciousness plunged into the bitter cold.
A sense of powerlessness, as if being dragged into a void swamp without any resistance…
‘Ah, I don’t want to die…’
I want to hear Kies’s drunken ramblings one more time.
I want to smell Frede’s cigarette smoke one more time.
I want to be bothered by Link’s stammering and Nils’s nagging again.
‘Tureina… I still have so much magic to teach that tomboy.’
And, and… I want to go back to the magic tower with my senior disciple… and meet Gisela and the Wind Four and everyone again.
‘And Dean, if I could meet the Dean and give him this book… it would truly, truly be wonderful.’
And if I could be with Rista a little longer…
If I could complete this magic and give it to her…
If I could see what expression she would make then…
‘Darkness, in the darkness, I, isolated from everyone, now like this…’
Unable to see anything…
Unable to smell, unable to hear…
And finally, in the eternal darkness where he couldn’t even breathe… just as his consciousness was about to vanish…
“Gyuung!”
With that sound, a pure white light crossed his vision, and a tearfully warm sensation returned to his entire body. A snowflake was smiling before his eyes.
“Huh? What, Sval? Why are you in snowflake form? Are you, Sval?”
“Gyuung, it’s me.”
“Can you talk now?”
“Yes, I asked my master for one last favor.”
“You’re my master, what nonsense are you talking about? The abyss has made you lose your mind. So, idiot, I told you to fall back.”
“Kyuu…”
“Are you and I dead? Is this the entrance to heaven?”
“Lynn isn’t dead. I was protecting him. Until my master could find Lynn.”
[Main Filter, Minor Calculation, Bag Reversal] was originally an incomplete spell.
Instead of that spell, which protected the body from the abyss but not the soul, Sval burned his own body to protect Lynn’s soul.
Sval didn’t bother to explain that.
“I liked being with Lynn. Everything was fun from the moment Lynn gave me a name. Lynn gave me a second chance at life. So this time, I wanted to give Lynn a chance.”
“…What creepy stuff are you saying? Stop talking and let’s get out of here.”
“No. Lynn has to go through that door alone. From now on, you have to go alone.”
A frost storm pushed Lynn towards the door, and in the distance, Sval’s body began to scatter into countless snowflakes.
“The abyss preys on the host’s memories. But I’m a spirit by birth, so if I’m infested by the abyss, I instead disappear from the memories of others. I’m completely forgotten in this world.”
Lynn instinctively understood something.
That this was, farewell.
That if they parted here now, they would never, ever, forever meet again.
“Hey, don’t go. Hey, Sval! Hey! Aren’t you coming here?”
No matter how much he ran back, reaching out his hand, the frost storm was too strong, and the distance didn’t close.
‘No, it feels like it’s even getting further away.’
Even though it was a virtual space, perhaps because it was a space formed on snow, it was like an icy road… He ran so desperately and eventually fell.
In that pain…
Because of the tears that surged due to that pain… for the first time, the boy was able to be honest with his best friend.
“Me too, me too… I enjoyed being with you! It was so, so good! For five years…! So don’t go!”
It felt miserably, utterly heartbreaking.
Memories, fading away.
Five years with Sval, memories of the enemies they had faced together… the skirmish with Jurak Kepel or the decisive battle with that unknown wraith… as Sval’s existence was erased, they blurred with it.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t be honest all this time! Please, please don’t go…”
Even though he cried out so desperately.
Even though he wept and groaned so much.
Was the fact that the distance could never be reduced the wall of fate between them?
“Don’t, don’t go… leaving me alone here… I’m your master… you should listen to your master, shouldn’t you…!”
In that instant, Sval, with only a final handful of ice crystals remaining, smiled brightly and said.
“Lynn isn’t my master.”
“…?”
“You’re my most precious friend.”
With those words, Sval’s last act was to smile, a smile clearer and purer than any ice in the world.
Then… with a sound like a finger snap, or perhaps a staff striking the ground, Sval’s body completely scattered into frosty wind…
Suddenly, an impossibly dark and thick, yet strangely warm and comfortable mist seemed to envelop everything…
「Found you.」
All fantastic light and darkness…
Vanished…
Realistic senses returned to his entire body, and he suddenly felt the touch of someone grabbing his shoulder…
“Rain, are you okay?”
This was clearly his name, yet in a strange conscious clash where it wasn’t his name, tears flowed down his face for some reason.
What was it?
What was it that happened?
He felt like he had been talking to something incredibly precious… but no memory remained of whether it was truly precious or why he felt that way.
Soon, even such thoughts vanished.
Only the tears, which continued to flow down his cheeks no matter how much he wiped and cleaned them, endlessly and repeatedly, hinted at the lament of his soul.
“Oh, why am I like this…?”