Chapter 11
The Empire is hell.
If you asked the people living in the Empire now, every single one of them would answer that way.
The Emperor was dying, and the imperial family was neglecting the people as they fought to claim the next throne.
The lords relentlessly exploited their people for their own luxuries and ambitions, driving them into wars.
Unable to endure it any longer, the people fled their homelands.
Some became fugitives, some were killed by monsters, and some became bandits.
They had only struggled to survive, yet the people's lives became even more difficult and painful.
If this wasn't hell, then what was?
“Please save us!! Please, save us!!!”
“Please…please don't lay a hand on this child.”
“Khehehe! I'll think about it depending on how you behave!”
Under cover of night, this mother and daughter fled their homeland.
They fled to a territory where they could escape exploitation and live like human beings, however slightly, but what awaited them was neither a guard nor a monster—it was a bandit.
“Huh?…Who are you!?”
The bandit, excited at the prospect of attacking the mother and daughter and having some fun for the first time in a while, turned around when he felt a gaze from behind.
There stood someone in a brown robe, holding a red staff.
“I don't know who you are, but if you don't want to die, mind your own business and get lost!”
The bandit drew his sword and shouted.
Then a voice that chilled to the bone came from within the robe, where no face could be seen.
“You should retreat if you don't want to die.”
Ignoring the warning, the bandit charged.
The rest happened in an instant.
Whoosh!
“Graaagh!!!!”
Before he could even reach the brown robe, the bandit was engulfed in flames.
The flames that burst forth reduced the bandit's body to dust without leaving even ashes, and the world fell silent once more.
“I told you to retreat…”
The mage who had used the flames headed toward the mother and daughter.
At that moment, a gust of wind blew off the brown robe, revealing an elf with astonishingly beautiful, short red hair streaming in the wind.
The little girl was struck speechless by the most beautiful sight she had ever seen, forgetting that she had nearly died.
“Little one, are you all right?”
Only when the red-haired elf mage approached did the little girl come to her senses and answer.
Bowing repeatedly, as her mother had taught her, the little girl shouted.
“Thank you for saving us!! Mage!!”
“Thank your mother. Her desperate plea summoned the spirits, allowing me to help you.”
“Yes! Thank you, Mom!!”
“Truly…truly! Thank you for helping us, Mage.”
“There's no need. I only did what anyone should have done.”
Her name was 『Sharen Lillicia』.
She was a half-elf mage traveling throughout the Empire.
The reason she traveled throughout the Empire was to help people.
Elves generally did not interfere in human affairs.
The elven race lived either in their forests or in mage towers, learning magic.
But she could not remain still.
She could not simply watch her father's world, the Empire, collapse while its people suffered.
In the end, she broke her promise to her teacher and ventured into the human world.
She had entered the human world to use her abilities as a mage to help people and stabilize the Empire, but what she saw was humanity's ‘endless greed’.
“Um…if you don't mind me asking, where are you headed, Mage?”
“I wonder. Where should I go…?”
She had traveled through countless territories in the east and west.
Some places welcomed her, while others rejected her.
But she did not let such things bother her and used her magic to help people.
She healed people, drove off monsters, and made the land fertile.
When she helped people like that, the lords and nobles who ruled those places naturally came looking for her.
She was always ready to cooperate if it meant helping people.
But they wanted her to help not the ‘people’ but ‘themselves’.
They did not regard the people as fellow human beings and wanted her to use her magic solely for their own benefit.
In exchange, they offered her gold and silver treasures, and she left them, disappointed by their greed.
Even afterward, she continued traveling throughout the Empire and helping people.
Believing that somewhere there had to be someone with genuine goodwill who wanted to change the world, she continued traveling so she could lend that person's strength.
Minstrels sang of her, praising the way she traveled the world helping people.
They sang of the red-haired half-elf mage who traveled the world helping people.
Before long, people began calling her this name with respect and reverence.
『Red Mage Sharen』.
And so, ten years passed.
Ten years was a very short time in an elf's lifespan.
But in a human lifetime, it was enough time for a person's resolve to wear away.
After witnessing human greed for ten years, she came to understand her teacher's words and began to want to give up on humanity.
“Um…Mage…if you have nowhere to go, come with us!”
“With you?”
“Yes! We're heading south.”
“To the south? What's there?”
She had only traveled through the east and west.
As a result, she did not know much about the south and north.
At her words, the little girl shouted excitedly.
“The minstrels told us. They say there's a paradise in the south.”
“A paradise?”
Sharen did not believe the little girl.
Minstrels' rumors were almost always exaggerated.
“They say there's an incredibly kind and great lord there. He gives his subjects lots of money, welcomes everyone who flees to his territory, and also…Ah! They say he even leaped into the sea himself to save his subjects in a storm.”
“He jumped into the sea during a storm?”
Sharen was a little surprised by the little girl's words.
She had heard stories of lords who had fought dragons or killed a hundred bandits alone.
But this was the first time she had heard of a lord who had jumped into the sea himself to save his subjects.
“The people there are kind too, and they all join forces to drive off bandits and live in peace. We're heading there!”
“So there really is a place like that…”
A place where the lord protected his subjects and the people joined forces to create peace.
That was the world she had dreamed of.
But she found it difficult to believe.
She had placed her faith in countless songs sung by minstrels and traveled to many territories.
But her faith had always let her down.
“If you have nowhere to go, come with us too, Mage!!”
Seeming to sense her hesitation, the girl clung to her and spoke.
Seeing those pure, clear eyes, Sharen was overcome by sadness.
She, too, had once held hope for the world.
But now she had lost faith in everything and had even hesitated to save this mother and daughter.
How had it come to this?
Why had she become this way?
Was the human world's descent into misery truly an inevitable course of things, just as her teacher had said?
If so, at the very least…
At the very least, Sharen thought she had to protect this girl.
If she traveled with them, the girl would not come to harm.
And if the territory called paradise was merely a false rumor, she might at least be able to take them to her mage tower and save them.
“All right…let's go together.”
“Yes! Mom! The Mage is coming with us too!!”
At her words, the girl happily ran to her mother.
Her mother, realizing that Sharen meant to protect them, thanked Sharen again and again.
And so, Sharen headed south, toward a part of the Empire she had never visited.
* * *
Sharen thus set out on a journey with the mother and daughter.
She learned their names as well.
The girl's name was 『Lyla』, and her mother's was 『Ayla』.
Sharen protected them as they headed south.
The journey was not easy.
Bandits came once every two days, and monsters such as goblins and slimes attacked them as well.
Sharen thought they would have died within a week if she had not been there, and felt glad she had decided to accompany them.
Two weeks passed as they traveled.
She began to sense something strange.
‘(The spirits…are happy.)’
The farther south they went, the more spirits she saw rejoicing.
Spirits were sensitive to human emotions.
And elves could sense the emotions of spirits.
This was also why she had left so many lords.
No matter how much the lords tried to hide their subjects' suffering and keep it out of sight, she could feel all of it through the spirits.
That was why she left, and that was why she traveled alone.
But now she could feel the spirits singing joyfully, like birds waking in the morning.
It had been a very long time since she had felt anything like this…
“Lady Sharen smiled. Did something good happen?”
“I smiled because the spirits are happy, Lyla.”
“The spirits? Oh! I guess they're happy because we've come too!!”
“Hehe, maybe so.”
Feeling the spirits' happiness for the first time in a long while, Sharen began to enjoy traveling with them.
It was a wondrous experience.
The farther south they went, the fewer bandits they encountered.
More and more joyful spirits appeared, and the monsters stopped attacking them.
And at last, they arrived at that place in the south.
“Wow!! We made it, Lady Sharen!!!”
“……”
Sharen would never forget that sight, not until the moment she died.
Across the vast land were countless people who had fled there, risking their lives and carrying hope.
There were warm hands reaching out to welcome them.
There were spirits flying through the blue sky, sensing the hope and joy the people felt.
That place truly was 『paradise』.
That day, one of the greatest mages in the Novarens Empire, the Red Mage 『Sharen』, arrived in Kron's territory.