Chapter 70
“…….”
His throbbing body felt as if he had caught a cold. Reichen reached out and checked his own temperature.
The temperature he confirmed through mana was within the normal range.
So there was nothing wrong with his body at all.
‘Then is it my heart?’
He did not want to give meaning to something as abstract as the heart. Yet he could not deny that these tangled emotions were affecting his body.
He washed up neatly and checked the time.
By the window, the clock showed 8 a.m.
If he had slept three hours longer than usual, his condition really was not good.
“…….”
The flowerpot on the windowsill naturally came into view as he looked at the clock.
The Plinea flower, stripped of its magic, had drooped into a dull gray.
Both its beauty and its meaning were gone.
The flower language of the Plinea is ‘protected love.’
Its death stirred yet another wave deep in Reichen’s chest.
Because he had not been able to protect it.
Putting on a robe, Reichen left the room to pay his respects and headed to Gellerwind.
An oval magic tower.
Since higher-ranking mages lived on higher floors, people looked like ants whenever Reichen leaned over the railing.
The magic tower was so huge that clouds sometimes passed through its corridors.
In the open center were platforms that moved on their own.
Some called them ‘elevators,’ while others named them the ‘central walkway.’
The reason was simple.
The different backgrounds of the countless mages in the tower.
Mages who graduated from the academy, and mages who entered through recommendation without graduating.
They were all sorts, and there was also a subtle tendency to exclude one another among them.
The academy was conservative.
Recommended hiring was radical.
They were often sorted that simply.
But if you actually looked inside, you learned that it could not be defined by such a simple dichotomy.
Mages were that difficult and twisted.
Knock, knock.
“Master, it’s Reichen. I’ve come to pay my respects.”
After riding the central walkway to a higher floor, Reichen stood right before his master’s door.
Only great mages lived in this place.
So it was extremely rare to encounter anyone.
“Master?”
Was he still asleep?
He had to wipe him down, so he carefully went inside without making a sound.
His master sat in a rocking chair, quietly with his eyes closed.
Yes, quietly.
The mana-recycling rocking chair supported his master with not even the faintest movement.
“…….”
Standing calmly before him, Reichen carefully rested a finger on the wrinkled back of that hand.
The mana within that faint warmth lay quietly asleep.
He looked around.
The neatly arranged room, oddly lacking any human warmth, felt desolate.
His vision blurred.
As he struggled to steady the glasses slipping down his nose, what he kept repeating to himself was his master’s teaching.
‘Become a better person.’
‘Don’t become merely a mage, but a good person.’
Gellerwind’s end was lonely.
He may have had something he wanted to leave behind at the end.
Perhaps a single sentence, compressed from a lifetime, had risen up in the narrow gap between life and death.
But there was no one beside him.
A final moment with no one even to hear it.
“To teach me loneliness—.”
Even when he tried hard to sound calm, his voice trembled.
“Did you have to go so lonely?”
In the endlessly lonely scene, Gellerwind’s final words seemed to echo.
‘Become a better person than I was.’
“Hic…….”
His knees buckled and he collapsed.
Through the glasses that had slipped down, the tears gathered in his eyes fell one drop at a time.
“Guhk! Haa-!”
Words that never became words burst out in his breath along with his hot exhale.
You were my idol.
My teacher.
And my father.
The pinnacle of magic, Gellerwind Balchesta.
At the age of 87.
He closed his eyes in solitude.
* * *
The funeral was held.
The magic tower collectively halted its research and mourned the death of the great mage known as the Pinnacle.
His achievements in life were erected like stone tablets at the entrance to the magic tower.
Although the great archmage’s final farewell was indeed splendid, Reichen, standing at its center, felt empty.
‘What was the point of this?’
In the end, there had been no one beside his master.
Not even himself.
To Reichen, all of this felt like nothing more than their own satisfaction.
For the archmages, reassurance that their own end would be just as splendid.
For young mages, encouragement to strive harder and become such a great mage.
Yet Gellerwind himself had closed his eyes, believing all of it to be futile.
Even more so-.
“Mr. Reichen, Gellerwind’s death is indeed regrettable, but the matter of what he left behind is a reality.”
Because he had not left even a simple will, talk about the inheritance Gellerwind left behind was also cropping up often.
“Did he not possess quite a lot? Even the separate storage he owned in the tower—”
“Now, now, shouldn’t we first compose ourselves?”
Archmages, or the tower elders of comparable standing, all came sniffing around Gellerwind’s inheritance.
Because the funeral hall was so quiet, the movement of their eyes was even easier to see.
Those who realized there might be something to gain from death, those who sought their own profit from it, those who had prepared for death.
Those hidden in the shadows began to raise their heads one by one.
“…….”
There was hardly any time to grieve.
I had to protect my master’s legacy—.
“E-excuse me.”
At the entrance of the magic tower, now transformed into a funeral hall, a disheveled blonde head, dark circles around the eyes, and a small voice echoed against the walls.
Beloa of the Infinite Library.
She stood there hesitantly and carefully stepped inside.
“Th-that woman is—”
“Be, Beloa? She came out of the library?”
“Huh—! Those people!”
Beloa was not the only one.
Three more people followed after her.
Ophelia, wearing black from the third floor.
A man with hair standing on end and eyes that were especially large.
And a boy-looking man wearing a robe emblazoned with the crest of the Belden royal family.
“The Abyss Research Society!”
Even though all seven of them had not gathered.
They were academy graduates, yet heretics who had embraced outside civilization to an extreme degree and fused it with magic.
The Abyss Research Society, made even more legendary by having disappeared, had come.
“Did they bear a grudge against Lord Gellerwind?”
“He was the one who took the lead in dissolving them back then.”
“How dare you come here! Leave at once!”
Amid the mages’ shouts, Ophelia clicked her tongue.
“If we’d sent Beloa alone, she would have just come back without saying a word.”
“Haha, true. Still, it’s been a while, so it feels like a reunion, doesn’t it? Isn’t there even one of our research society’s members in the tower?”
The boyish man laughed and spoke lightly.
He looked far too young to be an imperial mage of the Belden Kingdom.
Beloa trotted over and stood before Reichen.
The moment she opened the book in her arms, brilliant golden mana filled the tower.
The scent of ink-soaked paper mixed with the old wood fragrance of the ancient stacks, calming the mind.
“At the request of Archmage Gellerwind Balchesta in life, I hereby deliver his will to his disciple, Reichen.”
Her small voice caused enormous ripples in the lake that was the magic tower, like a stone thrown into it.
“A will? A will, you say? Why do you have Gellerwind’s will!”
“Nonsense! It is clearly forged!”
Beloa did not answer the mages’ shouts.
Whether it was genuine or not, the direct disciple would know at a glance.
“This... why do you have this?”
“Because there is no one who can store documents as safely as I can.”
The hand receiving the will trembled violently.
Beloa of the Infinite Library.
The fact that she had come out of the library was, in itself, a major event.
“You came out of the library just to deliver this?”
“Several years ago, Archmage Gellerwind came to me and said this.”
“…….”
“That he was sorry.”
Reichen’s eyes shook violently. Not only him, but the others also wore troubled expressions.
Gellerwind, who had been more conservative than anyone and rejected new things?
“I have delivered it. May I pay my respects to the great mage and then leave?”
“Did you not resent your master?”
“......There were times I did.”
Within the calm answer lay a hardened resolve.
“Not anymore.”
With her gentle smile, Reichen nodded.
Why was that?
For some reason, he felt that only these people were truly mourning his master’s death.
“I haven’t forgiven him... but I can’t deny that he was a great mage.”
“Haha, he was a remarkable man.”
The other mages of the Abyss Research Society followed after them.
After they left, having offered their condolences, Reichen carefully read the will aloud.
“When the star that has spent its light sinks, a new era draws breath.”
“I... Gellerwind Balchesta now take my leave.”
“The curtain on the era rises.”
Tears welled up once more.
After his master’s death, the malicious ones who had been raising their heads withdrew.
“Young mages. Do not follow the old star.”
The end of an era.
And.
The birth of a new era.
* * *
That day was peaceful.
It was a little busy because the customers came in waves, but still, it went smoothly.
“That’s 300 million won.”
That is, right up until 300 million won in cash was about to be placed on my desk.
Reichen had come after a long time.
While I wondered what was going on, he continued his explanation in a flat tone.
“It’s the price on my life. The amount bounty hunters have put on me. Since I don’t go out much, it’s a bit low for my rank.”
“Ah, no—what?”
“Didn’t I promise you? That if I ever hurt Ms. Kim Dajeong, I’d give my life.”
He had said that.
I had also heard that things with Ms. Kim Dajeong hadn’t worked out.
But I hadn’t actually intended to take his life.
“Oh dear, Renea was in the middle of tuning her bow.”
That said, I had no intention of refusing 300 million.
The landlady had said the third floor was empty—maybe I should expand while I had the chance?
My office was so cramped that it sometimes looked like a loan shark’s office.
“Eh? Yours truly—?”
“Shut up.”
Kim hurriedly covered Renea’s mouth.
As expected, she was good at her job.
“May I ask you something?”
“Yes? Of course.”
“The reason you linked Ms. Kim Dajeong and me together—was it simply because we were close?”
The look in Reichen’s eyes as he stared at me was different from before.
Tap, tap, I drummed my fingers on the desk and shook my head.
“How could I? I’m the head of a matchmaking agency. My job is to match compatible people, and within the conditions you wanted, I found the most suitable person.”
“…….”
“Why? Was that uncomfortable?”
“Not at all.”
I opened the drawer, took out the heptagram, and held it out to him.
“Here you are. I was wondering if you were planning to come pick it up.”
Reichen stared at the heptagram on the desk, then slowly bowed his head and made a request.
“Could you hire me as an employee?”
“...Pardon?”
It was such an abrupt request.
But as if he had prepared the line in advance, he recited his conditions without hesitation.
“The pay is fine. My master left me an inheritance. However, I want to work here for the sake of learning.”
“A-all of a sudden?”
“My master told me this. Not to become a great mage, but to become a good person.”
He pushed the heptagram back toward me and made an earnest request.
“I want to learn about people here.”
* * *
Kim Dajeong was watering the flowerpot.
The special time had passed, and everyday life had returned.
As always, the smile on her lips was not extravagant, but it showed contentment.
Yet every so often, that smile would disappear.
Today was the same.
Smiling as she watered it, the corners of her mouth slowly drooped.
Just as she was about to drink coffee to ease the bitterness, a customer arrived.
“Welcome—.”
A sturdy build, angular glasses, green hair.
The man, holding a flowerpot containing a dead flower, asked cautiously.
“Can this flower be brought back to life?”
To make a flower bloom, you have to water it.
It must also be given sunlight and wind.
And you have to take your time, slowly and calmly.
The results of all those steps would not appear at once.
Even so, they were certainly necessary.
Today, Kim Dajeong began a love like a flower.
She would water it.
She would let it bask in the sunlight.
And let the wind blow too.
At first glance, those steps might seem meaningless.
If she waited slowly and calmly,
one day,
it would bloom.
The story continues off the page
Floaties for Everyone
Swim lesson at the water park, and she's demonstrating on you