Chapter 115
The battle began.
Ferda drew a magic circle over his hand.
Three magic circles materialized, suspended at regular intervals.
“Lightning Bolt.”
What he fired was a lightning projectile.
The element, boasting overwhelming speed, shot from Ferda’s gesture and flew toward Lucy.
“A shallow trick.”
Lucy was a seasoned witch who had fought in countless battles.
Predicting that Ferda would use Lightning Bolt, she blocked its path with vines.
Bang!
An arrow flying along its trajectory struck her head-on.
Yet that was not the end.
“Oh?”
Although she had blocked Lightning Bolt, masses of mana spheres with physical substance spread out from within.
They scattered and enveloped Lucy.
“An interesting trick.”
Lucy did not dodge.
The spheres cruelly pierced her body, but she did not even blink.
“To draw three spells without assistance and even know how to apply them…”
The technique Ferda had displayed was enough to surprise Lucy.
By the time someone with a Blue Circle displayed such skill, they had usually reached the fifth circle.
“You only borrowed the speed attribute required for Lightning Bolt. You put small spheres inside a giant one. I know there must be a magic circle for creating that, but……”
She snapped her fingers as though she had realized something.
“Don’t tell me you made it by hand?”
“You’re awfully talkative, Pavilion Master.”
“Doesn’t that mean I have plenty of leisure?”
“That’s true.”
A painfully accurate remark.
A black explosion erupted beneath Lucy, twisting the space around her.
Darkness, the most powerful of all existing elements.
Dark Bolt had materialized beneath her.
The head that had been pierced was completely shattered by Dark Bolt, and the Lucy Filiaz visible to the naked eye died instantly.
-Hehehe, impressive.
The voice that echoed throughout the garden belonged to Lucy Filiaz.
The body that should have lost all vitality moved like a broken doll, then took a step.
At that moment, the ruined flesh returned to normal as though nothing had happened.
“Using Barbatos’s shadow arts to catch your opponent off guard. A good strategy, but it lacks a little depth, dear.”
“You’re the one looking for depth?”
It was hardly something she could say after attacking a mere fourth-circle mage and forcing him into a fight.
Instead of answering, Lucy merely smiled as though she were enjoying herself.
“Go on, struggle to defeat this girl.”
Lucy attacked Ferda by sending thorny tentacles at him, while Ferda, as a mage, charged at her using various spells and methods.
Ferda already knew.
There was no way he could defeat Lucy.
Even his sense that they were fairly evenly matched was something Lucy had carefully adjusted to make him believe she only slightly outclassed him.
“At this rate, this will never end.”
Lucy let out a long yawn as though she were bored.
“It seems you haven’t properly felt this girl’s true intentions, so I shall say it once more.”
Lucy’s energy burst forth with force.
“If you lose here, I shall violate your fiancée.”
“You crazy bitch……”
A curse burst from his mouth.
Lucy smiled in satisfaction at the sight of Ferda losing his composure.
“Dear, do you know what it means for a woman to violate another woman? It’s on an entirely different level from a man. I can turn her into a slave to pleasure in an instant. How about doing that to the dragon?”
Whether her words were true or not no longer mattered to Ferda.
He could not endure the insults coming from that mouth.
Ferda changed his mind.
He decided to fight even if it meant exhausting all his mana.
Yet even then, Ferda could not defeat her.
Even if he had killed Lucy once before, it was like striking a rock with a raw egg.
Ferda already knew what her objective was.
‘Forcing out his trump card.’
Every mage had a secret weapon.
Whether it was fleeing, landing a decisive blow, or even taking the enemy down with them.
Sometimes, there were secrets they kept hidden even if it meant losing their lives.
Lucy was trying to draw out precisely such a weapon.
She was breaking down Ferda’s convictions and reason, luring him into showing her everything he had.
And even though Ferda knew that, he had no choice but to endure it.
He could not take Lucy’s threat lightly.
Even if it was a joke, if Ferda did not show his true feelings, that joke would become reality.
That was what witches were like.
Ferda poured everything he had into the fight, but in the end, he was on the verge of exhausting his mana.
“Is that all?”
Lucy’s veil was torn, and she had lost one eye.
Although she was a complete mess, she returned to normal after taking a single step.
Ferda asked her while breathing heavily.
“Are you satisfied?”
“Satisfied? Did this girl go to such lengths merely to be satisfied?”
Lucy sneered.
“I went to such lengths to explain, yet it’s truly regrettable that my sincerity hasn’t gotten through. Waldrova is indeed fated to become miserable.”
Don’t mention my fiancée’s name with that mouth.
Ferda wanted to say that, but he could not.
He had fought this hard, yet all he felt was helplessness. If she was going to be toyed with by someone else, how could he save her?
You can’t save anyone.
Then show her who you are.
A circuit began to turn within Ferda’s chest.
A sweet voice whispered.
Show her your true self.
“Shut up.”
Ferda resisted the voice.
Yet it tried to creep into his heart through the cracks in his helplessness.
Once again, the pleasure of being consumed by hatred tried to ravish Ferda.
Ferda made his choice faster than ever.
‘Rather than submit,’
Ferda spread out a magic circle.
‘I would rather die.’
It was aimed at his own chest.
“Dark Bolt.”
A black sphere flew toward his heart.
Whoom!
Yet what he heard was the sound of something slicing through empty air.
Ferda’s wrist was pointed toward the sky, and a small hand was gripping it.
“……I cannot understand what you are doing.”
A black-haired girl with red eyes looked at him in bewilderment.
Her eyes were the color of ruby stone, and a faint scent of lilacs drifted from her.
It was the Pavilion Master’s face, one that ordinary men would never see even once.
Ferda wondered why he was able to see that face.
A black veil fluttered behind her back.
Dark Bolt had merely grazed her head.
Ferda looked into her eyes and asked,
“Are you satisfied now, Pavilion Master?”
Ferda glared fiercely at her.
Driven to the brink by mana exhaustion and mental resistance, he could no longer control his expression.
“I am truly satisfied with that expression.”
She smiled maturely with a child’s face.
She placed her right hand on Ferda’s chest.
Something flowed in through his heart.
The exhaustion that had been causing his migraine gradually faded.
She filled him with enough mana to restore Ferda’s mind to normal.
“I’m sorry for forcing you into a fight you didn’t want. But this girl needed to test you, dear.”
“What test?”
“What’s inside.”
She pointed at Ferda’s heart.
“Didn’t you say these two eyes can see many things?”
“That’s right.”
“As it happens, these eyes can see what makes up your mana. But since it is an unremarkable power, I usually pay it no attention. You are the one who shattered that assumption.”
“What do you mean, there’s something in my heart?”
“Something alien.”
“Something alien?”
“Something that doesn’t suit the you of today.”
She added in a particularly serious tone,
“But without a doubt, it is something created by you. Something that can never coexist with those of us who possess Red Circles.”
“Was that why you provoked me?”
“Yes. I needed to drive you to the brink before you became aware of the reason.”
It was a gesture indicating that she had no other particular intentions.
Indeed, what could Lucy possibly want from Ferda?
Lucy Filiaz.
She was the master of the Rose Pavilion, the Big Sister of all witches, and the mage with the greatest power.
At the same time, she was an authority on the Red Circle.
For now, that alone was enough to make the situation understandable.
“So, dear, can you tell me what it is?”
Ferda found it difficult to open his mouth.
Even though he knew there was no point in hiding it after being caught in her scheme.
Because it was Ferda’s shameful secret.
“Don’t tremble. Tell me. Aren’t we practically husband and wife already?”
“……What?”
Ferda’s expression turned genuinely grim.
Lucy grinned at the sight.
“Hahaha! Since you removed my veil, wouldn’t that make you the groom who saw his bride’s face?”
“Don’t talk nonsense.”
“You’re so much fun to tease. You have a cute side.”
She covered her laughing mouth with one hand.
Perhaps because of that, her crescent-shaped eyes gleamed seductively.
“Now that I’ve lightened the mood with a joke, answer me.”
Ferda was annoyed, but the pressure from before was gone.
As she had said, the mood had relaxed.
“This is……”
Having killed an enemy,
having killed family,
having killed his fiancée,
“My anger.”
It felt as though he had become a penitent confessing his own sins.
Lucy quietly looked at Ferda after hearing his answer.
“Think again.”
Yet her answer was beyond anything Ferda had expected.
“Why?”
“Why do you think? Because it isn’t your anger.”
No, it was anger.
Considering when he had first heard the voice, that had to be true.
When Ruri had been threatened and forced to submit,
and when he had nearly killed his father, Erembald Rosnova, with his own hands.
If that was not anger, then what was it?
“Think again. There must be something that made you mistake it for anger.”
Hearing those words, Ferda went back through his memories.
He focused his senses like someone discarding an answer he had already decided on and searching for a new one.
He focused on the moment in his dream when he had tried to kill Waldrova.
Ferda asked himself,
‘Was what I felt then really anger?’
No.
It wasn’t.
What he had gained by killing her was emptiness.
It was the emotion that had sent him back into the past.
Then was it emptiness? He considered the possibility, but that was not the answer either.
Following that clue, Ferda continued toward the answer.
Then something astonishing happened.
The thing he could never quite grasp, no matter how hard he tried to see it, gradually began to take shape.
This emotion had existed before his love for her.
It faintly asserted its existence every time his heart beat.
At last, Ferda called it by its proper name.
“Regret.”
Yes. It was regret.
The voice of unease was the regret Ferda carried within him.
The ashes left behind after everything on earth had been burned away.
Those ashes had settled in one place within his heart.
“So that’s what it is.”
Ferda could not ask what she meant.
Before he could, Lucy moved.
“Was that love for her ultimately created through regret as well?”
Ferda nodded.
“I know. It’s disgusting.”
“Hmm?”
Lucy raised one eyebrow and stared intently at Ferda.
“I don’t know what you’ve misunderstood, but this girl does not find it disgusting, dear.”
“Your tone didn’t sound that way.”
“That was your misunderstanding. Why would I find it disgusting? If you had never possessed such feelings, do you think you could have met Waldrova?”
Ferda could answer immediately.
Absolutely not.
Ferda had only come to know Waldrova properly after killing her.
Before that, he had condemned her as an evil dragon who deserved to die.
During the campaign, he had cheered that the age of dragons would end with their deaths and the age of humans would begin.
He had never once listened to that voice, but at this moment, it seemed to ring in his ears with brutal vividness.
“Waldrova is truly a pitiful woman. The good dare not meet her, and she was surrounded by people trying to use her. She has truly been unlucky with people.”
“……”
“Besides, she is needlessly timid. The embodiment of fire and power. Even though she possessed the strength to tear apart every monster descending on the Far East, she never once asserted her authority, so she brought trouble upon herself.”
Waldrova had never once lorded over anyone.
The aristocratic politics of the present was filled with people who knew that she protected the Far East out of guilt and exploited that fact.
Her refusal to assert her authority or claim what was hers made her look like a coward afraid of backlash.
“She isn’t timid.”
Ferda contradicted her almost immediately.
“If she isn’t timid, then what is she?”
“She acts that way because she is stronger than anyone.”
To Ferda, it was the opposite of fear.
He had once been the worst mage on the continent.
The reason he had been able to become that was not merely his desire for revenge.
Whenever he prepared for an endless cycle of revenge, he prepared for ambushes every time.
He gave up sleep, surrounded himself with barriers, and spent his days plagued by paranoia.
He was a demon of revenge, but he was also a coward.
He needed a surefire means of victory, and without one, he would not hesitate to resort to cowardly methods.
That was why Ferda knew.
If she had been a coward, she would have lorded over someone.
She would have shattered even the sky above her head to do so.
Lucy had been watching him quietly before she opened her mouth.
“Head.”
“?”
“Hold your head out here.”
Ferda hesitated, then held his head out toward her.
Lucy rose onto her tiptoes and tried to place her hand on top of Ferda’s head.
“Hmm, even this isn’t enough. I suppose it can’t be helped.”
Lucy grabbed Ferda’s body and pulled his head into her arms.
She began stroking him as though she were embracing a child.
“There, there.”
“What is this……”
“Shh, be quiet. It would be a shame to ruin the mood.”
Ferda could not even ask what this one-sided action meant.
“Dear, you amuse this girl. It has been a long time since I felt such fresh youth while speaking with a man.”
After enjoying it for about five minutes, she finally let go of his head.
“Isn’t it only right to reward a good child?”
Lucy looked up at him, her expression filled with delight.
“Those two emotions you possess will instead become a blessing.”
The story continues off the page
The Last Dance Before Midnight
A masked dragon asks the lanternwright for one slow dance