Meaningless

“Stop making childish noises, and let’s talk about that man named Gokma now.”

Erika steered the conversation in a more constructive direction.

“You said he stopped the meteor Erdes summoned with his bare hands?”

“That’s right.”

“The spell you used seemed to be the pinnacle of Seventh-Circle magic….”

“First Impact, right.”

“If you went so far as to use that spell… you must have really lost your temper.”

“Weren’t we going to talk about Gokma? Why are we changing the subject?”

“In any case, among Seventh-Circle spells, it has the greatest firepower. To stop it with either physical strength or mana, you would need magic that surpassed the Seventh Circle….”

Just as Erika was about to mull it over, Ferda proposed a hypothesis.

“What if it wasn’t simply Gokma’s mana?”

“What do you mean?”

“King Heinkel gathered the power of every human being through Gamigin’s Legion and created a fortress. What if that power extended not only to King Heinkel, but to Gokma as well?”

“They gathered every human in the kingdom, so it must be powerful… but even so, stopping that attack should have been impossible.”

Erdes countered.

She seemed genuinely curious as well, and was extremely serious.

“Of course, mana created solely from the lives of the kingdom’s citizens wouldn’t be enough. However, thanks to King Heian’s rash decision to send an infiltrator, we learned one thing.”

“What is it?”

Ferda offered up a clue.

“There is something inside the castle that can allow someone to reach the Third Circle in one week.”

“The Third Circle in one week?!”

Breaking through even one circle in a week would have been astonishing, yet this involved building two more layers on top of it.

“Even with a Red Circle, creating one to that extent would be difficult. How could anyone possibly turn someone with no connection to magic into a Third-Circle mage?”

“Red Circles are based on emotions….”

Erika spoke as though she had guessed something.

“Don’t tell me they’re using trauma?”

“Trauma? What is that?”

“It was a creature we discovered in the Land of Demons. Its eyes make those who look at them recall memories of despair.”

“It only makes people relive memories—what’s so impressive about that?”

“If you actually experienced it, you wouldn’t be able to speak.”

Erdes didn’t seem to understand.

Like everyone else, she couldn’t know its destructive power without experiencing it herself.

“It’s not as though everyone develops one simply by despairing. I know better than anyone how Red Circles are made.”

Erdes, who hated demons, was an authority on black magic and Red Circles.

She had probably observed everything imaginable.

But she had only observed it. She had no experience of it.

Ferda had experienced that despair.

The horrible pain of reopening his own wounds, the feeling that continued without stopping even at its peak, was still vivid.

‘But as Erdes said, that alone isn’t enough.’

However, Ferda had seen one more thing.

“What if despair is used as a stepping stone?”

“A stepping stone?”

“To create a Red Circle, doesn’t one emotion have to become excessive or be focused on to that degree?”

“That’s right.”

“They’re tricking the negative emotion of despair into becoming the baseline in order to reach the threshold required to trigger a Red Circle.”

“Why would they do that?”

Ferda recalled the time he had explored a place called Gyeonghuigung with the adventurers.

He knew what the adventurer attacked by the trauma had done.

The male adventurer they found first had been despairing.

And the adventurer they found later had been…

“For the sake of the rapture that follows.”

He had clung to that mass, saying he would never let go again.

As if he were someone who had reclaimed a mother or wife he had lost long ago.

“You mean they’re turning into fanatics…?”

Erdes’s lips twitched.

But she couldn’t say one way or the other.

She wanted to say it was only theoretically possible, but now that an actual case had appeared, she couldn’t simply overlook it.

“Even if a Red Circle is created that way… and the mind collapses, it wouldn’t be much of a problem.”

“You can just use them as mana reservoirs.”

Erdes gave a hollow laugh.

“Gamigin’s domain, combined with the demons’ method of manipulating emotions… I underestimated them when I thought First Impact would be enough to settle this.”

“Even so, it seems the attack did inflict some damage.”

“At least several thousand of the humans who became sources of mana must have died.”

“The kingdom may not have been reduced to ruins, but it certainly took a blow.”

In other words, her attack had not been entirely meaningless.

But what would happen once the siege began in earnest?

The unknown measures they were concealing made him uneasy.

Ferda asked Erika,

“What has Lord Blancaros decided to do?”

The head of the Grand Council, which decided and handled matters concerning the entire continent.

“He does consider it a crisis…. Even so, he is still deferring action.”

Ferda did not like the direction of the conversation.

“Wasn’t the Grand Council established so that the continent would not be shaken by the existence of demons?”

“Since its establishment, its coercive authority has never once been invoked. That’s because such matters were either dealt with beforehand or never showed signs of emerging into the open.”

“But they’re openly displaying their ambitions now, aren’t they?”

“And humans have stepped forward, saying they will resolve it themselves.”

“You mean he’s respecting that wish?”

“Yes. And he seems to be hoping that the dragons simply won’t intervene.”

“Why would he do something like that…?”

Suddenly, Ferda recalled something the bronze dragon Frontesis had said.

-I’m growing weaker, and so is Valdrova. The twilight of the dragons is approaching.

The twilight of the dragons.

Frontesis and Valdrova were growing weaker.

Though it had not been said directly, Iorga was growing weaker as well.

What if the other dragons were the same?

If they were growing weaker,

‘They might end up in a position similar to Erdes’s.’

Those whose authority came from their teeth and claws would meet death the moment they lost them.

It was not easy for such beings to step down from their positions as the strongest.

If they grew weaker, clinging to their power would be inevitable.

‘If that happened, they might want to become like King Heinkel.’

If that was what lay behind Blancaros’s actions, then this was a challenge that humans had to overcome themselves.

Ferda put off criticizing him for the moment.

“We’ll somehow resolve this with the humans currently here. And….”

Ferda looked at Erdes and said,

“President, you need to stay out of this.”

Erdes frowned.

“Black magic is running rampant, and you want me to turn a blind eye?”

Ferda knew that this was the situation Erdes feared, so he answered immediately.

“I’ll destroy Gamigin’s grimoire myself.”

“What makes you think I’ll trust you?”

“If you wish, I’ll swear an oath upon my heart.”

Ferda had been adamant that he had no interest in black magic.

But she merely scoffed at that oath.

“An oath upon your heart? You call that proving it to me?”

“Yes.”

“That isn’t proof. You’re saying it because even you aren’t certain you can do it.”

For a moment, he was left speechless.

He wanted to deny it, but somewhere deep in his chest, he too wondered if that might be true.

When Ferda remained silent, Erika stepped in to defend him.

“Erdes, Regent Ferda is trustworthy enough.”

“Even so, he’s telling me to stay out of it. Am I supposed to sit quietly?”

“You caused this on your own, and it wouldn’t be strange for the Magic Society to be held accountable. Until we determine that the kingdoms’ forces cannot resolve this, it would be better for your own safety if you didn’t interfere.”

“If I cared about my own safety, I wouldn’t have come here. And did I just recklessly rain magic down on them?”

“Regardless, there were casualties. You’re an unexpected asset now. When Regent Ferda has saved you like this, follow along quietly.”

“Uuuugh……!”

Erdes rose from her seat with a frustrated expression.

Just as the meeting was about to end, Erdes sat back down.

“Since I’m here, let me ask you one thing, kid.”

The considerably smaller child said this.

“Go ahead.”

“How much do you remember about your mother?”

Ferda reflexively frowned.

“If you start talking about my mother, I won’t think about the consequences either.”

“I didn’t bring it up to insult her. This is quite important.”

Though Erdes said that, Ferda continued to glare at her warily.

“Then shall I lay out my family history first? I’m the sole daughter of House Roton, conceived through in vitro fertilization and never having seen my father’s face.

Apparently, because my sensitivity to mana was exceptionally high from birth and my mother grew greedy, she gave me more drugs than milk. Rather than acting spoiled, I spent more time meditating.

That was how I opened the First Circle at the age of three. If I failed to achieve the goals she set, she beat me herself. When she grew tired of beating me, she peeled off my skin and pressed her fingernails into it—a woman who was trash itself. Even now, whenever I hear the word mother, I feel the hairs on my head stand on end.”

She looked as though she were asking whether that was enough.

A woman who could not tolerate humiliation had exposed her own disgrace, so he grew curious about what had prompted her question.

“What is it you want to know?”

“As I just said, how much do you know about your mother?”

“Anna Rosnova is a good mother.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes.”

Erdes looked at him suspiciously.

But what Ferda had said was true.

He had never thought of his mother in any other way.

Whenever he thought of her for too long, longing rather than comfort began to settle into his heart.

That was why he tried not to think of his mother whenever possible.

“Have you never once considered that your mother was the source of your magic?”

“Are you saying my mother was a witch?”

“No. ‘Witch’ isn’t enough to describe her.”

Erdes recalled what had happened in the Rosnova territory.

The woman she had seen that day had not been a mere witch.

A mere witch could never have made her feel such overwhelming powerlessness.

“Think carefully about what kind of being you were born beneath and raised under.”

With those final words, Erdes left the tent.

* * *

The inner castle of the Kingdom of Heinkel.

Gokma, who had been standing at the tip of the spire, returned inside the castle.

“Have you returned?”

When he turned his head slightly, he saw King Heinkel.

Empty eyes and parched breath.

He was now a man who exuded the scent of death, far removed from humanity.

“Are you feeling all right?”

His eyes shifted toward Gokma’s right hand.

“As you can see, it was a devastating attack.”

Gokma raised his right arm.

Where the arm should have been, broken bones and crushed flesh remained.

He possessed the healing power unique to demons, but the impact had been so intense that even it could not heal him.

“If either you or I had been absent, we would have been helpless against it.”

First Impact, the pinnacle of firepower among Seventh-Circle spells.

They had been able to stop it because they had properly positioned the power of the Legion.

King Heinkel had become an archmage, and Gokma, who served him as his master, could also use the mana Heinkel possessed.

“That’s fortunate.”

“How many people lost their lives because of this?”

“Four thousand of the eighty thousand died. It’s still acceptable.”

“Those four thousand were also mana sources with their Third Circles opened. They’re difficult sources to create from ordinary commoners….”

Gokma stepped into the corridor, and King Heinkel followed behind him.

It had once been a training ground for knights.

King Heinkel knew what it had once looked like.

The symbols of the faith and kingdom had been placed in prominent locations to foster devotion and loyalty. Beneath them, countless knights and cadets had trained in martial arts.

But now, a gigantic mass covered in eyeballs had taken its place, and the training ground was packed with people as tightly as chickens in a coop, all gazing up at it.

It resembled a gathering of a cult.

“Ahhh…….”

“My life has been so meaningless!”

“How joyful…… I’m so joyful to have reached the truth……!”

Those who had broken free from the shackles of this world and praised the void.

There was no longer anything that could be called reason in them.

Only twisted rapture had taken its place.

In that rapture, they felt something within their chests.

“Someone has entered a new path.”

King Heinkel said this.

It felt like a Red Circle based on emotion was forming.

Today, one person had become a new source of mana.

“My king! One more lamb has been added to offer to you today!”

“May the void be with the king!”

Rapture created new rapture.

Everything was meaningless to them, and only one absolute meant everything.

Red Circles continued to churn within their bodies.

But such madness could not continue forever.

Red Circles were dangerous precisely because they formed so quickly, and their backlash inevitably followed.

“Aaaaargh! K-kheeeugh…….”

Someone vomited blood and collapsed on the spot.

Their body could not withstand the excess of emotion, and their Circle collapsed.

And this, too, was a new rapture.

“Your son has returned to the void!”

“Ah! How enviable!”

Their procession did not stop.

Whether someone died or was injured, everything was a path toward the void, and those eyeballs alone were their happiness.

King Heinkel smiled as he watched them.

But the smile was incomplete, and something about it felt bitter.

He felt that he had lost something important within his heart.

But he soon realized it was meaningless and stopped dwelling on it.

Being born and dying was the natural order of things,

and for those of us trapped within these shackles, only the void remains,

life is this meaningless.