Chapter 76
She shook her head, trying to cast off the sight burned into her mind—a scene she never wanted to remember.
What she’d seen had happened exactly four years ago. Back then, unlike now, she’d been more earnest, devoting herself wholeheartedly to everything instead of carelessly thinking that things would somehow work out or that having fun was all that mattered. It was a dream from that time.
She’d had a beloved mentor. He was two years older than she’d been at the time, when she was eighteen, and a head taller. He had long green hair tied back with a hair tie, and wore glasses because he’d read so many books that he could no longer do without them. He always had a gentle smile on his face.
He was the one who taught her how fascinating magic could be. She’d been born with the role of a mage, and ever since she was little, she’d been made to go every day to the royal capital’s library, which was open to the public, to learn as many spells as she could.
She used to hate magic. Or rather, she hated studying. Her family had originally lived in a village some distance from the royal capital, and her parents had ordered her to go, so she’d trudged there unwillingly, doing as she was told.
Magic depended entirely on knowledge and imagination. You had to gain knowledge, understand the principles behind a spell, and imagine its existence. Then you needed enough magical power to bring it into reality, as well as the skill to control that power and give the spell form.
Many young mages, still at Level 1, with little magical power, low basic stats, and poor judgment, were instructed to build up their knowledge this way.
God had told them from the very beginning, “You have a talent for magic.” Few parents would let that go without making their children study.
But her parents only told her to study because they were mages themselves. To Parna, it was no different from being forced to do something she didn’t want to do.
‘...Do you hate books?’
She must have looked so unhappy that he’d asked her that. Those words marked their first meeting.
‘Who are you?’
‘I’m a mage too, just like you. They’re forcing me to come here as well.’
‘Oh, I see... What do you want?’
‘If you hate books, you should read this.’
In the end, what he handed her was a book. A boy not much older than she was had given her a book and told her to read it if she hated books. Seeing that, she’d thought, ‘What is this guy talking about?’
But that thought changed almost immediately. The book he’d handed her wasn’t a grimoire for learning magic, but a picture book telling the heroic tale of a single hero.
‘The library isn’t just a place for learning magic, you know?’
‘I’m returning it. I’ll get in trouble.’
‘Who’ll get mad at you? Your mom and dad aren’t here.’
The boy smiled as though he’d won. Though exasperated, Parna opened the picture book he’d given her—and from that moment on, she didn’t dislike the library quite so much.
That boy was a genius. He could clearly imagine the form of magic far better than the other children studying magic, and his skill at controlling magical power was extraordinary. Parna still remembered how he was always saying, “It’s a waste to live shut up inside your shell.”
His skill at controlling magical power was certainly genuine, but there was another reason his imagination was so remarkable: he simply knew all sorts of things. He knew not only about magic, but also about subjects unrelated to it, and countless stories. Since the books in the library couldn’t teach him everything, he’d secretly slip outside and experience all kinds of things firsthand.
And Parna was drawn to him. Before she knew it, she was following him around, and eventually she began calling him her mentor. The knowledge and experience she gained from him were things she could never have learned from the library alone.
Her mentor wanted to know everything. He was full of curiosity, and would talk about how wonderful it would be if things were a certain way, then take action to make it happen.
But that was both his strength and his weakness.
Whenever he came across something he didn’t know, he often couldn’t suppress his urge to learn about it. And he wanted to study demons, a people whose nature remained shrouded in mystery. Research alone would have been fine. But he wanted to examine and study the demons’ bodies firsthand.
If research had been his only goal, he could have kidnapped a demon and examined them. But her mentor was kind. Because he was kind, he couldn’t bring himself to commit such a cruel act.
And so, her mentor crossed a line he should never have crossed.
He tried to establish contact with the demons and share the knowledge each side possessed. Her mentor didn’t despise demons. If anything, he saw potential in them.
‘If the two races join hands, the world will become more prosperous and easier to live in than it is now.’
That was what he said. He pressed straight ahead, believing in that possibility alone, without doubting a thing. Parna, of course, kept opposing him. She constantly warned him that no one could know what might happen, and that his way of thinking and his ideals were dangerous.
But at the same time, she felt hopeful. What if it really happened? She could sense in her mentor the possibility that it might. In the end, she never tried to stop him hard enough to make him give up.
Now she could see clearly that the idea had been foolish. The whole thing had ended so abruptly.
‘You’re... no longer any use to me.’
A gaping hole opened in her mentor’s chest immediately after those words were spoken.