NOVEL NEXT Chapter 58
Please Read This
Chapter 58
Last Verse (1)
I glared at Yan Irantes’s face.
As I stared at that disgusting face, the faces of the contractors who once stood by my side flickered through my mind.
[Hah…]
A sigh escaped me.
The anger that settled in my heart showed no signs of subsiding easily.
-…Those bastards killed my mom and Sharon.
Suddenly, I recalled what Becky had said the night before.
After the banquet, she came into the room with Garon Theobalt and revealed the truths they had hidden until now.
The truths about her mother’s death.
And the filthy deeds intertwined with Irantes Magic Tower.
*
“Do you know why the Irantes Magic Tower killed our mom?”
“……”
[……]
Rozelia Duncan.
A middle-tier magician from the Yukria Tower and the best potion maker of the time.
The reason she was killed by Irantes was simple:
“Just because of her usual way of speaking.”
The essence of alchemy was sacrifice.
Creating potions from specific reagents and manufacturing artifacts at the cost of certain sacrifices, etc.
In this way, alchemy could yield results through a certain price.
The flow of life and death was also one of the universal laws that followed this principle.
It was only natural that new life is born when existing life meets death.
Thus, alchemists always conducted their studies within the bounds of this flow of life and death.
Rozelia Duncan was one such alchemist who adhered to this principle rigorously.
“My mom always argued that mortals shouldn’t go against the flow of life and death.”
“……”
“What she meant was that living according to the fate given and meeting an end that befits that fate was the calling given to mortals.”
How could she leave a last will saying, ‘You must meet a magical end like a true magician’?
With such firm beliefs, Rozelia Duncan opposed the immortal rites produced by the Irantes Magic Tower more than anyone else.
“Then one day…”
“……”
“My mom passed away.”
On a journey searching for a rare reagent, Rozelia Duncan was found months later in the northeastern mountains of the Empire, gravely injured.
People rushed her to the nearby shrine, but it was already too late.
That was how Rozelia met a futile end.
The cause of death was an attack by a band of robbers.
“But isn’t it a bit strange?”
“……”
“A middle-tier magician lost her life to mere robbers? That doesn’t make any sense.”
As Becky said, it was strange.
If she had been a low-tier magician, maybe, but for a middle-tier magician to die at the hands of a band of robbers was absurd.
This was no different from a knight being killed by a common ruffian.
Thus, people began to harbor doubts about the incident.
There was certainly someone else pulling the strings behind Rozelia Duncan’s death.
“But after years of investigation, we couldn’t find a credible lead.”
“……”
“In the end, the case was closed like that.”
Faced with a blizzard, Rozelia Duncan had exhausted her magic using pathfinding and warmth spells, only to encounter the bandits at that moment and lose her life…
…That was the conclusion people came to.
“I too thought of my mother’s death as just a stroke of bad luck. For nearly 11 years.”
Rozelia Duncan’s death seemed to fade from people’s memory.
“But the Yukria Tower never gave up on their investigation.”
Even without any substantial results, they persevered for a long 11 years.
After their relentless efforts, they finally uncovered the truth behind Rozelia Duncan’s death.
“It turned out those robbers were an assassination squad hired by Irantes Magic Tower.”
“……”
“Well, I came to this realization a bit late, but still, the hatred for those robbers didn’t disappear.”
Becky wore a bitter smile.
With that, she fell silent for a moment, and we, who quietly listened, had no choice but to keep our mouths shut in that heavy atmosphere.
“……”
[……]
Silence flowed.
The sound of the clock ticking echoed endlessly.
[Hah…]
Yes.
Now I understand why I didn’t want to talk about this soberly.
This was undoubtedly a painful memory for Becky.
So much so that it was agonizing for her to bring this incident up herself.
‘Now I understand why Becky killed those robbers so brutally.’
[Yeah.]
It felt like some of my questions were slowly being answered.
“So the Sharon you mentioned earlier…”
“Sharon is Garon Theobalt’s granddaughter.”
Having regained a semblance of composure, Becky began to speak of the next victim.
“And she was my only close friend.”
“……”
[……]
At her words, I turned my gaze to Garon Theobalt, sitting to Becky’s left.
As expected, upon hearing Sharon’s name, his expression darkened significantly.
“Did Sharon also meet her death at Irantes Magic Tower?”
“Yeah.”
Becky nodded in response.
“Sharon lost her life during the Selection Test two years ago.”
Recalling the conditions of that time, Becky slowly started her story.
“The location was… a circular arena much like a coliseum.”
Two years ago during the Selection Test.
The arena resembled a coliseum.
Participants were divided into groups of fifty.
They had to navigate numerous obstacles lurking within and reach the opposite end of the arena within the time limit.
“I passed the first trial without any particular difficulty.”
Using her illusion-based abilities, Becky was able to reach the opposite end of the arena faster than anyone else.
Thanks to creating doppelgangers to confuse the monsters and traps.
“But even after passing the trial, I couldn’t feel any joy.”
“……”
“While I reached the finish line, Sharon hadn’t even crossed half of the arena.”
It was a strange occurrence.
Sharon was undoubtedly a skilled magician.
Being the descendant of Garon Theobalt, known as the Empire’s greatest shield, she possessed superior magical talent compared to Becky.
For her, it wouldn’t have seemed strange to arrive first…
Yet, oddly enough, Sharon was still struggling, not even having crossed half the arena.
-…Ah.
As Becky watched that perplexing scene, a realization struck her.
A stone golem was pursuing Sharon with an unusual tenacity that anyone could see.
“I can still vividly recall the expression Sharon had.”
“……”
“Her face, a mix of fear and anxiety, was filled with despair—it’s something I can never forget, no matter how many years pass.”
Thud, thud, thud—!
The stone golem relentlessly pursued only Sharon.
As if the other participants didn’t exist in its eyes at all.
“I couldn’t understand it at all.”
“……”
“Normally, if it were that far behind, it would have shifted its focus to another prey, but the stone golem only aimed for Sharon.”
It was genuinely strange.
For it was not the nature of a stone golem to be so persistently fixated on one person.
It only had a simple instinct to hunt whatever was in front of it.
So for a stone golem to pursue Sharon alone in an arena filled with participants was impossible.
“I kept protesting to the manager next to me, saying the stone golem’s behavior was strange. Reminding him that this never happened when other groups were taking their tests.”
“……”
“But that damned guy ignored me until the end.”
-Quiet.
-……
-I’ll decide for myself.
“The other participants pretended not to see Sharon. They never made any attempts to help her.”
“……”
“They were simply pleased that the stone golem’s aggro was drawn away from them.”
-P-Please…
-Pfft.
“Many of those who passed the test laughed mockingly at Sharon as she desperately fled from the stone golem.”
Becky continued in a heavier voice.
“I had crossed the finish line, but I couldn’t do anything.”
“……”
“I wanted to jump back into the arena to help Sharon… But once we passed the finish line, we were blocked by a transparent barrier, unable to intervene at all.”
-P-Please…
“Eventually, Sharon, drained of all her strength, collapsed to the ground.”
-Hic, P-Please, help me…
-……
-Help…
Crush—!
“The stone golem trampled her to death without a shred of mercy.”
“……”
[……]
Yes.
Sharon Shackbolt lost her life just like that.
Yet her death received no particular attention.
It was merely brushed off as an incident that happened during the Selection Test.
People thought nothing of it, as it was common for promising candidates to die during the selection trials.
“But I knew. It was nothing like a mere accident.”
Chuckle.
-……!
At the moment Sharon died.
The manager wore a vile smile.
Having witnessed that smile, Becky felt there was a distinctly malevolent intent behind it.
Though it remained merely a hunch, Becky was certain.
Sharon’s death was by no means just a simple accident.
“So I killed that manager during the second trial. For my own kind of revenge.”
The content of the second trial was simple.
Endure a one-on-one duel with the manager for a set amount of time, and that was it.
But Becky chose not to ‘endure’ against the manager, but to ‘win.’
Vroooom—!
Crash—!
A middle-tier magician killed a high-tier magician. Remarkably, a participant killed the manager during the selection trial.
This shocking incident spread across Wilhelm in less than half a day.
Rebecca Duncan.
That was the first time her name resonated within the magical world.
“So the reason you massacred participants the next year was…”
“Oh, them?”
Becky replied with a calm tone.
“Those bastards were all bystanders when Sharon died.”
“……”
“They deserved to die, anyway.”
Most of the participants who took the test alongside Sharon failed the second trial that year.
From the beginning, they had no qualifications to be participating in the selection trial.
It was only thanks to Sharon shouldering the stone golem’s aggro that they could pass the first trial so easily.
-P-Please…
Crash—!
Thus, Becky killed them.
There was no reason to show mercy to such fools who came to take a test without understanding the situation.
“Even after completing my revenge… my heart still felt empty.”
“……”
At the end of her revenge, Becky didn’t feel relief or fulfillment.
Only emptiness.
A void that could not be filled by anything.
The spark of revenge was incredibly intense.
But when there was nothing left to burn, that spark began to consume itself.
“I lost sight of what I was even walking the path of magic for. My life’s purpose faded, and my motivation disappeared…”
As I’ve said time and again, the most important thing in pursuing the path of magic is ‘having a goal.’
Those without goals were inevitably destined to wander.
The longer the wandering continued, the more magicians would be swallowed by “Shinma.”
And ultimately.
A magician who is entirely consumed by “Shinma” can no longer walk the path of magic.
Becky was also pushed to the brink of being devoured by “Shinma.”
She wandered aimlessly.
Wasting each day and lying on her bed like a corpse. Living made her no different from a dead body.
And so Becky continued to live a typical recluse’s life for a while.
Until another new spark began to emerge.
“The head of Yukria’s magic tower came to see me.”
“……”
[……]
After a brief silence, Becky continued.
“She told me she found the real culprit who killed our mom.”
“……”
“And that culprit is the same as the one who killed Sharon.”