I Became the Patron of Villains (Novel) - Chapter 125 - Half Magus (4)

Chapter 125 – Half Magus (4)

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Translated by Jinmu

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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The duke stared blankly ahead.

What he saw was the ash-gray world.

And next,

he saw barren ground where not even a single blade of grass could grow.

A land where nothing remained.

A land from which everything had vanished.

When a familiar face began to appear across that land,

one fact dawned on him.

This was a memory from the past.

A faded past that had already become difficult even to recall.

Yet one that, under the fair flow of time,

had eventually become something he could only see in dreams.

It was both the reason he had survived until now,

and the shackle within memory that tormented him.

He could not take his eyes away.

There,

he saw the backs of magi he knew well.

Among them were many faces.

The face of a magus who had been there from before he ever became his teacher’s disciple.

The face of one who became a magus around the same time as he did.

And the face of one who, after becoming another magus’s disciple later than he had, still became a full magus before him.

All of them were walking across the barren earth,

toward the abyss.

Then he saw his teacher’s smiling face.

As always,

her smile was benevolent.

“There is no choice. When the world’s souls filled, it could no longer be helped.”

Were it not for the tears in her eyes,

even now he might have mistaken it for something gentler.

“I am glad you did not become a magus.”

No.

That was not right.

He should have become one.

He, too,

should have been able to help.

He was sure that back then,

inside the memory,

he had said something.

What had he said?

He could not remember.

If he guessed from the blur,

it was probably that he had begged to go with them.

But unlike his own words,

which he could no longer remember,

his teacher’s face remained vivid.

“If you are not a magus, then it would only be a futile death. So instead, I leave what comes after to you.”

That face,

wearing an expression that said it could not be helped.

“You must survive. And then protect this world. The world we-”

The world the magi protected.

Her last voice,

spoken while stroking the head of the disciple who had now grown taller than she was.

After that,

his teacher and the magi left him behind and walked into the abyss.

To stop the sins that had begun to climb up from the roots.

To protect this world.

To protect humanity.

To protect the half magus they left behind.

They went on,

leaving him there.

And the last thing he saw then-

“Kuhk-!”

The ash-faded memory twisted violently,

and the duke coughed up blood.

With dim eyes,

he looked around.

What he saw was the ash-gray world.

And the same barren ground.

Even so,

he realized this was not that faded memory of the past.

Though it resembled that moment,

there was one clear difference.

He stared ahead blankly.

In the place where the magi had stood in the faded memory,

there now stood a single man.

A half magus looking down at him in silence,

with an expression from which no emotion could be read.

Marquis Palladio was standing there,

looking down at the duke.

The marquis did not look to be in good condition.

He had not seen it clearly before,

but the parts of the man’s hands and neck not hidden by the black coat had turned blue.

It was severe mana intoxication,

severe enough that anyone would think it stranger if mana hardening had not already set in.

And that was not all.

Most of the wounds visible near that blue skin were small,

but his right arm had suffered a heavy injury.

Even so,

none of that left much impression on Duke Komalon.

“…Kuh.”

Because unlike the marquis,

who was still standing,

the duke himself had already collapsed to the ground.

He lowered his gaze.

There was a huge hole there.

A hole so vast that,

even with the use of an Abyssal Core,

continuing to live as a human was impossible.

It had opened in the very middle of his abdomen.

“Ha-”

Without meaning to,

the duke smiled.

He did not know why he had smiled.

Had his mind finally gone strange?

Or was it the relief of finally being able to lay down the heavy burden he had carried?

What was it.

Why was it.

…

In truth,

Duke Komalon knew.

He knew very well why that hollow smile had come to his lips.

More precisely,

after hundreds of years,

those fragments,

which had ceased to function as memory and existed only as a blind purpose,

were becoming vivid again in his mind.

“You must survive. And then protect this world. The world we- the magi protected.”

The face of his teacher in that revived memory was distant.

And within that distance,

another emotion had been mixed.

Pity.

And sorrow.

He knew why his teacher had worn such an expression.

From the beginning,

she had not truly expected anything from him.

She had not believed he would be able to protect the world.

He was far too weak to place such hope upon.

And he himself had known as well,

that what she said then had only been an attempt to soothe him,

a child making a foolish fuss.

He had lacked talent,

but he had never lacked awareness.

Still,

even if his teacher had not expected it,

even if no one had,

he had made a vow when he watched the magi walk into the abyss.

That he would protect the world they had protected.

That he would not allow their sacrifice to become meaningless.

And yet,

the beginning of that vow,

ridiculously enough,

had not truly sprung from the great cause.

It had begun from self-satisfaction.

It had been the vow of a half magus,

never acknowledged even once,

who wanted to be acknowledged as one of the magi.

A vow made so that he himself could say,

with pride,

that he belonged among them.

Even if no one else recognized him,

he had wanted at least to think so himself.

That was why the smile now on his lips

was self-mockery.

“So in the end, it really was only half…”

Blood at his lips,

he let out a dry laugh.

Because in the end,

he had accomplished nothing.

Exactly as his teacher had expected.

Exactly as the magi had expected.

With a dry sigh,

he felt the world before him beginning to blur.

Death,

which he had postponed for innumerable years for the sake of a single purpose,

had finally come before him.

“Duke.”

At that voice,

he turned his head.

There was Marquis Palladio,

looking down at him with the same emotionless face as before.

Then the marquis spoke.

“You are a magus.”

A single low sentence.

He could not know with what intention the marquis had spoken those words.

But separate from that intent,

“…Ha.”

he found himself smiling faintly.

Whatever the marquis had intended,

those words were sweet to him.

…Because whether they were true or false,

they were exactly the words he had always wanted to hear.

And so,

still smiling,

he gave what could be called a reply in kind.

“The eastern end. Go south of the border. If you are one who has received sentences, you may be able to receive help there. You may even see the truth.”

Having given that much,

he closed his eyes.

As the abyss approached,

his consciousness slowly began to sink beneath sleep.

And at the very end,

ridiculously enough,

what surfaced was the last memory of all.

The one he had not remembered until the final moment.

“You must survive. And then protect this world. The world we- the magi protected-”

His teacher’s final words.

“-You are a proper magus.”

That was the last memory he recovered as his consciousness sank completely beneath sleep.

So… you believed in me after all…?

And so,

the half magus sank into eternal sleep.

A small smile remained on his lips.

And,

the eye that the half magus had never been able to see

quietly watched his death.

####

Exactly three days passed after Duke Komalon’s death

and the end of the artificial Outer God crisis that had nearly destroyed the whole Kingdom of Ashtalon.

In conclusion,

Ashtalon regained peace.

It was true that the kingdom was in chaos,

with nobles slaughtered at the duke’s ball,

and several territories entirely destroyed,

but the urgent fire had at least been put out.

The same was true in the other countries where artificial Outer Gods had appeared.

With the duke’s death,

the artificial Outer Gods there too had been defeated,

and peace had returned.

And within that peace,

“…I am going to die.”

Marquis Palladio, Alon,

had already spent three days groaning under terrible pain in every part of his body.

Naturally so.

In that battle with the duke,

he had poured no fewer than thirteen mana potions into his mouth.

His lacking mana hall had certainly expanded.

His efficiency with magic had improved greatly.

And he had not even used self-nature manifestation all that much.

Even so,

the battle against Duke Komalon had forced him to use far more magic than his limits allowed.

“Hoo.”

The pain remained unchanged.

As Alon groaned,

Evan, who was tending to him, spoke.

“Still, this much is something. According to the priest, you could have simply died. At least it is fortunate. Until yesterday you could only groan. Now you can even talk.”

“…That is true.”

Alon recalled the priest,

who had asked in a tone of shock,

Could it be… that you are not human?

According to him,

the mana intoxication was so severe that it was a miracle Alon had not died.

“Even so, Marquis, I do think you should be more careful about this sort of thing from now on.”

“…I would like that too, but.”

“You throw yourself into dangerous situations too often.”

“Are you worried?”

“Of course.”

“…Not worried because you have to keep following me around?”

“Ahem. To be honest, there is a little of that too.”

At Evan’s joke,

Alon smiled inwardly,

when,

“Master-!”

he saw Seollang burst the door open and rush in.

“Are you all right!?”

She ran straight to him.

“I am… all right enough,”

Alon began to nod,

then looked at her collarbone.

There,

there was a large wound that he had not seen before,

as though even the priest’s treatment had not been able to heal it fully.

“That wound-”

“Ah, this? I failed to dodge properly last time, so it turned out like this. But it is all right, Master. It does not even hurt!”

Watching Seollang laugh as if it were nothing,

saying it had only happened because of a mistake,

Alon wore a complicated expression behind his lack of expression.

No matter what she thought,

that was a wound she had taken while helping him.

“…I am sorry.”

“Hm? Why is Master apologizing? I just made a mistake.”

She looked sincerely unable to understand.

Even so,

Alon’s eyes would not easily leave the wound.

“It is a wound you received while helping me. And injuries can leave scars. It may look unsightly. I have no face.”

At that,

Seollang let the smile slip from her face for a moment and looked down at her own collarbone.

After staring at the wound running from her right collarbone to the end of her shoulder,

she looked back at Alon and spoke.

“Master.”

“Yes?”

“What do you think?”

“…What do I think?”

“Yes. If I have this scar… do I look ugly to you?”

At Seollang’s question,

Alon fell silent,

then shook his head.

“That is not the case.”

“Then it is fine!”

“…Is it?”

Alon was genuinely bewildered inside.

But then,

“Yes. As long as I do not look strange in Master’s eyes, I do not care at all!”

Seollang declared that brightly,

smiling just as before,

and Alon once again felt a sharp warmth in his chest.

And then,

“Huh?”

Evan looked at Alon’s face in great surprise.

No wonder.

It had been very slight,

but,

…He is smiling?

Alon,

who for nearly ten years had shown little beyond tiny shifts of expression,

was undeniably wearing a very small smile.

Evan stared blankly at the unfamiliar sight.

A little later,

after Alon saw Seollang off when she left for further treatment,

he received another unexpected visitor.

Troublemaker Karsem.

He had come to visit him.

Strictly speaking,

outside of accompanying Seollang,

Alon had almost no connection with him at all.

Why is he here…?

“Is your body all right, Hyungnim…!”

“???”

Seeing the royal of Colony collapse flat in front of him,

radiating favor and respect,

Alon could only become bewildered all over again.