The Rebirth Of The Hero’S Party’S Archmage [EN]: Chapter 131

131

The nightmarish war finally ended as the dawn light pierced through the fog.

The dead and the ancient ones, having lost their powerful control, splintered and scattered in the ensuing chaos.

Taking advantage of this, we rescued every injured person, sending them south, and cremated the bodies of our fallen comrades.

“Don’t cry…”

Among the bodies placed on the pyre was Warzenn, the chieftain of the Durankus tribe.

When Kasena and I found him, he was on the verge of death, his wounds too deep for any healing magic to mend.

As we lowered our heads and began to sob, Warzenn chuckled, spitting out blood with a hot breath.

“You know, I’ve been resenting our ancestors for a while now… Why… Why did we have to fight, even as we became like this…?”

“Warzenn, don’t talk. Your breath, your breath…”

“But, after meeting you guys, I understand… I would have done the same, kekekeke, I couldn’t just leave these fools alone…”

As Warzenn weakly raised his trembling hand, we immediately grasped it.

“I’ll go ahead and brag to our ancestors. That I fought for proud friends, even if I’m not as good as you guys…”

Those were the last words we heard from Warzenn.

I thought my tear ducts had run dry, but as Warzenn’s body was engulfed in flames and turned into black charcoal, tears began to stream down my cheeks.

Now that their fight is over… the memorial service for the warriors ended with the final prayer.

“Ah, au, aba, aba!”

And throughout all of this, little Akireah was always by my side. Even now, she playfully bites my head and babbles.

Without anyone teaching her, she transformed into her Dragonkin form as soon as she realized that she and I looked different.

A two-year-old girl with bewitchingly red hair and captivating golden eyes…

If Lilian’s hair color was a blessing of fire, Akireah’s hair color was fire itself, just like Alakish.

“…”

Perhaps that’s why Kasena struggled with Akireah and avoided her. Maybe she was reminded of Alakish. Her eyes, which had been swollen from crying all morning, were still red and inflamed.

“Stay still! Stay! Geez, I said stay still!”

I give a firm command.

Ignoring everything, she continues to chew, tear, taste, and enjoy my crown, so my hair has long been soaked with her saliva.

“Ah, please, just listen to me once.”

I ended up begging, but even that had no effect.

She just wags her short tail, which sticks out from the infant-sized fur clothing lent to us by the beastmen.

Perhaps because she is not yet an adult, her dragon scales do not form armor when she takes on the Dragonkin form, unlike Alakish.

“What’s making her so happy?”

In the end, I stopped thinking with a sigh of resignation.

This is the infirmary set up on the lower deck of the warship base.

Frisvia, who was lying on the sickbed, watching this bizarre scene with interest, hmm, stroked her chin.

“Isn’t that how living things are? Heh, there’s an interesting theory. That animals have cute appearances when they are young as a survival instinct.”

“Survival instinct?”

“Being affectionate and having an affectionate appearance as babies is a survival instinct to prevent them from being easily abandoned. Heh heh, if you think about it that way, you can look at that filthy creature more rationally, heh heh heh heh.”

Seeing her grinning so sinisterly, I realized that it would be difficult to become close to this person.

“But Frisvia, you ended up like this because you were buying time for me…”

One of Frisvia’s legs was cut off. She was thinking of attaching another leg through bio-implantation, but the prospects were bleak.

In the end, it’s not her own leg, so how can she move as she pleases? As the former number one of Platinum [a high-ranking adventurer], the impact must be devastating.

Frisvia didn’t seem to be discouraged by such concerns, but rather smiled more darkly than usual.

“Heh, it’s frustrating, but it’s a good thing. I can try to create and attach a new leg using the specimens I took from Alakish this time, or the specimens of the primordial spiders, heh heh.”

“I’m sorry…”

“Why are you making that face? This was a deal from the start. Do humans express gratitude just because the other party fulfills the terms of the deal?”

Kasena, who had been silently watching Frisvia since entering the infirmary, took out the Black Sheep Scale she had around her neck and placed it in her hand.

“You said it would take 10 years for the research to be completed, right? You said that at the beginning.”

“Hmm?”

“Then you can return it in 10 years, after the research is all done.”

I momentarily doubted my ears.

Frisvia seemed to feel the same way, as she began to scrutinize Kasena’s face with distrust.

“What is it? That irrational judgment? As I said before, this is a deal. Heh, this is common when living as an adventurer. One leg is cheap compared to an old god. I don’t need cheap sympathy.”

“It’s not sympathy. I just have respect for you. I’m entrusting it to you because I can trust you.”

“Stop with the obvious flattery, heh heh heh, I might really blow you away.”

“I’m being serious too. Frisvia, you have a very twisted personality, but you were just like the one in the adventure books I read when I was young… You are the best adventurer I’ve ever dreamed of!”

For a moment, I could see something like embarrassment flash across Frisvia’s face, which always had empty, hollow eyes. Of course, it was soon hidden by her unique twisted smile.

Hmph…

Looking at Kasena sometimes reminds me of Rista. She often embarrasses people with her gentle innocence.

“By the way, what are you going to do with that creepy monster now?”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s a True Dragon, a True Dragon’s infant. Heh, wouldn’t those below the barrier be eyeing the source of its infinite power? There will be quite a few who will try to kill you and take it away. Maybe it would be better to leave it here.”

“It doesn’t matter. Rain is very strong. He’s the strongest in the world right now, isn’t he? He even defeated the legendary White Sovereign.”

“I didn’t defeat him.”

Kasena shouted bravely as if to tell me not to worry, but she had no choice but to answer while clutching her throbbing chest.

“You know. From beginning to end, it was all Alakish who did it…”

The White Sovereign Shar’Kars only showed his true colors against me twice.

Exactly twice, before and after he was fatally wounded by my unexpected critical hit of Hwagyung: Brain Burst [a powerful attack].

Even when I was reawakened by Alakish’s soul, he played with me nicely. Even though he was an amputee from the battle with Alakish.

“When he fought me, he probably, no, he definitely didn’t use even half of his real power…”

You might argue that it was because the Orb I received from Alakish just before his death had lost its power (probably about 10-20% of Alakish’s power)…

But if that’s the case, Shar’Kars had just awakened from his seal, so he probably couldn’t unleash his full power either.

More than anything, will I ever be able to feel that same sense of omnipotence again? This time, Alakish’s soul remained, so I was able to draw out that power to its limit…

“Ah, au, abu, aba.”

I could only give a sad smile as I pinched the cheek of Akireah, who was still panting on my head and playfully biting my crown.

“I’ve only been receiving since I came here, from Alakish… so I have to repay her.”

“Repay her?”

“I’ve decided to take this child to [a region in the world]. Where the Red Dragon Legion is gathered.”

Frisvia raised her eyebrows at the place name and burst into laughter as if it were funny.

“Heh heh, heh heh heh… Antarctica, so it’s a journey from the end of the world to the end of the world.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t care if you nasty little kids get attacked and die on that road, or collapse from exhaustion and die, or have your baby dragon stolen while you sleep and die, no, it would be better if you died like that, heh…”

Frisvia, who had gotten up and sat on the sickbed, reached out her hand to us. That smile felt a little warmer than usual, when I only felt sinister.

“I’ll wish you safety on the road you’re going to take. Only formally, of course.”

Kasena and I exchanged surprised glances, then smiled and took turns shaking the hand of the second strongest adventurer in the world.

It was a firm and warm hand.

As Kasena took her hand, Frisvia shook her head with a sinister smile.

“A nobleman who admires adventurers? If you’re confident you won’t cry even if I beat you up, come find me when you grow up, heh heh heh.”

We weren’t fools enough not to know the weight of what Frisvia had just said… that she had been recognized by the heroine she had admired when she was locked up in her room.

Platinum-ranked adventurers don’t just accept anyone as a member…

“You should go now. Heh, unless you want to become a lost child because the barrier gate is closed.”

As we came out of the warship base, the magnificent white land spread out before our eyes once again.

But unlike yesterday, the sky was high and clear, and the blizzard of the abyss, which seemed to cut through our skin, did not rage.

Pipi, who had been sent to the barrier first after everything was over, had returned and landed on the crown of Akireah’s head on my head.

“How is it? Are you all passing through the barrier?”

“Yes, yes, yes.”

“Okay, shall we go right away then?”

Before leaving, I headed north for a moment, towards the fossil of the True Dragon that had risen overnight.

Frisvia promised to protect the seal along with the warship base. Frisvia would want this old ruler to remain asleep if she wanted to continue her research in this land.

As I placed my hand on the ivory skeleton, on the tomb of the benefactor to whom I owed an unpayable debt, a suffocating grief filled my heart once again.

“Alakish, we’re leaving now.”

As Kasena gently stroked the skeleton and said that in a voice that was once again wet with tears, I bowed deeply.

“Thank you so, so much.”

I wonder what she thought as she looked at her mother’s grave, does she know that this is her mother’s grave?

Suddenly, Akireah, who had come down from my head, tilted her head and shook it as she looked at the skeleton, then took out an oat biscuit from her arms and placed it on top of it.

Was she saving one of the ones Frisvia’s men gave her without eating it…? Then she smiled brightly and patted the skeleton several times.

“Ah, au, au, abu!”

I couldn’t understand what she was saying, but I turned my head away in a daze and wiped away the tears that had welled up in my eyes.

Because it was so, so similar.

In the future that Alakish had in mind, the image of the baby dragon smiling innocently as she ate the food she had made clumsily…

“Rain.”

Kasena carefully grabbed my shoulder, which was trembling silently, as if to comfort me.

“Let’s go now.”

“Yes…”

I moved my feet forward, which would not fall, while holding the ground with the Staff of Shah, the orb in which the primordial flame was embodied in the form of a stone.

Forward, and forward.

To the future that the benefactor created.

Clang, clang, clang… The four rings hanging on the Staff of Shah flowed with a clear tone like a flame igniting, echoing like a requiem in the old snowfield.

For the great flame that has quietly illuminated the darkest places in the world since the Age of Origin.

Low, deep, and faint.

Low, cozy, and plaintive…