The Rebirth Of The Hero’S Party’S Archmage [EN]: Chapter 163

163

“Rista, what do we do?”

When was it? The place where we found Tureina was a village in the Lambres region.

It seemed to have been ravaged by the forces of the Abyss before we arrived. Keyes discovered her hiding in a barrel with his keen detection skills.

She was covered in dirt, dust, and blood, looking utterly wretched. Even when Ristana Pride gently reached out her hand, she only cowered into a corner, sobbing quietly.

“We can’t keep her here. The monsters might come again. We should entrust her to the city.”

“Then Keyes will have to use his strength. I don’t really like this method, though.”

Perhaps I felt a strange sense of kinship with her then. I could see my old self in that little girl’s attitude and expression.

“You guys go on ahead.”

She seemed to be living as if she wanted to die but was still alive because she hadn’t stopped breathing.

“Huh?”

“I’ll take her. It might take some time.”

How did Headmaster treat me back then? I piled up firewood, started a fire with flame magic, and took out meat from my subspace pocket.

The other three just stared at me, puzzled, but as the peppered meat slowly cooked and began to emit a savory aroma, she gradually stopped crying and showed interest.

And from her emaciated belly, a sound yearning for life, “Grumble,” escaped.

“Come here. Aren’t you hungry?”

“……?”

“You idiot, don’t you know how much delicious food there is in the world? You’ve lived in this backwater, so you probably haven’t tasted real food, have you? How regrettable would it be to die without eating it? If you’re going to die, you should at least go on a culinary journey first.”

At first, she didn’t come close, but that evening, and the next morning… around lunchtime, she cautiously approached the fire.

“What is this? This is called ‘delicious.’ Just kidding… it’s Lynn’s special charcoal-grilled skewer, so good that even if three people are eating it, four might die without knowing…”

I enthusiastically explained the cooking method, wiping my mouth, when suddenly the little girl took the skewer.

“…….”

She took a big bite, and tears welled up in her eyes.

Watching her devour it as if someone would snatch it away, the tip of my nose tingled against my will.

– Child, look at the sky.

Was it because I had reacted the same way when I first met Headmaster? Was that why I heard that day’s voice?

– All the suns and moons in the sky are shining for you, and no one else. That food is also tasting good only for you.

– ……!

– It’s been hard, hasn’t it? You don’t have to be sad anymore. In this world of infinite possibilities, your potential is also infinite. Come, follow me. This is not the place for you.

No matter how much I cleared my throat, I couldn’t say anything as wonderful as Headmaster did.

I wasn’t that kind of person in the first place…

So, I just got to the point. The core of my conversation with Headmaster.

“This is not the place for you. Come with me. I’ll take you to a place worth being.”

It took another day for the little girl to follow me, but she began to follow me with eyes gradually regaining their vitality.

One peculiar thing was that she couldn’t speak, whether due to mental shock or congenital reasons.

Still, she was quite clever, quickly understanding and following instructions.

“The truth shall set you free. Do you know what this is? It’s a famous saying by Emissa Page, the originator of magic.”

And I decided to teach this little girl magic, just as Headmaster had taught me.

The best gift that gave value to me, who had none.

I received it without cost, so I decided to give it to her without cost as well.

“People need to have value. You have no value right now. Not a single one! So, learn magic from me without complaint, got it?”

And I gave her a name too.

Just as Headmaster had given me the name Spring Breeze.

“The Dragon race seems to live up to their names. So, I’m going to specially, really specially! Give you a name.”

“……?”

“Tureina. It means ‘learning’ in the Dragon language. It means to learn well. If you learn well without bothering me, I’ll give you a better name.”

No matter how hard I tried, giving a name as wonderful as Spring Breeze made me cringe, so I just gave her a name like that.

I’ll ask Headmaster or Pride to change it to a better name later.

As I was thinking that, the little girl’s lips began to move slightly.

“Tu, Turei, Tureina……?”

That day was the first time I heard the little girl’s voice, clearer than the sky, with the color of an early spring sky.

“What? You could talk?”

“No, no, now, now, so……”

“Sigh, it’s become more troublesome. A troublesome kid is now going to chatter. Don’t you dare bother me.”

Even though I grumbled, I couldn’t help but smile as I watched her gradually brighten up.

The companions who rejoined us later warmly welcomed Tureina, and later, she escaped from the city where we were going to leave her and became a member of our party.

Especially Pipi, who became so close that she always took a spot on Tureina’s sky-blue hair and slept.

“Wait here. This fight will be a bit long.”

“Wait, wait, wait.”

“Wait here. This mission is an ambush, so I can’t take you.”

Every time I returned from the battle with the Abyss half-dead, Tureina always stayed by my side with a somewhat sad look in her eyes.

The little girl who babbled that she would study magic harder and help me someday.

It seemed like I had one more reason to win the fight against the Abyss.

“Pride says my magic circuit is so damaged that I might not be able to use proper combat magic when I become an old man.”

“Is that so?”

“So, I’m a bit troubled. There are many guys in the Empire who see me as a thorn in their side. How am I going to deal with them when they attack?”

That wasn’t a serious thought, not a consultation, just something I said when I had nothing to say while standing guard. But Tureina suddenly stood up and pointed to her chest.

“I, I’ll protect you!”

“What?”

“I won’t let anyone touch my teacher! I’ll protect you!”

“Protect, protect, Lynn is a scaredy-cat, weakling, protect, protect.”

I was dumbfounded.

I was also annoyed that she gave Pipi something to tease me about, so I slammed my palm into the top of her head.

“Hey, don’t you know the saying ‘even a rotten crucian carp is still a crucian carp’? Even if I become a has-been, I’m still a million times stronger than you. What are you going to protect with, barely using 2-star magic? I’m the only Aquizaad [a powerful, 5-star mage] in the Empire right now.”

“I’ll, I’ll become stronger! Much, even stronger than teacher! So that no one can lay a finger on teacher!”

“Hoo, yeah, give it a try. If you can’t, you’ll be slapped non-stop.”

I was so dumbfounded that I almost laughed, but I couldn’t tell if it was a genuine laugh or one born out of pure joy.

From some point in the journey, Tureina was always by my side, and I didn’t particularly dislike it.

Rather, I even thought it was convenient to have a helper.

It wasn’t that I particularly wanted to be with her, but as the journey was slowly coming to an end, I thought I should decide where this kid should go.

“Hey, you.”

It was somewhere in the desert at the end of the journey, on a summer night, in the middle of the night when the campfire was quietly burning.

I, who was standing guard, quietly asked Tureina, who was studying magic right next to me.

“When the journey ends, do you want to go to the Empire with me?”

“The Empire?”

“Who else would I entrust a troublesome kid like you to? Pride? If I did, she would even write a book and curse me out. That the great mage of the Hero Party was dumping work.”

“Agree, agree, agree.”

“See, Pipi agrees.”

“P, Pride might do that, but I’m not a dump!”

“Dump, dump, dumptydumpdumpdump.”

“Pipi agrees with that too.”

“Pipi, you!”

“There’s a magic tower of the Osarius School in the northern Empire, and most of the people there are unparalleled ugly ducklings……”

I couldn’t help but smile as I thought of my fellow students at the magic tower, but fortunately, Tureina seemed to have not seen it because she was fighting with Pipi.

“They’re pretty decent guys. They’re orphans, and what was it, they were really nice to me, even though I’m rude.”

“Is that so?”

“The decision is yours. Of course, no matter what you choose, I’m going there. It’s my… hometown of the heart.”

Whether she had something to think about, Tureina moved her lips several times at that time, but in the end, she didn’t say anything.

I think I was really glad I didn’t hear that answer.

The words I left behind as I left her behind in the pouring rain the next day, heading to the final battlefield, soon became my last words.

“Mages don’t cry. People will look down on you.”

Trapped in the ice of the Great Reversal of the World, my time stopped there that day.

……………

…………

……

…

That day, Lynn was brought in a desert wheeled carriage made by Chief Tinker Nils Blantz.

“Lynn? Lynn? Lynn?”

Pipi blankly flew around, pecking at the ice as if she couldn’t understand the situation, calling the boy’s name.

The girl wearing a bamboo hat just stared at the scene in dismay. Unable to believe what was happening before her eyes, unwilling to believe it.

The three heroes, who had returned miserably soaked in rain, blood, and tears, hugged the girl and sobbed.

“I’m sorry, Tureina, Pipi, Lynn, Lynn……”

The flower of life that had bloomed once again withered that day, and the clock hands that were moving towards the future stopped as well.

“Let’s go together, Tureina. I can’t be Lynn’s replacement, but… I’ll pass on everything to you.”

In the stopped time, for the spring breeze that had blown into her life, the girl stayed up all night learning shamanism from the Fire Dragon’s Priestess and soon became the youngest witch.

In her shudderingly long life, the girl had never liked shamanism and magic even once.

She had only devoted herself to mathematics, clutching onto the hope of delivering the answer she couldn’t say back then because she was shy and embarrassed.

Wherever you go.

I will go there too.

She had only walked through the endless darkness, looking at that one simple and humble hope. However.

“Just wait? M, Master… what on earth are you saying?”

“I said wait until the Great Reversal of the World is over. Lynn said he would come back, so wait.”

“What… we have to help! The Great Reversal of the World isn’t perfect, so he can’t wake up even after 10 years!”

“The Great Reversal of the World is perfect. The fact that he can’t wake up from there means that Lynn’s body and soul haven’t been healed yet.”

“It’s not perfect.”

“Tureina, are you saying you’re a better mage than Lynn? That’s what Lynn and I made together. Wait patiently, Tureina. Lynn will come back. He’s a kid who always keeps his promises.”

Was it that she would listen if she became an existence that surpassed the Great Mage Lynn and the Fire Dragon’s Priestess?

In the end, she couldn’t hear that answer.

By the time she felt she had become such an existence, her master had already disappeared somewhere.

70 years after the clock stopped…….

The girl was already alone. Rista and Keyes died, and Pride and Pipi disappeared without a trace.

In this frighteningly vast world, alone…….

“Hehehe, you want to wake up the frozen little girl? It’s not that difficult. But you’ll have to learn some different magic.”

She thought she had become a fairly outstanding existence, but in the end, was she just an existence whose time had stopped before the girl’s fragile heart could grow?

The Abyss dug into the gap of the girl left alone, and the girl was no longer a sky-blue-haired little girl. Neither in body nor in mind.

…………

………

……

…

The world shook with a roar.

The ‘little girl,’ who originally had sky-blue hair but now had dark blue hair, took her last breath.

Someone was looking down at her and crying.

Who could it be?

Her eyesight was failing, so she couldn’t see the face clearly, only the essence of the soul.

She couldn’t remember the name of that soul, but she could definitely remember that it was a very precious person.

She opened her lips and tried to say something.

But the length of time left was too short to convey the words she had cherished all her life.

She wanted to meet again in the present, share the past, and discuss the future.

But she, whose body, mind, and head were turning into a blank slate, no longer had the strength or qualifications to discuss such things.

Therefore.

Therefore, she only moved her hand with the last remaining strength of her death throes.

Tearing off the hat string, she put the worn-out bamboo hat on the head of the crying person.

The last fragment of memory remaining in her heart, the words she wanted to return on the day they met again.

The words she wanted to say to hide the tears from each other’s faces on the day they would meet again.

Mages don’t cry.

Right?

The former girl, conveying the trembling of her heart by moving her lips, smiled, revealing her front teeth… and dropped the arm that had put on the bamboo hat powerlessly to the ground.

A little, a little later, the sun parakeet stretched its neck and cried mournfully.

The boy’s eyes widened, and at the same time, both eyebrows curled up towards the space between his eyebrows, and the world shattered dimly.

Rain fell from the boy’s face as he closed the eyes of his disciple, who had not been able to close them with a smile, with trembling hands.

It fell and fell and fell again.

Now, he had to go.

To clean up the accident caused by his mischievous disciple as her teacher.

The scroll that had been rolled up with a cotton cord around the former girl’s waist snapped and unraveled just as the boy finally stood up.

The sacred scroll, unfolded under the raindrops falling from the ceiling.

Its holy name, the Book of Manifestation.

The verses written there floated up with a quiet radiance and permeated into the boy’s left hand with an omnipotent power possessing a mysterious heat.

Socrafres.

– You can inherit the progress of ‘unique magic’ research from the surrounding environment.

– Progress 69.8% => 76.7%.

>>>

Brante.

– Changes to the magic circuit have been identified: ‘Fire Alarm: Flowing Worldly One (火警 : 流量世尊)’ => ‘Fire Manifestation: Flowing Worldly One (火彰明 : 流量世尊)’. [This indicates a shift in the nature of the magic, possibly a strengthening or evolution.]

>>>

Camitishia.

Analyzing the circuit…….

ㆍ When the circuit is opened, a ‘Mental Barrier – Fire Manifestation: Flowing Worldly One’ is established within a 20-meter radius of the caster.

ㆍ By chanting the sacred words of Manifestation within the ‘Mental Barrier – Fire Manifestation: Flowing Worldly One,’ the power of the ‘Book of Manifestation (彰明詩篇)’ is embodied.