CHAPTER 121. What’s different this time, then?
Head Librarian Teheman paced back and forth in front of the passageway.
“It’s been quite a while since he went in….”
A face full of worry, restless footsteps—he looked unsettled beyond measure.
And it wasn’t without reason.
Aster, who had gone in a good while ago, still hadn’t come out.
‘Could it be… something happened…?’
While he waited, the ominous premonition he’d been forcing down again and again suddenly surged up.
But only for a moment.
Teheman shook his head.
‘No. That can’t be.’
What lay beneath was a fragment of Yeokcheon, and Aster was Yeokcheon’s master.
The rightful owner is reclaiming what belongs to him—how could there be an incident?
He’d heard of unqualified people trying to take a fragment and suffering an accident, but this was a different situation.
“And yet… then why?”
Why wasn’t Aster coming out?
If he were going to come out, he would have come out long ago. But there was still no word….
Teheman paced with an anxious face. For an endurance forged by decades of waiting, he looked remarkably fidgety.
But it couldn’t be helped.
Compared to the decades he’d endured, these few hours of Aster not returning gnawed at him even more.
It was right then—when Teheman, pacing in agitation, abruptly stopped dead in front of the passageway.
“…This won’t do.”
No matter what, he’d have to go down himself and check.
For Teheman, it wasn’t an easy decision.
Because that passageway of pure darkness—what lay beyond was never a normal space.
To others, it was merely dark.
But to Teheman’s eyes, it was clearly visible.
Tsuzzzzzzz—.
Grotesque characters, wavering and writhing as they filled the passageway. A bizarre current, forming rippling waves.
It was truly a horrifying sight.
If he had to put it into words…
It felt like staring at thousands—tens of thousands—of ants swarming right before his eyes.
Originally, it hadn’t been like that.
The passageway had transformed into something so dreadful not long after Aster went in.
“Hoo… It can’t be helped.”
Teheman hardened his resolve and took a deep breath.
Overcoming his visceral psychological revulsion, he decided he would go in and save Aster.
And so—three, two, one…. He finished counting in his mind and was about to step into the passageway when—
Paaang—!
“Ar…rived!”
With a strange tearing sound in the air, Aster burst out.
“…!”
But did he rise out of the ground or something? Teheman’s expression tightened at Aster’s sudden appearance, without the slightest sign.
That was the moment.
Once again….
Paaang—!
“…Hup!”
Aster vanished from right in front of him.
And the place he reappeared was behind Teheman.
“…Kahk!”
Teheman startled at the scream that rang out behind him and whipped his head around.
‘What in the….’
Aster had been right in front of him a moment ago, and then—bang!—he’d bounced out from the bookshelf.
As if…
He had teleported.
“Just what… happened down there.”
Aster, who had been sprawled on the floor, rubbed at his eyes and pushed himself up.
What happened, you ask?
Something insanely goddamn awful happened.
In other words….
It was a very long story.
Time rewound a few hours.
After reaching the end of the passageway, Aster seized the fragment of Yeokcheon.
Tsuzzzzz—.
The fragment crumbled as it emitted a faint light. What must have been a page—part of Yeokcheon—turned to dust in an instant and disappeared without a trace.
The change to the second Fire Seal(火印) happened immediately after that.
Kkadeudeuk, kkadeuk.
The grotesque characters transferred from the fragment crawled up his skin and devoured the second Fire Seal.
‘Yeah. It was devouring.’
There was no other way to describe it.
The grotesque characters greedily ate away at the second Fire Seal, as if they were consuming nutrients.
After a short while of that—
Seureureuk—.
The grotesque characters, having finished their devouring, layered over each other and took shape. They chewed up and swallowed the existing Fire Seal, then occupied its place.
Here, Aster thought—
Maybe… the Fire Seal(火印) he’d obtained from Destrow had been a kind of energy source. A banquet prepared for the fragment of Yeokcheon.
Well, anyway. Up to that point, it had been… whatever.
“But what’s different this time, then?”
He’d gotten the fragment, so naturally something should have changed. But nothing changed at all.
And then, at that moment—
— [Get out.]
Yeokcheon’s voice rang through his mind.
Still rude as ever. When you called it, it didn’t answer a single word, but when it needed something, it just spat things out at you.
But… get out?
He was going to leave anyway.
He’d already gotten everything there was to get—what was so great about sticking around in this pitch-dark place?
Thinking that, he climbed the stairs….
“…Huh?”
He couldn’t get out.
“What the hell?”
He definitely entered through the passageway and climbed the stairs, but when he opened his eyes, he was at the very bottom of the underground end.
He pulled himself together and tried climbing again.
But sure enough….
Tsuzzzzz.
“……”
He was back at the bottom again.
It felt exactly like being trapped in a labyrinth sealed with an illusion barrier.
How many times had he climbed the stairs after that? Around ten times, he figured.
“I keep… coming back?”
Something was wrong.
Why?
“…That’s when I realized. Ah—so it didn’t mean ‘walk your way out,’ huh.”
“…Then?”
Aster continued, rubbing his bluish swollen eyelids with healing light.
“After that, suddenly—whoosh!—a bunch of knowledge came flooding in.”
“Knowledge…?”
“…Yes.”
Yes. It was knowledge.
“In other words… the method for using the power contained in the fragment.”
“Hoh… a method?”
Head Librarian Teheman’s eyes shone.
“Then—what, exactly, was the power contained in the fragment?”
Even he was curious about the power inside Yeokcheon’s fragment, which he had guarded for decades.
“Mm. What this power is….”
Aster sank into thought.
After realizing how to use the fragment, he escaped the passageway through its power.
Judging by that phenomenon alone, he could put it like this.
“Spatial movement?”
“Spatial movement? May I ask why you think that?”
Teheman asked cautiously.
Because spatial movement was magic that had completely died out in modern times.
No—space magic itself was like that.
‘Warp Gates are nothing more than reviving and using ancient relics. And even then, the only thing you could call space magic is Subspace….’
But spatial movement?
If Aster was right, this was a monumental discovery that would shatter the common sense of the modern magic world.
Perhaps because of that—
Teheman listened to Aster’s voice with even his breathing stilled.
It wasn’t long before Aster opened his mouth.
“The reason is… hmm. Ah—could you take a look at this for a moment?”
“…?”
“When space overlaps, it hurts a lot, so… just a second.”
Tsuzzzzz—.
Aster suddenly lit a Mana Orb in midair. Teheman tilted his head.
“A Mana Orb? Why a Mana Orb all of a sudden?”
Though he couldn’t see, Teheman’s senses clearly caught the shape of the Mana Orb.
“Just wait a moment. I feel like this might work… hmm.”
Aster closed his eyes.
A vague, ticklish sensation in his head—intuition, maybe? It wasn’t the same as when he used spatial movement.
But why?
“Ggh….”
He couldn’t grasp it at all.
It was like there was somewhere that itched, but he couldn’t find the source of the itch.
Then, suddenly—
Paat!
A spark struck through Aster’s mind at that very moment.
“…Got it.”
A low voice. Teheman tilted his head. What, exactly, did he mean by “got it”?
“Can’t you tell?”
“You need to explain—hmm?”
It was right then that Teheman sensed something off.
“The Mana Orb… huh?”
The Mana Orb that had been floating on his right. When had it moved? It had shifted to the left.
‘…When, exactly?’
There had been no sign. His eyes might not work, but Teheman was still a high-level mage—would he fail to notice a Mana Orb moving right in front of him?
If Aster had simply cast a new one—
‘That’s not it either.’
Which meant—
“…Is it real?”
Truly….
“…Is it space magic?”
Aster didn’t answer. Instead of replying, he simply repeated what he had done just now.
‘…Let’s see.’
Once he’d gotten the feel for it, the second time was easy.
Tsuzzzzz—.
The Mana Orb vanished from the left. And when it reappeared—
It was above Teheman’s head.
There was no trajectory. No precursor signs—truly as if it had skipped across space.
“H-Heh heh. Really—really, you mean it? H-Heh heh heh heh….”
A hollow laugh.
Teheman couldn’t believe it.
‘Space magic? Hah! How can that be space magic?’
Just a moment ago, he’d assumed it was, of course, magic. But once he sensed the phenomenon again, he understood clearly.
‘That… is not magic.’
Ancient and modern, ordinary and forbidden—regardless of era or type, magic shared one common point.
It was that it was used through two energy sources: mana and magical power.
But the movement of the Mana Orb Aster displayed was different.
No flow of mana. No use of magical power.
Then what was it?
“…Yeokcheon(逆天).”
Head Librarian Teheman softly spoke the word.
A trembling tone from an old man standing before a miracle.
A village near the territory of House Deculan.
Hwa-reureureureureuk—!
Sudden flames swallowed the village whole.
As fires erupted simultaneously from all over, screams rang out from every direction.
“F-Fire!”
Someone spotted the flames and shouted.
“S-Save me…!”
“Aaagh!”
Someone else was engulfed in fire, moaning in agony.
“Fatheeeeer—!”
“Quick—get out! Hurry…!”
A boy smeared with soot screamed as he looked at his father pinned beneath a beam, and the father waved him away with his hand.
If hell existed, would it look like this?
The screams didn’t stop.
The acrid stench of burning was nauseating beyond measure, and the villagers’ cries were unbearably tragic.
In the middle of the night, without any warning, the flames rose—painting a single tableau of hell.
An old man stared blankly at the scene.
“Ah… aah….”
The voice slipping out between his slightly parted lips was filled with grief beyond measure.
How could it not be?
“M-My village… my villageee…!”
This village was the home the old man had tended his entire life.
His grandfather had settled here, his father had nurtured it, and the old man had inherited it—an уют, cozy haven he would pass down again to his son, to his granddaughter.
To the old village chief who had managed the village for generations, this village was the world itself.
And yet, all of it was burning down in a single instant to a blaze—how could he not lose his mind?
“Hheuh… hheuheuheu….”
The village chief wept and sobbed.
He couldn’t not cry.
Those like brothers, like children, friends, sisters—everyone was being snuffed out within the flames.
He wanted to rush out, even with this frail old body, and save anyone at all.
No….
He had to save them.
Half out of his mind, the village chief bolted forward—trying to save anyone, to drag even a single person out of those cruel flames.
That was when a brutish hand seized his head.
“…Ggeoeok!”
“Old man. Sit.”
“P-Please… please, save….”
“Didn’t I tell you? I said I’d let you live. There’s only one thing you need to do.”
The man with the brutish hand forced the old man down into a seated position.
On a slope overlooking the entire village, the old man sprawled limply under that rough grip.
“Sit quietly and appreciate it. What’s before you is a one-and-only work of art in this world. Don’t you feel something?”
“Ah… u-uh… demon….”
Fear pooled in the village chief’s eyes as he looked at Hollend.
What did he mean, a work of art?
People were dying, writhing in pain. Beautiful? There was only one kind of being that could feel beauty in such a sight.
A demon.
But unlike the village chief’s heart, Hollend gazed upon the scene as if enchanted.
His eyes wavered in ecstasy, as though he were truly admiring a masterpiece.
“Old man, isn’t it truly beautiful? A father saving his son, a son crying for his father. How very—hmm?”
A strange light entered Hollend’s eyes mid-murmur.
“Old man? Hm.”
The village chief, who had been alive and well just moments before, had gone cold.
With a hole punched clean through his chest.
The voice came immediately after.
“Commander, Hollend. Receive the Head of House’s order.”
“Hmm….”
The owner of the voice was a suspicious figure wearing a crow mask. Judging by the build and voice—a woman.
Hollend stared at her.
“An order from the Head of House…. Fine, then. Wait just a moment.”
Right after, Hollend snapped his fingers.
With a crisp sound—
And—
Pueong—!
Hollend, who blew the village away into a handful of ash, looked up at the woman and spoke.
“Go on, then—spit it out, Crow. If it’s some trivial order, you’ll have to pay the price for killing the audience of my work.”
A chilling killing intent (殺氣). But the woman called Crow spoke in a flat, emotionless voice.
“This deal with Lortel. The Head of House commands that you go with me.”
“I understand. Then now—leave your last words.”
Hwaaaaak—!
A terrifying killing intent crushed down on Crow. But did she not feel it?
Crow continued in the same even tone.
And what followed was enough to turn Hollend’s murderous intent elsewhere.
“He said there is an opportunity to remove the stigma of Hongok (紅玉) placed upon you by Kalahen.”
“A stigma….”
A low, sinking voice.
Geugeugeuk—!
A violent pressure burst out along with the killing intent, making the earth tremble. The vicious aura was so intense that even Crow—who had been calm the entire time—flinched.
“Mm.”
As Crow let out a small sigh—
Hollend’s eyes glinted.
“So that means… the ones who killed our worm of a Deputy Commander might show up?”
“…Perhaps.”
She couldn’t be certain.
But for Hollend, even the possibility was enough.
“Good. So that’s how it is.”
The Commander of Hongok (紅玉).
It was the moment Hollend the Scorching Mage’s period of confinement came to an end.
