“If you become a demon in order to catch demons, what do you think will be left afterward?”
Archmage still did not know why Heartless North Wind’s thinking had become so extreme.
But she could picture as clearly as if it were before her eyes what would happen if the research became public.
“That was why… I had no choice but to burn it. Even knowing those flames would burn everything we had created, devour my research, and perhaps swallow mages who failed to escape in time… I still had no choice.”
“Archmage……”
“Of course, in the end I told the Lord everything. I did not say what exactly he had been researching, but even from the traces left after the fire, it was obvious what sort of taboo he had violated……”
What Heartless North Wind had done could neither be hidden nor concealed.
That was why she confessed everything except the exact nature of his research.
If only to lessen her own guilt, she had no other choice.
“Fortunately or unfortunately… the Lord did not hold me responsible. Perhaps it was because the mages came forward in small groups and testified to what I had done… or perhaps the Lord simply thought it would be unwise to purge mages when no one knew when the demons might attack.”
The same had been true when she said the…