C97
“Master….”
Thad hesitated to speak up. Was Alpheas truly the Alpheas of the past? Humans have hope because they do not know the future. But there was no hope in Alpheas's memories. Any happy memories were buried under terrible pain.
Alpheas closed his eyes again. A drop of tears flowed down.
"Master, are you alright?"
“Thank you, Thad.”
Thad let out a sigh of relief at the gentle tone.
"Are you really okay?"
"Of course. I'm sorry for speaking harshly to you earlier. But that's who I used to be.”
"No, I'm sorry. I thought Master might have made a mistake and wished Master had stayed the same..."
Alpheas patted Thad's shoulder.
"It was a reasonable judgment. Maybe it would have been better that way."
“Master, then….”
Thad became anxious again. Maybe he should have pushed on as he initially thought. It must have been an opportunity for escape that would never come again for Alpheas.
"Yes. It's a memory I never want to recall. But……."
Alpheas looked at Erina's portrait. Recalling the moment he met her at the first ball and confessed his love, a faint smile appeared on his lips.
“No matter how painful life is, there are cases where you live to protect just one moment."
"Yes."
Thad was finally relieved. Alpheas was Alpheas, no different from the old one.
The woman named Erina, who had shaken Alpheas's entire life, held a place in his heart as painful but unforgettable memories.
"Master, the one who caused this incident is Arcane. Currently, Teacher Ethella is..."
"I had a feeling since the moment it happened. This is not the time for explanations. Let's get moving."
As Alpheas walked to the door, Thad followed. They had overcome the first hurdle, but the real problem began now. The entire student was caught in Arcane's clutches.
'Please, we must not be too late.'
To Infinity (1)
After learning about Alpheas' past, Shirone and the others were silent for a while. It was such a shocking event and a heart-wrenching love story.
"I never knew that such a thing happened to our principal..."
A certified 4th rank mage and the principal of a prestigious magic school. Anyone would thought it was a successful life no matter how they saw it. However, if one listen to Arcane's story, Alpheas had been truly remarkable. A Gold Circle award winner for proving the theory of light particles at a young age, and his memory transfer experiment was a progressive idea that had only recently been researched in the magic community.
“Obviously, Alpheas was a genius. But he was weak. The world would have been different if he had only endured a little. But a little affection ruined everything. I can never forgive such Alpheas.”
Shirone had many thoughts. Arcane was a villain recognized by the world but was also a mage. At least in Erina's experiment, he was merely a great helper.
"Perhaps. It might be hypocritical for Principal Alpheas to have destroyed your research."
As Arcane's hostility had softened, Shirone could get a little closer.
“But I would have made the same choice.”
"Can you still say that after seeing what happened to Alpheas? Well, I suppose a certified 4th rank mage might seem impressive to you. However, you can't reach the highest position if you're swayed by emotions. Erina's death was unfortunate, but magic is magic. In that sense, Alpheas was unqualified."
Shirone shook his head. History will tell you what was right, but Alpheas was not swayed by emotion. At least he thought so.
"If the experiment had continued, there would have been many more victims. You wouldn't hesitate to perform human experiments."
"I won't deny that. But if you can save many by sacrificing a few, it's worth it. Someone has to suffer anyway. Isn't it the duty of the intelligences to save more people even at the cost of sacrifice? If you had parents with a mentally disabled child in front of you, what would you do? Could you still be so hypocritical?"
"I could."
Arcane grimaced in discomfort. But Shirone wasn't being stubborn.
“As you said, if 10,000 people can be saved by sacrificing one person, it would be a reasonable choice. But even so, I wouldn't sacrifice that one person."
"Then ten thousand people will die."
"That's inevitable."
Shirone said with a firm look.
"Ten thousand people may die. However, even if such a situation arises, it is not an area that we as humans can intervene in. The very idea of weighing human lives is arrogant. We just have to do what we can, even if more people have to suffer. Then the day will come when we can save 10,000 people. What you're trying to do is no different from a dictator trying to rise above humanity."
Arcane realized that Shirone was at his breaking point. Not being able to sacrifice a few for the majority? Some would call it virtuous, but in reality, not many people would accept it when faced with such a situation. Humans are beings that wander in search of what benefits them between good and evil. But Shirone was at the very end of virtue. Both the cruel murderer and the saint who saved humanity are inhuman. And both were equally persecuted by the public.
'Your life won't be smooth either. Even dying here might be a blessing to you.'
Mage choose between good and evil based on their intellect. To Arcane, who believes that the effectiveness of evil advances humanity, Shirone is a future enemy that must be nipped in the bud.
“We are the kind that can't get along. It's a shame, but I have to kill you."
Shirone took a step back. He had clearly felt Arcane’s power was in decline until just a moment ago, but now it was exuding the energy of a true Archmage.
"Are you surprised, kid? Magic is a mysterious thing."
According to the Magic Association's research, the mental fatigue of a magician casting pure magic is equivalent to that of an ordinary person concentrating on a single task for 48 minutes.
However, Arcane ignored such arithmetic calculations and quickly regained his strength.
"Let's end this. There will be no pain."
A shadow rose from Arcane's body and a black curtain covered the sky. People were astonished at its enormous size. It was different in scale from the Power of Darkness that Canis showed off.
As Arcane raised his right hand, the curtain gathered in the shape of a fist. Shirone was genuinely amazed. Judging by the size of the fists, half of the land would have flown away.
'I can't stop it. Nor can I avoid it.'
If the Power of Darkness is quantified, the force exerted by the unit cube (width, length, height 1 cm) is approximately 0.1 N, which is slightly better than that of an ant's jaw joint. . However, when it reached the unit of billions, it could sweep away everything on the ground with a tremendous force of a thousand tons.
"Stop this disgrace, Master."
Everyone's eyes in the area turned to the cliff. Alpheas stood with his hands behind his back. Then, a beam of light roared and bent, and Thad landed next to Alpheas.
“Teacher Thad!”
Color returned to the faces of Shirone's group. The arrival of Alpheas and Thad alone made them feel like they had gained a myriad of reinforcements. Thad looked up at the power of darkness and cast a Fire Line. The stream of flame surged in a double helix shape and gathered into a huge fireball.
"Wow..."
As the surrounding landscape turned white, they couldn't even open their eyes. However, Arcane offset the light that burned his retinas with the power of dark magic and stared straight ahead.
"Hmm."
As he spread his palm towards the Fire Line, the floating power of darkness mimicked the movement and grasped the huge fireball.
Chiiii!
Shirone shuddered. It was his first time hearing something burn with such a massive sound. As the world plunged back into darkness, Thad frowned and transformed the Spirit Zone into an offensive form.
"Damn! Annoying old man...!"
Alpheas raised his hand to stop him.
“Stop it, Thad.”
“But Master….”
"It's my matter. It's between me and Arcane. Leave it to me from here on."
Alpheas casually moved forward. Then, Arcane also unfolded the darkness, which had extinguished the Fire Line, back into the form of a curtain and spread it in the sky.
"You've aged, Alpheas. Well, even mage of time is just a human in front of time."
Alpheas ignored the first greeting in 40 years. At least not yet... It wasn't time for the foolish and infatuated old men to clear up the past. Passing through hundreds of students, looking at the injured Iruki, Nade, and Shirone, he looked back at Ethella for the last time. It was clear that she had already clashed with Arcane, as a bruise was spreading on her pale skin.
“You worked hard, Ethella. It's because I'm immoral. I can only apologize."
"No, I'm sorry. I couldn't save the students."
Alpheas shook his head. When Ethella, who was proficient in magic, martial arts, and mental arts, came for a teacher interview, he was puzzled. But today, he couldn't be more proud of his decision to hire her. If it hadn't been for her, all the students would not have been safe.
"Principal, please be careful."
Shirone said with a worried expression. If it was Arcane whose energy was exhausted, he considered that Alpheas, a certified 4th rank mage, could deal with it. However, Arcane was undoubtedly in his best condition now.
Alpheas smiled as if he already knew.
"Don't worry. There is no magic that violates the principle of equivalent exchange."
“But Arcane's mental strength is definitely..."
"Yes, it has recovered. But that too is magic."
"Magic?"
"Abyss Magic controls memories. It was created by Arcane and is the magic that Arcane uses best. Is that correct, Master?”
Arcane snorted.
"It seems you're not senile yet. By the way, the magic you suffered from is an incomparable magic called Abyss Nova. There's no need to explain the effect since you've experienced it yourself."
“It was great magic. Thanks to that, it was nice to be able to recall old memories.”
"Don't brag. You must have been so scared that you ran away. You probably cried your eyes out."
“You got it right. But it seems that you've gotten weaker while I wasn't looking, Master. Struggling so much against children who are 100 years younger than you, even having to cast Abyss Memory."
Arcane was not angry. When Alpheas is calm, he himself is calm too. Forty years of resentment couldn't be resolved with just words.
Alpheas turned his head to Shirone as if enjoying the afterglow of the night before the storm.
“Shirone. In order to cast magic, you need a momentary strong concentration. It's like using the concentration of an ordinary person accumulated in an hour, in just a second. That's why Arcane did this."
Alpheas tapped his temple with his index finger and said.
“It was cast on his own head. The magic to erase memories.”
"Ah..."
There was such a way. If you erase the memory of using your brain, mental fatigue will disappear. Of course, it was inevitable that it would become functionally overloaded, but once in a while, it would be enough to restore mental strength.
Alpheas understood Shirone's feelings. Viltor Arcane. He was a mage who endured on the battlefield for 100 years with non-mainstream dark magic. Regardless of past resentments, his skills had to be acknowledged.
"That's right. It's a bold and cool technique. Arcane is a mage who lives in such a world. So remember this, too. A person who doesn't have a last resort can never be called a battle mage."
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Tags:
Infinite Mage (Novel)
