Chapter 2 — 사자(獅子)
Part 2, Chapter 24
The Lion
When Tasha murmured that, Jeff blinked in surprise and asked,
“Oh, you know?”
“I heard it from Lord Gility.”
Gility Tenz, called the Beast King.
Even within the Free Revolutionary Army he’d been a high-ranking officer, and it had been quite some time since he started living alongside Augustine, an elder of House Nereasta.
Because Tasha showed talent from a young age, she spent a lot of time with Augustine—and naturally grew close to Gility in the process.
She heard no end of stories about the revolutionaries then.
Jeff of the “Blue Eye” was one such tale among many.
“Ha!”
Jeff let out a hearty laugh at Tasha’s words.
“Gility… what a name to hear again. A very good friend. Makes me want to see him after so long.”
Thinking of Gility, Jeff’s expression turned wistful. Then his eyes narrowed.
“Then you must be the young lady of House Nereasta.”
Jeff knew as well.
Where Gility, who split with the Free Revolutionary Army over differences in purpose, had taken refuge.
“There’s only one redhead with a phoenix of blue flame. Tasha Nereasta.”
Jeff stroked his chin and looked her up and down.
“The young lady of Nereasta. One of the Three Divine Stars? Your ransom would fetch a fine price.”
“Planning to sell me to a brothel?”
Tasha shot back, incredulous.
Jeff’s face twisted at once.
“Don’t be insane. I don’t listen to garbage like that even as a joke. We’re warriors who hold freedom as our creed. Buying and selling ‘people’ like that—never. Nothing is more precious than a person.”
Tasha was certain then that Jeff was a ‘true’ member of the Free Revolutionary Army.
Humanism was their highest banner.
They could not walk the same road as the Empire, which made light of human life and bowed in worship to gods.
“Then?”
“We keep you safe and sound and send your father a very expensive protection bill.”
“Unbelievable…”
Tasha clicked her tongue and shook her head.
Either way, in the end, they were still putting a price on her body, weren’t they?
“Think what you like.”
Jeff didn’t seem to care. He drew the weapon slung over his back.
Whether it could be called a spear was another matter.
The shaft was over three meters long, and its blade curved far more deeply than any scimitar.
Like its owner, it looked brutally rugged.
A heavy hum rose.
A dense weight burst out from Jeff’s body.
“Let’s see the skill of Gai’s daughter.”
KRA-BOOM!
Before the words were finished, Jeff kicked off and charged Tasha.
Fast!
Startled, Tasha thrust her hand up.
The phoenix perched on her shoulder scattered into flame and spiraled into the sky.
Whoosh!
“Oh! That’s some firepower.”
Tasha didn’t answer. She only grit her teeth and swept the raised hand down with all her might.
Like a waterfall, blue fire slammed into the ground and spread in an instant.
In the sky, an azure cloud swollen with stormcharge.
On the earth, an azure sea brimming with heat.
The colors were so deep it felt as if the whole world had been dyed blue.
Nereasta Secret Art
Azure Flame Hell
Flame Hell—one of the many hells that confine the wicked, said to be filled with nothing but fire.
House Nereasta possessed a magic that realized such a hell in the mortal world, and Tasha had reinterpreted it in her own way, forging a new rite.
No one trapped within had ever escaped intact.
From the azure cloud the phoenix raised came a rain of fire; from the azure sea, a tsunami, both converging on Jeff.
Kra-koom, ka-room, kra-koooom!
KA-THOOM-THOOM-THOOM—
It looked like a natural disaster had struck.
There seemed nowhere Jeff could slip through.
Yet not a hint of tension showed on his face.
“Tch.”
He only clicked his tongue, as if annoyed, and flipped up his eyepatch.
In that instant—
Flash!
Jeff’s pupil gleamed wickedly.
As if a blue sapphire had been set there.
Jeff’s Original
Demonic Eye of Annihilation
All the flames closing over Jeff unraveled in midair at once.
Ssshh—
As if nothing had ever been there.
Kra-koooom!
Rip, rip—
The hail of fire that followed was the same.
With a sound like paper tearing, every spell was nullified.
Jeff looked at her with a crooked smile, as if to say, Is that all?
“Nothing else? If this is it, I’m bored.”
Grinding her teeth, Tasha thrust out her hand again.
—Brother Augustine grafted a dark elf into his left arm. Even that alone threw academia into an uproar, didn’t it? Said he’d committed a forbidden art.
—Y-yes. It’s hard not to think of it as… beyond the pale.
—That kind of beyond-the-pale is everyday in the revolution. To survive, to grow stronger, we don’t draw lines. We do what we must.
She remembered Gility saying that once as he ruffled young Tasha’s hair.
Tilting back a drink, gazing at the moonlit night—he’d looked, somehow, very lonely.
—Count the legion commanders—each of them has at least one such thing.
Jeff was one of them.
The eye behind his patch was not human.
The eye of the Black Dwarves, a people known for innate, exceptional anti-magic.
How he’d come by it, she didn’t know.
But one thing was certain.
So long as Jeff had that eye, he was a natural enemy to mages.
Even so, she couldn’t simply leave him be; she moved to a new spell.
Nereasta Summoning
Twelve Serpents
From all across the scattered azure sea, a dozen serpents of flame surged up.
From behind his line of sight. From blind angles.
Hiss!
However—
Pop.
The serpents burst in the air like fireworks.
“Think you’re safe if I don’t see it? Smart thought, but wrong answer. My eye covers a pretty wide swath.”
Tasha’s face hardened.
“Yeah?”
Tzzzz—
This time, an identical serpent slid down along her forearm.
“Then let’s see how long that eye can keep running.”
Jeff’s lips curled, as if he liked the sound of that.
* * *
Deep, deep within the inner world.
Step, step—
Mia and Elric’s footsteps echoed softly.
It was darkness where not even an inch ahead could be seen.
Yet Mia walked through it as if it were familiar, without difficulty.
Elric followed quietly behind her.
Thankfully, even the magic light that shone on her wasn’t swallowed by the dark.
How long had they walked like that?
With no end in sight, Elric finally asked, restless,
“How far are we going, exactly?”
“I told you. The ‘deep’ place of the inner world.”
“And by deep you mean…?”
“Human consciousness splits three ways.”
Mia raised three fingers.
An abrupt lecture out of nowhere.
But she was not the type to explain nonsense, so he listened in silence.
“The unconscious realm, the Id. The Ego, which manages instinct. The Superego, which forms the self.”
Elric nodded. He knew that much.
The place where the retainers of the Winter Six, including Chapter Six of Winter, currently resided was the Id.
It was also where all of a human’s latent potential and possibility lay.
And a place Elric would have to overcome someday.
“And the Id divides again into four.”
That, he did not know.
His eyes widened.
“Persona. Anima. Shadow. Self.”
All of them were terms he was hearing for the first time.
“Where I and the Winter Six are is Persona. But where we’re going now is the Shadow.”
To sum up Mia’s explanation:
The Shadow is the sum of all the ‘negative parts’ of one’s character and instinct. It’s where every unpleasant, anxious thing you want to hide is knotted together.
As everything that exists casts a shadow, so too is this Shadow the shade of the self.
Thus the Shadow is among the most worthless, inferior, and primitive aspects of human nature.
“Where we’re passing through now is Anima.”
She didn’t say exactly what the Anima was.
But one thing was clear.
They had much farther to go.
To a place within the soul Elric had never once reached.
If Mia were to suddenly vanish here, just like this?
I’d end up shut inside myself.
He would likely be trapped here, never finding his way out.
“Then why are we heading to the Shadow?”
If this were training, maybe. But in a crisis where anything could happen at any moment, it was hard to accept that they were calmly diving deep into the unconscious.
Mia finally smiled, as if amused.
“There’s someone in the Winter Six you haven’t unlocked yet, right?”
“Y-yes?”
Elric nodded, reluctant.
As she said, the retainers who had revealed themselves so far were Damir, Mia, Nahatram, and Chepesh. Four.
Two remained.
“We’re going to meet one of them. Even with Spring opened, you’re not there yet. You need to wake the other two to claim a complete ‘Winter.’”
“A complete Winter…”
He’d wondered about that.
He’d completed the Winter sigil and finished the trials tied to Winter.
So why hadn’t the remaining two retainers opened their hearts?
Mia, as if reading his thoughts, smiled faintly.
“How do you think you come to understand Winter’s cold?”
Elric fell into thought at her question.
Cold?
Cold…
After a moment, he answered,
“Warmth, I suppose.”
“Right.”
Mia nodded.
As knowing death gives meaning to life—
Only by knowing warmth can you understand how cold Winter truly is.
Winter means death. Spring means life. Two faces of one coin, bound together.
“So you waited until Spring opened.”
To understand Winter fully.
“Right. And the one we’re about to meet—he’s tied to Spring as well.”
“Who is it?”
“Hargan.”
One corner of Mia’s mouth lifted.
“He’s Arseus’s lover.”
“…!”
* * *
“Hargan… was Arseus’s lover?”
Elric couldn’t help but be shocked.
He’d never imagined it.
“Surprised?”
“It’s the first I’ve heard of it.”
He scratched his cheek, awkward, then his eyes hardened.
“Then if I gain Hargan’s power, will we have a way to beat the Golden Lion?”
It was a question that made his heart pound.
Because that meant a path might appear to reach the rank humanity had never touched—the Seven Chains.
“Regretfully—no.”
Mia shook her head.
“Even in our time, there was no comparing him to anyone but Otto Han.”
There was a sigh buried in there somewhere.
“A power never meant for humans.”
A power never meant for humans, huh.
Hearing it framed that way only made Elric more curious.
The Golden Lion—on whom neither the authority of ‘Winter,’ nor his magic, nor hard-body arts, nor any attack at all had worked.
And even with three possessions at once, he hadn’t shown his full strength.
Which was why—
Elric couldn’t help but agree with Mia.
Even the Archdemon Mephisto had felt a spark of rivalry, after all.
“But it might be enough to stand against him.”
Elric finally exhaled, relieved.
To buy the Trang clan enough time to flee from him.
That would be enough.
Whether a path was visible or not—that made all the difference.
“We’re almost there.”
Mia looked straight ahead.
“Hargan should be just beyond.”
The Talent-Swallowing Magician