by Hyougetsu
Lastly, it is possible that he was reincarnated from a world different to our own. Though honestly, I cannot believe I even wrote such a thing down. It is unbecoming for someone with the title of Great Sage to be making such wild, speculative guesses.
Perhaps the death of my good friend still has me rattled. I really must keep it together. Before I let myself be swept away by sentimentality, I need to remake myself into someone stronger. This is not the time to be wavering.
Friedensrichter, I know you would not want this, but I will cross necromancy’s final threshold. As I am now, a stray arrow could easily end my life. Unless I grow stronger, I fear the demon army will be left without a Demon Lord once more. And that must not be allowed to happen.
My dear friend, perhaps you will laugh at my folly. No, please, laugh at my folly. For if you’re laughing, that would mean you’ve returned to us. Why must I be the only one left behind?
No, I need to hold it together. I wonder if my age is making me this sentimental? Either way, I cannot afford to hesitate. Dangerous though it may be, I must cross the final threshold. Naturally, the prospect makes me uneasy. More specifically, the thought that I may come out a different person terrifies me. For that reason, I will enlist the aid of the one I trust most. Simply imagining his face gives me the confidence that things will all turn out well. Though I suppose I am a failure of a master to be relying on my disciple like this.
＊ ＊ ＊ ＊
It was decided that Master’s coronation ceremony would be held in Grenschtat in a few days. Demons didn’t really hold ceremonies like this normally, but everyone felt that they needed to do something to officially denote Master’s new position. Besides, the ceremony would also serve as the old Demon Lord’s funeral. Once it was over, Master had declared she would be moving the demon army’s base of operations to Ryunheit. This was likely the last official event that would be held in Grenschtat. Master came to me for help the night before her coronation ceremony.
“The Demon Lord is not simply the strongest demon there is. Whoever serves as Demon Lord must possess superhuman powers placing them on a level close to God.”
“I get what you’re trying to say, Master, but there’s no way you’ll be able to make yourself as strong as the old Demon Lord.”
Master was undeniably the strongest mage alive, but she was still on the same level as us demons and humans. She didn’t have the godlike strength of the old Demon Lord. Master nodded and replied, “You are correct. However now that I have inherited the title of Demon Lord, I can no longer afford to remain a weakling who loses consciousness after casting a few spells in succession.”
“You know, most people can’t cast half as many spells at once...”
In order to cast spells from different branches of magic, you had to gather different varieties of mana. Most people needed to spend time doing that, so their spells had cooldowns of sorts. Master, however, was skilled enough to hold multiple strains of mana at once.
“Fortunately, there is one way to increase my insufficient mana.”
Master’s declaration surprised me.
“Methods like that exist?”
“Indeed. If what I am about to attempt succeeds, I may be able to obtain power equal to that of Friedensrichter...”
“May be able to?”
“...There are risks.”
Well, that doesn’t sound good.
“In truth, I had wanted to carry out this experiment years ago, but that worrywart Friedensrichter forbade me.”
And now it sounds worse. Honestly, I didn’t think Master needed to become any stronger than she was.
“Master, you weren’t chosen to be the new Demon Lord just because of your strength.”
The first regiment supported her because of how much the old Demon Lord had trusted her. The second regiment supported her because of her kindness, and the fact that she’d saved most of their lives. And the third regiment supported her because they knew her well and valued her abilities. Though everyone had their own reasons, it wasn’t just because of her strength that the demons had accepted Master as their new Demon Lord. In fact, none of them seemed to care too much about her martial prowess. In a way, it was somewhat unprecedented. However, Master just shook her head.
“I understand that very well. But at the same time, I also understand that I cannot allow myself to be slain so easily.” Master rubbed her neck and looked off into the distance. “Every time a kingdom’s ruler dies, the people falter. If the demon army were to lose its second Demon Lord not long after their first, accomplishing Freidenrichter’s dream would become that much more difficult, no?”
“Well... Yeah, I guess.”
If Master died too, then everyone would be too depressed to go on. She gave me an impish grin and said, “Worry not. I have no intention of doing anything too rash. Theoretically, there should be no danger.”
“You’re not really doing a good job of reassuring me here.”
Master’s smile turned rueful.
“You really are a troublesome disciple. Very well, I shall explain what I am about to attempt, so listen carefully.”
Thanks to my excessive worrying, Master had decided to give me a lecture.
“Necromancy is not just a branch of magic. It is a philosophical school of thought. Necromancers learn about death in order to face it.” Master held a hand over a nearby candle and muttered, “For us necromancers, there is something known as the final threshold. Do you know of what I speak?”
There was only one thing those who studied death would call the final threshold.
“Your own death?”
“Perceptive.” Master’s playful grin returned. “Even necromancers must eventually experience death. It is the moment of their passing when their true worth as magician of the dead is tested. How a necromancer faces their death determines everything.”
While Master had nearly died once before, she hadn’t fully crossed the threshold. Were it not for her magic, she would have been stuck in an eternal coma, but still alive. However, simply coming close to death was not the same as crossing the final threshold. Reading my thoughts, Master nodded.
“When I pass into the realm of the dead, my existence will be tested. I will have to answer what life and death truly are.”
“That sounds like a tough question...”
“It is. But I have lived for centuries now, and I have found my own answer to that eternal question.” Master leapt off her chair and walked over to me. “Once I open that door, however, there will be no turning back. There is a possibility the experience will warp my personality.”
What’s that supposed to mean? Master looked up and said in a serious tone, “It is for that reason I wish for my disciple’s assistance, to keep me stable.”
“In that case, wouldn’t Melaine be a better choice?”
Master shook her head.
“Only you can help me with this. No one else has both the magical experience and martial abilities you possess.”
“Oh no, this is another one of those experiments, isn’t it...”
Among Gomoviroa’s disciples, I was the one most used to rough treatment. A werewolf’s body was sturdier than most demons, but thanks to that, I was always the one Master chose to help with her most dangerous experiments. Even though the only magic I had experience with was strengthening magic. Well, whatever. If Master needs me, then I’ll be there to help her.
“Alright. But please for the love of God, no more devil summoning.”
“Will you never let that go? I admit I made a mistake.”
Once, Master had summoned a devil from a different dimension, and it had spent the entire day trying to kill me. I never wanted to experience a nightmare like that again. I’d thought it would vanish after a night passed, but that damned devil continued attacking us for a full two days after that. Master came out fine since I was protecting her, but I wish she’d consider how much that took out of me. If I ever saw that devil again, I’d rip it to shreds. M
aster coughed awkwardly and changed the topic.
“Your task this time will be simple. Follow me to the underground laboratory.”
“We need to do this underground?”
“That will give me time to tell you a few old stories of mine.”
“Your stories always end up so long...”
“It’s not everyday you have the opportunity to receive a personal lecture from the Great Sage Gomoviroa.”
Master’s voice echoed down the spiral staircase. “Long ago, a tiny human kingdom used to be here. It was ruled by a family of mages. They used their magical prowess to defend their borders from demons and invading human armies.”
Master then went on to describe how the country eventually met its downfall.
“They put too much faith in their magical abilities, and let the power they wielded get to their head. As a result, they forgot one of the most important things. There is nothing more dangerous in this world than a grudge.”
Due to their arrogance, the rulers of the kingdom earned the resentment of their people, and were eventually betrayed from within. Rebellions sprang up, and soon enough the royal family was captured and executed.
“I was the only survivor of that purge. My mother put me into a near-death state, then cast a healing spell that would revive me over a long period of time.”
“I see... Wait!”
“What’s the matter?”
“Doesn’t that mean this is your birthplace, Master? And that would make you a princess, wouldn’t it!?”
“I was born into a branch family, so technically I was never in line for the throne. Though I suppose it wouldn’t be incorrect to call me royalty.”
That was the first I’d ever heard of this. It came as quite a shock. Master shrugged her shoulders as if it were of no importance.
“Did you never find it strange how easily the demon army was able to find this castle and convert it into their base?”
“I thought it was just a coincidence...”
“In truth, I serve as the demon army’s landlady.”
I didn’t realize she was renting the castle out.
“At any rate, once the nation fell, its villages and fields were reclaimed by nature. The thick forest that rose up in its place made this castle the perfect hiding place.”
She finished her story as we reached the end of the spiral staircase. At the bottom was an old, ornate door.
“The rebels speared me through the throat with a pike and put me on display with the rest of my family. By the time I was healed enough to regain consciousness, years had passed. You could imagine my terror at seeing what had become of my world.”
“That sounds horrible...”
I couldn’t imagine how much it must have hurt to be lanced through the throat.
“What surprised me most was that all traces of the kingdom had vanished, and only ruins remained. I know not what followed my family’s demise, but it appeared the rebels were unable to unite the country after their victory.”
They’d probably had another civil war after that. In the end, you reap what you sow.
“My relatives had rotted away until only their bones remained. And since my wounds had healed around the pike stuck in my throat, I had to relive the pain when I pulled it out. It was the most excruciating pain imaginable, and it lasted for days.”
I finally understood why Master was more scared of humans than she was of demons, and why she was so shy. Anyone would be after experiencing something like that as a child. After recovering from her wounds, Master had lived alone in the abandoned castle for years. Though it had fallen into disrepair, many rooms on the castle were still usable, and the outside world was too dangerous a place for a young child like her.
“Day after day, I thought to myself, why did this have to happen? I wanted so dearly to revive my departed mother and father that I began researching necromancy.”
Of course she realized soon enough that bringing back the dead was impossible. Death was permanent, irreversible. Not even the deepest secrets of necromancy could overturn its merciless verdict. It was theoretically possible to call back the spirits of the dead, but no matter how skilled one was, they could only return the spirit to the land of the living for a scant few seconds. On top of that, the spirit would be indistinct and unable to speak. Having lost all motivation to live, Master spent her years researching necromancy out of pure habit. The next time she met another soul was more than 100 years later.
“At that point in time, I had yet to discover my answer regarding the final threshold. But after taking in so many wide-eyed, innocent, disciples I finally understood.”
“I see.”
Master chuckled and said, “To be specific, it was you who taught me the answer.”
“Me? What?”
How did I teach her anything? Master removed her hat and said, “Remember back when you were a child, there was a time Melaine accidentally dropped my teacup and broke it?”
There was? I felt like there might have been. But I didn’t remember it very well.
“I remember wondering why it was that even though Melaine had dropped it with no force at all, by the time it reached the ground it was falling fast enough to shatter. Where was that force coming from?”
Now that you mention it, I do remember a conversation like this.
“You said, ‘The higher something is, the more power it has.’”
I don’t remember saying that though. Though if I had said that, I’d probably just been talking about how objects at height possessed lots of potential energy. It was one of those things I’d learned in middle school science class. A teacup resting on a high ledge had a lot of potential energy. If you dropped it, it would start converting that potential energy into kinetic energy, causing it to break when it hit the ground. That was all there was to it.
However, it appeared Master had been sharp enough to understand my half-assed explanation. Energy could never be born from nothing, meaning that energy had been in the teacup all along, it had just been invisible. I do remember from there, Master had taken only half a day to discover the existence of thermal and chemical energy. There was a reason everyone called her a Great Sage.
Come to think of it, that was around the time Master had started researching destruction magic and teleportation magic as well, even though they weren’t her specialty. Her disciples had all thought she was an odd one for branching out into unrelated fields of magic, but now I realized she had picked those to better understand the laws of physics.
“It was then that it occurred to me that mana might be just another form of energy. And if mana was simply energy, then might that not mean life is as well?”
“You think life is energy?”
“Correct. From the moment we are born, we are granted a measure of life energy that slowly dwindles away. As time passes, the rate our life force drains grows, until finally it is exhausted and we shatter onto the ground like my teacup.”
I see now. Master was saying that the act of living was like converting our potential energy into kinetic energy.
“Upon shattering, that life becomes no more. But the energy that life possessed does not vanish. It continues to exist somewhere else, in a different form. In which case, what is there to fear in death?”
Master leaned her staff against the wall and opened the door. The room beyond was tiny and illuminated by a series of flickering blue lights. It was eerily quiet, and I could sense a disturbing flow of mana within. The room was clearly ancient, evidenced by the rotting books lining the crumbling bookshelves. You really should clean this place up, Master.
Though the floor was coated in dust, I could still make out the large magic circle engraved on the flagstones. I could tell it was ancient because of how many outdated runes and patterns it used. It appeared the source of the room’s lighting was this magic circle, as it was glowing with a faint blue light. Master strode to the center of the circle.
“This magic circle is what provides me wi
th the supplementary mana I need to stay alive. From here on out, I will deactivate the circle and cross the final threshold. I want you to be standing here with me when I do.”
“You want me to join you?”
“Indeed. You will be safer that way.”
It’s safer inside the circle? Gingerly, I stepped into the circle. The mana swirling around the center of the circle was dense. If I tried to cast a spell in this room, it was likely to spiral out of control.
“Now then, let us begin. No matter what happens, do not leave the circle. Am I understood?”
“A-Alright, Master.”
Master nodded, then began chanting an incantation I had never heard before. As the incantation neared completion, the magic circle grew brighter.
“Nghh...”
Master grabbed her throat and groaned in pain. At the same time, the densely packed mana began swirling around us, forming a massive spiral. Master braced her legs against the maelstrom and shouted, “Death is not the end. It is simply a phase in the endless circle of energy. Death, it is you that should kneel to me!”
