[96] The Genius Who Lost the Light (5)
"Master! What happened? Did the experiment succeed?"
"Yes, it worked! Our magic succeeded!"
But Alpheas couldn't feel joy. No matter how he looked at Erina, something was wrong with her.
"But why is my wife like this? Darling! Snap out of it!"
Arkein checked the monitors again and froze. Each individual reading looked normal, but the body's overall rhythms were collapsing in unison. It was as if life itself were being snuffed out.
"W-why is this? It wasn't like this in the clinical trials."
"Darling! Erina! Open your eyes!"
Erina opened her eyes halfway and gave a faint smile.
"Darling… I'm fine."
"Erina! What's wrong? Why are you like this? Where does it hurt?"
"There's a rejection reaction starting at the terminal nerves. The human brain must be different in some way. But you achieved something incredible. If we research a little more… ugh!"
Erina drew a deep breath and convulsed.
"Don't speak, darling! I'll do something! I'll save you no matter what…!"
Alpheas' intellect was a curse; it already understood that it couldn't be undone. Still, all he could do was speak desperate words.
Erina slowly shook her head. She knew what her husband knew.
"Darling… hold my hand."
Alpheas gripped his wife's hand hard. If there had been even a one percent chance, he would have tried it. All he could do now was stay by her side.
"Erina, this can't be. How could this happen…?"
Erina smiled sadly.
"Darling, I'm sorry."
"Sorry for what? What are you—"
"For being a fool."
Alpheas felt his heart tear apart. He had tried to change her. How had he forgotten her words—that she was beautiful just by existing?
"No… why are you apologizing? What are you sorry about? It's me! I was the fool! I was the fool!"
"I'm glad I met you."
Erina finally understood her husband. He had lived in a world ruled by reason. Even if only for a brief while, she was happy they'd been together and that she could leave with his memories.
"Darling! Open your eyes! Please… it was my fault, darling!"
When Erina's eyes closed, Alpheas buried his face in her and wailed.
"AAAH! Darling! Darling!"
Arkein bowed his head, grim-faced. What really separated the human brain from an animal's? If they had done human trials from the start, this tragedy might not have happened.
But it was a useless if. Erina's condition for experimenting on herself had been absolute: never experiment on another person.
That had made them all the more meticulous. The data they had gathered would be precious for humanity.
'I'm sorry. Your sacrifice won't be in vain.'
A dull crack echoed. Turning his head, Arkein saw Alpheas ramming his forehead into the wall.
"AAAH!"
Each impact made a breaking sound. It was impossible to tell whether the wall or his skull was coming apart.
"What? The Mirhi family's light? Light? Light!"
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Alpheas' body bounced off the wall like a rubber ball, but he didn't stop. The horror of surviving alone—of leaving his wife behind—was ripping him apart.
"Arrogant Alpheas!"
Alpheas slammed his head into the wall again.
Thud!
Klump grabbed him. If he hadn't, Alpheas would have killed himself.
"Alpheas! Pull yourself together! What are you doing?"
"Let go! Damn you! AAAAH!"
Even Klump's strength barely held him. Alpheas seemed driven toward death as if burning his soul away. Eventually, shock took hold; his pupils rolled and his consciousness faded.
"Erina… Erina…"
Even half-unconscious, he whispered her name, and Klump wept.
* * *
Erina's funeral was held. Only close family attended, and Alpheas was barred by his relatives. There had been no wedding, no heir. In the end, the two parted as strangers.
Alpheas sat outside the funeral hall, listless. As the sun set he rose like someone emptied of reason and walked off.
He arrived at Arkein's dungeon. The equipment from two years of experiments still lay where it had been.
"Erina…"
Alpheas took a can of oil and splashed it throughout the lab. Every time the oil spat, tears ran down his face. The moments of laughter and chatter with her felt as vivid as if they'd happened yesterday.
When the can ran dry, Alpheas slumped against the wall. This knowledge should never have existed. How could people perform such cruel experiments on humans?
"Back already, Alpheas?"
Arkein entered the lab. He knew Alpheas hadn't even been invited to the funeral. For Alpheas, this place had become his wife's grave.
"I'm sorry about Erina. Rest and tend to yourself for a while. When you're ready… come back to me."
Arkein turned his head, sensing something odd. The smell of oil was too strong to be just a leak from the machinery.
"Alpheas… you wouldn't—"
Alpheas rose with dark eyes. One fire spell and the lab would go up.
"No! What are you doing!"
"Master, this was a thing that should never have been done from the start."
"I can understand you are weakened by your wife's death! But no! The experiment nearly succeeded! Haven't you remembered Erina's wishes? Destroying this place would be to deny even her sacrifice!"
"It's all useless. Now that my wife is gone… I have nothing left."
"Even so, you can't! This isn't just yours and Erina's. My lifetime of knowledge is stored here, too! You can't destroy those documents without my permission."
Alpheas cast a fire spell. Arkein absorbed it with dark magic, but he couldn't stop the temperature from rising past the ignition point.
Flames swept the room.
Thousands of pages of documents, precision magical apparatus, volatile alchemical materials—all began to undergo destructive change.
Alpheas watched the fire without flinching, then left the dungeon.
Arkein couldn't leave. The fire had to be put out. Even if he lost everything else, he had to save the experimental data.
"No! No!"
Arkein darted through the flames, frantically salvaging papers. Then a box of volatile substances ignited and exploded.
The lab blew apart; the shock rattled the entire underground complex.
The hungry fire raced through the tunnels.
"AAAAH! Alpheas! I'll never forgive you, Alpheas!"
Arkein ground his teeth. Losing his life's work's data at the moment of completion was more bitter and unfair than death.
"I will… I will survive. And I will take revenge. Wait, Alpheas!"
Even as he burned, Arkein hated Alpheas. The arrogant Alpheas had been arrogant to the end.
Arkein survived by sheer will, rebuilt his strength, and mobilized every connection to scour the continent. But no one knew where Alpheas had gone.
Alpheas reappeared seven years later.
At the Ozent estate in the city of Creas.
"Alpheas! Hey, man! What happened to you?"
Klump stared at the utterly changed Alpheas. The neat face was gone, replaced by a wild beard. He wore rags and his skin was darkly tanned.
Klump took him to the bath and washed him himself. Countless scars marked his body. As a medic, Klump could tell them apart: wounds from beasts, from torture, and unmistakably self-inflicted cuts.
"Did you wander around looking for somewhere to die?"
Alpheas hid his face in wet hair and didn't answer. After a long silence he finally spoke.
"I didn't exactly want to die. I didn't want to live, either. I just drifted."
"I see…"
"I heard you passed the civil service exam. Congratulations."
"There's nothing to celebrate between us. I'm the last of our peers, man."
Klump answered awkwardly. The achievements he'd made while his friend endured hell weren't something he felt proud of.
"Sorry. I have nowhere else to go. I'll be indebted to you."
Klump looked sadly at Alpheas' emaciated back.
How had it come to this?
Once hailed as a supernova of the mage community, he'd been cast out by his house and reduced to a vagrant with no noble acquaintances.
After the bath, Klump had the servants prepare a meal. Perhaps Alpheas' stomach had shrunk; he couldn't eat much.
Klump knew Alpheas wouldn't have come just because he had nowhere else.
In his study, Klump poured a drink. Alpheas didn't touch it. For a moment, the sharp gaze from seven years ago flickered across his face.
"Tell me. You've stopped wandering and come back to the world. You have to get back on your feet. If there's anything I can do to help, I will."
Alpheas replied bluntly.
"Lend me 100 million gold."
"100 million… gold?"
It was an enormous sum.
Klump had gained the right to inherit his house by passing the civil service exam. But even as head, his capacity to front that kind of money was limited.
"I'm not asking for it all at once. I'll withdraw it over four years. Hire an accountant. Set a monthly limit of seven million and you can manage without major harm. I'll pay interest. No compound interest—twenty percent annually. Principal repayment possible after one year."
The lender sets the terms, and Klump didn't worry. The Alpheas he knew would have optimized the deal long before coming here.
In the end that meant earning eighty million gold in profit over four years, excluding principal. Klump was more curious how Alpheas planned to do that.
"What are you going to do? Invent a new magic?"
Alpheas shook his head.
"I have no passion left."
"Then what will you do with 100 million gold?"
"I will build a school."
"A school?"
Klump's eyes widened. Alpheas—who once thought himself unrivaled—wanted to teach others?
"What are you thinking…"
Seeing the tears run down Alpheas' cheek, Klump couldn't finish the question.
"Never again… should someone like me appear. I'll teach while atoning until I die. I'll live gnawing on my pain so no talent is crushed by a moment's mistake."
Alpheas covered his face with both hands and sobbed. Still, the tears wouldn't stop.
Klump's eyes reddened, too.
That damned Erina—Alpheas would likely never forget her. He might have to live tormented for the rest of his life.
But that made Klump's decision easy.
If the pain Alpheas had to bear could be transformed into someone else's growth—if it truly could—then perhaps this friend who once sought happiness over success might one day smile again.
"I'll lend it. 100 million gold."
Alpheas founded a school bearing his name in the city of Creas. During construction he worked as a mage to pay the interest, and at night he studied until he obtained a teacher's certificate.
And four years later.
Mirhi Alpheas, headmaster of Alpheas School of Magic, paid 180 million gold in full to the Ozent family.
* * *
When the effect of Abyss Nova finally faded, Alpheas slowly opened his eyes. All his memories returned, but he remained silent for a long while. The forty years he'd relived were so long and so heavy.