[402] The Final Decision (2)
Middle East. The Kingdom of Paras.
On the western map of Paras, the cradle of an ancient civilization, the vast Akkad Desert was painted ochre—the largest in the world.
An endless sea of sand.
In a place baked by ageless time, it was extremely difficult for any living thing to endure.
Yet on the sand, soft as if spread with cream, human footprints were imprinted.
They led toward a gigantic pyramid—an ancient ruin that rose like a mirage.
The heart of the Akkad Desert had dried up every oasis, and travelers rarely came near, but a few people knew this place: the dungeon where the world's most famous mage resided.
A dungeon rated A2 for infiltration difficulty.
Walking leisurely inside it was Gangnan, former chief secretary of the Tormia Magic Association.
Wherever she passed, monsters of Tier 5 and above had been driven into the walls, writhing.
The click-clack of her high heels on the stone floor suppressed their groans and echoed oppressively.
After a long fight, Gangnan's clothing was a mess.
Buttons were gone and her front was open; her stockings were laddered here and there like droplets.
In her right hand she gripped a long horn—one of the dozens of horns from some monster's tail.
The tail belonged to a green-bodied beast easily over two tons, and at the end of its body the desert king basilisk hung limp, its snout grotesquely sunken and its tongue lolling.
Dragging the beast along, Gangnan looked incongruous; but given her light, effortless stride, even that felt like a minor detail.
At the end of the maze she pushed open a stone door.
A colossal chamber opened up, and countless desert creatures were stuffed and mounted like dried bark.
At a table eighty meters away, someone with a turban had their back turned, bent over their work.
Gangnan didn't bother to knock. She dragged the basilisk tail and flung it toward the table like a door-knocker.
Kuuuuung!
The vast hall filled with a grand echo.
"If you knew it was me, couldn't you just let me in?" she called.
Only then did the turbaned figure turn. A willowy woman in a sand‑colored cloak stood up.
Her eyes—single‑lidded—were large and elongated; her jaw was delicately narrow. She had a pacifier in her mouth, which, set against the depth of her dark pupils, gave her an oddly mysterious air.
"It's been a while, Gangnan."
The woman was Julu.
She was Paras's certified First‑Rank grand mage and, among surface summoners, the only one capable of calling a lich—the strongest summoner on the continent.
"Yes. You seem to be doing well."
Gangnan spoke in the Middle Tongue, but Julu insisted on the Continental Tongue.
She still attached a polite particle to certain verb endings out of habit.
It didn't fit Continental grammar, but if it had been ingrained from the start, it was something she couldn't help.
"Sit. I'll bring you something to drink."
Gangnan moved forward with an uneasy look.
With Julu's skill she could conjure moisture on the spot, so the problem wasn't scarcity but choice. Even a First‑Rank grand mage seemed to have her own logic that sometimes defied common sense.
As expected, Julu poured an unmarked liquid into an experimental beaker and set it on the table.
Gangnan's face showed her discomfort.
In the desert, water was worth more than jewels. Even if it wasn't for drinking, the experiments in the great chamber required vast amounts of moisture.
The monsters mounted around them, dried without a drop of fluid, weren't a mere eccentricity.
Julu removed the pacifier and tasted the beaker's contents. Because it was precious, Gangnan felt obliged to at least pretend to sip.
"I'll drink. Hopefully it isn't like ten years ago—desert grub piss," she said.
"You couldn't give that to someone who comes after so long. This is very precious water."
Gangnan tilted the beaker and took a small sip.
As soon as her tongue was wetted, a rush of euphoria swelled in her throat.
"It's fine. So what is this?"
"This is my urine."
Gangnan spat the liquid she'd held in her mouth back into the beaker.
Not spilling it on the floor was already an enthusiastic return for the favor of a First‑Rank grand mage.
Julu smiled.
"Don't worry. It's distilled."
"Of course it had better be. Still, I feel like my body already has a lot of this in it."
"Heh. You're the same as ever, Gangnan."
Julu remembered the first time she met Gangnan ten years ago.
She had been far more provincial and inexperienced then, but the sharpness that had bent the mad Gaold to her will was no less than now.
You've grown a lot, she thought.
Back then Gangnan had been a bleeding wolf—fangs bared at anyone, a beast full of hostility.
Now that ferocity had been largely tempered.
If she had come down to the pyramid's nineteenth basement without Gaold, one could say she'd been freed from her obsession.
"Elements of nature cycle. Within cycles are cycles. When we drink water, we do not possess that water; we insert ourselves into the vast cycle of life and death, causing another cycle to spin. When you entrust yourself to a perfect cycle, with nothing to discard and nothing to cling to, a human can harmonize with nature."
Gangnan listened intently to Julu's words.
She wasn't a mage, but truths converged at the summit.
If a First‑Rank grand mage taught you something, nothing could be dismissed.
"Is that the secret to controlling the king of the dead?"
A lich was a thought‑form condensed from a grand mage's will. Because it was already dead, scholars said it couldn't clear its master's final stage—annihilation.
Rumor had it Julu herself had become a lich and that her summoned body was merely a doppelgänger, but Gangnan—having actually seen Julu summon a lich ten years ago—knew that was false.
When she'd seen it then she'd felt only overwhelming awe; but while serving as the Magic Association's chief secretary, she'd grown curious about the real method.
"How on earth is that possible?"
Julu looked away with sad eyes.
"This place is the land of death."
That was all the explanation she offered, but Gangnan felt she understood.
A mage who had grasped the principle that you must empty to be filled would have no reason to tightly hide the secret of a lich. Only because it encompassed one's entire life was it too vast to capture in words.
"I see."
The pyramid's great chamber was Julu's cradle.
Abandoned here as an infant, she had survived alone without anyone's help.
Had the dungeon's monsters become her parents?
Julu couldn't be sure.
When she came to reason she was still alone, and the only thing left by her parents was a small pacifier.
From then on she made the vast dungeon her home.
Death always sat upon her shoulder—when she slept, when she ate, even when she breathed.
It was a form of survival different from what paupers like Radum experienced.
To Julu, survival wasn't a yearning for life but merely another death wearing a different shape.
Gangnan had led a rough life too, but she couldn't imagine Julu's childhood.
Growing up among hundreds of monster species in a dungeon without food or water—perhaps it was inevitable she became the world's strongest summoner.
"I came to ask a favor."
Gangnan went straight to the point, bowing until her forehead touched the table as she pleaded.
"Help Gaold."
Julu gazed somewhere off in the distance and thought for a moment. Then, slowly, she answered in the Middle Tongue.
"All right."
The acceptance came faster than Gangnan had expected, and her head snapped up.
It was notoriously difficult to draw Julu out of the pyramid. Many grand mages—and even Paras's royal family—had begged to be her confidants, and all had been refused.
Above all, Julu was ignorant of the current situation. With plans from ten years ago now overturned, she would be taking on danger with almost no chance of survival.
"Sorry. There's something I didn't tell you. The situation changed suddenly…"
"Gaold is like a child."
Julu recalled the first time she'd met Gaold.
"He doesn't want to empty anything. He packs himself so full he's about to explode. Even though it kills him with pain, he refuses to let go."
Gangnan fell silent and listened.
"And yet he endured because he waited for the time to pour everything out. I think this might be that time. If this is part of a greater cycle, I feel Gaold should be allowed to rest now."
"Julu."
Gangnan fought back tears and forced herself to steady her voice.
Why did words that understood that damned man's obsession make her want to cry?
Was it pity for the madman abandoned after twenty years of suffering? Or something else…?
"And."
Julu smiled with an almost childlike charm.
"Being with Gaold always brought interesting things."
Gangnan lifted the corners of her mouth through wet eyes.
That was it. A pure obsession the average person could never understand.
Perhaps she herself had been bewitched by the madness of someone who'd bet everything on a single thing.
Julu rose and prepared to leave.
All she packed in a small bag—still with the pacifier in her mouth—were two water flasks. It was a modest load for the appearance of a First‑Rank grand mage.
"Let's go. If we ride the Kaidra, we'll be on the continent in no time."
The Kaidra, a Tier‑3 summoned monster, was a gigantic bird that could fly seven thousand kilometers in a day.
Gangnan watched Julu leave the great chamber, then bowed in the distinctive Rammuai manner.
Julu was someone she respected for reasons different from Gaold.
'Thank you.'
Gangnan glanced back at the beaker on the table.
Cycle. You must empty to fill. If you cannot fill, you cannot empty.
She inhaled deeply, lifted the beaker, and downed more than half of it in one gulp.
"Ugh."
She still couldn't get used to it.
The taste was certainly water, but the subtleties of such equanimity weren't for everyone.
Wiping her uneasy mouth with her tongue, Gangnan followed Julu out of the great chamber.
* * *
Shirone went to the headmaster's office at dawn.
Gaold had asked him first to deliver a note to Alpheas.
Seeing Shirone suddenly appear, Alpheas looked surprised, but after reading the note he simply nodded.
Shirone left the headmaster's office without a word.
Royal intelligence agents would already be posted around the school.
Though the capital would be on higher alert without confirmation that Gaold was coming, it still felt dangerous for Gaold to act alone.
'If it's the headmaster, he'll handle it.'
A battle‑hardened veteran like Alpheas could be trusted.
And beside him was Olivia, a certified Second‑Rank grand mage, so they would find a way.
This wasn't the time to worry about Gaold. Shirone himself was a suspect tied to Gaold, and if he wasn't careful he might not live to do anything at all.
In the face of a global crisis called Heaven, no one would fret over Shirone's safety.
He had to make his own decisions and find an escape.
'Ikael…'
There was reason enough to meet—even if it meant abandoning everything—but the situation a year ago was different.
Even if he returned alive, he would be branded a traitor for life and hunted without end.
The one fortunate thing was that he still held the initiative.
Having discovered the possibility of Heaven's destruction, Gaold would classify Shirone as a core figure in the project, which at least provided a basis for survival.
'Information gathering comes first. Carefully, step by step.'
If the situation had ballooned beyond control, a more narrow, practical approach might actually be more effective.
For now, the best course was to feel one blind step at a time and solve the immediate problems.