Chapter 39: Upheaval (7)
Chapter 39: Upheaval (7)
Not long after, the arriving military brought order to the chaos, and the incident was finally over. Considering it had happened at a location not particularly close to any military outpost, the damage caused by the monsters, amounting to not even a single village being completely destroyed, was remarkably minimal. From a national standpoint, it was a stroke of luck. That it ended this way was thanks to the promptness of the reports.
But from an individual’s perspective, specifically, from Jin’s, it was anything but fortunate. His home had been completely destroyed. Everyone he had known was dead, erased without a trace by the lightning he had summoned.
Above all, the person most precious to him, his master, had died because of him, trying to protect him.
Jin, surrendering himself to a despair deeper than the abyss, remained unmoving at the exact spot where Aska had breathed his last, staying there until the soldiers arrived to suppress the incident and search for survivors.
* * *
In the pitch-black ruins—charred, collapsed, and so devastated it was impossible to tell what the place had once been—the soldiers found a single boy, glowing white in stark contrast to the wreckage.
He radiated an aura so otherworldly, so extraordinary, it felt as though the heavens themselves had descended. The boy, holding the lifeless body of a man with platinum hair who had passed beyond the point of return, was wailing uncontrollably.
Hair of pure silver-white, untouched by any other hue, had long been called the color of the gods. Rumor had it that when a mage reached a certain level of mastery, their hair changed color as proof.
In truth, it signified the ability to wield a portion of divine power. But those who knew its true nature were exceedingly rare. Only a handful of people across the entire continent each century were born with such a perfect shade of silver-white, making accurate knowledge scarce.
It was said that those who bore this color all possessed a divine aura, but most people didn’t believe it. After all, they had never seen it with their own eyes. And what difference was there, really, between silver hair and the white of an elderly man gone gray with age? That was what most thought when they heard the tales.
But the moment the soldiers found the boy in the heart of the monster-ravaged ruins, they realized, like a lightning strike, what that so-called divine aura truly meant.
In the pouring rain, the boy’s silver-white hair, so starkly unlike that of an old man, shone as he clung to the dead man’s body and wept. There, in that child, was the divine aura the rumors spoke of.
They knew it instinctively. The color the boy bore was the color of the gods. And with that recognition came an overwhelming sense of duty: they had to take the boy with them.
They tried coaxing him away, persuading him to let go of the corpse. But he refused. He would not leave. Only after he had cried himself into unconsciousness were they able to take him.
* * *
When Jin awoke from his faint, he found himself lying in a bed inside a pharmacy in Wellington, the small city closest to the village.
“Oh, you’re awake.”
The first faces Jin saw as he regained consciousness were familiar, yet strange. They were a few of the mages he had seen not long ago at the Capital’s Mage Association, when he had gone to take the entrance exam.
“Jin Kreutz.”
“That’s the boy who was registered with the Ark Association just recently, isn’t it?”
“That kid?”
“Look at his eyes and face. I always thought he’d turn out to be someone exceptional… hmm.”
These mages had once accompanied Aska. Seeing their somewhat familiar yet distant faces, the first person to come to Jin’s mind was naturally Aska.
“…Where’s Aska?”
“Aska Elias was buried alongside his wife in the cemetery near the village.”
One of the mages delivered the news dryly, as though they had expected the question. Another mage added: “He seemed to mean a lot to you. Once you’re feeling better, we’ll take you to his grave.”
At that moment, Jin lacked even the strength to escape from reality. He gave no response, no thought, no words.
* * *
A few days later, once discharged, Jin was guided by the mages to Aska’s grave. It was only upon seeing it that he truly, viscerally realized that Aska was gone. And that was when the real hell began.
Starting that very night, Aska began appearing in Jin’s dreams: always on the brink of death, repeating his final words, reenacting his final moments again and again. And Jin, in turn, was forced to relive the emotions he had felt then, endlessly. Each day felt suffocating, every breath a burden laced with guilt. He thought of dying dozens of times a day, but even that, he could not do.
[“Jin will become the greatest mage in Dantella. Please, use your power for the good of others.”]
Aska’s final words became shackles that bound him. In giving his life to save Jin, Aska had taken from him the right to die.
* * *
From then on, Jin trained under countless mages with one goal: to become the greatest mage, for the sake of protecting others. Many revered his talent. Many wanted to be close to him. But the trauma he’d suffered left him unable to open his heart to anyone.
If, before meeting Aska, his heart had been an empty gray space that no one ever stepped into despite its openness, then after Aska’s death, that space became sealed shut, refusing to let anyone in. He drew a firm line between himself and others.
Time passed. The boy grew into a young man.
Repressing his negative emotions again and again, he eventually became numb to them altogether. But as a consequence, he also lost the ability to feel positive emotions.
Emotionless, Jin became someone who wore a cold mask and moved purely by reason. A mere child with nothing to his name, who exuded an otherness beyond ordinary people, who actively avoided human contact…
By all accounts, he should have been harder to approach than ever. Yet countless people still tried to form connections with him.
Thanks to overwhelming support, Jin mastered not only magic, but other disciplines as well. The more he busied himself, the more those feelings for Aska faded, if only slightly, into the background.
Time couldn’t wash away the darkness of his past, but a purposeful, busy life could at least bury it in the sands of memory, keeping it out of sight. In that unending, predetermined torment, Jin lived with near-fanatical devotion to Aska’s final words.
And now, many years later…
Jin had indeed become the greatest mage in Dantella, just as Aska had said. As the representative of the mages, he now stood at the heart of the nation’s affairs, working for the people.
Eighteen years had passed. Ever since that day, he had lived solely by the words Aska had left him. And as he continued on that path, he met a woman, one who mirrored his beloved teacher in a way that was almost frightening.
Now, face to face with her, he was speaking of Aska, as if stabbing a blade into his own heart.
“That’s why… I live the way I do. Because of what Aska said. He died… because of me.”
Because of me.
Jin’s voice, which had flowed quietly and steadily until that point, began to tremble just before the final words, and then broke off, swallowed by a low, pained moan.
The remnants of the hellish past that had risen like mist throughout his confession now fully took shape as he reached the conclusion. That perfectly formed nightmare consumed him, starting from his mind and spreading through his entire body.
The guilt he had buried in his heart to survive, untouched by time, was ripped open once more.
If only that mysterious power that had turned his hair white had awakened a little earlier, they would never have dared kill Aska.
No, if he’d just protected Aska properly with his magic, he wouldn’t have been stabbed.
No, if he’d agreed to go to the capital when Aska suggested it, there would have been no reason for Aska to protect him.
No…
If he had never met him at all, if he had never become his disciple, then Aska would never have died for him in the first place. It was all his fault.
The tears broke through the emotionless mask on Jin’s face in an instant.
“Ah…”
A sharp pain throbbed in his chest. A gasp escaped his lips. He wiped the tears trailing down his cheeks with his hand. The wetness felt so unfamiliar, as if it didn’t belong to him, that he stared at his tear-streaked hand in a daze.
Suddenly, he heard a soft sob. He looked up.
Ariel, eyes lowered halfway, was crying like a waterfall. It wasn’t even a comparison. Her tears far exceeded his. Her eyes were bloodshot, swollen with unshed sorrow. The tears brimmed over, streaming down her cheeks and chin, dropping like beads onto her clasped hands. Though she tried to stifle her sobs, her shoulders shook, and the occasional sniffle slipped out.
Seeing her like that, Jin’s heart didn’t just throb. It tore as if stabbed by something sharp.
“Do you… resent me?”
His voice, though calm on the surface, carried a quiet undercurrent of pain. Ariel didn’t answer. But even without a response, her expression spoke volumes.
He had braced himself for the pain of telling his story, but it didn’t ease his suffering. On the contrary, it had unearthed guilt long buried in the past, making it all the heavier.
Jin clenched his fists against the tidal wave of anguish crashing down on him. The emotions he had so carefully buried now surged uncontrollably. Whether those dark feelings had grown in size without him realizing, or he had simply forgotten what they felt like after so long, one thing was certain:
The weight was unbearable.
Jin’s head dropped again. Tears spilled freely from his eyes, falling in scattered drops onto the blanket. Too many emotions were mixing all at once, far beyond what he could suppress.
In the thick silence, the sound of the rain, laden with sorrow, struck the window with even greater melancholy. That heavy silence lingered for quite some time.
It was Ariel who broke it first.
……
T/N: I don’t know who’s crying more, Ariel, Jin or me 😭
