A Returner’s Magic Should Be Special - Chapter 82

Episode 82. His Resolve (4)

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Magic has shifted subtly with the currents of each age. The perception of it, the pursuit of it, even the manner of its deployment—all have changed.
Yet across that vast expanse of history, one truth has never wavered.
To wield magic, one must refine the Mana that exists in the atmosphere. Amid endless transformation, this alone remained immutable.
In those distant ages of ceaseless war, every nation hungered for greater military strength, and they sought it by refining Mana with ever-increasing efficiency.
Countless magical systems rose and fell accordingly.
Thus magic advanced through iteration, and what was adopted in the modern era was the Formula Computation System.
Formula Computation is the method of calculating a Mana arrangement specific to each spell.
But is Formula Computation the most powerful form of magical deployment?
It is not.
In ages long forgotten, there existed a race once called the founders of magic itself—a people now lost even to human memory.
Dragon Language Magic.
Dezir Armang sat with eyes closed, sweeping away the clutter of his thoughts.
The searing pain from the heat, his concern for his companions, all of it he pushed to one corner of his mind.
His mind became blank.
A vast expanse of emptiness unfurled—thousands of hectares of white void.
Dezir focused every sense upon a single point.
And he began to decode the Dragon’s magical system, which he had reverse-engineered from the past, into human formulae and deploy it.
Tap.
Formulae etched themselves into the void. What had begun as a character or two at a time now wove across empty space faster than the eye could follow.
As though unwilling to tolerate any emptiness, he filled the white expanse with black.
Humanity’s greatest anti-mage burned everything he was.
“―――――.”
From Dezir’s lips poured a sound devoid of meaning. It was as though hundreds of voices whispered in unison.
Simultaneously, the formulae that had bloomed in his mind manifested identically in the world beyond.
With each formula that deployed, Dezir’s body deteriorated. His Mana Circles, unable to withstand the excessive Mana flooding through them, shattered moment by moment, and every cell in his body burned away.
It was a sight almost impossible to bear. However strong one’s willpower, no mind could endure the anguish of a body collapsing.
Without Priscilla, he would have ceased to exist long ago—his collapse was that severe. She poured every ounce of strength she possessed into restoring him.
Dezir’s body cycled through destruction and recovery by the second. Yet even in that agony, he continued his calculations in Dragon Language Magic.
As the calculations accumulated, the formulae arrayed around the Staff he raised aloft blazed with ever-mounting brilliance.
Jord, witnessing all of this, stood transfixed, his mouth hanging open.
The formulae Dezir had deployed lay entirely outside modern magical theory, and most mages would judge them merely as crude scratches drawn at random.
But one who stood at the pinnacle of magical learning—Jord—saw differently. He felt as though he were beholding a masterwork of art.
Jord traced the trajectory of Dezir’s unfolding calculations with his wisdom, and each time he grasped even a fragment of it, he could not help but exclaim.
“Beautiful.”
Within humanity’s magic, which pursued only efficiency, there existed a beauty that transcended all measure.
Boom.
The thunderous roar jolted Jord from his reverie. He turned his gaze toward its source—Dadeneuph.
It had at last broken free from its chains.
Dadeneuph contracted its frame, then spread its wings and ascended into the sky. Its attention had long since turned away from the three humans on the rampart.
“Shrieeeek!”
Whoosh.
As Dadeneuph beat its wings, hundreds of burning stones rained down upon the city, the harbor, and the fleeing vessels below.
Dezir’s warning had been no exaggeration. It was vastly larger now, far more devastating than before. Ships caught unprepared were sunk outright or split asunder. They burned.
On the sea breeze came the faint echo of screams.
“…….”
Far more vessels remained undestroyed. That its accuracy had degraded was perhaps a mercy in the face of calamity.
Yet even that seemed mere sport to Dadeneuph.
It was at that very moment when the massive form began its turn.
“Krrr?”
Dadeneuph’s body froze mid-flight toward the ships.
It lowered its gaze to the rampart of Deltaheim.
Hummmmm.
Dezir’s Dragon Magic deployment continued unfolding.
Watching this, Dadeneuph’s body trembled sharply.
Terror.
It was a threat the grand demon had never once encountered before. His instincts screamed danger.
Dadeneuph unleashed a howl toward Dezir.
“Shrieeeeeeeek!”
A tremendous wave of heat—one that melted mountains and razed entire cities—began to manifest.
Thrum-thrum-thrum-thrum.
The air around Dadeneuph vibrated violently.
The vast flux of Mana became a physical phenomenon in itself, manifesting before them. And Dezir was no different.
Space trembled.
“This is…… the limit…… now, Dezir,” Priscilla’s voice came strained and tight. Her face had gone ashen. Dark shadows pooled beneath her eyes, exhausted from pouring every last ounce of her strength into the working, and she swayed so precariously that the gentlest breeze might topple her.

Her regeneration had grown weaker; Dezir’s body accelerated toward collapse.
Crumbling away.
And yet.
Even so.
‘I will bring you down. Here. Now. Nothing else matters.’
Dezir’s fracturing hand refused to release the Staff.
And just as a deafening roar erupted from Dadeneuph and a blast of heat began to lance forth, Dezir’s lips—split white and bloodless—parted, and a whisper spilled out.

Geomagnetic Sun Manifestation.

* * *

Far distant, at Hebrion Academy.
Bridgette, watering a potted plant in her office, felt something shift. She moved to the window.
A warm breeze drifted in, tousling her neatly arranged hair.
Whisper-whisper.
Garden leaves scattered on the wind.
Bridgette’s gaze turned toward a direction unseen from this place.

* * *

A mountain range—closer than Hebrion, but still some distance from Deltaheim.
A man stood motionless there, riveted to the spot at a distance where Deltaheim had shrunk to barely a point on the horizon.
The man in a tattered hood, the burn scars on his face forgotten beneath it, stared toward the sea’s horizon.

* * *

It began as a point.
A point of ultra-high-temperature Plasma, compressed under immense pressure.
Temperatures reaching tens of millions of degrees and vast pressure converging into a single point accelerated the particles within.
Those accelerated particles lost their natural orbits, colliding wildly against one another. The colliding particles began to fuse.
The mass lost in that process converted into energy and was released in equal measure.
Whoom-whoom-whoom-whoom!
Dadeneuph’s entire form swelled as though ready to burst at any instant. The point expanded, now taking the shape of a sphere the size of a fist.
The intensity of light doubled. Its brilliance had grown so overwhelming that naked-eye observation was now impossible.
Countless particles accelerated, collided, and poured forth boundless energy.
The sea split open.
Dadeneuph’s body—harder than any weapon—cracked and fractured. Light poured from the fissures spawned within.
“Gack!”
When the light erupting from the cracks splitting Dadeneuph’s body touched the rolling sea, a reaction began to unfold across the water.
The black, bleak hue of the ocean transformed into radiant gold. It was as if molten gold were churning across its surface.
“Shrieeeeeeeek!”
Dadeneuph twisted and writhed atop the blinding golden crucible. Rock and magma that had composed his form crumbled away.
At last, a sun consumed Dadeneuph’s entire being.
“……!”
What remained in the end was a vast, profound silence that enveloped all the world.
The golden light of the sea sparkled like starlight. The waters were gradually reclaiming their true form.
Dadeneuph was gone. The magma that had engulfed the entire city, the devastation left in its wake, and the altered landscape—these alone remained as proof that the demon once called a calamity had risen again.
The sound of the sea writhing as it mended the wounds upon itself echoed across the world.
Dezir Armang’s vision went dark. It felt as though he were being cast into an endless chasm.
The last thing he saw was Jord and Priscilla drawing near.

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