Memoirs of a Wicked Magician - Chapter 1

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 1
Part 0. Return to the Northern Magic Tower
1. The Death of a Wicked Mage
Liliope’s older sister—Caliona, whom she had loved and resented for so long—was dead.
“Found her! The corpse of the Black Witch Caliona!”
“Search the perimeter! There must be more of those Belegoht bastards nearby!”
In the Contaminated Forest where the mages had clashed, a thick stench of blood hung thick enough to choke on.
Through the rain that fell like knife-sharp blades, Liliope stared dumbly at the cold body sprawled across the ground.
Three Magic Towers, sworn to maintain the world’s balance and protect the land from Calamity.
The Northern Magic Tower among them had broken that oath and betrayed mankind.
The mages of the Northern Magic Tower, now enemies of all, had sought to grasp the power of Calamity itself and hasten the end of days, and through their doing, the world had become a hell.
Liliope and Caliona were both mages hailing from that cursed Northern Magic Tower—and her older sister in particular had been a prodigy, even considered as a candidate for the next Tower Master.
Unlike Liliope, who had worn the label of a dunce throughout her time in the Tower before finally being cast out, Caliona was a true genius whose abilities everyone acknowledged.
Yet now that same older sister, who had regarded everyone with the arrogance befitting her gifts, lay desecrated in the dirt beneath countless feet.
Caked in blood and mud, she bore the filthy visage of one wholly unlike the fastidious woman who had once been known for her obsessive cleanliness.
“Finally dead, you wretched bitch!”
“Ha! That demonic creature actually dead? Maybe the gods do exist after all.”
“No… no! She should have died by my hand! I should have had my revenge! How could she murder my family so mercilessly and then die so easily, so peacefully?”
The curses and screams hurled at the corpse were deafening.
‘Why?’
As the cold rain fell, Liliope found herself asking the same meaningless question over and over, though she had lost count of how many times.
‘How did it come to this? How did everything become this way?’
Then, suddenly, the voice of a cursed man echoed in her mind.
“You two there—you look like you have the makings of true mages. What do you say? Will you follow me? If you come with me, you won’t have to live cold and hungry like this anymore.”
Ah, yes. That was when everything went wrong.
That winter day when the snow fell in blinding torrents.
No matter how hard the mages tried to drive back the shadow of Calamity from the defiled holy ground and restore the ravaged earth, the gravestones multiplied with each passing year, and orphans overflowed the streets.
When the sisters found themselves alone, they were only twelve and thirteen.
Orphaned so abruptly and with nothing to their names, the two girls wandered the streets until a man in a blue robe reached out his hand to them.
Children with no knowledge of the world could scarcely hope for better options, so they followed the only man who took them in.
At the time, they had mistaken his gesture for kindness, though it proved to be the cruelest of delusions.
The place they reached was no paradise.
Day after day, they endured harsh training under the guise of cultivating powerful mages, and when children failed to meet the standards, they died without complaint—and no one cared.
How could anyone dream of calling such a nightmarish place paradise, where mere survival consumed every waking hour?
And Caliona, who had struggled not just to keep herself alive in such a hellish environment, but also to care for a dead weight like her younger sister—how she must have suffered.
Perhaps that was why. Perhaps that was when her gentle older sister began to change.
“I’m ashamed to be the older sister of a half-wit like you. Since blood ties mean nothing to a Belegoht mage anyway, don’t you dare call me your sister in front of anyone. Do you understand?”
From that point on, Caliona seemed determined to erase Liliope from her life entirely.
She began consorting with the lowest of the Northern Magic Tower’s mages, committing cruelties beyond measure.
She no longer acknowledged Liliope, even when she was bullied for being a worthless half-wit.
Worse still, Caliona openly befriended those who mocked Liliope and became the lover of those who despised her.
When Liliope nearly died at their hands, Caliona merely watched from afar with cold eyes.
To be abandoned by someone you once believed would stand beside you until death—to become a stranger to them while they became intimate with your tormentors—was bitter as poison.
“Liliope, you have no right to bear the Belegoht name.”
Most devastating of all was the realization that it was Caliona herself who had driven Liliope from the Tower.
“From this moment forward, you are no longer a mage of the Northern Magic Tower. So from now on, never let me see your face again. If you do, I’ll kill you with my own hands.”
The cruel memory of that day, when she had been bound like hunted prey and forced to prostrate herself in disgrace.
Her sister’s merciless voice falling from above like the blade of a guillotine, cold and without mercy.
Caliona, treading upon Liliope’s struggling back, had shattered her Mana Core with her own hands.
That anguish would remain with Liliope for the rest of her life—of that she was certain.
Even as Liliope became a cripple, incapable of ever casting magic again, her sister had not so much as glanced back.
The two of them had crossed an uncrossable river that day.
And Caliona, who had never spoken a lie in her life, would surely make good on her promise—the next time they met, she would end this eyesore of a sister with her own hands.
That was one reason Liliope had joined the pursuit force sent to exterminate the mages of the Northern Magic Tower, tracking down Caliona with fierce determination.
She had wanted to die by her sister’s hand.
So when she finally faced Caliona on that moonless night not long ago, a strange relief had washed over her.
“Have you lost your mind? You fool—what are you doing here without fear?”
But then… why?
Caliona did not kill her.
“Follow me. You can’t stay in a place like this. Leave here now, before anyone sees you!”
The Black Mana that had once been used to harm her cruelly now wrapped around her to shield her.
“Go. Never set foot here again. This place doesn’t suit you. Don’t ever come back to somewhere like this. As for me—just pretend I never existed in your life. Understand?”
In an instant, the Spatial Transfer bloomed, and feathers of Black Mana fluttered across her vision.
In that moment when their eyes met, Liliope glimpsed in her sister something she had desperately longed for all this time—the remnants of a familiar feeling.
“Come… come with me.”
And so Liliope, as if returning to her childhood self, was able to cling to her sister one last time.
“Come with me, older sister…!”
Both of them knew instinctively that this would be their last moment.
A pale hand reached out from beyond the Black Mana cutting through space like iron bars, billowing in silent chaos.
“Goodbye. Live well, Liliope.”
A faint smile like a sigh, and in that fleeting instant, a warm touch and whisper that passed like a phantom.
Then the storm of black feathers consumed Liliope entirely.
It was her last memory of Caliona alive.
“That’s strange. Isn’t this Magical Trace the mark of Belegoht? This woman must have held an important position in the Northern Magic Tower, so why is she left in such a wretched state?”
“Who knows—maybe they had an internal conflict! Ptui! This vile bitch deserves to die a hundred times over!”
“Wait, what are you doing? Calix told us not to touch the mages’ corpses.”
“Damn it, but surely a little venting won’t hurt!”
Splat!
Someone spat upon the corpse in the mud, then began to kick the body that had long gone cold.
Those cursing Caliona caught the fever of violence, and one by one they joined in.
“Stop….”
In that moment, Liliope’s lips trembled, drained of all color.
She felt no satisfaction, though this was the sister she had once despised so fiercely.
“Stop. Please… stop!”
Instead, her breath caught in her throat and her insides twisted as if she were dying.
“Don’t touch my sister… my sister, don’t touch her…!”
It was natural.
No matter how much people cursed her as deserving of death, no matter how much a devil she truly was—Caliona was still Liliope’s beloved older sister.
Suddenly Liliope lunged forward, striking and shoving the crowd like a madwoman, and everyone there contorted their faces in disgust.
“Get out of the way! A worthless wretch—how dare you interfere?”
“You ungrateful thing! Our merciful Calix even let a mage who can’t use magic join the pursuit, and you dare shield this damned bitch?”
“I knew it. You Belegoht scum! I always thought you were in league with them! That story about being cast out by the Northern Magic Tower—it was all a lie, wasn’t it?”
Liliope crawled toward Caliona even as she was kicked repeatedly in the mud, her teeth gritted tight.
My only sister, Caliona.
She who had always been beside me since birth, in whom I once trusted with all my heart—the other half of my life.
I don’t understand. What happened to her? What was she trying to accomplish with a life like that?
If I could, I would ask her directly, but that chance would never come.
Caliona was dead.
She had died alone, leaving Liliope behind….
If only Liliope had been a stronger, more reliable sister, could she have stopped Caliona from meeting such a fate?
But she was too powerless, too weak—all she could do was weep and blame herself for it all.
“Wait…. When did the forest grow so dark?”
“Now that you mention it…. Damn it! Retreat! The shadows are coming!”
“Hurry! We’ve gone too deep into the Contaminated Forest! You Belegoht madmen! Even if you catch your hideout, did it have to be such an unpleasant place…?”
Ah… I want to go back. Back to when we could look at each other’s faces and smile without worry.
It was in the midst of such a vain prayer that Liliope’s hand finally touched Caliona’s cold body.
[Finally, I have found you.]
A voice as chilling as winter frost pierced straight through her skull.
Rumble—Crack!
A brilliant flash of light exploded across the dark, cloud-laden sky, and a great boom of thunder accompanied by lightning roared in answer.
[The last remaining mage of Western Dawn. My final contractor.]
As Liliope’s breath caught in the uncanny stillness that seemed to freeze time itself, all light and sound drained from the world.
[I shall grant your desire. Now pay the price.]
Then a flood of absolute darkness and emptiness swallowed Liliope whole.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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