Memoirs of a Wicked Magician - Chapter 131

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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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Chapter 131
Liriope decomposed the Corruption that engulfed her in a single breath.
The scene of carnage before her eyes darkened instantly, as if nothing at all had ever occurred in that place from the very beginning.
Liriope took no pleasure in harming people, but neither was she so overflowing with kindness as to be gentle-hearted in the face of blatant threat.
Especially today, with her usual reserves depleted by circumstances of various kinds, her patience had grown short.
There was the burden of having to fill the vacancy left by the vanished person, but that was better than keeping an enemy at her back who might strike at any moment.
Yet even after excising that irritant of a human who had been needling her for some time, the anger kindling in her chest did not fade.
Rather, Liriope felt the emotion growing hotter and hotter, and she clenched her teeth.
When she raised her head, her gaze fell upon the wall far off, blackened and corroded by Corruption. Within her pale breath, a question that had been blooming for some time rose up again.
What exactly were they fighting for now?
What, fundamentally, was the enemy they were fighting against?
When she recalled the scene she had witnessed at the Magic Tower during the banquet days ago, her uneasy suspicion only deepened.
Until now, Liriope had simply assumed all Shadows were monsters that arose naturally in the Corrupted Holy Land. But was that truly the case?
Liriope suddenly recalled a conversation she had once had with the Magic Tower Master, Seraphina.
When Liriope asked if there was a wish she desperately wanted to achieve in her lifetime, she had answered thus:
“To become the ruler of the Black Land.”
“To hold the fallen, abandoned holy ground completely beneath my feet and seize all that it contains. That is my greatest desire and the sacred vow I swore to fulfill before my death.”
Yet even obtaining the power of calamity was merely process—not Seraphina’s ultimate goal.
“Naturally, once the world becomes mine, I must make it worth using, mustn’t I?”
When Liriope heard Seraphina’s arrogant thoughts, she was not particularly surprised.
As a matter of course, those who possess both strength and honor, wealth and power, rarely satisfy themselves with such things and instead crave something greater.
Tales of people who seek to dominate the world with even greater power or dream of eternal life appear frequently enough—from fairy tales read by children to epic histories.
Even setting aside fabricated stories, actual history has consistently produced such foolish dreamers among the wielders of authority.
In any case, Liriope believed that Seraphina would devote herself to the eradication of Shadows with unparalleled zeal in order to reclaim the Corrupted Holy Land—for only by reaching the core of the Central Region could she seize the power she desired.
That is to say, Liriope had never doubted that Seraphina would naturally regard Shadows as targets for subjugation and the Corrupted Holy Land as a place to be purified and ruled.
Thus Liriope had all the more believed that the Seraphina from before the time reversal had failed.
A world swallowed by even greater darkness.
The Black Land swollen beyond measure and the Shadows that came with it.
For she never imagined that Seraphina would desire such a ruined world, broken and beyond salvage.
But what if Liriope had been mistaken?
What if she had been wrong about something so fundamental and simple?
Like her vision obscured by the dark snow squall before her, the suspicion Liriope harbored remained vague still, but perhaps this matter could not be understood through common sense alone.
Liriope turned her head toward the sector where Caliona was maintaining the defense.
She examined her own doubt: perhaps she too had simply wished not to notice until now.
Though she had believed Caliona’s footsteps had changed greatly from before the time reversal, the unease that her essential nature might not have changed had been lurking at Liriope’s back for some time now.
Whenever ominous energy pulsed outward from the Central Region of the Corrupted Holy Land, Liriope’s heart would race alongside it with a sickening rhythm.
And yet, fortunately or not, she had little leisure for such thoughts.
The Flood Period did not end in a single night.
A black winter that lasted anywhere from days to over a month.
With each passing day, the wounded multiplied, and those who died or went missing throughout the Central Region and Outer Perimeter continued to accumulate.
“Dammit! Those fools Armund and Silvinet—just because the fire’s not at their own doorstep, they keep up their rear support without lifting a proper finger!”
Pushing body and mind to their limits for days on end was impossible, so the mages needed to rotate in and take time to recover their Mana.
Once the wounded had recovered to a certain degree, they were sent back to the front without exception.
The Corrupted Holy Land that threatened humanity’s very survival was the calling and responsibility of all mages.
Thus the Eastern and Southern Magic Towers also dispatched mages during each Flood Period, but they did not commit themselves fully to the front.
The Northern Magic Tower’s mages deployed directly into the Corrupted Holy Land had no direct contact with them, and complaints and resentment over this inequality only grew.
Yet the Flood Period that seemed destined to last forever finally showed signs of ending on the eleventh day precisely.
A thunderous roar.
At the moment when the snowfall was gradually abating, an overwhelming Large-scale Magic surged from the front lines.
Heaven and earth trembled, and the air itself convulsed. This Mana, powerful enough to make spines tingle with its sheer force, belonged to the Northern Magic Tower Master, Seraphina.
Far in the distance, a pillar of light pierced through the snow squall. A thick Barrier spread across the entire Central Region of the Corrupted Holy Land.
The suffocating miasma that had been pouring from the heart of the holy ground was blocked in an instant, and the black ash-like snow that had been swirling transformed into rain and poured down.
Immediately after, another magic followed from the rear—one that wrapped the Corrupted land as vast and encompassing as a boundless sea.
The murky air of the Outer Perimeter cleared as if washed clean by water, and a warmth like spring sunlight brushed against the skin.
The wounds of the mages bathed in that gentle light healed in an instant. Their depleted Mana began refilling at an astonishing rate.
This was the magic of another 8th Tier mage—the Southern Magic Tower Master.
The magic wielded by the two greatest mages of the present age breathed pride and exhilaration into the exhausted mages, sending hot blood coursing through their veins.
The work of clearing the remaining Shadows and corrupted creatures accelerated once more.
When the rotation signal came again and Liriope returned to the Magic Tower, fortunately both Cassel and Milena appeared unharmed.
They had sustained injuries, but nothing severe enough to require replacement with Magic Stones. The same was true for Liriope.
But Liriope soon realized a problem had arisen.
No matter how long she waited, Caliona did not return. Not even when the sun that had grown dim finally set completely.
* * *
“Is there any chance a support request came in from the Northern Magic Tower today?”
“A support request? They’d sooner have their organs ground and replaced with Magic Stones than accept treatment from us.”
“But there seemed to be a lot of wounded on their side during the Flood Period…….”
The discord between Armund of the Eastern Magic Tower, Silvinet of the Southern Magic Tower, and Belegot of the Northern Magic Tower was an ancient and longstanding history.
To begin with, unlike Belegot where most mages specialized in combat, the other two Magic Towers each had their own distinct fields of expertise.
These were the stabilization of the Corrupted Holy Land’s ecosystem, the improvement of flora in the ruined Old City District, research into magical artifacts and relics, the restoration of ancient magic, the distribution of Magic Stones, and advances in magical medicine, among many other pursuits.
While Belegot risked their lives every day entering the Corrupted Holy Land to eliminate Shadows and purify the land, the mages of the other two towers were often dismissed for their leisurely charitable work or for sitting at desks exercising clever thinking.
Yet despite such harsh judgment, these endeavors were equally important to containing the Corrupted Holy Land’s overflow.
During this Flood Period too, the Eastern and Southern Magic Towers became truly busy only after the Northern Magic Tower withdrew.
They identified the expanded Corruption zones that had appeared during the Flood Period and treated the general populace who had suffered damage.
Furthermore, they purified the outer regions now devastated by the remains of corrupted creatures and surveyed the altered ecosystems to report their findings to each tower.
“Wait—isn’t that a Belegot Cloak?”
It was at some point during this work that they discovered a mage from the Northern Magic Tower standing alone in the middle sector of the Outer Perimeter.
Golden hair glimmering like a brilliant veil above the blue-green cloak first seized their gaze, and then the amethyst eyes of the girl who turned her head pierced straight through their souls.
At that moment, the mages of the Southern Magic Tower involuntarily stopped in their tracks.

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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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