Memoirs of a Wicked Magician - Chapter 132

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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 132
“Oh! Wait, the map——!”
The moment her concentration wavered, the spell tracing the transformed terrain tangled into chaos.
The silver mana distinctive to the Southern Magic Tower dissipated like smoke, leaving nothing behind.
A senior mage’s sharp gaze fixed itself on the young mage who had made such a careless mistake, and the boy—who appeared to be eighteen or nineteen now—with his intelligent black eyes offered a sheepish smile.
Liriope recognized them as Southern mages the moment she saw the white robes.
She approached them while maintaining her Detection Magic.
“Did you happen to acquire any new magical artifacts today in the Southern Magic Tower?”
“Magical artifacts? We haven’t discovered any.”
A bespectacled senior mage who appeared to be the leader of the group answered Liriope’s question.
But contrary to his stolid expression, he studied Liriope’s face carefully before adding his next words.
“Are you perhaps searching for missing persons?”
At that moment, Liriope’s eyes twitched. The word “missing” that had escaped his lips grated on her.
“Yes, there are a few mages who haven’t returned since the Flood Period.”
During the Flood Period, mages with unclear fates always appeared.
Setting aside the possibility that they might have fled without shame, the better scenario was that they’d come into contact with a magical artifact and been transported to an Ancient Ruin.
If luck ran against them, they’d be discovered weeks later as buried corpses in a Corrupted Holy Site, or worse, return as remains too decomposed to identify.
Of course, the Ancient Ruins themselves varied so greatly in danger level that they couldn’t be called safe either.
In any case, the Southern mages felt a pang of sympathy upon learning Liriope’s circumstances.
Originally, information about magical artifacts discovered right after the Flood Period was shared between Magic Towers to aid in finding and rescuing the missing.
Yet seeing that she couldn’t wait and came searching on her own like this suggested the missing person was someone quite close to her.
“Conditions might differ in other areas, so let me check right now.”
“I would be grateful for that.”
While the Southern mage sent word through magic to nearby colleagues, Liriope relaxed her keenly wound nerves.
Given that not only Caliona but all her team members had failed to return, it seemed most likely they had been forcibly transported together to an Ancient Ruin.
So Liriope was currently searching the Corrupted Holy Site with the help of Cassel and Milena.
Still, Liriope knew well that Caliona’s regenerative capacity was far from ordinary.
Caliona’s strength was undoubtedly a double-edged sword.
So despite the anxiety brought on by the strange symptoms she’d witnessed just days ago, she felt a contradictory reassurance that Caliona wouldn’t die easily in any circumstance.
“It seems there are two additional magical artifacts that we’ve discovered. We’re currently securing them and analyzing the information, and there are additional procedures needed before transferring them to the Northern Magic Tower, but… as long as the danger rating isn’t extremely high, I can help you examine them myself within my authority.”
“Is that really alright? Then I would be grateful.”
“Yes. They said they’d complete the basic registration and bring them, so just wait about five minutes.”
“Thank you.”
Fortunately, the Southern mages Liriope had encountered now were quite kind to her.
Indeed, she had experienced their gentleness firsthand before.
In truth, she had a certain connection with the Southern Magic Tower before the time reversal.
When the Northern mages laid waste to the world, a massive pursuit force had formed centered around Calix, the Southern Magic Tower Master.
It included not only non-mages who had lost their homes and loved ones because of the Northern Magic Tower, but also mages.
Even if they couldn’t serve as effective combat personnel, they were people gathered with the single determination to somehow exact vengeance on the Belegot mages.
At that time, Liriope also joined the pursuit force and followed Caliona’s trail.
Through this, she had rare direct contact with mages from the Southern and Eastern Magic Towers, so she had a rough understanding of their tendencies and atmosphere.
The boy mage who had been staring at Liriope with interested eyes since earlier was a face she remembered.
‘I don’t understand why the next Southern Magic Tower Master candidate and disciple of the renowned Calix is making maps here of all things…’
Of course, it wasn’t really Liriope’s concern what he did.
More troubling than that was Od, who had grown frighteningly silent since the Flood Period began, as though the connection had been severed again.
But the senior mage from the Southern Magic Tower, who had been staring at Liriope’s face just as intently as the boy, suddenly opened his mouth to ask a question.
“Do you happen to know Dallia, a Rank 7 mage of the Northern Magic Tower?”
At that moment, Liriope’s head snapped up blankly.
It was a reflexive reaction to suddenly hearing an unexpected name from an unfamiliar person.
The other mage nodded as if he’d expected this.
“As I thought. You’re right—your faces are so strikingly similar that there’s no way you could be unrelated. So you must be Dallia’s daughter, then?”
It was a name Liriope hadn’t heard in a very long time.
After her parents’ death, everything that might have proven their existence had been buried in blackened, contaminated earth and vanished completely. So there was nowhere she could find anything to remind her of the two of them, and yet…
“I would often see her face during the Flood Period or at official conferences between the three Magic Towers, but it’s already been nearly twenty years. How is Dallia doing these days?”
To suddenly hear her mother’s name like this?
But… a Northern Magic Tower mage? And a high-ranking one at that, Rank 7 no less…?
At first, she wondered if the mage before her had simply misunderstood something.
But it didn’t seem likely that another woman named Dallia who resembled Liriope existed in the world.
“She passed away… a few years ago.”
Liriope answered in a hollow voice, still wrapped in a sense of unreality.
“No, is that truly so? However did that happen…?”
The Southern mage trailed off, clearly shaken by the news.
He seemed to be someone who remembered Liriope’s mother fondly.
“I cannot believe it. I was actually someone who believed Dallia would reach Rank 8 before the Northern Magic Tower Master himself… But since no word came after that, I regretted it all on my own… So that’s how it was…”
He sighed several times, turning over Liriope’s words in his mind.
But the Southern mage soon collected himself and offered Liriope a strained, sympathetic smile.
“Still, as Dallia’s daughter, the Northern Magic Tower Master must be taking good care of you, yes?”
And at yet another astounding revelation that struck her eardrums, Liriope drew in a sharp breath.
“I only saw her from a distance, but Dallia and Seraphina were like sisters—their bond was so close…”
* * *
“Ha… ha…”
Caliona wiped her face, dark with blood and black filth, with a hollow laugh.
But her hands were far dirtier, so the effort of rubbing her face clean was futile.
Just as Liriope had predicted, she had been pulled into an Ancient Ruin together with her teammates because of a magical artifact swept along with the contaminated creatures.
A chamber filled with mirrors on all sides.
Within the mirrors, multiple versions of Caliona—past, present, and what appeared to be future—moved as though alive.
Among them were false futures that would never come to pass: ones where Caliona trampled Liriope’s back while crushing her Mana Core, or behaved quite tenderly toward Evangellin as though they were lovers.
Meanwhile, some mirrors reflected Caliona’s actual past memories so accurately that they showed a considerable match with reality.
When she first entered this place, the mirrors had reflected not only Caliona but the images of others as well.
But now, from floor to ceiling, there was only her alone. Because Caliona was now the only living person left inside.
Or more precisely, because she had killed them all.

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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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