Memoirs of a Wicked Magician - Chapter 53

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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 53
[This… Liriope, wait. First, get yourself together…]
Ode, too, found himself at a loss—he had never imagined a situation like this, and the words wouldn’t come easily.
Liriope’s vacant eyes stared at the dark water of the lake, as if she were gazing at an inverted night sky, without so much as a blink.
He wondered if perhaps her sister might surface again, but not a single ripple disturbed the still waters.
As if entranced, Liriope dragged her body closer toward the lake.
[Wait… what are you trying to do right now?]
A voice cried out urgently in her mind, as though sensing something awry, but Liriope wasn’t listening.
It was an impulse. It was instinct.
[Stop! I’m telling you to stop…! Do you think you’ll be unscathed if you go in there? You won’t save your sister, and you’ll die too!]
A desperate, pleading cry echoed through her mind, trying to dissuade her.
Yet in that moment, Liriope saw nothing and heard nothing.
Her mind held only one thought: she had to retrieve Caliona from the Black Lake, no matter what.
That alone consumed her.
Just as Liriope’s leaning body was about to touch the Black Lake before her—
“What are you doing?”
Snap!
A boy’s voice, incongruously calm and composed, rang softly in her ear.
A cool hand gripped her arm with surprising strength, blocking her before the water’s surface could claim her.
With his arrival came a clean, frigid aura reminiscent of frost-laden air in the depths of a winter dawn, seeping into her skin.
“Let go… Let go! Release me this instant…!”
Like a captured wild beast, Liriope thrashed with convulsive violence, desperate to break the hold that bound her.
“My sister is in there! I have to save her! I need to pull her out from inside right now…!”
Heat roiled in her throat. With each desperate cry that tore from her, it felt as though a rusted blade was being driven through her chest.
Deep down, Liriope already sensed the truth: even if she entered that Black Lake, she would never bring her sister out alive.
The strength drained slowly from her thrashing body.
In her vacant, wide-eyed gaze, the abyssal darkness of the lake was reflected.
Ah, that black.
That loathsome black again.
Why did it devour her sister again and again, tearing her away forever?
She had thought she had found a miracle.
She had believed that this time, at last, she could change everything—all the regrets and mistakes of her broken past.
But why did it all slip through her fingers like grains of sand, leaving her with nothing but emptiness?
No—worse still, the cruel ending that followed that brief taste of hope was unbearable, soul-shaking in its agony.
Like sinking into a muddy swamp where each desperate struggle only dragged her deeper into the mire, with no escape.
The realization that despite all her effort, she had reached an outcome even worse than before—it strangled her.
If this was how it would be, why had she been given a chance to return to the past at all?
If a god existed, what could it possibly want to say to her?
Ah, perhaps it simply wanted to mock and toy with Liriope.
To say that no matter how much she struggled, she was less than an insect and would accomplish nothing in the end.
That she would only suffer greater agony, loss, and bitter despair than before, crying out in torment…?
Perhaps it had only wanted to ridicule her in this way.
In that moment, a rage so vast and fierce rose up that it swallowed grief and despair whole, consuming her utterly.
Liriope cursed the god, as though tearing open her own chest to wrench out her heart.
She could find no meaning in a world that would not grant her even a single wish.
Would it not be better if everything were destroyed?
If this world would not even permit her the one person she longed for, would it not be better for it to shatter into fragments and vanish without trace…?
“Shall I help you?”
And in that very moment, Belkieros whispered something like a devil’s proposal.
From ancient times, tales had spoken of how a corrupted being would appear before a weakened human and lead them down the path to ruin.
For humans were most vulnerable to sweet temptation when their strength had failed them.
Liriope was no exception.
That was why, when she met Ode in the rain-drenched Black Forest, she had accepted a contract with someone whose identity she did not even know. And now…
The moment she heard Belkieros’s whisper, her muddled mind seemed to clear and awaken.
Even if what descended from that cliff’s edge were a rotten rope or withered straw, she would have found it nearly impossible to resist seizing it. Yet in the boy’s words, there was something more: an ineffable certainty.
It was as though he did not doubt for an instant that whatever he willed would come to pass…
As she slowly turned to face him, she saw the boy’s eyes—crimson as blood—reflecting her image from close by.
Belkieros, too, felt something indescribable stirring within him as their gazes finally met.
Without his knowing it, that emotion had grown gradually hotter, kindling into a burning warmth that resembled something almost like exhilaration.
“Your sister.”
And he whispered words of honeyed sweetness into her ear.
“I’ll pull her out from in there. And I’ll make sure she doesn’t fall apart.”
Normally one would say “save” or “rescue,” but the words that fell from his lips were strangely alien.
“But there’s a condition.”
Belkieros’s eyes, which always held some uncanny gleam whenever their faces met, now harbored a dark smile.
“Keep me entertained until I’m satisfied.”
A spider’s web unfurled silently, drawing tighter around her without her notice, and she felt its strands beginning to ensnare her.
“So, what should we begin with? Yes…”
A belated realization struck her: perhaps this trap, meticulously designed for the hunt, had been set for her all along.
“Today, only your sister will leave the External Estate.”
But the grasp of the predator’s hand was already closing in.
“You won’t be able to leave this place until I permit it.”
It was a raw hunger and impulse—to separate the girl before him from everything around her, to have her all to himself alone.
It was a desire twisted to an almost sickly degree: to lock her away in this small, perfect box visible to no one but him.
“Does that sound acceptable to you?”
Though he spoke as if offering her a choice, he already knew that this time, Liriope could not refuse him.
As if by illusion, a strange, eerie sound like a death wail drifted on the wind.
An ominous ripple suddenly spread across the Black Lake, where countless deaths and vengeful spirits lay sleeping.
The forest, which had thoughtlessly swallowed what should never have been consumed, shuddered and pulsed like a living creature, as if recoiling in dread.
And finally, through Liriope’s slightly parted lips, a breath escaped—whether a gasp or a laugh, even she could not say.
Her eyes, which had grown dull and sunken to the depths of black emptiness, fixed on the boy before her without the slightest waver.
How long did they hold each other’s gaze without flinching?
Focus gradually returned to her violet eyes, and at last a sharp, clear light kindled within them like the ringing of a bell.
Then Liriope’s hand moved.
This time, she was the one who seized the boy’s arm first, gripping it painfully tight. And slowly, a smile—fluid as watercolor—bloomed like a painting across her lips.
“Yes, all right… Let’s do as you say.”
Liriope willingly surrendered herself to the web and made her promise to the boy.
“So save my sister for me. Please.”
Moments later, an overwhelming Black Magical Power swept across heaven and earth, unchanged in its dominion.
After a time both fleeting and endless, light flashed once more from the lake beneath the tree cradling Caliona.
That day, Liriope never emerged from the dark Underground Space.
Not until the day that year’s External Estate trial ended did she see daylight again.
Liriope saw Caliona once more 337 days later.
It was the day the next Ceremony began, exactly one year after that night.

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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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