The Mage Who Devours Disasters - Chapter 7

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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 7.
A subtle ripple spread through the Garden of Gods.
Kuuuuuung.
The nectar in the goblets trembled.
The Deities set down the fruits they had been bringing to their lips.
The hands of the Muses playing instruments fell still.
Silence.
Hundreds of gazes turned downward in unison.
More precisely, they pierced through the floor itself, seeing far below into the Underground First Floor.
“…What was that just now?”
Someone broke the silence.
An aura of a different caliber surged upward from below.
“The Selection Chamber?”
“A summoning ritual must be underway.”
“A disturbance of this magnitude? Could it be a jackpot?”
Jackpot.
The Deities murmured among themselves.
Within the system, the dice rolls ranged from 1 to 100.
But those were merely surface numbers.
The probability of rolling 100.
It was precisely 1 in 1,373,248.
Less than one in a million.
Throughout the Tower’s history, only five Seeds had ever triggered a jackpot at their stage.
And of those five, three were.
The supreme Deities who now reigned as presiding lords in this very Highest Layer.
“Truly a being born with the qualities of a king.”
“Who is it? Was there such material among the Seeds that entered this time?”
The curiosity did not linger long.
A messenger spirit cut through the air and arrived.
An urgent voice echoed through the Garden.
[This is an emergency report! A ‘Named’ has been summoned in the First Floor Selection Chamber!]
Named.
A Familiar bearing a name.
A mythical being bestowed with a unique true name.
[The summoner is Rag! The summoned entity is… Angargon, the Dragon of Great Calamity!]
In that instant.
The expressions of the Deities hardened.
“…The Dragon of Great Calamity?”
“Are you speaking of the Dragon of Great Calamity that I know of?”
“Isn’t that one of the primordial dragons?”
The Dragon of Calamity.
Among the primordial dragons, the monster renowned for being the most ferocious and formidable.
But there was one fact that mattered above all else.
‘This creature does not exist within this Tower.’
The monster database of the Tower contained no record of the Dragon of Calamity.
In other words, it had been forcibly summoned from beyond, tearing through dimensional barriers.
Luck alone was insufficient.
Only a summoner whose talent could match the monster’s caliber could accomplish such a feat.
Whoosh.
The gazes of the Deities converged upon a single point.
A man seated in the corner of the Garden, his legs crossed at an awkward angle.
Heimdall, the God of Tempests.
“Heimdall.”
“That creature called ‘Rag’—isn’t that the one you brought in?”
Heimdall tilted his cup in response rather than answering.
The smile playing at his lips was arrogant.
“Luck is a skill, is it not?”
The Deities clicked their tongues at his demeanor.
Their eyes gleamed with jealousy and resentment.
They had waited centuries without obtaining such an exceptional Seed, yet Heimdall had picked one up from outside.
And from the very start, he had struck the jackpot with a monster.
“Hmph. We shall see.”
One Deity crossed their arms and let out a scoffing laugh.
“Not everyone who strikes the jackpot ascends to this place.”
It was true.
Of the five jackpot winners throughout history, three had become Deities.
But the remaining two had met miserable ends.
They had been consumed, their arrogance in their own fortune and talent proving hollow.
“The Dragon of Calamity, you say. Certainly a powerful hand, but….”
“A dragon that cannot be controlled will bite its master.”
“It will never acknowledge him as its owner.”
“We may yet witness his self-destruction in the Selection Chamber.”
The Deities deliberately diminished his accomplishment.
Yet undeniable intrigue also surfaced.
An unmistakable sense of anticipation.
One who had pierced odds of a million to one.
One who had seized the primordial calamity.
How far would this Seed truly grow?
Or would it wither before it could even sprout?
The latter probability was far greater.
Moreover.
The Seeds now were hungrier than they had ever been in all of history.
Their condition was equally excellent.
There was no way they would simply let Rag charge forward alone.
A nail that sticks out alone is always hammered down.
* * *
The dust settled.
Everyone held their breath.
I was no exception.
When the Altar shattered and the black pillar shot upward, I had harbored expectations.
A colossal dragon blotting out the sky.
I had imagined a monstrosity that could obliterate this Divine Temple with a single breath.
But.
-…A yawn.
Atop the pile of rubble.
A creature no larger than a fist yawned, its mouth gaping wide.
Black scales.
Adorably tiny wings sprouting from its back.
Round, gleaming eyes.
To anyone’s eye, it was nothing more than a hatchling—a newborn dragon that had just broken free from its shell.
“….”
Silence.
The Seeds’ eyes widened in shock.
I too narrowed my gaze.
‘This is the Dragon of Calamity?’
Quite the grandiose name.
Yet I could not afford complacency.
The breath it exhaled with that yawn.
Even that wisp of smoke was corroding the stone floor beneath it pitch black.
‘Confirmed.’
I lowered my stance to meet its gaze at eye level.
My knowledge as a mage sent warning signals blazing.
Magic and dragons are inseparable.
Thus I possessed considerable knowledge of dragons.
Of course, my understanding of primordial dragons was woefully shallow.
Yet one thing was certain.
The most vicious and formidable of dragons.
A living catastrophe that, once it appeared, would lay waste to an entire Continent.
That was precisely what the Dragon of Calamity was—a being beyond all reckoning.
GuGu shrieked out in alarm.
“A, a Calamity Dragon?!”
The penguin’s eyes bulged as if they might burst from their sockets.
“This is unprecedented! The first specimen ever summoned since the Tower was established! H-how many points should I even award for this…?!”
The Abyssal Dragon had been worth ninety-five points.
But the Calamity Dragon was a first.
There was no data to score it against.
Literally unmeasurable.
“…The summoning succeeded, but truly?”
“…Right. Being acknowledged as master is an entirely different matter.”
Someone muttered under their breath.
At those words, the Seeds nodded in agreement.
Indeed.
Summoning wasn’t the end.
True summoning magic meant forcing the summoned entity into ‘submission’.
Especially when the opponent was a ‘Named’ creature.
Monsters with names possessed pride that pierced the heavens.
There was no way they would acknowledge a mere Seed—not even a deity—as their master.
“We’ll be devoured.”
“There’s no way to control a monster like that.”
Pessimistic predictions cascaded through the chamber.
In truth, Angargon was staring directly down at me.
Crimson eyes.
What lay within them—curiosity or hunger?
I smiled faintly.
Fear?
I’d sooner give that to the dogs.
Show even a hint of fear, and it would sense it instinctively.
It would refuse to follow me.
I extended my hand immediately.
Toward its snout.
“Insane! He extended his hand!”
“His wrist will be torn clean off!”
Let them panic all they wished.
I stretched my index finger and tapped the creature’s forehead lightly.
“Angargon.”
The creature tilted its head in confusion.
I smiled and spoke.
“You’ve been kidnapped.”
“…?”
Its eyes widened in perfect circles.
Kidnapped?
It was probably the first time I’d ever heard such a word.
But I was confident.
“I’ve kidnapped you. So stay put and behave yourself.”
A brief silence fell.
Sniff, sniff.
Then Angargon began to smell my fingers.
And then.
Whoosh.
The creature started rubbing its head against my palm.
Grrrrr….
Like a contented cat.
It purred and hummed with delight.
“…What?!”
“This… this can’t be real!”
Shock.
Something impossible was happening.
A Named creature.
A being of an entirely different caliber and dimension.
And yet this monster was showing affection to a mere Seed?
‘…How fortunate.’
I exhaled softly in relief and stroked its head.
I could roughly guess the reason.
Maximum affinity with all attributes.
Above all, the ‘Calamity Devourer’ class.
To a dragon of great catastrophe, there could be no more familiar presence than myself.
“That’s right, good creature.”
As I scratched its chin, it rolled onto its back.
A perfect display of submission.
GuGu, who had been staring blankly at the sight, suddenly snapped to attention and raised its wings.
“200 points!”
A resounding cry echoed through the Divine Temple.
“200 points! Breaking the limit! The highest score in history!”
* * *
The commotion subsided.
But the gazes fixed upon me remained scorching.
Reverence, envy, and fear.
It was only natural.
The other Seeds had scored at most 80 or 90 points.
Not a single one had surpassed 100 points.
Yet I alone scored 200 points.
An overwhelming first place.
The gap had widened from the very start—far too wide.
“Now, now, everyone calm yourselves!”
GuGu fluttered his wings to redirect everyone’s attention.
“The trial isn’t over yet. Summoning is merely an auxiliary tool! The true power of a Deity lies elsewhere.”
GuGu pointed toward the empty air.
Whoosh.
A transparent crystal sphere floated gently into view.
“The second trial is an evaluation of ‘Calamity Aptitude.'”
Calamity aptitude.
A stage to determine what type of divine authority each Deity wielded.
I listened to the explanation with my arms crossed.
“Divine authorities are broadly divided into three categories.”
GuGu spread his wings one by one as he explained.
“First, the ‘Natural System.’ Authorities that command the forces of nature—typhoons, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions. They possess the greatest destructive power and widest range, earning them the highest rank.”
Heimdall and Kartal belonged to this category.
The most universal and powerful, the orthodox calamity.
“Second, the ‘Biological System.’ Insidious powers that consume life—plagues, curses, toxins.”
Like the god of the Black Death or the plague lords of old.
Though their direct destructive force was lower, they were masters at withering entire civilizations.
“Third, the ‘Material System.’ Powers that manipulate physical phenomena—explosions, collapse, suffocation.”
The most troublesome category in one-on-one combat.
GuGu tapped the crystal sphere.
“Place your hand on this sphere, and your latent aptitude will manifest as color. The deeper the hue, the greater your talent. Shall we begin?”
The Seeds lined up with tense expressions.
The first contestant was the Goblin Man who had summoned the inferno wolf earlier.
“Hyaaaah!”
He cried out with vigor as he placed his hand on the sphere.
Whoosh!
The sphere blazed crimson.
A fairly vivid scarlet.
“Excellent! Aptitude for ‘Volcanoes’ and ‘Explosions’! Truly magnificent. 85 points!”
At GuGu’s exclamation, the Goblin Man clenched his fist triumphantly.
Emboldened Seeds stepped forward in turn.
“What about me?”
Whoosh.
This time, a blue radiance shimmered.
“Aptitude for ‘Torrential Rains’ and ‘Floods’! Natural System. 88 points!”
“Please….”
Crackle.
A sickly green luminescence bloomed forth.
“Ah, decay and toxin. A biological affinity, I see. Not bad. Seventy-five points.”
The evaluations continued.
Most displayed murky hues or mundane colors.
Whenever a vivid shade emerged, the crowd erupted in cheers.
Yet no one had breached the ninety-point threshold.
And then, at last.
“Next, Rag.”
My turn had arrived.
The chamber fell silent in an instant.
Every gaze converged upon my fingertips.
‘What affinity could that monster possibly possess?’
‘Having scored two hundred points in summoning, surely the aptitude would be equally extraordinary?’
Anticipation pressed heavily upon the air.
I chuckled softly and walked toward the platform.
‘Affinity, they call it.’
In truth, I was curious.
I had spent one hundred million SP to maximize every attribute and talent.
In theory, all colors should manifest simultaneously.
Or perhaps a rainbow would emerge instead?
“This is most intriguing.”
GuGu’s eyes gleamed with interest.
I placed my hand upon the crystal sphere without hesitation.
A cool touch.
Frigid sensation.
There was no need to channel mana.
The moment my hand made contact, the sphere responded.
But then.
“…What?”
Someone voiced their confusion.
No light emerged.
Not crimson, not azure, not emerald.
Sssssssss….
Black mist coiled upward within the sphere.
Rather than emitting light, it consumed the luminescence surrounding it.
In moments, the entire sphere had turned pitch black.
No—darker than black, as though the very fabric of space had torn open into an abyss.
“….”
Silence.
It was a different kind of silence than when Angargon had been summoned earlier.
Then it had been shock; now it was bewilderment and confusion.
“What is that?”
“Black? Does that color even exist?”
“Is it broken?”
The murmuring swelled.
The natural realm, the biological realm, the material realm.
None of them contained any explanation for “black.”
It was far too alien to be classified as darkness attribute.
It resembled a black hole that devoured everything.
“Hmm….”
GuGu scratched his head with his wing, looking troubled.
Even he, an Administrator, seemed to be witnessing this phenomenon for the first time.
“Usually, if there’s no talent, it appears transparent or white….”
GuGu tilted his head.
And he opened his mouth carefully.
“This is… close to ‘Nothingness.'”
“Nothingness?”
“Yes. It bears no characteristic of any calamity. I sense no destruction, no corruption, no physical interference. It’s simply… empty.”
Empty.
The moment those words fell, the Seeds’ expressions shifted subtly.
“What, a dud?”
“Looks like a case where all the talent went into summoning.”
“Well, even a Deity can’t excel at everything.”
“Lucky bastard hit the jackpot after all.”
A sigh of relief.
And mockery.
The gazes that had regarded me as a monster instantly demoted me to “lucky fool.”
GuGu too concluded with an ambiguous expression.
“According to regulations, aptitudes that cannot be classified receive no points. Moreover, since I sense no power to cause calamity….”
GuGu raised his tablet.
“Zero points.”
Zero points.
In the history of the Selection Chamber, this was the moment a madman was born—one who had simultaneously received 200 points and zero points.
“Puhahahaha!”
“Zero points! Zero points!”
The Dark Elf burst into laughter first.
The others joined in with snickering.
The fear they had harbored moments before because of Angargon vanished without a trace.
They prattled on about how the Deity was fair after all, how the balance was perfect.
But I didn’t change my expression at all.
I understood why black had appeared.
‘I am not one who creates calamities—I am one who devours them.’
Black.
Emptiness.
Of course.
My divine authority is not ‘creating calamities’.
It is ‘consuming calamities’.
Fire, water, poison, explosions.
The power to swallow all calamities and make them my own.
Black is the very color of ‘predation’.
Just as all colors blend into black, my aptitude for devouring all calamities could only manifest as darkness.
‘…Zero points, then.’
Strategically, it wasn’t unfavorable.
It was the perfect score to lower their guard.
A half-baked Seed relying solely on summoned creatures.
That would be their assessment of me.
However.
‘The wager with Heimdall is at stake.’
I had to ascend to the First Floor with an overwhelming first-place finish.
Otherwise, even if I reached the First Floor, Heimdall would kill me.
* * *
“Hahahaha!”
Raucous laughter erupted throughout the Garden of Gods.
The solemn atmosphere of Valhalla became light in an instant.
“Zero points! Did he really score zero points?”
“Recording both the highest and lowest scores in history simultaneously—truly legendary!”
The Deities clutched their bellies, rolling with laughter.
The tension from moments before, when Angargon’s summoning was announced, had vanished entirely.
To them, Rag was no longer ‘a threatening newcomer’.
Just a lucky fool.
His own abilities were worthless—nothing but a ‘jester’.
“The Tower is truly fair.”
“He must have spent all his fortune on summoning magic.”
“Relying only on his summons, he’ll end up as a sacrifice. Tsk tsk.”
Mockery and ridicule.
The Deities were consumed by the numbers.
They had no interest in what color had appeared.
The marvel of two hundred points was obscured and diluted by the absurdity of zero points.
They saw only what they wished to see.
I wanted to confirm Rag’s ‘incompetence’ and find relief in it.
But.
There was one.
Only Heimdall, the God of Tempests, did not laugh.
‘…Zero points?’
He set down his goblet.
His eyes narrowed as he sank into thought.
This creature knew the name of the Absolute Deity ‘Irresistible Force’ and had withstood a tempest head-on.
Such a being possessed no aptitude for calamity?
‘That cannot be.’
It made no sense.
Whoooosh.
At that moment, a whisper of wind brushed against Heimdall’s ear.
A spirit bound to his service had delivered urgent tidings.
-My lord. I have confirmed the color of Rag’s aptitude.
‘Speak.’
-It was black.
‘Black?’
Heimdall’s brow twitched.
The spirit’s report continued.
-Yes. Not the typical violet or deep indigo of darkness attributes. It was a perfect void that consumed even light itself. Truly, ‘black’.
-Administrator GuGu judged this as ‘Nothingness’ and awarded zero points.
Nothingness?
Did this creature truly possess no talent whatsoever?
Or was that talent so profound that it remained unknowable?
‘A promise is a promise, Rag.’
Heimdall drained the nectar in a single draught.
Now only one trial remained.
Overwhelming first place.
Whether that promise could be kept—only time would tell.
* * *
And.
In a place higher still than the upper realm where Heimdall dwelt.
The Heavenly Realm, the highest layer of the Tower—a place where ordinary Deities dared not set foot.
It was a space of eternal darkness where even light could not linger.
Within that dense gloom, a figure sat upon a throne of jade.
Hod, the God of Darkness.
One of the Twelve Chief Deities of Asgard, and the absolute sovereign of darkness itself.
“….”
His eyes opened.
In the pitch-black expanse, eyes gleamed with sudden brilliance.
“Perfect, unblemished darkness.”
Hod’s voice resonated with grave weight.
He extended his hand and swept it through the void.
The darkness parted, and the landscape of the First Floor Selection Chamber reflected like a mirror.
Within that image, a golden-haired man stood with brazen composure.
Rag was there.
Hod fixed his gaze upon Rag with unwavering intensity.
Then, at last.
“I have finally found him.”
A faint smile bloomed at the corners of Hod’s lips.
“My successor.”

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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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