The Wizard Who Endured the World of Murim - Chapter 11

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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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Surviving in the Martial Realm as a Mage: Episode 11
In the days when the Demon King descended upon this world.
Summoned by the Goddess, the Hero suddenly made his appearance in this realm.
Hero Alexid Graim.
He was an extraordinary being who one day.
Without any warning whatsoever, simply fell from the heavens.
“There are too many people here, so let’s lure the demons to the outskirts and deal with them there!”
“If we endure a little more hardship, won’t we minimize civilian casualties when we eliminate the demonic beasts?”
“How can we just stand by and watch monsters chase after people?”
“I’ll hold them back, so everyone get to safety!”
The Hero was always righteous, no matter how dire the circumstances.
More selfless than anyone else.
And he showed no hesitation or reluctance in sacrificing himself.
There wasn’t a single person who had ever seen him lose his temper.
Trevallion, the mage of the Hero’s party.
He felt an undeniable sense of dissonance toward such a Hero.
Such absolute goodness.
Could something like that truly exist in this world?
I couldn’t comprehend the absolute evil called the Demon King either.
But the unconditional goodness that Hero Graim displayed was, in my judgment, something that could never have originally existed in this world.
No—something that shouldn’t exist at all.
Though I was traveling with him to defeat the Demon King.
I often found myself experiencing a kind of rejection toward the Hero that was difficult to articulate as a human being.
“Tri. I know you hate me.”
“Is it that obvious? You’ve gotten smarter.”
“You look at me that way every time—how could I not notice?”
As evening fell.
Sitting before a campfire, Hero Graim engaged in a quiet conversation with Trevallion.
During that exchange, I revealed my true feelings candidly.
“Actually, I think you might be more dangerous than the Demon King.”
“…Did I really displease you that much?”
“It’s not quite a matter of dislike. I simply see you as dangerous.”
Because absolute evil in the form of the Demon King appeared in this world, the Goddess, acting as an arbiter, ‘suddenly’ created absolute good in the form of the Hero.
That was the conclusion I had reached.
‘A being created by the world’s necessity.’
That is what Hero Alexid Graim is.
Naturally, since he was created without any narrative or causal chain.
Alexid Graim is an existence that must disappear when the Demon King disappears.
“You mentioned your lifespan was short, didn’t you?”
“Yes. The Goddess told me so. I have roughly three years remaining now.”
Humanity’s greatest swordmaster.
A Grand Sword Master.
The very pinnacle that Hero Alexid Graim had achieved.
From my perspective, though.
He appeared to stand at a level even beyond Grand Sword Master, but that higher tier had no officially designated name.
Regardless, the fact that such an absolute transcendent had merely three years left to live made no sense whatsoever.
It defied all logic.
“You have no memories at all before receiving the Goddess’s revelation?”
“Yeah.”
The youth standing before me wore a somewhat vacant expression.
One day, entirely without warning.
He received the name Alexid Graim along with a divine mission from the Goddess herself, awakening to become humanity’s ultimate weapon—the Hero destined to slay the Demon King.
A provincial bumpkin who had never once held a sword in his entire life had become, in a single instant, the Grand Sword Master—the pinnacle of this world.
‘Irrational.’
No talent.
No effort.
No suffering.
Not even a single moment of investment, yet he became an absolute being overnight.
Though I was renowned as a magical prodigy of legendary caliber, I could not accept this.
To be honest.
That horned monster cowering far away in the Demon King’s Castle, threatening to annihilate the world, seemed far more comprehensible to me.
This simpleton standing right before my eyes was infinitely more incomprehensible.
“I neither like nor dislike you. I simply cannot understand you.”
“That’s a relief, at least.”
“A relief? Sleep.”
I am a rational person.
Thus, traveling alongside the Hero, I spent all that time ceaselessly investigating this irrational existence.
‘Nothing arises without causality. Nothing simply materializes on its own.’
If the Goddess possessed such power that she could create an absolute hero in a single day without any cost or condition.
Why then is this world so saturated with suffering?
If the Goddess merely snapped her fingers to mass-produce such absolute beings, this world would overflow with peace.
Yet reality is not so.
‘Therefore, even the Goddess must have specific conditions or a price for creating a Hero.’
My investigation into this phenomenon continued in an endless chain of reasoning.
If the Goddess cannot create Heroes indefinitely.
Then the Goddess is not omnipotent as written in scripture, is she?
Such thoughts were indeed irreverent and presumptuous toward the Goddess.
Yet I gave them no consideration.
What mattered was my endless investigation and contemplation of the rules and principles governing this ‘World’.
He simply believed that what mattered was constantly exploring and pondering the rules and principles that this “World” possessed.
That was what a mage was.
And at the pinnacle of all mages stood Trevallion.
In any case, after a rather lengthy journey.
Even when the horned Demon King fell by the Hero’s hand, and peace finally descended upon the world.
Trevallion ceaselessly pondered the ‘rules’ governing this world.
And eventually, I came to a realization.
‘This world is fundamentally wrong somewhere.’
The emergence of the Demon King and the appearance of the Hero.
What these two had in common was that they existed without any particular causality—they simply came into being one day.
Once every thousand years.
When the time came for them to appear, they ‘spontaneously generated’ as if by natural law.
‘As though someone had written the script from the very beginning.’
Trevallion harbored profound doubts about this fact.
And I strove to uncover its cause.
Then, at some point.
Trevallion glimpsed a fragment of truth.
Thus, I became an existence that transcended the world’s rules.
A sealed world with its lid firmly closed.
A world like a fishbowl, which I could now observe from the perspective of a third party.
In this way, Trevallion awakened through my own strength alone, without anyone’s aid.
And I leaped from the Lower Dimension where I dwelt into the world of the Higher Dimension.
A single droplet of water had finally crossed the barrier.
As a result, the surface of the Higher Dimension’s fishbowl overflowed ever so slightly.
But Trevallion was unaware of this, and even if I had known, I would not have cared.
* * *
“Do you remember the incident when a crack appeared in the dimensional wall not long ago?”
“Yes, of course. The higher-ups broke a sweat negotiating with those beasts over it. We barely managed to reach an agreement with those creatures and seal the crack again—fortunately. If things had escalated then, we would have faced another great war with those beasts.”
“It was dangerous indeed. But was the cause of the crack ever determined?”
“Not at all. No one knows the reason yet. The higher-ups figured the seal must have loosened somewhat after being maintained for such a long time.”
Somewhere high in the heavens that the humans of the Lower Realm could never even perceive.
Those beyond the heavens were the Celestial Watchers, who gazed down upon the humans of the Lower Realm.
The Celestial Watchers had, long ago.
Created a separate world called the Celestial Realm and lived in a world completely isolated from the Lower Realm.
“Anyway, I’m worried about how noisy those Lower Realm creatures have become lately. They do nothing but fight.”
“It’s always been that way. They’re down there trying to do something with limited resources, so conflict is inevitable.”
“Even so, it’s still a problem. The ones worth using end up fighting and killing each other, which only benefits those beasts. This is purely doing the beasts a favor.”
“The higher-ups can’t speak with one voice, so what can we do? We just have to do as we’re told.”
“Sigh, that factional infighting needs to decrease soon. Otherwise, I don’t see the point in going through all this trouble and even using loopholes to interfere with the Lower Realm.”
Two Celestial Watchers stood before enormous mirrors, venting their frustrations while busily manipulating something to switch screens.
“There’s no help for it. We must somehow pull at least one creature from the Lower Realm up to here. Even if it’s a bit cumbersome, we have to do it.”
“Tsk, and yet I must waste resources and time on talentless fools like these. It’s infuriating.”
And somewhere beyond the reach of that celestial surveillance.
A boy named Ilhyang was attempting to forge a new order that had never existed in the world before.
* * *
The flow of a Circle is intuitive.
Drawing an infinite loop using centrifugal force around the heart where life force is strongest.
That was precisely what a Circle was—the very foundation of a mage.
‘But… why is this happening?’
Ilhyang furrowed his brow while sitting in a cross-legged position.
He had attempted to draw out his inner force from his heart and rotate it to create the first Circle.
‘It won’t move.’
No matter how much force he applied horizontally.
The inner force recoiled fiercely as if blocked by something, invariably flowing back to his heart.
With considerable inner force lost in the process, Ilhyang’s forehead beaded with cold sweat.
‘I must succeed unconditionally. There is no second attempt.’
If he failed on the first try, any subsequent attempt would yield only a smaller Circle, no matter how well prepared.
An indelible scar would form on the mana circuit within his heart.
The size of the Circle equaled the magnitude of rotational force.
A larger Circle meant greater rotational force.
Greater rotational force meant superior energy absorption capacity.
In short, the larger the Circle, the better.
As the number of Circles multiplied in later stages, this disparity would become overwhelmingly apparent.
‘I’ve carefully calculated and gathered the maximum inner force without burdening the heart.’
Ilhyang had taken this unfamiliar energy called inner force.
Filtered it repeatedly through a sieve to render it as pure as possible.
Then meticulously calculated and condensed the maximum amount of vital energy without straining his heart.
He had assembled perfect conditions for creating a Circle.
And yet he would fail?
He would have to create a smaller Circle than before?
‘Not a chance.’
He had to find the solution in real time.
He needed to discover why his inner force couldn’t generate the Circle’s centrifugal force—and discover it as quickly as possible.
‘Pyeong So-byeok simply gathered inner force brutishly in his dantian and left it at that.’
Ilhyang drew out a single strand of inner force from his heart once more, fine as silk thread.
He twisted that delicate strand like a spiral, forming it into a chain shape.
Then, centering on his heart, he struggled to rotate it horizontally.
‘Ugh… there it goes again.’
The silk thread formed from inner force rejected that motion, drooping weakly downward.
As if to say this was wrong.
A warning that he was violating the rules.
At some point, a fleeting thought crossed my mind.
I felt as though I had experienced something similar before.
But my concentration was rapidly depleting, and the recollection came to an abrupt halt.
‘Is this world truly incapable of accepting the rule of circles?’
Was that why no one had ever attempted it?
When my will wavered for the briefest moment.
A single thread of inner energy descending weakly downward suddenly behaved strangely.
‘Wait… could it be?’
In that instant, a flash of inspiration swept through my mind.
I clenched my teeth and refused to let it slip away.
So I attempted to move the inner energy vertically instead of horizontally.
And then.
Impossibly, the inner energy flowed with such natural ease, the current continuing unbroken.
‘It works! This was it!’
The single thread of inner energy I had drawn from my heart.
Now flowed vertically, centered around my heart.
It was the moment my preconceptions about circles shattered.
With great effort, I carved out a single, slender pathway.
Then I extracted all the inner energy from my heart and poured it into the mana circuit.
There was only one chance, and failure meant there was no way forward.
Fortunately.
The gamble I had taken succeeded.
Click-click-click—!
With a sound like thin chains linking together in my mind.
A stable circle centered on my heart was finally complete.
At the same moment, I opened my eyes.
A brilliant blue light burst forth for a brief instant, but only for that fleeting moment.
I blinked, my eyes returning to their ordinary state.

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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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