Chapter 8
“Who’s protecting whom? Honestly, listening to such talk from a mage still wet behind the ears. Our dissipation was fated, wasn’t it? It’s not because of you.”
“That’s right. Anyone watching would think we’re making some grand sacrifice!”
“Hey now, Jeina, you’re going to make yourself cry like that, huh?”
The other mages, too, were accepting this absurd situation with baffling ease. They each added a word, their focus solely on comforting the young mage.
Jeina stood numbly, letting her clenched fists fall to her sides.
“Jeina, what did I tell you? Mages…” Erta looked at her, as if waiting for the answer. The other mages also watched her with nothing but affection in their eyes.
But she couldn’t bring herself to say it easily. Jeina pressed her lips tightly together, slowly imprinting the faces of every mage onto her memory.
“Mages… do not cling to the dissipation of others.”
Meeting her gaze, Erta continued. “It’s only the physical body that disappears.”
“……”
“Our mana does not dissipate. It remains.”
“……”
“Right here.”
As she finished speaking, Erta placed a hand over Jeina’s heart. The mages standing behind her, their hair now completely silvered, smiled faintly, their pale locks fluttering. In contrast, the black of Jeina’s hair deepened, becoming more vivid and intense.
In a single, blinding instant, a vast and wondrous light erupted, swallowing everything whole.
Nothing was eternal.
And so, under the cold, brilliant moonlight, her home of so many years collapsed into ruin.
* * *
When Jeina opened her eyes, it was all already over.
In a lightless underground, the air stale and foul, a restraint suppressing her magical power was clamped around her wrist. It was an artifact she had only ever seen in the ancient history books deep within Pamenta’s archives.
She could sense mana, but she could not use magic.
She could do nothing. Nor did she even try.
Devoid of any will to escape, she simply lay there. She blinked, staring at the mold-spotted ceiling, doing nothing but breathing. It was little different from sleeping with her eyes open.
The mages had always been smiling, insisting on only being happy, trying to give her only good things. Because of that, sadness was an emotion that had only existed for her in printed words; its true form had been indistinct. She told herself the suffocating pressure rising in her chest, the hollow, chilling emptiness, were just because her magic was suppressed, because she was being deprived of her mana.
Time passed, and she remained powerless, utterly powerless.
She couldn’t tell night from day and had no grasp of the exact time, but occasionally, when she rose from her spot, it seemed her perspective was a little higher. Her clothes grew progressively shorter, and curves began to form on her once-flat body.
Yet, there were no mages to make a fuss, marking down in a magical ledger every time she grew just one vallicon (about 0.8 cm). She could only lie back down again… She simply didn’t want to think about anything at all.
“Hey, witch!”
All the while, the one who had imprisoned her in this underground went through considerable trouble to ensure her tenacious thread of life didn’t snap.
A net bag containing a few rotten fruits was tossed down with a thud.
“A wretch like you would be better off dead… Tch. And yet, here I am, bringing you food every time… Talk about a charmed life. To think I’m reduced to feeding scum like you.”
Jeina blinked slowly, looking at the bruised apple rolling across the filthy floor. Even without food, a body rich in mana could endure for quite a long time. The man knew this perfectly well, yet, perhaps feeling some subconscious unease, he kept sending down rotten food via the hands of these white-clad men.
‘If you’re going to do it, you could at least give me proper food. They only care about filling their own bellies.’
Pfft. She let out a derisive snort.
“What? You’re picky about food now, are you? Don’t tell me you don’t want it because it’s not human blood, huh?” the man taunted, his voice mocking. “Huh? Huh?”
At his jeering, Jeina’s gaze shifted toward the man.
“Stop staring! Where do you think you’re pointing those ominous eyes…!”
Keeping her gaze locked on him, she pushed her stiff body upright.
‘Hmm… Another new face today.’
This one today was particularly noisy… I wonder if he knows his own life is about to be cut short? She tilted her head slightly. The man flinched and stumbled backward.
“Aren’t you going to stop staring? Stop it! Ha! And you think just because you have a pretty face… Ah, you, you vile creature! Get those black eyes away from me! Eek! If it weren’t for His Holiness the Pope, you’d have followed your black-haired friends to the grave long ago! Huh? Had your neck sliced clean through and been purified!”
Frowning at the voice echoing noisily through the dungeon, she took a slow step forward. The man’s body flinched and retreated unsteadily.
“Annoying. You’re fated to have your breath cut off by that man’s hand soon enough… What? Should I put a curse on you to speed it up?”
“…How dare you spout such nonsense about His Holiness! Stay back! Don’t come any closer with your evil tricks! Stay back! I said stay back!”
As she slowly lifted one foot, the man’s body flinched and retreated unsteadily. “Eek!”
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