The Dialectic of Master and Slave - Chapter 237

Volumes 1-4 + Side Stories of DMS are available uncensored on ko-fi! ※ This work contains depictions of coercive relationships, explicit language, and other graphic content. Reader discretion is advised.

A mage so rare he might appear once in a thousand years—one whose magic would outlast the oceans drying up around the continent. The pinnacle of magic, capable of anything short of raising the dead.

To Jaha’s knowledge, in the entire history of the Empire, only one other being had ever received such an evaluation—Abrixa. And even then, the mage before her had said something earlier:

“One day, I noticed the robe’s mana array had changed. It was still my mana, but arranged in a way beyond my comprehension—far surpassing my own skill.”

A magical array undoubtedly composed of his own mana, yet far surpassing his own level of mastery.

The mage couldn’t pinpoint exactly what had changed, only that he had sensed something was different.

Then—click—somewhere, the sound of misaligned gears snapping into place. The stalled wheels of thought began to creak and turn.

‘Perhaps…’

Jaha’s fingertips trembled faintly.

The world hadn’t changed. The world remained the same.

What had changed was the timeline.

The former Emperor had rewound time. Like pressing rewind on a video, he had dragged the world’s time backward into the past.

Everything fell into place.

The high-dimensional magical array left on the “Robe of the Vanished World” was something the future version of the mage himself had left behind. Of course it would surpass his current comprehension.

The fact that Cedric, who had been beheaded, was now alive and well couldn’t be explained by the hypothesis of a changed world—but if time had been reversed, it made perfect sense.

‘And…’

To reverse time for the entire world, the former Emperor had exhausted every last drop of his sea-like mana. He was no longer a mage. And in the process, he had lost something inseparable from the imperial family’s very identity.

Something the first mage and founder of the Empire, Abrixa, had possessed.

Something all of Abrixa’s descendants carried without exception.

The purple eyes—rumored to take on a deeper hue the stronger the royal’s magic, the reason people believed mana, if it had a color, would be violet.

Having lost them, the former Emperor had no choice but to abdicate.

Moreover, the gods of this world—far from merciful—did not forgive him for daring to trespass into a realm forbidden to humanity. In punishment for defying divine authority, a sanction was placed upon him. Its mark remained even now, hidden beneath his gloves where no one could see, etched into the back of his hand.

The tremors that had seized her entire body ceased. As if someone had severed them with a snap, the stillness was almost deceitful.

Jaha recognized, with eerie calm, that she was far more composed than she should have been. Even as her worst nightmare became reality, she felt an unexpected detachment.

She had thought she would collapse, unable to maintain her sanity if this moment ever came.

Due to the shock, she might faint, lose her senses and rage uncontrollably, refuse to accept the truth and flee, or in the worst case… perhaps even make an extreme choice. But none of those were the correct answer.

Her heart beat faster and stronger than usual, but that was all. Her mind remained clear—no overwhelming emotions brought her to tears, nor did uncontrollable anger surge within her. There wasn’t even a sense of betrayal.

It was as if she had submerged herself in a bathtub and was lying still. Slowly sinking like wet cotton, yet feeling as though it would be fine if she just let herself drown. Aside from the exhaustion that left her drained, she found herself eerily calm.

Is this how it’s supposed to be?

The most terrifying moment is before it arrives—once it becomes reality, do you just accept it…?

If anything, there was even a sense of relief, liberated from the vague waiting and anxiety. Even if the outcome wasn’t what she had hoped for.

‘Let me sort this out.’

The current emperor recorded in <The Imperial Chronicles> is not the emperor I knew. He’s someone who has no connection to me at all.

The man I knew turned back the entirety of this world’s time and, in exchange, lost his magical power. Unlike the previous timeline, he abdicated the throne and became the retired emperor.

Let’s set the point where he reversed time as b, the past before that as a, and the future as c.

If we call the original world A, he reversed A’s timeline—which had progressed from a → b → c—back to b. As a result, c disappeared, and a new development, d, emerged. This new sequence, a → b → d, is a world derived from A but altered after the branching point b. Let’s call it A’.

The events I experienced when I first fell into this world in my early twenties belong to c in A.

Where I am now is d in A’.

c has been erased, and naturally, everyone has forgotten about c. But for some unknown reason, I still remember c—not entirely, with gaps here and there, but I do.

‘How did someone as ordinary as me, with no special abilities, end up becoming the exception?’

It’s nothing more than baseless speculation, but perhaps it’s because I’m not originally from this world. The incompatibility caused an unexpected error.

Only one person should remember c originally.

The one who caused the divergence from A to A’. In c, he was the emperor—and in d, he became the retired emperor. Lex. But to me, another name is more familiar.

Rikanan.

The things that had felt suspicious finally made sense.