Episode 56
Walter of the Blood Flame was nothing more than a disposable pawn for Marquis Eurys. Walter would never realize that he was merely a puppet discarded at the end.
“The Sixth Division Commander of the Black Flame Order…”
Dale spoke softly, and Sepia turned to him in surprise.
“How do you know that name?”
He couldn’t just blurt out that he remembered it from a past life.
“Today, the Blood Duke himself visited the academy.”
”…!”
So Dale explained. The truth about the Black Flame Order that the Blood Duke had revealed, and how the Emperor wanted to silence those who knew it.
He kept silent about the vision from the Blood Duke’s world and the proposal for a “new bond of the Black Flame” directed at him.
“Indeed, it’s a truth that would be uncomfortable for the Empire,” Sepia replied calmly.
“To think they would use us to execute a strategy of borrowed knives—how despicable.”
“With you by my side, Sepia, they must have been confident we could defeat Walter of the Blood Flame.”
Walter could never hope to defeat Sepia. He was merely caught in the Blood Duke’s trap, and in a way, both Dale and Sepia were also playing into his hands.
“That man is truly dangerous,” Sepia said.
“I agree,” Dale nodded, looking around.
The Crystal Wasteland. The world of Sepia, the Snow Elf mage.
A mage’s world is like a barrier that doesn’t allow intrusion. A landscape of the mind. Thus, when a mage consciously unfolds their world, it means one of two things:
One, they are facing an enemy that must be eliminated with all their might.
Two, they are with someone they can reveal their true self to.
In this case, it was both.
“Thank you for protecting me, Sepia,” Dale said.
In her world, where only Dale and Sepia existed, she didn’t respond immediately. She simply smiled warmly, as she always did.
“It’s a beautiful world,” Dale remarked, gazing at the pristine expanse of the Crystal Wasteland.
“As your teacher and as a fellow mage, when I first glimpsed your world, I saw the horizon of loneliness and emptiness you must feel…”
As the kind and compassionate mentor she always was.
“I thought it was very much like my own.”
Dale swallowed hard at Sepia’s words. She was right. Sepia’s world, a horizon of nothing but crystal. A world of thought built by someone who had left her homeland as an exile, wandering the secular lands in the body of a Snow Elf.
Only then did Dale understand. She was like him.
Two people with a chilling loneliness. In front of that, Dale’s youth and Sepia’s age as an elf were no barriers.
The world of thought is ultimately a landscape of the heart, and now the two understood each other’s hearts.
So Dale reached out and silently embraced the 6th-circle elf mage. He wasn’t the only one suffering from the cold solitude in the Crystal Wasteland.
“I like you, teacher,” Dale said.
“So please wait a little longer.”
He carefully stood on tiptoe and kissed her cheek.
”…!”
“Until I become a man worthy of you.”
After the kiss, he looked up at Sepia’s face.
“Y-yes…”
Sepia’s ears perked up, her cheeks flushed, as if she had forgotten the boy in front of her was only eleven.
After the embrace, Dale stepped back.
“Perhaps,” he asked after creating some distance.
“Was there no need to wait at all?”
Sepia’s face turned crimson again, even her pointed elf ears blushing.
“Q-quiet,” she stammered.
Dale smiled softly at her flustered state.
“Sepia,” he murmured, as if it were someone else’s business.
“You have a surprisingly wide defensive range.”
Two mages, one red and one blue, clashed, unfolding their worlds of thought. The world of thought created by high-ranking mages of elder status could function as a barrier in itself.
An impromptu arena free from outside interference.
In other words, until the mage willingly dispelled their world, it was impossible to break in from the outside.
To force it open, one would need the intervention of a mage with equal or greater skill.
And there were fewer than a hundred such individuals across the entire continent.
Thus, when the two 6th-circle mages, Walter of the Blood Flame and Sepia, clashed, Sir Bale of Baskerville could only wait.
Shortly after, Dale and Sepia emerged. Thankfully, they were safe.
Walter of the Blood Flame had become prey for the Shadow Lurker, leaving no trace of his body behind.
“Young Master Dale, are you unharmed?”
“I’m fine, Sir Bale,” Dale replied, with a flushed Sepia behind him.
“What about our knights?”
“Some were injured, but fortunately, there were no fatalities.”
“That’s a relief,” Dale nodded calmly.
“To think an elder of the Red Tower would attack…”
Inviting the heir of the Black Tower to the Imperial Academy and then attacking him.
An unthinkable event had occurred, one that could shake the other towers and the entire Empire. Without Sepia, even Dale would have had no chance against an elder mage. At least, that’s how Sir Bale saw it.
In a place where they didn’t have to worry about others’ eyes, no one could imagine what Dale might be capable of when he fought with all his might.
“Fortunately, since the knights of Saxon were unharmed, I will handle today’s events myself,” Dale said.
“Until I give further orders, I ask that you and the knights keep today’s events confidential.”
“But, Young Master!”
“Sir Bale. This is an order from the heir of House Saxon.”
”…As you command.”
Dale cut off any further protest from Sir Bale.
‘My distraction could have dragged the knights of Saxon into this.’
Dale clicked his tongue and turned his head.
But even he hadn’t expected such a brazen attack. Especially when he was in such a state of turmoil.
”…”
He recalled the “landscape of Earth” that Marquis Eurys had once shown him. How could that landscape appear in the Blood Duke’s world of thought? And what had happened there after he disappeared?
──For a mage to reveal their world was never a trivial matter.
The world of thought was the landscape of a mage’s heart, their very mind, and thus akin to letting another peer into their soul.
Just as Sepia had once done for Dale.
To completely deny or affirm the other. There was no middle ground. No exceptions.
‘Could he know my true identity…?’
He thought, then shook his head.
‘No, absolutely not.’
If the Blood Duke truly knew Dale’s identity, his actions wouldn’t stop at this. Dale remembered clearly how the Blood Duke had treated his past self.
And back then, he never showed his “world of thought” to his past self. He didn’t even mention Earth.
The Blood Duke, who never opened his heart to his past self, had changed his mind after Dale became the heir of House Saxon?
‘Impossible.’
The Blood Duke didn’t know Dale’s true identity. Of that, he was certain.
In other words, he genuinely wanted to ally with the “Black Prince.”
By showing his true intentions and fully affirming Dale, who would one day become the Black Tower Master, he hoped for a “new bond of black and red.”
But what was the Blood Duke’s true goal in seeking this new bond? What was the “ultimate power and truth” he spoke of? What was the Emperor plotting in silence?
His mind was a tangled mess.
But after thinking it over, he shook his head. None of it was something to dwell on right now. What he needed to do was leave this cursed capital and return to the Saxon Duchy.
His days as an academy student were over.
At that moment, in the Saxon Duchy.
Just as Dale, the heir of the Black Tower, had visited the capital for the exchange of black and red, the heir of the Red Tower… the “son” of Marquis Eurys, the Blood Duke, was there.
In the Duke of Saxon’s office.
Ray Eurys.
Strictly speaking, he wasn’t a blood-related son. He was an adopted son taken in by Marquis Eurys for “certain reasons.” And the Black Duke was one of the few who knew those reasons.
The Blood Duke had taken in dozens of children with magical talent, and Ray was the sole survivor who had passed the trials by killing the others.
Having survived, he succeeded in announcing his existence to the world as the son of House Eurys.
Though he wasn’t making a name for himself across the empire like Dale, he operated in the shadows, carrying out the will of the Crimson Duke.
Because of this, the Black Duke’s expression as he looked at Ray was devoid of any emotion.
Far beyond the empire’s reach, across the Sea of Death, there exists a poison known as “Gu” on the Eastern Continent.
It’s a deadly concoction created by placing venomous creatures in a jar, letting them devour each other until only the strongest remains, producing the most potent toxin.
Ray Eurys was akin to that final, lethal poison. Even if he was just a child the same age as Dale, it made no difference.
“Your Grace, the Black Duke,” Ray began.
“As you know, both my father and His Majesty the Emperor desire the same thing as you.”
What they desired.
“Speak,” the Black Duke replied calmly, his voice that of the continent’s foremost dark sorcerer.
“I have a list of the hardliners within the Black Tower who are collaborating with our Red Tower.”
”…”
At Ray’s words, a flicker of disturbance crossed the Black Duke’s face.
“What do you want in return?”
Dragging out conversations unnecessarily was not the Black Duke’s style.
“The Demon Legion, the Black-Red Brigade,” Ray answered.
“His Majesty wishes for the complete erasure of the Black-Red Brigade’s actions during the war.”
”…”
“And, as it happens, several leaders of the Black-Red Brigade are among the hardliners in the Black Tower.”
“Hand over the list of hardliners collaborating with the Red Tower.”
“I’m glad we understand each other so quickly,” Ray said with a smile, bowing his head.
The hardliners resisting the Black Duke’s regime, allied with the Red Tower, were destined to be eliminated anyway. The fact that some of them held secrets about the Black-Red Brigade’s past didn’t change that fate.