Chapter 52 – What Is Magic?
As Pan watched the wagons drive away, he gnashed his teeth at the rope, which he did not think would come loose. It was truly an accident that he was able to use magic. In order to match the assortment of the top, the people in this procession collected as many precious items as possible or things that could be purchased expensively from other countries, and Pan was able to get his hands on one of them. A medium that allows you to use magic.
When Pan got his hands on it and realized he could use magic. In the meantime, he felt sorry for the many scholars who died studying and longing for magic. Most of the facts about magic known to people were spread by the fact that the scholars studied and discovered. It was because they realized together that these scholars were idiots who really knew nothing about magic. The only thing that came close to the truth was that even if you wanted to learn and use the magic in the magic book, you couldn’t use it.
And why did the wizards allow such absurd stories about magic to spread, and why they were chosen by magic? It was because he had come to realize from the moment he got his hands on the medium that the very act of informing him of this fact was a terrifying taboo.
‘The pathetic and stupid ones!’
It was absurd to make a wizard that everyone wants just because he had done those things. When Pan first got his hands on magic, he didn’t intend to use magic for such things. At first, I was just happy. Even if the unavoidable taboos were buried, with this power, I could live with being treated for the rest of my life. If there was a fact that made me happier than that, it was that if I had this power, I might be able to go back to my country and achieve everything I longed for.
Originally, their homeland, Pacifenia, was a place where the knights, who were their people, fought and overcame the dragons that attacked the country every time, shedding blood and sweat. No matter what crisis came, no matter what difficulties, they burned themselves under the conviction that they had to protect them, and it was the same with Pan. Being a knight has never been easy. Rather, since it was a fight against a dragon called the king of monsters, it was a more strange, arduous task that there were no victims or injuries.
Even so, being a knight was an honorable job to protect one’s country and one’s family. Even though it was a nuisance that citizens of Pasifenia had to serve, they knew that they could live their lives based on their sacrifices. That’s why people treated them favorably and they could be honorable. Even if there were people who sometimes caused trouble, it was enough to give them a big punishment so that they would never do such a thing again.
They were able to call death an honor because it was such a thing that young boys always dreamed of, saying that they would become great and strong knights like them, with their eyes shining. That’s why I was willing to set myself on fire. But since when? How their lives have changed since that day. Days when the dragons’ raids are gradually decreasing and the country is becoming more lively as a result. At first, such peace and continued progress were welcomed by Pan.
Because he thought that peace would prove that his and his comrades’ sacrifices were by no means meaningless. The knights could not completely stop their vigilance against the dragon, but as the peaceful days continued, they gradually loosened their guard and enjoyed peace while spending the vacation, which was routinely canceled from time to time, to the end. However, that peace was broken at some point. It started with the sudden explosion of the gunpowder magazine the knights were managing.
If that were all, it would have been over if only those who managed the powder magazine were punished. The problem was that civilians, especially children, were caught in the explosion of the powder keg. Unfortunately, the children were so miserable that they could not even be recognized, and it may be natural, but they died. Maybe it was just an unfortunate accident. The knights were intoxicated with peace and must have wanted to take a nap at the leisure of the ebb and flow. And adventurous kids might just want to see what the knights were guarding. Not knowing that it would be their last adventure.
The children’s families wept and clung to their bodies with trembling hands. And the tears flooded them. They cursed the negligence of the knights, even if it was a very small break, and watched every trivial act. As if the newspapers had been waiting for it, it was common to inflate trivial matters and publish cursing articles. Being a knight no longer honored them. When they walked down the street, people feared them, and in the end, even walking on the road was restricted.
With the dragon’s attack gone, their homeland became richer and stronger day by day, but the existence of strong knights among them was just a threatening armed group receiving many benefits. People soon began to take the knights’ loyalty to their country for granted and their sacrifices for granted. They could no longer regard death as an honor. Had ten years passed like that? Eventually, the dissatisfaction of the knights exploded. They gathered a rebel army around a few, and many joined.
But that was the beginning of another hell. Days when they slashed and defeated with their own hands those who were once colleagues who were far, if not far from the leader they were aiming for. He collapsed when he realized that his friend was among them.
“…Weren’t we rebelling to bring down that goddamned head? Then why do we have to cut down knights like us?”
“It’s probably because they prioritize orders from above over their own opinions. I don’t know if I should call that loyalty.”
He ended up being named at the top because of mental problems. Still, escorting this guild was not particularly dissatisfying. Rather, it was the honorable thing he wanted to protect this guild where those who were shunned from their homeland gather and take refuge. However, that thought was all but lost due to the gossip of the women I overheard one day.
“How long do I have to live like this?”
“Now I want to wash with some clean water.”
I could understand this far. The long wandering life was hard, and it was hard for men, but it must have been hard for a woman to be a woman.
“I can’t live because I’m so embarrassed. How can men endure a situation like this?”
“I don’t know, but I guess they didn’t wash well usually. Most of them always only wear armor. If that’s the case, they’ll save water to drink and let us take a bath.”
“Ahaha! That’s good!”
Hearing that story, he suppressed the desire to break the heads of those women right away. And doubts arose. What have we sacrificed for? They took up their swords to protect the innocent against the atrocities of the leaders who not only took away the rights and benefits of the knights, but also exploited the civilians. However, they intuited that the rebellion would fail and built a guild to accommodate the refugees in order to protect more people.
“And that bastard Truss too. A guy who caught up as a doctor to a subject without qualifications as a doctor.”
“That freak?”
“I could have reduced the amount of water he took because he said it was for medical use.”
“So what do you know?”
But what about those women? How are those women different from the head of the country? Pann, who had been proud of protecting them all this time, became disgusted with himself. At the same time, the existence of those women who seemed to belittle our efforts was terrifying. The things I had been suppressing unwittingly burst out, and I no longer had the reins in my hands to stop them. That’s why I decided to use magic for such a thing. I will punish them all with my own hands instead of those backsliders who forgive those who do not even know the truth.
After all, all women were the same. The girls who came to get treatment were violated using drugs. Violating in the form of Truth was good, but committing it in one’s own form brought greater joy. I couldn’t see him because I was sleeping anyway.
‘But betrayed like this!?’
Truth had thought of him as a friend in his own way. Even though he knew the truth, he was incensed by his refusal to go along with it. He felt pitiful and contemptuous of him for several times refusing to act like him and still conforming to the rules of his far-away homeland. It was just that. When he vowed that if he only untied this rope, he would chase it to the end.
– Krrrr.
A growl was heard from somewhere. Pan felt his blood run cold at the sound.
‘No way, no! No!!’
He denied it inwardly, but the reality did not change. The wilderness has never been a kind place for humans. In Pan’s eyes, it looked like a wolf or a lizard, but it had no hair or scales, and it was a heterogeneous creature with blood-red, flat skin that made it unpleasant. He didn’t know what kind of creature it was, but it wasn’t hard to see what it was aiming for. It was drooling as it opened its elongated snout, revealing a mouth full of sharp teeth.
In the wilderness where no one can hear, only screams that no one can hear resound, and all that remains is the mangled pieces of clothes. Even that was covered in a sandstorm and disappeared without a trace.
The procession of wagons proceeded smoothly through the wilderness without any obstruction. After a long time running along the paved road where people came and went, I could see that the road had disappeared before I knew it and that I was right in front of a huge cloud barrier. A little further ahead, we were right under the cloud barrier. Donard, who was leading the carriage in front of him, signaled to stop by raising his flag earlier than the original time to stop the carriage. The coachmen who received the signal from the lead sent the same signal to the wagons following them without the slightest hesitation.
The coachmen who got off the wagons that had stopped in a circle looked around and gathered at the lead driver, Donard, who had signaled to stop earlier than usual.
“Donard, is something wrong?”
It was the horse of Odur, who was acting as a coachman in turn with Shalbi. Except for them, the people in the wagon have not gotten out because they have not yet given the signal to get off. The coachmen thus gathered stood with Donard at the center. Donnar, who now stood in their center, was holding a compass and looking at the map in turn.
“This could be a bit misdirected.”
Donard’s words caused a commotion among the coachmen, but he calmed it down.
“First, search the buoy with Hildisbini, one on each side. Don’t go too far and keep a safe distance.”
Following Donard’s words, the two chosen coachmen each rode a Hildisbine from the wagon and headed to either side. When Donard climbed back onto his cab and watched them get farther and farther away, getting closer and closer to the safety line, feeling nervous. He was spotted raising a flag on his right. He also raised a flag and signaled to the drivers on the other side that he would not relax until they returned.
Those who returned tied the Hildisbinies to their wagons, and the coachman who gave the signal handed over a piece of chain with a lot of rust on it.
“Fortunately, the road wasn’t too far off. I found it where the buoy used to be.”
Only then did the coachmen breathe a sigh of relief. And so was Donard. He takes a piece of rusty chain.
“Yeah, I should have found the buoy by this point a long time ago, but I didn’t see it, so I thought I was heading the wrong way.”
Just in case, I went back to the driver’s seat, saying let’s put the wagon back at the place where the buoy had been. This time, instead of running, they slowly drove the wagon and stopped it near the buoy. After checking the safety of the surroundings, they gathered at the buoy. And each of them clicked their tongue at what they found.
“Tsk, it seems like it’s been a while since Lantua didn’t manage this?”
“I don’t see this extra chain.”
There was a hole in the ground and a large wedge made of iron to keep the hole from filling up barely left traces of the buoy, but inside the wedge there was no extra chain, and pieces of the chain that had been torn off and scattered were scattered here and there.
“Anyway with the wedge, where did the buoy go? There’s no way anyone would have carried that huge lump of floating stone.”
Donar was scratching his head when someone tapped him on the shoulder.
“Odur? Why?”
“Isn’t that it?”
When he turned around and saw Odur talking while looking at the sky, Donard followed his gaze and looked up at the sky to find a dot, a buoy, that looked like a snot. The other coachmen also raised their heads following the two figures, and all found the buoy.
“… Hey, was that originally that small?”
“It’s going to look small because it’s far away.”
“So how do you pull that down?”
“…”
At the end of someone’s words, silence passed among the coachmen for a while.
“Just tell them that the buoy is broken in Lantua.”
“It’s because of the cloud zone. It can’t be helped.”
They just decided to pretend they didn’t know. In fact, with the nets they had, they couldn’t pull down the buoys, but they had to risk tearing the nets to catch the fish. And what I was most concerned about was that even if the buoy was pulled down and brought to Lantua as a favor, Lantua doubted whether it had been cut off when they arrived. In the worst case, Lantua could even charge you for repairs to the buoy.
“So, are you going to stop the carriage right here?”
“That’s how it should be. If I’m wrong, I’ll have to sleep under the clouds.”
“One of them must die.”
The cloud zone was a thankful existence that provided an environment for people to live in, but few people built houses or lived under it. It was a land of darkness where the day did not come under the clouds.
“The biggest problem is the weather.”
The weather below the cloud belt is unpredictable. In the midst of darkness, rain and wind are pouring, but you cannot see properly, and if you are unlucky, you may be hit by hail. It’s like being blinded by the invisible. At least, lightning strikes in the clouds. In other words, we have to move forward only with that irregular and momentary light. It happened to be close to the cloud zone, so it was a suitable temperature even though the time was far away.
“Tell people it’s okay to come out. I’m staying here for today.”
Donar stood there, listening to the news from the coachman and watching the people coming out of the carriage. It was to see Sif, whom he hadn’t been able to capture before. However, everyone who could escape had already escaped, but Sif’s blonde hair was nowhere to be found.
“You didn’t even get out of the wagon.”
Donnar only sighed in pity for himself. She wanted to be the one who would be her will to her. Didn’t even know Sif was going through something like that beforehand. Although Pan, who had committed such a thing, was abandoned in the wilderness to pay for his crimes, because of that, his heart was burning with rage. At least if I killed him with my own hands, would this stuffy feeling lessen?
“You really think so?”
“What, what is it?”
He was startled by the girl’s sweet voice, as if he was aiming for it, and looked where the voice had come from. And there, as expected, a girl as red as a flower was looking up at him with a bright golden light like honey in a stamen. One of the two children who joined their caravan this time was Belka.
“It doesn’t get any better if you take out your anger on yourself on others.”
“Ah.”
At the girl’s words, Donar belatedly realized that Pan was not the one he was angry with. Yeah, he just wanted to vent his anger. He is so pathetic for himself that he couldn’t protect his precious person. Disappointed with himself for not keeping his promise to Him. He was angry with himself.
“That’s not your job.”
“How do you…”
“Belka!!”
He wanted to ask how the girl could see a heart he didn’t know, and whether it was also possible through the witch’s magic, but his words were cut off by Usher’s voice.
“It’s too much to leave first while I’m sick!”
He felt dejected at the sight of Usher running quickly and taking Belka with him, even though Donnar was in front of him. The girl who approached him without even knowing a mouse or a bird threw a few words at him and walked away without giving him a chance to ask a question.
“I bet you didn’t already know that this would happen.”
Sorry for Belka, but Donnar thought that she was more suited to the name of a witch than anyone else. Rather than being human, the figure was overly beautiful and enchanting, as if she had picked a flower and combed it one by one. Seeing her always wearing a white dress over the same dark red dress, whether it was hot or cold, I wondered if the girl was really stepping into the same world as them.
Then, looking around, he noticed a boy chasing after Usher and Belka, and even though he hadn’t eaten anything, he felt a bitter taste linger in his mouth, as if he had put bitter grass in his mouth.
“Anyway, Rogi will be a very tough love.”
He seems to have said this before, but he never thought it would turn out like this.
“Pan, that bastard has done a lot of work too.”
If he was going to search, he would search by himself, and there were too many people who were harmed. Among the victims were Usher, Belka, Sif, and many women, including a boy. Thanks to the boy’s testimony exonerating Truce and pointing out that Pan was the culprit, he was able to capture Pan, but not many people know about it. That’s because the boy’s testimony included even sensitive stories that people are hearing right now. The old man did not want to inform the fact that people might point their knives at the boy.
But how can the boy’s innocence, which was eventually tainted, be restored? With his guilt-stained eyes, recalling the tears of the boy who confessed his sins, he only sighed at his messiness.
