MB Chapter 23

【 Past 】

Therio Alte stood in silence over the funeral hall that had lost its master.

The tear tracks had been washed from his face, his clothes returned to their usual order. The sword in his hand was no longer the broken blade of before—it was whole again, the edge a clean, cold blue.

As he stared at the space where the coffin had stood, his jaw set with sudden rigidity. Rage and despair seeped through the grinding of his teeth.

"We've found them, Your Lordship. The Avalanche Mountain Range—that direction. It appears Bethelgius forces moved toward the Avalanche just before the Grand Duke stirred."

"Leave all second-tier and below at the estate. First-tier elites—keep only the minimum behind and follow me."

I'm taking back the mistress of Alte.

At the voice—compressed with something fierce and absolute—the knights lowered their heads as one.

"Yes, Your Lordship!"

Deep within the Avalanche, in a cave where a great magic circle was being drawn with a coffin at its center.

From the ceiling above the circle, mana stones jutted like stalactites, hundreds of them glowing all at once, filling the space with a dim and diffuse luminescence that needed no separate lamp.

"This is wrong, my lord. Reconsider!"

Ekser's voice rang out toward Entzi, who stood beside the coffin.

"It cannot succeed. Even for you, turning back time is impossible!"

"Strange, isn't it." Entzi's tone was mild. "The Ekser I know is more loyal to Chloe than anyone—so why would you try to prevent me from keeping a promise to Chloe?"

Ekser forced his voice down through the roughness of anger.

"Chloe herself likely made that condition without great seriousness. I have served Chloe since childhood, yet Lady Arzla remains a stranger to me. A woman I have barely encountered—what attachment could Chloe possibly feel toward her blood?"

"You make such confident assertions when you didn't even understand why Chloe included Goiyo Rubiette in the promise."

"None of that matters. Chloe would never have wished you to sacrifice yourself for this. Such a light promise—there is no need to honor it to this degree!"

Kolave stepped further into the cave, noticed the two of them, and clicked his tongue. So he followed without knowing anything. Truly unaware of it all. The thought passed through him like a shadow.

He stepped in front of Ekser—who was drawing breath to shout again—and made his presence known.

"To be more precise, Your Grace has already kept the promise, in a sense. If Goiyo chose of her own will—was allowing that not also part of the promise?"

"Kolave. Why are you here?"

"Not to dissuade you."

The years Kolave had spent at Entzi's side were long enough to have learned that his superior could not be deterred from what he had decided to do. Ekser would know as much—and yet.

Without entering their conflict, Kolave stated the purpose of his arrival.

"Are you aware, Your Grace? Therio Alte has apparently advanced almost to our doorstep."

"Even a rotten bream is still a bream—he isn't entirely useless after all."

"No indeed. Well, there is also the matter of having no reason to conceal our whereabouts when one anticipates no consequences to clean up."

If time was to be reversed, whatever happened would vanish regardless.

"What are you saying, Kolave!" Ekser's voice cracked. "Time cannot rewind. And even if it could—it won't end with simple death. The soul will be torn to pieces! As it was for the many mages who attempted it."

"Hmm. I don't think mine will shatter." Entzi's voice was light, almost reflective. "Perhaps it's a matter of constitution—I have a feeling it will end with merely a crack or two... After returning, I suppose I'll need to be more careful with my soul."

"Is now the time for jesting!"

Ekser rounded on Kolave with fury, then set his expression and bent his knees. Both knees on the cold cave floor, he implored.

Chloe was gone. He could not lose Entzi as well.

"Then—then if you would have me cut down members of the imperial household and lay their heads at your feet, I will do even that. Ten years and more of effort, of longing—does none of it grieve you? Anzik—please..."

"Anzik..." Entzi looked down at him. "That is a name I haven't heard from your lips in some time."

The eyes that looked down upon the pleading Ekser were without color. Irises the shade of emptiness moved slowly.

"Does none of it grieve me? I don't know. At first I was furious at having failed. But now that I actually stand here on the edge of action, I find I feel rather little."

"Anzik!"

"Do you want me to give you a reason you'll accept?"

He looked down at the one kneeling at his feet.

Ekser Prebesk—his bondsman, passed into his custody by Chloe.

Slavery had been abolished in the light, but in the shadows, things were different. Ekser had been a slave of the shadows, saved by Chloe. That was why he clung to Chloe, and why he clung to Entzi, whom Chloe had bid him serve.

As far as Entzi was concerned, the man's fabricated devotion was something he had grown thoroughly tired of.

"I made an oath."

"...What?"

"Something even Chloe Balverdi did not know—I made a magical oath on my own. Going beyond the promise Chloe had set, I swore that Goiyo Rubiette would encounter, at minimum, no tragedy. You know what happens if that oath is broken?"

Minimum: death. Maximum: the annihilation of the soul.

Aren't they the same in the end? Entzi smiled as he said it. Ekser sank to the floor, slack-jawed, trembling.

"Why... why such an oath..."

"It was a moment of bravado. At the time I was so acutely sensitive to betrayal that, even facing death, I did not want to become that kind of person."

"But you are still alive, my lord..."

"Because there is a way to reverse it, I remain alive. If there were none, my breath would have stopped long ago."

Do you still believe I have a choice, Ekser?

At the soft question, his bondsman only closed his eyes in silent devastation.

He's finally stopped talking. Entzi thought it without feeling.

"When I became a Marquess there was no particular sense of achievement. When I became a Grand Duke, the same. I don't imagine becoming Emperor will be different. Even so, I did not stop—because there was nothing else to do. Perhaps it would be better to stop now, before I reach the very end of emptiness."

Whether that was the fox calling the grapes sour, or whether he genuinely felt it, Entzi could not say—but either way, he meant it truly.

"The time has come."

The circle that had been slowly completing itself closed. The light of every mana stone was pulled entirely into it.

The coffin shone white. Entzi moved toward the woman lying with her eyes closed.

"Your Grace."

Kolave called to him. Kolave's face was composed—but his eyes alone were bloodshot, red enough to be visible even in the dimness.

"Your Grace's personality being genuinely terrible, I suffered quite a great deal. I thought about quitting at least several times a day."

"A graceless tongue to the last."

But.

"I am glad to have been your subordinate. I will see you in the past."

Kolave Peroto bowed as deeply as ceremony allowed. Entzi, briefly surprised, regarded him for a moment—then smiled faintly and gave a single small nod.

'Yes. We'll meet again.'

Purple light exploded from the magic circle.

At the same moment, dozens of men poured into the cave. They were Alte's knights, heavily armed with swords drawn—and at their head stood Therio Alte.

The color was so intense it was nearly blinding. Therio squinted against it—and then, through the light, caught sight of the familiar coffin.

'Goiyo!'

His heart accelerated to something many times its normal pace, seized by an urgency he could not name. Abandoning the knights, Therio Alte ran. He forced mana into his legs until they might have split, moved his body as quickly as it could be moved.

Each footfall. Each movement of his legs. The wind pressing against his face. Every sensation was vivid and absolute.

He passed Ekser Prebesk, collapsed on the ground. He passed Kolave Peroto, bent at the waist. He passed the shadow of Entzi Bethelgius, one hand resting on the coffin's edge.

And then reached out. Toward the coffin. Toward the coffin where Goiyo Rubiette lay sleeping. Toward the coffin of Goiyo Alte.

The moment his fingertips grazed its surface—the light that had burst outward converged back upon it and turned to gold.

The clock hands rewind.

Anzik Solaris had been born on the night the Witch's Moon rose.

It was the day of the most severe mana stagnation in the past thousand years. Most children born that night died, or were destined to live their entire lives in weakness. But not Entzi.

The ancients had been foolish enough to call the dark spirits drawn by vengeance demons—yet wise enough to know that demons could be born among men. They named any child born under the Witch's Moon who did not die a demon. Not a different species, not a different soul—but beings who carried talent so formidable and so dangerous that no ordinary human could covet it. They feared such children, and they despised them with that word.

In recent times, it had come to be received as little more than superstition—but for Entzi, who had been born that night, the matter seemed rather different.

Entzi was beautiful in appearance, sharp in mind, and exceptional in physical ability. And yet all of these were talents within a comprehensible range.

The greatest and most dangerous talent he possessed was nothing so trivial as those. It was something that cleared the limits of humanity entirely.

The magic of a demon, beyond any human comparison. Before he had even come of age, there was no one left in the world who could threaten his life.

Yet even for such an Entzi, reversing time carried its own dangers.

Every living creature in the world shares a single axis of time. For Entzi to reverse time meant reversing the whole of the world's time together.

It seemed the kind of thing only a god could accomplish—and yet Entzi did not think it impossible for him. Only once, however.

Any attempt beyond a second would shatter his soul into pieces that would be forgotten from all memory, as though they had never existed.

Entzi thought that this second attempt might perhaps be now.

The one performing the magic could never become the axis. And the one who failed to become the axis would have their memories buried and erased by time.

Even if the reversal succeeded, Entzi Bethelgius would remember nothing of what he had done.

And so—perhaps he had already reversed time once before and, without knowing it, was attempting to reverse it again.

If this was the first time, he would be unharmed. If it was not the first time, he would disappear forever.

It was, truly, something like a gamble—and yet Entzi found he did not mind the prospect itself.

If the miracle of reversing time came to pass from his hands, that was fine. If his soul crumbled and vanished, that was fine as well.

Entzi Bethelgius was a man of great appetite—but appetite, for him, carried a meaning different from other people's.

His appetite was for possibility. The possibility of change; or, to put it more plainly, the possibility of happiness.

Yet standing with the Emperor's seat almost before his eyes, Entzi had begun to doubt.

Even if he placed that crown upon his own head. Even if he stood above every living person. Could he hold in his hands what he truly wanted?

Could it be that even arriving at the final destination available to him, nothing would change?

The oath had made his attempt unavoidable—but perhaps, also, he was running away.

Running from opening all the cards to confirm that the fate laid out for him was nothing but tragedy. Unwilling to admit that no matter how desperately he struggled, he could not obtain what he wanted.

And so—whether his soul shattered or time rewound and he forgot everything—he thought it would not matter, either way.

Even if pitch-black rest came, or pitch-black forgetting—both seemed better than this, the hole in his chest.

Then, Goiyo Rubiette. What about you?

If you return to the past, what choice will you make?

In the blur of spreading color, eyes closed, the face of the sleeping woman rose in Entzi's mind.

Pale-white, gaunt to the point where skin seemed to cling to bone. A face he had done nothing more than exchange a few passing words with—one that had once, he supposed, been beautiful.

It was foolish to reverse the time of someone who had taken their own breath and expect them to change anything.

Even while reversing Goiyo Rubiette's time, Entzi thought of the promise only mechanically, expecting nothing to be different.

Perhaps even with her memories, Goiyo might prove too powerless, too frail—unable to change a single thing.

The choices available to Goiyo were too crude and too meager. Perhaps she would arrive at an even greater tragedy than before.

Perhaps nothing would change, and the world would flow in exactly the same way, once again shattering the soul of an Entzi who tried to reverse time a second time. That was, of course, assuming this was not already the second attempt.

But frankly—it didn't matter. Whether Goiyo Rubiette changed something or changed nothing, whatever she did in the rewound time had nothing to do with him.

Because no matter what Goiyo Rubiette chose to do, the destination of Entzi Bethelgius's life would not change.

He would become Emperor and be swallowed by emptiness. Or his soul would crumble.

That had been the plan.