Editor 124

Once Taetherton received confirmation that magic would be used, he loosened his grip.

Kleio took a deep breath, having held it in case the blade pierced his throat. Even a dulled blade stung when pressed to bare skin.

Taetherton carefully placed the onyx from Phyton, obtained in the earlier fight, onto Melchior’s hand.

‘He sure treats his lord and others with a clear difference in temperature,’ Kleio thought, as he opened his circle.

His body and mind sparked with glassy pain.

A new nosebleed trickled down, but he no longer felt the heat of the blood.

The circle, barely covering only Kleio and Melchior, was dimmer than a candle flame. Anyone familiar with Kleio’s usual circle would have found the faint light strange.

‘Even an empty liquor bottle, if you leave it for a few minutes and shake it, a drop or two will still come out. That’s about how much ether I have left.’

Anyway, since he had revived the crown prince at the cost of his own strength, whether it was called a weakness or a debt, it would serve as a card to use against Melchior at least once.

It was hardly the situation, but Kleio felt like laughing.

Thinking back to the first impression of the crown prince, who had not seemed human at all, Kleio felt a strange sense of time passing, now that he could speak of “weakness” or “debt” in regard to him.

‘No matter how extraordinary a guy is, when he’s laid up and sick like that, at least he seems a bit more human.’

Facing the unstable crown prince, Taetherton looked at Kleio with eyes mixed with longing and anxiety. It was a silent urging.

Even after being let go, Kleio didn’t have the strength to fully steady himself, so he just slumped forward, stacking his hands over the onyx.

Was it because the situation was so desperate?

The incantation came to him like a revelation.

At first, even finding a single line of incantation had been a struggle, but as his degree of narrative intervention increased, quotations naturally came to mind.

“Memory” summoned the lines that had illuminated “Jeongjin’s” life during dark times. Those lines were from an era and generation that “Jeongjin” did not belong to.

Just as light from a star reaches the earth even after the star is extinguished, though the poet who wrote them died long ago, the poem still remains, shining in Kleio’s heart like a star, even across worlds.

He whispered in a voice that was about to go out.

[Lie still, I tell you, as the wings of the wind grow calm and gentle leaves shade the burning sunlight; Lie still, in the warm sea, even the wind dozes off, and even that wind cannot be quieter than you.]

1) Essentially, Kleio’s job is to recite quotations.

This act was called “magic” in this world.

The media, which had been Jeongjin’s only refuge in the past, now became the medium of magic.

The magic formula for [Relief] traced the pale outlines of the crown prince and the mage in the darkness, as if sculpted from marble.

Under their misaligned, overlapping hands, the onyx began to crumble.

Melchior’s clenched hand gradually relaxed, and the punitive pain rampaging through his veins was relieved.

‘Reading can relieve the pain of a person with real flesh and blood, and save a life. Yes, this really is magic.’

And Jeongjin could not defy the author’s will that made such magic possible.

He was not one to offer complete obedience to the power that ruled the world, but neither was he cut out to be a revolutionary or a traitor.

His ether was dried up to the last drop.

Arthur seemed to be desperately supporting his back. The scream transmitted as a wave. The boy acted as if Kleio was dying.

He wanted to tell him not to worry, but no sound came from his parched throat.

Today’s development was accidental. The author still needed Melchior and Kleio. So surely the gods would not take his life with this magic, but he could not convey that fact.

Just as the magic Kleio squeezed out of his life was about to end, ‘Promise’ tapped at his closing eyelids.

[—The user’s degree of narrative intervention is rising.

Accumulated ratio: 37.5%]

[—Total ether increases.]

[—Ether level has reached 5.]

[—Magic formula slots increase to 5.]

[—Unique skill: ‘Editor Authority’ (2/3) restriction time increased.

Restriction time: 00:05:00]

Ether exploded, illuminating the night.

The storm of energy, like a volcanic eruption, fiercely shook the ether vessels of those at its epicenter.

But Arthur, even as his ether channels were battered, never let go of Kleio.

.

.

.

Mietz, having executed Phyton, raced along the castle wall, lending strength to vulnerable strongpoints.

The shadow spiders were not strong individually, but there were far too many. The Tristain knights numbered only forty. It was not enough to stand against them alone.

Only after rescuing people could he pursue Arthur’s whereabouts.

As Mietz hurried across the castle, he sensed a formidable ether reaction. Ishiel followed closely by his side. Tension was evident on his student’s tightly pressed lips.

Rumble!

A tremendous explosion of light blinded their vision.

.

.

.

“Good heavens, what is this!”

Trude, who had climbed to the north wall to support the soldiers after taking down Phyton, was dumbfounded.

The shadow spiders she had been holding off melted and crumbled under the sudden burst of light from the main building.

Even the endless wave of shadow spiders had lost their momentum. The sudden flash of ether light had finished them off.

The problem was, the finishing blow was too strong.

“Hey! The magic stones! All the magic stones are melting!”

Trude had initially cheered, but as the black quartz magic stones from the shadow spiders crumbled from the unidentified ether, her cheers turned to screams.

“Those tiny stones add up to a fortune if you collect them, so why are they melting! Oh no!”

.

.

.

Kleio’s consciousness was not completely gone, so he could feel the northern gale. His cheek exposed to the outside air was cold as if freezing, while one arm felt burning hot.

The unconscious boy’s hand was gripping Kleio’s arm tightly, as if afraid his limp classmate would be swept out by the gale and fall.

Kleio, now a newly minted level 5 mage, had a precarious ether vessel, and he did not even have the strength to turn his head.

So he simply watched. The crown prince, just now awakening from the darkness of unconsciousness.

There was something reverent in the way Melchior opened his eyes.

Amid the afterimage of the ether explosion, Melchior quietly rose.

Neither his clothes, soaked with dust and blood, nor the castle, devastated by fierce battle, could make him look shabby.

At the same time, his ‘charm’ was awakened. Kleio squinted at the dazzling succession of messages.

[Unique Skill: ‘Erato’s Charm’]

[—Grants the user overwhelming charm. Causes others to love and admire them.]

‘Of course….’

Kleio finally accepted without omission Melchior’s revealed title.

Erato.

It made perfect sense that the Muse of Love and Lyric Poetry would favor him.

Love is always driven by the impulse of passion, and the emotions art reproduces are purely extreme.

And it is also human fervor, and the source of human tragedy.

Kleio’s thoughts were beyond his control.

Lines of tragedy and the chorus crying out for divine vengeance echoed in memories where it was unclear whose voice they were.

Rustle.

At some point, two people had stood up.

Taetherton, who had shielded Melchior from the ether storm with his own body, had also overcome the distortion of his ether channels and awakened.

Kleio’s vision, numbed by cold, was blurry. The aftereffects of the explosion left his ears ringing, and he could not hear anything clearly.

The conversation between Melchior and Taetherton felt like watching a play’s lines from behind a veil.

Confirming his lord’s safety, Taetherton prostrated himself at Melchior’s feet, bowing his head like the lowest slave.

Unable even to kiss his lord’s feet out of reverence, Taetherton hunched his trembling back deeply and vomited up a black mass of dead blood.

Taetherton was an excellent level 7 knight, but the feats he showed that night exceeded level 7. He even used [Transformation] to face a beast with sword master’s skills.

Though the lord’s effort was amazing, he was performing a strange act of atonement.

“I have incurred a debt to you that I cannot repay even with my life.”

The target of the blood-soaked cry was still the clear-eyed crown prince.

“My king… But this time, I stayed by your side. … I did not….”

“But it was too late.”

“Forgive the fault of this foolish one.”

Excluded from the two’s drama, Kleio, in his fading consciousness, only wished for “Memory” to work properly.

He did not have the strength to think.

But he knew one thing.

Taetherton’s desperate regret could not be accumulated in just one lifetime. It was not remorse born from a single event.

Kleio still knew far too little about this world. The drama those two played out might have been a bonus clue given to him.

‘Just what happened in the past?’

All Kleio knew was the eighth manuscript. But that manuscript did not explain their relationship.

Even the loyal knights could not understand Taetherton’s blind devotion. If its basis was not in this life, it must have been in a past life, or in an erased manuscript.

‘And not only Melchior, but Taetherton too… they remember something about their repeated lives in the erased manuscript…’

If he had the energy, Kleio would have been shocked and collapsed, but Melchior, the subject of his curiosity, showed no disturbance.

Instead, as if this desolate place were a king’s hall, he extended an arm and brushed Taetherton’s shoulder with his fingers instead of a sword.

“Taetherton Tristain. From this moment, you are my Duke of Armorique.”

Melchior’s gaze lingered on the Duke’s bones, all that was left after Grendel’s defeat.

Following Melchior, Taetherton, with an indifferent glance as if looking at broken furniture, glanced at his father’s remains, then bowed again at his lord’s feet.

“I accept the glorious command, my lord.”

At Taetherton’s reply, ‘Promise’ radiated a heat so intense it seemed about to melt.

Even in his dazed state, Kleio groaned.

It was because of a message that stabbed into his eyes.

[?‘Reincarnator’ receives the title of Lancelot Tristain. [Covenant—Simile of Eternity] fulfills the condition for resurrection.

?The vow of perpetual loyalty to the Lady of Lake Nineveh and the duties of the Duke of Armorique are properly inherited.]

“The long years waiting for you did not feel long at all.”

Melchior answered coldly, with a tone imbued with unknown resignation.

“Wasn’t it plenty long? Memory evaporates, the dead forget the details, and only the literal command is held under the tongue and repeated… And so you call this loyalty.”

The messages of ‘Promise’ circling Taetherton and Melchior became so bright that they pained Kleio’s weary eyes.

The messages surrounding the two became a storm, flashing like an open circle. As the messages overlapped and the temperature of ‘Promise’ rose endlessly, it eventually cooled all at once.

‘Maybe… this isn’t… a message from ‘Promise’…’

If so, what was projecting this text before them?

Secrets not yet permitted to Kleio were posted above the ruins.

Tonight’s revelation was only for Melchior. He saw and read everything.

“I see. I thought I knew the past, but in truth, I knew nothing.”

Messages forbidden for Kleio to read rose endlessly like scrolls of scripture, then were torn away.

With a pop, as if breaking a prohibition, ‘Promise’ emitted a faint heat. It gave only a strange warning.

[—‘Word’ output format mismatch. Exceeds output area of ‘Clio’s Promise’. Message cannot be received.]

Kleio was appalled.

‘Those messages weren’t for me, but for Melchior.’

Then was he not the only one who could see messages outside the dungeon?

Taetherton, still prostrate, did not even raise his head. If messages appeared to everyone as in the dungeon, there should have been some reaction.

At that moment.

Urk.

Taetherton, vomiting up another lump of black blood that did not seem to come from a living body, slowly collapsed. Even unconscious, he clung to Melchior’s feet.

Passing lightly by Taetherton, Melchior walked as if treading on water in the midst of the ruined floor and missing ceiling.

A ringing began in Kleio’s ears. His whole body trembled with tension.

The young hero beside him, not even fully conscious, desperately pulled at his companion’s shrinking limbs.

1) “A Ballad of Dreamland”, Algernon Charles Swinburne.