A Villain's Will to Survive novel Chapter 359

Chapter 359: Epilogue (2)

#4. Room in Lokralen

Epherene lay on the bed, looking up at the ceiling, and in a world where time was frozen—without sound, scent, presence, or motion—it was like a void in space, with Lokralen, filled with time energy, all the more stagnant for it.

Tick, tock— Tick, tock—

Epherene passed the time by counting it in her heart, for if she didn't count it herself, she couldn't sense the time that was flowing within her.

Tick, tock— Tick, tock—

Tick, tock— Tick, tock—

This kind of stasis was enough to make a person go mad, as if she were swimming naked through the empty cosmos and galaxies, suffocated even while breathing, her chest tightening at times as though her throat were entirely blocked.

... However.

“Professor,” Epherene called.

When she spoke his name, a sound was made, and the presence of someone who could uniquely move in that space where everything had stopped spread clearly, and in an instant her loneliness and silence disappeared, the stasis pressing down on her scattered, and her choked breath was released, restoring her vitality.

"Why did you call?" he replied.

With a bright smile, Epherene turned to face him.

Beside her bed, in the same room, sat her mentor Deculein, a mage who was composing a spell.

“I was just wondering, Professor, were you staying in the cabin this entire time?”

“... Because it is my mentor’s cabin.”

The Professor, first to wake from his hibernation after the destruction, had hidden himself in the place Rohakan left behind—a magical cabin that could be reached in the desert by morning and in the Northern Region by evening.

“Well, I suppose it makes sense that no one could find you. ... But weren’t you curious about how the continent had changed since then?” Epherene replied.

"No, the way people live is all the same anyway."

Deculein’s response was apathetic, and though Epherene was used to the perpetually cold Professor, this definitive and detached tone was very different from how he used to be.

“... By the way, Professor, do you know how many days have passed?” Epherene said, trying to change the subject.

I wonder how much time has gone by—

“108 hours, 13 minutes, and 35 seconds.”

The moment Epherene asked, Deculein’s answer came back immediately, with an accuracy that surprised her, even though she had been counting the time herself.

“Oh... Umm.”

At that moment, a flash of ominous dissonance came to Epherene’s mind, and as she looked at Deculein—his face still absorbed in the spell—she felt a certain emotion... fear, and also concern.

“Professor.”

When Epherene called to Deculein, he turned to her in silence, his composed expression as though he knew everything already—what she was about to say, what emotion she had just felt, what kind of fear it was, and what her concern was.

“Professor, you are—”

“Epherene, I am connected to the truth,” Deculein interrupted.

Epherene flinched, her shoulders trembling, and she hesitantly raised her head to look into his eyes.

At that moment, Epherene’s concern turned into certainty as his eyes, with a depth difficult to describe, shone with a brilliance that radiated an aura beyond mana and outside the scope of humanity, a ripple that made all her hair stand on end.

“As you are aware, I am already on my way to death, and the wisdom I have gained from it has allowed me to understand everything with ease.”

The more Deculein spoke, the darker Epherene’s face grew with each passing moment, her wide eyes trembling as her tightly pressed lips quivered.

“The power of Comprehension over the world and its principles has already become an Authority, and this Authority will advance on its own.”

A smile appeared at the corners of Deculein's mouth, as if to comfort Epherene and tell her everything would be all right, with a gentle tone he had never shown before.

“In the end, it will consume even my own self, and seek to comprehend all things on its own terms.”

Deculein reached out his hand, and his gentle fingers brushed Epherene’s eyelashes and then brushed her cheek.

"Epherene, the giant could not be together with the human. Do you know why?" Deculein inquired.

Deculein’s question was gentle and warm enough to stir in her a strange sadness.

“... Yes,” Epherene replied, her voice trembling even on that single syllable as she nodded, suppressing the great wave that felt as if it were rising in her chest, and added, “A sage... can never find happiness.”

Epherene knew that a human who knew everything could not be happy, that wisdom never made a human happy, that the happiest person was the most ignorant, and that the most unfortunate person might be the one who knew everything.

“Indeed.”

Then, Deculein gave a brilliant smile as if it were sunshine, saying she had found the answer.

“... Then,” Epherene pouted and grumbled as if only a little hurt. “All my efforts are for nothing? Professor, you will...”

The love between a human and a giant could not be fulfilled because a giant merely cannot love a human, just as a human cannot love an ant.

Then she thought that perhaps, to Deculein, she was nothing more than a mere ant.

“No.”

All of a sudden, Deculein shook his head, as though he had known of Epherene's concern beforehand and was reassuring her that she had nothing to worry about.

“I remain here to look at you with pure intentions. You, my protégé, are the one I can see as my complete self,” Deculein added.

“... Complete self,” Epherene muttered.

“Indeed.”

Epherene dawdled before reaching into her robe's inner pocket and fumbling with the Wood Steel within—the steel she had received as a gift from the Professor once upon a time.

“W-Who is the c-complete... Professor? What does complete even mean? Oh, what am I saying...” Epherene asked, holding a piece of steel and stammering nervously.

Even as she asked the question, Epherene felt a familiar sense of sense of shame for the first time in a while, for though she had already grown into an archmage, in front of Deculein she remained to be the same young and foolish Epherene who had only ever caused trouble in the Mage Tower.

"... Haha," Deculein murmured, laughing without a word for a moment. “The man you see before you."

“... Sorry? The Professor I see before me?”

“Indeed, the man you have seen is myself. Only you have seen my complete self.”

Epherene didn’t know what he meant, but she wasn’t offended, for the emotion in Deculein’s voice—its resonance and nuance—carried a meaning that was far too pleasant.

"From the beginning to the end of me," Deculein continued.

From the very beginning, when Deculein was a man with a stronger shade of Kim Woo-Jin, through the days when he began to assimilate into Deculein, to this very moment when neither Deculein nor Kim Woo-Jin could be separated from one another, his existence had been in constant flux.

"Epherene, you were there with me."

It was the person named Epherene who stayed with him from his beginning to his end, throughout all his changes.

"Therefore, the man before you is my complete self," Deculein concluded.

Of course, Epherene couldn't know the exact depths of Deculein's heart, but she could only accept what she could vaguely sense.

But what does that matter, when the Professor himself tells me this—that I was with him from the beginning to the end, that I am precious to him, Epherene thought.

“... Professor, do you remember the old days?” Epherene asked, twitching her lips as she held out the Wood Steel in one hand and the wand in the other. “They’re my most precious things.”

In both of Epherene's hands were the Wood Steel and the wand.

“And this as well.”

The bracelet on Epherene's wrist was already broken, but it was her father’s memento, which she had forcefully mended.

"What do you think? Come here and look."

“Hmm...”

“Hup.”

Pretending to show him, Epherene wrapped her two arms around the neck of Deculein, who had come closer to see it, and forcibly pressed his face into her chest.

Whump—

A plush sound was heard, but as expected, the Professor was not taken aback.

“... Do you not hate him?” Deculein inquired with a straight face.

Deculein asked if she did not hate her father—the father who had abandoned her, the father who had used her—and how it was possible that she could not hate him.

"It is not within me to hate him. He is, after all, my father."

Epherene realized that the past was just what she thought it was, and that all real things were ultimately in the present.

“How can I hate the one who gave birth to me, when he is the father who gave me the world?” Epherene continued, looking at Deculein’s face.

Held tightly in Epherene’s arms, Deculein wore a slightly baffled expression, as though he were either reining in his authority of Comprehension or feeling an emotion that even Comprehension could not comprehend.

“And it is also thanks to my father...”

The sight of Deculein’s rarely seen, baffled expression was too adorable that Epherene smiled with overwhelming happiness...

"That I am able to love the Professor’s complete self,” Epherene concluded.

And confessed with all her innocence.

#5. One Year

The year they had promised had passed by, and while the time energy within Lokralen remained, their own time flowed all too easily, with a cruel speed.

“Even after becoming an archmage, there is still so much to learn,” Epherene said.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to do in a place where time was stagnant.

In this place, we can’t grow anything together, and we can’t do anything fun together... or can we? The rest is a secret. Anyway, Epherene thought.

In a world where there were only the two of them, in a stillness where nothing moved, Epherene was happy with just being together with him... and she was passionate about it.

“Is that so?” Deculein replied.

The two were currently seated side by side in the Underground Archives of Lokralen, putting something to paper.

“Yes, I’m finding it difficult to come up with a story. I don’t know how Sylvia managed to write so well.”

Epherene had begun her writing three months earlier, a diary and a novel at the same time, a story that was to some degree autobiographical.

“Would you like to read it, Professor?”

Writing is one of the things I can do with the Professor. With this, we can share our thoughts, and I can show the Professor the stories in my heart. Unlike magic, there is no answer in literature.

“There’s a little left. I’ve almost finished writing it, but...”

However, I cannot write the final ending. It is a conclusion that both Deculein and I—that everyone—knows. The conclusion is, inevitably, a parting of ways, and that inevitable final scene... it is not being written. I do not want to write it.

"Are you neglecting your studies of magic?” Deculein said from his place beside Epherene.

“... You told me not to become like Demakan, and that there must be a limit to one's achievement and enlightenment,” Epherene replied, narrowing her eyes.

“It matters not, as you will never break through that limit, no matter what you do.”

“What did you just say?”

A year has already passed, but I cannot get used to being treated like a child. Of course, that's not to say I hate it. When I return to the continent, everyone will find me difficult. Meaning, these moments—this special treatment I want but cannot have, this childishness I want but cannot show—are just precious.

"Hmph,” Epherene murmured, snorting with laughter and holding a pencil. “Has the theory been completed, Professor?”

“Indeed,” Deculein replied without hesitation, and as if he had been waiting, he handed her a book already bound and pressed its corner against Epherene’s shoulder.

... I shouldn't have asked.

"It was completed last night. You too will be able to comprehend it if you look at it."

Epherene looked at the cover, where the title read Quantization of Time, a book that to anyone else would have seemed less like a magic theory textbook and more like a novel.

My confidence must be what appealed to him.

Will I be able to understand in about three months?

“Umm...”

But I am conflicted. It would be selfish of me to draw out time for my own benefit, for in doing so Deculein could be consumed by my own authority...

Kiss.

#6. Three Months

Deculein wished to fall into a peaceful sleep without being swallowed up by his Comprehension or being swayed by his Authority, remaining as he was, both Deculein and Kim Woo-Jin.

Will I forget him as time goes by? Could something as simple as time erase him from my memory?

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