TLed by NolepGuy
Chapter 58
However, it must be forgotten.
‘That world no longer exists.’
[Mr. Kraush, I am a greedy person. That’s why Lord Aslan ended up that way, and I feel like I’ll keep being greedy. So please, don’t be kind to me.]
He remembered the words she spoke as she slipped out of his embrace, crying her heart out on the day Aslan died.
Who did she think had been holding back their greed all this time, for her to say something like that?
At that moment, Kraush had been utterly dumbfounded.
But later, he understood.
After bringing her, who had been crestfallen after Aslan’s death, into his service as his personal maid.
And after losing her not long after, along with the Green Pine Mansion, to the rampant World Erosion in Balheim.
That he was nothing more than a fool who didn’t even know how to be greedy.
‘If only I had been greedy.’
Kraush could never forget the pain and sorrow he had revisited countless times.
Yet time is truly peculiar.
Even pain fades with time.
Lirina’s death had occurred during the early days of the rampant World Erosion.
Afterwards, through many experiences in the Skyborne Generation, he had managed to bury the pain of losing Lirina to some extent.
To the point that, though he had no idea why, he had even considered going on a date with a woman who had persistently followed him around.
‘Well, none of it matters anymore, though.’
Thanks to that mess involving Mary Diana and the damn Divine Spear, he hadn’t even been able to go on that date.
And after that day, the woman had stopped speaking to him altogether.
And now, including those events, everything that happened with Lirina had become meaningless.
The Lirina standing before him was a different person from the one he had known.
“Unfortunately, it’s not about a girlfriend.”
So Kraush smiled at her slowly.
She was Lirina, Aslan’s personal maid.
And now, she would remain his personal maid, unchanged, from this moment onward.
Kraush’s first love no longer existed.
It was a love that had ended long ago.
On the day she died.
Kraush had silently ended that love before her corpse.
‘Doll’s Eye.’
The brief surge of emotion was suppressed and disappeared beneath the weight of the Doll’s Eye.
“Miss Lirina.”
Thanks to that, Kraush could call her name in a way that was different from before.
“Let’s conspire together to help Aslan live.”
So that she, too, could live.
When Kraush said that, Lirina remained silent before finally raising her head.
“You weren’t lying when you said to ask you for anything.”
“Yes, that’s reassuring.”
“Alright, give me instructions. What should I do?”
Watching her lift her skirt and wait as if receiving an order, Kraush let out a faint chuckle.
And then, he shared something that was certain to make her flinch.
“Tomorrow, Aslan will attempt Incarnation.”
Sure enough, Lirina’s body stiffened.
“In the meantime, I want you to infiltrate the Vice Matriarch’s chamber with Crim and retrieve Dorothy’s Crystal.”
And with his next words, her body froze once more.
“…You really do say anything.”
Her expression looked utterly dazed.
＊ ＊ ＊
Flame Mistress.
Agatha Igrit.
A 7th-Class Adeptus Major Mage.
In terms of aura, she was at the Master level, one of the most accomplished mages in the world.
Now an aging woman with wrinkles, she sat in her room, pen in hand, lost in thought.
Lately, Agatha often found herself lost in such deep contemplation.
The biggest reason for this was none other than her incompetent son.
When she first had a child, Agatha loved her son more than anything.
But as he grew, she began to notice something unusual about him.
It was that he was born with a Lunar Body.
Aslan, who possessed a Lunar Body imbued with the moon’s yin energy, could not learn Agatha’s Flame Magic.
In other words, her son could neither inherit the favor of the Igrit Family nor become its Patriarch.
Even so, Agatha cherished him.
Despite his young age, he diligently studied magic and displayed talent in it.
If not for his Lunar Body, he was a son she could be proud of without any issues.
But that was only her perspective as his mother.
The opinions of those around her were different.
In particular, it was upon hearing the words of her father, Aslan’s grandfather and one of the Ten Strongest Under the Heavens, the Flame King, that she truly realized how others regarded her son.
[Aslan will relinquish his claim to the Igrit Family succession.]
[Father!]
He was the man she had always called Patriarch more than Father.
Nevertheless, both she and Aslan shared the bloodline of the Flame King.
[Aslan is your grandson! Relinquishing his succession—what do you expect Aslan to do with his life?]
Although the Flame King had never once treated her affectionately as a child,
knowing how painful that was, Agatha loved and cared for Aslan all the more.
So she hoped, deep down, that her father also held some affection for her and her son.
[Sigh, Vice Matriarch.]
However, the Flame King was fundamentally different from Agatha.
Before he was her father, he was the Patriarch of the Igrit Family.
For him, the future of the Igrit Family and the Red Magic Tower took precedence over love for his child and grandchild.
In the Red Magic Tower, where magic supremacy reigned supreme,
someone who couldn’t use the Flame Magic nurtured by the Igrit Family for generations—
could they truly make the Igrit name renowned?
If anything, it would be strange if they weren’t a source of shame.
Thus, the Flame King had already closed his heart toward Aslan long ago.
[In three years, even a dog in the Magic Tower can recite spells. But Aslan? He’s not even fit to be a Magic Tower dog. Making him the successor would only disgrace the Igrit Family’s reputation.]
At those words, Agatha’s eyes widened in fury.
She couldn’t believe her son, Aslan, was being likened to a dog in the Magic Tower.
[If anything, I could hold you accountable for having borne such a child. How many times did I warn you? The man you brought in would never produce a child beneficial to the Igrit Family.]
Agatha’s wide-open eyes trembled with anger.
The Flame King had vehemently opposed the man she had chosen to marry.
Yet despite his objections, Agatha had shared her life with him, eventually conceiving Aslan, and even holding a formal wedding.
However, her husband, though not possessing a Lunar Body, had been born with yin energy and naturally weak health.
Under the pressure and scorn of the Igrit Family, he had grown increasingly ill in spirit and eventually in body, passing away at a young age.
Knowing the circumstances of her husband’s death, she could not accept her father’s words.
Perhaps her husband’s death had been her fault, a result of her selfishness.
But now the Igrit Family and her father sought to kill her son as well.
Anger seeped out of her, and she trembled with rage.
[You yourself said you would not bear another child. If that’s the case, there’s a girl in the Red Magic Tower. She has a natural talent for Flame Magic. I’ll adopt her as your daughter.]
Agatha nearly collapsed from the shock of his continued remarks.
The Flame King had truly abandoned Aslan.
Afterward, she investigated the child that the Flame King had proposed to bring into their family.
Her name was Abella. While she had not yet been formally adopted as a foster daughter, her talent was undeniable.
Even at such a young age, she handled Flame Magic as if it were second nature—a genius so rare that not even the Igrit Family could easily produce someone like her.
From the moment Agatha came to know her, a sense of unease began to take root within her.
It was because she feared that her son might truly be cast aside by the Igrit Family.
Most of all, she was certain that her father would ensure it.
For he was a man who cared only for the family.
After that incident, Agatha began to change.
The hand that once patted Aslan’s head in praise now struck him coldly, forcing him to learn magic.
She searched high and low for every elixir in existence to cure his Lunar Body, making him drink them until he vomited.
“Stop acting weak! You are the future of the Igrit Family! Stand up, Aslan! Use your magic, now!”
She shouted these words while standing before Aslan, who had collapsed after exhausting all his mana.
If she left things as they were, her son would be abandoned by the Igrit Family forever.
Agatha simply could not allow that to happen.
Even for the sake of her late husband, she could not leave it as it was.
Thus, she steeled herself and acted harshly.
She trained him rigorously, scolded him relentlessly, and forced him to change his constitution.
Yet Aslan endured it all with unwavering determination.
He was a strong child, one who resembled her in many ways.
However, Agatha failed to notice that something inside him was gradually rotting away.
Likewise, she failed to realize that the same was happening to her own heart.
And in the end, their relationship reached a breaking point.
The day she saw Aslan being attacked by a Spirit in the flames of the Academy Dormitory.
Without a moment’s hesitation, she charged forward and incinerated the Spirit with her own hands.
To save her son, she did not falter for even a second.
But after that, Aslan was completely broken.
It was only later that she came to understand.
She learned that Aslan had formed some kind of bond with that Spirit.
She knew this because, afterward, Aslan obsessively scoured countless books related to Spirits as if possessed.
Yet she could not bring herself to accept it.
Spirits were taboo in the Igrit Family.
Associating with a Spirit could very well spell the end of Aslan’s life as he knew it.
No one understood better than her what might happen if the Flame King learned of this.
To her eyes, the Spirit was nothing more than a corrosive force that would destroy Aslan’s future.
Thus, she tried to reason with him repeatedly, but he refused to change.
It was only when he realized that the Spirit could not be revived.
In the end, Aslan was utterly ruined.
He nearly stopped eating altogether and locked himself away in his room.
Agatha visited him repeatedly, trying to force him to stand and to eat.
By then, she no longer knew how to show him kindness.
For nearly ten years, she had treated him harshly.
But in Aslan’s eyes, there was no light, no vitality.
He resembled a puppet with its strings cut.
And then, Aslan began attempting suicide.
“Ah, ah.”
Agatha buried her face in her hands.
What should she have done?
The world was vast and perilous.
For Aslan, born with Lunar Body, living without the protection of the Igrit Family was akin to a death sentence.
Even if it meant being hated by her son, she wanted to keep him within the Igrit Family.
But the result was the worst possible outcome.
‘Where did it all go wrong?’
She had no answer.
Too much time had passed, and too many things had gone awry for her to know.
Her gaze drifted toward the drawer.
Inside was the crystal she had found among the ashes of the burned Spirit.
Though she had inadvertently kept it, she had not told Aslan about it.
“Vice Matriarch!”
At that moment, the door burst open without a knock.
Startled, Agatha looked up to see the Head Maid standing there, her face pale.
“Head Maid?”
“L-Lord Aslan!”
At those words, Agatha’s expression hardened instantly.
This was already the second time this month that the Head Maid had rushed to her in such a state.
By now, she could tell at a glance what this meant, just from the look on the Head Maid’s face.
Aslan had attempted suicide again.
“He’s attempting Self-Immolation!”
But the news this time was on a completely different level.
Self-Immolation—a suicide method where one sets their body ablaze.
Unlike other suicide attempts, even failure could leave severe aftereffects in the case of Self-Immolation.
Hearing that her son had chosen such a horrifying method, Agatha’s face turned deathly pale.
“Quickly, lead me to him!”
Agatha pushed the door open and bolted out.
Unbeknownst to her, as she ran down the hallway in front of her chambers, someone quietly emerged in her wake.