Chapter 102 – Messenger from the Past (2)
That strange bubble… Kynemon had called it “The Bubble of Erasure,” just as it had been written in the ancient ruins. He recounted how many dangers he and Orthes had braved to obtain it.
Kynemon slowly began to talk about his days with Orthes, when they scoured the extra-dimensional contamination zones together.
“…You know that Orthes and I only took on deep-core contamination zone missions for a while, right?”
“Of course. That’s why people started whispering that the two of you were doomsday fanatics.”
“Hah. If that’s the case, what about you? You were always where Orthes was.”
“I wasn’t following him. He was following me and using me as a damn shield!”
“Hah, sure he was,” Kynemon let Lampades’ retort slide, then began explaining their joint ventures. It all started with some information they found in a contamination zone ruin—research about extracting power from the extra-dimension.
“It was a record from ancient magi-engineers. They had created something destructive by concentrating the power of the extra-dimension. I was overcome with excitement.”
Kynemon believed this power could help him take revenge on the Orthodox Towers that had crushed his family’s tower. Finally, a power that could burn the entire magic society to the ground was within his reach.
Kynemon had believed in it, and he secretly suggested to Orthes—who was equally obsessed with the idea of destruction—that they should find this relic together.
Orthes and Kynemon took on deeper and deeper missions into the contamination zones, gathering more clues until they finally uncovered the last clue that led them to The Bubble of Erasure.
“We obtained the Bubble of Erasure at the end of that journey. If I hadn’t run, it might not have been the end.”
Among the troubleshooters who dabbled in doomsday cults, Kynemon had a reputation as one of the best. After all, he had once been groomed as the successor of a mage tower and had the elite training that came with it—training that most troubleshooters didn’t have.
Combined with the lost secrets of his tower, Kynemon’s magical prowess was exceptional even among troubleshooters, not just among doomsday enthusiasts.
But Orthes was beyond what could be measured by conventional magic standards. He was an anomaly.
No matter how complex the code or how deadly the trap, Orthes could crack it just by looking at it. He never fell into any snare.
As a guide through dungeons and ruins, no one surpassed Orthes. The only flaw was his strange refusal to ever use magic.
Kynemon had thought that with Orthes by his side, there was no ruin in the world they couldn’t unearth.
And he had been right. Even in the fragmented, multi-layered spaces of the contamination zones, Orthes always chose the correct path without hesitation.
When they finally arrived at the final ruin housing the Bubble of Erasure, Kynemon had felt an unprecedented thrill.
An artifact created with such meticulous effort by the ancient magi-engineers—what kind of power did it hold?
The moment Kynemon laid eyes on the Bubble of Erasure, his excitement was replaced with equal confusion.
Lampades had reacted the same way when he first saw it. Despite its grandiose name, it looked like nothing more than a child’s toy—a bubble blower.
Kynemon had been fuming, but Orthes, silently observing the Bubble of Erasure, had stopped him.
“Have you ever heard Orthes speak casually?” Kynemon asked.
“Casually? Orthes?”
Lampades shook his head. He remembered the faint smile that always tugged at Orthes’ lips, the chilling politeness that made his words all the more unsettling. You could never read his emotions, but his eerie smirk and polite speech always left a lasting impression, like a burn mark in your mind.
Those traits were like the three pillars of Orthes.
“…But I’ve seen it,” Kynemon said, recalling the moment Orthes told him to blow the bubble.
***
“Damn it! Were the ancients insane? They put *this* in a ruin?!”
“Kynemon, blow it.”
“What?”
“The bubble. Go on, blow it.”
Under Orthes’ half-closed eyes, his blue pupils glimmered with an eerie light that allowed no defiance.
With a breath, Kynemon blew into the bubble wand. A shimmering, rainbow-colored bubble floated into the air—no different from any ordinary bubble.
“Damn it!”
Even though he’d held out hope until the end, he felt no supernatural energy from the bubble. If there had been even a hint of something strange, he might have overlooked its appearance.
But it was just a bubble. There was nothing special about the soap solution or the bubble wand.
Orthes, standing behind Kynemon, instructed again.
“Now pop it.”
“What?”
“Pop the bubble.”
Kynemon looked into the bubble, confused by the strange command.
‘What is this? It’s been floating for at least thirty seconds.’
The bubble didn’t descend, nor did it burst. It simply floated.
Kynemon, as if in a trance, reached out with his finger to pop it.
The moment the bubble burst, the scenery Kynemon had seen through it shattered.
No, it wasn’t just his vision. The landscape he had been viewing disappeared with the bubble.
As if it had dissolved into foam.
Excitement and hope surged back into him. Kynemon found himself laughing hysterically.
“Haha, hahahahaha!”
The ruin’s walls, once impervious to even the most powerful magical assaults, crumbled without a trace.
There wasn’t even a residual mana trail to indicate that magic had been used—just eerie, silent destruction.
The powerlessness, the ease with which it was done, and the sheer, unstoppable force—Kynemon felt a shiver of exhilaration.
This was it. This was the power he needed to exact his revenge. Finally, the strength to burn down everything was in his hands!
“Can I try it?”
“Huh? Oh, of course. After all, I owe this to you. Thank you, Orthes. You really are the best partner.”
With his usual indecipherable smile, Orthes took the bubble wand. Slowly, he raised the container and inspected it.
“Kynemon.”
“Hm?”
“I’m going to try an experiment. Let’s head back up.”
It didn’t take them long to retrace their steps. They had already disarmed all the traps. If they happened to trigger any delayed mechanisms, they could just erase them with the artifact.
Once on the surface, Orthes blew another bubble. A hand-sized orb floated into the sky.
“Kynemon, how about we aim for that mountain peak?”
The peak, tinged with the contamination of the extra-dimension, glowed faintly in the distance. Kynemon cautiously knelt, aligning the peak in his sights, and popped the bubble.
A storm raged.
Everything occupying the space that the mountain peak once held vanished in an instant. Even the air within that space was erased, creating a violent vortex as the atmosphere rushed to fill the void.
When the whirlwind ceased, Kynemon saw the result.
The mountain had been gouged out, leaving a perfectly round crater.
It resembled a volcanic crater, though there had been no impact to suggest that something had struck the mountain—it had simply disappeared.
Kynemon was overwhelmed, not just by awe but by euphoria.
This artifact seemed limitless. Just reflecting a distant mage tower in the bubble and popping it could cause unprecedented devastation!
Overcome with joy, Kynemon turned to Orthes.
Surely Orthes, too, must have felt the thrill of wielding a power that could reshape the world—a power that could uproot the stagnant mage society!
But Orthes remained disturbingly cold. His expression hadn’t changed, but there was a new edge to his smile—an icy, mocking sneer.
Orthes held out his hand silently, asking for the bubble wand.
After taking the wand, Orthes spoke.
“Move back.”
“What?”
“Farther.”
“What?”
“Even farther.”
It wasn’t until Orthes was nearly a silhouette in the distance that Kynemon stopped retreating. He had no idea what Orthes was about to do.
He enhanced his vision. His magically augmented sight zoomed in on Orthes as he blew another bubble.
It wasn’t large—barely enough to cover one eye.
Then Orthes opened his eyes.
A blinding blue light seared Kynemon’s retinas as the bubble popped.
A cracking sound rang out—a sound that had no business being there. Until now, the only noise accompanying the bubble’s bursts had been the rush of wind.
But this was the sound of something collapsing.
Where was the collapse happening? What was being destroyed?
Kynemon looked to the sky.
Then to the ground.
Something was wrong.
Everything had inverted.
The very order of heaven and earth had been reversed. The walls separating dimensions were collapsing, spilling the strange laws of the extra-dimension into the world. The truth that the sky was above and the earth was below had unraveled, twisting reality into chaos.
The boundary between dimensions had been obliterated, and Kynemon watched as the world was shredded, as though it had been tossed into a giant blender.
Kynemon trembled with joy as he witnessed the cataclysm Orthes had created beyond the boundary.
He glimpsed the end of the magical world in that horrifying yet beautiful destruction. He didn’t know what method Orthes had used to manifest such an apocalyptic event, but with this kind of power, perhaps it was possible to end everything.
Only much later did Kynemon think about Orthes’ safety, as the dimensional walls began to repair themselves and the sky and earth returned to their rightful places.
The ruin’s location was now a barren wasteland. What remained of the structure was scattered across the land like a shattered mosaic.
Fortunately, Orthes stood unharmed in the middle of the newly flattened plain, holding the Bubble of Erasure in one hand.
Kynemon ran toward him, his face beaming. This was the greatest reward for his long and arduous struggle since losing his family’s tower.
Then he heard Orthes’ chilling words, spat out with disdain.
“I didn’t come here for *this.*”
His voice was as sharp as a blade, ready to cut through anything in its path.
Kynemon couldn’t bring himself to take another step forward.
Orthes lifted his head.
“Ah, Kynemon. Thanks for letting me use it.”
With a casual toss, Orthes threw the artifact back to Kynemon, who scrambled to catch it.
“I used up more of the liquid than I expected, but there’s still more than half left. I’m done with it, so you can keep it.”
“K-keep it?”
“Yep. I don’t need it.”
With that, Orthes stretched as if he had just gone for a leisurely walk.
“Now, shall we go find the next artifact?”
“…What?”
Kynemon couldn’t comprehend Orthes’ words.
“The next extra-dimensional relic, of course. This is nothing. There’s more—”
Kynemon’s vision blurred. He couldn’t make sense of what Orthes was saying or the plan he was outlining.
He had just witnessed an artifact that could cause the apocalypse, and Orthes wanted more?
He wanted something *greater*?
Kynemon was terrified of Orthes. The endless hunger, the insatiable madness.
If Kynemon’s thirst for vengeance was a torch, then Orthes’ desire was a wildfire—an unquenchable blaze that would only stop when there was nothing left to burn.
A firestorm that would reduce the world to ashes.
When Kynemon regained his senses, he had already fled the extra-dimensional border.
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