Chapter 1
"...I had always thought that only fire magic was the answer. That is, until I met you, Sein."
To those words, Sein Siers replied calmly,
"How eloquently you speak."
It wasn't sarcasm, but a genuine statement.
Because from the mouth of Harman Flameforce, the head of the Flameforce clan, a prestigious lineage of fire mages before him, fresh blood continued to pour.
Harman's lower body had already rotted and crumbled, staining the ground black.
The place where his organs should have been was hollowly empty.
The fact that he was still maintaining consciousness spoke volumes about his immense willpower; his condition was that severe.
"...Sein."
He called Sein's name.
A person who had mastered the often-neglected ice magic – a discipline known for its difficulty to learn and the disproportionately low increase in power compared to the effort and skill required – ultimately earning the title of Archmage.
And the one who had elevated the Siers clan to the ranks of the Empire's four great houses.
It was Sein Siers.
"Speak."
Of course, the number of ice magic clans was still absolutely smaller than that of fire magic clans, and their influence was correspondingly weaker.
However, by personally proving the potential of ice magic while handling countless unsolved incidents across the continent, and by diligently nurturing disciples who brought the Siers clan to its current standing, he had achieved a feat that would be recorded in history.
But Sein Siers had no intention of boasting about this to anyone or seeking recognition.
Recognition naturally followed results and achievements, and those who wouldn't be grateful would never appreciate him no matter how many good deeds he did.
It was better to spend that time researching magic even a little more, reaching a higher level, and seeking ways to impart enlightenment to his descendants and disciples.
However.
"Thank you."
He never imagined he would hear words of gratitude from that guy, Harman Flameforce, of all people.
"Sein, if it weren't for you, that bastard would have brought about the end of the continent."
Harman's gaze passed Sein and fixed on the opposite side.
Though he was dying, his red eyes were clearer than ever.
Like a flame burning even brighter just before it was extinguished.
【...Kuhuhu.】
The sound came from atop a mountain made of rotting corpses.
In the vast plain entirely covered in pure white ice, it was the only place stained black.
A man emitting a dark glow sat there.
A being who called himself the incarnation of a Demon God and had brought a terrible disaster to the continent.
"Desmond..."
It was a total war.
Those skilled enough to inflict even a small amount of damage on Desmond had gathered in this Heren Plain, while the rest fought Desmond's followers in various parts of the continent.
But the result was as evident as what lay before them – devastating.
At the hands of a single man, the continent's renowned knights and numerous mages from prestigious clans had lost their lives.
"If I had known this would happen, I would have endured the opposition and... supported your clan."
"Don't talk nonsense. Even you can't unilaterally handle matters between the clans. You know best what the relationship between the fire and ice magic clans are like."
"It's all just superficial posturing."
"And I already know that you've meddled unnecessarily. You've been secretly supporting the Siers affiliated clans on the outskirts of the continent."
"You knew?"
"If the other members of the Flameforce clan find out, even you won't escape responsibility."
"...Haha. Responsibility. Cough."
Harman closed his mouth.
Even now, fierce battles were raging in various parts of the continent.
How many of those who would hold him accountable were even still alive?
No, could he even survive until he had to take responsibility in the first place?
Harman swallowed those words.
He now understood that Sein's typically sharp and cold words held the meaning,
'Try to stay alive so you can take responsibility.'
'Sorry, Sein. I...'
Harman instinctively knew that the flame of life he had been burning with his will was now truly dwindling.
Sein, as if aware of this fact, spoke calmly,
"Of course, having come this far, I will take responsibility and finish things to the end."
Sein dragged his wounded body and took a step towards Desmond.
Even taking just one step sent waves of pain through his entire body.
Crack-
A cracking sound came from a part of his body that was being held together by ice to prevent it from collapsing.
【Hehehe... Truly remarkable. To still be able to move with that body.】
Desmond grinned.
"I will move at least one more step than you, so you don't need to worry."
Many had died, and Sein and Harman had suffered fatal injuries, but Desmond was not unscathed either.
All he could do was sit precariously atop the mountain of corpses, catching his breath.
His arm had melted away from fire, and a massive ice spike was lodged in his chest.
【Yes... that's how you should be. Kuhuhu! 】
In the next moment, mana began to erupt from Desmond's body.
Fire, water, earth, wind..
Instead of the mana of the four natural elements, a black mana possessing the attributes of darkness and evil violently surged forth.
"To still possess such power..."
Harman's gaze, barely able to follow the two figures, wavered.
"Sein, that's dangerous..."
Thoom—
"......!"
Harman's eyes widened.
He couldn't continue speaking due to the pressure of the mana erupting from Sein's wounded body.
The pressure soon subsided after the initial burst, but only a hollow laugh escaped Harman's lips.
"Haha... Sein, you really are..."
The fresh thrill he had felt when he first met Sein Siers, and the memories of that time, flashed through his mind.
-Sein Siers. You're a genius. I admit it.
-And?
-...It's Harman Flameforce, the young lord of the Flameforce clan, saying that he acknowledges you.
-Is that so? If you're done talking, move.
-......
Sein Siers was the only genius Harman had ever acknowledged.
The greatest fire magic clan on the continent.
In other words, the genius acknowledged by Harman, the eldest son of the Flameforce clan – the most prestigious magic lineage on the continent – who was tired of hearing he was a genius and was the undisputed successor to the clan headship.
-Why would you learn something like ice magic with such talent?
-I don't understand the intent of your question. If you're trying to insult the Siers clan, I'll plunge an ice spike into your heart.
If only Sein Siers hadn't learned such inefficient ice magic.
If only he had learned fire magic with that talent from the beginning, Harman thought he could have become a much greater mage.
'Because fire magic and ice magic can never be learned together.'
The mana of fire and the mana of water are completely incompatible.
Sein, who had already accepted the mana of water into his core and built the foundation of ice magic within his body, could not learn fire magic unless he was reborn.
That's why he genuinely regretted that Sein had learned ice magic in the Siers clan.
'But I was wrong.'
Sein Siers had perfectly proven him wrong by plunging his magic into Desmond's chest.
Harman watched Sein's precarious figure from behind.
He was freezing parts of his collapsing body to maintain its form and preserve his mana circuits, attempting to cast magic with the same power as before even in this extreme situation.
'No, he's preparing magic even stronger than before.'
Harman could tell.
Sein Siers was currently freezing his mana circuits while widening them beyond their original capacity, risking permanent damage to his pathways.
'If he does that...'
Harman felt it instinctively.
Everything would be decided in this one final exchange.
'Sorry for not being able to help you until the end, Sein.'
Instead of those words, what spewed from Harman's mouth once again was thick, clotted blood.
"......"
Sein Siers didn't take his eyes off Desmond.
Blood flowed from his lips, which he had bitten to endure the pain.
And in the middle of the plain, the incantations of both men echoed simultaneously.
"Eternal Frozen."
【Death.】
An intense storm of mana, unbelievable as the final incantations of the two, clashed in the center.
And Sein Siers' magic succeeded in freezing even death itself.
Crack, crackle, crackling!
Desmond's body, which had driven the continent to the brink of destruction using the mana of darkness, completely froze.
Rumble.
Soon, shattered pieces of ice adorned the top of the mountain of corpses.
The plain that had birthed the most screams was now filled with silence.
"...It's over."
Sein Siers let out a faint breath.
Without turning his head, he looked at the empty air and opened his mouth.
"Harman, you said earlier that you thought only fire magic was the answer."
Crack.
His voice cracked as the ice holding his neck to prevent it from falling apart fractured, but Sein continued speaking without concern.
"Of course, that thought was wrong. But even the ice magic of now is only close to the answer, not the answer itself."
If the path he had walked until now had been the only correct answer, Sein should have killed Desmond before things had reached this point.
Sein Siers, who had mastered ice magic, ironically realized this while observing the magic of Harman Flameforce, a master of fire magic.
The astonishing stability he had pursued in ice magic.
However, if he had only slightly deviated from that rigid framework born of that stability.
If he could have utilized the advantages of freely blazing fire magic.
'He might have been able to reach an even higher realm.'
And he might have been able to stop Desmond before things had come to this.
'Research into accepting and wielding both powers together was almost complete, yet... it's too late.'
Sein slowly composed his breathing.
"...It's pointless to talk about it now, though. Isn't that right, Harman?"
Cough.
Sein barely managed to turn his body to look back.
"......"
But there was no reply.
"...Lonely."
The words that Sein Siers, who had silently fought solitude for half his life, uttered for the first time, scattered with his frosty breath.
'The clan... what happened to them?'
The faces of the disciples he had left behind suddenly came to mind.
Had those kids successfully defeated Desmond's followers?
'If only I had realized it sooner. I could have guided them down a more righteous path.'
Crack.
However, there was no time left even for regret.
Having used up all his mana, the ice that had barely held his entire body together shattered and began to melt away.
Consequently, Sein's body naturally began to collapse powerlessly.
Nevertheless, Sein moved his steps towards Harman, who had fallen and lay motionless.
Thud.
His right arm fell to the ground.
Soon, his left arm was about to fall as well, but he held on with all his might.
Thump.
His right leg gave way.
His left shin melted away.
He supported himself on the cold ground with his left arm and moved forward.
And.
Finally, he reached out to Harman, who had died with his eyes open, and closed them for him.
Thud.
Sein Siers' head fell to the ground.
***
For an unknown reason, Sein Siers' consciousness remained.
'What... will happen to me now?'
He had never deeply considered the time after death. When he was alive, he had been too busy using the time given to him.
He wasn't without regrets about his previous life, but it was all in the past.
'Still, I definitely killed Desmond.'
-【Kuh... I thought I would surely obtain it this time. But surely in the future...】
Desmond had uttered something significant before he completely froze, but that only made Sein even more certain that he had ended the fiend's life, and he had confirmed it repeatedly.
Desmond was dead.
He was somewhat concerned that he hadn't confirmed the safety of his clan, but with his disciples' skills, they should have been able to defeat Desmond's followers.
Sein quietly organized his thoughts and calmly settled his floating consciousness.
And then.
"......"
"Finally, the Lord has stepped forward."
"It seems this is truly the end."
"He held out for a long time."
The voices of people suddenly reached Sein Siers' ears.
'...What is this? Wasn't I dead? There shouldn't be any humans left in the Heren Plain...'
In the next moment, his vision brightened.
'...This isn't the Heren Plain.'
It wasn't the Heren Plain, where corpses were strewn about, enough to obscure the horizon.
"Kain Siers."
The middle-aged man before him said, looking at Sein.
'Kain Siers?'
"Yes."
The answer came out before he even realized it.
Sein's mind was immediately busy grasping this unfamiliar situation, but his body accepted it naturally, as if it had always been here.
'What in the world...'
Even amidst this confusion, the Lord didn't stop and shouted with wide eyes..
"Hear ye, children and disciples of the Siers clan, including Kain Siers! I, Blake Siers, the 17th head of the Siers clan, declare!"
The weighty voice echoed through the open space.
The murmuring sounds from the surroundings died down, and everyone's gazes focused on the two of them.
'So now... no, wait a minute. The 17th head?'
Amidst the confusing situation, Sein drew a quick conclusion based on the minimal information available.
He didn't know how it had happened, but judging from the circumstances, the man before him was the head of the Siers clan.
And for some reason, Sein Siers had become someone called Kain Siers.
No, rather, it was more accurate to say that Sein Siers' memories had awakened within Kain Siers.
To express this from Kain Siers' perspective...
'You could say I've regained memories of a past life.'
The only problem was that Sein couldn't recall any memories as 'Kain Siers' right now.
The vast memories of his previous life that had flooded in all at once seemed to have suppressed and buried the memories that Kain Siers originally possessed.
'The 17th head... that means five generations have passed after me. Roughly over two hundred years have gone by. For now, I need to grasp the situation while listening to the declaration.'
While he was thinking this, the clan head's full declaration began.
"Our Siers clan has long defended the Empire from the monsters at the border of this Garil Snowy Mountain."
Garil Snowy Mountain. It was a place name he hadn't heard in a very long time.
'It was where we originally resided before moving the main estate to the capital.'
Before Sein Siers elevated the clan to the ranks of prestigious magic houses , the Siers clan was tasked with repelling monsters in the snowy mountains of the border.
It was called a sacred duty, but in reality, it was a region that other families avoided due to their lack of power, and the Siers clan had taken it on.
'It seems I died and came back here. It's unfortunate, but nothing can be done about it.'
In any case, the fact that Kain was currently listening to the clan head's declaration meant that the Siers clan had ultimately survived Desmond's followers.
That alone brought a sense of relief, for now.
"This is a most sacred duty bestowed upon us by His Imperial Majesty. The monsters of the snowy mountains, which grow increasingly ferocious, have been perfectly repelled by our Siers clan until now."
Kain nodded slightly.
'Right. Even though I've returned to a place like this, the foundation hasn't crumbled.'
It seemed that leaving his teachings behind as magic tomes had been worthwhile.
"And all of this is thanks to our Siers clan, which, though its size has diminished, has well inherited and mastered powerful fire magic."
Yes. The powerful fire passed down through generations...
'Huh? What did he say?'
Kain Siers, who had been nodding while focusing on the clan head's words, couldn't help but freeze at what followed.
"Therefore!"
And to such a Kain Siers, the clan head shouted in a booming voice.
"Kain Siers, as a direct descendant of the clan, has failed to master even the most basic fire magic despite being fifteen years of age."
The head of the Siers clan, who had just spoken the words "fire magic."
Blake Siers declared.
"I hereby expel him from the Siers clan!"
