Volume 8Epilogue

Maria’s Perspective

・The Frozen Empress: Sheryl

At seventeen she became the youngest Ice God Emperor in history, though few know that her ancestry leads back to the first Ice God Emperor.

Her eccentricity was famous from childhood, and it only grew after she came of age. Her brilliant magic treatises, which no one could understand, and her conduct both tormented a great many members of the Magic Society.

She never married. Her contributions go beyond magic theory: her monster hunts and ruin expeditions are legend even at the Adventurers’ Guild. She is one of the few mages who held the title of SSS-rank adventurer to the end of her life.

—Died at age seventy-three.

・The Witch of Calamity: Anastasia

She showed outstanding skill in magic from childhood and rose to Fire God Emperor at twenty-two.

Her pure ability as the strongest mage of all time is well known, but her ‘dirty tricks’ are better known still.

In her youth she swept the prizes at martial and magic tournaments the world over. Her bout with the Sword God Emperor from that period was fought so foully that it appears in no official history.

In the Astonzenel Ruins War she led the mage corps and cleared away the ancient-civilization monsters that poured out, by equally foul means.

She is one of the few mages who held the title of SSS-rank adventurer to the end of her life.

—Died at age eighty-seven.

・Merlin of the Flashing Chains

Disciple of the first Thunder God Emperor, and the driving force who raised the Ephthal school, a branch of the Undead Emperor’s line, to the foremost academic faction in the world.

Impressive as her own ability was, her greatest achievement was the training of her successors.

A little past four hundred, she stepped back from the front lines and raised the next generation, led by Anastasia the Witch of Calamity and Sheryl the Frozen Empress.

After becoming president of the Magic Society she built the longest administration on record, and even then she poured all her energy into training successors.

—Died at age five hundred seventeen.

・The Undead Emperor: Sasha

A legendary mage who needs no introduction.

His disciples include the first Thunder God Emperor, and he is renowned as the founder of the Ephthal school.

He vanished one day without warning. The Magic Society conducted a thorough search, but nothing more was ever learned of him. Various investigative bodies concluded that, to escape the fate of a long-lived undead, he took his own life in secret before he lost his sanity.

So that was how they’d been written up.

I let out a small sigh in a corner of the library.

That was more or less what the last two hundred years of modern magic history said about them. The Anastasia entry made me laugh, honestly. Sounds like her… But, well, yeah…

They’d all grown up and become famous after we parted. We’d lived side by side, after all. I was sort of proud… and sort of sad.

No, that wasn’t it. Every time I saw the word died… my heart just hurt, and sadness was all I felt. I was glad they’d become great and strong, I truly was. But… I’d wanted to be there, celebrating with them.

“Haah…”

I’d been sighing like that a lot lately. A librarian tapped my shoulder.

“It’s closing time.”

“Already? Sorry…”

⁂

Evening. But it was midsummer, and the sun was still high.

I walked the town’s main street alone, sighing.

Two hundred years had passed. The Nine-Headed Dragon had been defeated, and I’d woken on the great plains of Familia.

I’d used the survival skills from my days in the elf forest to hunt my way to a town… and register at the Adventurers’ Guild. Back then I’d been about the strongest student-level mage in the world, so I wasn’t short of food. But magic had advanced enormously since, so I was nothing special as an adventurer.

Mages are strong these days, and the reason, apparently, is that Merlin-sama worked herself to the bone. The Ephthal school grew fast, and Anastasia and Sheryl led expeditions into ancient ruins, hunting for a cure for the weakening the Magia Burst had caused. They found it about a hundred and seventy years ago, so now everyone has the body people had in the first Thunder God Emperor’s day. And… here’s the part that surprised me: the big names in the Magic Society can use magic up to Level 15 now. That came from Merlin-sama too, breakthrough after breakthrough in technology from the ancient ruins. Magic is thriving.

And with all the mages they’d trained, a corps of Ephthal school mages had recently killed the Nine-Headed Dragon. That, apparently, was the state of the world now.

As for me, I spent my days off shut in the library, studying history. But the name I most wanted to find never came up clearly. Anastasia’s and Sheryl’s papers mentioned a man who’d traveled with them when they were young, and I thought it was probably him… Pieced together, the fragments pointed to the likeliest answer: Ephthal had died of an incurable illness when Anastasia was about twenty.

If he died young, just a few years after we parted… then I can’t blame him.

I sighed again. I’d thought he’d come for me right away…

But… I was the one who told him that if he couldn’t, his kids or his disciples would carry it on, and that promise had been kept. So I might as well forgive him. Still… I sighed.

The dragon used to hang over many regions, and now it was gone. People’s faces were bright, and plans were going up everywhere to open up land that had been barren. By all accounts the economy was booming, and in this town, everywhere I looked, people were smiling.

And into this happy world, I’d been dropped, all alone.

Anastasia, Sheryl, Merlin-sama, Sasha-sama… Ephthal… none of them was in this world.

Then I noticed tears running down my cheeks.

“I said I believed in you… didn’t I…”

I crouched where I stood, sobbing. People passing stared, but I couldn’t help it. The tears wouldn’t stop.

“I told you to come get me… didn’t I…!”

I choked it out. Nobody answered.

Maybe I should just die. That was all I’d been thinking lately. But no. That’s no good. I wiped my tears and stood up, and then—

“…Is that Maria-san?”

“Anastasia…?”

There she was, exactly as she’d been two hundred years ago.

I really am worn out. I’m seeing things. That’s… not good.

“It’s Maria-san!”

Just as she had back then, Anastasia came bounding toward me like a small animal, beaming. She threw her arms around me, and I felt it. Wait, I can feel it? Why does a hallucination feel solid?

“Wait, you’re real?”

“Is there a fake Anastasia besides me?”

“No… hold on, huh? Huh? W-w-why are you alive!? It’s been two hundred years! Your lifespan…!”

“Um… I’m a demon, you know.”

Aaaaah! I almost screamed. Right, she’s long-lived, like Merlin-sama!

“B-but the history books say you died…!”

“Oh, that.”

Anastasia went on as if it were nothing.

“Well, I got a bit too famous…”

“Right, you became Fire God Emperor, didn’t you?”

“And SSS-rank adventurer, and all sorts of other things. It got to be such a hassle that I made it look like I died.”

I sort of understood. But then again, I didn’t.

“Isn’t that a bit much, faking your death?”

“No, no, Maria-san, it really was hard. When Master first met us, he was trying to keep a low profile, and once I got famous myself, I finally understood why.”

“He tried, and it never worked. He stuck out like a sore thumb.”

“Right? I always thought he was doing it on purpose, too.”

Remembering the old days set us both off, and soon we were clutching our stomachs. When the laughing finally ran out and I wiped my eyes, Anastasia’s face had turned serious.

“What’s with the face all of a sudden…?”

“Um, well… You’ve had a hard two hundred years, Maria-san.”

“Yeah… thanks.”

Gratitude flooded through me. And the world that had looked so dark suddenly looked bright, just from seeing Anastasia’s face. Funny how that works.

“Knowing there’s even one person left who’ll say that to me… it feels like I’ve been saved.”

I shook my head.

“But a world without Ephthal… is a little lonely.”

“…”

“Well, I got lucky enough to see you again. It’d be greedy to ask for more.”

I gave a lonely smile. Anastasia cocked her head, blank-faced.

“Huh? Master’s right there.”

Anastasia turned around and pointed behind her. There stood Sheryl, Merlin-sama, Sasha-sama, and—

“…Ephthal?”

“Yo. It’s been a while.”

He raised one hand and walked toward me, exactly the same as the day we parted. Sheryl and Merlin-sama hadn’t changed a bit either… What is this!?

“W-why is everybody alive!?”

“Anastasia just told you, didn’t she? My scouting magic picked it up without my even trying.”

“T-telling me what!?”

“All of us stood out too much and couldn’t go anywhere.”

I thought about those words for a moment. So… they all faked their deaths?

“But what about your lifespans? You haven’t aged a day! Merlin-sama and Anastasia are demons, fine, but you!”

“Who do you think I am? If Sasha can make himself immortal, so can I.”

“…Don’t tell me Anastasia too? And everyone else?”

“Yeah. Everyone can use Level 30 now. That’s nothing.”

A shocking truth, revealed out of nowhere.

I opened and closed my mouth over and over, like old times. Ephthal gave a rueful grin.

“Yeah. That’s why we stand out so much.”

“Th-then… who defeated the Nine-Headed Dragon?”

“Us, of course. Like I promised, I finished it in my own generation.”

“…But… then why didn’t you come get me right away?”

“How was I supposed to know where you were hiding inside something that huge? I searched the whole world for two months. I only just found you.”

“…I see.”

I thought it over. I couldn’t find a hole in his story.

“So… what will you do now?”

“First I’m going overseas, to the Unexplored Territories, to raid ruins.”

“Why?”

“The dragon only spread over this continent.”

“Hmm… I’m not following.”

I tilted my head. Ephthal sounded delighted to explain.

“Two hundred years ago, something on another continent attacked the dragon… so it couldn’t park itself anywhere but over this one. Something in the Unexplored Territories might be stronger than the dragon… And there are also the Ten Sages out in space, right?”

He laughed, “Ha!”

“There are still tons of strong guys out there… That’s insanely exciting!”

He hadn’t changed…

I smiled back at him, exasperated.

“And I plan to keep aiming for the strongest. What about you, Maria?”

“What about me?”

“If you come with us, you’ll be rejoining my school… I’m asking if you still want to stick with me.”

“Of course I do! I’ll stick with you forever, if that’s what you want!”

Then wings flapped overhead. A huge dragon hung in the sky, one I remembered fondly.

“Svetlana-san?”

So she was still tagging along with Ephthal.

“All right, let’s go.”

Ephthal tucked me under one arm and leapt onto Svetlana-san’s back.

Um…

That was a hundred-meter jump, and he hadn’t used magic or body enhancement, had he? Bare leg strength, a hundred meters?

He really hasn’t changed… I laughed softly.

“Come on. We’re going up together… to the heights.”

“…Yeah.”

The sun blazed overhead.

Under that endless blue, Ephthal gave his usual easy grin and raised a fist to the heavens.