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Chapter 1
Part 0. Back to the Northern Magic Tower
1. The Death of a Certain Wicked Magician
Liliope’s older sister, Caliona, whom she had both loved and resented for so long, was dead.
“I found her! The corpse of the Black Witch, Caliona!”
“Search the area! The remaining Bellegote bastards must be nearby as well!”
A thick stench of blood, impossible to conceal, hung over the polluted forest where a battle between magicians had taken place.
Amid the rain pouring down like blades, Liliope stared blankly at the cold corpse sprawled across the ground.
There were three Magic Towers that had promised to maintain the balance of the world and protect this land from calamity.
Among them, the Northern Magic Tower had broken its covenant and betrayed humanity.
The magicians of the Northern Magic Tower, who had become enemies of the entire world, had sought to seize the power of calamity and hasten the end of the world. Because of them, the world had turned into hell.
Liliope and Caliona were both magicians from the Northern Magic Tower. In particular, her older sister Caliona had been such a genius that her name had even been listed among the candidates to become the next Tower Master.
Unlike Liliope, who had spent her entire time in the Magic Tower labeled an underachiever before eventually being expelled, Caliona was a true genius whose abilities everyone acknowledged.
Yet the woman who had always looked down on everyone with a mocking gaze, her arrogance matching her talent, now lay miserably sprawled in the mud at people’s feet.
Covered in blood and dirt, she looked nothing like the woman who had always been so obsessed with cleanliness that people called her a perfectionist.
“She finally died, that damn bitch!”
“Hah, for a demon like her to die… I guess there really is a god after all.”
“No, no…! This can’t be. I was supposed to kill her with my own hands. I was supposed to take my revenge myself. After she slaughtered my family so brutally, how could she just go and die so peacefully?!”
The cries and curses directed at the dead woman were enough to make Liliope’s ears ring.
‘Why?’
Standing in the cold rain, Liliope silently repeated the same futile question for what must have been the umpteenth time.
‘Why did it come to this? How on earth did things end up like this?’
Then, suddenly, Liliope remembered the cursed man’s voice.
“You two seem to have the makings of magicians. How about it? Will you come with me? If you come with me, you won’t have to be cold and hungry like you are now.”
Ah, yes. Everything had gone wrong from that day onward.
That winter day when a blizzard of white snow had been raging.
No matter how desperately the magicians tried to drive away the shadows of calamity from the polluted holy grounds and restore the land, the number of gravestones continued to increase every year, and orphans were everywhere.
When the sisters were left with only each other, they had been merely twelve and thirteen years old.
After suddenly losing their parents and having nothing to their names, the sisters wandered the streets until a man wearing a blue robe extended a hand toward them.
Naturally, there were limits to the choices two young children who knew nothing could make, so they followed the only man who had taken them in.
At the time, they had thought of it as an act of merciful kindness.
But what a ridiculous misconception that had been.
The place they arrived at was by no means paradise.
It was a place where children underwent brutal training every single day under the pretext of cultivating powerful magicians, while no one cared when children who failed to meet the standards simply died one after another.
How could anyone possibly call such a nightmarish place, where merely surviving from one day to the next was a struggle, paradise?
And in an environment where even protecting herself was difficult, how hard must it have been for Caliona to look after her burdensome younger sister as well?
Perhaps that was why.
That was why the once-gentle older sister began to change.
“I’m ashamed that I’m the older sister of an idiot like you. To a Bellegote magician, blood ties mean nothing anyway, so don’t you dare call me your sister in front of other people.”
At some point, it seemed as though Caliona had made up her mind to erase Liliope completely from her life.
Even within the Northern Magic Tower, she began associating with vicious magicians and committing all sorts of evil deeds.
Even when she saw Liliope being bullied for being a barely competent failure, she no longer pretended to know her.
Was that all?
Caliona deliberately befriended those who insulted Liliope and even entered into a relationship with someone who despised her.
Even when Liliope nearly died at their hands, Caliona merely watched her from afar with cold eyes.
The experience of watching someone she had once believed would remain by her side until death become even more distant than a complete stranger was bitter, like drinking poison.
“Liliope, you are not worthy of bearing the Bellegote name.”
But the most shocking thing of all was that it had been none other than Caliona who expelled Liliope from the Magic Tower.
“From this day onward, you are no longer a magician of the Northern Magic Tower. So don’t ever let yourself cross my path again. If you do, I’ll kill you with my own hands.”
The cruel memory of that day, when she had been bound like a hunted animal and humiliatingly forced face-first into the floor.
Her older sister’s cold voice, falling mercilessly from above like the blade of an executioner’s sword.
Caliona, stepping on Liliope’s back as she struggled and personally shattering her magic core.
The sorrow and pain Liliope had suffered then would surely be something she could never forget for the rest of her life.
Even when Liliope was left a cripple, unable to ever use magic again, her sister never once looked back at her.
Without a doubt, the two of them had crossed a river that could never be crossed again.
Caliona had never been one to say one thing and do another. If they met again, she would truly be more than capable of personally putting an end to the younger sister who had become such an eyesore.
That was partly why Liliope had joined the pursuit party hunting down the magicians of the Northern Magic Tower, chasing after Caliona, who had made a name for herself through her fearsome reputation.
Because, perhaps, she wanted to die at her sister’s hands.
And so, when Liliope finally came face-to-face with Caliona on a night when the crescent moon hung in the sky not long ago, she had even felt relieved.
“You must have gone insane. You stupid fool, what do you think you’re doing, coming here without a shred of fear?!”
But why?
Caliona didn’t kill Liliope.
“Follow me. You shouldn’t be here. Get out of here quickly before anyone sees you!”
The black magic that had once cruelly harmed Liliope now wrapped itself around her to protect her.
“Go. Don’t ever set foot here again. Don’t come anywhere near a place like this again. This place doesn’t suit you. Just pretend that someone like me doesn’t exist in your life and live on. Understand?”
In an instant, a spatial teleportation spell unfolded, and black magical feathers fluttered through Liliope’s field of vision.
The moment their eyes met through them, Liliope discovered in Caliona the remnants of a familiar emotion she had desperately missed all these years.
“C-Come… with me.”
And so, just as though she had returned to their childhood, Liliope was able to cling to her sister one last time.
“Come with me, Sister…!”
Both of them instinctively knew that this would be their last moment together.
Beyond the black magic that silently swirled through the air like bars of a cage, a pale hand reached out.
“Goodbye. Live well, Liliope.”
Along with a faint smile as blurred as a sigh, a fleeting touch of warmth and whisper brushed past her like an illusion.
Then, in an instant, a storm of black feathers completely swallowed Liliope.
That was Liliope’s final memory of Caliona while she was still alive.
“That’s strange. Isn’t this magical trace characteristic of the Bellegotes? This woman must have held an important position in the Northern Magic Tower. So why is she lying here in such a horrible state?”
“Who cares? Maybe they had some kind of internal feud! Spit. That wicked bitch! She deserves to die a hundred more times!”
“Wait, what are you doing? Lord Calix told us not to touch the magicians’ corpses.”
“Damn it, but surely it’s fine if we’re just taking our anger out on her!”
Thud!
Someone spat on the corpse lying in the mud, a body that Liliope still couldn’t believe belonged to her sister.
Then they began brutally kicking the cold, lifeless body.
The people who had been cursing Caliona seemed to become infected by the madness, one after another joining in.
“Stop…”
At that moment, Liliope’s pale lips trembled.
Even though Caliona had once been someone she hated so deeply, Liliope felt not even the slightest satisfaction at seeing her like this.
“Stop it. Please, just stop…!”
Instead, her throat tightened and her stomach twisted so violently that she felt as though she might die on the spot.
“She’s my sister. My sister… Don’t touch my sister!”
Of course.
No matter how many people cursed her and said she deserved to die, even if Caliona truly was a villain who deserved to fall into hell just as they claimed, Caliona was still Liliope’s beloved sister.
Everyone present twisted their faces in disgust at the sight of Liliope suddenly rushing forward and beating and shoving people like a madwoman.
“Get out of the way! How dare a worthless failure like you interfere?”
“You insolent little brat! Lord Calix was merciful enough to let someone who can’t even use magic join the pursuit party, and now you’re protecting this damned woman?”
“I knew it! You Bellegote bastards are all rotten to the core! I knew you’d be in league with them too! Being expelled from the Northern Magic Tower was a lie, wasn’t it?”
Liliope was knocked into the mud and kicked countless times, yet she gritted her teeth and crawled toward Caliona.
Her one and only sister, Caliona.
The person who had always been by her side from the moment she was born, who had once been like the other half of her life, someone she could confide in and rely on at any time.
She didn’t know.
She had no idea what had happened to her sister, nor what Caliona had been living this life for.
If only she could, Liliope wanted to ask her herself.
But now, that opportunity would never come.
Caliona was dead.
She had died alone, leaving Liliope behind…
If Liliope had been a younger sister Caliona could rely on a little more, could she have stopped her from meeting such a death today?
But she was so powerless and weak that all she could do was blame herself and cry.
“Wait… When did the forest get this dark?”
“Come to think of it… Damn it! Retreat! The shadows are coming again!”
“Hurry! We’ve gone too deep into the polluted forest! Those crazy Bellegote bastards! Of all the places, they had to choose a hideout in somewhere this creepy…”
Ah…
I want to go back to those days when my sister and I could look at each other’s faces and smile without a care in the world.
With that futile wish in her heart, the moment Liliope’s hand finally touched Caliona’s cold body—
[I’ve finally found you.]
A chilling voice suddenly pierced through the crown of her head.
Rumble—CRASH!
A bright flash illuminated the sky filled with dark clouds, followed by a tremendous clap of thunder accompanied by lightning, as though it had been waiting for this very moment.
[The last remaining magician of the Western Dawn. My final contractor.]
When Liliope held her breath at the uncanny sensation that seemed to stop time itself, all the light and sound in the world vanished in an instant.
[I shall grant your wish. But you must pay the price.]
And then, pitch-black darkness and an abyss that surged in like a wave swallowed Liliope whole.
