Chapter – 01
Part 0. Back to the Northern Mage Tower
The Death of a Wicked Sorceress.
Liriope’s sister, Calliona — whom she had loved for a long time and harbored hatred toward just as long — was dead.
“Found her! It’s the corpse of the Black Witch Calliona!”
“Search the area! The rest of those Belegot scum must be nearby!”
From the tainted forest where the mages’ battle had taken place, an unmistakable metallic stench of blood hung in the air.
In the pouring rain that fell like blades, Liriope stared numbly at the cold body rolling in the mud.
Three mage towers had sworn to balance the world and protect the land from calamity.
Of those, the Northern Mage Tower broke its oath and betrayed humanity.
The mages of the Northern Tower, now enemies of all, sought to seize the power of calamity and hasten the end — and for that, the world had been turned into hell.
Liriope and Calliona were both from that Northern Tower; in particular, Calliona had been a genius respected enough to be considered a candidate for the next tower master.
Unlike Liriope, who had always worn the label of the underachieving outsider inside the tower until she was expelled, Calliona was a true prodigy recognized by everyone.
But pride matching her talent had made Calliona look down on others with constant derision — and now she lay horribly sprawled under the fields of the people.
It was a sight unbecoming of someone who usually prided herself on neatness to the point of being called obsessive: dirtied with blood and mud.
“Finally dead, that bitch!”
“Ha. If that demon is dead, I guess there really is a god in the world after all.”
“No… no… I was supposed to kill her myself. I had to avenge them with my own hands… How could she die so easily after slaughtering my family like that?”
The people’s curses and screams toward the dead woman rang so loud they threatened to deafen Liriope.
‘Why?’
Standing in the cold rain, Liriope found herself repeating that pointless question again and again in her head.
‘Why did it come to this? How on earth did things get like this?’
Then, abruptly, she remembered the voice of that accursed man.
“You look like you have the makings of a mage. What do you say — will you follow me? If you come with me you won’t have to be cold and hungry like this anymore.”
Ah — of course. Everything had gone wrong from that day.
On that winter day when white blizzards raged, when the mages — no matter how hard they strove to drive calamity’s shadow from the tainted sanctuaries and restore the land — the tombstones kept increasing year after year and orphans multiplied.
The two sisters were left alone at ages barely twelve and thirteen.
Suddenly orphaned and with nothing, drifting through the streets, a man in a blue robe had offered them his hand.
The choices available to ignorant children were, of course, limited; so they followed the man who had taken them in.
At the time they called it merciful kindness, but what a ridiculous illusion it had been.
The place they were brought to was no paradise.
Under the pretense of cultivating powerful mages, they underwent punishing training every day; when children who failed the standard died listless, no one bothered.
How could anyone call such a nightmare a paradise?
In that environment, when even surviving day to day was a struggle and she had to take care of her little sister like a burden, how difficult must it have been for Calliona?
Perhaps that’s why the gentle sister began to change.
“I’m ashamed to be your sister. Belegot mages care nothing for blood ties — so don’t you dare call me ‘sister’ in front of others.”
From some point on, Calliona seemed determined to erase Liriope from her life.
She began to run with the worst mages even within the Northern Tower and committed every cruelty.
When underachieving Liriope was bullied, Calliona no longer pretended to know her.
She took as friends those who openly insulted Liriope, and lovers who despised her.
When Liriope nearly died at the hands of those people, Calliona watched from afar with cold eyes.
The experience of being abandoned by someone you believed would be there until the day you died — someone closer than any stranger — was like swallowing poison: it was bitter beyond measure.
“Liriope, you don’t deserve the name Belegot.”
The most shocking thing of all was that it was Calliona herself who had driven Liriope out of the Tower.
“From today on you are no longer a mage of the Northern Tower. Don’t ever show your face to me again. If you do, I will kill you with my own hands.”
That day — shackled like a hunted animal and forced to press her head to the ground in humiliation — Liriope had heard those cruel words fall like an executioner’s blade.
Calliona, stomping on Liriope’s struggling back, had smashed her mana core.
Liriope would never forget the bitter pain from that time.
Even as Liriope was left a broken shell, unable to use magic ever again, Calliona did not look back.
From that moment the two had crossed an irreversible river.
Calliona was not one to speak with duplicity; if they met again, she would certainly finish Liriope — that annoying little sister — with her own hands.
Part of why Liriope had joined the hunters who were hunting the Northern Tower’s mages was precisely for that: to chase the notorious Calliona.
She thought she would rather die by her sister’s hand.
So when on a night when a new moon rose she finally confronted Calliona, she felt almost relieved.
“You’re insane. What are you doing barging in here like that?”
But for some reason, Calliona did not kill Liriope.
“Come. You shouldn’t be here. Get out of sight before someone sees you!”
Where Calliona — who had once cruelly wounded Liriope — wrapped her in black magic and protected her this time.
“Go, now. Don’t ever set foot here again. Live as if someone like me never existed in your life, okay?”
A spatial rift opened in an instant, and black-feathered magic swirled through the gap.
When their eyes met, Liriope glimpsed in Calliona a residue of feelings she had been frantically longing for.
“G… go with me.”
So Liriope, as if she had been returned to childhood, clung to her sister one last time.
“Come with me, sister…!”
Both felt intuitively that this would be their last.
Through the black-magic gale that cut the space like an iron grate, a pale hand reached out.
“Goodbye. Live well, Liriope.”
With a hazy smile like a sigh, that fleeting warm touch and whisper passed like a vision.
Then the gust of black feathers swallowed Liriope completely.
That was her last memory of Calliona alive.
“But this is curious. That magic signature — it’s of the Belegot style. This woman must have held a high position in the Northern Tower. Why is she in such a terrible state?”
“I don’t care. Maybe they had a falling out among themselves! Spit, that wicked woman deserves to die a hundred times!”
“Wait. What are you doing? Calix-sama told us not to touch the bodies of mages.”
“Damn it, but a little venting can’t hurt!”
Thud!
Someone spat on the mud-streaked corpse — a sight still hard to believe belonged to a sister — and then began to kick the cold body mercilessly.
Those who had been cursing Calliona seemed to be infected by the frenzy and joined in one by one.
“Stop….”
Liriope’s lips, colorless, trembled.
Even though she had hated her sister once, not even a speck of schadenfreude touched her now.
“Stop it. Please stop…!”
In fact, her chest tightened and her guts knotted as if she would die.
“My sister — don’t you dare touch my sister…!”
Of course.
No matter how much the people cursed and said she deserved to die, however much they claimed Calliona had gone to hell and back, Calliona was still Liriope’s beloved sister.
Seeing Liriope suddenly lunging and wildly hitting and shoving the crowd, everyone there scowled.
“Move! You trash who’s useless, who do you think you are?”
“You despicable one! Calix-sama took you in even though you can’t use magic — now you’re protecting her? What a joke.”
“I knew it. Rotten Belegot scum! I always knew you were one of them. That story about you being expelled was a lie, wasn’t it?”
Even as she was thrown down into the muck and kicked repeatedly, Liriope gritted her teeth and crawled toward Calliona.
My only sister, Calliona.
The one who had always been with her from birth, the one she used to confide in as if she were half of her life.
I don’t know. What had happened to her? Why had she lived the way she had?
If she could, Liriope wanted to ask Calliona herself, but that opportunity would never come.
Calliona was dead.
She had left Liriope behind and died alone.
If only Liriope had been a sibling Calliona could rely on more — could she have stopped this death from happening?
But she was weak and helpless, and all she could do was blame herself and weep.
“Wait… since when did the forest get this dark?”
“Speak of it — damn! Retreat, now! Shadows are coming again!”
“Hurry, we’ve gone too deep into the tainted woods. Those Belegot lunatics! Of course they’d keep their hideouts in a place like this…!”
Ah… how Liriope wished she could return to the time when she and her sister could look at one another and laugh without worry.
In that futile yearning, her hand finally touched Calliona’s cold body.
[At last, I’ve found you.]
A sudden, eerie voice pierced her skull.
Rumble, crash!
A bright flash split the cloud-filled sky, and thunder rolled like an answer.
[The last remaining mage of the Western Dawn. My final contractee.]
When time seemed to stop and Liriope held her breath, all the world’s light and sound vanished in an instant.
[I will grant your wish — but pay the price.]
Then a wave of pitch-black darkness and void surged and swallowed Liriope whole.
