Chapter 116: Chapter 116
Chapter 116 - Profound Principle
Lucy let go of Ferda’s hand and plucked a rose petal from the garden.
As soon as she clenched the petal in her tiny hand, it instantly turned into dried tobacco leaves and slipped into the pipe.
She lit it with a flame conjured from her fingertip, then took another deep drag of smoke.
Ferda, who had been waiting for her to finish, finally asked,
"What do you mean it’ll become a blessing?"
Ferda couldn’t understand what she meant.
Wearing a mature smile, Lucy replied,
"As you know, cultivating the Blue Circle generally begins with meditation."
Most Blue Circle cultivation methods start with meditation.
Emptying the mind, or focusing on a single thought while maintaining a steady rhythm to shape the mana circuits.
If one wanted to sabotage such people, the obvious method was to shatter that tranquility.
"For the Red Circle, what is the source of strength?"
"The emotions from which the Circle is created."
"Exactly. If it began with joy, it grows through even greater joy. If it began with hatred, it grows through even greater hatred. That is how it develops."
Lucy nodded.
"Then how would you interfere with them?"
"Contradictions and dilemmas."
The moment someone driven by hatred lost the reason for that hatred was the moment they lost their life as a mage.
When confronted with contradictions and dilemmas, emotions cooled and lost their fire.
Ferda understood this well because he had always lived with that fact in mind.
"Within your heart now reside two emotions: love and regret."
"That’s right."
"If you wished to grow stronger solely according to Red Circle theory, then you would nurture your love while suppressing your regret. In that way, you would grow stronger through nothing but your love. Am I wrong?"
Everything up to that point was something Ferda already knew.
He gave a slight nod and asked,
"So you’re saying you know how to get rid of that regret?"
Lucy shook her head.
"That would be a foolish choice, child. Are you trying to burn down your house because you’re afraid of bedbugs? Emotions are such things that if even one disappears, the balance collapses."
"What do you mean?"
"It means that every emotion is connected through causality."
Lucy inhaled another long breath of smoke.
"Because there is negativity, there is positivity. It is because regret exists that your love exists as well."
Ferda frowned slightly.
"If I don’t erase the regret, it’ll keep testing me."
Though he said so, it still felt as though he had gained yet another unnecessary organ.
Lucy had likely expected him to think that way.
After all, she too had once mastered the Red Circle.
"Then let me ask you this. Why does that regret exist?"
"That is..."
As Ferda hesitated, Lucy continued,
"You needn’t answer me. Think it over carefully and find the answer yourself."
Because he had killed Valdrova.
The woman who had been purer than anyone else.
If he erased this regret...what would become of his feelings toward her?
Once he considered it that way, he finally understood.
He understood why the regret had to remain.
"Child, your regret is like your heart. Too much or too little will cause something to go wrong. If it disappears altogether, you will die. But if you learn to control it, it will become an excellent Driving Force. Do you understand?"
Ferda nodded.
"So what should I do?"
Drawing a straight line in the air with her index finger, Lucy said,
"Draw a line."
"Draw a line?"
"If you build fences so your emotions do not mix together, then you will come to understand what each one truly consists of."
As a mage who wielded the Red Circle, Ferda more or less understood what she meant.
Emotions were vague, like paint.
Without concentration, they flowed together, mixed, and became muddy until they lost their true nature.
The moment that essence disappeared, the growth of the Red Circle died with it.
In that regard, Ferda had been an elite.
He had reached the Ninth Circle by converting everything into rage alone.
’But this time, I have to separate two emotions.’
It was his first time having a Mana Circle driven by love.
It was also his first time having regret interfere with it.
Naturally, it was also his first time trying to build fences between the two.
Mana circuits that operated through both his love for Valdrova and his regret.
How was he supposed to build a fence between those two?
"In that sense, child, you’ve already taken your first step."
"What first step?"
"Shape of Shadow."
It was the mana cultivation method recorded within Barbatos’s Shadow Arts.
" ’The shadow becomes me, and I become the shadow.’ Do you remember that phrase?"
Ferda nodded.
"The answer lies within it."
And with that, Lucy ended her explanation.
To Ferda, it felt as though she had stopped halfway through her sentence, but Lucy paid it no mind.
"And now... what other reward should I give you..."
She gently tapped her pipe.
"Hmm..."
She stared thoughtfully at her pipe before breaking into a grin.
For a moment, Ferda wondered if she was about to hand him something completely useless.
At that moment, the thorny vines circling around Lucy gathered toward her hand.
Like a hundred serpents twisting together chaotically, they rose into the air before spitting something out.
It was a straight wooden branch.
Perhaps because he looked at it carefully, it resembled the pipe Lucy was holding.
"What do you think this is?"
"...A pipe?"
"Why would I give you something like that? You’re too young to appreciate the true taste of tobacco."
With an annoyingly smug expression, she blew a puff of smoke as if telling him not to smoke.
Of course, Ferda had tried it before.
He had quit because he disliked the hazy sensation it produced.
Just as he was about to ask what it really was—
Crackle!
Red sparks burst around the stick.
It was Reverse Heaven Lightning.
Seeing Ferda’s expression, Lucy laughed with obvious delight.
"It’s called Jibeol."
"Jibeol?"
"I named it ’Jibeol.’ It’s a magic Staff I made myself."
"I see."
"Do you remember the branch I struck with lightning? Any mage would rush toward it with stars in their eyes. It will absorb that power on its own. Once it does, the instability will settle, and you’ll be able to use that power completely."
Ferda couldn’t understand why she was explaining all of this to him.
Judging from the context, she was saying she intended to give it to him as a gift.
But he refused to jump to that conclusion.
It could just as easily be another test of his desires.
"Take it."
As unbelievable as it seemed, she truly meant it.
Even after she explicitly told him to take it, Ferda couldn’t bring himself to grasp the Staff.
"Your arm’s going to fall off, child. Delicate young girls like me are rather fragile, you know?"
"..."
"I’m giving you a present, yet you’re making a face like a pig that’s just been handed a mountain of rice. Why? Do you think I’m about to butcher you?"
"I think you might."
Lucy burst into laughter.
"Such an insolent thing to say. Why can’t you imagine that I might simply give it to you for free?"
"Because people like that all died long ago."
"True enough. That’s true as well."
She laughed cheerfully as she continued.
"As I told you, I help women burdened by tragic fates. Valdrova also bore such a fate. I wished to help her. But it wasn’t easy."
"Why not?"
"Wasn’t there an incredibly vicious dog guarding her?"
There was no need to ask whom she meant.
Hadn’t that very dog prevented anyone from entering this place?
’Who knows what she’ll do once I get back.’
He had already prepared himself to be scrubbed raw again.
Just thinking about the green towel in her hand made him tense up instinctively.
"That little puppy insisted she couldn’t trust a witch’s words. How could I possibly help under those circumstances?"
It was only natural that she refused to listen.
Luri was Valdrova’s Attendant, while Lucy was the infamous Witch feared across the continent.
There was no way Luri would stand by and watch Valdrova be manipulated by a Witch.
"Since I had no means of contacting her, I thought I could help through you instead. Even if you’re a man, there’s no reason to be suspicious when you’re trying to save a woman burdened by tragedy."
Listening to her, Ferda didn’t feel as though she was lying.
Even back when they had fought, despite being the leader of the witches, she had never struck him as someone filled with malice.
Like Ferda now, she seemed to have reached a state of emptiness, becoming infinitely calm.
Had he been bewitched?
Or was he simply certain of himself?
If it was the former, then he did not trust himself.
If it was the latter, then he did.
There was only one choice.
At last, Ferda accepted the Staff.
The moment he grasped the blunt end of the Staff Lucy handed him, it changed.
The wooden branch instantly transformed into a smooth black Staff.
Its appearance perfectly matched Ferda’s aura and clothing, changing without the slightest sense of awkwardness.
Other staffs were capable of changing shape as well.
That wasn’t what surprised him.
Only one thing did.
’I can’t sense any mana.’
Normally, a Staff or Wand served to assist spellcasting, so it always contained a reservoir for storing mana.
The better the Staff, the larger that reservoir.
Even the poorest Staff couldn’t possibly lack one altogether.
To test it, Ferda poured mana into it.
Crackle!
Red lightning immediately erupted from it.
’It isn’t releasing previously converted mana... it’s converting it instantly.’
It allowed him to cast magic the moment he wished.
And because it stored no mana, it would simply be regarded as an ordinary Staff.
It was nothing less than a dream magic tool for every mage.
"I shall treasure it."
"Hm? Why are you suddenly speaking so politely?"
"You’ve helped me this much. How could I not address you with respect?"
"Hmm, is that so? What a good child you are."
Lucy gazed at him with mischievous eyes.
It almost seemed as though honey would drip from her gaze.
"Is there anything else you need?"
"I wish you’d give me a little more of a clue about how Shape of Shadow makes it possible..."
"Haha. So all that flattery was just to ask me that?"
He would be lying if he denied it.
Since she was in such a good mood, Ferda intended to squeeze every bit of knowledge he could from her.
"Very well. I’ll tell you. In the Eastern style, it’s called the unity of spirit and self. Becoming one with it and commanding it as though it were your own limbs—that is the essence of Shadow Arts, is it not?"
"Right."
"If you truly believe that the shadow can become you, then what could possibly be impossible?"
What was she talking about?
Ferda wanted Lucy to explain further, but before he could even ask, her tiny finger touched his lips.
"This is the last kindness this young lady can offer you... the final clue... and the profound principle."
Lucy slowly raised her finger until it rested against Ferda’s forehead.
The instant it touched him, his consciousness was pulled somewhere else.
When he opened his eyes again, he found himself back at the place where he had first received the invitation.
***
After Ferda disappeared, only the Witch remained in the Witch’s Garden once more.
Lucy covered her face with a black veil and returned to the Rose Pavilion.
The witches chatted and laughed as usual.
"So, what did you think of that man, Ferda?"
"He’s an arrogant brat. Talking to our Big Sister like that without even using honorifics."
"I wanted to wedge my spit beneath his fingernails..."
"There’s nothing better than hearing a stoic man scream."
"I prefer hearing them moan. I’d make him moan for three straight hours."
The witches burst into laughter as they exchanged their twisted fetishes.
Then one of them casually nudged Lucy.
"Our Big Sister seems unusually modest today. Have you decided that’s your new persona?"
Lucy Phyliaz.
The Big Sister of them all sat sprawled in her seat, absentmindedly smoking her pipe as though she had no interest whatsoever in the topic of conversation.
Watching her, the other witches chimed in.
"You’re worrying far more than usual, Big Sister."
"It’s been a long time since you’ve seen a man. You must’ve been excited."
"Ah, youth. Sweet youth."
Lucy tapped the ash from her pipe into the ashtray.
Without showing the slightest anger despite all the teasing, she finally spoke.
"Ferda Valdrova."
The name drifted out together with a cloud of smoke.
Whenever a man’s name came from Lucy’s lips, it meant he had become a target.
"So, what do you want us to do with him?"
"I can’t wait to see what kind of scheme you’re planning."
They fidgeted impatiently, clearly eager to hear more.
Lucy answered simply,
"Learn more about that boy."
"That’s it? Nothing else?"
"There is."
As though she had just remembered, Lucy added,
"None of you are to lay a hand on that child."
The laughter echoing through the room came to an abrupt halt.
"That’s not like you. You’re saying that even though he’s a man?"
"Oh my, has our Big Sister really become interested in men?"
"You foolish girls, truly foolish girls. It’s not for some simple amusement like the things that entertain the lot of you."
Lucy looked up at the witches seated around her.
"I simply do not wish to see you die at that child’s hands."
"...What?"
"You’re joking, right? A nineteen-year-old brat is going to kill us?"
Had anyone else said those words, they would have dismissed them as a joke.
But Lucy’s words carried weight.
She never spoke carelessly when addressing the witches.
"So... um... you’re talking about some previous life or reincarnation story, right?"
"Does it sound like something so trivial? That child has erased every one of your existences from this world before."
"Did he actually invade this place?"
"He did far more than invade it."
She slowly exhaled another stream of smoke.
"He even took my life."
Every witch fell silent.
It was a question left unspoken.
And at the same time, absolute shock.
Limbo was a land no being could properly track.
Yet someone had entered that place and killed Lucy Phyliaz, the Mother of all witches.
It was practically impossible.
The witches who had been joking and laughing only moments before now fell silent alongside Lucy.
For the first time, the Rose Pavilion was enveloped in complete silence.
Each of them was undoubtedly trying to make sense of it.
’If I truly died there, then there must have been a reason for it.’
Lucy regarded it as another message sent to herself.
She didn’t yet know its meaning.
But it was undoubtedly a sign that Ferda was someone extraordinary.
’All of this... was it truly for that woman after all?’
Lucy casually released mana into her palm.
It formed itself into a fixed shape.
A rune.
The very rune that had dwelled within Echidna’s heart and nearly killed her without leaving her any chance to resist.
That rune was a massive collection of information woven entirely from emotion.
’So this rune is that child’s regret?’
Just as Echidna had done before, Lucy tried to take a small taste of it.
Yet before she could even sample it, she withdrew her hand.
Even she, the Big Sister, could not bear it.
She was someone worthy of being called the foremost authority on the Red Circle.
Yet she found herself wondering how a human being could possibly possess emotions of such magnitude.
The answer was obvious.
’He must have turned back time.’
She couldn’t help but wonder how Ferda had accomplished such a thing.
To reach that level, one had to attain the Ninth Circle, step into the Realm of the Gods as a Demigod, and use a Wish.
’He actually reached the place I failed to attain and ultimately abandoned?’
She would be lying if she claimed she felt no jealousy.
But she knew it was meaningless, and so she buried the emotion.
’To sing of regret through a Wish...’
Lucy smiled.
"It seems I finally have someone worth watching for a while. I won’t be bored anymore."
The emotions that had gradually worn away over more than a thousand years stirred once again within her chest.
There was no doubt about what that feeling was.
It was excitement.
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