The Problematic Child of the Magic Tower
Chapter 1: Prologue
It was a stark contrast to the navy blue night sky brimming with stars.
A mountain of corpses and a sea of blood.
No matter where one looked, the scene was a crimson abyss.
The corpses, all clad in white robes, made the dark red of the blood stand out all the more vividly.
"...Answer me."
A man stood alone amidst the battlefield, murmuring in a low voice.
"If there are any survivors, respond."
"If you cannot speak, moving or even groaning is enough."
"Please... Please, anyone, respond..."
His voice trailed off as his head drooped.
His face seemed ready to collapse into tears at the slightest touch.
He knew.
He understood.
If anyone had survived, they would have been detected by his magic.
‘In the end, no one...’
No one had survived.
The 153 mages who entrusted their lives to him had willingly chosen to make this place their tomb.
And what was gained in exchange for their boundless futures, their potential, their very lives...
"...Was this."
The man gazed at a severed head lying haphazardly at his feet.
This was the result.
The head of the Great Emperor—the first to unify the demonic tribes and push humanity to the brink of extinction.
"...This is all."
He couldn't bring himself to say the rest aloud.
That would be an insult to everyone who had sacrificed themselves for this outcome.
"Cough!"
The man collapsed, black blood spurting from his mouth.
He had been holding on by patching up his destroyed heart with magic, but even that had reached its limit.
His time, too, was almost up.
"April 28th, 3:12 a.m. The death of the Great Emperor has been confirmed."
A monotone voice echoed in his ears.
The man weakly turned his blurry gaze toward the source.
"...Edna?"
"Yes."
Edna Sol Laplace, the last dragon in this world and its observer of history, drew closer.
Her emotionless eyes fixated on the Emperor's head as she spoke.
"I have good news and bad news."
"Start with the bad news."
After a brief hesitation, she cautiously opened her mouth.
"As anticipated, the demon armies have invaded the White Tower. Most of the mages have perished in the process. The tower has been partially destroyed, and nearly all of the spellbooks and research materials have been lost to the flames."
Hearing the report, the man's eyes trembled violently.
He had known this would happen, known and yet had chosen to kill the Emperor instead of defending the tower.
But he was still human, unable to suppress the surge of emotions.
"...What’s the good news?"
"The royal forces arrived sooner than expected. They were able to rescue some survivors, including your disciples."
At those words, a strange sense of relief washed over him.
He believed in his disciples, those young geniuses.
He was sure they would restore the White Tower, even if it fell into ruin.
"Cough! Cough!"
Perhaps it was the relief that made his burden lighter.
Despite his imminent death, he felt an odd sense of peace.
Edna, who had been watching him closely, asked,
"Do you regret your choice today?"
"...No."
No—more precisely, he couldn’t afford to regret it.
With a bitter smile, the man cast a sorrowful gaze over the surrounding corpses.
"Each one of them, I personally selected and brought here."
To tell them that it had been a mistake, that he regretted bringing them here—he could never say such a thing.
That would be an affront to the subordinates who had trusted him with their lives.
'But... to say there’s no regret at all would be a lie.'
Tonight, humanity had secured a future, but the White Tower had lost everything, including its past legacy.
Even though he knew it had been an inevitable choice, a lingering regret haunted him.
'I may have been the greatest mage, but I might not have been a great leader.'
The thought came to him suddenly.
What if he had chosen a selfish life, not as humanity's hero but as someone who only cared for his people?
Would things have been different?
"...Cough!"
But such meaningless thoughts ended there.
Death was near.
The moon filling his vision wavered and split into multiples, his final sight blurring.
"Do you have any last words?"
"...My disciples."
A faint, bitter smile appeared as he thought of his three rescued disciples.
"Look after them from time to time. They’re still young, and they’ll be anxious."
"...I will check on them occasionally."
Sensing his end, Edna bowed deeply.
It was an excessive gesture for a dragon, a demi-god, to offer to a human, but this man had earned it.
"This observer and the continent will not forget the noble sacrifice of the heroes of the White Tower."
"That goes without saying... They must not forget."
Slowly, his eyes closed.
An irresistible drowsiness enveloped him like a feral beast.
Never before in his life had his eyelids felt this heavy...
Thud.
Edna stood silently, guarding the ground where the White Mage had fallen for a long time.
Her record for that day was simple.
[The Great Emperor, deceased.]
[132 6th-level mages of the White Tower, fallen in battle.]
[19 7th-level mages of the White Tower, fallen in battle.]
[2 8th-level mages of the White Tower, fallen in battle.]
[Oscar Sage, White Tower’s 9th-level mage and Tower Master...]
Fallen in battle.
Rustle.
A gentle breeze lightly stirred the curtains.
"Ah!"
With a scream, Oscar’s eyes shot open.
"W-what’s wrong! I was just trying to change your wet cloth!"
Realizing he was gripping the other’s wrist tightly, Oscar slowly released his hold.
The man, shaking his numbed wrist, grumbled.
"Here I was taking care of you... You have some terrible sleeping habits."
"...Sleeping habits?"
Muttering quietly, Oscar suddenly bolted upright.
'I was asleep? In such a defenseless state?'
It wasn’t like him to make such a rookie mistake.
More importantly, hadn’t he already died?
As proof, his destroyed heart should have been...
"...Huh?"
Thump, thump.
It was beating.
The heart that the Great Emperor had torn apart was somehow intact and beating.
Just as Oscar was about to ask a question to make sense of it all—
Boom!
The door to the infirmary burst open with an earth-shattering crash.
"Ah, you’re awake."
A man in his mid-thirties, wearing the White Tower’s robes, entered.
The caretaker groaned and stood in his way.
"Ah, Elder, you’re here? He just woke up, so maybe you could scold him later...?"
"Step aside, Fran. This time, I must reprimand him thoroughly."
"Of course, I agree he deserves it. Go ahead and scold him harshly. But maybe give him a moment first...?"
Watching the two bicker, Oscar quietly asked,
"How am I alive?"
"...Ha! Yes, I suppose even you would find it curious."
Scoffing, the man brushed past Fran and approached the bed.
His stern gaze locked onto Oscar as he asked,
"Do you remember what you did?"
What he had done...
He was probably talking about leading the elite mages of the White Tower to annihilate the Great Emperor in a mutual destruction.
At least his heart seemed intact, judging by the way it throbbed painfully.
“I remember. But it was a choice I had to make for humanity.”
“...What? For humanity? A choice you had to make?”
The man let out a scoff of disbelief, his eyes sparking with anger.
“Did the embezzlement you committed really have such a grandiose reason?”
“...Huh?”
Embezzlement?
He’d never done anything like that...
As Oscar looked up at him in confusion, the man, now furious, shouted,
“Such a pathetic and disgraceful wretch! I might have considered some leniency if you had even shown genuine remorse!”
With a roar, the man’s palm came crashing down toward the top of Oscar’s head.
Instinctively, Oscar cast a spell.
‘Wind Shield.’
A swirling barrier of wind rapidly formed above him, spinning fiercely.
The moment his attacker struck, the man’s wrist would bend like straw.
“Hmm? This is...”
But then, the man suddenly stopped his hand mid-air as he noticed the precision of the Wind Shield.
His expression shifted to one of mild surprise, and his anger seemed to subside a little.
“...Not bad. At least you haven’t been slacking completely.”
After giving Oscar a complicated look, the man abruptly turned away.
“The punishment can wait until you’re fully recovered. Focus on healing for now.”
With those parting words, the man left the room.
Fran, the man with blue hair, quickly approached Oscar.
“Hey, are you out of your mind? You know how the Elder is, so why provoke him?”
“...The Elder?”
There was no Elder like that under his command.
The man must have been a mage brought over from one of the White Tower’s branches.
After all, there wasn’t a single mage in the current White Tower who could qualify as an Elder...
‘Not one.’
Oscar’s expression turned bitter, but he quickly regained his composure and asked,
“What’s today’s date?”
“September 21st.”
“...I’ve been asleep for five months?”
“What are you talking about? It’s only been three days.”
Three days?
He had defeated the Great Emperor on April 28th, so five months should have passed.
Oscar, puzzled by the discrepancy, opened his mouth again.
“Call Lloyd for me. If he’s not around, Gillie or Sasha will do. I need to hear what happened from the kids.”
“...What? Are you serious? Your memory’s really all over the place, huh?”
Fran gave him a bewildered look.
“If not, you wouldn’t just casually drop the names of traitors... let alone the Tower Master.”
“Traitors?”
“Yeah, traitors.”
Fran nodded.
“Lloyd Schultz, who abandoned the White Tower to become a disciple of the Red Tower Master, and Gilliot Dominic, who ran off with a high-level grimoire.”
“...What?”
Lloyd?
That boy joined the Red Tower?
And Gillie, stealing a high-level grimoire and fleeing?
“What kind of nonsense is this...?”
Of all things, he wouldn’t stand for anyone badmouthing his disciples.
He was about to explode with anger when he stopped short.
With his ability to read the wind, he noticed how eerily calm the air around Fran was.
‘So... everything he’s saying is true?’
His mind was spinning.
“Traitors? And wait... Sasha is the Tower Master?”
“She’s an excellent one, at that.”
“...How can a five-year-old become the Tower Master?”
“Why are you leaving out the twenty years before that?”
Twenty years?
So Sasha was twenty-five now?
Did that mean he had been asleep for twenty years?
‘...I look fine, but my brain must be broken.’
Letting out a sigh, Oscar turned his head to the well-polished window to see his reflection.
Who... are you?

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