The Inept Mage's Infinite Regression - Chapter 75

WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

◈ The Inept Mage’s Infinite Regression

Chapter 75

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'Was he dead?'

He wanted to put a confirmation shot in, but the skeletal mound had grown so thick that even with continuous fire, there was no way to tell whether the rounds were actually punching through to their mark. If the Undying King could still revive from this, Ethan had something in mind.

He let the Meror hang loose from its two-point sling and pushed out of the mountain pass onto flat ground. He walked out to where the skeletals lay thickest underfoot and spoke in telepathy.

A card rose before him, face-down, visible only to his eyes. Ethan grabbed it.

The card in the Cube was Arca's A-rank. One slot meant choosing the best available, and right now he had four A-ranks to pick from. His father Duke Charasen's card felt wrong to play here. Rivielton's was obviously strong, a good match for Ethan's own style, but whether it would hold up against the Undying King was anyone's guess. Pulling the Undying King's own card against him seemed like a joke. Death was a regular at that man's door, and if it ever had to weigh the two of them against each other, it wouldn't hesitate.

'So noona's it is.'

He knew Arca well enough. Couldn't claim deep familiarity with her specific magic, but the only entity she had a contract with right now was the phoenix, so there'd be no "contract entanglement." Besides, borrowing someone's power through an aspect card still required at least being able to imitate what they actually did with it.

The card caught fire in his hand. He let it go.

'Above all else, this is the only way I have to burn the Undying King and all these skeletals by myself.'

Using the principles of primordial magic, he drew magic threads through the air and cast Fire Starting. A few sparks spat and crackled, and a fist-sized flame kindled in midair. Normally Fire Starting had nothing to feed on and would die out on its own, but for some reason this one kept growing, and then something pushed its face through the fire and took shape.

A phoenix.

Wary, the phoenix circled above Ethan's head in slow, measured wingbeats. What had looked like nearly pure flame gradually resolved into the form of a bird.

Ethan watched it and rubbed his jaw.

"Uh, are you maybe..."

<...No, you!>

"Sercis?"

<Ethan?>

Sercis was the name of the phoenix Arca had contracted, her familiar in every practical sense. Most familiars gained higher intelligence through the binding contract, but a phoenix was already a spirit and divine beast in its own right, born with keen intellect and formidable power. It wasn't as naturally adept at magic as a dragon, but a phoenix's innate abilities ran close to a dragon's in raw force.

The two of them weren't strangers. Arca had often summoned Sercis with Ethan nearby, from the very first Summoning onward.

<Ethan! I have no contract with you. How is this even possible?>

"I'm curious about that too. Even accounting for borrowing noona's power, I didn't actually expect the contract to carry over with it. I factored it in when I chose noona's aspect over my father's, but even so, now that it's actually happened, it's strange. What did you do about your contract with noona before coming here?"

Ethan waved a hand.

"Calm down. One thing first."

<What?>

"Why are you so small?"

A phoenix could expand or contract its size at will, growing as large as a dragon or shrinking small enough to perch on Arca's forearm. Its appearance resembled a male peacock, rendered in black and red and vivid yellow, the crest, the sweeping tail, all of it living flame.

The Sercis before him now was far smaller than anything Ethan had ever seen, barely the size of a fist, closer in shape to a chick. The legs were long and the tail hung limp, hinting at something that would eventually be impressive. Only the crest was actually burning.

Sercis caught the remark mid-flight and looked at itself.

"Did I cause that?"

<Yes! Your mana is pitifully low! You could not Summon me whole, so I was forced through in this wretched form.>

"Hold on. I do have a decent amount of internal energy for body magic..."

Ethan calmed him.

"There's something I need to do right now. Will you help?"

"Hold on. Right. What did noona always say... '→Sercis, burn it.'"

He pointed with one finger at the skeletal mound burying the Undying King.

<What? That I should listen to your-- 'Understood.'>

Sercis beat its small wings and sparks rained down. Flames leapt where they landed, and the skeletal mound caught fire.

Sercis turned back.

"Wait, behind you!"

Ethan snatched Sercis and leaped sideways. A white hand burst from inside the burning mound and closed around the empty air where Sercis had just been, then pulled back. Inside the blazing skeletal mound, the Undying King hauled himself upright.

Ethan set Sercis on his shoulder and trained the Meror on the Undying King. The Undying King walked out of the flames. They died on their own. Opening fire made sense, but so did letting him talk. Ethan waited.

The Undying King spoke.

"...I see. You're the exceptional existence... aren't you?"

"Heaven-Defier. ...What is that?"

"...Oh. Why... do you ask? If you know the word... you already know... enough...."

The Undying King fell quiet, thinking things through with the half-blown skull the earlier gunfire had left him.

"...Ah, I see. You heard it 'from me', didn't you?"

"Answer the question."

Ethan blew the Undying King's head off.

He didn't fall. Left with only upper and lower jaw, the Undying King slipped the bracelets and rings from both hands, one after another. Each piece of goldwork hit the ground and death reached in to take it, vanishing with each one.

Ethan said to Sercis.

"→Sercis, burn it."

"Understood."

While Sercis burned, Ethan shot from the feet up to keep the Undying King from rising. A body with no moisture in it, dried to the bone, shattered and buckled with every round, collapsing piece by piece.

"...His Majesty..."

Even with the lower jaw gone, the Undying King still managed something that might have been laughter. Wet. Ragged. Painful. Ethan heard his will echo inside his head.

<...Always so careful, His Majesty...>

The Undying King's magic turned toward Ethan.

<⇒Die.>

Death seized Ethan's heart.

∞

Whether in swordsmanship or magic, Emperor Myu had no equal; he could persuade anyone with words, had beauty that made none immune, was an unparalleled commander in the field, and a supreme scholar at the lectern. Equally gifted in art and craft, he compiled "Forms of Death" from the accounts of those who had stood at death's threshold and come back, drawing each illustration himself. According to "Forms of Death," death wore a different face for every single person in the world. A brief note in the Emperor's hand still survives alongside it: If one can draw a person's death, one can know how that person will ultimately die.

That was how Ethan saw his own death for the first time.

Death was a woman with long black hair and pale skin. Arms and legs bare, but a white dress covered the rest, the kind typically worn as an undergarment. Across it, splashes of vivid color, yellow and red and blue, what looked at first like flowers.

Ethan murmured.

"...Mom?"

He was wrong. The colors on the dress were not flowers. Mold. Mushrooms. Moss. When Death walked, the yellow mushrooms packed across her face swayed and scattered spores. Red mold bled from the dress out across her skin. Blue moss pulsed with faint light.

He understood what he was looking at.

"Are you my death?"

Death spoke. A voice utterly unfamiliar, and yet somehow not.

"Yes, Ethan Dora Charasen. I have been searching for you a long, long time."

"What do you mean?"

"You know, don't you? You fled to a place that is neither life nor death, and you cheated time itself."

He understood immediately. Limbo.

"I'll end up in Limbo again this time."

"No. You cannot. I have caught you 'directly.' You must come with me."

He understood what Death meant.

Under ordinary circumstances, Ethan passed through Limbo after an event that brought him to the threshold of death. Two stages: the event, and death. Limbo could slip in between and keep him from ever actually reaching death. But this was different. Death had seized him directly. There was no event leading to death. Death itself was the event.

"...My backers will help me."

"No. Not one of your backers can take precedence over me."

"Take precedence?"

"Everything dies."

Death said.

"That is the contract."

The purest fear he'd ever known settled into him, and it wasn't entirely new. He had felt it once before. The first time Boen ran a blade through him. That exact feeling. Death. Not returning to Limbo, but the permanent end, a journey past the point of no return, a farewell to everyone he loved, grief and anguish and pain all running through his fingers as dust. Every living thing, when it finally reaches death, understands at last that daily life was nothing but a long, quiet turning-away from this moment. Here Ethan stood before that understanding again. The purest fear? Of course. Fear itself was born from this.

Ethan shook his head.

"Magic can deceive death."

"Death is eternal. Before eternity, deception is only a moment."

"You can't kill the mages of the mage towers."

"They are, in another sense, not truly alive either."

"What about the Emperor? I heard he defeated you three times."

Cario had defeated death once during his time as a hero, and twice more after becoming Emperor. Ancient legend held that death, beaten four times, could no longer claim that person. They would live forever.

"The Emperor is... a special existence."

Ethan said.

"I'm special too."

Death said.

"No. You are not."

She moved toward him. In the darkness surrounding them both, mushrooms grew, mold bloomed, moss spread. No longer any human form to her now. The space itself surged and closed in, climbing up his arms and legs.

"You are not."

Just as Death was about to swallow him whole, a burst of flame exploded outward and engulfed them both.

∞

He opened his eyes. Staggered, then steadied himself. He hadn't even fallen yet.

Sercis flapped frantically before him, muttering to itself.

<Hmph. What would have happened to you without me.>

Sercis was a phoenix that burned to nothing in flame and was reborn from it.

That ability didn't stop with setting fire to things or controlling the blaze.

The phoenix gave its contractor the same immortality it held.

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