Chapter 380: The Story After (12) [Side Story, Part 12]

A harsh grinding roar filled the world as everything turned against him. Sand, air, and Myst, all of which had been fixed in place by the Tower Master’s spell, now moved as one. Every element of that frozen world treated Ketal as a foreign substance, something that did not belong in the fixed result, and converged to drive him out.

Ketal laughed and answered their hostility with excitement. He stomped down hard. Sand shattered beneath his heel. He swung his fist, and the air that had been rigid as crystal broke apart and scattered. He shook his body, and the Myst that clung to him like sticky tar was forced away.

Even so, it was not easy. Not even someone with Ketal’s overwhelming strength could brush aside the attacks of a world that had been fixed into place. The hostility of that magic was absolute.

To Ketal, that made it all the more enjoyable. He laughed, and his laughter edged toward madness.

“

Ha... ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha!

”

The mirth bursting out of him pulled Aura from his core. It rushed to his axe and wrapped around the weapon in a dense, violent layer.

He swung, and the impact rang out like a bell tolling at the end of the world. Ketal’s power collided head-on with the fixed world, and Myst shattered as the sand broke apart and scattered into dust.

The Tower Master groaned. The bones that made up his body rattled with a sinister sound as hairline fractures spread through them. The Eleventh-Class magic that fixed the world in place had been a monumental achievement. He had barely managed to complete it at all, and even now it remained unstable. He could not maintain it for long.

Yet Ketal did more than endure it. He was actively breaking the fixed world apart from within. The magic, which should have been the ultimate expression of his craft, began to warp and crumble under the strain.

The Tower Master hesitated for a brief moment, then made his decision. The fixed world, which had been arranged with perfect order, suddenly distorted. The domain began to shrink.

“Tower Master?” Ketal asked him, his eyes widened.

“Try not to die,” the Tower Master said as he clenched his fist.

Ketal tried to escape, but he was already too late. The world lurched inward, collapsing toward a single point.

Creaking noises echoed through the air as space crumpled and time shrank. Everything held within the domain compressed into a single tiny locus, and when the collapse finished, only a solitary black sphere remained, suspended in the air at the center of the empty void.

It looked like a world that had been folded down into a single dot, a state closer to the time before the birth of creation than to anything living eyes were meant to see.

The Tower Master exhaled sharply. Compressing the fixed world into a single point was his most powerful spell. With this technique, he believed that even the White Serpent could be killed. He had absolute confidence in that. He steadied his breath and stared at the black sphere.

“I do not think something like this will be enough to kill you,” he muttered.

At the very least, it should have inflicted serious injury. He readied further magic and waited, expecting Ketal to emerge at any moment. However, no matter how long he waited, Ketal did not appear. The sphere remained where it was, silent and perfectly still.

“Ketal...?”

Has Ketal been crushed and buried inside that sphere?

For an instant, a dreadful thought flashed across the Tower Master’s mind.

That should have been impossible. The magic he had created was profound and high in order, but Ketal was a being on a completely different scale. There was no way someone like that could die from something like this.

Even so, Ketal continued to show no sign of emerging. Unease crawled up the Tower Master’s spine. He prepared to undo the spell.

As he did, a faint cracking noise reached his ears. A thin line spread across the surface of the sphere. The moment the first crack appeared, it spread with frightening speed. In an instant, fissures ran through every part of the black surface, turning it into a fragile shell threaded with countless lines of weakness.

Then the sphere exploded. A colossal shockwave burst forth. Space and time twisted as if they had been made of cloth and someone had grabbed the fabric and wrung it. The Tower Master hastily raised a defense, but his barrier shattered almost immediately. Cracks spiderwebbed through his entire skeletal frame.

“

Kh...!

” He grunted as pain shot through him.

Ketal stepped out of the flying shards with roaring laughter, his body completely intact and not a single wound in sight. He closed the distance in an instant, grabbed the Tower Master’s shoulder, and slammed him into the ground. He raised his axe high and chopped downward.

The earth broke apart with a deafening crash, and the Tower Master let out a strained groan. The axe blade had buried itself in the ground right beside his skull. Ketal smiled and pulled the weapon free.

“That was enjoyable,” he said. “It took me a little time to finish analyzing the internal structure.”

“You were... analyzing?” the Tower Master muttered. “So you had leisure to spare... I did not even manage to leave a scratch on you.”

“That is not true,” Ketal replied. “It was an extremely powerful spell. I did not use my authority, but I had to draw out nearly all of my strength to get out.”

He had been forced to seize every last drop of Aura he possessed, focus it into himself and axe, and use that concentrated power just to escape.

The Tower Master relaxed at that answer. He let his skull rest more comfortably against the earth.

“So that is as far as I can reach for now,” he said. “A little disappointing... but this is enough. We have been thoroughly defeated.”

Five Heroes had fought, yet they had not managed to inflict a single meaningful injury on Ketal. It was not a surprising outcome. Considering Ketal’s power, this was the only natural result. The Tower Master accepted the loss with quiet composure.

Ketal grinned and held out his hand.

“I enjoyed it as well,” he said. “If an opportunity arises, let’s cross blades again.”

“That would suit me fine,” the Tower Master replied. “Though I do not know whether the others will agree.”

He chuckled and clasped Ketal’s hand.

***

A year passed after their battle. The world had almost completely stabilized. People finally began to believe that everything was truly over.

Countless Heroes had worked together to restore the Mortal Realm. Thanks to their efforts, the lands ravaged by war were not just repaired to their former state but, in many places, improved.

And it did not end with physical recovery. During the process, innumerable spells, techniques, and artifacts had been developed, refined, and perfected. Those fruits of war began to seep into daily life, directly and indirectly transforming how people lived.

As a result, humanity stepped into a world more advanced, more prosperous, and more secure than the one they had known before the conflict. The era that began then would later be called the Renaissance of Restoration, the dawn of a time when healing itself became a force that pushed civilization forward.

And within that changing world, at long last, Arkemis reached her limit and then crossed it.

“I did it...!” she cried. High Elf Arkemis finally achieved her goal.

***

“Wow. Wow!”

Her brown hair, long enough to brush her ankles, swayed wildly as she spun around. Her golden eyes shone with excitement and pure joy. Arkemis, the High Elf alchemist, thrust both arms into the air.

“I did it! I really did it!”

Unable to contain her happiness for even a moment, she flew out of her workroom and climbed up the World Tree. At its top, Karin, who had been resting quietly, blinked in surprise and turned to face her.

“Arkemis? What is the matter?” Karin asked her.

“Your Majesty, it worked!” Arkemis cried.

“What worked?” Karin asked here. “What are you talking about?”

“My goal!” Arkemis said.

“Wait, you don’t mean...,” Karin murmured, her pupils widening.

Arkemis nodded with a face that seemed ready to burst with pride.

“The goal that pushed me to leave our sacred ground and go out into the wider world!” Arkemis said. “I finally did it. I can have a child now.”

***

High Elves had no concept of a community. They were born fully grown through the World Tree, emerging into the world already complete. They did not need anyone’s help. They were whole in and of themselves.

Because of that, they had never needed the help of others. They did not form something as tangled and interdependent as a community, nor did they understand what it meant.

Arkemis was different. She longed for connection, for a place within a community. She wished for friends, for comrades, for a family, and above all else, she wished to bear a child.

The first three wishes could be achieved with effort. She could build relationships, form bonds, and carve out a place for herself. However, the last one was impossible. High Elves were beings born from the World Tree. Their bodies simply were not shaped to carry children. No matter how deep her longing, Arkemis could not create life in the way humans did.

To overturn that impossibility, she had left the sacred ground of the elves, and out in the wider world, she had finally discovered a hint of hope. It came from a substance of the Demon Realm known as Nano, an iridescent powder with the properties of the Philosopher’s Stone, capable of replacing and transforming all things. Within Nano, she had found her chance.

She studied for years, experimenting and failing, then adjusting and trying again. At the end of that long, grueling effort, she succeeded.

“How did you manage it?” Karin asked her.

“First, I copied the reproductive system of mammals,” Arkemis said cheerfully. “Then I started experimenting with grafting it into my body. That part did not go very well, though. Our basic structure is different, so the transplant kept failing. So I changed the design to match the High Elf body instead.”

“I... I see,” Karin replied.

The unexpectedly blunt explanation left the queen looking distinctly uncomfortable. Arkemis did not notice at all. She spoke more and more quickly, carried along by her own excitement.

“But as you know, High Elves do not have anything like that to begin with, right?” Arkemis continued. “So I had to create it entirely from scratch. It was an absolute nightmare. I must have repeated experiments and failures thousands of times. Still, in the end...”

She exhaled, then smiled, her whole face brightening.

“In the end, I did it,” she said.

Her wish had finally become reality. She now had a body capable of bearing a child. Joy overflowed from her expression, warm and unguarded. Karin smiled in return.

“Congratulations, Arkemis,” Karin said. “You have finally achieved your desire.”

Karin had watched Arkemis struggle toward this dream for a long time. She knew exactly how much effort had gone into each small step forward. Her congratulations were sincere.

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Arkemis replied.

Karin hesitated for a moment, then asked the question that naturally followed.

“Then... what do you plan to do now?”

Having a child was not something one could accomplish alone. She needed a partner. And Karin already knew exactly whom Arkemis had chosen.

“Are you going to go to him?” Karin asked her.

“Um... yes. Probably,” Arkemis stammered. Her words suddenly tangled. “I should... right?”

“How do you intend to approach him?” Karin asked her.

“Th-that is...” Arkemis faltered, her tongue refusing to move.

What am I supposed to say to him when I see him?

Arkemis wondered.

Should I just say that I want to have his children?

The words hovered on the tip of her tongue, yet she could not imagine herself actually saying them. They were far too direct, far too bold. For someone like her, such a sentence might as well have been an impossible spell.

She had made her wish come true. Her desire had taken shape in reality, yet that reality had simply become a new wall standing before her.

“What should I do...?” she whispered.

“I can’t really help you in that department...,” Karin replied, falling silent.

Karin was also a High Elf. She had lived a very long life, but she had never experienced anything that could truly be called romantic love. There was no advice she could give.

“You read many novels, did you not?” Karin asked her at last. “You might be able to find some inspiration there.”

“I tried that already,” Arkemis admitted in a small voice. “It did not go very well.”

When Ketal had once visited the sacred ground, she had imitated gestures she had seen in romance novels. The attempt had produced no noticeable effect.

Both of them sank into thought for a while. Then Karin spoke again, as if something had come to her.

“I do not think I can be of much help,” she said. “I am a High Elf, just like you.”

“That is true...” Arkemis murmured.

“However, you have human friends, do you not?” Karin suggested.

“You’re right!” Arkemis’s head snapped up.

During her time away from the sacred ground, she had owed much to one particular human household: the Akasha family. The head of that house, Milayna Akasha, might know what to do.

“Thank you! You are amazing, Your Majesty!” she cried, springing to her feet. “I will go out for a little while!”

“All right,” Karin said. “I hope you achieve your goal.”

She smiled gently as Arkemis hurried away.

Watching her retreating back, Karin murmured to herself, “Ketal, of course.”

A High Elf bearing a human child was something that would shake the very foundations of elven society. It would be viewed as a threat to the purity of the High Elves, and the community would be thrown into uproar. Under normal circumstances, she might have offered her congratulations while still harboring a small, uneasy knot in her heart.

However, this was Ketal, a being who had descended into the Mortal Realm with the power of a god, and in truth, stronger than any god. He was the one who had struck down the Demon King and defeated the Primarch.

If someone like that formed a kinship bond with the High Elves, nothing could be more beneficial. The influence of the elven race would grow. From the perspective of a queen who had to guide and protect her people, there was no reason to oppose it.

More than that, if Ketal became kin to the elves, they would gain powerful leverage against those on the continent who sought to enslave them. Far from resisting the idea, they should welcome it with open arms.

However, Karin sighed softly. There was one thing that bothered her: the idea felt terribly opportunistic.

“She likes him,” Karin muttered, almost as if making excuses to herself. “As long as she is happy... it will be fine.”

She did not know how things would turn out, but she could at least prepare. She summoned a knight and gave her orders.

“Build a splendid, comfortable mansion in the forest a short distance away from the village,” Karin said. “Clear the surrounding woods completely. Do not ask why.”

“Pardon? Ah—yes, understood,” the knight replied.

Still looking bewildered, he bowed his head in acknowledgment.