Fifty years ago, the dragons — once the ruling species of the Fifth-Layer World — were wiped out of existence by the hero Marcel, called 'the Annihilator.' And not only that: he succeeded in eradicating the dragon genes inside the human body as well, all of them.
Mana and sorcery had belonged to the dragons from the beginning. Once people lost the dragon genes, no amount of effort could carry their mana past a certain level, or let them wield spell formulas as they once had.
Only a very few knew the reason humans could no longer use mana and sorcery freely: the dragon genes that had lived inside the human body were gone.
***
One year ago.
The day a black pillar rose into the sky and black rain fell.
Of everything the boy held in his hands, the only thing left whole was the girl.
The black rain killed every living thing in the city and shattered its buildings. Even those who escaped the rain were butchered by the monsters that came with it. One boy, alive by what could only be a miracle, stood rooted there for a long, long time. His family, his friends — all of them were dead.
Warped death rotted the soil, fouled the water, stilled the wind, and tainted every living thing around it.
In that hell, the boy didn't know how he had survived. No — the question never even entered his head. He could do nothing at all.
How much time passed? The boy came to his senses. He was still alone, wrapped in a foul stench. And he understood that the days behind him had been no dream.
Once he came to, the boy put the girl on his back and simply started walking. In the end he was rescued, and it was from strangers' mouths that he learned what had been done to him.
A sorcerer had caused an accident in the boy's city — and as the price of surviving it, the boy had been cursed.
Against the sorcerer who had cost him his family, his friends, and his home, the boy began a reckless revenge.
The boy alone could sense it — a distinctive, sickening smell, a feeling on his skin. Believing it to be the sense of the curse itself, he set out on his adventure, chasing that feeling.
But there was only so far such a pursuit could take him.
He needed information. But information cost money, and for a boy who had never properly finished school and had no talent as a sorcerer, there were few ways to earn it out in the world.
So he registered with the Adventurers' Guild.
He carried out all manner of commissions through the Guild, earning information and money in return.
And whenever so much as a rumor of a curse surfaced, he went — no matter where.
Along the way, he met the ones who make curses, and he fought them.
'I'll hunt down every curse in this world!'
Such was the will the boy carried.
But the curse-makers were strong. Some of them wielded sorcery powerful enough to be called Sages.
With every battle he grew stronger — yet never strong enough to satisfy him.
In his travels he found like-minded companions, and teachers too.
They shared with him not only the skills of combat — channeling energy, swordsmanship, unarmed technique — but wisdom of every kind: how to read a monster's nature, how to survive in the deep woods.
But he lost them as well.
Because he chased curses, every place he went, the living died — and so did the people at his side.
And so the boy came to bear a second name: the Reaper.
His was a life of nothing but loss — but something precious still remained to him, and so he pressed on.
Until the curse laid on him and the girl could be broken, until everyone's vengeance was complete, he had to survive.
And so, with the coffin that held the girl on his back, scattering death in his wake, the boy lived one year as an adventurer.
***
"Finally found you. You're Ran, right?"
At the sudden sound of a voice calling his name, the boy turned.
A man stood there, smiling.
"Who are you supposed to be?"
There on a downtown street, the strikingly tall man — a cigarette between his lips — introduced himself: his name was Moor, and among the paladins he belonged to the Counter-Demon Order.
The man tried to persuade Ran to join the Church. But most of the people who had ever traveled with Ran — above all, those closest to him — were dead, and so Ran tried to keep his distance from people.
"If you don't want to die, stay away... Just being near me could kill you."
"The curse, you mean? If that's your worry, don't be. I've got one too."
Moor said it with a smile, as if it were nothing at all.
Ran's eyes went wide. Plenty of people had offered to travel with him. Each time, Ran had told them about the curse laid on him. Some had been afraid; some had said it didn't matter and tried to come along anyway. But "I've got one too" — that, he was hearing for the first time.
"Might be fun to see whose curse is stronger, actually."
The sheer madness of it left Ran blank.
"Want me to let you talk to her?"
Unbothered by Ran's dumbfounded look, Moor pointed at the coffin as he spoke.
In that instant, hostility surged through Ran — and silver energy came pouring off his body. Not once had he ever mentioned the girl inside the coffin to Moor.
"Easy now — I told you I've been searching for you. Of course I know about her too."
Startled, Moor hurried to calm him down. Ran glared at him for a long moment, and only when Moor made no move at all did the tension finally leave his body.
"Can you really... do it?"
"Of course. So cool your head and, uh... put away the silver energy, would you?"
Ran let the agitation drain away and reined in the energy pouring off his body.
Snap!
Seeing it, Moor snapped his fingers — and all at once, the world before Ran's eyes began to change.
***
A sky so cold and dark that not a single plant should have grown beneath it — and below, in defiance, a meadow in full bloom.
In that alien space, like nowhere that could exist in this world, the girl and Ran stood face to face.
Ran looked ready to burst into tears at any moment.
"I'm sorry..."
The first thing out of his mouth was an apology.
[What are you talking about? I'm fine.]
The girl's lips were firmly shut. And yet Ran was certain she was speaking.
The two talked for a long while about everything that had happened over the past year.
Ran did most of the talking; the girl was the listener.
'Curses' are born from desecration committed against life.
And the more sacred the thing defiled, the more powerful the 'curse' it creates.
[So you can build a stronger curse by killing a human rather than a rat — and a good human rather than an ordinary one.]
That was the girl's answer when Ran asked how he could wake her.
[Then what about the other way around — do you know how to break a curse?]
At her question, Ran quietly shook his head. He had spent the whole year chasing a way, trying everything he could — and failing every time.
[One way: a kiss from a prince on a white horse.]
"Quit joking around! There's no such thing!"
At that, the girl smiled faintly, lips still closed.
[The second: a whim of the being who cast the curse.]
"Huh? So finding that sorcerer is already killing me, and now I have to talk him into lifting the curse too?"
The girl only looked at Ran, her smile unchanged.
[You've got this!]
"'Got this,' my foot..."
At her breezy cheer, Ran's face twisted again — into something else entirely.
Like someone who had tried to force down his fondness and failed.
[Ah! And what do you mean, no such thing — Prince on a White Horse?]
"Unbelievable......"
The girl kept watching him, but Ran, bashful, couldn't meet her eyes.
"I'll be back. And this damn curse — I swear I'll break it for you!"
Ran turned his back and walked away from her, and left that alien space behind.
And so Ran returned to the real world.
"Well? Feel like taking the job now?"
Moor saw the focus return to Ran's eyes and knew he had come back to the real world.
"So — what is it I have to do?"
Tears clung to Ran's eyes. But his expression had hardened into something far more resolute.
"The curse that struck your hometown a year ago was a Sage's doing. A very powerful one, at that."
"A Sage?"
Ran tilted his head at the unexpected answer.
"Right. Con men who run their frauds on the back of dragon remains... I'll teach you all of it, in time."
"Dragon remains?"
One look at Ran's face told Moor he hadn't understood a thing. So Moor explained it more simply.
Through Moor's long, patient explanation, Ran learned that everything he had gone through a year ago had been a Sage's doing — no accident at all, but something thoroughly deliberate. The warped death born of the curse had rotted the soil, fouled the water, stilled the wind, and tainted every living thing around it. And those whose lives a curse has claimed are cursed even in their souls, so their corpses do not rot. They can return neither to nature nor to the world of souls.
"From here on, you and I are going to destroy everything connected to dragons — Sages included."
Moor went straight to the point, in words Ran could understand.
"Then she can wake up too?"
"Of course. The Sage who caused that catastrophe — first, we find him."
At Ran's question, Moor grinned and spread both arms wide.
"With you beside me, it can be done. The Sages, the curses, and everything bound to them — we bury it all!"
Won over by Moor, Ran became a paladin, trained with the Counter-Demon Order for about a year, and then set out with Moor, roaming the Empire on the trail of Sages.
And so the pair's Sage hunt began.
***
"Whoa! Moor, this city. Doesn't it look like the kind of place a dragon would live?"
Yusillad, a city where peaks great and small stood shoulder to shoulder.
Thanks to the high ground, clouds hung snagged between the buildings and trees as two men walked through the town. With every stride, their shoes struck the stone tiles paving it, beating out a steady rhythm.
One had black hair slicked straight back, and wore a shirt and coat.
Looking to be somewhere in his late twenties or early thirties, the man carried a long case on his back — and inside it, two guns.
The other had tousled silver hair and silver eyes. He wore the same clothes as the black-haired man, and looked to be in his mid-teens.
Across the back of his coat, the emblem of the Church of Radiant Light stood out large, stitched in gold thread. A sword hung at his waist.
"What are you on about? You've never seen a dragon in your life."
"Ah! It's a figure of speech! Besides, have you?"
When 'Moor' swept back his slicked black hair and needled him, the silver-haired man snapped back.
"They say even the dragons' second extinction was fifty years ago. How could I have?"
"Exactly! Fifty years ago everyone was sure dragons were already extinct, and they were wrong — so who's to say there aren't dragons left somewhere we don't know about!"
Some fifty years ago, thanks to Marcel 'the Annihilator,' humanity had won its war against the dragon race.
As a result, every living dragon vanished from the human world.
That much was the common knowledge the world had lived by ever since.
Despite Moor's history lecture, the silver-haired man clung to his theory to the very end.
Moor gave up answering him.
Instead, lured off course by a delicious smell, Moor drifted aside, stopped at a nearby hot dog stand as if entranced, and ordered two.
"Ran! Take this."
Moor clamped one hot dog in his own mouth and held the other out to 'Ran.'
"Oh yeah!"
Delighted, Ran snatched the hot dog from Moor's hand. The lettuce tucked into the bun rained down in pieces.
Mouth crammed full, Ran asked,
"... You're sure he's here?"
"I'm sure. Though there's no guarantee he's the one you're looking for. Ketchup?"
Looking after Ran, Moor turned to the owner of the hot dog stand.
"Sir, I hear there's a mage of considerable skill in this town. Would you happen to know anything about that?"
"Oho. That emblem on your suit — you'd be from the Church of Radiant Light, then."
"Yes, that's right. We're both from the Church."
"Moor! There's too much grass in this. And hand me the mustard!"
The hot dog vendor was a man of imposing build.
He looked like he might once have served in the Imperial Army and mustered out — or at the very least spent time as a mercenary.
"A mage, though? Couldn't speak to how good any one of them is... The world's crawling with folk who sling magic. Which one do you mean?"
The vendor asked back with a baffled look.
Eyes still fixed on the man, Moor passed Ran the yellow bottle of mustard.
"Plenty of people can use magic — but there aren't many mages in this world who can cast at 'Depth 8' or above, are there?"
"Ah! You mean the Sage!"
The vendor answered with a hearty laugh.
In that instant Ran's face twisted, and he seized the vendor by the collar.
"A Sage? Where is that bastard right now?!"
"What's gotten into this kid?"
"Hey! Ran, calm down!"
Moor snatched Ran back by the scruff of his neck.
At the same moment the vendor shoved him off by reflex, and Ran went tumbling backward.
"I said, where is that bastard?!"
As if he had never fallen at all, Ran was up in a flash, dropping into a stance.
"Ran! Enough! And sir, my apologies. He can't keep hold of himself when it comes to Sages."
"You two really from the Church? Laying hands on a man out of nowhere?"
The vendor huffed, his temper far from cooled. Ran, for his part, kept glaring at him, still braced to fight.
"Hah... Ran, please, enough. Sir, my apologies. The Sage you mentioned — might we find him somewhere? Just tell us, and we'll be gone at once."
Seeing how courteous Moor was, so unlike his partner, the vendor frowned slightly and shook his head.
"You'd be quicker asking those robed fellows over there than me."
"Those fellows being... that group of sorcerers there?"
"That's right. You'd be hard pressed to find a sorcerer in this town who hasn't taken the Sage's teaching."
Before the vendor had even finished speaking, Ran was already sprinting toward the first mages in sight.
Watching him go, Moor set a cigarette between his lips, his expression complicated. Then he snapped his fingers, conjured a flame at the tip of his index finger, and lit it.
"Thank you for your help, sir. Now if you'll excuse me, I'd better go rein him in..."
Moor bowed his head to the vendor and turned away.
"Hey, pal — you'd best keep a tight grip on that partner of yours! Never once seen a man who ran with that sort live long."
"I'll take the advice."
Moor glanced back at the vendor with a faint smile, then left the stand behind and went after Ran.
"Hey! Which one of you is the— Agh!"
Ran was charging at a group of five mages in robes of every color. Just before he crashed into them, Moor came flying in and cut him off — and Ran, once again, went rolling across the ground.
"Good day. We're from the Church of Radiant Light. Forgive the intrusion, but we'd like to call on the Sage."
Where the silver-haired kid had just been, a man a good span taller now stood in his place; for a moment, the mages could only blink.
The first of them to make sense of it answered Moor.
"Oh! You appear to be a mage yourself — how unusual, carrying guns. Have you also come to receive our teacher's instruction?"
"'Also'?"
Moor gave that short reply, breathed out a deep lungful of smoke, and set the cigarette back between his lips.
"Yes! All of us here are students of our teacher. Quite a few came from distant lands to learn from him — just as you have."
The man who had answered looked at Moor with a smile.
"Then what must one do to meet this teacher of yours?"
"There's no need to go looking! He is a Sage — he never fails to appear before those with purpose, those bound to him by fate!"
It wasn't the man who answered Moor's question this time, but a young-looking girl mage who cut in instead.
"Bullshit."
Ran muttered it from where he sat sprawled on the ground.
"You! What kind of insolence is that?!"
In an instant, every mage there bristled with hostility toward Moor and Ran. Several began pouring out mana on the spot.
"Oh, not good!"
Moor cast a defensive spell in the blink of an eye. At a sweep of his hand, barriers wrapped not only himself but Ran as well. A heartbeat later, attack spells came hammering down on the shields, one after another.
KA-BOOM—!
Moor's defensive magic didn't so much as shudder under the mages' attacks.
CLANG—!
Ran drew the sword at his waist and smashed apart the barrier Moor had raised over him.
"Ran! What are you doing?"
Ran didn't answer. But in the instant before his sword could swing at the sorcerers, three streams of binding magic lashed tight around his body.
"What?!"
The spells had come from his blind spot; Ran had no chance to react before the bindings caught him. And his attackers didn't waste the opening — attack spells came streaking in at Ran where he stood bound.
BAM—! BAM—! BAM—!
Moor spread another defensive spell around Ran. Then his head snapped to the left.
"Hah... the Imperial Army..."
The binding magic hadn't come from the mages they were facing. It had come from one of the imperial troops charged with keeping order here, arrived just moments ago.
"Hey! You two! What do you think you're doing?"
The soldiers leveled swords — and rifles engraved with binding magic — at Moor and Ran.
"Oh, come on, they threw the first punch — why are you pointing those at us? Do you know why, Moor?"
"Good question, Ran. You always start the trouble and I always clean it up — so why do you do this to me?"
Moor answered Ran's grumbling with a wry smile. As he did, he rolled his sleeve up past the elbow.
The spell formula inscribed on his arm in runes began to glow.
"Well, things being what they are, we'll be taking our leave. See you again sometime, mages."
Moor flashed one last grin at the mages who had attacked them, then unleashed his magic.
"You're not getting away!"
The mages hurled a barrage of spells at the pair — but Moor and Ran were swallowed in black mana and vanished in an instant.
"Is everyone all right?"
"Yes, thanks to you we're all unharmed. Thank you."
A man who looked to be an Imperial Army officer addressed the group of mages, as if to fill the space the two had left behind. He seemed to want a few routine words with them for the investigation.
"What are you doing? Go arrest those men, right now!"
The girl mage shouted at the rest of the soldiers, who merely stood by while the questions were asked. Some of them looked a little thrown by her audacity, but none bothered to answer. Instead, they turned to their superior, the officer.
"What should we do?"
"Those two were dressed as paladins — Church of Radiant Light. We report it up the chain first, and until word comes back down, we hold."
The man, an officer of lieutenant rank by the look of him, answered without a flicker of expression.
The girl mage seethed at that, but the other mages held her back.
***
"Is that normal to you?"
In a rather upscale, spacious room in one of the city's hotels, Ran sat eating over by the kitchen while Moor lay half-sunk into the sofa, reading through documents.
"Is what?"
Moor answered without turning, eyes still on the papers.
"Someone insults their teacher, so they open fire like they're out to kill. That."
Moor let out a dry laugh at the question.
"And you're normal? The second a Sage comes up, you lose your head and go for people's throats."
"No! That's different!"
The question stung. Ran raised his voice to bury the embarrassment.
"Sure, we'll call it different... It is strange, though. Strange enough that I'm suspicious of a great many things. The Imperial Army's behavior, for one."
"Right? This city's weird."
"Yes. Very weird. And investigating weird things happens to be exactly what our Counter-Demon Order is for."
Moor finally sat all the way up and tossed the papers he had been reading onto the nearby desk.
"Well, I've got the scent of it now! Ran, finish up — we leave right away."