It stood in stark contrast to the deep-blue night sky packed with stars.
A mountain of corpses and a sea of blood—a veritable bloodbath.
No matter where one looked, there was nothing but red.
Moreover, every corpse wore a pure-white robe, making the dark-red blood stand out all the more.
"......Respond."
The man standing motionless on the battlefield murmured in a low voice.
"If there are any survivors, respond."
"If you can't speak, moving or even groaning will do."
"Please, please, anyone at all, respond......."
The man's voice trailed off as he lowered his head.
His face looked ready to crumple into tears at the slightest touch.
He knew. He knew full well.
If anyone had survived, his mana detection would have found them.
'In the end, no one.'
No one had survived.
The 153 mages who had entrusted him with their lives had willingly made this place their grave.
In return for pouring out their boundless futures, their potential, and even their lives, all they had gained was......
"Just this."
The man stared at the severed head lying carelessly at his feet.
This was the result.
The head of the Great Emperor, the first to unite the demons and drive humanity to the brink of extinction.
"Just......"
He could not bring himself to say the rest.
Doing so would insult everyone who had sacrificed themselves for this outcome.
"Cough!"
The man's body crumpled as he spat out black blood.
He had been holding on by crudely patching his destroyed heart with mana, but even that had reached its limit.
He did not have much time left either.
"April 28, 3:12 a.m. The Great Emperor's death has been confirmed."
At that moment, someone's flat voice rang in his ear.
The man looked toward the speaker through his increasingly blurred vision.
"......Edna?"
"Yes."
She was the last dragon left in this world and the observer who recorded its history.
Edna Sol Laplace approached and stared at the Great Emperor's head with her characteristically emotionless eyes.
"I have good news and bad news."
"The bad news first."
After hesitating briefly, she spoke with care.
"As expected, the demon army invaded the White Magic Tower. Most of its mages died in the process, half the tower was destroyed, and nearly all of its spellbooks and research materials were burned."
The man's eyes trembled as he listened to the report.
He had known it would happen, yet had still chosen to kill the Great Emperor instead of defending the tower.
But he was human too, and there was no hiding the emotions welling up inside him.
"......And the good news?"
"The imperial forces arrived sooner than expected and rescued some survivors, including your disciples."
A strange sense of relief washed over him.
He believed his disciples, those young geniuses, would revive the fallen White Tower.
"Cough! Cough!"
Was it because the burden on his heart had grown lighter?
For a man on the verge of death, he felt peaceful.
Edna, who had been staring at his face, asked him a question.
"Do you not regret the choice you made today?"
"......I don't."
No. More precisely, he could not.
With a bitter smile, the man surveyed the surrounding corpses with sorrowful eyes.
"I selected every last one of them myself and brought them here."
There was no way he could tell them it had been a mistake, that he regretted bringing them to this place.
That would be an insult to the subordinates who had trusted him with their very lives.
'But...... I'd be lying if I said I had no regrets at all.'
Humanity had won the future called tomorrow tonight, but the White Tower had lost everything, including the legacy of its past.
Even knowing it had been an unavoidable choice, a trace of regret continued to linger around his heart.
'I may have been the greatest mage, but perhaps I wasn't such a good leader.'
The thought suddenly occurred to him.
If, instead of being humanity's hero, he had lived selfishly and cared only for his own people.
He wondered what that life would have been like.
"......Cough!"
That was enough pointless contemplation. Death was approaching.
The moon filling his vision wavered wildly across the night sky and split into several images.
"Is there anything else you wish to leave behind?"
"......My disciples."
Thinking of the three disciples who had been safely rescued, the man gave a bitter smile.
"Look after them from time to time. They're still young, so they'll be very anxious."
"......I will check on them occasionally."
Sensing that his end was near, Edna bowed respectfully.
It was an excessive gesture for a dragon, a demigod, to offer a human, but the man before her deserved it.
"This observer and the continent will never forget the sacred sacrifice made by the heroes of the White Tower."
"Of course...... you shouldn't."
His eyes were starting to close.
An irresistible languor swept over his entire body like a savage beast.
Never in his life had his eyelids felt this heavy...... It was the first......
Thud.
"......"
Edna continued to guard the ground where the white mage slept for a long time afterward.
The record she made that day was simple.
[Great Emperor, deceased.]
[132 Level 6 mages of the White Tower, killed in battle.]
[19 Level 7 mages of the White Tower, killed in battle.]
[2 Level 8 mages of the White Tower, killed in battle.]
[Level 9 mage of the White Tower, White Tower Master Oscar Sage......]
Killed in battle.
***
Rustle.
The pleasant breeze lightly stirred the curtains.
"Agh!"
With someone's scream, Oscar's eyes flew open.
"Wh-what's wrong with you?! I was just trying to change the wet towel!"
"......"
Realizing that he was gripping the other man's wrist, he slowly released it.
The man shook out his tingling wrist and grumbled.
"I went to all the trouble of nursing you...... You've got some nasty sleeping habits."
"......Sleeping habits?"
Oscar murmured quietly, then abruptly sat bolt upright.
'I fell asleep? And in such a defenseless state?'
Could he really have made such an amateur mistake?
More importantly, hadn't he already died?
As proof, his destroyed heart......
"......Huh?"
Thump, thump.
It was beating.
For some reason, the heart the Great Emperor had torn to shreds was beating normally.
Just as Oscar, unable to understand his current situation, was about to ask a question.
CRASH—!
The infirmary door opened with a roar loud enough to make one think the wall had collapsed.
"Good, you're already awake."
When a man in his mid-thirties wearing the White Tower's robes entered, the young man who had been tending Oscar blocked his path with a startled expression.
"E-Elder, you're here? He only just woke up. Could you perhaps scold him later......?"
"Move, Fran. This time, I must give that wretch a proper lesson."
"Of course, I agree with that. Scold him thoroughly. But perhaps you should give him a little time......"
Oscar silently watched the two men argue before suddenly asking a question.
"How did I survive?"
"......Ha! Yes, even you must find that miraculous."
The man let out a disbelieving laugh, walked past Fran, and approached the bed.
He looked down at Oscar with a steely gaze and asked.
"Do you remember what you did?"
"......"
What he had done.
He must mean taking the White Tower's elite mages out and perishing together with the Great Emperor.
His heart seemed to be fine, judging by how painfully it throbbed.
"I remember. But it was an unavoidable choice for humanity's sake."
"......What? For humanity's sake? It was unavoidable?"
The man's eyes flared as he snorted at the absurdity.
"Was there such a grand reason behind your embezzlement?"
"......Hm?"
Embezzlement? He hadn't done anything like that...... had he?
As Oscar looked up at him blankly, the enraged man shouted.
"You wretched, pathetic fool! Had you shown genuine remorse, I might at least have taken it into consideration!"
With the furious shout, a palm descended toward the crown of his head.
Oscar instinctively cast a spell.
'Wind Shield.'
A curtain of wind instantly surged into being and began spinning fiercely above his head.
The moment the man attacked him, the other man's wrist would snap like straw.
"Hm? This is......"
At that moment, the man noticed the quality of the Wind Shield and abruptly stopped his palm.
Then, looking rather surprised, he reined in his anger somewhat.
"......Not bad. So you haven't spent all that time idling around?"
He stared at Oscar with a complicated look, then spun around.
"Your punishment will be postponed until your body has fully recovered, so focus solely on recuperating for now."
Once the man left the room, Fran, the blue-haired young man, hurried over.
"Hey, are you actually insane? You know exactly what the Elder's like, so why provoke him?"
"......An elder?"
There had been no such elder under his command.
He was probably a mage brought in from one of the White Tower's branches.
After all, in the White Tower as it stood now, a mage with the skill and seniority to become an elder......
'There wouldn't be a single one.'
Oscar quickly gathered himself and asked with a bitter expression.
"What's today's date?"
"September 21."
"......I was asleep for five months?"
"What nonsense are you talking about? It was three days at most."
Three days?
He had killed the Great Emperor on April 28, so surely five months had passed?
Looking as though something was strange, Oscar spoke.
"First, call Lloyd for me. If he's unavailable, Gilly or Shasha will do. I need to hear the details from the children."
"......What? So you aren't acting, and your memory really is all mixed up?"
Fran stared at him in bewilderment.
"Otherwise, even setting those traitors aside...... there's no way you'd call the Tower Master by name so casually?"
"Traitors?"
"Yeah, traitors."
He nodded.
"Lloyd Schultz, who abandoned the White Tower to become the Red Tower Master's disciple, and Gilliot Dominic, who stole a high-level spellbook and fled."
"What?"
Lloyd, that child, had joined the Red Tower?
And Gilly had stolen a high-level spellbook and run away?
"What kind of ridiculous nonsense are you......"
He could tolerate anything except insults aimed at his disciples.
Oscar was about to erupt in anger when he stopped.
To his eyes, which could read the wind, the air around Fran looked far too still.
'Then...... everything he said is true?'
His mind was in turmoil.
"Those children are traitors...... Wait, and Shasha is the Tower Master?"
"She's an outstanding person."
"......How could a five-year-old brat become the Tower Master?"
"Why are you leaving out the twenty in front?"
Twenty in front? Then Shasha was twenty-five?
Didn't that mean he had been asleep for a full twenty years?
'......He looks fine, but his brain is broken.'
Oscar sighed, turned his head, and looked at his face reflected in the polished window.
"......"
Who are you?