Chapter 116 - The Secret Principle

Lucy let go of Ferda's hand and plucked a rose leaf from the garden.

When she squeezed the leaf tightly with her small hand, it instantly turned into dried tobacco leaves and entered her pipe.

She sparked a flame on her finger to light it, then took a deep drag of the smoke once more.

Ferda, who had been waiting for her to finish, finally asked a question.

"What do you mean by it becoming a blessing?"

Ferda couldn't understand those words.

Lucy flashed a mature smile and answered.

"As you know, cultivating the Blue Circle universally originates from meditation."

The cultivation method for the Blue Circle mostly begins with meditation.

Emptying one's mind or focusing on a single thought to maintain a steady rhythm and forge mana circuits.

If one wanted to screw over such people, the method would naturally be to shatter that composure.

"What is the ingredient for strength when it comes to the Red Circle?"

"The emotion it originated from when the circle was formed."

"Exactly. If it began with joy, it leads to even greater joy; if it began with hatred, it leads to even greater hatred. That is growth."

Lucy nodded.

"Conversely, how do you hinder them?"

"Contradictions and dilemmas."

A person fueled by hatred loses their life as a mage the moment they lose their reason to hate.

When presented with contradictions and dilemmas, those emotions cool and turn cold.

Ferda knew this well, as he had always lived with it in mind.

"Right now, there are two emotions in your heart: affection and regret."

"That's right."

"If you want to become stronger purely by the theory of the Red Circle, you must nurture that affection and suppress that regret so that you can grow solely according to your love. Is that not right?"

Up to that point, it was something Ferda already knew.

Nodding lightly, he asked her.

"So are you saying you know a way to eliminate that regret?"

Lucy shook her head.

"That is a foolish choice, child. Would you burn down your house just to get rid of bedbugs? When it comes to emotions, lacking even a single one is bound to cause the balance to collapse."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that all emotions are connected by cause and effect."

Lucy took a deep drag of her pipe.

"Positivity exists because negativity exists. You have that affection because you have that regret."

Ferda furrowed his brow slightly.

"If I don't erase the regret, it will keep trying to test me, won't it?"

Ferda said this, but it still felt as if he had gained another useless internal organ.

Lucy likely expected Ferda to think that way too.

After all, she was also someone who had mastered the Red Circle.

"Then let me ask you. Why does that regret exist?"

"That is..."

When Ferda hesitated, Lucy added.

"You do not need to answer me, so think it over carefully and come up with the answer yourself."

It was because he had killed Valdrova.

Her, who had been purer than anyone else.

If he were to erase this regret... what would happen to his feelings for her?

Thinking about it that way, he felt like he understood.

Why he had to leave the regret be.

"Child, your regret is like a heart. If there is too much or too little of it, abnormalities will occur, and if it disappears entirely, you will die. If you know how to control it, it becomes an excellent driving force. Do you understand?"

Ferda nodded.

"So what should I do?"

Lucy drew a straight line with her index finger and said.

"You draw a line."

"Draw a line?"

"If you build a fence between the emotions so they do not mix, you will also be able to understand what they are made of."

As a mage who wielded the Red Circle, he roughly understood what she meant.

Emotions are as ambiguous as wet paint.

If one does not concentrate, they flow and mix together, becoming murky and losing their essence.

The moment that essence disappears, the growth of the Red Circle dies.

In that regard, Ferda was an elite.

Having substituted everything with anger, he had purely reached the 9th Circle.

'But this time, I have to divide the two.'

This was his first time with a mana circle operating on affection, and his first time with regret interfering.

Naturally, it was also his first time building a fence between the two.

A mana circuit that operated on both his affection and regret toward Valdrova.

How was he supposed to build a fence between these two?

"In that sense, child, you have already taken a step."

"What step are you talking about?"

"Shape of Shadow."

It was the mana cultivation method recorded in Barbatos's Shadow Art.

"The shadow becomes me, and I become the shadow. Do you remember that phrase?"

Ferda nodded.

"The answer lies within it."

Lucy ended her words right there.

Ferda felt as though she had stopped talking halfway through, but Lucy didn't care.

"And what should I give you as another reward..."

Lucy tapped her pipe.

"Hmm..."

She gazed intently at her pipe and grinned.

He wondered if she was going to give him something useless.

Then, the thorny vines hovering around Lucy gathered toward her hand.

Like a hundred snakes tangling messily together, they rose up and vomited something out.

It was a straight branch.

Perhaps because he was looking at it consciously, it looked similar to the pipe Lucy was holding.

"What do you think this object is?"

"... A pipe?"

"Why would I give you something like that? You're too young to even know the true taste of tobacco."

She exhaled smoke with a cheeky expression, as if telling him not to smoke such things.

Of course, Ferda had smoked before.

Though he had quit because of the dizzying sensation.

So, just as he was about to ask what it was,

CRACKLE!

Red sparks flew around the stick.

It was heaven's defiance lightning.

Seeing Ferda's expression, she laughed in amusement.

"It's Divine Punishment."

"Divine Punishment?"

"I named it 'Divine Punishment.' It's a magic staff I made myself."

"Is that so?"

"You know that branch I struck with lightning, right? The one that any mage would go wide-eyed and rush at. This will absorb that power on its own. Then the instability will settle, and you'll be able to use that power entirely."

He couldn't understand why she was explaining this to him.

Given the context alone, it sounded like she was going to give it to Ferda as a gift, but he didn't jump to conclusions.

Because it could be a trick to test his desires.

"Take it."

He had his doubts, but it was exactly that.

She had directly told him to take it, but Ferda couldn't grab the staff.

"My arm is going to fall off, child. I may not look it, but I am a fragile young girl, you know?"

"..."

"I'm trying to give you a gift, yet you're making a face like a pig that's just been served a heaping bowl of rice. Why? Do you think I'm going to slaughter you?"

"It feels like you might."

Lucy burst out laughing.

"What an incredibly arrogant thing to say. Why can't you imagine that I might just give it to you for free?"

"Because bastards like that all died out ages ago."

"You are correct. That is also correct."

She said while giggling.

"As I said, I help women with unfortunate fates. Valdrova also bears an unfortunate fate. That is why I wanted to help her. But it wasn't easy."

"Why is that?"

"Is there not an incredibly fierce dog around her?"

He could tell who she meant without even asking.

Didn't that fierce dog try to stop him from entering this space?

'I don't know what she'll do to me when I get back.'

For now, he was fully prepared to have his skin scrubbed raw.

Just thinking about the green towel in her hand made him tense up reflexively.

"That puppy said she couldn't trust the words of a witch, so how could I help?"

It was only natural that she wouldn't listen.

Luri is Valdrova's attendant, and Lucy is a witch infamous across the continent.

There was no way she would just stand by and watch her master be played by a witch.

"With no means of contact, I thought I could simply help through you. Even if you are a man, if you intend to save a woman with an unfortunate fate, there is no reason to be anxious about it."

Listening to this story, he didn't feel like it was a lie.

He had felt it when he fought her in the past as well, but despite being the leader of the witches, she didn't feel filled with malice.

It was as if, much like Ferda now, she had become endlessly calm as she leaned toward emptiness.

Was he bewitched, or was he certain of himself?

If he was bewitched, he didn't trust himself; if he was certain, he trusted himself.

There was no room for choice.

Ferda finally took the staff.

A change occurred the moment he grasped the blunt end of the staff she handed him.

In an instant, the wooden branch transformed into a smoothly crafted black staff.

It was formed without any sense of incongruity, perfectly matching Ferda's aura and attire.

Simply transforming shape was a trick that other staffs could do as well.

There was exactly one thing that surprised Ferda.

'I don't feel any magic power.'

Generally, since a staff or wand serves to assist in spellcasting, it invariably has a reservoir to hold magic power.

The higher the quality of the staff, the larger that reservoir naturally is, but even a poor-quality staff cannot lack a reservoir entirely.

Just in case, Ferda flowed his mana into it.

CRACKLE!

Then, red lightning began to violently surge.

'It's not emitting converted mana, it's an instantaneous conversion.'

He could use magic right away whenever he wanted, and since it didn't retain magic power, it would only be treated as a simple walking stick.

In short, it was a magical artifact that was practically a dream for all mages.

"I will use it with great care."

"Hmm? Why are you suddenly using formal speech?"

"You have helped me this much, so how could I not use respectful terms?"

"Hmm, is that so? What a truly admirable child."

Lucy stared at him with wicked, alluring eyes.

Her gaze was so sweet it seemed honey could drip from her eyes.

"Is there anything else you need?"

"I was hoping you could give me a little more of a hint on how it's possible through Shape of Shadow..."

"Haha, so you were just buttering me up to say that?"

It would be a lie to say he wasn't.

Since she was in a good mood right now, Ferda had to extract as much from her as possible.

"Fine. I will tell you. In the Eastern style, it is called the Unity of Shadow and Self. Is it not the essence of the shadow art to wield it like your own limbs by doing so?"

"Yeah."

"If you believe the shadow can truly become you, would anything be impossible?"

What does that mean?

Ferda wanted Lucy to explain more, but before he could even voice the question, her small finger touched his lips.

"This is the last favor, hint, and secret principle that this young girl can give you."

Lucy's small finger smoothly slid up and touched Ferda's forehead.

At that moment, Ferda's consciousness was sucked into somewhere.

When he opened his eyes again, he was back in the exact spot where he had received the invitation.

With Ferda gone, only witches remained in the Witch's Garden once again.

Lucy covered her face with a black cloth and returned to the Rose Pavilion.

The witches were laughing and chattering as usual.

"Ferda, how did that man seem?"

"He's an arrogant bastard. Spitting out informal speech at our Big Sister like that."

"I wanted to shove these needles right under his fingernails..."

"There's nothing better than making such a stoic man scream."

"I like it when they moan. I'm going to make him moan for three hours straight."

The witches giggled as they listed off their twisted fetishes.

Then, they slyly prodded Lucy.

"Our Big Sister seems rather modest today; did you decide to go with that persona?"

Lucy Philiaz.

Everyone's Big Sister slumped in her seat, smoking endlessly as if completely disinterested in the topic of conversation.

Seeing this, the other witches chimed in.

"Yeah, unlike her usual self, our Big Sister looks full of worries."

"He's the first man we've seen in a long time. Imagine how excited she must have been!"

"Ah, youth, sweet youth."

Lucy tapped the ash from her pipe into the ashtray.

Without getting angry once at all the teasing, she opened her mouth.

"Ferda Valdrova."

The name slipped out along with a puff of smoke.

A man's name coming out of Lucy's mouth meant he had become a target.

"What do you want to do to him?"

"I'm getting curious about what kind of wicked scheme you're plotting."

They made gestures as if they were burning with anticipation.

Lucy answered like this.

"Look into him a bit more."

"That's it? You don't have anything else for us to do?"

"I do."

Lucy added, as if she had just remembered.

"None of you are to lay a finger on that child thoughtlessly."

The witches' giggles abruptly stopped.

"That's an uncharacteristic order. He's a man, yet you want us to do that?"

"Oh my, has our Big Sister genuinely taken an interest in a man?"

"You pathetic things, you pathetic things. It is not because of some simple entertainment like the rest of you."

Lucy raised her head and looked at the seated witches as she spoke.

"It's because I don't want to see you all die by that child's hands."

"... What?"

"Does that make any sense? A mere 19-year-old brat is going to kill us?"

If it had been anyone else, they would have thought she was joking, but there was weight behind Lucy's words.

When she spoke to the witches, she never casually said things she didn't mean.

"So, um... you're talking about a past life or something, right?"

"Does it seem like I am telling some trivial tale? I am telling you that that child has wiped your existences from this land before."

"Are you saying he actually invaded this place?"

"He didn't stop at an invasion."

She puffed out a cloud of smoke.

"He even took my life."

All the witches held their breath.

It was a silent question, and at the same time, sheer astonishment.

Limbo was a land that no entity could properly track.

And yet he entered such a land and killed Lucy Philiaz, the Mother of Witches.

It was practically impossible.

The witches, who had been teasing and treating it as a joke, shut their mouths just like Lucy.

It was the first dead silence the Rose Pavilion had ever welcomed.

They must have been wracking their brains in their own way.

'If I died in that place, there must have been a profound reason for it.'

Lucy considered this to be another message sent to herself.

A signal telling her that, although she didn't know the exact reason, Ferda was special.

'Was all of that... for that woman's sake, as expected?'

Lucy subtly released mana into her hand.

It was drawn into a specific shape.

It was a Rune.

The Rune that had lodged itself in Echidna's heart and nearly killed her helplessly.

That Rune was a massive aggregate of information forged purely from emotion.

'So this Rune is that child's regret?'

Just as Echidna had done, Lucy stealthily tried to taste it.

But without even needing to get a taste, she pulled her hand away.

This was something that even she, the Big Sister, could not handle.

She, who could rightfully be called an authority on the Red Circle,

harbored the question of how a human could possess such an immense amount of emotion.

The answer was obvious.

'He must have turned back time.'

She couldn't help but wonder how Ferda could have done such a thing.

Because in order to reach that state, one had to enter the realm of a demigod, the 9th Circle, and cast a 'wish'.

'Are you saying he reached that place I gave up on because I couldn't reach it?'

It would be a lie to say she wasn't jealous.

However, knowing it was futile, she killed that emotion.

'Singing of regret with a wish, huh...'

Lucy smiled.

"It won't be boring for a while since a guy worth keeping an eye on has shown up."

An emotion that had been worn down over more than a thousand years of time beat within her chest.

It was undeniably excitement.