The Great Mage Returns After 4000 Years

Translator: Alpha0210

Residue knew what kind of relationship Lukas and Sedi had shared. In an informational sense, at least. But he could not know exactly what kind of bond they had formed, or how each had regarded the other. That belonged to the realm of emotion, not memory.

"......"

Sedi's eyes glinted with a sly light.

The silence had stretched long enough that it would have been strange not to find it strange. Residue racked his brain, but nothing suitable came to mind. After all, even he could not yet guess what Lukas had been thinking in his final moments.

Still, he ought to babble something, anything. Just as Residue's deliberation deepened, Sedi unexpectedly spoke first.

"Why is the White Knight here?"

"......"

Clank.

There was no way Agolet hadn't heard that clear voice, yet he simply slung his shield onto his back with textbook precision and offered no reply.

It could have been taken as letting Sedi's words pass through one ear and out the other, or as deferring the answer to Residue.

Neither was a particularly endearing response, but it seemed like it might buy a bit more time, so Residue spoke.

"I brought him here myself."

"Why."

"The Four Knights have been hell-bent on killing me, haven't they? An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. I figured taking one knight as a subordinate would be enough to deal with them."

Sedi's gaze shifted back to Agolet.

"I don't understand. If we're talking about Agolet the White Knight, isn't he famous as a recluse? I heard he suffered from a terrible lethargy toward life. Why would he leave his hideout to follow a man like that?"

Only then did Agolet's gaze turn to Sedi. He smiled, making a deliberate show of it, and spoke.

"Is that an insult toward His Majesty? Or are you disparaging my judgment?"

"Is there a difference?"

"If it's the latter, I can laugh it off easily enough. I myself still consider this body lacking in many respects."

Sedi asked with a flat expression.

"And if it's the former?"

"No knight lets an insult to his lord go unanswered."

"Impressive."

Residue remarked with halfhearted admiration.

Sedi looked back and forth between the two men, then twisted the corner of her lips.

"I see. Now I get it. A pair of twisted, pathetic wretches forming an alliance. A perfect match."

"Was that a compliment?"

"It appears to be sarcasm, Your Majesty."

"Right?"

Agolet said,

"She's taken quite a disliking to you. Does the 0th Demon consider Your Majesty an enemy?"

"More or less. She's probably one of the two beings in this world who hate me the most, alongside the Blue Knight."

"And knowing that full well, you crawled all the way here and put on that pathetic little act?"

A voice laced with cold scorn cut in.

What a nasty attitude.

Residue honestly felt his mood sour every time Sedi treated him this way. Whatever title she held now, be it one of the Twelve Void Lords or anything else, the Sedi that Residue remembered had been the Demon King's lackey at her core. The image of her groveling and bowing before the Demon King was still vivid in his mind, yet she came at him with that prickly tone every time she opened her mouth. It was impossible to look at her favorably.

Granted, Residue was not the Lightning God, but this was an emotion he could not help. The Lightning God could not be excluded from the elements that comprised the being called Residue.

Residue spoke frankly.

"Then why didn't you just attend the summit nicely, the way all the others did? Then I wouldn't have had to grace this dreary place with my presence in person. Even the prickliest of the lot showed up without a word of complaint."

"Without a word of complaint, sure. Half the people there are probably itching to kill you, at least."

Residue was about to retort immediately, but on further reflection, Sedi's words were not wrong.

For starters, the Thunderous Lightning God and the Black Thorn Demon King were outright enemies, and the Red Knight and Blue Knight were no different. Among the Void Lords, at least, the hostile ones had been identified as Hides and were all dead, but that didn't mean the survivors could be unconditionally counted as allies.

Still, he wasn't particularly worried. He had the Half King backing him now. Any insubordinate fool could be reported to Her Majesty the Half King for a proper lesson.

"Did you come here to kill me?"

Sedi spoke again.

At some point she had seated herself on the throne, and the murderous edge visible just moments before had vanished as if washed clean.

Residue was startled by the sudden shift in attitude, and startled again by what she had just said.

"Me, kill you? Why would I?"

"Hmph. It's not like we're on good terms."

"True enough. But killing every stray cat that scratches you would be rather cruel, wouldn't it?"

Of course, there were people who did that sort of thing, but Residue was not one of them.

More importantly, he'd gone and let "cat" slip out again without thinking.

Residue looked at Sedi. Between her and the Half King, Sedi certainly felt closer to a cat. In appearance, in personality. In more ways than one.

"Who are you calling a cat?"

Sedi said, irritation threading her voice.

Indeed. Calling a brat her age a cat was counterproductive. He filed that away.

"Fine, you're just wonderful. You're a completely different person from the last time I saw you. Back then you were groaning on the verge of death with that half-dead face of yours."

Sedi sneered coldly.

"That look suited you better."

Those words didn't particularly bother him.

It was all in the past, and he felt no real sting from it. The one who was surprised was actually Agolet. Not acting, but genuinely taken aback, he stared at Residue with slightly widened eyes. He seemed to be asking, 'You were really in such a state?'

For some reason, Residue didn't feel like telling this one about those days, so he ignored Agolet and turned back to Sedi.

"Why won't you attend the summit?"

"Because I don't want to see your face."

"Is that truly the only reason?"

"What else would there be? I'm not attending, so what are you going to do about it?"

Sedi tilted her head at an angle and spoke.

"You've brought one of the Four Knights along, so even if I draw on the Demon King's power, I doubt I'd stand a chance. If you're going to kill me, just do it quickly."

Being casually encouraged to commit murder caught him off guard.

"What are you talking about? Were you even listening to me? I said I came to urge you to attend the summit."

"Right. And if I refuse, you'll kill me. That's how Rulers do things, isn't it?"

"I'm not a Ruler. I'm Residue."

"'Residue' is a name? How impressive."

Sedi scoffed.

"And what, attending the summit? What changes if I go? Does the plan fall apart because one of the Twelve Void Lords is absent? There are mountains of people in the universe stronger than me─"

"Stop with the snide remarks and listen. We're getting nowhere."

The moment Residue lowered his tone, Sedi flinched before she could stop herself. The stern expression on his face was far too similar to the man in her memories.

Something like anxiety crept over her, as if she had made a mistake, but that anxiety soon turned to anger. Because in the end, Residue was not Lukas.

"If you don't attend the summit, then what? You'll just stay holed up in this miserable, damp place, waiting for the day Destruction comes crashing down? Like some patient wasting away from an incurable disease? My nature won't let me stand by and watch that."

"...And if you can't stand it, what are you going to do?"

"Drag you out by force, if I have to. There was someone like you once. Different reasons, sure, but he was holed up in his hideout screaming bloody murder that he'd never come out. Once I managed to drag him out anyway, he was brimming with life, day after day."

"...I would not say I was screaming bloody murder."

Agolet objected with an uncomfortable expression, and Sedi glared at Residue before answering.

"I still haven't heard a reason."

"What reason."

"The reason you're trying to get me to attend the summit."

Residue was about to respond but closed his mouth instead.

Sedi kept searching for a reason, for some cause, and looking closely, her crimson eyes were trembling faintly. He could sense her anxiety. Why was she anxious? Being stared at with those eyes made him feel uneasy too. It gave him the sinking feeling that something troublesome was about to happen.

"...What did Father say to me?"

Ah. So it came back to that after all.

The idle chatter had bought him enough time to sort his thoughts, so Residue was able to rattle it off smoothly.

"Listen, Sedi Trowman. What role do you think parents generally wish for their children?"

"To brand them a cursed child and pray for their swift death?"

"...Well, such cases may exist, but I'm fairly certain I specifically added the word 'generally'."

"How would I know that?"

"Fine. Then I'll tell you. Every parent wants their child to become someone remarkable. Subconsciously, or openly, they wish for a being that surpasses themselves."

At this point, Residue began to gradually raise his tone.

"Lukas was the same. He wanted you, whom he considered his daughter, to spiritually succeed him. Unavoidable circumstances forced him to entrust his body to me, but his will, at least, he hoped you would carry on."

"......"

"You asked me earlier. You asked what changes if one of the Twelve Void Lords is absent from the summit...... Do you truly think I came all this way because you're a Void Lord, simply because you govern the vast territory of Demensio, simply because you're a being who absorbed the Black Thorn Demon King's power and retained her sense of self? That I came here to use you as one more tool to prevent Destruction?"

Of course, those were exactly the reasons he had come.

But Residue betrayed not a sliver of that truth, and with an expression now laced with indignation, he pressed on.

"No! I came because Lukas considered you his daughter! Look at yourself. You carry a singular history, a Void Lord who was once an Absolute. There must be a reason you came to possess such a background. Do you understand, Sedi Trowman? Lukas would have expected you to play a decisive role in a summit like this."

Probably.

"The title of second-generation Beginning Wizard was originally a mantle he was meant to inherit. And the Beginning Wizard also served as mediator between the Four Knights and the Void Lords...... And now, the mightiest of the Unified World have all gathered in one place. If that summit can be brought to a successful close without discord, it would quite literally mean surpassing Lukas."

Probably.

"Can you believe it? That rigid, oblivious man truly considered you his daughter! He told me you were the most precious being to him in all the world──"

"Cut the crap. You think that man would ever say something like that?"

The cold voice struck like a splash of ice water, snapping him back to his senses. It seemed he had gotten too swept up in his own speech and gone too far.

And he looked at Sedi with fresh eyes.

This one is rather sharp, in more ways than one.

She clearly was not the type that could be fooled as easily as Death Worm.

Residue thought for a moment, then let out a sudden sigh and spoke.

"...Very well. It's truly unfortunate, but Sedi Trowman, I will respect your wishes."

And without a shred of lingering attachment, he turned his back as if to leave at once. Agolet, who had been listening to Residue's nonsense with interest beside him, cut in at the perfect moment.

"Do you truly intend to leave just like this, Your Majesty?"

"I do. Sedi Trowman isn't the only one who can be called Lukas's daughter, after all. If she has no will to carry on his legacy, I'll simply have to make the offer to the other one."

He deliberately whispered the latter half in a voice just barely, tantalizingly audible.

Then, rather than hurrying away or summoning Michael, he walked toward the exit at a leisurely pace.

Five steps, he predicted.

One, two, three, four, five.

"Wait... a moment."

A voice came from behind.

When Residue turned around, he saw Sedi, risen awkwardly from her seat.

"Did I hear you wrong?"

"About what."

"You said there's another daughter besides me? What does that mean? Did that man take someone else as an adopted daughter?"

Even now, the thought that the girl might have been born to him didn't cross her mind in the slightest.

Residue hid that observation and slipped back into his act once more.

Here, he put on a look of utter surprise, as if caught off guard, and asked in return.

"Don't tell me you haven't heard anything from the Blue Knight? About the existence of Luca Trowman?"

"Luca Trowman?"

"Well, this is......"

Residue put on a troubled expression and, inwardly, apologized to Luca.

'I'll have to sell you out a bit for the time being.'

*****

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