The Great Mage Returns After 4000 Years

Translator: Alpha0210

"So the rank of Four Knight can be cast aside at a whim, just like the Void Lords, it seems."

The Black Thorn Demon King spoke, a trace of dry laughter in his voice.

Residue was about to flatly deny it, only to realize that he, too, knew next to nothing about the Four Knights.

"Agolet?"

"Yes, Your Majesty. Of course, the Four Knights is not a post one can simply set down at will."

No doubt.

If it had been possible to step down of one's own accord, Pale would have flung the bothersome post away long ago.

He looked at Lucid once more.

Residue could not decide how to size this man up.

Hero of a bygone age, master swordsman, old companion of Lukas Trowman, undead, and currently a Four Knight. His identities were a jumbled mess. As varied and tangled as Residue's own, which meant, from experience, that a man like that usually lived a life twisted into a wretched knot.

"Well, then. Black Knight. My dear retainer tells me as much. This post of the Four Knights, the one that cannot be relinquished, do you claim to know a method that even those who held the seat long before you never knew? Or are you simply spouting nonsense?"

"I am not worthy to hold this seat."

Lucid said again.

"And why do you think that?"

"My existence is profoundly out of place, even among the Four Knights."

"The same is true of the others. Take the White Knight, who differs from the rest, and the same goes for the Blue Knight."

"That is not what I mean. The symbolic weight that every one of them carries as a Four Knight, that is the thing I lack."

"......?"

"I have little connection to Death."

The expressions of the other Knights changed.

Residue looked around at their faces, one by one. The Blue Knight, who had suffered through Famine; the White Knight, who could not rein in his Conquest; and, judging by her expression, the Red Knight too seemed bound, to some degree, to War.

But the Black Knight was claiming otherwise, and if his words were true, then he was indeed an anomaly even among the Four Knights.

"True, I died once and was brought back, but in itself that is hardly remarkable from a cosmic standpoint. And I still do not fear death, nor does it stir me much. If anyone is deeply bound to Death, it would sooner be the necromancer Diablo, the one who raised me as undead."

As it happened, Diablo was present in the Summit Hall as well. Within his hollow eye sockets, a dark green Ghost Fire burned.

Residue knew of the convictions that undead held, too. He knew, as well, that the man had to some degree uncovered the truth of annihilation by his own efforts. His power might be paltry, but through that near-mad obsession he had unquestionably achieved something meaningful. In a way, one could say he resembled the Exile in life. The upshot was that Residue bore no ill feeling toward Diablo.

"So I thought on it for a very long time. Whether I am not simply holding this seat on a temporary basis."

"Temporary?"

"To put it coldly, the very existence of the Four Knights is forced."

The man who had kept his mouth shut for so long, once he started talking, would not stop. The Lucid in Lukas's memories had not been a man of many words, which meant he must have spent his silence putting in order everything he had to say.

"To begin with, I was nothing more than an ordinary man. Fortune favored me well enough that I managed to leave some mark on history, but most of you who fill these seats are the strongest beings of an entire universe. Your births and your lives alike must be special beyond any comparison with my own."

"What is it you are trying to say?"

"The moment I grew certain was when the Red Knight disclosed the circumstances of her own birth."

Lucid's eyes turned toward El.

As the gazes of the two, man and woman, both holding their faces blank, tangled in the empty air, an indescribable mood took shape for a brief moment.

"Her race is no ordinary one, yet taken as a whole they were the weak. I do not know the pasts of the remaining two Knights well, but I doubt they differ greatly from us."

Of course, Residue knew the pasts of the White Knight and the Blue Knight as well, and so he knew Lucid's guess was not wrong.

Agolet, who had been a member of the Perfect One but a Dropout, and Pale, who like Lucid had once been human, had both surely been among the weak at one time.

Interest rose on Residue's face. What he felt, looking at the Four Knights, was that in many respects they held elements directly opposed to the Rulers. Something like being positioned beyond a mirror, or at the exact opposite pole.

What about Lucid?

What had this man felt in the Four Knights, what had he seen?

"...I came to learn that the World of Void cannot be separated from the Three Thousand Worlds. The two worlds could once not interfere with one another in the slightest, yet that does not mean they held no influence over each other. It mostly took the form of aftershocks from events in the Three Thousand Worlds manifesting belatedly in the World of Void, but one cannot dismiss it as a simple one-way relationship."

It was a thought Residue himself had been having of late.

It was called the Garbage Dump as a slur, and in truth its role had been much the same, but at this point in time the World of Void was no place that could simply be written off as somewhere abandoned.

After all, of those who filled these seats, the greater share came from the World of Void. And the mightiest being in all the Unified World had been born here too.

"The Four Knights came into being because the Rulers existed. Is that what you're saying right now?"

Pale said.

Her tone itself was playful, yet for some reason Residue sensed the woman was slowly working herself into a temper. It was an unwelcome thing to notice, too. He had no particular wish to know, but it was a fact he had been forced to know thanks to Lukas's influence.

"It could be put the other way around."

"The other way?"

"It was because the Four Knights existed that the Rulers came into being."

"......"

Lightning God, the Black Thorn Demon King, and Beniang fell silent, and Residue's expression grew gradually strange. It was the peculiar undertone in Lucid's voice.

"I'm starting to see what you're getting at."

Residue opened his mouth.

"The birth of the Four Knights was forced to an excessive degree, and among them you were a particularly severe case...... To fill out the number that the Four Knights demanded, you became the Black Knight on a provisional basis – a role meant to step aside the moment a true Black Knight appears. Is that what you are saying?"

"It is."

"An amusing theory, but is not everything you claim mere conjecture? It is not as though you have any sure means of proof."

"I have proof. I can renounce my power as Black Knight at any time."

"What?"

Lucid rose from his seat.

Of the two blades at his waist, he drew the one that carried an especially ominous air.

"This blade was originally forged from the heart of the necromancer who brought me back. But after I came to the World of Void and became the Black Knight, after it had passed through many transformations, it would now be no exaggeration to call the sword itself the very emblem of the Black Knight."

The next moment, Lucid drove Heart Knight into the floor.

"Here and now, I relinquish all claim to Heart Knight."

Clatter...... The Black Armor encasing Lucid shuddered of its own accord and began to peel away on its own. As it did, a sound like a tearing Wailing Ghost Sound rang out, and the way the armor pieces creaked apart and were drawn into the hilt of the blade together conjured up a vision of hell.

Even Residue could only blink at the abruptness of the spectacle. He stood there dazed until the black armor wrapping Lucid's body had vanished entirely and that body gave off the stench of a lowly corpse, and then he asked:

"You don't mean you've just given up the seat of Black Knight, here, now?"

"I do."

"......"

Built like a slab and yet this impulsive? Residue stared at Lucid, taken aback.

"What's the rush? Couldn't this have waited?"

"Then you would not have chosen me."

"No. There's no reason for me to choose you simply because you've stopped being the Black Knight, either."

"I ask it of you."

Lucid said, bowing his head.

At the look of him, as though he might drop to his knees, Residue grew curious and asked:

"What makes you want to go to the Outside? Plenty here are eager for the chance, sure, but that's because most of them are at least a little mad. Anyone with their wits about them has no reason to leave."

"Must I state my reason?"

"Hm, no. Truth be told, I'm not particularly curious."

Residue declared with a shrug.

"Fine. Lucid. I'll pick you as the third."

"......!?"

Iris, standing beside him, looked at Residue with a startled face. The eyes of those who had been quietly watching the situation until now, those dead set on reaching the 'Outside', changed as well.

Only two seats remained now, and for reasons they could not name they had the premonition that the madman was not likely to pick them.

"...You truly mean to choose me?"

Lucid asked back with a bewildered face, but Residue ignored him and went on.

"Then shall I announce the fourth and fifth picks right away too? One of them is here. The former 0th Demon and now the Demon King: Kasajin."

[......]

Kasajin, an Absolute who had not been making his presence felt, took on a startled look. He seemed scarcely able to believe his own name had suddenly been called.

Iris, at his side, jabbed him in the ribs and whispered.

"What are you doing right now?"

"Making my selections, obviously."

"Are you joking around? Or is this some kind of scheme too? Don't tell me the last pick is Schweiser?"

"It isn't."

Iris's expression turned subtle, and Residue added,

"He goes by Anastasia now, not Schweiser, last I checked."

"......"

Iris had lost her words; before she could snap back to her senses and fire something off,

a pressure burst out as if detonating and swept over the whole of the Summit Hall in an instant. When the startled Iris turned her head, there was the face of the Lightning God, a smile spread across every inch of it.

"I've heard quite enough of your nonsense. Only now am I beginning to see the principle behind your actions."

"And what principle is that?"

Residue asked because he was truly curious.

At some point even he had come, more and more often, to be unable to make sense of his own feelings. Still, this was a being that had once been one and the same as him, observing him from a third party's vantage, so a fairly sharp analysis seemed likely to come of it.

"You choose nothing but the unexpected. Is that the influence of Lukas Trowman? I sense a certain compulsion in it, too. As if you were under pressure to always make a special, out-of-the-ordinary choice."

"Hm......"

"Up to now, perhaps such choices have made things work out for you. But this time is different. If you go to the Outside with the members you named, you'll be wiped out in seconds, unable to hold even that long."

There was some chance the Lightning God was right, so he fell silent for a moment.

He still believed himself to be in the right, but that did not mean he should take it for granted that the other's argument was wrong.

"Right. Lightning God. You may have spoken on everyone's behalf, but surely you're not the only one with a grievance about my choices. If any of you here want to go to the Outside, would you mind raising a hand?"

Dry chuckles leaked out here and there. The sight of Absolutes raising their hands in agreement with such a request would no doubt look fairly ridiculous.

A few really did raise their hands, but the prideful ones, the Black Thorn Demon King, the Lightning God, Pale, did not heed Residue's words. Through expression and bearing alone they merely let show an air that said, 'I have a serious grievance with your decision, and if you do not make me understand it, I will tear you to shreds.'

"I expected there'd be grievances. To add to that, no matter whom I'd picked, I could never have satisfied all of you."

So he had had a countermeasure in mind from the very start.

Residue continued.

"Which is why, from the very beginning, this was......"

"Your scheme to stall for time is plain to see."

The Black Thorn Demon King said with a faint smile.

"Are you waiting for the Half King? It's true that with the power she holds, she might be able to override the grievances that have just surfaced. But I have no wish to introduce any further variables."

"......"

"The ticket to the Outside is in your hands. I doubt killing you and taking that ticket would cause any functional problem."

"No. This ticket and I are wholly as one, you know?"

Residue mounted what defense he could, but it didn't make the slightest dent.

Those who seemed to share the Black Thorn Demon King's intent were slowly rising from their seats. Rulers and Four Knights, Twelve Void Lords and Absolutes; beings who had only ever been at odds with one another, now moving as one heart and one mind to kill him. The sight of it made Residue's chest swell.

And then he turned his head to the lone ally in the present situation.

"Agolet."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"You focus on defense. I'll subdue them one at a time from behind you."

He said this as he drew out the Thunder Staff, but no answer came back.

"Agolet?"

"Before that, there is one thing I would ask, if I may."

"What is it?"

"Why did you not choose me?"

"......"

For an instant Residue's gaze and Agolet's tangled in the air. When Residue, finding nothing to say, stayed still, the corner of Agolet's mouth twisted slightly.

"His Majesty is–"

The instant the lips parted and the voice slipped out, Residue knew by instinct what words the man meant to follow with.

And so he spoke, snatching the line away as if to cut him off.

"...a being of great strength. And you will surely face no end of crises in the days to come. Set against those, what is the hardship before you now but an obstacle the size of a little hill? ...There. That's the drivel you wanted to spew, isn't it? Agolet."

"...As expected of His Majesty."

Agolet smiled radiantly.

"You see straight through this Agolet's heart, precisely."

Whether it was some kind of demonstration or an outpouring of discontent, there was no telling.

In any case, Agolet was declaring that he would not help.

Persuasion did not seem likely to make him listen, so Residue shook his head.

"...Fine. Come at me, all of you. Four Knights, Rulers, the lot."

Still, the Half-King should arrive by the end of today. And if he didn't? Then there'd be nothing for it but to run. With One Step Through Time and Space, he could shake off everyone present without much trouble.

The moment Residue spoke in a half-resigned frame of mind, someone strode up and came to stand beside him.

"I'll help you, Residue."

Residue's expression turned subtle.

The one now standing shoulder to shoulder with him was, as a fighting asset, certainly someone to be relied upon, but he could not clearly guess why she was acting this way.

"What's gotten into you? Red Knight."

The Red Knight, El, gave a small laugh.

"Because I can't let you die here."

"What?"

"I can feel the power of the Sun God inside you. Its nature seems to have shifted a great deal already, which intrigues me. If it were joined with the half-giant's power within me... doesn't it excite you?"

"What does?"

"The child we'll have."

"I beg your pardon?"

Residue had asked in polite speech, so rattled was he, and Iris beside him was more flustered still. But they had no chance to carry the conversation any further.

The Lightning God's thunder tore through space and came crashing down.

*****

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