The green mage finally unleashed the true power of golem magic.
And roughly two hours later, the ruler of the foreign nation, thoroughly humiliated, surrendered and accepted every one of his opponent’s demands.
He signed the peace treaty brought by the deep-sea dweller.
Half of the fortress had been reduced to ruins, and all 2,600 soldiers he had taken such pride in had been swept away by the magic of a single young man.
There was no other choice.
[It would have been nice if you’d listened while I was talking.]
Golem magic.
Originally, those earthen puppets had been used almost exclusively on private property, most commonly released into farmers’ fields to chase away flocks of birds and wild animals.
Those stupid things.
Who could have imagined that one day they would move in such flawless coordination, almost as though every one of them were alive, and slaughter trained knights?
[Of course, it would’ve been even better if you hadn’t thought about expanding your borders in the first place. This is all your fault. Yours. Understand?]
This was the dawn of the machine age.
Armed with a new technology, the green one killed every mage from the enemy nation who tried to stand against him.
[It’s your fault that the celebratory fireworks for my magnificent research achievement had to be drowned in the blood of our own kind.]
There was no longer any guilt.
When the orange one had died, he had hesitated for a long time.
But once the killing actually began, there was nothing particularly difficult or extraordinary about it.
Yeah.
Really.
[Those people who bragged about being the masters of every living thing on this planet... Once you actually see them in action, they’re this insignificant.]
Now, the only thing that occasionally stirred inside him was the faint afterglow of a feeling called emptiness.
Having finished his thoughts, the green mage gathered his golems and crossed the border once more.
By the time he returned to his homeland, the collapse of both the neighboring ruler’s fortress and the Magic Tower had thrown the international situation into complete chaos.
But even that was not something he needed to concern himself with immediately.
***
A familiar landscape came into view.
The deep sea.
Absolute darkness without so much as a trace of light, and crushing water pressure closing in from every direction.
After some time, a lone figure swam through that darkness.
Phew...
On the planet Alphauri, the deep sea was the best shortcut for slipping quietly across national borders.
Come to think of it, I heard those orange comrades died somewhere around these waters.
Since I’m already here, maybe I should take a look around the territory managed by his family.
Long legs.
Strange eyes.
And the title of war hero.
The green man, returning after single-handedly confronting the ruler of another nation in a major international incident, looked surprisingly unassuming.
Unlike warfare on modern Earth, where combat aircraft and other weapons were manufactured in advance and brought into enemy territory, he had simply stuffed the core materials for his coreless constructs—the magic stones—into his pockets and raised his army directly on enemy soil.
After paying my respects, I should return to the academy and refine the golem technique a little further.
He had already discarded every low-grade golem, all of them little better than disposable instant food, and was now returning home with empty tentacles.
Traveling light on both the outward and return journey.
It was an efficient strategy.
It’s quiet.
And as he drifted comfortably through the sea, his highly developed brain naturally began wandering into idle thoughts.
In fact, after personally carrying out the assault on the fortress, the green genius had finally satisfied every requirement.
[Archmage.]
The social conditions associated with that title.
During the early Middle Era, when the war against the beings of Beta Star broke out, most upper-class fortresses had already collapsed, making one of the traditional requirements nearly impossible to fulfill.
And even if those fortresses had remained intact, it had hardly been an age in which members of the same species had time to fight one another.
Thus, regardless of how powerful a mage became, most of those who lived through that era were unable to satisfy the old tradition at the proper time.
Today, however.
The alien being who would one day take the name Kim Gyeo had finally earned the qualifications.
From this moment onward, he was a legally recognized Archmage in both name and substance.
The final condition that had long stood in his way was closely associated with siege and defensive warfare, so a single battle had been enough to satisfy it.
Moreover, this marked the first time in history that an Archmage had ever emerged from the deep-sea territories.
Hmm.
Perhaps, once they heard the news, his fellow countrymen would gather funds from every corner of the nation and erect a golden statue in his likeness, proudly commemorating his achievement.
...
Unfortunately, the owner of those brain cells had always possessed a strangely frog-like streak of contrariness.
And there were certain rewards he simply did not care for.
Sure enough, the genius quickly lost interest in the title of Archmage he had only just obtained.
Becoming an Archmage had been something he had regarded as inevitable since his youth.
There was little excitement in finally reaching a destination he had already seen clearly long ago.
The only reason it had been delayed at all was the traditional requirement involving fortress conquest.
Besides, lately he was already widely regarded as the greatest mage alive.
_-
He had reached the height countless mages dreamed of attaining, shining like a star beyond their reach, and yet his reaction remained utterly indifferent.
Before long, the subject of his thoughts quietly shifted.
Expectation...
For the moment, he had just returned from boldly punishing a neighboring nation for violating the peace everyone had fought so hard to secure.
Now that I think about it, this whole affair turned out very differently from what I expected.
It had been easy.
Despite confronting the ruler of an entire nation, the battle itself had been astonishingly simple.
The enemy had panicked from beginning to end, unable even to determine where the mage controlling the golems was hiding.
And ultimately, their fortress had fallen without leaving so much as a scratch on him.
What a pathetic ending.
The newly recognized Archmage continued swimming as he contemplated the matter.
In truth, it was something he had vaguely suspected from the moment he first encountered the arcane disciplines at the academy.
As expected, every other Alphaurin besides himself was weak.
Power.
Magical ability.
And, as this latest incident had demonstrated—
Mental fortitude as well.
The Great War ended less than ten revolutions ago.
So why do the intelligent creatures of this planet have such short memories?
Back then, everyone had wanted nothing more than for the war to end.
Alphaurins had no culture of making wishes upon shooting stars.
In fact, “the sky” itself carried few positive associations in their society.
Instead, they whispered their hopes to rare fish that glowed faintly white as they drifted through the sea.
Those creatures possessed long, slender bodies and were seldom seen.
Their pale glow had therefore come to symbolize dreams and hope among the Alphaurins.
Come to think of it, back then there were so many people rubbing their tentacles raw as they begged desperately, saying they would do anything if only they could return home...
There had once been citizens who swore they would treasure peace for the rest of their lives if only the Beta aliens disappeared from the world.
People who had claimed they wanted nothing more.
And now those same people whispered to the glowing creatures, begging for just one more patch of their neighbor’s land to call their own.
The hero, having observed the pattern as a whole, quickly reached a conclusion.
This can’t go on.
It was perfect arrogance.
I can’t stand it anymore.
After one incident after another, he had completely lost faith in his own species.
Yet even while watching those hopeless fools, he still found life itself—and the universe containing it—beautiful.
Before his people bled themselves into extinction over meaningless conflicts, shouldn’t someone hurry up and begin [Management]?
The total surface area of Alphauri.
Each nation’s food self-sufficiency rate.
Theories on agricultural efficiency previously presented before academic societies.
And countless other pieces of information.
A vast number of Alphaurins had died during the Great War.
Meanwhile, the planet they inhabited was so enormous, so vast, so grand and heavy that words could scarcely convey its scale.
Under conditions like these, only a modest amount of adjustment would be necessary for everyone to live quite comfortably.
All they had to do was refrain from becoming excessively greedy.
Yeah.
And it just so happened that he possessed more than enough power to punish the small number of greedy ones.
I think this would be better.
The green young man soon reached his decision.
For the greater good, some sacrifices were inevitable.
Besides, he was already thoroughly disgusted by their incompetence.
They had not even been capable of properly defending themselves against a single invasion by neighboring bandits.
I didn’t like the fact that they couldn’t even deal with the Magic Tower on their own.
While I’m at it, I might as well take our ruler’s head too.
A rebellion born from the purest of intentions.
The deep-sea creature arrived at that horrifying conclusion with an almost cheerful frame of mind.
He would use overwhelming force to kill the leaders of every nation who would inevitably resist out of fear of losing their authority.
Then, once that authority had passed into his hands, he would use it to govern the entire world.
That was all.
He merely wished to manage his pitiful, foolish kin so that pointless wars would never break out again.
There was not a trace of selfish desire behind it.
That alone was disturbing enough.
But the green man had also reached the physical prime of his species that very year.
So then—
Who could possibly stop him?
Through this incident, I’ve realized that it’s impossible to live on this planet while embracing every Alphaurin.
A terrifying situation.
If there’s no other choice, then shouldn’t I at least choose the path that allows the overwhelming majority to enjoy lasting happiness?
It was the moment a genius became a disaster.
With that dangerous goal firmly established in his mind, the green man continued through the water.
Then—
A certain light began approaching from ahead as the deep-sea dweller glided forward as smoothly as a torpedo.
Hmm?
Faint.
Hazy.
Yet unmistakably blue.
It was a familiar form of bioluminescence.
“Sir ▒▒-r!”
“Hero of the Academy!”
“We’ve been waiting for such a long time, but you’re finally here!”
“There he is! There he is!”
A herd of mammalian livestock commonly used as transportation on Alphauri suddenly appeared from the darkness.
Perched atop the animals were several Alphaurins, tightly gripping the creatures’ whiskers.
More precisely, they were not particularly close acquaintances.
They were merely Alphaurins he vaguely remembered seeing around the Academy.
“What?”
“What brings you here?”
He asked out of curiosity, and an ultra-low-frequency reply soon came from the other side.
“We came to celebrate with you!”
“News that the enemy’s fortress had fallen already reached us.”
“The tradition...”
“You’ve finally fulfilled every requirement.”
“Doesn’t that mean you’re officially entitled to be called an Archmage now?”
“I never imagined you’d accomplish it this quickly.”
Their arrival instantly shattered the silence of the deep sea.
And upon closer inspection, one of them was even carrying a large and beautifully crafted wreath.
Receiving the title of Archmage came with numerous benefits—authority recognized by the state, greater influence within the Academy, and various other privileges.
So naturally, for the community as a whole, it was an occasion worth celebrating.
Hmm?
A welcoming party had never once crossed his mind, and for a moment his thoughts simply stopped.
Still, the feeling was not unpleasant.
After all, how many people in this world truly disliked being praised?
Yes...
How many, really...
_-
Suddenly, he felt tired.
“I knew you could do it.”
A few seconds later, the whale they were riding drew near.
The green Archmage filled his lungs, preparing to say something.
“Congratulations!”
But the other person spoke just a little faster.
And so, carried along like a current through the water, the eccentric creature whose upper body—the region functioning as its face—was covered in brightly colored feather-like growths continued speaking.
“From this day onward, as a proud Archmage, I warmly welcome you to this place... [Indecipherable sounds or coded symbol ▒▒▒ ▒▒▒ ▒▒▒▒ ▒▒]”
Unfortunately, even far in the future, after his reincarnation, the genius would barely be able to remember the full contents of the eccentric’s congratulatory speech from that day.
.
.
.
.
“Okay. That’s enough about the Middle Era.”
_-
“The explanation from this point onward is going to be vague overall.”
“Yes?”
_-
“I’m going to start rambling like someone who’s undergone a lobotomy. There’ll be plenty of illogical and awkward parts.”
_-
“So don’t get too suspicious. Just listen for now. Consider it a recommendation.”
_-
“It’s deliberate foreshadowing, after all.”
_-
“Would you like some more green tea?”
_-
“Seonwoo Yeon, are you perhaps so bored by what I’m saying that you’ve started sleeping with your eyes open?”
“No, no. It’s just that everything is so new and overwhelming that I got a little dazed, so please don’t think that...”
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