In Another World, the Boy Was Spoiled by the Iron Knight!

Chapter 325: The End

Suddenly, his arm was grabbed with strong force.

No matter how much he tried to pull away, he could not escape.

It was not just a little painful, it hurt quite a lot.

"Shiao Yi. I told you before. Don’t go alone. Don’t leave me behind. Wherever you go, we go together."

Seeing the desperate look in Dominic’s eyes, Shiao Yi regretted his words at once.

That’s right.

He was not supposed to act alone and leave Dominic behind.

"Sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. Then let’s go together. We still need to tell His Excellency that we’re taking today off."

"We’ll have Jude deliver the message. So where were you planning to go?"

"The Desert of Death."

"The Desert of Death? You mean the place where the first exit entrance was?"

Shiao Yi nodded quietly.

They jumped there by teleportation, arriving in the early evening as dusk began to fall.

There was a time lag of about ten hours.

With autumn arriving, the inland desert with no greenery was rapidly growing colder.

Bathed in the fading light of the setting sun and the glow of the two rising moons, the sand glittered in gold.

A massive crater lay open there.

When Dominic had unleashed his magic with brute force, all the ruins and sandstorms in the area had been blown away, creating a huge collapse.

At the time, the bottom had turned glass-like as melted sand and minerals reformed.

But over the past two years, a large amount of sand had piled up.

Now it had become a flat stretch of sand surrounded by a raised outer rim.

In the center of it, a black human-shaped figure could be seen.

That was probably what had been calling him.

Shiao Yi descended together with Dominic to the center of the flat hollow.

The thing with bluish-black skin was something different that only took the shape of a human.

It looked like it had been forced to copy a human form or like a human shape that had broken and twisted.

It was a distorted figure.

Even so, it had a head, and it did have two eyes, two ears, and one mouth.

Their positions and shapes were scattered and uneven, but it could still barely be called a face.

There was no sign of a nose.

It probably did not breathe at all.

"A magical beast that was once a human and devoured others until the end?" Dominic muttered with a deep frown.

"Were you the one calling me?" Shiao Yi asked the thing that had once been human.

"O, oh, ooooh... y-yes... c-calling... ahhh... m-maybe... I was."

It opened its hollow mouth with no teeth and somehow forced out broken sounds.

It felt as if, after a very long time, it had even forgotten how to speak.

"A-Aeon is gone. I know now. I wanted... to speak... to the one who defeated it."

As if memories were returning, its way of speaking slowly became smoother.

"I... was once... the chief royal mage... of the kingdom that prospered on this land."

That meant it had lived for thousands of years.

As a magical beast.

And yet it had managed to keep its human awareness.

That was incredible mental strength.

Now that Shiao Yi thought about it, there had also been someone underground who had kept guarding the other side of the exit entrance.

In the end, that one had finally collapsed and vanished.

"We could not defeat Aeon. All we could do was drive it underground. The price we paid... was this desert."

The mage who had become a magical beast slowly looked around at the wide desert that stretched endlessly.

No expression appeared on its bluish-black face.

Like a man-made doll, it was calm and flat, with emotions that felt completely level.

"In this world, the power of light flows across the land and is drawn into the earth at the poles. Deep within the ground, at the center of the world, lies a core of dark power. The light is taken into that darkness, and from there it is reborn and circulates again across the surface. In this way, the balance of the world is maintained."

It reminded Shiao Yi of magnetic field lines surrounding Earth.

There were differences between energy and magic, but the basic principles seemed the same.

"However, not long after this world was born, magical power split into two. We do not know why. Perhaps something triggered it, or perhaps it was simply a law of nature. A dark monster that devoured the power of light was born. That was the beginning of Aeon. It continued to grow larger and larger, and began to threaten the balance of the world. If left alone, the world would eventually be destroyed."

The magical beast, no, the magical human wavered unsteadily, its form flickering as if it might fall apart at any moment.

"We sealed it underground, but it was only a temporary, emergency measure. One day, Aeon would have appeared on the surface again. There were not many mages who survived, but we split into two groups. Those who stayed underground to watch over the exit entrance, and those who remained on the surface to leave warnings for those who would come later."

"So the one who drew the magic circles in the ruins and left the words behind... was you. But as a warning, those magic circles were extremely dangerous, weren’t they?"

Dominic spoke carefully, as if confirming the truth piece by piece.

"At first, they were not such magic circles. They were meant to protect and to warn. However, over the long passage of time, we who became magical beasts slowly changed as parts of Aeon itself. In the end, many lost their sense of self and rewrote the magic circles. One by one, they were worn down and disappeared."

Then, the former mage turned toward them.

Its scattered eyes clearly focused on Shiao Yi and Dominic, watching them.

"Most likely, I am the last one. I was able to witness the end of Aeon. I can bring good news to those who went on before me. For that, I am truly grateful."

Though its tone remained flat, the magical human bowed deeply to Shiao Yi and Dominic.

"I offer my gratitude on behalf of the people of the former kingdom and on behalf of us mages."

At some point, stars had begun to shine in the sky.

Under the light of the stars and the moons, Shiao Yi noticed that the magical human’s body had grown very thin and faint.

On the surface, where the power of light dominated, anything that did not receive the power of darkness would naturally fade and disappear.

Those who had become magical beasts were in greater or lesser ways parts of Aeon itself.

They were beings that depended on it.

"I have remained for a very long time. While hiding within the ancient letters of the ruins, I could preserve myself to some extent. But once outside, I can feel myself rapidly fading away."

Shiao Yi quickly spoke to the one who was about to disappear.

"Does that mean you’re going to die? Isn’t there anything that can be done?"

"I am not dying. I am only disappearing. We do not possess emotions. We are not human. We do not have what you would call a heart. We simply exist. Once our connection to Aeon is cut, we fade away. It is like light or shadow, just a natural phenomenon. Even sand has substance, but we do not even have that."

His body had become so thin that Shiao Yi could see straight through it, all the way to the desert stretching beyond and the deepening night filled with stars.

Its outline blurred, becoming thinner and thinner, more and more faint, until even the remaining traces were swept away by the night wind and vanished completely.

They stood there for a while, unable to move.

At last, Dominic spoke, as if making up his mind. "Shiao Yi. Desert nights get cold. Shall we head back soon?"

"Yeah..."

With a feeling as if something were pulling at his heart, Shiao Yi turned back one more time to look at the place where the great mage had once stood.

"Ah, Dominic. Look."

There, in that spot, a single pale green sprout had pushed its way out of the sand.

In a desert where no grass, no insects, no living creatures could survive, one small leaf had sprouted.

"Even the Desert of Death will probably change from now on," Dominic said.

"Yeah... yeah. I think so too, Dominic."

For some reason, tears began to fall, and they would not stop.

Being held tightly in Dominic’s arms, with his back gently stroked, Shiao Yi cried openly, his sobs echoing out loud.

It felt as though everything he had carried until now was melting away and flowing out together with his tears.

Behind Shiao Yi, who kept crying for a long time, the small green sprout swayed softly in the wind.

The End.