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"I'll be the hero who saves the world in 5 years."

"...Are you still at the age to play such childish games?"

"It's not childish; I succeeded in my last quest!"

Rosaria tried to show Freesia the adventure sketchbook she had shown Reed.

Just as Freesia was about to react with a sullen expression, the door to Rosaria's room opened, and Reed entered.

"Rosaria, I'll be coming in for a moment. Ah, I knew you'd be here, Master of the Black Sky Tower."

"Oh, nice to see you."

Freesia greeted him by raising a finger.

"Would you like to talk somewhere else?"

"Well, let's do that."

Freesia obediently stood up from her seat and followed Reed.

Rosaria innocently greeted her, but Freesia didn't even react.

As soon as they got on the elevator, Freesia, who had been keeping her mouth shut, spoke up.

"The little brat grew a lot. She doesn’t know to be afraid of Master of the Black Sky Tower and commits rudeness."

"She's only 11 years old now. She'll grow up a little late."

"Isn't it normal to apologize for being rude? You've become quite brazen too."

Freesia kicked Reed's shin.

"She's 11 years old now. She'll soon surpass my age."

That remark meant that she could guess the age when she acquired the Broken Ring that Defies Fate.

"Are you thinking about how old I am now?"

"Yes."

Freesia leaned against Reed with a playful smile.

"You're such a sly guy. If you had such a taste, why didn't you tell me earlier? Do you want to abandon your fiancée and come to your sister?"

"Well, that's a bit..."

Reed liked adult women.

Intellectual, mature women who plan well for the future.

Freesia didn't fall into either category.

If there was someone close, it would be Rosaria.

"I'm really disappointed in you. I've done so much for you. How could you?"

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah, with this kind of body, what kind of guy could I seduce? Only a crazy guy would be attracted to me."

She sighed unusually long and even self-deprecated, which made him feel bewildered internally.

'What's going on?'

He began to wonder why she had come here.

They arrived at the reception room, and Freesia took out a chair and refreshments from her shadow and sat down on the opposite side of Reed.

"The reason you came here is..."

"You got magic from Helios, right?"

Reed nodded his head.

"Yes."

"What kind of magic is it?"

Seeing her interest, he could roughly guess why she had come.

"Do you remember when the hero was resurrected, led the heroes of the past, and occupied the castle?"

"Yeah."

"It's a magic similar to what was used to penetrate the barrier at that time. It's a magic that can produce high power with little mana."

"Is that so? Tell me more."

Reed explained everything about the magic he had received from Helios.

As he explained, Reed was the one who was surprised.

He thought her eyes would sparkle like when she first saw the sacred sword, but she was too calm.

Freesia played with her lips as she thought and spoke to him.

"If I can use it by risking my life, does that mean I could die if I use it? Why didn't you bring it to me?"

"The mechanism wasn't what you desired, Master of the Black Tower. It's not about using up all your life force, but rather, when all the mana is gone and mana addiction symptoms occur, squeezing out mana in that mana-addicted state."

"Is that how it works?"

Freesia licked her lips as if disappointed.

"Then, do you think that thing, when completed, could kill me?"

If she used all the mana in the tower to manifest high-level magic, would her life force be exhausted before it could be revived?

Reed had the same question.

He had obtained some results through several experiments, but he hadn't yet gathered enough data to give a definite answer.

"It probably would."

"It's not probably."

Freesia spoke firmly.

"Give me a definite answer right now. Whether it can kill me or not."

Reed was a bit taken aback by Freesia's words.

She had never seriously talked like that before, except when she was angry.

Even that had been brushed off vaguely, but this time, he felt she genuinely wanted an answer.

Realizing her own desperation, Freesia retracted her statement and lowered her hand.

"I guess I asked too much of you. Just pretend you didn't hear it."

"I will definitely keep my promise. I'm not just playing around, so please understand."

"I just got impatient. I was momentarily enchanted by that kid's words."

"Enchanted by that kid? What do you mean?"

When Reed asked, Freesia answered.

"A guy who said he would kill me came to my tower."

"Tower Master?"

It was an unexpected situation.

There were always people who wanted to kill Freesia.

She had humiliated many, turning them into undead if she didn't like them, accumulating more bad deeds than virtues.

In the past, they would directly declare it, but now that she was the Master of the Black Sky Tower and a great magician, would there be anyone who would dare to say such a thing to her?

'It's impossible.'

If they had nothing to lose, they might be crazy enough to do so, but if they had the ability, they would have secretly planned it.

Even the Master of the Tower of Sky Chamber, whom she had known for a long time, didn't know what she wanted, and the fact that she wanted to die was a secret known only to Reed.

"Can you tell who it is?"

"I don't know. If that child is trying to hide his identity, he's doing a better job than anyone I've ever seen. But one thing is for sure, it doesn't seem like it was intentional. That guy is definitely a non-existent being."

"Non-existent?"

"Everything that exists in this world, even things that humans can't see, can be observed by someone. And by borrowing their eyes, we can somehow observe them too. But it's hard to identify them by any means."

"An irregular existence."

The existence that suddenly appeared to Freesia.

Reed sensed a connection in the behavior as if he had known her for a long time.

'Is it a character related to the origin of the dragon that Phoebe mentioned?'

He wondered if the person targeting Rosaria was not playing tricks on Freesia.

As that fear settled in his heart, Freesia softly spoke to Reed.

"If I fail to die this time, I'll join that man's side."

It was a bombshell statement.

Reed locked eyes with Freesia.

After about 10 seconds of just exchanging glances, Reed opened his mouth again.

"Don't say things you don't mean."

"Does it seem like a joke now?"

"No, I don't think it's a joke. It's just..."

Reed knew she wouldn't do that.

If he were the old Reed, it would have been a nerve-wracking statement.

But, having seen her ups and downs for a long time, perhaps he could catch a glimpse of her true intentions from her words and actions.

'Saying something that rings hollow means she doesn't mean it.'

Most of the time when she does that, she tends to speak maliciously.

When he fully grasped that, it was when she had returned after the battle with the hero, and she gently pressed his severed arm with her foot.

"You're looking right through me now. I want to kill you."

"I didn't know, but there are more people who want to kill me than I thought."

"It's because you're annoying. You talk rudely to your seniors. How old are you?"

"I see."

"Are you laughing? I really want to rip your heart out. Just like that."

Her grumbling voice echoed hollowly.

Reed took the opportunity to say something he had wanted to say to Freesia.

"Thank you."

"...For what?"

"For saving me. Everything seemed hopeless when my right arm flew off, but thanks to you, I didn't have to worry about that."

"..."

Freesia stared at Reed with her eyes narrowed.

He wondered if there was a mistake in his words, given her reaction.

Freesia, who had been petrified like a stone, licked her lips and expressed her complicated feelings simply.

"Damn it."

Freesia stood up from her seat.

Having lost the desire to stay, she walked towards the reception room door.

"I have one question."

He caught her as she hurriedly tried to leave and asked.

"What is it?"

"When you get hurt, is it painful until the wound heals?"

Reed had experienced his body returning to its original state.

The pain was so unbearable that he thought it would be easier to die.

After going through such pain, he realized that Freesia's whining wasn't just childish antics.

"What do you think it would be like if that pain became a part of everyday life?"

"I don't know."

"Don't worry about it."

"Right, you don't need to know."

***

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***

"Forceps, blue herb, scalpel, thread, sutures, werewolf liver..."

A man was engrossed in his research in a dark space.

The space was unstable and not clearly visible, but everything the man needed was in that space.

"I'm busy, so busy..."

Work was hectic, and there were not enough hands.

If you had to do everything alone, there would be times when you wished you had more hands.

As if to realize such a thought, the man had two more hands attached to his sides.

The four hands moved busily, repeatedly inserting something into the body and suturing it.

They moved very quickly, but also accurately.

An immense concentration was evident in his eyes, and his mouth endlessly spat out the ingredients and methods like a mantra to shake off distractions.

-You seem very busy.

"Ah!"

As soon as he heard the voice, the man stopped what he was doing and knelt on the spot.

He trembled and begged for forgiveness.

"Oh my! Master, have you arrived!?"

-I've been watching for 10 minutes.

"I'm sorry, I was so preoccupied that I didn't pay attention. Please forgive this disrespect..."

-Enough.

The incomplete being looked past him at what was laid on the operating table.

If one had to describe it, it was a piece of meat.

With threads sewing the flesh here and there, it was an object difficult to describe as any creature.

-How is the research going?

"It's going smoothly. Very smoothly. Look at this beautiful thing. Haha!"

Surprisingly, he pointed to the object he was sewing.

It didn't feel beautiful to the incomplete being.

It felt like an amateur-made sausage.

"This is the strongest life form on the Cloud Continent, possessing the perfection that a life form should have!"

The incomplete being already knew who the man was and what role he played.

His name was Maronie.

He was to become the fourth disaster after Adonis.

He was born to a nameless magician's family during a famine.

Until he was 10 years old, Maronie, with sparse hair on his head and an ugly appearance, failed to awaken his mana and was almost put to death.

But perhaps because of such trials, his intellect developed for survival, and he began to work as a magical formula operator in the basement of the magic academy, where mana was not needed.

He studied magic to fix his congenital deformity, and after 10 years of research, he found a way to fix his body.

The problem was that he needed a tremendous amount of mana, and there was no one to lend him that much mana.

He requested the magic academy, but even that was rejected.

They refused his request because he was more useful as a magical formula operator than a magician.

Although he knew that they treated magicians like slaves, Maronie came to resent them and escaped from there before dawn.

And then he went to Reed, who was running the "Flower Garden" project.

Although he was hunchbacked and not talented as a magician, he had outstanding potential, so Reed selected him and helped him develop his talent.

His main ability was "Dark Magic".

Rather than reviving corpses, he specialized in fixing and modifying human flesh.

Through this, he produced monsters with abilities comparable to other disasters, and he became the driving force spreading despair throughout the continent.

However, the Flower Garden was abandoned, and the direction Maronie should go disappeared.

It was this incomplete being who took Maronie in.

In order to cope with the changed fate, he chose Maronie as a backup plan.

He lent mana to Maronie, and as a result, his bent spine straightened, and his growth began belatedly and very quickly.

He became a remarkably tall and strong man.

Not only that, but due to the change in his body's shape, the mana channels that had been blocked were opened, and mana began to flow through his body.

He became fully focused on body modification.

His first modification target was himself.

The purpose of the modification was to facilitate further modification research.

As a result, he successfully attached four arms and eight eyes, and his efficiency increased by as much as five times.

-How are the things I told you?

"It was amazing."

Maronie answered with an ecstatic expression.

"Master, you made me realize one by one the ways to escape from the weak flesh of these foolish humans, so I had no choice but to devote my life to you!"

The incomplete being did not like him.

No matter how much it was directed towards himself, there was a limit, and his faith was almost indistinguishable from fanaticism.

He had taught him two things.

The recipe for the failed Eternal Hole, that is, the method of creating theBroken Ring that Defies Fate on Freesia's back.

And the recipe that could truly complete the Eternal Hole.

'Those two cannot coexist.'

Failure and success.

Light and shadow.

They are like two sides of a coin, unable to face the same place.

But he will make it possible for those two to exist simultaneously.

That's why he chose Maronie, this man, as a backup plan.