The magician, overwhelmed by Heinz’s consolation, gasped for breath.
“L-Lord Heinz! That was just in case our plan failed… to have an alternative prepared…!”
“Enough. Silence.”
Heinz, staring intently at the paper, reached out his hand. No one except Heinz dared to open their mouths. The magicians, pale with fear, watched as Heinz picked up the paper.
“……”
For a while, Heinz silently stared at the paper.
As Heinz’s silence dragged on, a few magicians sitting in the back hesitated and then slowly rose from their seats. Ignoring the reproachful glances of their colleagues, they began to step backward.
“Sit.”
“Ack!”
They fell flat on their faces before taking even a few steps. Perhaps aware of their guilt, they couldn’t muster the courage to rise again and simply trembled. Heinz, watching them, burst into laughter. His laughter grew louder and louder.
“Haha!”
“L-Lord Heinz. I swear upon the great name of Lord Heinz that we never intended to actually carry out that plan….”
“Shut up, you madman.”
Heinz threw the paper with a cheerful laugh.
“Judging by this, it’s all ready to go. What, do you think I’m a fool?”
On the fluttering paper was a method to extract magical knowledge from Heinz’s mind while keeping him in a permanently preserved state.
“You devised a plan to preserve me forever just to extract that magical knowledge? And you claim to be worried about me? Ha! It’s not me you’re worried about, it’s my knowledge disappearing!”
“M-Misunderstanding… well, it’s true, but we had no choice! Lord Heinz, you’re the greatest magician! You have a responsibility to guide us!”
One magician pleaded desperately.
“Since it’s come to this, just tell us everything you know before you leave! If you do that, we’ll send you off peacefully—or rather, we’ll kill you! We’re serious! We’re magicians. We’re good at killing people!”
“What nonsense! You lunatics!”
Heinz made a decision.
To leave the tower.
It was best not to get involved with such insane people.
* * *
‘If it weren’t for those lunatics, I wouldn’t have had to make a contract with that ill-tempered lizard.’
Heinz lifted his teacup with a wistful gaze.
He had met Sigmund right after leaving the tower.
At that time, Sigmund was pondering how to deal with a looming darkness threatening the human world with minimal side effects.
Since the burden of causality was too heavy for him to act directly, he encountered Heinz, a human who surpassed the limits of humanity.
Sigmund proposed that if Heinz helped with his plan, he would lead him into the realm of transcendence. The term of the agreement would last until Heinz gained the strength to handle the transcendental realm.
Heinz, thinking it was a golden opportunity, eagerly accepted the contract.
Confident in his own abilities, he believed he would quickly reach the level Sigmund spoke of.
Well, things in life rarely go as planned.
The transcendental realm was far beyond what Heinz had imagined. It was like walking endlessly in a desert with no end in sight.
Though the contract lasted longer than expected, Heinz felt a sense of relief.
Without Sigmund as his guide, he would have died without even knowing the direction he needed to take.
Even so, there were moments when irritation flared.
As a business partner, Sigmund was impeccable—so perfect that Heinz couldn’t imagine anyone better.
No, he was flawless. After all, where else would you find a dragon willing to lead a mere human into the transcendental realm?
What Sigmund did for Heinz was equivalent to granting a passing cricket the chance to live a human life.
So, intellectually, Heinz understood how incredible Sigmund was.
He also knew that Sigmund was a one-of-a-kind benefactor in his life.
Yet, he couldn’t muster any respect for him. If he could just strike the back of his head once—or better yet, two thousand times—he felt he could die without regrets.
This was all because of Sigmund’s insufferable personality.
A perfectionist to a fault, he was annoyingly meticulous and never let anything slide. This made him the polar opposite of Heinz, who preferred a laid-back approach to unimportant matters.
For a transcendent being, his narrow-mindedness was baffling.
His tastes were equally peculiar—he harbored endless pity for humans who had suffered greatly, like Leticia and Julios.
As a dark mage who believed that power was truth and that the weak naturally succumb to the strong, Heinz found such behavior utterly incomprehensible.
While he had led the tower’s magicians as their master, his essence was that of a dark mage who revered power.
A dark mage chasing truth—it was an odd combination, to be sure, but that was his nature.
If he were Sigmund, he wouldn’t have paid any attention to humans like Leticia and Julios.
Well, unless they were mages who could aid in magical research.
At any rate, Sigmund cared deeply for them, to the point where Heinz had once subtly suggested that if he was so worried, why not kill them and grant them peace?
Of course, as soon as he uttered those words, he nearly found himself impaled halfway down a cliff.
Anyway, that was all in the past.
Recalling the old days, Heinz’s lips curled into a contented smile.
‘Now I’m in the realm of transcendence.’
The realm of transcendence.
At long last, he had escaped the uptight dragon and arrived in the place he had yearned for all his life.
Gazing at the landscape he had grown quite accustomed to over the past few months, Heinz smiled even more deeply.
‘It’s about time to begin.’
Beneath a sky so blue it seemed perfect for a picnic, brilliant crimson clouds floated lazily.
Boom!
With a deafening roar, flowers suddenly rained down from the clouds. As soon as they touched the ground, they sprouted into massive trees in the blink of an eye.
In less than a minute, the trees had grown into towering giants with lush canopies, while a mole peeked its head out of the ground, its black eyes twinkling.
“Kyuu?”
The mole tilted its head cutely like a plush toy, making Heinz’s heart race.
At last, the moment he had been waiting for had arrived!
“Kyuuu!”
The mole stretched its neck to look up at the sky, then suddenly grew to the size of a house. The plush-like appearance vanished, leaving behind a ferocious monster baring sharp fangs.
“Gaaah!”
With a beastly roar, it charged at the trees, tearing at their branches as if yanking out hair and devouring them.
“Eeeek!”
The trees, refusing to be outdone, shook their branches fiercely in resistance.
Other trees joined in, battling against the massive mole—or rather, the house-sized mole-monster.
“Ah. Truly, I never get tired of this.”
As the trees and the mole laid waste to their surroundings, a look of pure ecstasy spread across Heinz’s face.
Watching transcendent beings fight, destroy, and tear each other apart was an endlessly thrilling sight.
The spectacular battle eventually ended with the mole’s victory. After ripping apart all the trees, it let out a chilling roar before shrinking back down to its plush-like size.
Heinz, who had been watching their fight with great excitement, smacked his lips in disappointment.
“It’s over already?”
It would have been more entertaining if other moles had joined the fray. The delightful spectacle had ended far too quickly.
“Here I go, having crazy thoughts again.”
With a groan, Heinz slumped to the ground.
In truth, he had been grappling with a troubling thought lately. What had seemed like a perfect life was starting to feel incomplete. Now that the surroundings had grown quiet, the concern that had been clouding his mind began to resurface.
It was about Sigmund.
Shockingly, he found himself missing the time spent with that bad-tempered lizard.
* * *
Kaiten, the Elder Dragon.
The new master Heinz had contracted with in the realm of transcendence.
Objectively speaking, Kaiten was an excellent master. In terms of ability, he was even superior to Sigmund.
This wasn’t merely because Kaiten was an elder. Unlike Sigmund, who had spent much of his time in the mortal world, Kaiten had spent most of his existence in the realm of transcendence, amassing power. Naturally, Kaiten was stronger.
On top of that, Sigmund was now mortal. Having lost his immortality after losing a bet with causality, he was no longer the same.
Sigmund, of course, was thrilled, rejoicing that he could finally die alongside Romiya. But from Heinz’s perspective, as someone who sought power, it was the worst decision imaginable.
Indeed, Sigmund had made the worst possible choice.
In contrast, Kaiten was the perfect master. So perfect, in fact, that he felt too good for someone as insignificant as Heinz.
Moreover, Kaiten was far more lenient than Sigmund. Even when Heinz went on a dark magic-fueled rampage, Kaiten’s attitude was, “Do as you please.”
‘…And that’s the problem. Leaving me to do as I please is the issue.’
Kaiten, generous as he may seem, was in reality a neglectful master.
He had no interest in Heinz. None at all. To Kaiten, Heinz was no different from a grasshopper scurrying across the ground.
And that was only natural.
In Kaiten’s eyes, Heinz was a profoundly insignificant being. No matter how exceptional a magician Heinz might be, he was still human.
A bug is a bug, no matter how high it jumps. Whether it leaps one handspan or two, a grasshopper remains a grasshopper.
Yet at first, Heinz was simply delighted to be free from Sigmund’s constant nagging. He didn’t care whether Kaiten saw him as trivial or not.
…Or so he thought.
“I must be out of my mind.”
Lying spread-eagle, Heinz muttered bitterly.
He never imagined the day would come when freedom would feel so hollow.
And yet, that day had arrived. He found himself missing those times spent squabbling with that wretched lizard. It seemed he had become addicted to the nagging after being exposed to it for too long.
‘…If I asked him to take me back, would he?’
As much as Sigmund nagged, he had been an excellent guide for Heinz. If Kaiten viewed Heinz as an ant, Sigmund had seen him as a dog to be cared for. Whenever Heinz caused chaos, Sigmund would leash him, muzzle him, occasionally give him treats, and discipline him with scolding. Thanks to this, Heinz’s skills had improved rapidly.
Little by little, Heinz began to romanticize his time with Sigmund. Even memories like being obliterated to dust by Sigmund were starting to seem endearing… Perhaps even that had been an act of affection. Maybe Sigmund had pitied him for living as mere dust…
“That’s ridiculous!”
Heinz shot to his feet. He slapped himself hard across the cheek, the sound echoing sharply.
No matter how he looked at it, Sigmund’s bad temper was undeniable. The fact that he had ruthlessly obliterated Heinz for being annoying remained unchanged. Sure, Heinz had buzzed around with the intention of irritating him until his eardrums bled, but how was he supposed to know it would come to that?
So, Heinz decided to return to the mortal world.
“If I stay here any longer, I might end up completely idealizing the past. I’ll start believing that cranky old lizard was actually a kind master!”
Such a horrifying thought was unthinkable. Imagining himself crying all night, overcome with longing for Sigmund, Heinz leapt to his feet. He began rapidly inscribing magical formulas into the air.
He had to see Sigmund again before it was too late. If necessary, he was even willing to renegotiate their contract. After verifying Sigmund’s wretched personality with his own eyes, he would return to the realm of transcendence. Then, he would surely realize that his current thoughts were nothing short of madness!
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