The paper was low quality.
But the writing on it had quite an elegant hand.
「This letter first started in Solion Impel…」
Pelerian burned the paper as soon as he saw that phrase.
He’d heard about the spread of these cursed chain letters but never thought one would reach him.
“Damn it, these bastards with nothing better to do.”
An irritated Pelerian swept back his hair.
He had few places he could call a ‘sanctuary’.
Ironically, considering he’d built hundreds of dungeons for himself across the continent.
The dungeons were all research facilities or important installations for achieving greater purposes.
They could be Pelerian’s ‘outposts’ but not ‘sanctuaries’.
The Tombstone dungeon built in the magic realm ‘Mountains’.
The space secretly built underneath it was, therefore, a very precious place.
Because it was where Pelerian truly built for his end.
He visited here often, and the most common activity in this sanctuary was reading accumulated letters.
If asked whether the Heaven Defying Magician had friends to exchange letters with, naturally the answer would be no.
However, from a certain perspective, he had many.
“Who’s this one addressed to… Jenkins?”
The back of the letter was addressed to Mr. Jenkins.
That’s a name he used in Solion Impel.
Somewhere in Solion Impel, there must be a small house where a magician named Jenkins stays.
Letters arriving in that mailbox eventually get delivered to Pelerian.
He had such fake identities throughout major cities across the continent.
‘Genie’ used in that desert, ‘Hegemony’ of the East, and also ‘Arthur’, ‘Riddle’, ‘Pendragon’…
To be honest, Fairy Magician Pelerian wasn’t popular.
That was a clear fact.
But he had made some friends under some names he used while hiding his identity.
Very occasionally, letters would come from them.
They would pile up quite a bit when collected.
Today there weren’t many.
Well, with so many identities, these were connections from decades or centuries ago.
Among his few friends, all the short-lived races must be dead by now.
“Have I lived too long?”
Pelerian startled at his own muttered words.
Living too long?
Fairies don’t say such things.
When there are much older fairies still living fine…
Perhaps Pelerian had been out in the world too long.
That’s why he might have become unfairy-like.
“…Fairy, yes, what use is being a fairy.”
He closed his eyes briefly.
Whoosh.
Letters scattered about all burned away at once.
It was elemental magic that had reached divinity.
He’d thought reading accumulated letters before death would be quite a romantic end.
But he felt it wasn’t so in reality.
His left arm was now blackened from fingertips to wrist.
The price of failing to contact ‘Chaos’ as a magician.
What Heaven Defying.
Even this final struggle ended like this.
Because of that, he was dying from chaos poison spreading from his left arm…
It was just going a bit earlier anyway. Death wasn’t frightening.
Only this terrible emptiness was a problem.
“Spirit.”
“Yes, Lord Pelerian.”
The magic spirit’s voice came from the receiver placed on the desk.
“When I die soon, burn and destroy everything. Leave nothing.”
“Should we stop the experiments?”
“Yes. Stop it all.”
The thought of switching bodies.
He really had considered it.
But seeing the completed chimera that imitated a fairy, Pelerian felt great shock.
It was neither fairy nor monster. Just a grotesque chimera.
Why did he have such thoughts even briefly?
Probably due to the shock of his believed world crumbling.
‘Make fairies great again…’
Stagnating, dying fairies.
He wanted to save the race going extinct like a stagnant pond slowly drying up.
By finding a way to evolve into High-Elves.
But the moment he learned it was all meaningless.
The moment the motivation that had driven him until now disappeared.
Pelerian collapsed.
A journal lay written before him.
「The End lives and breathes in the Imperial underground garden.」
A black shadow loomed over the entire continent.
「I now realize civilization’s time is short. If it cannot be stopped, all living sentient beings will die in the near future. Fairies too…」
If he hadn’t infiltrated the Imperial Palace himself.
If he hadn’t seen the End monster growing in that basement, he wouldn’t have believed it.
All civilization on the continent will perish? He would have dismissed it as conspiracy theorists’ nonsense.
Anyway.
All those headache-inducing matters end now too.
Pelerian felt death approaching.
His body temperature was rapidly cooling.
Clang.
He dropped the wine glass held in his right hand.
The hard liquor he rarely drank spilled on the floor.
He remembers the ending of a tragedy he liked.
‘Raise your cup. Death awaits sharpening its blade at the door.’
Which play was that from?
The light slowly fades.
Darkness creeps in.
To use those Eastern monks’ expression.
Pelerian was now moving from this shore to the other shore.
Just as he was about to fall into that eternal sea of fog.
Beep- beep- beep-
The receiver placed on the desk blinked while making sounds.
Only very few could contact the receiver.
Pelerian’s eyes widened.
This contact was from Pelerian’s arch-nemesis.
Caspian.
That human archmage had sent a message to Pelerian.
The code appearing on the receiver flashed at a speed no ordinary person could read.
Pelerian’s expression changed moment by moment seeing it.
“…Hehe, says he’ll come.”
Pelerian’s reaction to Caspian’s message was.
“Invading my domain to save my life? How dare he…!”
Mockery and anger.
But either way, opposite reactions to resignation to death.
That must have changed Pelerian’s mind.
He couldn’t sit here waiting for salvation from an enemy.
Even if Pelerian died before then, he couldn’t let his nemesis see him die pathetically alone.
Pelerian’s pride wouldn’t allow it.
He rose from his chair.
His vision swam as he staggered.
The chaos poison spreading from his left hand.
Pelerian placed his right hand on his left forearm.
The forearm froze pure white, then broke off cleanly as if cut by a blade.
He sacrificed his left arm for a brief delay.
The severed left arm fell onto the chair.
The left hand still gripped the receiver.
Thanks to a precise magic combination, not a single drop of blood fell.
Pelerian glared at the desktop with a pale face.
If it’s Caspian, he would surely find and enter this hideout.
That terrible youngster always exceeded Pelerian’s imagination.
Then he would find the severed arm and receiver here.
There was already something worth delivering to Caspian.
Pelerian took out a gold-carved key from his breast pocket and placed it on the desk.
About to leave without hesitation, he turned back.
And taking out a pen, scribbled something in the journal.
Thinking Caspian would read those words when he returns someday.
After writing, Pelerian left the dungeon without hesitation.
Even he didn’t know what to do next.
It was uncertain how long he could extend his dying life.
However, if he survived, he would return.
Though his resolution may have been firm.
Pelerian never returned.
==
Written in fairy language in the journal.
「Caspian, you shall take neither my favor, nor my debt, nor my corpse!」
Written in one decisive stroke.
