Chapter 33 Translator: XZY
Chapter 33: 3-Star (3) ***
What is life?
It took Drest too long an age to answer that question.
He was born the son of a tenant farmer in the County of Jeblon in the central part of the empire.
He ran wild in the mountains and fields, and by the time he came of age, he had learned to plow. He tilled the fields and harvested crops, and during the spring lean season, he went hunting in the wild mountains to make ends meet.
His family was poor but harmonious, he had no ambition, and his dream was to get a good partner, buy some decent land, and become the proper master of a large field and a home.
He was just a tenant farmer youth whose goal was to live a wholesome life without a single grain of greed.
However, the heavens gave him a gift.
Late at night, when he sat in the field holding his plow and looked up at the starry sky, it was as if the principles of the heavens were being etched in his eyes.
The flowing mana looked like a landscape of nature, as if a river were surging, and the single grain of mana flowing at his fingertips felt like a part of his body.
He learned magic. It was not that he walked the path of magic while harboring some ambition and striving forward. He just did it because he knew how.
Just by watching the mages in the city wield mana and sensing the flow of mana in nature, he was able to materialize his own unique style of magic. He became able to predict when the wind would blow, and he felt as if he could know when it would rain.
When he walked through the forest, the rustling sound of each and every leaf seeped into his ears, and it felt as if he could read each and every movement completely.
He would aim his bow in advance where the mountain beasts would land, and he would first avoid places where it seemed rocks would collapse.
He was a mage of commoner birth.
When he became an adult, he was already 2-Star, and when he had grown a bit of a beard and had a family, he had reached 3-Star. He became a heroic figure in the small village on the outskirts of the domain, and his entire family respected him as the head of the household.
His wife, who was the daughter of the mill owner, was gentle and beautiful and always worried about him, and his two lovely daughters always had their eyes shining as they watched their father's magic skills.
He had a gut feeling.
If the first act of my life was the life of a tenant farmer, then the second act is the life of a mage. Thus, he became excited about his own magical achievements and immersed himself more and more in magic. He would pore over grimoires procured from the city all day long, and he improved and developed numerous detection magics, bringing them into his own domain.
When he came to his senses, there were almost no mages of commoner birth who were following him.
Could he reach the realm of 4-Star before he turned forty? Thus, could the second act of his life shine more brilliantly? Harboring such thoughts, he strove even more in magic and farming in that small country village.
And then, his life entered its third act. The life of an avenger.
Everyone in the world paid their respects to him, who had reached the realm of 3-Star. Even renowned nobles expressed their surprise that a mage of commoner birth had reached this level, and he became a figure like a spiritual leader among commoner mages.
Rumors about the detection mage Drest of the County of Jeblon spread all the way to Ebelstein. He became a living witness that even a commoner could reach the realm of a high-level mage.
All sorts of mages began to visit the village where he lived, and they began to ask for his teachings.
Most of them were people who were engrossed in the study of magic, and it was a pleasant thing to converse with them. However, from time to time, people who discussed things beyond magic would also visit.
They were people who harbored resentment towards the bloodline nobles who ruled the world, wielding magic as if it were a privilege.
There were also those who shouted that the world had to be changed with the venomous disposition of mages from the bottom.
The following year, their heads were displayed on pikes in the city square.
It seemed they had been caught trying to assassinate the Count of Jeblon. It was a gruesome end.
However, only the people changed; those with such a disposition would appear once in a while, as if to be forgotten.
To them, the existence of Drest, who was coveting the realm of 4-Star magic as a commoner, was truly like a savior.
There were plenty of people who revered him, considered him a living witness, and wanted to try to change the world.
Drest had no interest in such a revolution.
Although he was in the ranks of high-level mages, his essential disposition had not changed much from when he was a tenant farmer tilling the fields. What he wanted was personal achievement, and he couldn't care less about the revolution of the world.
It was enough for him to reach a higher level himself, and other than that, to be able to feed his wife and daughters abundantly. He lived with just that much hope.
And the year after the next, the Count of Jeblon ordered people to kill Drest's entire family.
The revolutionaries who popped up intermittently all believed in and followed Drest as if he were a savior. As his level gradually rose, and he began to surpass 4-Star, their numbers would increase.
The Count wanted to cut off all the seeds. Although Drest had not led the revolution, it was a fact that he had become its starting point.
Countless crimes were pinned on him. All sorts of heinous sins he had never committed tarnished his honor. Paradoxically, the only ones who understood that all of this was slander were the revolutionaries who had driven Drest into this situation.
One day, he returned home to find the house stained with blood.
His wife's corpse was hanging on the wall. His two daughters had been raped and murdered, and they were rolling on the floor, covered in blood.
The house was set on fire, and a huge bonfire shot a reddish light into the night sky.
The blood of the villagers with whom he had interacted without reserve flowed like a river. Burning sheaves of rice rolled on the ground, and sparks occasionally flew up. It was a scene where everything in the village where he was born and raised was turning to nothing and disappearing. On the faces of the soldiers setting the fire, a sense of elation was rising.
The revolutionaries came to Drest's ear and whispered. All of this is the doing of those nobles.
That instigation turned Drest into an avenger who had risen from hell. Years passed, and numerous battles and chases followed, and he snuck into the estate and went to the point of killing the Count of Jeblon.
However, he could not kill the Count of Jeblon.
In the burning count's estate, the count, trembling in fear and hugging his daughters tightly, bowed his head and begged for his life. In front of the Count of Jeblon, who was appealing with tears to spare at least these children, the lust for revenge was still blazing in Drest's eyes.
Revenge is futile. After revenge, all that is left is new resentment and emptiness.
He was not unaware of that fact. Still, he had to do it. Even if it was empty and futile, that was something to worry about after he had done it. He did not have the confidence to live with this burning lust for revenge for the rest of his life.
The cycle of resentment had to be broken someday, but it did not have to start with him.
The moment the mana of murderous intent was rising, he was reminded of his own innocent children in the count's two daughters who were trembling in fear. They were the figures of innocent children. Just as his own daughters who had died in vain, these children too were without any sin.
Drest slowly closed his eyes and contemplated, then cut out one of the Count of Jeblon's eyes, his tongue, and the tendons of both his legs. The count writhed in pain and spilled blood. He left the count's estate after making him live as a cripple for the rest of his life.
Thus, he became a public enemy in the noble world.
He lived for over ten years, being pursued.
The numerous mages who believed in and followed him tried to protect him, and they died.
All of his so-called close associates also died. Thus, countless years passed, and while everyone else was caught, Drest alone was never caught.
Not only the high nobles, but even the 5-Star mages of the Imperial Family failed to find and capture him.
By the time he had reached the age of fifty, he had already passed the entry-level of 5-Star and was reaching the middle level. His sky-piercing lust for revenge had forged him into the world's most excellent detection mage.
He, who had already begun to age, did not run particularly fast. He did not have any special means of transportation, nor did he have any secret passages that only he knew.
With a slow gait, he was walking slowly on the main roads that everyone else traveled, yet no one could catch him. As if he already knew where and when the pursuit team would appear, the movements of the old man who floated through the world slowly were like a ghost.
Thus, 15 more years passed, and when he had passed the age of sixty, the high noble world completely gave up on capturing him.
Nearly 30 years had passed since he had committed the crime of harming the Count of Jeblon. Time had a way of weathering everything in the world. Sin was the same.
Only after 30 years had passed did the nobles have to admit it. Capturing Drest Wolftail was an impossible task.
If they could not completely suppress him who held the seeds of revolution, they had to at least draw him into their own sphere. Only after such a long time had passed did the nobles give up on everything and decide to deal with him with a different approach.
A few years later, the Imperial Family of the empire bestowed the title of Viscount on Lord Drest.
If they could not control him, they intended to protect their authority by making him a fellow noble. Only after more than 35 years had passed could he finally be free from the pursuit teams, and numerous people came forward to clear up the misunderstandings about him.
The emperor personally came forward to settle the grudge with the Jeblon family, gave him sufficient courtesy, compensation, and an apology, and he finally became a free man. When he came to his senses, his life was entering its twilight years, and he had become a proper noble. Now, he was no longer a person of the commoner side, but a person of the noble side.
He had no domain, not even a single estate. Nevertheless, he became a person who had risen to the position of a noble purely with his magic skills as a commoner, and he was accepted as a person who was thoroughly separated from the commoners.
Now, the commoners rarely thought of overthrowing the nobles when they saw him.
He was spoken of as a person who had received a noble title purely with his magic skills, and he made numerous commoners believe that if they lived diligently, they too could receive such a blessing someday.
Drest did not even show any sign of caring about such gazes from the world. By this point, everything in his life had already become empty.
And to some extent, it was not wrong. He was indeed the only person who had broken the sense of privilege of all the nobles in the world purely with his magic skills.
He had already reached the level of 6-Star and had become one of the top mages in the world. However, to the people of the world, he was known as a 4-Star.
He did not even have a proper faction, but to the world, he was known to live in luxury in a lavish environment.
He had no ambition, but to the people of the world, he was known as an ambitious commoner mage.
Those who followed him established a society in his name, and although he sometimes relied on them, he would wander the world whenever he had the chance.
He climbed high mountains and looked down on the world, and he entered the deepest caves and entrusted his body to the darkness.
He lived such a life, floating without family or friends, and before he knew it, he had turned eighty, and then ninety.
Looking down on the world like that, everything had changed.
The old man looked up at the high sky like that. Countless years had passed, but the sun, the moon, and the stars were all still stuck in the same place. It had been such an eventful journey, but all the things in that sky were always the same, as if nothing had ever happened.
The old man, who was walking quietly like that, murmurs, looking at the sky without any warning.
"I see. Is this life?"
He was the beloved only son of a father, the dependable head of a family, and an avenger mad with blood.
He was a recluse eroded by emptiness, the spiritual leader of a society, the idol of some commoners, and the enemy of some nobles.
And sometimes he was someone's comrade, and sometimes someone's enemy.
After entering his twilight years like that, there was not much of an impression left.
"After it all passes, it's no big deal."
Life was like that.
Only after entering the twilight of his life does the old man finally realize.
He had run as if being chased, and he had just moved forward blankly...
In the end, this too was a single life.
<><><>
"Boy, your magical talent is too ambiguous."
A wandering spirit roams the southwest of the empire.
Derek could not have known about the rumor that circulated among the high nobles, but at least he agreed with the opinion that this old man, full of age rings, looked like a ghost.
The old man, who had left the tavern with Derek, walked the streets that were asleep in the dawn air as if floating.
As Derek walked behind him, Drest assessed his magical talent in a hoarse yet weak voice.
"Ambiguous?"
"Yes."
In his life, not a single person had assessed Derek's magical talent as ambiguous.
He had reached 2-Star at the young age of fourteen, and at the age of seventeen, he was coveting 3-Star.
In a way, he might achieve magical accomplishments even faster than Drest. That was how exceptional Derek's magical talent was.
However, Drest assessed Derek's talent as ambiguous. It seemed as if he could see some farther realm in his eyes.
"If you dream of a high level as a commoner mage, the ending will not be good if you are half-hearted."
"..."
"If you are to find a way out, you must be overwhelming."
Derek had to contemplate what to answer inwardly. To be honest, it was because he thought that even his current level was overwhelming.
"A great tremor will shake the west of the empire. If you are to survive, you must be more outstanding than you are now."
"..."
He walked through the shabby alleys of the dark night, and eventually, he stopped, adjusted his robe, and turned around.
In the place where darkness had fallen, the cold eyes of the veteran mage were shining faintly.
"Combat magic will protect your body from numerous anomalies, and confusion magic will create countless variables in various situations. However, if you are to use such magics in the right place at the right time, you must also know how to properly acquire information about the situation and the environment."
Drest's thin hand cut through the air, and then he clenched his fist tightly.
The amount of mana gushing out seemed to cover the sky. The intricacy of the various formulas engraved on it was such that even Derek, who had already become quite knowledgeable about various fields of magic, could not help but widen his eyes.
Watching the magic formulas that shone brilliantly as if embroidering the dark night street, Derek's eyes shone, completely fascinated.
The unfolded detection magic formulas were on a completely different level from what Derek had ever experienced.
The grand feast of mana that unfolded looked like a nautical chart pointing the way to a distant golden land.
<><><>
The next day,
The tavern 'Veldern's Tear'
Jayden had to move busily because all sorts of letters had arrived since the morning.
In fact, it was a daily occurrence for request letters to come in, but today, a bunch of special letters had arrived.
'In all my life, I've never received letters from the Beltus, Belmeade, and Duplein families all at once. You really have to live long to see things.'
The Veldern Mercenary Corps's reputation had also risen quite a bit compared to when it was first founded.
Derek had contributed, Jayden himself had run his feet off, and the other corps members had also put in their efforts.
However, even so, they had not made a name for themselves to the point of receiving requests from the three most famous families in the western empire at the same time.
Surely, the person these letters wanted was only one.
He was in the middle of contemplating how to handle this.
Thump!
"Oh, Derek!"
As he saw Derek, who had boldly opened the tavern door and entered, Jayden sent a greeting as if he were glad to see him.
A bunch of profitable requests had come in. The moment he was about to say so, Derek picked up the food pouch that was placed in the corner of the bar table, put down a silver coin, and said in an urgent voice.
"As of today, please refuse all requests. There are many other corps members, so it's fine, right? It's about time for me to rest too."
"...What?"
He knew well that Derek took periodic breaks, but even so, the clients were all too big.
He couldn't easily refuse something like this. It was the moment he was about to explain such circumstances, but Derek spoke in a hurried voice as if he were busy.
"I'll be heading out for today. I have urgent business."
It was rare for the always-composed Derek to act as if his feet were on fire.
The strange anticipation in his eyes made him look excited, as if he were about to fulfill a long-cherished wish. It felt out of character with his always-calm demeanor, and it was unusual.
He had tried to explain that it would not be easy to refuse these requests no matter what, but Derek was already running out of the tavern with a light step.
A first-time observer might not have noticed at once, but Jayden, who had watched Derek for a long time, could tell. Derek was currently in a state of extreme excitement.
He had no intention of teaching anyone right now.
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