Reid, once a renowned archmage of the empire, is now 42 and living in secluded retirement in the remote village of Kazami. His glory days are behind him, and he's treated with mild pity by the village youth. When rumors of an imperial invasion from the east threaten the borderlands, the village girls dismiss his concerns. Witnessing ominous signs, Reid resolves to protect his fragile peace.
The problem is his declined body and magic. He turns to a forbidden art: 'Mana Fusion,' a technique that
The Gray Wizard Rises Again - The Price of Rust and Hands of Warmth—Three Fires Lit on the Night of the Magical Beast
It was a night that ended with three centimeters of distance left untouched beneath the watchtower.
The red glow in the eastern sky did not fade. If anything, as the night deepened, the space beyond the ridgeline of the Bihō Mountain Range—the natural border marking the empire's eastern edge—seemed to grow thicker by the hour. The Dawnclaw Tide—a massive migration of magical beasts from the eastern nations, surging in cycles of once every few years, said to stain the eastern sky blood-red as its herald—was beginning something beyond Etsuchō Pass. Sixty kilometers to the east. A full day's ride by horse, but magical beasts did not travel on horse's legs.
After returning to the hut, Raid could not sleep.
He stopped trying to figure out why. His lower back hurt. That hadn't changed. The plateau nights were cold. That hadn't changed either. He left the thaumaturgy tome open on the desk, turned down the lamp wick, and lay on his side.
That was why the first thing he noticed was sound.
A low, reverberating vibration. A rhythmic weight transmitted through the ground.
*It's here.*
Raid sprang up. It took less than a second.
* * *
The moment he opened the door, he came face-to-face with Aira.
She was fully armed. Breastplate strapped over leather armor, sword at her hip. Signal whistle of the advance unit in hand, green eyes fixed straight on Raid. Those eyes were nothing like the three centimeters of last night—right now they were purely a battlefield's eyes.
Aira's gaze moved quietly from the top of Raid's head to his feet.
Three seconds.
Raid checked his own appearance. The third and fourth buttons of his shirt were mismatched. And his boots were on the wrong feet. Left boot on the right foot, right boot on the left. Now he understood why his left toe felt strangely cramped.
"Woke up in three seconds. You can praise me."
Aira did not praise him. Without a word, she stepped half a pace forward and stood directly in front of Raid. Then she reached both hands toward his shirt buttons and began fixing the mismatch.
Raid didn't move. More precisely, he had no time to move. Aira's fingers did not hesitate. She checked from top to bottom, undid the third button, and re-fastened it to the fourth. Throughout, Aira did not look up. Her chin was slightly lowered, working with only her fingertips.
Close.
Close enough that body heat reached him. Aira's breath flowed near Raid's neck. The memory of last night on the watchtower surfaced for an instant, and Raid quietly pushed it back down.
All the buttons were fixed. Aira stepped back.
"Please put your boots on correctly yourself."
"...I would've figured that out without being told."
While Raid removed his boots and put them on properly, Aira spoke.
"Magnetfang Beasts—large magical beasts that draw metal equipment toward themselves with magnetic force—seven confirmed. Approaching from the east side of the plateau edge. The advance unit's swords are—"
"Getting pulled in. I know."
Magnetfang Beasts were among the most troublesome species to migrate from the east alongside the Dawnclaw Tide. With a shoulder height exceeding that of a grown man, they possessed the ability to magnetically attract metal, and the closer a soldier carrying a steel sword came, the more dangerous they became. Seven of them would be difficult for the advance unit to handle head-on.
"We've arranged wooden weapons. The village men as well—"
"I'll finish putting my boots on first."
Aira paused for a beat. Then she said only, "Please hurry," and went outside ahead of him.
As Raid tied the laces of his right boot, he noticed something. Aira's fingers had been trembling, just slightly, while she fixed his buttons. Not from tension, not from cold—perhaps she had noticed. That the blue scar on Raid's left arm was visible even through his shirt.
He stopped thinking about it. Stood up, and went outside.
* * *
By the time he reached the eastern side of the plateau, several of the villagers' torches were already swaying.
Young soldiers of the advance unit stood in a line inside the fence, holding wooden stakes. Five of them. Their faces were pale. No wonder. Magnetfang Beasts were considered a threat equal to three knights each, and seven of them were coming as a pack.
"Do not draw your swords under any circumstances."
Aira spoke low and sharp. The soldiers nodded. There was no emotion in her voice. Calm, conveying only instructions.
The ground was shaking.
Raid stood at the plateau's edge and calculated the direction of the vibrations in the darkness. Coming from the east. Not straight—slightly northward. If the seven were maintaining a pack formation, they would spread somewhat between the lead and the rear.
"Don't scatter. Hold formation."
"If we cluster, the magnetic force—"
"Hold formation. I'll handle it."
Aira was silent for a second. In that one second she considered something, and closed her mouth.
The first one appeared at the edge of the torchlight.
It was a black mass. Shoulder height roughly one point eight meters. Thick limbs, low head. Two eyes glowing faintly, reflecting the color of the flames. Its nostrils were flared. Sniffing.
One of the soldiers gripped his wooden stake tighter. The wood creaked.
"Don't move."
A quiet voice. The soldier froze.
Raid closed his eyes.
He opened the magic circuits within his body. The blue scar on his left arm began to generate heat. He drew atmospheric ether through the circuits. The sensation that normally flowed smoothly—tonight, it was different.
Rust.
There was a catching sensation on the inner walls of his circuits, as if something snagged. Every time the magical energy flowed, friction sparked there, and excess heat scattered. The efficiency was poor. Three years of retirement had genuinely degraded his circuits. He knew that. He knew, and still he opened them.
Behind him, Lilia's voice rang out.
"Mister, go get 'em!"
Lilia had appeared at some point. She must have burst out from the hut's doorway—her silver short bob floated in the torchlight. Her heterochromatic eyes—one pale violet, the other faint amber—were fixed straight on Raid.
*Honestly. This girl has far too sharp an eye.*
Raid almost smiled wryly, but processed it before it reached his expression.
He forced open the depths of his circuits.
The surrounding atmosphere suddenly changed in quality. The density of the air against his skin rose. The magic circuits beneath his skin began to emit a white light, close to platinum. It was clearly on a different level from the "rusted silver" glow Aira had seen in the second episode. Back then, it had been nothing more than leaked afterglow. This was fusion.
Aira stepped back three paces. Her expression didn't change. Only her green eyes accurately captured the light from Raid's left arm.
The atmosphere compressed. Using the bedrock at the plateau's edge as a medium, a directional explosive pressure formed—and Raid calculated the dispersion of it across seven points in under a second. Three years ago it would have been faster. Now it took a full second. That was the proof of rust.
"Get down!"
Everyone dropped to the ground.
The explosive pressure was released.
It wasn't sound—it was pressure. The plateau's stone sang, the air tore, and seven compressed columns of atmosphere raced toward the darkness of the east.
All seven were blown away simultaneously.
In the distance, heavy landing sounds. Then silence came. Not complete stillness—only the east wind crossing the plateau remained. One of the advance unit soldiers cautiously raised his head.
"...All of them?"
Aira said, standing up.
Neutralized. All seven. It was perfect.
That was why no one could react when Raid collapsed.
His knees buckled. Without sound, without warning. On the very next breath after the release of the magic fusion completed, Raid's body tilted toward the stone paving. Sideways. Slowly. As if whatever had been supporting him vanished in an instant.
* * *
Aira was the first to reach him.
She dropped to her knees. Reflexively. With the motion of a battlefield, the motion used when going to a fallen comrade.
She lifted Raid's upper body. Her bare hands touched to support his neck.
In that instant—Aira's palms stopped.
Cold.
Not human body temperature. Close to the cold of a stone floor. The chill of blood drained after excessive magical release had scattered the body's heat. He was still alive. He was breathing. But the cold transmitted to her palms told Aira: *Check. Quickly.*
She pressed her ear to his chest.
There was a heartbeat. But—it was irregular. Out of every three beats, one broke rhythm. The arrhythmia that occurs after excessive load on the magic circuits. Aira had received field emergency medical training as a knight, so she understood what it meant.
Her arms tensed.
It was not a "treatment procedure." It was an urgent act of confirming whether he was alive. Aira's breathing was controlled, but to maintain that control, the muscles in her arms had gone rigid. The irregular heartbeat transmitted through her ear—she could feel it traveling from her fingertips up her arms.
Raid opened his eyes.
Thinly. Barely. His amber eyes reflected Aira's profile, so close.
Aira did not raise her face. She knew he was awake, and still did not raise it.
There was a sound of sand being stepped on. Lilia's running footsteps.
Lilia stopped. Her eyes looked at Aira. Her gaze asked—what should I do?
Aira froze for a beat.
Then, quietly, she drew back. There were no words. She simply pulled her body away and opened the space.
That was approval.
Lilia's hands were placed on Raid's chest.
Demonic racial bio-healing magic—the ability to directly transcribe one's own ether into wounds and damaged tissue—began flowing through the skin. Lilia's skin took on an even higher heat than usual. Demons already had higher body temperatures than humans. Concentrating on healing raised it further. Faintly, like fluorescence, the area around Lilia's palms glowed white.
Aira stood a short distance away. Arms crossed. Silent.
Color gradually returned to Raid's lips.
The arrhythmia regained regularity. The irregularity of one in three beats became one in four, then one in five—and gradually approached uniformity. Lilia's expression had gone hard with concentration. Sweat beaded on her forehead. She was directly expending physical stamina on healing. Aira could see that clearly.
Aira watched.
Arms still crossed, without moving.
A demon girl was shaving away the temperature of her own life to keep this man tethered. Someone she had been considering whether to restrain and hand over, just three days ago, was making a face like this—
Inside Aira, something made a sound like a crack. Just once.
She tried to seal it immediately. She couldn't seal it well.
Lilia raised her face. Her shoulders sagged slightly. She was exhausted. But her eyes were clear.
"Miss Knight, you could've watched from closer, you know."
Aira didn't pause for even a second.
"The distance was appropriate."
She said it flatly. As a fact.
Lilia looked puzzled. Raid, his eyes still thinly open, moved the corner of his lips faintly. Whether he was trying to smile or it was something else, Aira couldn't tell.
The eastern sky was beginning to take on the color of dawn.
* * *
By the time morning light streamed through the hut's window, Raid could sit up on his own.
He rose from the floor, braced a hand on the desk, then pulled out a chair and sat. The sequence of movements was somewhat slow, but he moved. Aira watched from against the wall. Lilia lay on the floor under a blanket. She had fallen asleep from the exhaustion of healing. Her silver short bob poked out from the edge of the blanket.
Raid spoke.
"It's not much of a drain. Give me three days of sleep and I'll be back."
He said it with self-deprecating lightness. His usual tone.
Aira stepped forward.
"I'll report on last night's arrhythmia."
Raid's brow moved
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