The Oriole Behind

The teardrop passed through the protective shield before Dago, sending ripples across the light membrane before striking him squarely in the chest.

It happened too quickly for Dago to react. He could only close his eyes and await death's judgment. After a while, he felt fine. Nothing had happened.

Only then did he slowly open his eyes and touch his chest. There was no wound, only a tear-sized mole where he had been struck.

Dago had no time to care about such strange things. As long as he was alive, that was enough.

He snapped his fingers, and Vissel's frozen corpse instantly shattered into fragments finer than minced meat, leaving only a head on the ground.

Among the scattered ice shards, he found two rings and a wand. There was no joy in the loot, only endless grief over Mariko's death.

The two of them had come all the way out of the forest together. They had been teacher and friend, practically half a family.

He had intended to put all three magical items into his storage pouch, but one of the rings, set with a pigeon-blood ruby the size of a pigeon egg and so translucent that the incredibly intricate runes within were visible, could not be swallowed by the pouch.

Dago immediately realized it was a high-grade item—a storage ring. He held it in his hand and examined it carefully.

The face of the ring was not smooth, but carved with intricate cloud patterns. The lines were as thin as hair, yet every stroke was firm and sharp. Amid the curling clouds was something like an inconspicuous family crest.

He put the ring on his middle finger, picked up Vissel's frozen head, and, amid the young wizard's stunned gaze, placed it before Mariko's corpse to honor his spirit in heaven.

Dago knelt and kowtowed three times. The young wizard walked over, also knelt before Mariko's corpse, and copied Dago by kowtowing three times.

He said to Dago, "I won't betray you. I understand what you did. The team leader was truly a good man. Even at the end, he was sacrificing himself to save others. He will live in our hearts forever."

Dago said nothing. Perhaps I will be joining him soon enough.

Before Vissel died, he had activated the communication crystal. The academy's mobile patrol would arrive soon, and news that he had killed Vissel, the academy's genius wizard, would spread throughout the academy.

Then he would face a full manhunt and bounty from the Wizard Alliance, falling into endless pursuit.

Perhaps he would become one of the Black-Robed Wizards.

But he would not regret any of it. For his family, he could give everything.

After thinking for a moment, Dago said to him, "You should leave first. I'll explain everything here to the patrol when they arrive. If they don't believe me, we may have to fight."

After he finished speaking, the young wizard stood up and looked at Dago with resolute eyes. "One day, I'll become as strong as you. I won't let the world toy with me anymore."

Dago smiled at him and made an encouraging gesture.

The young wizard returned a wizard's salute, then slowly headed toward the town.

Dago still had to wait here for Selena. Otherwise, Vissel's death would implicate her as well.

Before long, the three from Selena's group and the two from Dago's group arrived at the small wooden house that was about to burn down and collapse, all of them panting heavily.

When Selena saw the scene, she stood frozen as though her soul had been ripped away. All strength left her body in an instant, and her legs gave out beneath her as she collapsed to the ground.

Her gaze clung desperately to that familiar body. The light in her pupils went out bit by bit, like a candle suddenly snuffed out by a violent wind.

Tears fell like severed beads, smashing against the ground, but she did not notice. She only stared blankly, as though if she looked long enough, he might suddenly sit up and smile at her.

"No..." At last, she forced out a single word. It was so hoarse it barely sounded like her voice, trembling with shattered grief like glass ground into powder.

She walked over and, like Dago, knelt before Mariko's corpse, preparing to see him off on his final journey.

Her disheveled hair clung to her tear-soaked face. Her eyes were swollen red like walnuts and streaked with blood, yet tears continued to spill from them, as though she intended to shed every tear of her life at this very moment.

When the other hired wizards saw Vissel's frozen head, they looked as if they had seen a ghost and stared at Dago in terror.

Knowing nothing of the truth, all they saw was Dago killing a fellow wizard. That was a grave crime, an especially heinous one.

The four hired wizards fled in panic like startled birds, afraid that they would be silenced the next second.

Just as they had run less than a dozen meters, fireballs as large as human heads flew toward them one after another in rapid succession, burning them to ashes.

The last two fireballs flew toward Dago and Selena at incredible speed. Dago instantly activated the protective ring in his hand, generating a shield of light.

The two fireballs struck the protective shield one after the other and exploded with a roar.

The runes within the protective ring in his hand flickered erratically, emitting a strained hum.

Dago saw two bursts of flame explode in the air, turning into a rain of fire that fell from the sky. At the center where the shield had resisted the fireballs, two glaring orange-red spots had already appeared, as though they would melt through at any moment.

The rain of fire struck the ground, setting Mariko's corpse and Vissel's head ablaze in a spreading sea of flames.

His pupils contracted sharply. He grabbed Selena, who was still dazed, and rapidly ran in the opposite direction from which the fireballs had come.

As he ran, Dago activated the Detection Technique and looked toward the outskirts of the town.

Since the fireballs had shot out from that direction, an incomparably powerful wave of spiritual force came surging toward him.

Its spiritual force surpassed his several times over, both in quality and quantity.

Dago shouted to Selena, "This time, you must run far away. The enemy who came this time is extremely powerful. Don't take risks like last time."

Selena nodded with a grave expression and ran alone into the dark fields.

Dago drew the Ice Crystal wand. The halos in his eyes swirled as he quietly chanted the Ice Crystal Technique, and a blue sphere of energy rapidly gathered before the pearl at the wand's tip.

Energy began flashing across his pale skin as his body entered a half-activated state.

In the distance, a hooded figure in a black robe slowly emerged, holding an enormous red fireball in his hand.

He said to Dago, "I helped you deal with those troublesome people. Aren't you going to thank me?"

"What you wanted was to get rid of everyone present."

"Oh, right. On my way here, I also took care of a young apprentice wizard. A wizard full of dreams—how wonderful. He was exactly like me when I was young."

Dago's heart sank. This wizard had intended to wipe out their entire patrol team. Even that young wizard from before had fallen victim to him.

"What exactly do you want? Why did you have to be so ruthless?"

"My purpose is simple. Just hand over the storage ring you got from Vissel."

The hooded black-robed man's eyes stared fixedly at Dago, giving him a deep sense of familiarity.

"It's you, isn't it, Raymond?"

Dago looked at the hooded black-robed man. "Why are you doing this? You had plenty of chances to take the ring from him."

The hooded black-robed man slowly pulled down his hood with his free hand. It really was Raymond, Vissel's mentor.

"I wanted to. Do you know about Hyram's Tear? When a member of the Hyram Family dies, a tear-shaped substance condenses at the instant of death and attaches itself to the person who killed them. Anyone below the level of a Formal Wizard is guaranteed to be hit."

Dago was deeply shocked. So he had fallen victim to Hyram's Tear.

"It is a curse embedded in the bloodline of the Hyram wizard family. Unless you reach the stage of a Formal Wizard, don't even think about breaking it."

"Vissel's father is a Formal Wizard. He gave Vissel an inheritance from a Formal Wizard."

"I kept pushing the two of you to take missions together, all so I could wait for this day. My dream of becoming a Formal Wizard is about to come true, and this farce should come to an end."

"The communication crystal Vissel activated before his death led to me. You don't need to worry about today's events being exposed. Only the two of us will know about this."

"You're a smart man, Dago. You know what choice to make. You don't have much time left."