“I-is this the end…?”

The world felt blurry as a sea of blood ruined the atmosphere.

The musky stench of death overwhelmed the senses, fueling the embers of despair that choked the young man who managed to leak out his thoughts.

At this point, to his left and to his right, the marred bodies of his comrades decorated the devastated landscape.

Everyone was dead.

Even if they were alive, he had no way of telling.

“Haaa… haaaa…”

Heavy breaths now escaped his lungs as he removed his eyes from the gaping mouths and bloodshot eyeballs of the mangled corpses all around him.

Right now, something else demanded his attention.

And it stood right in front of him.

“Huff… huff…”

A monolith of utter destruction—a creature unlike anything he had ever seen before.

This beast had been the one who had laid waste to all his comrades, destroyed everything in sight, and now had its eyes set on him.

It snarled, almost in satisfaction as it gazed upon the young man.

Its eyes brimmed with a primal desire for carnage.

Its towering height told of an overwhelming power that could not be stopped.

Something about this creature—this thing of absolute destruction—seemed inevitable.

… Unstoppable.

“Y-you did this…”

The hollow voice of the young man rang out as he rose to his feet.

The injuries he had soon began to fade as some sort of power swelled within him.

His jet black hair turned white, and his dark irises saw the light.

At that moment, the world began to tremble.

“You made me do this…”

Every fiber of energy within the vast landscape of chaos shook in the presence of the magnificent power being birthed.

No… not the power of the beast.

The beast was strong, but not to this magnitude.

This was… something else.

“I didn’t want this.”

The young man’s body was fully healed now, and the entirety of the fragments that ran amok slowly gathered around him.

Everything was his.

“I didn’t want to use this…” action

His white hair broke through the darkness, and all of a sudden everything seemed to stop.

… As if time itself went still.

He inhaled.

And then, he spoke.

“… Original Magic.”

After those mere words, the world was soon bathed in light, forever changed by the power of a single man.

No one knows what happened after that.

No one but him.

******

Several Years Earlier

There was a boy who never liked Magic.

For as long as he could remember, he always heard people utter the wonders of Magic to him. They painted a grandiose image of the art, and always beamed in wonder when talking about the miracle of Mana.

In all honesty, he could never understand them.

‘What makes Magic so special?’ He often asked. ‘Why are people so amazed by it?’

Perhaps it was inevitable that he would never understand how everyone around him felt. After all, it was also for as long as he could remember that he could see the floating sparks of energy that danced in the air.

Mana!

The ‘concept’ that astounded everybody had always been a part of his reality—almost to the point that it bored him.

The floating fragments of energy constantly pervaded everything he saw and observed. If he focused long enough, they would even start drawing closer to him and multiply without end.

They eventually became a bother.

This boy lived in the slums—the ghettos, segregated from the more luxurious portion of the piece of land owned by some countryside noble.

Apparently, the guy was so obsessed with Class that the hierarchy he established was airtight.

Those deemed worthless and common had no choice but to live in the slums. As for those who had either wealth or ability, they were promoted to a higher estate.

The young boy thought it was silly, really, but it didn’t matter to him.

To be honest, nothing really mattered much to him.

He heard his father was a good-for-nothing who fled after hearing his mother was pregnant, and his mother died after birthing him—nothing too unexpected, considering how very terrible life in the slums was.

Before she died, though, she gave him the name he began to bear.

Neron.

The folks around told him it meant ‘strength’ and ‘virility’, which was pretty much what was confirmed, considering how completely healthy Neron looked at birth.

In contrast, his sickly mother passed away a few hours after giving birth to him.

She left him with very little to survive on, and with no one to care for him, Neron was left to die… an abandoned child.

Yet, he didn’t succumb to it.

He lived.

He kept surviving, and even till the earliest point where he could remember his childhood, he kept surviving on his own.

Perhaps, in a way, that was Magical.

‘Well, whatever…’ Neron’s thoughts would still echo every day.

Left with nothing but indifference, he lived his life in his community, eventually attracting his own little group of friends and immediate acquaintances.

It was convenient to have people to talk to, so he allowed himself to get familiar with them.

Fun, as they often called it, was a good way to while away time, so Neron engaged in it. He had nothing better to do, so he thought it was pretty much a decent venture.

Yet, it seemed despite his stoicism and lethargy toward everything, this topic of ‘Magic’, and ‘Mana’ and ‘Spells’ always disturbed Neron.

‘Why is this so amazing? It’s literally everywhere.’ He often pondered to himself, hearing the words of his friends and fellow denizens who lived with him in the slums.

They often regaled him with tales of people called ‘Mages’, who could harness this so-called special power and utilize Spells to form Magic.

They made it seem so unique, yet for as long as he could remember, he could draw the Mana Fragments close to him and manipulate them however he wished.

After hearing all about the legends of Mages, he decided to see just how difficult the task of Magic was.

Perhaps it was going to prove too much for him.

… He was wrong.

Magic was easy!

All he had to do was think up whatever, and the Mana around him would respond, draw near to him, and create the effect.

It was the simplest thing to do!

‘Is this really that amazing?’ Neron wondered to himself.

He could make water appear, or generate fire, or move the earth. He could do pretty much anything with the power of Magic.

Well… almost anything.

“I can’t make food with it. I keep starving every day. If Magic is so awesome, why can’t it make food out of thin air?” He would often ask.

As someone who never formally studied the craft, he could only make guesses.

‘Perhaps if I knew the right Spell, or whatever, I could do it.’

But, he had to wonder if something that convenient even existed.

He could make fire, or water, but wasn’t it because it was naturally possible to transform the moisture around to liquid, or to ignite the oxygen in the air?

Neron didn’t need to think too hard to figure that much out.

‘In the end, Magic still needs to transform something into something else. It’s not special.’

Yet, everyone kept praising and glorifying it.

Some mentioned how they would do anything to have the power to use Magic. Those who could use it were pretty much living in the better parts of the territory, leaving him surrounded with Inepts.

‘I could have probably relocated to the more civilized parts of the city, but I didn’t want to surround myself with people who actually devoted their lives to learning and practicing the stuff.’

Having that thought, Neron remained in the slums.

Slowly, his indifference towards Magic transformed into distaste, and then finally… it became a strong sense of annoyance.

He really didn’t like Magic.

Little did Neron know, however, that he would eventually need to rely on the very gift he chose to regret.

Maybe… just maybe… Magic could be a tiny bit more interesting than he initially thought.

And Neron was about to find out.

*

*

*