**Chapter 54**
—
Some time later, at the Imperial Academy.
In the lecture hall of the prestigious Third-Circle Department, the students waited for their instructor—yet the one standing at the podium was not their usual Fourth-Circle professor.
“Ah, what an honor it is to meet you all.”
The speaker was a red-haired man of such breathtaking beauty that even men would lose their wits at the sight. He was the continent’s greatest red mage, a sorcerer who had reached the heights of the Eighth Circle—the master of the Red Tower himself.
“……!”
The Red Tower Lord—**the Crimson Lord, Marquis Yuris**—stood before them.
“For today, I shall be the one conducting your class in place of your regular instructor.”
Gasps and whispers rippled through the lecture hall. The very master of the Red Tower himself, offering to lecture them personally? No greater honor could exist.
“Not long ago…”
The Crimson Lord spoke in an even, unhurried tone.
“Right here in this very hall, an unfortunate and disgraceful incident took place.”
His eyes swept over the students who knew the truth of what had befallen **Leonard Walter** that day.
“……”
Dale’s expression hardened.
*So he’s finally showing his true colors.*
He knew it. The real reason this man had summoned him here. Why he had sent a dozen Purifiers to attack him.
“Leonard Walter was a student of great promise,” the Crimson Lord continued, spreading his arms theatrically. “All of you, every last one of you, bowed your heads and trembled before him.”
Then, his lips curled into a cold smile.
“Before a worthless insect who possessed not even the dregs of true talent.”
His laughter was soft and inexplicable, but it froze the very air around them.
“Well, enough talk about such pitiful worms. The subject I will be teaching you today…”
He smiled with the exaggerated poise of an actor.
“—is history.”
“Now then,” he said lightly, “how many of you have heard of the *Black-Red Order*?”
The students exchanged uneasy glances.
“The Black-Red Order was an unofficial joint organization,” Yuris continued, “founded during the War of Unification by the Black and Red Towers, in the name of *academic cooperation and exploration*.”
And from the lips of the Crimson Lord poured forth the unvarnished, horrific truth of the Order—
—how, beneath the lofty pretense of pursuing truth and power, they had forsaken even the most basic decency of humankind.
As he spoke, the unspeakable atrocities of the Black-Red Order were laid bare. Faces turned pale; disgust and shock spread among the students like a wave.
“Why such grim expressions?” Yuris tilted his head in mock puzzlement.
“Are those who seek to become Red Tower magi feeling guilt over something as meaningless as *morality*?”
He shook his head slowly, as though in pity.
“The Black Duke was the same.”
“……!”
“The man was shackled by that same pitiful sense of ethics, and so abandoned the true path of the seeker—of one who pursues ultimate truth.”
Dale said nothing. He knew this story well.
After the war, the Empire had secretly attempted to preserve the Black-Red Order. Though they were demonspawn and butchers, the *knowledge* they had harvested was deemed worth the risk.
But Dale’s father had chosen to dismantle the Order himself.
Thus the bond between Black and Red ended, and all records of the Black-Red Order vanished into history.
“However,” Yuris said, turning his gaze to Dale, “Lord Dale is different.”
“…….”
“In your talent and your deeds, I have seen the true image of what a Black Tower Lord should be.”
He smiled, ignoring the horrified murmurs of the students around them.
“These worms cannot even compare to the demonic brilliance that dwells within you!”
“Your *Black Prince* reputation—your cruelty, your ruthless might—have left me deeply impressed.”
He spread his arms wide.
“One day, you shall ascend to the pinnacle of the Black Tower. And when you do, you will guide its future.”
Then, his eyes gleamed.
“So… will you not join me? Shall we not, together, forge a new bond between Black and Red?”
He smiled, voice honeyed.
“Let us grasp the ultimate truth and power—together.”
At last, Dale understood.
What Yuris desired was both *his power* and a *renewed alliance* between their Towers.
“……”
Dale remained silent. If he refused here, what would the Crimson Lord do?
“…What a shame,” he thought, a dry smile ghosting his lips.
“I’m afraid my father is still far too vigorous for us to discuss such matters of the future.”
“Ah, that need not concern you.”
The warmth drained from Yuris’s expression. He snapped his fingers.
The world around them twisted.
Reality warped around his feet, and as with Leonard before him, the *Crimson Lord’s world* unfolded—yet this was no uncontrolled disaster, but a deliberate projection of a high mage’s mindscape.
The domain of the Red Tower’s master revealed itself.
In an instant, the students were gone. This world permitted only one other being beside Yuris—Dale.
Then—
Snow began to fall.
Dale blinked, startled. *Snow?* In the mind of the continent’s greatest red mage?
He caught a flake in his palm—and realized it wasn’t snow at all.
It was *ash.*
The sky above was gray and smothered, as if the heavens themselves had burned away.
When he turned, the breath caught in his throat.
Ruins.
Collapsed towers of concrete and steel. Crushed automobiles. A wasteland like a world after nuclear winter.
A city reduced to ashes stretched endlessly before him.
“……!”
“A magnificent sight, isn’t it?” Yuris said softly, gazing upon the desolation.
Dale stood in silence, hiding his unease.
“In this world,” Yuris continued, “stood towers of iron that no stonecraft guild could ever imitate. And dragons of steel that breathed flames beyond my comprehension.”
He turned his gaze skyward—where jet bombers screamed overhead.
A moment later, light blossomed beyond the horizon.
A nuclear explosion.
The ground convulsed; an inferno consumed everything in sight. A mushroom cloud bloomed into the sky.
“And behold!” Yuris exclaimed. “The Empire of Fire and Steel—so mighty that even the giants themselves bowed before it!”
Dale nearly laughed aloud.
“This,” Yuris said, eyes blazing, “this is the ultimate truth and power that we magi seek!”
“Is that why you summoned the Hero from the Otherworld?” Dale asked quietly.
Yuris’s expression cooled. “That creature was a failure. A soldier with some utility, perhaps, but utterly incapable of grasping the truth of the Empire of Fire and Steel. Nothing could be learned from him.”
Dale almost burst out laughing. It wasn’t the hero who had failed to understand—it was *this man,* the Empire’s so-called greatest red mage.
*Good. That’s even better.*
For in his heart, beneath his contempt, a fierce certainty burned:
This man knew nothing.
He had no idea that the one standing before him—Dale—had inherited the very truth of that Empire of Fire and Steel.
Yuris believed there was no truth to be gained from the Otherworld’s hero. In a sense, he was right: dragged into an alien world and ordered to chant “the flame magic of the steel dragons,” what could the hero possibly have said?
But when Dale had learned that magic in this world was the power to give *form to imagination*—
—he had realized that to *project the concept of a nuclear weapon* as magic was no longer impossible.
Suppressing his laughter, Dale answered coldly:
“Was that why you brought me here? To propose your alliance—for the ultimate truth and power of the Black and Red Towers?”
“Indeed,” Yuris replied, smiling again. “Take your time to consider. Even if it must wait until after the Black Duke’s passing, I will not mind.”
“……”
“For me, time is a trivial thing.”
He raised his fingers to snap once more—then paused, as if recalling something.
“Ah, that’s right.” He turned. “Lord Walter, of the bloodline of flame, bears quite the grudge against you, doesn’t he?”
“……!”
“He, too, was once a commander within the Black-Red Order.”
He said it as though it were nothing.
“His Majesty, incidentally, wishes that the number of those who know the *true truth* of the Black-Red Order be reduced.”
*His Majesty.*
The name froze Dale’s expression for a heartbeat, though he quickly composed himself.
The *true truth*—not the half that Yuris had told the students. The real secret behind the Order was far darker than mere “inhumane experiments.” The Empire would not move so carefully for something so trivial.
“Still,” Yuris went on lightly, “it would hardly look proper for a Tower Elder to act personally.”
A Red Tower elder attacking the Black Tower’s heir while he was in the capital under official hospitality—he knew full well the weight of such a transgression.
“This is merely a transaction.”
“……”
“You may leave the capital and refuse, if you wish. But should you accept my offer…”
He smiled faintly.
“I will, of course, pay you your due reward.”
With that, he finally snapped his fingers.
The ashen world dissolved.
When Dale blinked, he was back in the lecture hall, surrounded once more by the students.
“Then, until next time,” the Crimson Lord said, turning away.
Dale stood in silence as he left, his breath shallow.
And silence fell—a long, heavy silence.
—
—
That night, at the Black Duke’s mansion on the outskirts of the capital.
Dale had dismissed his guards early and waited alone, ready to fulfill the “transaction” the Crimson Lord had proposed.
He thought back to the world Yuris had shown him—
The ruined city, the gray sky, the world after destruction.
“……”
Dale bit his lip until it bled.
Then—
**KWAANG!**
A sudden explosion shattered the night.
But even that blast did not break his composure. He merely rose quietly from the bed.
As if he had been waiting for this moment all along.
“Dale!”
A familiar voice—*Sephia,* the Sixth-Circle elf mage—called out.
“Lady Sephia…” Dale murmured.
“So this is where you’ve been, you damned brat of Saxen.”
A man stepped through the wreckage, red mana crackling around him. As Dale turned, he saw the face of the one Yuris had foretold.
“The whelp of House Saxen who ruined my son…!”
Standing amid the ruins of the mansion was **Leonard’s father**—the Sixth-Circle red mage and elder of the Red Tower, *Walter of the Blood Flame.*
His fury boiled over, his crimson aura surging wildly.
Dale laughed quietly.
The man didn’t even realize he was the moth caught in the spider’s web.
And when the spider moved to devour its prey—
“Stand back.”
Sephia stepped forward, placing herself between Dale and the raging elder.
Her hair of crystal blue shimmered in the moonlight—the Blue Tower’s elder and a Sixth-Circle archmage in her own right.
“I promised you,” she said, turning her back to Dale.
“That I would protect you.”
Six circles ignited around her, their radiance blazing. She was unleashing her full power—for him.
“So the rumors were true,” Walter spat. “The Blue Tower’s elder has thrown her lot in with House Saxen.”
He sneered coldly. “No matter. The Crimson Lord has granted me permission. None shall stand in my way.”
At that, Dale couldn’t suppress his laughter any longer.
The man had no idea he was nothing but a discarded pawn.
“Don’t worry, Dale,” Sephia said softly.
“……Thank you,” he replied with a faint smile.
Red and Blue—two high mages—
—unleashed their worlds at last.
