Sage 13

The 13th emperor of the Robain Empire, who was enthroned when I was working as an imperial mage, was a man with a gentle appearance but a lot of greed.

He was obsessed with eternal life, as if he were the soul twin of Qin Shi Huang. He didn’t want to give up his position as emperor and feared that future generations would surpass his achievements.

The people of the empire praised him as a wise ruler, citing the numerous achievements he had made, but as far as I remember, that guy was just as much of a lunatic as Darwin.

I don’t know the exact causal relationship between whether the throne makes a human a lunatic or whether you have to be a lunatic to become emperor. But generally, all the powerful people I knew were lunatics.

Anyway, that guy really liked me, the immortal. To be precise, he liked to experiment with the curse of eternal life that I had.

There were emperors before and after this guy who asked witches to cast a curse of eternal life on them, but he was the first one who so blatantly desired immortality like this crazy bastard. Later, there was a head of the Magic Tower who acted similarly… but still, he wasn’t as crazy as this 13th emperor.

Thanks to this guy, I really came to hate Qin Shi Huang, the emperor of the Qin Dynasty.

At the time, it hadn’t been long since I had escaped from slavery, and since I was still affiliated with the Robain Empire, it was difficult to disobey the emperor’s orders. Moreover, since it was at a time when I was protecting Yekarina’s daughters, it was difficult to resist or ignore the power.

The fact that I was younger compared to now was also a problem, if it was a problem. I was much more obedient to those in power than I am now. My Confucian upbringing hadn’t worn off, so I used honorifics very well. Looking back, I was a really good guy a few centuries ago.

So, that emperor cut off my head. Because I looked easy to deal with. He thought that I wouldn’t be able to resist him because I was a former slave, affiliated with the empire, and a mage belonging to the imperial palace. In fact, until my head was cut off, I moved as that guy told me to.

The reason that bastard cut off my head with a sword was simple. He said he was curious if I was really immortal. And he was curious about how I would regenerate if my head was cut off, how my damaged body would recover. He was a bastard with a great passion for learning. He was a guy who would have become a professor of immortality studies if he hadn’t become emperor.

This is why lunatics shouldn’t have power. Although I didn’t really want to know, thanks to him, I found out then that I wouldn’t die even if my head was cut off.

Of course, just because I didn’t die didn’t mean I didn’t feel pain, so I developed a sword-defense spell after that. I succeeded in developing a great magic thanks to a madman, so I don’t know if I should be grateful or call him a bastard. At the time, I was so preoccupied with figuring out how to kill that emperor in the most satisfying way that I didn’t have time to think about anything else.

Thanks to the emperor, my boss, acting like such a jerk, my life as an imperial mage ended quickly. If the emperors weren’t lunatics, I would have had a fairly stable life as an imperial mage, keeping the Magic Tower, which was always trying to take me away, in check, and accumulating wealth diligently.

I could have become Han Yoo-an, the richest man on the continent at the age of 400… I also had a temper, so I couldn’t serve an emperor who tried to use his affiliated mages as lab rats.

[An army has arrived at the entrance of the forest.]

“Teriz must have already snitched to the imperial palace.”

[What should we do? There are about three mages, too.]

In the end, I killed that 13th emperor.

It was my first murder with intent. I didn’t even kill Darwin, who used Yekarina like a tool, with my own hands, but I killed that guy just because he cut off my head.

I didn’t regret it, but I wasn’t happy either. That guy just died when his head was cut off. It was a futile end for a guy who dreamed of immortality.

His death was so easy and clear that I was jealous of the human I had killed. No one said anything about me killing the emperor. Everyone was afraid of me, and they knew they couldn’t kill me.

I ran away from the imperial palace immediately. I didn’t care what happened to the succession after that. Anyway, Yekarina’s descendants weren’t even interested in the throne.

I haven’t been back to the imperial palace since. I was the empress’s pet, then an imperial mage, and then a secret rebel not recorded in history.

I listened to Gilbert and checked the date first. Since the army arrived less than two weeks after my outing to Kaman, it seemed that Teriz had grown into an excellent informant.

I thought she might let it go because of our old relationship, but as expected of the head of an intelligence guild, she sold me out right away.

I electrocuted Teriz first, so I wasn’t resentful. Tit for tat, I guess. Even so, I did have the inhumane thought that I should strike her with lightning one more time the next time I see her.

“Those imperial guys are so persistent. Should I bury a few as an example?”

[If you just incapacitate the three mages, they won’t be able to enter the forest.]

“It’s a bit insulting that they only sent a bunch of incompetent mages who can’t even break the barrier on their own, and not a witch. They’re facing the Great Sage… Gilbert, have I become a pushover these days?”

[Humans often die because they don’t know their place. Just bear with it.]

Irkus recognized me at once, so it wasn’t like my fame had diminished. Thanks to the Magic Tower guys who deify me to an excessive degree, even though it’s been decades since I went into seclusion, my story was still circulating in the world like a legend.

So, it was absurd that the imperial palace, which must have better intelligence gathering than ordinary people, sent only a unit with three mages to the Southern Forest where I was.

[They probably don’t intend to have an all-out war either. Didn’t they come in such a small number because they thought you’d just hand over Irkus?]

“Are they that stupid? I don’t know why that place is always a den of fools. Is Irkus still sleeping?”

[Yes. He went to sleep late yesterday.]

“Then I guess I’ll have to go out myself. Keep a good eye on him so he doesn’t wake up.”

I put on my robe and needlessly touched my neck once. The sensation of the day my neck was cut off lingered in my mind.

Why are those in power always like this? I should really show them the taste of fire or lightning. I can’t let those who can’t get their act together do politics. What will I do if the continent is destroyed, and humanity is annihilated when I can’t even die?

I had no intention of opening the barrier I had placed at the entrance of the Southern Forest and welcoming them in. But anyway, those guys need to see my face once to go back.

It’s so hard to make a child an emperor… Life is really tough.

“Do you guys have nine lives or something?”

Killing a few people was no longer difficult for me. I try not to kill people if possible because I don’t want to forget that I was originally an ordinary human, but having lived to this age, the number of people I have killed is too many to count on two hands.

It’s rare that I killed someone with malicious intent, but attack magic rarely produces the expected output. Even if you calculate meticulously and run it, the margin of error is quite large, so the guys at the Magic Tower had legal restrictions on the use of attack magic unless it was during a war.

So, I can’t even accurately count the number of humans I killed with magic on the battlefield. It was clear that the number of humans I killed to save someone was greater than the number of humans I saved.

At first, I couldn’t sleep at night because I had killed someone with my own hands, but later, I got used to it. Everything is difficult at first, but then you become numb.

Humans die eventually.

They die even if I don’t kill them.

When I began to recognize this fact, guilt and conscience gradually disappeared from within me. No matter how hard I tried to be careful, I no longer batted an eye at killing a few people.

As Gilbert said, I was standing on the border between human and non-human.

Just as a dragon destroys a village without being conscious of it because it’s building its lair, I sometimes couldn’t control myself. It’s nice to say I’m the Great Sage, but I’m basically a walking time bomb.

So, it was ridiculous that the imperial knights believed that I couldn’t kill humans unless it was a wartime situation, just like the mages belonging to the Magic Tower, just because I had the title of ‘Great Sage.’

Recently, though, I’ve become quite docile since I started living with Irkus. I was also slightly influenced by Irkus’s good nature. But even if the power of a time bomb has weakened a little, it’s still a time bomb.

Why are they coming so modestly to defuse a time bomb? Shouldn’t they at least show some sincerity by wearing protective suits?

The knight commander who came to face me, with a magic barrier between us at the entrance of the forest, was a middle-aged man with distinct wrinkles on his face.

I hate dealing with middle-aged men around that age the most. Especially if they are the leader of a unit or a knight commander, they don’t even think about hiding their inflated egos because they are confident in their skills and position.

“Greetings to the Great Sage of the Southern Forest. We have received the emperor’s orders…”

“No, do you really have nine lives or something? I asked you a question first, never mind the emperor’s orders.”

I wanted to just strike them with lightning right away and chase them away… but that would just be poking the hornet’s nest.

If I electrocute people, it’s obvious that others will come looking for me soon. It was a high-risk action in any world to attack a public official, not a civilian. It’s like giving them a reason to bother me.

The barrier formula I placed on the Southern Forest was researched and completed when I was an imperial mage, so the mages belonging to the Robain Empire should be able to dismantle it, even if it takes some time.

…Right? Surely, they’re not that stupid, are they?

It seemed like the mages I brought with me were all new, since the three imperial mages still couldn’t dismantle it.

This is really insulting to my pride. To think that they only brought new mages to deal with a gifted student like me, those imperial guys really don’t know their place.

“Even the Great Sage cannot disobey the emperor’s orders. Surely you know that the Southern Forest is also part of the Robain Empire?”

“It’s a border area. Even Kaman claims that the Southern Forest belongs to them. Hey, and why does the forest belong to humans? The tree spirits are watching with their eyes wide open. If Dane heard this, he would have hit you on the head first.”

“How can you say such rude things…?”

This is why I hate dealing with older men. What’s so rude about it? It’s all true.

At one time, I was also a master of circumlocution, but there was no reason for me, who had long since quit politics, to be polite to a mere knight commander.

A few knights pointed their swords at me through the thin barrier. These bastards, they don’t even know that swords don’t work on me. Isn’t it taught in history textbooks these days that I’m the developer of the sword-defense spell?

I was a little dumbfounded, so I turned my gaze to the three mages who were working hard to dismantle the barrier behind the middle-aged man who seemed to be the leader.