Sage 4

There are three conditions that must be met for a witch’s blessing or curse to be fully realized.

First, the witch must know the target’s name accurately. In this world, I was called Yoo-an without a surname, but since Yekarina was the one who taught me the common language, she knew that my name was Han Yoo-an.

Second, the witch and the target must be in physical contact. The blessing or curse is realized only when they are holding hands or at least touching fingertips.

Third, the blessing or curse must be of a type that the witch can handle. For example, bestowing immortality on someone is impossible even for a witch who has lived for a long time. This is because the witch herself cannot handle the backlash from the blessing or curse.

Only when all these conditions are met can a witch bless or curse someone.

Therefore, the number of witches who actually bless or curse someone is extremely small. This is also why ordinary people do not ostracize powerful witches who have abilities other than magic, unlike mages. Because it hardly ever happens anyway.

‘I don’t need that kind of blessing. My goal is to live a long life without illness, and to die at my prime. Immortality is something that only guys like Qin Shi Huang want…’

‘Yoo-an.’

‘Just because you saved my life… just because you’re my teacher, Your Majesty, doesn’t give you the right to keep me from dying. Do you understand?’

‘I want to entrust my children to you.’

Since I was calculating and realistic from a young age, I had never dreamed of eternal life.

Even during my school days, I wanted to make a lot of money, take a plane to Switzerland, and be euthanized at the time I desired. I never wanted to live forever, unable to age or die. I was not cut out to be Qin Shi Huang.

But I couldn’t refuse Yekarina’s last blessing.

How could I heartlessly refuse when she was entrusting her children to me? At the time, Yekarina only had two descendants, and since both were daughters, it was clear that if they stayed in the imperial palace, they would surely fall ill and die like Yekarina.

That lunatic emperor was only thinking about how he could use the two daughters born between him and Yekarina as efficient witches like Yekarina. What beheading, I should have impaled him on the city gates as is the Korean way.

However, at the time, I hadn’t even received the title of Great Sage, and my magical abilities were insignificant compared to now. As I said before, I’m a gifted student, not a genius. It takes a very long time to warm up.

If it were me now, I could just strike him with lightning dozens of times and change the regime, but all I could do at the time was risk my life to deceive the emperor and take Yekarina’s two daughters out of the palace so they could grow up as independent witches.

‘You really are the worst witch, Yekarina.’

‘But, also the best witch?’

‘…You’re so full of yourself.’

‘When my children become emperors, you will be free, too.’

‘Is this a contract?’

‘No. This is a blessing for you.’

Blessing, my ass.

It’s a curse of eternal life.

I’ve thought about why the curse of eternal life, which should never have been established, was so perfectly executed for about 300 years, but I still don’t know.

Maybe it was because of Yekarina’s will to somehow let her daughters live as independent witches, or maybe my young heart, feeling indebted to Yekarina, was affected by the witch’s curse.

Yekarina was a powerful witch, but she was very weak just before she died because she had overused her magic for the lunatic emperor.

A witch who was on the verge of death from illness succeeded in giving a blessing of immortality that only witches in legends and fairy tales can use.

Indeed, you never know what will happen in life. Blessings or curses just before death are special, but even Yekarina herself wouldn’t have known that such a fraudulent blessing would work. Thanks to this, I came to this world after dying, but I ended up in a strange fate where I can’t die here.

She should have used her ability to give eternal life blessings to save herself. Yekarina is really a foolish witch.

After becoming immortal, I lived for Yekarina for about 50 years. I worked tirelessly to ensure that her daughters could grow up to be proper witches.

Despite my efforts, one of Yekarina’s two daughters eventually married an ordinary human again, but the other one managed to become independent and lived as a wonderful witch before dying.

Unfortunately, neither of the two daughters became the Emperor of the Robain Empire.

If they had wanted to, I would have personally cut off the emperor’s head for them. Like mother, like daughters, they were both only interested in strange things and had no interest in the throne.

Even Yekarina’s granddaughter, Yekarina’s great-granddaughter… and Yekarina’s very, very distant descendants had no interest in the throne.

Of course. They were all witches who would get sick the moment they mixed in with human society.

It was amazing that they kept having daughters. It was also amazing that one or two of them would fall in love with an ordinary human, have descendants, and die. The most amazing thing was that no one had any intention of becoming emperor, so I was still alive at this age.

Because of that, I missed Yekarina for a very long time. For the next 100 years, I resented her to the point where I wanted to revive her and kill her again, and for the remaining 200 years or so, I completely forgot about her.

The witch, Yekarina. And her… finally, a biological male descendant (for now, generally unable to become a witch) who might be interested in the throne.

After 400 years, there was one sentence that flashed through my mind. In the beginning of the first volume of <The Book of Irkus>, there was one line about the protagonist.

The protagonist of <The Book of Irkus>, Irkus Robain, is a ‘descendant of a witch.’

I’m the champion for remembering this only now. This is why gifted students are no good.

* * *

“Where is the intruder?”

[Not far from your atelier. When you go outside and look straight ahead, twenty-nine steps to the east.]

“Do you think they’ll die if left alone?”

[No. Judging by how much trouble Dane is having, I think they’ll be fine on their own and find their way out.]

“Blood will tell.”

After a long time, I found my robe and put it on.

Black hair and black eyes were still a symbol of bad luck in the Robain Empire even after four centuries. In a world where humans use magic, they discriminate against people based on their eye and hair color. They’re so narrow-minded.

“Is that child blond?”

[How did you know?]

“In fantasy worlds, protagonists are usually either black-haired or blond. Rarely red-haired.”

Gilbert took my words in one ear and out the other. It’s questionable whether tree spirits even have ears, but he didn’t question my choice of the word ‘protagonist.’

He must have thought it was more nonsense and ignored it. He’s supposed to be a tree spirit, but he’s so ungrateful.

Because Yekarina’s daughters had no interest in the throne, I’ve been looking for all sorts of people, from humans to non-humans, to see if I could die another way. I even asked anyone who seemed a little special to try to kill me. Despite all my efforts, most of them died before me.

The last time I asked a dragon to ‘try to kill me’, he was about the same age as me, but he was killed by a dragon slayer who was barely twenty years old while he was sleeping.

Honestly, when I heard that the dragon had died, I was so upset. What, he died, so why can’t I die? Dragons have dragon slayers, so why isn’t there a Great Sage slayer? No matter how much I thought about it, it was so unfair.

After carefully considering how I could die peacefully over the past years, this was the conclusion I came to.

If a descendant of Yekarina who is not a witch is ever born… I’ll die by that person’s hand. It will take some time, but Yekarina’s daughters have a very high probability of being easily swayed by appearances, so one or two of the sisters always had descendants.

If children keep being born like this, there must be one who dreams of becoming emperor! Then I’ll quickly make them emperor, and while I’m at it, I’ll ask them to kill me!

It was a very hopeless plan of death. But, really, there was no other way.

As soon as Yekarina’s daughters grew up, I asked them to try to kill me more than two hundred times, but I didn’t die. I even tried to force them to sit on the throne, but Yekarina’s descendants all refused my request.

The reasons for their refusal were also very diverse. From the reason that they couldn’t marry the prince of an enemy country if they became emperor, to the obvious but somewhat biased reason, ‘I’m a witch, so why should I mix with humans?’… They were all stubborn witches, so it was incredibly difficult to force the throne on them.

It was partly because I didn’t want to be harsh on Yekarina’s descendants, but fundamentally, they just didn’t listen to me.

I couldn’t force them because I thought of Yekarina, my asking didn’t work, and persuasion didn’t work either.

It was driving me crazy. Seeing witches who were so uninterested in power, I thought this was the Buddhist spirit of non-possession.

What does my ancestor’s contract have to do with me? This was the basic attitude of the witches. One of Yekarina’s descendants even said that she would annihilate humanity if she became emperor, so I just told her not to. As a result, my mental state only deteriorated.

I need a healthy mind to endure this crazy eternal life. But the mind is a consumable, and it began to wear out in this endless life.

In the end, I chose the last resort. Whatever. Let’s stop thinking and just stay holed up and sleep. When a new generation comes along and someone who wants to be emperor appears, then I’ll wake up.

If that doesn’t work, then I’ll just accept eternal life. If I live for a thousand years, I’ll probably come up with a groundbreaking way to kill myself… that’s what I thought five years before I met Irkus.

But suddenly, the protagonist of this world, Irkus, rolled into the Southern Forest without even a ribbon on him as my 400th birthday present.

As a descendant of Yekarina and the protagonist of this world, he would become emperor no matter what… I didn’t even shout, “Come and kill me!” but he came rolling in on his own.

Dragons, the longest-living creatures in this world, usually die before they reach 500 years old, so it must be that this world is trying to kill me before I turn 500.