“Has the sun… disappeared?”
Staring blankly at the pitch-black sky, Grand Duke Jeil Helraig muttered.
Didn’t he just witness the sunrise? He would have to wait half a day for it to set again.
That was the natural order. A bitterly reliable rule of the sun that hadn’t faltered for 2,000 years.
But now, the sun had vanished. It hadn’t gone back down or set; it had simply disappeared from the sky without warning.
“How could this happen—”
“Aria!! You did it!!!!”
Lavina cheered with a dolphin-like squeal, rushing over with an excited face.
Eleonora’s tail swished rapidly, and Plona tilted her head back slightly, anxiously clutching her hood and peering up at the sky.
‘The power… has returned.’
Seeing Plona, who had bundled herself tightly in a thick hooded cloak to block out the sunlight, finally revealing her face made Jeil realize the unbelievable truth.
He sprang up from his seat.
His wounds were healing rapidly. Just a few seconds ago, he could barely move a finger, but now he was regaining almost full freedom in the blink of an eye.
“You… No, Progenitor. What on earth is happening?”
Aria, who had suddenly looked exhausted, regained her composure at Jeil’s confused question and flashed a triumphant smile.
It was as if she were saying, “Did you get shocked? You look good.” But Jeil didn’t have the luxury to analyze that now.
“Eclipse. It’s my Unique Magic.”
“I helped!! I helped complete it!!!!!”
Even as the elf brazenly interrupted, creating chaos inside and outside the castle with her Wind Arrow attacks, Jeil didn’t even think to consider her actions.
It was truly an unbelievable sight.
Maybe it was just an illusion, but the perfectly healed, revitalized body of the vampire was asserting to Jeil that this situation was no lie.
*
“Is this… magic? Was such a thing possible with dark magic?”
“Usually, it isn’t. That’s why it’s called ‘Unique Magic.’”
Lavina boasted in response to Jeil’s mumbles.
She was the one who cast the spell, yet she was the one answering as if it were obvious.
But well, no one else could use this magic, and it was indeed thanks to Lavina’s help that it had been successfully completed.
Having a hand in developing a magic that yielded such successful results was enough to make her feel a bit smug, and Jeil simply watched as Lavina puffed up with pride.
Jeil reached out to the sky where the sun had existed just moments ago.
See this, you bastard.
He hadn’t used magic merely to surprise, but to see Jeil’s face—full of disbelief despite being shown several times—was undoubtedly satisfying.
“I said I knew nothing of your troubles? This is my answer.”
Conceptual interference dark magic, Eclipse.
A large-scale dark magic that directly covers all concepts derived from the sun with dark spirits within a certain area, artificially reproducing night.
In truth, it wasn’t a magic that actually blocked sunlight. Classified as a sort of barrier magic, outside the effective range, the sun would still be blazing brightly, untouched.
However, within its effective area, the concept itself twists. The concepts of the sun and daytime are completely erased, and the world is restructured as if it had always been night.
Thus, unlike mere illusion magic that only darkens the environment, the blessings that night brings to vampires remain intact. This is the core.
“A magic that turns the world into night…”
“Specifically, it’s a magic that implements a world where daytime doesn’t exist within its range.”
It took a solid two years to complete this magic.
With a cost so vast and a level of complexity that made it practically impossible for an individual to realize, it had become a magic that only I—due to having complete computational omission in dark magic and the highest affinity with spirits—could wield.
But seeing Jeil unable to close his mouth in amazement felt like recompensing for the two years of hard work.
“Why did you create such magic?”
“Huh?”
“A magic that ultimately changes day into night. It shouldn’t be necessary for a Progenitor.”
That was certainly true.
I too felt better at night than during the day, but there had been no reason to invest two whole years just because I hated the sun.
But the reason I persevered through Lavina’s auditory torture was not for that reason.
“It may not be needed for me, but it will be useful for my subordinates.”
Jeil’s gaze followed mine and landed on Plona.
Plona looked at me with a face of admiration, sending enthusiastic looks my way.
The vampire, donning a thick cloak to avoid the sun, and the magic that turned daytime into night… Discovering this causal relationship, Jeil muttered in disbelief.
“The Progenitor created such magic for the sake of her subordinates. Why? For what purpose?”
“Why, you ask… because it’s family?”
“…Ha. Family.”
His weak self-replies still carried a hint of ridicule, yet there was no longer any sign of rejection.
The predominant feeling was one of resignation. And I was finally convinced I had broken Jeil’s stubborn will.
“You asked me to help with the war in Sahelrn Duchy…”
Finally.
I suppressed the racing of my heart and nodded quietly.
There was no point in being overly eager. I tried my best to appear calm.
But I was starting to feel dizzy. The atmosphere was way too good; I didn’t want to ruin it… Ah, no. This is really not good.
“Let’s get into the details—”
“Wait a sec. I’m really sorry for interrupting.”
“What is it?”
As I judged that I could no longer hold back, I urgently opened my mouth.
Jeil and Plona, Lavina and Eleonora. And the cautious gazes of the vampires from Helraig Duchy, slowly stepping outside to enjoy the unexpected night, all landed squarely on me.
Okay, this is seriously intimidating. But if I tried to hold out due to stubbornness, a real disaster might occur, so I finally spoke before an irreversible accident could happen.
“I’ve exhausted all my strength. I think the magic will be undone soon.”
Time momentarily stopped.
Emergency Broadcast: Sun reappearance imminent.
The expressions of the vampires enjoying an unusual night outside the castle changed to sheer panic, as if they had received a death sentence, their faces paling immediately as time began to move frantically again.
“No, suddenly—”
“Everyone back inside the castle!! Hurry before the sun rises again!!!”
“Move if you don’t want to get burned!!!”
*
“Ahem, ahem.”
Aria’s awkward cough echoed in the indoor space.
But to her astonishment, no one reacted, and she sunk deep into her chair, trying to diminish her presence.
“It’s… okay. Sis, it’s normal for the first time using magic to be like this. Moreover, it’s such large-scale magic, right?”
Plona, who had been observing, awkwardly offered words of comfort. Just as Eleonora was about to nod in agreement, Jeil spoke up first as if to lead her ears.
“Yeah. It’s okay. That can happen. My subordinates almost got burned, but it’s fine, it can happen.”
Aria shrank even further. Almost all that remained visible were her eyes peeking out from below the table.
‘Have I lost to someone like this?’
Jeil let out a sigh.
He had managed to stand firm through sheer willpower until the end, but that was only possible because of the help he had received from the other side.
The overwhelming power of the woman before him reminded him of the feelings of hopelessness he had long forgotten while reigning as Grand Duke.
Was this really the same person who had once laughed and clung to her enemies beneath a crumbling castle? The more he thought, the more miserable he felt, and he decided to stop pondering further.
“Anyway, let’s not dwell on the trivialities. Although it was tight, ultimately everyone evacuated indoors before the magic was undone, so there’s no problem.”
Aria, half-buried in her chair, perked up. She seemed to have regained some confidence.
Jeil suppressed yet another sigh that was rising in his throat with superhuman patience and resumed the conversation he hadn’t finished earlier.
“So the reinforcements. What are the specific requirements? You must’ve received instructions from that Martini woman.”
“Huh? No, it wasn’t Martini who called us?”
Aria blinked, feigning genuine ignorance.
Taken aback by this unexpected response, Jeil reflexively turned to gauge the expressions of her subordinates, the elf, and the dragonkin nearby.
None of them showed any sign of questioning Aria’s words. There was no indication of deception.
Now it was truly Jeil’s turn to be surprised.
“…You said you weren’t called? Didn’t you come as a messenger because a formal request for assistance was made from Sahelrn Duchy?”
“No, that’s not it. The maid from the duchy that had been staying with us decided to return home because she thought a war was coming, saying she would call if it really broke out, but she never did. However, seeing it would be hard to win, I came on my own.”
“Why did you throw yourself into danger?”
“Because I owe a debt to Sahelrn Duchy.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, Aria answered as if it was a matter of course, and Jeil couldn’t help but chuckle.
To create a magic that turns day into night, investing half of her life for her only subordinate who couldn’t live during the day, and here they were, just four of them, coming all the way here asking for help, for a debt that wasn’t even forced upon them.
It was incredibly foolish.
While the situation had indeed led to this critical point, there was also the matter of crawling into the enemy’s territory without a plan, and even keeping alive enemies who could’ve been killed throughout the previous night—none of it was something one in their right mind would do.
‘But…’
Perhaps if the first progenitor had been such a person, things would have turned out differently?
Holding on to impossible possibilities from the past wouldn’t change anything.
All Jeil could do was wrestle with the fact that he couldn’t deny the whimsical feeling growing within him—a desire to observe where the path of this fourth progenitor, so distinctly different from the first, might lead.
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