"You know me?"
When his name slipped from Shane's mouth, the black-haired boy across from them visibly froze.
"…"
Shane stared at him, saying nothing.
At the edge of his vision, lines of golden text only he could see kept flickering, telling him the trial had already been completed.
And yet, faced with what should have been an exciting conclusion, he couldn't relax at all.
He had never imagined that the so-called greatest black wizard in history—the one people kept talking about over and over—would appear before him so suddenly, so casually, of his own accord.
After living for hundreds of years, didn't that basically make him a genuine "living Heroic Spirit"?
"Did you just say…?"
Hearing the name Shane had spoken, even Ultear couldn't keep her cool expression in place.
She turned to him in disbelief. "You mean that Zeref?"
How was that possible?
The melancholy, polite boy standing in front of them looked nothing like someone who could be associated with the words greatest evil.
Seeing the shock and wariness in their eyes, the black-haired boy helplessly rubbed a strand of hair by his ear.
"I'm not really sure how all those strange rumors about me spread…"
He made no attempt to hide anything. Instead, he simply nodded openly.
"But if we're talking about the name itself… then yes, I am Zeref."
"He actually admitted it?!"
Ultear's beautiful eyes widened slightly. At this moment, her shock wasn't any less than Shane's.
After all, the master of Grimoire Heart—Hades himself—
that old man who claimed to have touched the depths of magic, the one now pursuing his goal by any means necessary—
his dearest wish was to find Zeref and usher in a new great age of magic.
And yet now…
the very person countless dark guilds worshipped like a god had just casually appeared on some barren mountain?
And was even inviting them to chat with a calm smile on his face?
"So…"
Forcing down the shock in her chest, Ultear took a deep breath.
Now that his identity had been confirmed, she asked the same question again, slowly and clearly:
"Why did you bring us here?"
But this time, her tone was no longer as calm as before.
Bzzz—
With the question, crystal-like light flickered faintly around Ultear.
That was the sign of Arc of Time being pushed to its limit. Like tiny stars orbiting her. If he made the slightest suspicious move, she would attack without hesitation.
Ultear had enough confidence in her current strength to believe that even if the opponent was the legendary Zeref, she could at least buy a sliver of time to escape.
Whatever he wanted, they absolutely could not just sit there and wait.
"My reputation really is terrible, isn't it?"
Seeing how tense she'd become, Zeref could only shake his head.
"I didn't seek you out with any ill intent."
"It's simply because… you are my kind."
"My kind?" Shane shot back without the slightest courtesy.
"If that's what you mean, then there are over sixty thousand of your 'kind' right next door in Magnolia."
No matter how harmless Zeref looked right now, Shane couldn't summon even the slightest goodwill toward someone who had left behind so many evil rituals in history and had a known obsession with creating demons.
"No, you misunderstand. I don't mean that we're both human."
Zeref didn't react at all to Shane's barbed tone and just waved a hand lightly.
"I mean… cursed."
"We are both cursed beings."
Then he seemed to think that still wasn't precise enough.
So he lifted a finger and pointed first at Shane, then at Ultear.
"To be more accurate… the two of you are people who are about to be cursed by 'God,' just as I was."
"What do you mean?" Shane frowned.
"Why do you look so confused?" Zeref tilted his head slightly. "Deep down… you should understand perfectly well."
"You tampered with life and death. You made light of time itself. Didn't you?"
So it really was because of reviving Ur…
Hearing that answer, Shane rubbed at his pounding temple.
He had too many secrets. If Zeref didn't spell it out, Shane genuinely wouldn't have known which one he was referring to.
Still… so gods really did exist in this world.
Maybe because the Book of Heroes had already made him aware that he might one day summon gods himself, Shane stayed surprisingly calm.
He asked, "What happens when you're cursed by a god?"
"Because honestly, you look like you're holding up just fine. Aside from being a bit gloomy, you don't look like someone being tormented by a curse."
"That's because you still don't understand the bad taste of gods."
Zeref gave a bitter little smile and explained:
"Although I don't know whether the one watching you now from the heavens is Ankhseram, who governs life and death, or Chronos, who rules over time…"
"whichever one it is, the thing those gods love most is stripping mortals of whatever they hold dearest, in the cruelest way possible."
Zeref touched his own young face, which nevertheless carried endless stillness.
"Though I'd rather not remember that suffocatingly long past… I do think it's necessary to explain the consequences to you later 'transgressors.'"
"More than four hundred years ago, when I tried to cross the boundary of life and death, I provoked the wrath of the god Ankhseram."
"He placed upon me a curse called Contradiction."
"That is—immortality."
"And the more I respect life, the more love and goodwill I hold toward this world, the more uncontrollably my body spreads a deathly aura that steals all life around me."
"…"
At that, Shane finally understood.
"So that's why you refuse to go near towns. You're worried that the death aura you spread will kill innocent people too?"
He frowned. That wasn't the answer he had expected.
A heart that holds goodwill toward life would only spread death…
Shane suddenly found the whole thing absurd.
Zeref had lived this long and the curse still activated.
What did that mean?
It meant that after centuries of loneliness and torment, this so-called greatest black wizard in history still, somewhere deep down, retained a pure love and kindness toward the world.
That was almost impossible for Shane to wrap his head around.
And if you looked at it another way…
"What if someone completely malicious, someone who treated life like dirt, received that same curse?"
Shane countered.
"Wouldn't that mean they'd never trigger the condition that spreads death, and would instead just get free immortality with no downside at all?"
"If that's the case, then that curse is basically a blessing!"
"That's why I say the gods are the cruelest of all."
Zeref smiled at himself in bitter mockery.
"They won't grant you a clean end. They will precisely strip away the thing you treasure most."
"Because I value life, the curse forces me to take it."
"If it had been someone else…"
He looked at Shane.
"If it had been the kind of person you described—someone full of malice—then the gods would probably have cursed him to feel a hundredfold the pain of his victims for the rest of his life."
Zeref looked at both of them, pity in his eyes.
"And the two of you… what is it that you value most? Your bonds? Your magic? Or… the life you just reclaimed?"
"…"
"What do you think?"
Shane took a deep breath and turned to ask Ultear what she thought.
He had expected the usual cool analysis, probably with a hint of sarcasm mixed in.
But the moment his eyes fell on her, his heart jolted.
At some point, all the color had drained from Ultear's usually composed face.
She was so pale she looked almost transparent—like a thin sheet of paper that would shatter if touched.
Shane instinctively tightened his grip on her hand. Her palm was far colder than usual, and faintly trembling.
Looking at her like this, Shane immediately understood what she was thinking.
There was no doubt about it.
After hearing Zeref describe the horrifying cost of incurring a divine curse, this girl—who always closed herself off from others—was already pinning all the blame on herself.
Because she had wanted to bring her mother back to life.
This woman always acted so strong, so cold, so tough in front of others.
So why did she always become this fragile and painfully sensitive at moments like these?
Shane sighed inwardly.
Strip away all those thorns, and at her core she was still just an insecure child desperate for safety.
He didn't say much.
He simply tightened his fingers more firmly around her cold hand.
As their fingers intertwined, he steadily passed his warmth into her.
"Let him finish first."
Shane looked straight into her panicked eyes and forced a light tone.
"And besides, reviving your mother wasn't something I did just because you wanted it."
"So don't flatter yourself too much, Ultear."
"…"
Feeling the calm warmth pressing into her palm, Ultear's nearly frozen thoughts finally clawed back a little composure.
"I… wasn't."
She tried to pull up one of her usual sharp, mocking smiles—to show she was fine, to respond to Shane's attempt at comforting her.
But she failed.
That cold little smirk she could usually summon so easily froze at her lips and refused to become anything natural.
In the end, she could only murmur in a dry voice, almost as if trying to convince herself:
"That's right…"
"Maybe… it's not as serious as all that."
"We're mages. In a world of magic, nothing is absolute."
"We'll definitely find a way to break the curse!"
It was an intensely subjective conclusion. Less an analysis than a desperate act of self-comfort in the face of fear.
But reality was cruel.
"There is no way to break it."
The one who shattered that fragile fantasy was Zeref, speaking in the same gentle tone, utterly devoid of emotional fluctuation.
"Ever."
~~~
Patreon(.)com/Bleam
— Currently You can Read 120 Chapters Ahead of Others!