The Returned Magician Prevents the End

Chapter 1

Rain fell from the black sky.

Though a downpour poured, the land, losing its vitality and dying, couldn’t even absorb the flowing rainwater.

I, a man gazing at the puddle overflowing with rainwater, spoke slowly.

“Isn’t it quite fascinating?”

No one answered my words.

I nonchalantly swept back my soaking wet hair.

When I spoke again, my voice carried an unmistakable, deep fatigue.

“It always rains at this moment. As if it were a promise.”

My voice mingled with white breath and vanished without a trace.

I turned my melancholic eyes toward the figure lying on the hard rock.

“Did you cast a spell or something?”

There was no response.

But that was only natural.

After all, a person lying with a gaping hole in their chest could hardly answer another’s questions easily.

Even if that person was the worst sorceress who brought ruin to the entire continent, the ‘Witch of Starlight.’

I, Rough, the magic engineer standing at the edge of the cliff, seemed to feel no particular emotion at her pitiful state.

I calmly observed the scene of the witch’s blood mingling with the rainwater.

The puddle, mixed with bright red blood, swirled at my feet, exuding a metallic stench of blood.

Suddenly feeling a violent impulse, I stomped roughly toward the puddle.

Splash!

The crimson puddle splashed up, spreading a fishy smell of blood across the cliff.

I couldn’t tell if it was the smell of blood from reality or one lingering in my memory.

Despair and fear.

Those two words could most effectively describe the ten-year war between humans and sorcerers, the ‘Great Anti-Magic War.’

Sorcerers who wielded mana, a power beyond human comprehension, with ease.

They invaded the empire without any warning.

These beautiful foreigners with shimmering silver hair and blue eyes launched cruel attacks on the empire without hesitation.

Why they crossed deserts and mountains to attack the human empire—no one knew the reason.

What mattered was that the violence they inflicted was unimaginably brutal.

Reality, manipulated with simple chants uttered in their dry tones, overwhelmed humanity.

Flooding waves, sharp winds that tore flesh, and blazing punishments of fire raining from the sky.

It was an attack called magic, something humanity had never experienced before.

A horrific slaughter that made the word ‘war’ seem inadequate.

The term ‘Great Anti-Magic War,’ coined by the empire, was its last shred of pride.

Of course, such pride offered little help to human survival.

Before sorcerers who wielded transcendent power beyond cause and effect, humans were utterly powerless.

It seemed all too certain that the empire’s humans would vanish from the continent without a trace under the sorcerers’ relentless assault.

And right now, the vanguard leading that assault, the ‘Witch of Starlight,’ lay before me with a hole in her chest.

“You… that technique… how did it happen?”

A faint voice emerged from the Witch of Starlight, who had been lying motionless.

When I turned my gaze at her response, she continued as if she had been waiting.

“How could a human… our power… mana…”

Her voice seemed calm, but it was utterly drained of strength.

Perhaps, as a sorceress, she was using mana to forcibly cling to life.

I sent a cold sneer toward the fallen witch.

“Can’t you show a slightly more original reaction?”

“What?”

“You always react the same way. ‘What is that technique?’ or ‘Impossible. It can’t be.’ or ‘How could a human wield that technique!’ Things like that. How about showing a bit more creativity?”

The witch let out a short groan, her expression one of disbelief.

“I can’t understand what you’re saying. Have you gone mad?”

“Yes, including that reaction as well.”

The Witch of Starlight, who had been scrutinizing me with narrowed eyes, soon showed a startled expression.

“…You! Could it be a mana user?”

“Correct. You’re a bit slow to catch on this time.”

“Was it possible for a human to sense mana…? If that’s the case…”

The witch, muttering to herself as if in confusion, continued her monologue.

Mana was originally a transcendent power exclusive to the sorcerers of the western continent.

By all rights, I, Rough, an ordinary human from the eastern continent, shouldn’t have been able to sense or use it.

But I had a talent.

A talent for mana that I myself hadn’t known about, one I might never have discovered without the sorcerers’ invasion.

After muttering to herself for a while, the witch nodded as if she finally understood everything.

“I thought it was strange… Too many things couldn’t be explained unless someone could use mana.”

“Like this, for example.”

I drew the mana gun from my waist, aimed it at the witch, and tilted it playfully.

It was the same gun that had just put a gaping hole in her chest.

But upon seeing the mana gun, the witch gave a radiant smile.

“Aren’t you afraid?”

“Afraid? Why should I fear seeing an unknown I haven’t discovered?”

Seeing the witch’s face, filled only with deep curiosity, I shook my head and shoved the mana gun back into its holster.

The witch let out a choking, blood-frothed laugh.

“Cough! Seeing that makes it even harder to understand…”

“What don’t you understand?”

“Cough! As a sorcerer… you’re the worst. Your pitiful mana sensitivity is barely worth calling beginner-level.”

At her words, I chuckled.

“My goodness, is that all the great ‘Witch of Starlight’ has to say in her final moments? Such childish insults?”

“You know nothing… That’s not what I mean. Cough!”

“Then what?”

The witch steadied her fading breath slowly.

“As you know, I’m a sorceress.”

“My word, what a shocking revelation! I had no idea!”

“…Sorcerers are those who challenge the mysteries beyond the heavens. I’m one of them… and I don’t want to leave unresolved mysteries behind. That’s all…”

“You’re completely insane. Craving knowledge even in a situation like this?”

At my scornful rebuke, the witch gave what seemed like an amused smile.

“…Yes, as you say, I might be mad. But you… can you say you’ve never once been curious about the mysteries while wielding mana, hmm?”

At her words, I bit my lip.

As she said, I too had felt curiosity about the mysteries while understanding mana.

But I always despised such ‘sorcerer-like’ thoughts, even while using mana’s power effectively.

Seeing my lack of response, the witch subtly raised the corners of her mouth and spoke even more weakly.

“My question is one. How, cough! How could you make weapons to face us… with such crude magic… in time…? As if… you knew we were coming.”

My lips twisted into a smirk at the witch’s words, muttered as she stared blankly at the sky.

“It’s a long story and I doubt you’d believe it.”

“Is that so…”

“If we meet in hell later, I’ll explain it fully then.”

“Thanks a lot, you bastard.”

Yet, despite her words, there was no regret in the witch’s voice.

Unable to bear the weight of the pouring raindrops, her eyelids closed.

“…Yes… this is the end.”

A blood-frothed voice struggled to escape between the witch’s lips.

I listened to her rough, deflating breaths.

The Witch of Starlight would soon die.

As she had so many times before.

Looking down at the dying witch, I suddenly felt a surge of anger.

“Why did you do this?”

There was no answer.

The Witch of Starlight merely closed her eyes quietly, blood foaming at her mouth.

It was a pitifully humble end for the great witch who drove the world to ruin.

The now-thicker rain poured down as if it would carve away my body.

Impulsively, I grabbed the fallen witch by the collar and shook her.

“Why did you do this? Why did so many people have to die? Why!”

The Witch of Starlight shook limply as I rattled her.

Realizing the futility of my actions, I was about to release her collar when a faint voice came from her.

“…If… from the start… again…”

I leaned down to focus on her voice.

But her faint voice only slipped away between the intensifying rain.

“…would… such… an ending… have been avoided…”

Amid the clamor of the rain, those were the only words I could make out.

There was no chance to ask the witch, who had breathed her last, anything more.

The Witch of Starlight, drained of color, looked astonishingly pale.

I set down her cold body.

The Witch of Starlight was dead.

Glory to the empire.

But nothing had changed.

The empire still faced ruin, and my homeland vanished without a trace once again.

The land, exposed to mana contamination, would never nurture life again.

Thus, the world met another End.

I sat motionless, collapsed.

Breathing was difficult under the rain pelting my face, but I didn’t move.

My lips, rigid as a statue, barely opened.

“No matter how many times I killed you… the world still met its end.”

My gaze fell on the fallen Witch of Starlight.

Through the thick mist of water, her form seemed to blur as if it would vanish.

“How can I break this horrific cycle?”

But my question found no answer.

In a world already ruined, no one remained to respond.

What I had to do now was clear.

Weakly rummaging through my pocket, I pulled out a small pocket watch.

The magical device I developed for time regression, ‘Chrono Break,’ began to activate.

Amid the spreading flow of mana, I trembled with overwhelming powerlessness.

How long had it been since I felt hopeful rewinding time before everything was destroyed?

I had thought that returning to a time before the world’s destruction could stop the End.

A terrible miscalculation.

No matter what I did, nothing changed.

Even if I returned to the future before the Great Anti-Magic War and organized a massive resistance, memorized the sorcerers’ invasion points and launched a counterattack, or even succeeded in assassinating the Witch of Starlight leading the sorcerers.

Victory was fleeting, and the world’s destruction by mana contamination remained unchanged.

‘Still, I can’t give up.’

Feeling the flow of time passing by, I gave a hollow laugh.

‘I couldn’t stop it this time.’

But if I couldn’t find the answer, I would keep repeating until I did.

That was the mission I, the only one able to defy time’s current, believed in.

Feeling my existence fading, I closed my eyes.

[Yes, now I understand.]

At that moment, a sudden voice jolted me awake.

I knew the owner of that voice all too well.

A chillingly clear voice…

‘The Witch of Starlight!’

I fumbled for the mana gun at my waist, but my body, already caught in time’s flow, was losing its form.

Unable to react, I heard the witch’s voice, sounding like a mocking laugh.

[It’s meaningless.]

As the voice ended, a massive crack formed in the flow of time passing me.

Twisting formlessly in time’s current, I was helplessly sucked into the crack.

[This time will be different.]

Even amid the shock threatening to make me lose consciousness, one question filled my mind.

‘How could the Witch of Starlight…?’

But that thought, like all previous questions, was one that could never be resolved.

My blurred vision gradually cleared.

Suddenly, thick raindrops fell on my face.

‘Rain?’

Cautiously opening my eyes, I looked around in confusion.

The sky, heavy with dark clouds, was still raining, just as it had when I began the regression.

‘Did the regression fail?’

I immediately raised the Chrono Break in my hand.

But no mana could be felt from the magical device that had been with me for so long.

The great magical tool that held the miraculous magic of time regression was now just an ordinary pocket watch.

With a hollow heart, I moved to tuck it back into my pocket, but my hand froze in midair.

The hand holding the pocket watch looked far too small.

As if my body had turned into that of a child.

“What… what is this?”

I stood and hurriedly crawled toward a puddle of rainwater.

The unfamiliar sensation in my body fueled ominous thoughts.

Finally, seeing my reflection in the puddle, my body stiffened.

The reflection wasn’t of Rough, the genius engineer who struggled through countless time loops to prevent destruction.

All that reflected in the puddle was the shabby figure of an unfamiliar boy.