It was too ridiculous a sight.

　What happens when a man jumps into a flame. And share the fuel. Logic even a child could understand. You do that, you die.

　Of course you die. And there's no such mercy as instant death. Your whole body will burn, your trachea will be so hot you won't be able to breathe, your organs will steam, and you'll die in the worst possible pain. How could you not know? Yes, even a child could know. The man in front of me couldn't have known. So why?

　--Why did this man do it as a matter of course.

　I don't know. I don't understand. For Fiorato La Volgograd, who has lived his life with the universal as his friend and the mundane as his ally, this is an act outside the realm of imagination.

　Why aren't you like me? Naturally, my lips asked the question. Like me, you are ordinary, powerless, unable to resist fate.

　Thoughts swirled around in Fialaert's blank brain, wondering if he was not that ordinary.

　For Volgograd, Fialaat's birthplace, being ordinary was a bad thing.

　Being born and raised in the famous magic family of Volgograd, it was unacceptable to be just an ordinary person. With an unmistakable pedigree and a gifted education in an environment that could be called fierce. To be mediocre in such an environment is to be lacking in qualities. A failure. Shoddy. Evil.

　She is not outside of that ideology. I've been told that mediocrity is evil, and I've told myself that. No matter how mediocre and unremarkable you are.

　Oh, when did it start? Since when? I don't know how long it took me to realize that I had no talent, but there was a memory in the beginning of Fialat. He had given up many times, explored every possible path, and tasted the taste of resignation and frustration.

　She could not live in Volgograd if she remained mediocre. That's why she played herself as an oddity. Because of the banality of her talent. Because of the diminutive nature of her qualities.

　Even if she put in several times as much effort as others, she would never blossom. Even if she devoted all her spare time to magic, it still wouldn't be enough.

　A wizard is one who knows how to harmonize with nature. A sorcerer is one who rewrites the structure of the world through human art.

　Hence, the results are dwarfed by the effort. That's what made Fialat's misery all the more terrible. What others can do naturally, she cannot. And even if she could, she'd be no match for them. The frustration of being overtaken in the blink of an eye, even though you're making more effort than they are.

　--If they were gold, I would be lead. No matter how much lead polishes itself, it's just clean lead. There's no way I can become gold.

　And yet I kept trying to twist it. As a Volgograd, as a family that had been granted the title of sorceress, she kept chanting.

　It was an impossible magic theory. A conceptual idea that defies reason. World values that defy precedent. The delusion that had been brewing since Fialaat's childhood was put into words, and she continued to chant that it was true, that the mundane could not understand it.

　The titles she has been given are crook, philosopher, and con artist. Everyone ridiculed, pitied, and scorned Fialat, and no one called her mundane.

　It was no different when she came to study in the walled city of Garou Amalia and its academy. She was able to show more of herself than at home, but even so, she couldn't be called ordinary.

　The curiosity of being an international student and the name Volgograd. There were many who approached him because of these two things, but only Herdt Stanley remained around Fialaert, who was now mocked in the shadows as a fraud.

　--Oh, for him. This is the one. That's what people say about gold, isn't it?

　Not only his enormous presence, but his talent for attracting people, for owning everything he does and learns. Oh, it's crazy. How much did she want that talent? How I wish I had that talent.

　Dazzling. His presence was too bright. Her eyes burned if she looked directly at it. But that's why I thought it would be okay to lean on her, if only a little.

　It is dependence. It is to close off the path I've been on. But what am I supposed to do? I am a man of no talent. What can I do when I've never been blessed with anything?

　--Boom!

　The decapitator's head was chopped off. He was right in front of me. The adventurer who calls himself Lugis. He did it. Burned by the flames, his body exposed to the grim reaper, he still wanted to move.



　Isn't that strange? How is that possible? In the dizzying moment before Lugis was engulfed in flames, Fialaert's eyes tightened and his black hair trembled.

　--You're the same, you're the same, you're the same.

　The person in front of you is supposed to be an ordinary person. At least, not a genius. He may be wise, but there are traces of anguish all over his body. Same, I thought, as me.

　So you don't have to try so hard. You can just give up. Leave the unreachable to the geniuses and let the ordinary people live their lives looking down.

　You'll die. You'll die if you push yourself like that. That's the price an ordinary man pays for chasing talent.

　Oh. Oh, no. No, no, no.

　If I could've used magic, he wouldn't have had to do that. There are better ways. So the only way this ends is if he dies.

　--Nothing. Me. He dies because of Fialaat la Volgograd.

　That's unacceptable. I can't accept that outcome. The only thing that occupies that mind is regret.

　Yeah, that's definitely an ordinary guy. Lead or copper, the world will tell you. But look at him. Does my world still talk like that when it sees him risking his life to get things done?

　That man, Lugis, is giving it his all. And yet the world wants nothing but a pathetic end for him.

　Don't be silly. Don't be silly. That's me. That's me. That's my ideal, my superior. If he's not gold, if the world says he's not.

　--I will make him gold. Even if it means rewriting this world.

　Fialat's mind twists and turns, constructing the art of distorting the world. Enough, I've given up, turned my back, and let go.

　So no more. Fialat's throat makes some kind of sound. The area around her is ablaze, some people are holding back the fire with water bottles, but she will not be safe if she stays here.

　But Fialaat is not moving, not even a step. She didn't want to move, not even a little. I'm not going to lose anyone's life over something I can't do. And more importantly, I'm not going to lose a man who's dying right in front of me because he said he was going to save my life. Absolutely not.

　Let my throat run dry. Let my body burn if it can. If there is even the slightest hint of genius in the depths of my body, give me strength, if only for this moment. In Fialaat's eyes, she sees Lugis. I'm not sure if you've heard of it or not, but I have. My vision narrows. Everything else fills with white. The walls, the floor, the other soldiers, even the flames are filled in. Only Lugis remained in sight.

　--Hopefully, a storm of fire on his body.

　It's a sorcerous celebration. It's not a chant. The sorcerer's breath, the ultimate one that rewrites the world's reason with its own will.

　Fialat ordered a storm to be created to cover the whole of Lugis and attack its entire body. It was the only way to bounce off the flames that clung to Lugis' body, and the only way to keep the flames that still raced around the room at bay. Normally, his body would have been torn apart with the flames, leaving a cruel splash of blood and no trace of remains. A tiny storm.

　But that wasn't going to happen. Fearalert can't hurt Lugis. That's a pledge. The oath I swore before I came in here.

　--I swear that I and my magic will never harm Lugis.

　I can't breathe a beat. I can't breathe, not even for a beat. Such a tremendous rush of magic. He cannot blink, his fingers tremble, and he no longer knows whether he is sane or insane.

　But he didn't want for a moment to look away from that figure, that figure that was just looking forward even though his whole body was torn to pieces.

　The use of magic continued. The use of magic continued, up and down the line of the limit, until the moment when Lugis ran out of strength and collapsed.