Kobold Wizard's Journal

Chapter 397 Death and Burial

transfer?
Will certain changes occurring in the world be sensed by the more sensitive creatures living on it? Will they tremble? Is this what is meant by the world speaking?

Ruge suppressed his wandering thoughts and looked at Mahama beside him.

The streets outside were filled with people who stopped to marvel at the miracle. Some people, seeing others stop, also tried to look out, and after witnessing the wonder, they knelt down by the roadside to pray.

"Do you think they can sense it?"

Ruger looked at the street nearby and said softly.

"They probably can't sense it. I can only feel a little bit myself. Perhaps wizards with stronger mental power will have some obvious senses," Mahama said in a low voice.

As Ruger gazed up at the slowly falling corner, a word suddenly popped into his head.

A garbage dump? A landfill?
The world wasn't originally like this. Over countless years of evolution, the underground world has actually become a huge, boundless garbage dump.

Ruger recalled a remark he made that afternoon while chatting at Old Renser's Pharmacy.

There's also the so-called concept of sinners and prisons.

That was a theory about the underground world that I heard in Star City.

If that's the case, then what is this? Has a new cellmate arrived? Has a new piece of trash arrived in the garbage dump?
This thing didn't crash through the dome; instead, it burst through the air, like a portal opening and tearing through the void to enter.

Did the Supreme Council protect the dome?
Ruger stared at the ever-growing fragments of the so-called world.

"I wonder if Your Excellency Mahama has ever heard of the story of the underground world and the garbage dump?" Ruge asked.

The sudden change of topic startled Mahama for a moment, and then the big man pondered seriously for a while.

“I know what you mean, the rumors about the underground world… Although I haven’t heard you mention it, my teacher did say it many years ago,” Mahama said in a deep voice. “My teacher only said it once, but I’ve always remembered it. He said the underground world… is a cemetery. At the time, I couldn’t understand it, but later, after pressing him, I learned that the cemetery my teacher was talking about was the cemetery of the world.”

As they talked, they both looked up at the spectacular sight on the horizon.

"So, this is a world that has already been destroyed?"

Luger gazed at the strange sight. He never imagined that he would one day witness such a scene with his own eyes: the destruction of a world, the fragmentation of a world.

Mahama shook his head.

“That’s what I said too, although I didn’t use the word destruction, but my teacher corrected me. He said it was a world of death, not destruction, not annihilation, but death, true death.”

Mahama spoke in a deep voice, becoming especially solemn when mentioning what his teacher had said.

"The teacher also remarked that those who can be buried are lucky... at least they can leave behind a mutilated corpse."

Mahama shrugged as he spoke.

"Destruction and death?"

Ruger muttered to himself.

"In that context, I think the teacher was referring to the dead world, though I don't really understand what he meant." The big guy shrugged again, like a wall that could rise and fall.

Ruger glanced down at the incubation bag at his waist and raised an eyebrow slightly.

The difference between destruction and death. Perhaps he now understood why the teacher of Mahama, whom he had never met, had corrected this large man, and the difference between death and destruction as the teacher had spoken of.

He thought of that brief journey into the abyss, and the look back he made as he moved away from that crevice.

It was an unconscious urge to take one last look at the castle that had crumbled into ruins.

He still remembered the scene of escaping the castle with that beautiful and learned succubus scholar, and the scene of the succubus turning into indescribable fragments and dust in front of him, including the ring that was thrown to him as a gift at the last moment.

Ruger's bold guess.

The destruction of the world can be escaped, it can be fled far away, but the so-called death of the world is hard to escape, or rather, it is destined to be inescapable. At the moment of the world's death, the ending may already be determined. Even the more special and powerful individuals in that world are only delaying their steps toward the same end as their own world.

This is death.

This is the world's cemetery.

This is probably what Mahama's teacher, that wizard, wanted to convey.

If that's the case, then what do the corpses represent? The wizard was implying something: falling into the cemetery, the so-called burial, means being lucky enough to land in the broken world of the underground world. Can the remains of the dead world continue to exist? Does that include the beings there? Are they also part of the world? Then, if the succubus scholar's castle hadn't fallen into the abyss but into the underground world, would it still exist now?
Of course, the fate of succubus scholars is already sealed, as they are demons born from special ancestors who escaped the abyss.

Is the power of the underground world so great that it allows a part of the dead world to remain?

Or rather, it is about accepting them, accepting the remains of the dead world, and making them part of the crypt, the so-called burial.

Luger thought of the abyss again.

Perhaps the Abyss was powerful enough, and that was the goal of the succubus scholars. However, because their ancestors, a group of strange demons, had once turned their backs on the Abyss, they returned to their ancestral land and struggled to survive for hundreds of years, but were not accepted.

"Which is more powerful, the Abyss or the Underground World?" Ruger asked casually.

Mahama finally looked away and gave him a strange look.

"Your question reminds me of when I was ten years old."

Mahama opened his mouth, revealing his deep voice.

"Ignorance?" Ruger asked curiously.

“No, it’s enough leaps, enough strangeness…” Mahama said.

"So what is the answer, Your Excellency Mahamat?"

Ruger smiled.

Mahama once again turned his gaze to the distant, spectacular sight on the horizon.

“If there is an answer to that question, there will only be one answer: the underground world is unparalleled, beyond the imagination of all living beings,” Mahama raised his fist and clenched it in front of him, making a cracking sound. “Moreover, the strength of the underground world does not depend on the underground world itself, nor on the ethereal world will… but on us, on the ever-improving wizards.”

The massive fist made a series of crisp yet muffled sounds, just like the confidence on Mahama's face.

The humble wizard apprentice exuded an aura that seemed incongruous with his status, revealing that his confidence did not originate entirely from himself, but rather from his identification with wizards and from the towering figures, whether known or unknown, in the wizarding world. This confidence naturally arose within him.

Ruger observed this and could sense the certainty in the big man's words.

(End of this chapter)