Overpowered Archmage Doesn’t Hide His Talent

Chapter 168:

Translator: MarcTempest

Proofreader: naturallyInconsistent

Chapter 168 A curse, not a blessing

It was a moment when I was collecting the Dawn Butterflies.

“…!”

Yushia approached us and shouted with her expression.

The girl silenced even her breath and waved her hand, then pointed to a certain spot with her index finger.

We also prepared ourselves immediately.

Thanks to Yushia’s best efforts to explain, no one failed to understand that she had found a Dawn Butterfly.

On a single flower that barely bloomed on the Reheln hill, close to the land of destruction, there was a butterfly that was anything but ordinary.

“…”

Trixie’s eyes widened.

A body that no one could touch.

Its wings contained the light of dawn.

The powder that scattered around sparkled like gem fragments.

I quietly showed my index finger.

The first item of the code of conduct that I had informed them beforehand. ‘If you find a dawn butterfly, try to capture it freely.’

Yushia and Trixie exchanged glances.

They seemed to have their own plans that they had decided in advance.

Yushia was the first to raise her mana.

Kugugugu─

Her talent was outstanding in the 「Plasticity」category.

The soil around the flower rose without any warning. It formed a certain shape and aimed at the dawn butterfly.

“Trixie!”

“Got it.”

Trixie joined the coordination right away.

It was time to check the combination that they had practiced until the final inspection.

The soil was shaped into a cube and trapped the butterfly. And in the blink of an eye, it was surrounded by a blue flame barrier.

I muttered quietly as I watched.

“Magic blocking, huh.”

“Yeah. I’m thinking of stopping the teleportation itself.”

The dawn butterfly was a living creature that possessed mana, as it could use teleportation. And Trixie seemed to plan to cut off its source.

The quality was pretty good.

“You’ve learned something like that.”

“You taught me, after all.”

Trixie murmured without any thought, then started to make excuses as if she realized something.

“Just to be clear, I was just stating the facts. There’s no other meaning…”

“Forget it. Do you think we caught the dawn butterfly?”

“Ahem.”

Trixie coughed a few times and regained her original appearance.

She nodded slightly.

“Yeah. It’s properly caught in the blocking magic.”

But it didn’t take long for Trixie’s confidence to crack.

“Huh?”

Yushia was the first to question. She looked puzzled as she rotated the cube made of soil.

“Strange? The energy inside is gone.”

“Can the butterfly hide its presence?”

But soon they knew the reason. The dawn butterfly was flying outside the cube, as if to show off.

“Maybe, there’s another one.”

“But…”

Yushia crumbled the soil cube. There was no dawn butterfly trapped inside.

“Was my blocking not tight enough?”

Trixie grumbled incredulously.

There was no need for an answer.

The sight of the dawn butterfly flying freely was an answer itself.

The principle of magic blocking was simple.

It was to weave the caster’s mana like a net and prevent the flow of other mana. That was all there was to it.

“You can’t think of it as just a butterfly.”

But the dawn butterfly’s teleportation was more advanced. It was something that only a well-trained magician or more could do.

“But, Flan, the butterfly won’t leave us.”

“…Are you trying to tease us or what?”

The dawn butterfly didn’t leave our vicinity. It flapped its wings with no meaning and danced in the air.

Yushia and Trixie vented their anger by casting magic a few more times, but they still couldn’t catch the butterfly.

“…”

I narrowed my eyebrows around then.

At first, I didn’t have any thoughts when I saw the dawn butterfly. But soon my heart started to beat. I noticed its flying trajectory.

“That is…”

The butterfly was drawing ancient runes in the air.

But it was a rune that shouldn’t exist in this world.

In other words, it was a character that only existed in the previous world.

◈

At the same time, in the inner chamber of the imperial palace.

Aurora’s escort knight Ban was very busy.

The Dawn Butterfly Collection was in progress, but his essential duty was to escort the second princess.

Black hair that seemed to be woven by cutting out the night sky. Mysterious pupils that resembled the waning moon.

The empire’s second princess, Aurora, asked.

“Is the Dawn Butterfly Collection going well?”

“So far, no group has succeeded in collecting.”

“There won’t be any in the future either.”

Aurora was somehow different from usual today.

She didn’t rest her chin on her hand, nor did she blink her eyes lazily as if she was asleep.

She just stared at the dawn light wings of the butterfly on her palm.

Of course, the dawn butterfly was nothing but a model.

“Ban, this is just a model,”

Aurora muttered suddenly. Her pupils sparkled with a serious light unlike usual.

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“Everyone has something they can’t give up. Ban, you must have one too.”

Ban lifted his head and looked at Aurora’s face.

The princess had a solemn expression, and so Ban answered seriously as well.

“Your Highness’s life.”

The guard knight said with a resolute face.

“As befits the duty of a guard knight, I will protect Your Highness’s safety no matter what happens.”

“Sigh.”

Aurora frowned at the remark that would have touched anyone else.

She replied with a sullen attitude.

“You always give boring answers. What if I choose death myself?”

“I will stop you from doing that. If I fail, I will kill myself.”

“Enough. Enough. Stop with the boring talk.”

Aurora lifted the butterfly model to her eye level.

The princess’s face was grim as she examined it.

“…I really like the dawn.”

Waxing, crescent, first quarter, full, third quarter, waning.

The one thing that Aurora, who had everything, lacked.

The one thing she didn’t want to give up because she never had it.

The one thing she wanted to embrace someday.

It was dawn.

◈

To see the future is a curse.

Aurora realized that when she was only eight years old.

Everyone was delighted and happy at the appearance of the girl with noble beauty.

The girl sometimes stared at people intently, and the royal family praised it as a blessing whenever they received her gaze.

But that happiness couldn’t last long.

“Dead?”

The short and puzzled question was the fuse.

Aurora asked that to an official, and the official naturally tilted his head.

“Yes?”

“You look like you’re dying.”

Anyone would feel uncomfortable if they suddenly heard a bad rumor about their death, but the official felt a chill not only because of the content of the remark.

Aurora’s eyes.

The mysterious pupils that repeated dilation and contraction pierced the official’s soul.

The official wiped his forehead with a handkerchief and asked.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Don’t die, please.”

Then someone laughed nearby.

“Maybe it’s because we’re old. The young princess’s eyes must see us as dead trees.”

“Ahaha, is that what you meant?”

The official finally relaxed and smiled at Aurora.

“Your Highness, it’s okay. I may look old, but I still have a long way to go. I will serve Your Highness for a long time.”

The official died just three days later.

“Dead?”

“Don’t die, please.”

“Do you have to go?”

The same thing happened several times after that.

The scenes that showed up at will sometimes showed the girl something too cruel, and she just blurted it out, but the officials who faced Aurora began to darken their faces day by day.

People struggle to know the future, but there are also people who are better off not knowing.

Eventually, a rumor started to spread that anyone who got involved with Aurora would die.

“…”

It didn’t take long for the bright girl to become an outcast.

The young Aurora was confined to the inner palace.

No, she couldn’t get out.

“I’m scared… Why, why, why…”

Tears like dew ran down her cheeks endlessly.

She had only seen the future that everyone hated and avoided.

Aurora could see all the scenes clearly, so she soon began to avoid meeting people.

Meeting others meant inviting hatred.

Of course, her relatives stood by Aurora’s side.

One day, her uncle and aunt visited the inner palace.

They patted Aurora’s shoulder and said.

“Aurora. Lately, some strange rumors are bothering you.”

“Strange rumors…”

Aurora muttered weakly. Fortunately, her uncle and aunt seemed to think of them as ‘rumors’.

“Thank you.”

She had no choice but to answer that way. The girl had already earned too much hatred, and she didn’t want to be hated anymore.

Now that everyone turned pale as soon as they saw Aurora, her uncle and aunt’s expressions seemed sincere.

Her aunt wiped her tears.

“I can’t stop the tears from falling… What did I do wrong at such a young age? It’s all because you’re too smart. Too smart for your own good… Everyone is jealous and envious of you…”

But then.

“Aurora.”

My aunt, who had wiped away her tears, asked me.

“Do you really see the future?”

There was a brief silence.

I caught a glimpse of something subtle passing over my aunt’s face.

“…Then, do you see our future too?”

I quietly swallowed my dry saliva.

The scene that I saw.

My uncle was slitting the throats of me and my parents.