Chapter 285 |
Wings of Icarus (5)
Everyone has a different way of defining a genius.
Some say, "A genius is someone who dismisses an ordinary person's entire lifetime in a single instant." Others say, "A genius is someone who steps into territory no one has ever reached."
And Icarus was a genius.
In both senses.
From seventeen to twenty, over the span of three years, Icarus developed a single spell. A spell that had never existed before, magic that belonged to Icarus alone.
"You made a unique spell?"
"At only twenty?"
"Stop lying. That's impossible."
Mages who believed they were geniuses denied reality when the real thing appeared. As people like that always did, they tried to belittle and dismiss the genius's achievement.
'Creating a unique spell is impressive, sure, but it probably isn't useful. What would a twenty-year-old even know about magic?'
Thinking that way, the mages came to see Icarus one after another. Then, the moment they saw his unique magic, they had no choice but to shut their mouths.
"......"
Before them, Icarus cast his spell.
It was intuitive and simple. Even someone who knew nothing about magic could see it once and immediately understand what kind of spell it was.
"Wings."
A spell that would later bear his name and be called Wings of Icarus. Its effect was simple. It created wings from mana and let the caster fly through the sky.
Before the watching mages, Icarus flew. Freely. Tens of meters above the ground. A few jaws dropped open, and the ones who had grumbled that it would be nothing special fell completely silent.
They stared at Icarus in shock.
Daedalus, of course, was not among them. Daedalus, who had developed the spell alongside Icarus, watched him fly as if it were nothing special... and Najin, playing Daedalus, felt the same way.
'Is that really that amazing?'
-What?
Najin gestured toward Icarus.
'Isn't flight magic pretty common? Even I could probably jump a few dozen meters if I really tried.'
-You're a Transcendent. And that's jumping, not flying.
'Isn't that basically the same thing?'
-Ah, this is why sword users...
Merlin shook her head.
-Like you said, in your time this is common magic. But this is the world from 980 years ago.
She continued.
-In this era, the sky belonged to witches and dragons, and only a handful who reached Transcendence could fly. For ordinary humans, flying was impossible.
In that era, Icarus created it.
-A way for ordinary humans to fly.
Merlin said Wings of Icarus became the origin of the flight, levitation, and aerial mobility spells widely used in the modern era.
What felt obvious to him now.
The one who made it obvious was that man right there.
Najin slowly nodded. Seen from that perspective, their reactions made perfect sense.
'Then this is even more amazing.'
-Yeah. Even to me, this looks even more amazing.
Najin pointed at what he was holding. It was an artifact designed by Daedalus. Without saying a word, Najin strapped the artifact to his wrist and jumped off a cliff.
For a moment, the mages watched him with eyes that said, 'Why is that guy suddenly trying to kill himself?'
Then Najin rose back up above the cliff.
Their mouths opened even wider.
What Najin wore on his wrist was an artifact made from Icarus's spell. If you inscribed magic into it, it let you fly. Some of the mages became even more interested in Najin than in Icarus.
It was an invention that could change the world's paradigm.
An artifact that let even non-mages fly. If it became commercialized, the world would change drastically. Their eyes lit up. They offered all kinds of terms to recruit the two of them, but...
"......"
Icarus did not look at them.
He was still looking at the sky.
Silently, he reached his hand upward. Even while already flying, he reached for an even higher sky. As if measuring the distance between himself and Arthur's star shining above.
"Ah."
Icarus let out a sigh.
"It's high."
The sky was high.
The star hung in the highest place.
"Still a long way to go."
Icarus's body was light, bound only by gravity, and his world was in the sky, not on land, too distant to be chained by how the world below worked. Nothing on the ground was attractive enough to keep him there.
Money, power, honor...
None of it could pull his gaze. His eyes were always fixed on the stars. He shook off the offers of mages and rulers alike and kept flying.
Toward a higher place.
2.
Najin watched Icarus's life.
The scenery rushed past at high speed. Those scenes were memories of Icarus preserved inside the Great Labyrinth, Labyrinth. Fragmented memories automatically assembled themselves whenever Icarus walked, piecing together into a single path.
Najin followed that path.
He could only do it because he had been given the role of Daedalus.
'If I hadn't gotten this role...'
This would have been an unbelievably complex and brutal run.
There was a reason this place was called the Great Labyrinth, Labyrinth. Normally, they would have had to collect countless fragmented memories one by one, then complete a map like solving a puzzle from torn pieces.
-There's a reason it's called a Great Labyrinth.
Pointing at the ground beneath Najin's feet, Merlin spoke.
-Finding your way in Labyrinth is almost impossible. I could do it, of course, but there aren't many guides as capable as me.
Bragging aside, what she said was true.
The Great Labyrinth, Labyrinth.
Even after barely reaching this place through hundreds of thousands of whales, the run was not over. They still had to wander through a labyrinth of swirling memories and find the path to the Heaven-Wandering Star's True Body.
Most died in that process.
They got lost, wandered, eroded away, and became food for sky whales. Merlin said the number of Constellations that met that end was at least in the dozens.
'Can't we just destroy this whole Starfield?'
-Ah, sure. That's possible.
Merlin shrugged.
-If you're as strong as me.
Normally Najin would have given her a lifeless "Ah, yes, I see." But after seeing her magic earlier, he could not respond like that.
"Hoo......"
Anyway.
Najin exhaled and kept walking.
At times it felt like he was swimming through a sea. Currents made of memory brushed past him, and some of those currents even pushed him away.
The fast flow of time began to slow.
Najin focused on Daedalus's role. He had to, if he wanted to avoid being swept away.
Blink.
When he opened his eyes, Najin, as Daedalus, stood in a field. It was a field in his hometown, and also the one with the clearest view of the sky.
'And...'
It was where Icarus always came to nap. Tracing Daedalus's memory, Najin moved. Sure enough, Icarus was lying there.
"Icarus, you were here again."
"Oh. Daedalus."
Icarus waved.
"The breeze is good."
"You're saying that again."
Najin sat on a tree stump. Icarus stayed sprawled out, staring up at the sky.
"I think I need to leave on a journey."
It came out of nowhere. No context at all.
But Icarus had always been that kind of person. No one could ever tell what he was thinking. Najin asked him a question.
"Where to?"
"I gave it some thought. If I want to reach the sky, my body alone isn't enough. It's time for a fine ship."
"A ship? What, are you planning to ride a dragon or something?"
Was he really talking about riding dragons?
Daedalus tilted his head, and Icarus curled one corner of his mouth.
"A dragon could be a fine ship, but it's not enough."
Icarus sprang to his feet and spread both arms wide.
"If you fly while riding a dragon that can already fly by nature, that's not impressive. Anyone can do that. I have no intention of doing something that boring."
"Then what?"
"You give wings to something that looks like it could never fly, and make it fly. That's the kind of thing that deserves to be called a feat, don't you think?"
Only when the word feat came out did Najin realize what Icarus was saying.
"You want to gain a star?"
"Of course. If I want to reach Arthur's star up there, I need to gain a star too."
"You seriously mean to reach Arthur's star?"
"I've always been serious, Daedalus."
Icarus's eyes were shining. As always.
"......"
At that point, a question rose in Najin.
And it was also the same question Daedalus, the role given to Najin, felt at that moment.
"Why?"
A simple question.
"Why are you so obsessed with the sky? What does reaching Arthur's star even mean to you?"
"Well."
Icarus jumped in place. After a short leap, he landed again. He had stayed airborne for only a few seconds, then let out a long breath.
"There are too many things on this land that bind us. Power, status, class, honor, money... as long as your feet are on the ground, you're tangled in all of it."
He leaped again.
This time with magic.
"But the sky is different."
Floating in the air, Icarus said it. This was no few-second hang time. Tens of seconds passed, then minutes, and Icarus still did not fall.
"The sky is beautiful because you're free from gravity, and not bound by status, rank, honor, money, and all that useless garbage. Beautiful, and..."
He looked at the endless blue sky and shouted.
"Free! More than any place else!"
Born in a city piled with trash, Icarus had always grown up looking at things that were clogged and shut tight. A city buried in garbage. Narrow alleys with no way through. Choking spaces where trash was piled so high you could barely find a place to step.
But the sky was different.
Nothing blocked it. The first open view Icarus had ever seen was the sky. In the field above the cliff, where trash could not reach, Icarus had faced the sky.
"If the first thing I'd seen wasn't the sky but the sea, maybe I would've become a sailor."
He gave a crooked grin.
"But I saw the sky first, and I saw the stars."
"So?"
"So I have to travel. Through that endless sky. And Arthur's star at the end of it is my destination."
Destination, Icarus said.
"I'll carve proof that I flew in the sky. Proof that I flew to the highest place no one could reach."
He pointed to Arthur's star.
"I'll carve my star at the highest place."
Pointing at the star, Icarus smiled.
"That way, everyone who looks up at the sky can remember my name. That there was an idiot who tried to fly. An idiot who flew all the way to the highest place."
For a mountaineer, the mountaintop is the destination.
For a sailor, some continent is the destination.
For Icarus, the destination was Arthur's star.
"Let's go, Daedalus."
Icarus shouted.
"To the highest place."
People who cry out their dreams always shine. And in this world, countless fools get enchanted by that light and throw themselves into foolish challenges.
"Yeah, fine."
A laugh slipped out.
"I'll join your idiotic stunt."
Daedalus was one of those people too, and drawn by Icarus's dream, he began the journey with him.
3.
Daedalus was drawn to Icarus's dream, and he admired Icarus. Najin, playing that role, felt something a little different.
Not admiration, but kinship.
Najin felt kinship with Icarus.
-He definitely resembles you.
As Najin began that journey with Icarus, what he felt was simple: this guy was truly hopeless.
"We should go first."
"What about preparation?"
"Eh, we'll figure it out while traveling."
You could not call it a good start even as a joke. They were just two boys who knew nothing of the world, so naturally the trip was rough.
"Fucking hell."
"Wait, Icarus..."
They got pickpocketed, got into tavern fights, then found out the guy they beat up was a noble, and ended up in jail...
"What can hold me down? Nothing!"
Icarus suddenly shouted about freedom and smashed the bars, so they had to run for their lives. It was a trip that made you sigh in every possible way.
At first, the journey was clumsy beyond belief.
As time passed, Icarus grew, and Daedalus began to bloom into his own talent too. The two traveled all over the world and started creating story after story, big and small.
"Two adventurers save a city from being submerged, transformed into a floating city overnight! Hah, look at this, Daedalus. We're in the paper too?"
"Because of my artifact."
"Because of my magic, Daedalus."
"Hah. Your magic would run dry in a day or two at most. The one who made it semi-permanent was my artifact."
They saved a city that had nearly sunk.
"Now, Icarus."
"Ah, this thing, right!"
Then they dropped huge piles of stones they had suspended in the air in advance, all at once, to stop a magical beast assault. They began to gain fame as heroes in several villages.
"I want to fly one last time."
"That's not a difficult request."
They flew with a princess dying from illness.
"How is it? Beautiful, isn't it?"
"Yes... truly."
As a result, they became benefactors to a king of a small nation.
"So this is that aerial ruin?"
"The place rumored to hold a masterpiece."
They also succeeded in clearing an aerial garden no one had ever conquered, and obtained a masterpiece.
"Now it's time to move to a bigger stage."
"You want to go to the Outland?"
"Of course. My ship is there!"
After earning stars through one feat after another, Icarus headed for a bigger stage. As if that had always been his goal, he moved toward the sea of the Outland.
A sea, or a great lake.
At that giant lake, Icarus suddenly went looking for whales. Relying on a single sailboat, Icarus and Najin sailed the great lake and eventually met the oldest whale.
"Are you the oldest whale?"
Before an ancient and powerful whale that could swallow someone like Icarus whole in one bite, Icarus made his declaration.
"Hey, friend."
Standing before the whale, Icarus smiled.
"Ever thought about flying in the sky?"
The mother of all whales had lived for ages, and she was intelligent enough to understand human speech. She also knew exactly what to do with a human standing in front of her and spouting nonsense.
Splash, her tail slammed the water.
The moment that gigantic tail came down, massive waves surged up.
Icarus and Daedalus, drifting on that little sailboat, nearly got swept away and turned into fish food, but because they rose into the sky, they avoided that fate.
-......
The whale became interested in the two humans who still had not disappeared from in front of her. As if telling them to explain themselves, she watched them, and Icarus began to speak.
"You said you can only swim in the sea?"
A flying sailboat.
With one foot planted on its edge, Icarus spread both arms wide.
"Friend, we need to break the frame of our thinking."
Before a whale that had lived for thousands, tens of thousands of years, a human spoke.
"It's not that you swim in the sea. Wherever you swim is the sea! The blue sky, dried-up land, deserts, anything can become a sea."
Icarus curled one corner of his mouth.
He smiled as he spoke of his dream.
"Isn't it boring to rot away in a tiny lake like this? The world is far wider than you think, friend. It stretches out endlessly."
Icarus reached out his hand to the whale.
"So let's travel."
"Sail with me."
"Until we reach the star in that sky."
Humans who spoke of dreams always shone. But the whale had lived too long to be drawn in by a little light.
The whale's pulse rang out in a low sound.
It was close to a laugh. Then do it, if you can. Only the sea can bear this massive body, so by what means will you move me from here?
To that question, Icarus answered.
"Well, we have to start thinking about it now."
Then he said:
"I promise, oldest whale."
Pointing at the sky, Icarus said,
"Before long, I'll make you fly through the sky."
Twenty-six years later.
【Ocean of All Phenomena.】
After reaching Transcendence, Icarus kept his promise.