The Nameless Extra: I Proofread This World

Within the memory that had gone completely still, Ruvian calmly stood where he was, his eyes never leaving the woman as she gradually straightened to her full height.

Ruvian narrowed his eyes slightly.

Something about her countenance suddenly seemed different from usual, carrying a faint uncanniness to it. Or perhaps, it was simply because both her voice and expression made it seem as though she had been waiting for him all this time.

Even so, Ruvian was still thoroughly confused by the strange situation before him. Yet rather than dwelling on that unease, he calmly allowed the question already gnawing at the back of his mind to slip free.

”How—”

Ruvian stopped himself and shook his head.

There were far too many questions he wanted to ask, but one in particular had already begun to outweigh the rest.

”No, were you... waiting for me?”

Marielle slowly rose to her feet before offering him a graceful bow.

”Indeed, I was... though I suppose it would be more accurate to say that I have been waiting for you since the distant past, from a bygone world...”

Her answer only made Ruvian’s frown deepen.

He was about to say something, but before he could, Marielle immediately raised a hand, gently stopping him.

”No, I’m not the one who brought you here. I know very little about it, perhaps nothing at all. I’m sorry, but I cannot give you the answer you were hoping to hear.”

She paused for a brief moment, then gave him a faint, rueful smile. Even her voice had grown softer than before.

”I’m very sorry, but I’m not truly here right now. This body you see is only an extension of a false memory I created. I placed it inside my son’s memories because there was something I desperately needed to ask of you.”

As she spoke, Marielle lifted one hand and slowly moved it from her head down toward the rest of her body.

”That is also why I cannot know exactly what you are going to ask me. At most, I can guess a few things that you might say. I was never very skilled with this spell either, and neither of us has much time, so I will keep everything brief.”

At those words, Ruvian stared at her more closely.

She was right, they truly did not have much time. Ruvian gave her a small nod, silently allowing her to continue.

Marielle slowly brought both hands together before her chest. Then, without the slightest hesitation, she knelt before him and bowed deeply.

”I am Marielle Rozenberg, mother of Julian Rozenberg. This memory is all that remains of what I can leave behind, and there is nothing more I can do for my son.”

Her fingers tightened softly against one another as she lowered her head even further.

”So please, Emissary of Fate...”

Her voice remained calm, yet a faint desperation had begun to seep through.

”I beg you. Please save all my children.”

*****

[Ophelia’s POV]

Somewhere else above the maroon horizon, a vast barrage of spells of varying elements, forms, and destructive force burned violently across the darkened sky, unleashed in rapid succession by thousands of identical Magus bearing the exact same face and figure.

Every barrage converged upon a single person.

Yet instead of retreating, the figure remained directly beneath the merciless bombardment, willingly enduring every spell that crashed against his body.

Explosions consumed him one after another; flames, lightning, blades of wind, and torrents of mana ravaged the space around him without pause, yet not a single attack managed to carve even the slightest wound into his flesh.

His laughter only grew more deranged. ”Kukukuku! It merely tickles. No... that’s so wrong. I can’t feel a damn thing!”

Even as another wave of spells crashed against him, his body remained completely unscathed.

Ophelia frowned.

”What the hell is that spell?”

Her eyes narrowed as she watched the mana disappear the instant it came into contact with him.

It was completely different from her [Spatial Displacement]. Her spell merely warped an incoming attack elsewhere, forcibly casting it into another point in space.

But that demon’s spell...

There was no distortion, nor any trace of the attack being redirected elsewhere.

It looked as though... it devoured the spell entirely, swallowing every trace of mana before the attack could even detonate.

Suddenly, Mamveth finally began to rise.

Using [Fly], his body slowly lifted higher into the maroon sky, yet even then, he made no attempt to evade the relentless barrage still crashing against him from every direction.

His grin only widened.

”You’re actually making me want to take back what I said earlier. To think I almost believed you were as good as the Paragons.”

Another explosion engulfed him completely. Then his laughter rang out from within the flames.

”Ha! Not even close.”

Ophelia said nothing. Thousands of her identical figures continued unleashing spell after spell without pause.

Honestly, she was not even giving it her all.

Part of her was already tempted to simply crush through that strange spell of his by overwhelming it with far greater magical power. If it truly absorbed magic, then there should still be a limit somewhere.

She only needed to force it past that limit.

But doing so carried one problem.

Scholar Julian.

She had no idea what would happen to his body if she poured too much power into a single attack, especially while that demon was still using him as its vessel.

Besides, she had already decided to hold herself back for as long as necessary. At least until Scholar Ruvian finished whatever he intended to do.

For a brief moment, Ophelia shifted part of her attention toward [Clairvoyant].

Far below them, Scholar Ruvian suddenly went rigid. His body stood completely motionless atop one of the distant black boulders, without even the slightest twitch from his fingers.

Ophelia immediately understood that he had already begun whatever method he intended to use to reach Scholar Julian.

Mamveth stared at the endless barrage for another moment before the amusement on his face finally began to fade.

”Enough. This is getting boring.”

He casually raised one hand.

Then, with a sharp click of his fingers, a small orb of darkness appeared above him.

It hovered there silently for a brief moment, no larger than his palm, its surface so black that even the surrounding maroon light seemed to disappear into it.

Then it began to shrink, smaller and smaller.

Until, eventually, it vanished completely.

Ophelia’s eyes narrowed.

And in the very next instant, the orb suddenly reappeared. Only this time, it had swollen several times larger.

Then it exploded — BOOM! — a violent mass of dark energy erupted in every direction, without any discernible trajectory or pattern.

Countless projectiles of compressed darkness tore through the sky at horrifying speed, ricocheting and twisting through the air with such erratic movement that predicting where they would strike became nearly impossible.

’Tch...’

Ophelia clicked her tongue.

Several of her clones were pierced before they could even [Warp] away to avoid them. Their bodies immediately shattered into countless particles of mana.

However, the barrage did not stop there.

Dark projectiles screamed past them and slammed into the colossal black boulders scattered throughout the domain. One boulder was perforated dozens of times within a second before its entire structure collapsed.

Another simply disintegrated beneath the relentless impacts. Anything caught within their paths was shredded apart almost instantly.

It was then that Ophelia caught sight of something from the corner of her eye.

Several of those volatile projectiles had broken away from the chaotic barrage, hurtling through the distorted space at horrifying speed.

Straight toward where Scholar Ruvian was!

Ophelia’s eyes widened slightly.

Her expression immediately darkened.

*****

[Ruvian’s POV]

Save all her children?

Before Ruvian could ask what she meant, Marielle slowly continued.

”I possess a spell that allows me to glimpse a fragment of someone’s future. But every time I use it, it takes something from me in return — a small portion of my lifespan. I knew the price, but because I was afraid of what might await my son, I still chose to look.”

Her voice grew quieter as she lowered her gaze.

”But what I saw... terrified me.”

She paused, her expression gradually darkening.

”I saw Julian being consumed by a demon, his own body no longer belonging to him. And in the end, he was killed by his own headmistress... despite being completely innocent. After witnessing that future, I became afraid, so afraid that I could no longer bring myself to simply leave it alone.”

She slowly lifted her gaze toward Ruvian, and there was a deep, almost haunting sadness within her eyes.

”So I kept looking into Julian’s future, again and again, hoping that perhaps the first vision had only been one possible outcome.” She slowly shook her head. ”But no matter how many futures I peered into, the result was always the same.”

Ruvian frowned.

Marielle had already told him that every use of the spell consumed a portion of her lifespan, yet she had continued invoking it again and again.

Just how many years of her life had she willingly burned away, merely trying to find a different ending?

She continued.

”Julian would always be consumed by that demon, and eventually, he would die because of it.” Marielle drew in a small breath before continuing, her voice growing noticeably weaker.

”Then I became afraid that Julian might not be the only one. So I looked into the futures of my other children, Fiorelle and Felix. And their futures were no different. Both of them would eventually fall into the hands of demons as well.

”I searched through far more futures than I ever should have, and every path I found ended in tragedy. Then, when I had nearly surrendered all hope, I suddenly saw something different.”

Marielle slowly raised her head again, and a faint trace of warmth returned to her face.

”It was a future so distant that even I could barely comprehend what I was witnessing. The world I knew had already perished once, and somehow, another world had risen from its ruins. And within that distant future... Julian’s fate suddenly began to change.”

Lifting one hand before her, Marielle gently traced her fingers in front of her, as if to illustrate what she had seen.

”Before that moment, his fate had always followed the same path. But then, countless new paths suddenly began to branch away from it. At first, there were only a few. Then more began to appear, each branching into others until even I could no longer see where they all led. But there was one thing they all had in common. Every single one of those new paths began with the same person.”

Her eyes slowly settled on him.

”You.”

Then, she raised one finger and pointed directly at him.

”Every new branch of Fate...

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[Chapter 322: Begins With You]