That strange soap bubble. Cnemon called it, as it was written in the ancient ruins, the “Foam of Oblivion.” He had faced countless dangers to obtain this Foam of Oblivion.
Cnemon slowly recounted the tale of those days when he and Ortes traversed the extradimensional contaminated zones together.
“…Did you know that Ortes and I once only took deep-level contamination zone commissions?”
“Of course. Isn’t the reason everyone knows you two are doomsday fanatics because of that?”
“Hah. If we’re going by that logic, what about you who seemed to always be around wherever Ortes went?”
“I wasn’t following him. It was Ortes who kept tagging along with me and using me as a shield without asking!”
“Hah. That sounds about right.”
Lampades’ protest fell on deaf ears as Cnemon continued his story. It began with data left behind in one of the contaminated zone ruins—information about research extracting extradimensional power.
It was information about how ancient magicians created something destructive by condensing extradimensional power. Seized by uncontrollable excitement, Cnemon secretly proposed to Ortes, someone just like him who was ecstatic about the destruction that would come from the extradimensions.
To find the artifact imbued with extradimensional power together.
Ortes and Cnemon kept solving deep exploration commissions within the contaminated zones, gradually gaining more clues and advancing further into their explorations.
“We obtained the Foam of Oblivion at the end of that journey. Though if I hadn’t run away, it might not have been the end.”
Cnemon boasted unparalleled skills among the rumored doomsday fanatics in the circles of solvers. For all his faults, he was still an elite, having once been groomed as the successor to a magic tower, and skilled practitioners of proper magical training were rare.
With the lost vision of the magic tower added to his abilities, Cnemon’s magical prowess was exceptional even among all solvers, not just the doomsday fanatics.
Ortes, however, was an entity beyond the measure of magic. There was something off about him.
No matter how intricate the cipher, he could solve it at first glance, and no matter how deadly the trap, he never fell for it.
As a guide for breaking through dungeons and ruins, there was no one better than Ortes. The only flaw—if it could be called one—was that he never used magic directly.
Cnemon believed that with the combination of himself and Ortes, there was no ruin in this world they couldn’t excavate.
And he was right. Even in spaces fractured by extradimensional contamination, Ortes chose the correct path without hesitation.
After gathering clues from dozens of ruins, they finally entered the final ruin where the Foam of Oblivion was stored. At that moment, Cnemon felt an unprecedented thrill.
The artifact created with such painstaking effort by ancient mages—how far would its power reach?
This was the force that would bring ruin to the magical society, or at least offer the ultimate retribution to those who had taken everything from his family.
Cnemon’s expectations turned into equal parts bewilderment when he beheld the Foam of Oblivion.
The same reaction Lampades had when he saw the Foam of Oblivion. Despite its grand name, it looked like a child’s toy—a simple bubble blower.
What stopped Cneomon from losing his temper was Ortes, who silently observed the Foam of Oblivion in tranquil silence.
“Have you ever seen Ortes speak disrespectfully?”
“Disrespectfully? To Ortes?”
Lampades shook his head. The faint smile always on his face, the respectful tone that chilled one’s heart, eyes too thin to read emotions.
Even if one couldn’t remember his features, wasn’t the unsettling eye-smile, the corner of his mouth, and his respectfulness burned into one’s brain like a scar?
These were the three defining traits of Ortes.
“…I’ve seen it.”
Cnemon recalled the moment when Ortes told him to blow the soap bubble.
*
“d*mn! Were the ancients crazy? They buried something like this in the ruins?”
“Mr. Cnemon. Blow it.”
“What?”
“The bubble. Blow it.”
Under Ortes’ unique half-closed eyes, his blue irises shone with an ominous brilliance that brooked no refusal.
With a breath, the bubble swelled up. The softly iridescent bubble looked no different from the toys children play with.
“d*mn it!”
Even at the last moment, Cnemon felt no trace of any special ability. If he had sensed even a hint of unusual magic from this bubble maker, he wouldn’t have been disappointed, merely perplexed by its appearance.
But this was just a bubble. Neither the soap solution nor the ring showed anything extraordinary.
Ortes instructed from behind Cnemon.
“Burst it.”
“What?”
“The bubble. Burst it.”
It was an incomprehensible command. Would bursting it make any difference? Cnemon carefully examined the inside of the bubble.
“What is this? It’s been over thirty seconds since I blew it.”
The bubble neither settled nor burst but floated aimlessly. Hypnotized, Cnemon moved his finger towards it.
The bubble burst instantly upon contact with his finger, soundlessly.
At the same time the bubble burst, the scenery Cnemon was observing through it also crumbled.
No, not just the image in his sight. The landscape he was looking at disappeared along with the bubble.
As if it were mere foam.
Expectations and hopes surged again. Without realizing it, Cnemon let out a wild laugh.
“Haha… Hahaha… Hahahahahahaha!”
The unblemished walls of the ruin, protected by ancient magic against storms of attack spells, crumbled into nothingness without a trace.
The stealthiness of leaving no traces of magical energy, the convenience of its ease of use, and the destructive power that rendered any defense meaningless sent shivers down Cnemon’s spine.
This. This is the power. The power I’ve been waiting for to achieve my revenge, finally in my hands!
“Do you want to try it too?”
“Ah, of course. Thanks to you for finding this artifact. You really are the best partner.”
With his usual enigmatic smile, Ortes took the wand. He slowly raised it to examine it.
“Mr. Cnemon.”
“Hmm?”
“I’m going to conduct a brief experiment. Please go upstairs.”
It didn’t take long to backtrack through the ruins. All traps had already been dismantled on the way in. Even if there were traps set with time delays that isolated them, erasing them with this artifact would suffice.
When Ortes ascended to the surface, he boldly blew another bubble. A palm-sized bubble floated gently upward into the sky.
“Mr. Cnemon, how about we target that mountain peak?”
The mountain summit, tainted by the extradimensions and glowing with murky colors, loomed faintly in the distance. Carefully lowering his body, Cnemon aligned the mountain peak within his view and popped the bubble.
A storm arose.
All objects occupying the area around the mountain peak vanished in an instant. Since even air couldn’t escape the scope of annihilation, the atmospheric flow violently twisted, creating chaotic vortices as air rushed in to fill the void.
When the storm surrounding the mountain subsided, Cnemon finally saw the result.
The mountain was deeply gouged in a circular pattern.
The concave terrain resembled a crater, yet it was far too smooth to have been caused by a meteor impact.
Cnemon felt a profound sense of awe beyond mere tremors.
This artifact seemed limitless. Simply aligning it with a distant magic tower and popping it could unleash an unprecedented catastrophe!
An overwhelming joy swept through his entire body. Fully expressing his delight, Cnemon turned his head toward Ortes.
Surely, Ortes must feel the same sense of achievement, having grasped the power to overturn the world. The strength to dismantle the stagnant magical society from its roots!
However, Ortes was remarkably cold. It wasn’t that his smile had faded.
His smirk carried disdain and revulsion. Although his lips were still curved upward, the atmosphere emanating from his expression was colder than ice.
Without a word, Ortes extended his hand. A gesture asking for the artifact.
Ortes, holding the wand to create bubbles, said,
“Move farther away.”
“Farther.”
“Farther.”
Only when Ortes’ figure became almost silhouetted did Cnemon stop moving. Cnemon had no idea what Ortes intended to do.
Cnemon’s vision was enhanced. Through his magnified sight, he watched Ortes blowing the bubble.
It wasn’t very large. Barely enough to cover one eye.
Then Ortes opened his eyes.
A piercing blue light pierced Cnemon’s retina as the bubble burst simultaneously.
A sound that shouldn’t have been heard echoed. Until now, the only sound during the destruction experiments with the bubbles was the wind noise from the aftermath.
Such a collapse sound should not have been audible.
Exactly what and where started collapsing?
Cnemon looked down at the sky.
And then he looked back at the ground.
Something was wrong.
It had flipped.
The order of earth and sky had collapsed. As the dimensional barrier disintegrated, the bizarre principles of the extradimensions began flooding into the world. The truth that the sky was above and the earth below shattered, causing the world to unravel chaotically.
The unstable boundary between dimensions in the depths of the extradimensional contaminated zone collapsed.
It was a scene akin to putting the entire world into a massive grinder and pulverizing it. Witnessing the apocalypse from outside the boundary Ortes had drawn, Cnemon trembled with ecstasy.
Through that terrible and beautiful destruction, Cnemon glimpsed the end of the magical world. Though he didn’t know how Ortes had achieved such a great calamity, if given such power, perhaps it truly was possible to destroy the world.
It wasn’t until much later that concern for Ortes’ safety amidst the destruction crossed his mind. By the time the fractured dimensional barriers had repaired themselves, returning the earth to beneath and the sky above.
The site where the ruin once stood had transformed into a barren plain. Fragments of what had been the ruin were scattered across the land like a mosaic.
Fortunately, Ortes stood calmly in the middle of the flattened ground, still holding the Foam of Oblivion in one hand.
Cnemon ran over with a bright smile. It was the greatest reward for his prolonged struggle since being expelled after losing his family’s magic tower.
Then Cnemon heard Ortes mutter a single word as if chewing on it.
“This…this isn’t what I came here for.”
The tone was sharp, cutting through everything like a blade.
Cnemon hesitated to approach any closer.
Suddenly, Ortes looked up.
“Ah, Mr. Cnemon. Well used.”
Ortes tossed the Foam of Oblivion as if it were nothing. Cnemon hurriedly dashed forward to catch it.
“Though I ended up using more of the contents than expected, more than half remains. I’ve used my share, so you can have it.”
“You…you’re giving it to me?”
“Yes. This item is unnecessary for me.”
Ortes stretched lazily as if he’d just gone for a stroll.
“Then, shall we look for the next artifact?”
“…What?”
“The next extradimensional artifact. Not something like this but something more—”
Cnemon’s vision went white. He couldn’t clearly hear what Ortes was saying or what plan he was proposing.
Even with an artifact capable of causing the same catastrophic destruction as before, he wanted more?
Could he desire even greater destruction, a more thorough annihilation?
Cnemon became afraid of Ortes. An insatiable hunger. An endless madness.
If his own thirst for vengeance was a torch, whatever Ortes harbored was like a wildfire. A fire that no rain could extinguish, a fire that would only subside when there was nothing left to burn.
An apocalyptic conflagration.
By the time Cnemon regained his senses, he had already fled the borderlands of the extradimensions.
