Morale Support: Scherzo
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Reiner stood still, his mind racing.
The news he read at the time only reported Dana’s parents investigating due to the peculiar magical reactions in Midgard’s half-plane, but it did not mention the other people in that half-plane. In the article, only the description of several thousand people perishing alongside the Christines was mentioned.
Reiner hadn’t expected those thousands of people to constitute a small civilization, complete with its own language and writing.
He slowly sat down on a chair, his mind filled with thoughts.
“Midgard had only been connected to the main plane for a short three years. No one would have thought it would suddenly collapse. Thus, besides some mages surveying it and discovering its rich magical mineral resources, no one even thought about preserving its unique culture and language.”
Savros murmured softly. It wasn’t anyone’s fault: no one could have predicted the collapse of the half-plane, there were no signs.
“At the time, the Magic Association once had a connection with it in the past but lost it due to wars. Gradually afterwards, they began communication. Initially, they didn’t interfere with their society, preserving the civilization in its most intact form to better study how it had formed.”
This was also why when the half-plane collapsed, almost everyone in Midgard had perished, and one of the reasons very little of their documentation survived.
“I’m not a descendant of Midgard. In fact, when it was discovered, I was just a student in the Advanced Magic Academy worrying about my graduation thesis. My teacher was in charge of the exploration of Midgard, so I went along with him to that half-plane on the edge of civilisation.”
Savros spoke a lot. Perhaps over these years, he hadn’t found anyone willing to listen to him.
He spoke of Midgard’s endless desert, where during the day, winds whipped up sand and gravel, obscuring the sky. The sandstorms were like the sharpest blades, carving giant stones into various shapes.
He spoke of the night, where Midgard’s brilliant starry sky, unpolluted by city lights due to the small size of the civilization.
He spoke of Midgard’s people, where the mages who once led them had fallen, leaving ordinary folk who knew nothing of magic. Thus, this civilization was devoid of magical influence. People survived in oases within the desert, retaining many ancient customs of the Ancient Magic Empire. They were warm and simple, and the children opened their eyes wide and looked curiously at the visiting Savros and others.
Of course, he also spoke of Seraphino poetry.
The first time he officially encountered this language was during a sacrifice.
Before the Ancient Magic Empire was established, there were religions on the continent that worshiped gods. But these religions were quickly destroyed by the mages as their deities couldn’t grant them any power. Eventually, the religions disappeared.
However, in Midgard, a primitive religion formed. They worshipped the God of Magic, its image being the mage who initially led ordinary people to this half-plane.
And the Seraphino poetry appeared during sacrifices.
To this day, Savros remembered the scene of a maiden chanting prayers at a sacrifice, surrounded by people singing in unison. It made him, a mage who had undergone twenty years of magical education, feel for the first time that this language might truly be the creation of gods.
“Afterward, my teacher assigned me a task: compiling a dictionary of Seraphino. He believed this language, even excluding its archaeological value, was inherently charming and found me, who is skilled in multiple languages.”
Savros spoke as the sunset outside turned the clouds fiery red and the sky shifted from pale pink to azure, with a few stars twinkling, heralding the arrival of night.
In the office bathed in the evening glow, there were only Reiner and Savros. In a low slow voice, he recounted the end of a civilization.
“In the first two years, I stayed in Midgard, communicating with the locals, and basically mastered basic conversations. Later, due to some trivial matters, I needed to return to the main plane and prepare for the next step of work. That’s when the disaster struck.”
Savros seemed reluctant to recall but continued.
“In the north of Midgard’s desert, traces of abnormal magic were found in a mine. The Magic Association then dispatched mages specialized in studying half-plane ecology to investigate. Who knew that would mark the beginning of the half-plane’s collapse? Including my teacher and other classmates, everyone in Midgard vanished in an instant, leaving only me.”
Sighing again, Savros took out a pipe from his pocket, about to light it, but remembered smoking was not allowed in the office, so he quietly put it down.
His teacher and friends were gone with the collapse of the half-plane, and even the civilization he studied no longer existed.
“Mr. Savros, have you been doing this for all these years?”
Reiner asked. He had heard that those who were sent to distant half-planes were mostly outstanding among their peers. Savros must have been a promising mage back then, but after ten years, he was still at the fourth level. One could imagine that he had devoted all this time to compiling this dictionary.
Why?
Understanding Seraphino couldn’t improve magical proficiency or guide the discovery of ruins. Even the most basic use of a language, communication, might not be possible.
Ten years later, Savros may be the only person in the world who could speak Seraphino. He might not even find anyone to converse with.
In Lord Percival’s words, everything Savros did was futile and meaningless.
“Well, I don’t know why I’ve been focusing on this, but in the blink of an eye, so much time has passed.”
Savros shouldn’t be over forty yet, but time had left indelible marks on him, making him look like a sixty or seventy-year-old man. This was the result of his body being tempered by magic after becoming a mid-level mage.
“I only think about, ah, how to express a word and how to translate a sentence in my mind. And ten years just flew by like that.”
He smiled, containing something in that smile, perhaps only Savros himself knew.
“Some say what I’ve been studying is useless and meaningless.”
Savros seemed to recall some past experiences, murmuring.
“But I know this dictionary must have its meaning.”
The last rays of sunlight shone on Savros’s face, casting a golden hue.
Reiner fell silent.