Her white hair and red eyes and a tiny, little smile on her face.

He couldn’t have known how many times such image flashed in his mind in the middle of his idle thoughts.

Hopefully, this would be the last time such an image came to him along with these ineradicable regrets and sadness.

He would make it so, no matter what he had to sacrifice.

Yes, no matter what he had to sacrifice.

=============================================================================

“Please do not do it, Master! We all need you here!”

Sebastian, the head butler, pleaded, wanting him to cancel the ritual.

The others in the room aside from him and the butler watched on silently with bitter expressions. Some even bit their lips. It was not like they did not want to protest, but they knew it would be useless in the end. Their lord and master would never change his mind regarding this matter.

“Quit your unsightly behavior at once, Sebastian. As the one who has to take care of the territory and its people temporarily before the next emperor is decided after I am gone, such a thing is hardly acceptable,” only the cold scolding came back. The conviction in his voice was pronounced.

The fact that he did not even use the word “my” when talking about the territory and the people in it that everyone in the room had shed tears of blood to create and maintain was very hurtful to them. It was like he was spitting on their efforts – on everyone’s efforts.

If it was not him, but someone else in the group, that person would be obliterated right now. But just the fact that it was him was enough to make them grit their teeth and grudgingly accept the most unreasonable thing in the world.

In those battlefields that created the prosperity of today, he was there the longest. Solitude and alone, he fought on. Until some of them eventually joined him. One by one. Start with the mercenary king, the elf princess, and the sword saint. At one point, even their once greatest enemy, the vampire queen, decided to join them after seeing his cause and conviction.

And they were all here today, seeing him off. Those who were still alive anyway.

It was very ironic that the thing that birthed the cause and conviction that made them swore their absolute loyalty to him was the very thing that made him trash all of its fruit (of cause and conviction) away without hesitation.

This Earth empire, the one and only strongest power in this world, the utopia that accepted all races. Gone was racial discrimination that the former church along with many other great powers had once preached in their gospel. It was a dreamlike place where absolutely anyone who could be communicated with were accepted as citizens with equal rights.

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It hadn’t always existed.

The fruit of their arduous labor that had been eventually created using more than half a century.

But he would trash it all.

He, the founding emperor of the Earth empire he created from scratch. The loyal-filled voices of the people during the founding day no longer reached him. His purpose was only one.

“I just want to be with her again.”

Bitter silence filled the room again at his words. Of course, they all knew it. It was not the first time they had heard the tale of the emperor’s only beloved – the reason he had been denying the advances of so many excellence women. They all knew it, especially a certain vampire queen in the room.

The only reason he created this. The forbidden ritual magic whose method of creation was completely erased just after its completion for its dangerousness – time leap magic.

The world would definitely continue on even after the time leaping of the emperor. Only the memories of the emperor went back to that time in the parallel world. That was all. However, at the cost of using this magic – of sending his entire memories back to the past, an impossible feat normally – there would no longer be the emperor, Gratunius von Jullodius, in this world.

The emperor whose name consisted of a von – commonly, a knight’s significancy in this world – would no longer be there doing his role as the knightly emperor – the one who personally held his sword against the adversities for the sake of the people.

To be fair, such a role was no longer needed. With how prosperous the empire was now, no adversities could bring it down, at least for the next few centuries.

Objectively speaking, the disappearance of the emperor would be a minor blow at best for the current Earth empire.

However, people could never be completely objective about things. At the very least, not the ones in this room.

“I really envy her,” someone finally couldn’t stand it anymore and spoke.

She was the vampire queen with quite a heretic name for her kind, Rosarie. Her red eyes that completely complement with her graceful, long, straight ebony hair stared straight at him.

“W-Why couldn’t it be me?! The one whom you love so. To the point that you willingly let go of this world’s throne, the mastery of magic that are dear to you, and us. Oh, the savior of my race, oh, my savior, why couldn’t it just be me?” Drop of tears flowed down her cheeks at the implication in her own words.

“You are dear to me, too, Rosarie,” his eyes soften as he spoke those words, “However, I just simply can’t forget her.” The eyes of longing and sadness looked far away, beyond the girl named Rosarie that it directed to, through the girl’s crimson eyes.

The throne of the empire, the sole ruler of the world.

The mastery of magic, the highest height that was solely his, that he shed blood and tears to finally obtain.

His precious friends and the relationship they currently had together.

He would abandon them all.

Just to save, and be with one simple, insignificant girl.

That girl was his beloved, always will be.

“Farewell, everyone. It is time,” He closed his eyes, truly at peace, “I am coming, Velna.”

Those were the last words of Gratunius von Jullodius, the founding emperor of the Earth empire, the one and only existing wizard in the present world.

His body turned into dust, leaving behind only his garments and the greatest of artifacts he wore. The magic circle exploded a few seconds later, never to be used again.

Thus, lost forever were the only forbidden ritual magic that fiddled around with the concept of time, and the greatest of all magicians, the wizardly emperor, Gratunius von Jullodius.