Chapter 9: The Life of the Man of Contradictions
THIS man’s heart held a profound contradiction at its base. It was a contradiction so clear-cut you could almost say he had a dual personality. One side of him embraced evil and longed to fulfill his duty, the other side rejected evil and yearned for someone to put a stop to his actions.
It had been due to his experiencing love that this contradiction was born in him. If it hadn’t been for that all-consuming love, he probably wouldn’t have turned out to be such a failure. However, he didn’t regret the way he was, neither did he feel bitter about it. The only thing he did was apologize inside his head, over and over again.
Please, forgive me. Please, forgive me. Please, forgive your good-for-nothing father. Mia. My sweet daughter born from the woman I loved so dearly. Please, forgive me for the choices I have made.
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THE man’s earliest memories consisted of the endless lessons his father, the former head of the family, gave him. These memories felt more like an imprinting than anything else. The man was a sorcerer, an evil one at that—an enemy of all mankind. He had been taught that the mighty magic he wielded was to be used for one purpose only—to make a long-cherished desire passed on through the generations come true.
That long-cherished desire was “world domination”. A silly ambition, very much like something out of a comic book. However, the man did not think it foolish, not even for a minute, for since a tender age, he had been immersed in the philosophy of world domination to the point that it had been an integral part of his entire worldview.
There was no crack through which doubts or questions could seep into his thinking. Ever since he had been but a small child, he had been learning magic and striving to master it in order to achieve world conquest. This had been the only use of his time that had been tolerated.
There were appearances to be kept up since they had lost so much to the Champions of Justice, so he went to school and kept his identity secret. However, he could never blend in with his surroundings, sticking out like a sore thumb wherever he went. He didn’t talk much to his classmates; whenever he said something, it was always in a high-handed, peremptory manner, with him looking down on everyone else. Who would want to be friends with such a child?
A part of him always wished the hidden schools and the numerous servants that taught past generations of his organization were still around, but all of that had been lost along with their wealth and influence.
The man was always alone. …He was special. It was preposterous to think that he could be categorized as a mere “human”. He and his kind were something beyond the limitations of human; they were the chosen ones of the world. Why else would they possess such arcane power? As the man thought everyone else to be beneath him, he never regarded being lonely and friendless as a nuisance.
His father stood at the head of the remnants of an evil organization and fought the Champions of Justice, all in order to fulfill the longstanding ambition of world conquest. To his father, the man was a “spare”. If the father whom he revered were to breathe his last before he could realize his goal, the man would inherit his will and take up the fight. That was one of the reasons he continued to study magic. Day in, day out, he strived to perfect the magic meant to cement his family’s goal of world domination. His body and mind existed solely for that purpose, for if not that, what other meaning did his existence have?