Every Morning, My Mirror Saves the World - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

For the first while after she learned there was a Holy Archmage inside her mirror, Lars existed in Ruiyin’s mind as a miserable loser overachiever with an honest, dependable nice-guy face. He had worn glasses thick as bottle bottoms and charged all the way into Harvard for the goddess of his heart, only to be unable to escape the fate of receiving the “you’re a good person” card. Perhaps, with the eternal echo of those words ringing in his ears, he had eventually managed to become some awesome figure like a Magic Saint and dabble in hybrid rice or something… Uh, maybe there were some differences between Eastern and Western culture, but for the general direction to veer this far off course was still enough to make one clutch one’s chest in regret.

The newly reborn image of Lars was still that of a good person. It was just that his misery had turned into deep, bitter hatred.

“Greed, betrayal, desire… Humanity has far too many inherent flaws. This world is filled with evil everywhere. Vampires are worshiped in lofty halls, while commoners are forever trampled at the bottom. Why does a world like this need to exist at all?” Lars’s grief-stricken voice poured out in righteous indignation.

“Mm.” Ruiyin spun her pen while marking up the thick book in front of her, answering offhandedly.

“Dark, filthy, beyond saving. This world has grown so ugly that only destruction can give rise to something new. I have watched too many people struggle and die. Rather than let it continue like this, it would be better to…” Lars confided in a melancholy, tearful voice.

A vein popped on Ruiyin’s forehead in the shape of a cross. She turned and hurled the pen in her hand at the mirror. The tip landed right in a crack in the glass, and a muffled groan came from the other side. Ruiyin roared, “Are you done? Are you ever going to be done?! You’ve been making noise for half the day, and I haven’t solved a single problem! Are you a serf from Tibet waiting to be liberated? Every word out of your mouth is soaked in bitter tears! Keep it up and I’ll throw you out, do you hear me?!”

The mirror fell into complete silence.

“Sorry. My inner personality acted up for a second there…” Ruiyin irritably rubbed her forehead, feeling a little guilty for hurting this normally honest, good-natured man. “Honestly, as a mage whose major is destroying the world, don’t you think you’re a little too idle? When you should be colluding with all sorts of dark villains over working lunches, you keep breaking your magic circles and accidentally connecting to the mirror in my house so you can discuss life philosophy and your personal history of struggle with me. With this level of unprofessionalism, it’s going to be very hard for you to successfully destroy the world.”

A long time passed before Lars’s voice sounded again. “I am very sorry. I did not mean to disturb you. It’s just… you may be the only person left who can listen to me say these things.”

“No way. What about your friends and lackeys?”

“Those who could listen to me speak have all sunk into eternal sleep beneath the earth.”

“…” Just how derelict did this world-destroying final boss have to be to let all his subordinates die off before the destruction even began?!

Probably out of sympathy, Ruiyin stopped yelling at the mirror to get lost after that. On the other hand, Lars seemed to realize that endlessly prattling on in front of a woman was a rather disgraceful thing, and he began talking to Ruiyin about matters other than destroying the world. He was the very model of a refined, erudite Western gentleman. With a voice so perfectly developed it could be called flawless, he spoke in tones mellow as wine of mages and the Paladin, of Dark Elves and unicorns, and of all the wondrous things in another world. If Lars did not begin every single story with, “Ah, yes, I remember when so-and-so died last time,” he truly would have been the kind of good man one couldn’t help but friend-zone.

“When Evelyn died, I was the same age as you,” Lars recounted in a reminiscent tone. “She was a girl as beautiful as a bluebell beneath the moon. The year she died happened to be the third anniversary of the Orcs’ invasion of Kandel Castle. That year, humans and Dark Elves formed an alliance to fight the Orcs…”

“…”

“When Juvina died, the Dark Elves had just finished building Dark Moon Tower on the Sea of Roses. At the time, mermaids circled the tower that could reach the moon, singing beautiful songs together that could lure sailors down into the depths. It was simply a dream one could drown in until death…”

“…”

“And when Galahad died…”

“Stop. Stop right there!” Ruiyin cut off Lars’s reminiscence with a face full of black lines. “Can’t you change your narrative style? Is the Magic Continent into dating everything by ‘Back when my old man died–‘?”

“No,” Lars said in a flat voice. “I am very sorry to make you listen to such dull stories. It is only that, in my life, the only things that have allowed me to remember the passage of time are the people around me dying, one after another.”
Legend has it that every boss who tries to destroy the world has a tragic backstory. From that angle, Lars’s road to destroying the world was probably going to be very smooth indeed.

Lars really did seem to be a mage whose technical skills were rotten to the core. At the fixed frequency of three times a week, he broke a magic circle and connected it to Ruiyin’s mirror. Ruiyin gradually got used to the mirror in front of her suddenly going pitch-black while she was brushing her teeth, followed by someone clearing his throat in embarrassment to announce his arrival. Once she ignored Lars’s progress reports on destroying the world, the two of them would enter normal conversation. Topics included heartwarming subjects such as “Why don’t the little people inside the television come out?” and “If a merman is a fish, does he actually have a dick?” Aside from the times Ruiyin would violently slam her book down and tell Lars to shut up while she was working on math problems, she slowly began to feel that having an invisible roommate like this was actually pretty nice.

Until one day, when the mirror went dark again. Ruiyin greeted him out of habit with, “Want a cup of Chinese green tea?” but did not receive the usual response.

From the other side of the mirror came the sound of heavy, suppressed breathing, as if every breath exhausted all his strength.

“Lars?” Ruiyin had a bad feeling. She raised her voice and called out to him.

“No, I’m fine,” Lars said evenly, though his voice was a little tired. “Ruiyin, how are things on your end today?”

“Terrible,” Ruiyin said dryly. “There are three days left until the exam, and the only way I can think of to pass is to faint.”

Lars laughed in a low voice.

“We’ve known each other for quite some time,” he said, “but I still don’t really know much about you, Ruiyin. Will you talk about yourself?”

“Me? Haven’t you already peeped on every detail of my food, clothing, housing, and transportation?”

Lars let out a short laugh. “Perhaps. But I still don’t understand you at all. For example, when I told you I was going to destroy the world, why did you never try to talk me out of it?”

“Does that kind of thing need talking out of?” Ruiyin replied calmly. “Even Obama knows nobody can succeed at such a grand mission. Actually, I always thought you were joking. Wait, you were serious?”

Lars said, “…I’m sorry. I was serious from the very beginning.”

“Then I’m really sorry for humoring you all this time,” Ruiyin apologized sincerely.

“…There is absolutely no need to be polite. So, is there anything you want to say to me now?”

Ruiyin turned her head to look at the various exam slogans pasted on her desk, all reeking of smoke and battlefield spirit, then looked back at her obviously not-quite-normal best buddy. She gritted her teeth. “Then… want to watch anime together?”

“…Huh?”

Ruiyin drew the curtains, turned on the computer that had been sealed away under dust for ages, and cleared her throat. “First, let us examine the pioneering work of world destruction: Ultraman. Countless carefree little monsters tried to destroy the world, only to be repeatedly abused by a group of brainless thugs in revealing outfits. In the end, they failed to destroy it.”

She clicked into the next folder. “In the world-destruction classic Dragon Ball, powerful figures such as Demon King Piccolo, Frieza, the Androids, and Majin Buu threw themselves one after another into the world-destruction industry. But aside from the ones recruited by the protagonist as teammates, the rest could not escape being killed off. They even served as free upgrade opportunities for the protagonist.”

Another click. “Also, although this one wasn’t exactly about destroying the world, in I Eat Sweets and Still Don’t Get Cavities, Light Yagami attempted to overthrow the world and remake it. Even though he had an extraordinary IQ and was unmatched in talent and looks, in the end he still lost his best buddy and his life, and even his soul was doomed to never reincarnate. Truly, one word is not enough to describe how tragic it was.”

Ruiyin closed the laptop screen, propped up her chin, and addressed the mirror, which could do nothing but breathe. “Our world may not have anyone like you who seriously wants to destroy it, but our teaching materials on world destruction are still relatively rich, detailed, and vivid. In conclusion, everyone who devotes themselves to the great cause of destroying the world, apart from those recruited by the protagonist as underlings, invariably gets killed off in ways that range from miserable to even more miserable. On top of that, they use their bodies as experience points for the protagonist to level up. Anyone who chooses this profession must be both brave and mentally ill.”

Lars, who was both brave and mentally ill, took a critical hit to the knees.

Lars barely managed to support himself against the wall and recover some HP. “Then, in your eyes, am I just a joke?”
Ruiyin was silent for a while. Staring at the mirror, she said, “I don’t know. I only know this much: no one can destroy the world or save the world all by themselves.”

Lars gave a short laugh. “Yeah… no one.”

Then he abruptly changed the subject. “Ruiyin, I’m about to die.”

“…What?”

“There is something wrong with my head. I wanted to destroy the world all by myself. I spent a very long time trying to activate an ancient forbidden spell formation. It drained all my magic. I’ll be dead before dawn.”

Ruiyin stared at the pitch-black mirror, suddenly at a loss for words.

“Ruiyin, do you want to hear a story?”

Before the age of nineteen, Lars had always been a knight. After suffering brutal persecution at the hands of the lord he served, he awakened his mage bloodline. Later, he was betrayed in turn by his fiancee, his friends, his partners, and so on, gradually setting foot on the irreversible path of an edgy, corrupted villain determined to destroy the world. The whole story was full of twists and turns, rushing headlong toward the Abyss of a Demon King destined to be used as level-grinding fodder by heroes, never to return. Its sheer tragedy was enough to make any listener weep.

“When Galahad died, he once said something to me: Lars, you will face this world alone forever. He was right. In the end, I don’t even have a single person by my side to talk to.”

Lars’s voice was very calm, but Ruiyin could hear the heavy grief and despair within it.

“Don’t be so… I mean, look, at least you have me, right? I even sacrificed the night before my exam to watch anime with you, so can you please not be this depressed?”

“Yeah… If I had met you sooner, if someone had said these things to me sooner… would everything have turned out differently?”

Under Ruiyin’s astonished gaze, the pitch-black mirror gradually brightened. As if looking through a window, Ruiyin saw an extravagantly luxurious room. Its color scheme was entirely dark red, with candles burning on tall brass candlesticks all around. Crystal balls, gemstones, and golden goblets were piled throughout the room in utter disorder, and in the center, a man sat in a high-backed upholstered chair.

He was a dying man, his deathly pale face tinged with a bluish-gray cast. Yet he was also, without question, an exceptionally attractive man. His long, smooth black hair was bound with a purple-gold circlet, and his sharp features carried the typical traits of a Germanic man. His hands rested on the armrests as he gazed peacefully at Ruiyin on the other side of the mirror. In his emerald-green eyes, her wide-eyed face was reflected with perfect clarity.

The man on the other side of the mirror opened and closed his lips. “Ruiyin, may I beg one thing of you?”

Having already steadied herself, Ruiyin said, “Go ahead. A dying man’s words are sincere. I trust you won’t ask me to collect your corpse.”

“No. I would like you to say those words to me again.”

“You want to hear them again?” Ruiyin frowned. “There really is something wrong with your head. Even on your deathbed, you’re still training your ability to withstand emotional damage.”

“…No. I would like you to say those words to the nineteen-year-old me.”

“…Huh?”

“Don’t worry. I will leave my treasure there. You will be able to find it at the border between the Sea of Roses and the Black Forest.”

“Wait, what exactly are you trying to–”

“When everything is over, the magic stored inside the mirror will send you back. Then… farewell, my friend.”

Sensing that something was wrong, Ruiyin shot to her feet. But by then, the mirror was already shining with brilliant light. The man in the mirror smiled and reached out his hand. Though they were clearly separated by an enormous distance, Ruiyin felt someone pull her. In the next instant, her tiny rental apartment began to grow hazy. She was spinning, drifting farther and farther away. The only thing she could sense was her vision growing darker and darker around her.

Before she lost consciousness, she finally realized that the one who truly had something wrong with their head was not Lars, but herself, who had known full well that there was something wrong with his head and still gone soft enough to talk to him.