Memoirs of Your Local Small-time Villainess-Chapter 406 - The Last Glasswright

Memoirs of Your Local Small-time Villainess-Chapter 406 - The Last Glasswright

The faint, wavering notes of Rosa’s melody carried softly through the chamber as Scarlett focused, eyes closed, awareness turned inward.
Her mana moved with a quiet rhythm that she was gradually refining, flowing along pathways she had painstakingly familiarised herself with over weeks of repetition. The process was very deliberate now — Heating, Breaking, Remaking, then waiting for the stillness to settle before beginning again.
It was also gruellingly slow. One full cycle had at first taken her up to a day, and it was a very particular kind of agony from start to finish. Not the sharp sort of pain that flared and faded, but a grinding pressure that filled every nerve and refused to let go, even as it left her uncertain whether it was all in her imagination. In a way, she was surprised she’d learned to endure it at all.
There was something about the Stillwork itself that helped.
The Breaking had already been done for this cycle. She hadn’t resisted the shattering when it came. When the pressure built and her inner veins fractured like glass, she’d simply let it happen, breathing through the pain while holding her focus on the scattered fragments.
Remaking them required a new shape, and that required dissonance. Amy’s thoughts brushed against Scarlett’s, and there—in that friction—she found the dissonance she needed. A difference she could work with. Something she could manipulate. For brief moments, she could even observe the dissonance itself.
Sweat slicked her skin as the final surges of mana coursed through her body, tracing and reforging the broken channels, stretching them into something new — just slightly different, slightly improved.
Then, finally, everything locked into place.
Scarlett exhaled slowly and released the flow.
It was far from perfect. She was fairly certain she’d introduced new imperfections in her work. She could feel the rough edges, the hairline faults where she’d pushed too hard or too soon. She was still learning what ‘improvement’ actually looked like, and maintaining focus for such long stretches wasn’t easy.
But at the very least, it wasn’t wasted effort.
She opened her eyes.
The glow of the sconces caught on the thin sheen of sweat threatening to drip into her eyes. Her first instinct was to call on her hydrokinesis to wash it away, but the skill didn’t respond.
[Name:
Scarlett Hartford
]
[Skills:
[Major Mana Control]
[Superior Pyromancy]
[Argent Pyrokinesis]
[Superior Hydromancy]
[Major Hydrokinesis]
[̼̭̬̋̈́̒͜ ̧̘̜́ͣ͛͛ͅ ͚̜̓͜ͅ ̢̰͚̾̏ͅ ̮̿͆̒͠ ̢̾̏ͅ ̢̰̾̏ͅ]
]
[Traits:
[Dignified August]
[Supercilious]
[Cavalier]
[Callous]
[Overbearing]
[Conceited]
[Second-rate Mana Veins]
]
[Mana:
17/19753
]
[Points:
3
]
A small smile tugged at her lips.
[Second-rate Mana Veins]
She had been working towards it for some time, but now she’d finally achieved it.
A quiet chuckle slipped from her throat.
“That the face of victory?” Rosa’s voice carried across the room as the melody faded.
“It is,” Scarlett replied, lowering her head slightly. “After all this time, I am officially no longer third-rate.”
Rosa grinned. “I don’t think you ever were, but still — congratulations.”
“Thank you.” Scarlett reached for her [Pouch of Holding] and pulled out a small cloth to wipe her face, then paused when she noticed the figure standing near the end of the chamber.
Jahror was there, watching.
“Congratulations,” he said, his tone carrying little emotion.
Scarlett met his gaze. “…Thank you.”
He studied her for several seconds, then turned and left without another word.
She watched him go.
A few weeks had passed since they entered this Echo, though she wasn’t entirely convinced time flowed the same way for Jahror as it did for them. She suspected that the Echo skipped time without their noticing. It was mostly intuition, but now and then she caught something in his face that might just have been her imagination. Faint lines beneath his eyes. Subtle creases at the corners of his mouth. Possible marks of age.
Though the real change wasn’t physical.
It was in him.
She didn’t truly know Jahror, even after weeks of proximity. Their conversations had always remained sparse and functional. From the beginning, he’d carried a sense of distance, as though he was moving away from the world. But lately, that detachment had seemed to deepen. Scarlett was sure of it.
And she also thought she knew why.
He had told her when teaching her his Stillwork. It relied on ‘brokenness’ to work. The more broken, the more completely it functioned. And though he had never said it outright, Scarlett suspected he was letting it take him apart piece by piece, even after warning her how to avoid that.
She turned back to the sconces.
She didn’t know how many weeks they had left in this place. Maybe one. Maybe twenty. But something told her the end was drawing close.
Scarlett finished another cycle and opened her eyes.
She scanned the chamber. Rosa was already watching her.
“You feel it too, huh?” Rosa asked.
Scarlett nodded. “Yes. Where is Jahror?”
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“He left a while ago.”
Scarlett turned towards the tunnel, listening.
She couldn’t quite name it, but something had changed in the air. There was a certain…taste. Thin and expectant.
“…Come,” she said, rising and straightening her clothes.
Rosa slipped off her crate, tucking her klert into her enchanted cloak. “After you.”
They headed for the exit. Scarlett downed a mana potion and conjured a few steady flames to light the way as they stepped into the cold tunnels beyond.
Outside, the settlement of Ravenn looked unchanged. It was the same silent streets, empty doorways, and, far in the distance, the translucent spire of Vairenne rose over the horizon. But the air here was different. Beneath the stillness, it threaded through the stone like a breath held too long.
They didn’t discuss where to go. Their feet carried them to the far edge of the settlement, to the hollow where the pyre for Ravenn’s dead had once burned.
A lone figure stood before it, blue robes hanging slack, pale hair unmoving in the faint wind. Jahror watched the ash bed as though it still glowed.
Scarlett and Rosa stopped a few paces behind him. They shared a glance, then approached.
Jahror didn’t turn. He didn’t seem to notice them.
Scarlett was struck by how different he felt again. There was this sense as if he barely touched the world anymore. As if he stood just beside it.
An almost hollow impression.
They stood in silence for a time.
“…You are done, then,” Scarlett finally said.
A faint breath left the man. “I am.”
A low wind stirred, lifting ash into the air. It spiralled briefly — then stopped a finger’s width beyond the pyre, falling straight down again, untouched.
Scarlett folded her arms. “I have a question.”
“Ask,” Jahror said.
“Why did you teach me? Truly?”
She hadn’t gotten a proper answer. She hadn’t pushed for one. But even if they weren’t close, and he might only be an echo of the real Jahror, he had taught her something extremely valuable.
So it felt like something she should know.
He was silent long enough that she wondered if he would answer at all.
“I cannot remember,” he eventually said, voice stripped of all inflection. “Perhaps…I had hoped that you were greedy.”
Scarlett’s brow rose. “Greedy?”
“If you had reached for everything,” he continued, “perhaps you would have taken what I had and ensured no one else could use it.”
Rosa wore a sombre expression. “You were hoping she’d kill you?”
“It is possible.”
“…Do you still wish for that?” Scarlett asked.
He shook his head. “It is too late.”
“You intend to unmake the city now?”
“Yes.”
“And you are confident you can do so alone?”
“You should not involve yourselves.”
“I had no intention to. I was simply curious whether your resolve to destroy Vairenne is, in truth, another attempt at dying.”
Jahror said nothing for several seconds. Then his gaze lifted to the distant spire of the city and the glowing lattice above it. “…You still have much to learn about the Stillwork.”
“I am aware.”
“I have taught you what is necessary, though. Remember not to use it recklessly. However broken you are, do not debase yourself for power.”
“That was never my intent. There is no power worth losing oneself to obtain.”
The man inclined his head. “Good. That is good… Keep those words.”
He raised a hand, palm up, staring at it as though trying to grasp something unseen. After a moment, his fingers curled into a fist.
“This will be our farewell,” he said without turning.
He lowered his arm.
And in that instant, Scarlett saw it.
He had always seemed empty. A man who grew to be more and more a shell of a reflection. Someone with very little true presence.
But now, the emptiness that had clung to him was gone.
What stood before them now was vast — a presence heavy as a mountain. Power radiated outward, swallowing sound itself. Quintessence, mana—whatever you wanted to call it—it poured from him, pure and dense, blinding in its clarity. A man who’d once relied on external catalysts for magic now burned with an impossible brilliance, his very existence thrumming with force.
“We spent generations gathering and refining the Quintessence around us,” Jahror said quietly. “From earth, from sky, from all that held it. When it thinned, we drained more and moved on. Yet we never saw what held the greatest potential to renew it. Life itself.”
Before him, there was a ripple.
That was all.
He stepped into it and vanished.
The mountain of presence remained.
Scarlett turned towards Vairenne as a pulse of power surged from the city, enormous and alive, shaking the air itself.
She started forward. Rosa followed.
They crossed the remnants of Ravenn, moving through its streets and climbing the slope beyond the valley. From the ridge, the sea of glass stretched wide below them.
They stopped at the crest.
At first, nothing changed. Vairenne still gleamed, exact and awake. Then, a small distortion formed around the central spire. Light there bent, as if space itself had diminished.
A pulse followed. The heartbeat of a mountain.
The great lattice above the city flickered. Its perfect light stuttered. A flare erupted from the spire’s summit, streaking upward into the grid. The lattice ignited in white, lines burning across the sky like veins of molten crystal. The brilliance spread, swallowing the horizon.
Scarlett raised a hand to shield her eyes.
Across the glass plain, figures rose from the city — tiny silhouettes, visible only because they shone so fiercely against the light. Dozens, maybe hundreds. Even at this distance, she felt their pressure. She found herself wondering, almost absently, how she would measure against even one.
They gathered beneath the lattice, forming geometric patterns. Circles and lines that blazed with colour.
Vairenne was defending itself.
The defenders struck first. Lances of pure light fell from their formations, converging above the spire. Rosa gasped as the impact washed the world in a soundless silvery flash.
For a while, nothing else moved.
Then came another pulse. Deeper and slower, it rolled outward from that same point, rippling through the lattice.
Lines cracked. The defenders scattered, reformed, and wove their light together again. For a moment, the grid steadied, trembling but intact.
Then the next pulse came, like the breath of something infinite and venerable.
It tore through everything.
Formations shattered. Lines of power warped and fell, spiralling towards the ground. Towers bent inward and collapsed, bursting into pale fire as they struck the streets below.
The lattice dimmed. Its glow thinned to faint, flickering strands webbing the sky. The central spire cracked from base to tip, translucent light bleeding through the fracture.
Scarlett watched as the defenders rallied once more. Dozens of radiant figures poured their strength into holding the collapse at bay. Below, the ground glowed from within, as though something immense pressed upward through the foundations.
She didn’t have the theoretical knowledge to name what she was seeing, but she could
feel
it. And it made her stare with widened eyes at what Jahror had truly achieved.
From his perspective, she didn’t know how long it had taken. But from shattering himself to standing against an entire civilisation of powerful mages, he had remade his very being into something that could perhaps challenge even gods.
Even witnessing it, Scarlett struggled to believe that this was what the Stillwork of
Shattered Glass
could achieve.
Jahror’s warning echoed in her thoughts.
For a moment, it looked as though the defenders might hold.
Then the next pulse ended everything.
Scarlett couldn’t describe it as sound or light. It was like a sigh from the bones of the world itself this time. Cavernous, weary, and utterly final.
What remained of the lattice shattered in silence. Its fragments drifted apart in a wind that no longer blew. One by one, the defenders’ lights winked out. The upper half of the spire dissolved in a softening flash.
Then the city began to sink.
More towers crumbled. Canals hardened into ribbons of slag and stone. The hum that once filled the Echo faded away. Before their eyes, Vairenne became a corpse of itself.
And with it, Jahror’s mountain perished.
Scarlett and Rosa stood on the ridge as the end spread. The sea of glass below them clouded and cracked, its mirrored surface turning opaque as the shock reached it. Above, the sky dimmed to ash-grey, streaked faintly with colourless light.
Rosa shifted beside her.
Scarlett stayed still, eyes fixed on the ruins.
“…I don’t like it,” Rosa said quietly.
Scarlett turned her head. “Do not like what?”
Rosa gestured towards the horizon. “That. I think it’s awful.”
“The city’s destruction? Or Jahror’s actions?”
“Both. Either.” Rosa’s voice was low. “It just leaves a bad taste in the mouth, pretending it doesn’t matter because it already happened somewhere else. Or pretending it’s fine because maybe they deserved it.”
Scarlett regarded her for a moment, then looked back towards what remained of Vairenne. “I suppose it does.”
There was a sound. Faint, brittle, and sharp, like glass cracking under strain.
She turned.
Behind them, the air rippled with a thin distortion, a suspended shard of shifting colour and mirrored fragments twisting inward on themselves.
“…For now, however, I believe it is time for us to make our return.”

Chapter 406 - The Last Glasswright