The Academy's Terminally Ill Side Character-Chapter 314: The Madman Lover

Crimson Alchemist.

The world he was born into was one where alchemy had reached heights most could only dream of.

Within that world, he was an oddity—an alchemist unlike any other.

While others buried themselves in research about gold, immortality, and the secrets of eternal life, he walked a different path.

Perhaps it was because of his naturally refined looks or his calm, meticulous nature, but he cared deeply about cleanliness, elegance, and beauty.

And so, instead of chasing wealth or forever-lasting bodies, he devoted his life to studying the delicate, fleeting mysteries of things that were destined to fade.

Other alchemists mocked him endlessly for it.

A prodigy wasting his gifts, a fool who didn't understand what alchemy was truly for.

That was what they always told him.

Whenever the insults came, he simply smiled—soft, unshaken—and replied:

"I like roses more than gold."

To him, beauty mattered because it did not last.

A flower that wilted was far more precious than a lump of metal that stayed the same forever.

Something eternal, he said, had no value.

Something that could disappear at any moment—

that was worth cherishing.

He used to say that a single rose capable of making someone smile was worth more than gold.

And that an entire field of flowers—blooming freely across the land—held more value than any single bloom.

But those beliefs… slowly changed the moment he fell in love.

His lover, the captain of the kingdom's knights, was the first person he had ever found more beautiful than flowers.

The first person whose touch he longed for.

The first person who made his heart race in a way no blooming field ever had.

He admired her fiercely.

And, to his quiet surprise, she admired him just as much.

They fell in love quickly, almost recklessly—two people who shouldn't have, yet couldn't stop themselves.

"…That was the problem."

Yes.

That was where everything began to unravel.

"I advise against approaching her," an old attendant had warned him once. "You may touch anything outside, but this is a place the former master cherished—"

"Yes, yes. There are many dangerous devices here. I know," he replied with a smile, brushing off the warning.

He remembered that conversation clearly.

Because it was the last time he would ever hear such advice.

The knight captain died.

Not heroically in battle, as she often claimed she wished to—

"If I must perish, let it be like a flower cut down at its peak," she always said with a laugh.

But instead, she weakened.

Day by day.

Her strength, her radiance, her stubborn fire… all fading like petals rotting from the inside out.

No battlefield.

No grand final stand.

No noble sacrifice.

She simply grew ill.

Too ill to rise.

Too fragile to hold.

Until one day, she closed her eyes and never opened them again.

He had loved her more than flowers.

And so, when she died, everything inside him withered too.

It had been an incurable disease — the kind no medicine of that era could even begin to touch.

When his lover died, the alchemist who once preached that everything was precious because it was finite finally realized how arrogant those words had been.

He shattered.

He cast aside the principles he had devoted his life to.

He abandoned the values he once proudly defended.

And he dove head-first into the darkest corners of alchemy — immortality, resurrection, forbidden arts that clawed at fate itself.

The Crimson Alchemist became a madman.

But even in madness, he refused to cross a certain line.

Most who lose themselves in obsession are willing to sacrifice anything — morals, innocence, even human lives.

But he didn't.

His goal was simple: bring her back.

And for her to return with the same smile as before, the world she loved had to remain intact.

He protected the people she cherished.

He guarded the places she treasured.

He refused to become someone she would no longer recognize.

Some sneered, saying his madness was incomplete — that he wasn't willing to "do what it takes."

But they were wrong.

He was mad.

Mad enough to believe she would return.

Mad enough to believe he could bring her back.

Mad enough to know that even failure wouldn't stop him — he would continue, again and again, until the world ended.

He endured. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

He persevered where ordinary people would have collapsed into despair, or drowned themselves in corruption, or simply given up.

And because he was far from ordinary, his countless attempts eventually shaped something real — research results that the world would later call a miracle.

A feat born from devotion, insanity, and a love strong enough to defy death.

He created miracles that should never have existed — things the world called forbidden — yet he never once violated a taboo.

The Everdusk Stone, a hidden pinnacle of alchemy, was supposed to be made from the body and soul of a living human. But he crafted one using nothing more than plants.

A feat that should've been impossible. A feat that made even veteran alchemists tremble.

And yet… even that miracle wasn't enough.

He tried to revive her with it — the treasure said to defy the law of equivalent exchange itself — but power that mocked fate was still powerless before the truth that she had died years ago.

So he kept going.

Next came the elixir, a potion woven from the fruit of the World Tree and his own techniques — a miracle said to heal all wounds. But that, too, could not bring her back.

He had known it wouldn't.

Deep down, he knew.

The elixir was never meant to revive her; it was something he created to protect her after she returned — to ensure he never lost her again.

And after hundreds… thousands… of failures, he finally created a homunculus — a perfectly crafted artificial human body.

But he wasn't settling for a substitute.

He never wanted a replica of her.

If bringing her back completely was impossible, then he would prepare a body himself, open the gates of the underworld with his own hands, and summon her true soul into it.

The alchemists who once admired him now whispered that he had gone insane.

To them, the underworld was nothing more than superstition — a myth, a fairy tale.

What they believed in was technique, formulas, and proof.

Not gods.

Not the dead.

But his talent… and his growing madness… pushed him somewhere no sane mind could follow.

Eventually, he opened the gates of the underworld.

And when something vast and indescribable gazed back at him from beyond the threshold, he spoke only a single wish — her name.

The man who had changed the world, who had lived so long for the sake of others, finally crossed the one line he had always refused to cross.

Because the god of the underworld in his world was not merciful.

It demanded a price.

And in exchange for the lives of countless others — an ocean of souls — he finally retrieved her.

Only her soul.

Just her soul.