novelraw Chapter 108 : The Person I Had Been Waiting For (4)
Chapter 108 : The Person I Had Been Waiting For (4)
Chapter 108: The Person I Had Been Waiting For (4)
“Keep this up and you’ll never be able to use your arm again. This isn’t the time to be stubborn.”
“It’s not stubbornness……!”
“I know. You saw the Ed Family’s flame with your own eyes, and you felt something, didn’t you? Because they have something you don’t.”
There had been no explanation at all, yet Vise grasped Rezi’s true feelings just by looking into her eyes.
Rezi simply kept her mouth shut and slowly nodded.
“You want to solidify that foundation. I’m not saying I don’t understand how you feel. But everything has its proper time. Right now, you need to rest. Even if you do it after you’ve recovered, it won’t be too late.”
“…….”
Because it was a reasonable argument, Rezi didn’t offer any rebuttal.
“Recover first, then start from there. You’ve realized something important, so I think mastering it won’t be far off.”
With that, Vise lightly flicked Rezi on the forehead with his fist.
“You do pick things up fast, don’t you? Right?”
“……Thank you.”
“Alright, let the master and disciple soak in this warm atmosphere. Sparkle, you come with me for a moment.”
At that moment, Former whispered into Sparkle’s ear.
“Why?”
“Just come.”
When Former stepped out, Sparkle followed after him.
In the corridor outside the basement, Former handed Sparkle a potion.
“Drink this.”
“What is it?”
“A potion that changes your appearance, like mine.”
“……Are you crazy?”
At present, Former, just like Rezi, was transformed into a fat, ugly man.
When operating in the Underworld, it was something done out of necessity for security.
But Sparkle recoiled in horror, staring at the potion as if it were a rotting corpse.
“What’s the problem?”
“You’re telling me to become fat like you right now? That’s an insult to my beauty!”
“……Good grief. You can say something like that about yourself without a shred of shame? Aren’t you embarrassed? What’s so important about looks?”
“They are important! Especially for a pretty mage like me!”
“Haa, what if it’s an order from the Lord?”
Since it seemed like reasoning wouldn’t work, Former had no choice but to invoke Etar’s name.
“…….”
“Come on.”
But even then, Sparkle couldn’t easily take the potion.
No matter how terrifying Etar’s orders were, she didn’t have the slightest desire to become that fat.
“If I tell him you refused to drink it, won’t he get angry?”
“Aah! Seriously!”
Even so, to Sparkle, Etar was scarier than becoming fat.
In the end, she squeezed her eyes shut and downed the potion in one gulp.
Immediately after.
“Sniff…… I can’t believe I’m going to look like that too…….”
The image of her soon-to-be appearance made her sad, and tears welled up in her eyes.
But after a certain amount of time passed following the potion, her eye level gradually began to rise relative to Former’s.
Not just Former. The ceiling was also getting farther away.
“Huh……?”
Now Sparkle’s eye level had dropped completely to around Former’s knees.
At the same time, her voice turned childish.
She had become a child.
“From now on, you’ll be active as Elder Vise’s granddaughter.”
Leaving only that one line behind, Former started heading somewhere.
“Where are you going?”
“To monitor the Royal Guard!”
Saying that, Former left the tavern.
Sparkle first thought it was a relief that she hadn’t turned fat, at least.
It was probably consideration on his part.
But strangely, words of thanks didn’t come easily.
“Mm…… Artel?”
Quite some time after I lifted the sleep magic, Kiena and Hei woke up.
“Where’s the Lycan? What happened to it?”
“I don’t know. I suddenly fell asleep too, and when I woke up, it was gone.”
I just brushed it off like that.
“I see……? But why did we suddenly fall asleep……?”
After confirming that the violent Lycan was gone and that I was unharmed, Kiena muttered in a relieved voice.
“Who knows. Maybe the Lycan cast some kind of magic?”
“Is that so……?”
Fortunately, Kiena and Hei didn’t continue to doubt it.
“Let’s rest for today. I’m tired.”
Using that as an excuse to leave my seat, I headed to the dormitory first.
From the next day on, Kiena and Hei practically lived in the training grounds.
There were even days when they slept there outright.
That was how fiercely their desire to reach 6th Class burned.
Hei was refining the physical magic he had developed, making it stronger and able to last longer.
The same went for Kiena. It was as if she had revived the Lycan I had erased and summoned it again.
The one difference from before was that the Lycan had started to become somewhat tamed.
‘How am I supposed to take this?’
The Lycan’s fur was still black.
Yet it listened thoroughly to Kiena’s words.
The Lycan had clearly emitted Sylarid’s aura and antagonized me, so if it was listening to Kiena, didn’t that mean Kiena was gradually becoming more like Sylarid?
That was the only conclusion I could come to.
‘There’s nothing I can figure out right now. All I can do is watch.’
And so, my uncomfortable vacation continued.
Then, on the last day of the vacation, something happened.
“Artel! Look at this! Something’s wrong with my condition!”
Hei came running to me in a panic.
“…….”
When I saw Hei’s appearance, I thought, ‘So it’s finally happening.’
Sure enough, his bright red hair had begun to be stained black in patches.
“This is weird. They say the more you use magic, the higher the synchronization rate gets, right? But did my synchronization rate drop? Why is black hair appearing…….”
It seemed Hei had concluded that the reason for his black hair was that his synchronization rate had deteriorated.
But my thoughts were different.
Looking at Hei’s hair color, I was certain.
Hei too was nothing but a fire-and-darkness Double Caster.
The darkness elemental orbification he had shown back in 3rd Class.
At the time, it had been something he manifested unconsciously, but now it was gradually evolving to the point where he could manifest it at will.
“Hei, could it be that you’re a Double Caster too?”
It was something incredibly shocking and remarkable, but I said it indifferently.
Since it was something I already knew, I didn’t want to force an exaggerated reaction.
“Hey! No way! How could that be? A Double Caster?”
“From what I see, it doesn’t look like your synchronization rate dropped. It looks like the color of the Darkness Element. Try manifesting a Darkness Element sphere.”
Hei took a stance to try manifesting the Darkness Element, half-expecting to be fooled.
“Do it the same way you normally manifest the Fire Element, but imagine filling the inside with darkness.”
After I gave him just a simple tip at his side, Hei casually manifested a Darkness Element sphere.
The reason I bothered to guide him like this was because I wanted to see with my own eyes just how far he could manifest things voluntarily.
“……It really works? No, how?”
The problem was that he himself wasn’t ready to fully accept that fact yet.
“Try one application. Manifest a Fire Element sphere too, and combine it with the Darkness Element.”
Hei combined the two elements without difficulty, and black flames flared up in midair.
Starting from that, I showed him everything step by step up to 5th Circle magic and had him try it himself, and he succeeded in manifesting all of it without issue.
‘This confirms my theory. Hei was capable from the beginning—he just didn’t know how to do it until now.’
From Tap-Taking in 3rd Class to being a Double Caster now in 5th Class.
You couldn’t say all of that was talent that suddenly appeared.
It was more accurate to say he had been a Double Caster from the start, but only now realized it or begun to show it physically.
“Artel…… am I really a Double Caster……?”
Hei asked me with a look that still couldn’t quite believe it.
“Seems like it. Otherwise, how would you be able to manifest Darkness Element magic?”
“That’s a relief.”
But then, a somewhat unexpected reaction came out.
“A relief?”
“Kiena’s always getting praised even among summoners, and you’re a Double Caster. I was worried about what I’d do if I were the only one who couldn’t go to the main school, but if I’m a Double Caster too, then the three of us can go together without any problems!”
To react like that after finding out he was a Double Caster.
Honestly, it was a bit shocking.
And seeing Hei think only about the three of us being together gave me a sense of dissonance.
Because it overlapped with the image of him back in 3rd Class, attacking me while even bringing out orbification.
“Yeah, we can go together.”
It was something that didn’t exist in Hei’s memories anyway.
So I didn’t show it and wrapped things up with appropriate words.
That was how the final day of vacation completely drew to a close, and the three of us gathered in the cafeteria.
After hearing the news that Hei was a Double Caster, Kiena congratulated him and left words of encouragement about working hard toward the main school.
Even then, I held back my words.
When the semester began, ten students once again took their seats in 5th Class.
One peculiar thing was that even though the teachers and students knew Hei was a Double Caster, they showed no reaction at all.
Students, fine.
The task to move from 5th Class to 6th Class was to develop one’s own magic, so they had no room to worry about others.
But even the teachers placing it completely outside their interest was a bit unexpected.
Nylon, the teacher in charge of Hei and me, was currently also holding a professorship for 5th Class.
Even he showed no particular reaction.
It was indifference to the point where I wondered if it was really okay.
“Really? Student Hei is a Double Caster too? Fire and Darkness.”
-Yes, Headmaster.
At the same time, Nylon immediately reported to Etar through a mob.
Etar made a dumbfounded expression.
“My goodness. What is this now? A Double Caster out of nowhere.”
He already knew that Artel was Arkis Eimer’s Disciple.
But Hei, who had entered together with Artel and stayed by his side the entire time, suddenly turning out to be a Double Caster?
At that moment, a single assumption flashed through Etar’s mind.
‘Could it be that Lord Arkis made Student Hei into a Double Caster?’
Whether that was even possible, he didn’t know.
Using potions to temporarily become a Double Caster had become possible as the era advanced, but the question of whether it could be done with magic—and permanently at that—still remained.
-What should we do, Headmaster? You’re already paying a lot of attention because of Student Artel, aren’t you?
Since Artel’s true identity had not yet been revealed to him, Nylon was still doing his utmost to keep Artel under surveillance.
“What about Student Kiena? Does she show any signs of being a Double Caster as well?”
-No. She’s the same as usual. She only shows genius-level talent in summoning magic.
If Arkis Eimer had intentionally made Hei a Double Caster, then Kiena should be the same.
Why?
Because the three of them were students who had entered together from the orphanage.
Yet only one of the two being a Double Caster didn’t seem like a normal situation even to Etar.
“For now, don’t worry about it. I’ll be directly conducting the Fire Element Student Ability Evaluation soon anyway, won’t I? We’ll find out then.”
That day would be the day he could meet Arkis Eimer.
And he believed that Hei’s secret would be unraveled then as well.
-Ah, but Headmaster. I’ve thought about it carefully, and it seems that only directly conducting the Fire Element gives the Draco Family a pretext. How about you personally conduct all subjects?
It was Nylon’s suggestion.
“All elements, by me?”
-Yes. Even if you’re a Fire Elementalist, you know magic up to the 5th Circle level, don’t you?
“That’s true.”
Especially during his time as Arkis Eimer’s Disciple, there had been one Disciple for each element, so Etar knew all other elemental magic as well.
He just couldn’t manifest it.
After thinking deeply, Etar nodded.
“Fine. There are only ten students anyway. I’ll personally conduct all elemental evaluations.”
-Yes, then I’ll restrain the teachers accordingly at that time.
“Do you have a plan?”
-Of course.
Nylon answered confidently.