novelraw Chapter 125 : Ambush
Chapter 125 : Ambush
Chapter 125: Ambush
I crossed over to the Ramus Branch School together with Etar, and the headmaster’s office of the Ramus Branch School welcomed me.
A headmaster’s office shaped like a musty cave.
It was a scene that let you know just how much that Tresha bastard truly loved his own element.
Among my disciples, Tresha was particularly obsessed with loving his own element, to the point that watching him from the side made me worry he might have gone mad over elements.
There was a large round table in the headmaster’s office, and on top of it were so many dishes that even four people couldn’t possibly eat them all.
And there were six stone chairs.
“Welcome, Etar.”
Tresha’s voice was heard.
Like Etar, Tresha had aged a little, but he still retained the 모습 I remembered.
Tresha fixed his gaze on me and asked Etar,
“So this is the student. The Double Caster you mentioned before. Hmm, but for a 6th Circle…… he looks lacking.”
At Tresha’s words, Etar only chuckled softly.
The reason he made such a diagnosis was because he looked into my eyes.
Recently, since I hadn’t been frequently using either the Fire Element or the Dark Element, my synchronization rate had been stuck at the 5th Class.
Even if a student like this was a Double Caster, his words implied whether it was really acceptable for me to casually enter the Sculptor.
Since I knew Tresha’s disposition, I understood easily.
“But Alfric hasn’t arrived yet?”
Etar asked.
“Yeah. He said he’d be here soon. Sit down for now. Oh right, Etar, the chair must be uncomfortable for you because of the wheelchair.”
Ddrdrdrk!
With those words, Tresha removed one of the stone chairs for Etar, and Etar settled his wheelchair into that spot.
Then he met my eyes again, and I didn’t avoid his gaze either.
“You said your name was Artel, right?”
I only nodded.
I intended to be sparing with my words.
“…….”
When I didn’t answer and only tilted my head slightly, Tresha’s mood turned unpleasant.
Tresha was trying not to show it, but I could tell.
“Student Artel, which of the existing elements do you think is the strongest?”
And then came the childish question.
Matching the level of the question, I tapped my chest with my thumb.
“……Do you mean that you’re the strongest?”
I nodded again.
“Etar, can this student not speak? Why does he keep trying to communicate only with nods and gestures? He’s got a perfectly good mouth.”
“The student is just shy. Please understand.”
Etar brushed it off smoothly.
“A shy student…… expresses his intentions so arrogantly with just nods and hand gestures?”
“How would we know the thoughts of a young student. He’s only sixteen, after all. We should cover it up with the generosity of adults.”
While Tresha was venting his displeasure to the fullest, the waypoint in the headmaster’s office opened.
And from within it, a white mage revealed himself.
“…….”
The moment I saw him, I felt as if I were looking into a mirror.
Rus Alfric.
And yet, the way he looked was almost exactly the same as how I had looked in my previous life.
Even his clothing.
It felt like he had deliberately tried to make himself look similar.
“Welcome, Alfric. Sit here.”
Tresha greeted him warmly, and Alfric sat down beside Tresha.
As a result, the arrangement around the round table became one where Etar and I sat side by side, facing Alfric and Tresha.
With his arms crossed, Alfric glared at me.
He had crossed his arms to keep those long sleeves from dragging on the floor.
Without realizing it, a smile naturally crept onto my face.
“What’s so funny?”
But perhaps he didn’t like me, because Alfric acted somewhat forcefully.
“Alfric.”
I finally opened my mouth.
“……If what I heard wasn’t an auditory hallucination, did my name just come out of your mouth?”
Alfric looked at me with disbelief, and Tresha was the same.
Etar simply kept smiling.
“Yeah, Alfric. You.”
“Kid, do you not know who I am? Show some respect. I’m the head of the representative family of the Light Element and the headmaster of the Rus Branch School.”
“Do you think I don’t know that?”
“……There are mages like you who get cocky trusting only in their talent. You still don’t know how wide and vast the world is.”
“I know better than you.”
“Etar!”
Alfric shouted.
Then he spoke to Etar as if pressing him,
“Is it truly the right choice to bring this student into the Sculptor simply because he’s a Double Caster? Judging by his ability, he seems to fall short of the 6th Circle standard. Separate from that, he lacks even the most basic manners.”
In the end, Alfric abruptly stood up from his seat.
‘Hmm, did I go too far?’
I was just being mischievous out of familiarity, but that Alfric bastard—his personality really hasn’t changed, past or present.
The disposition of Light Elementalists includes a desire for only themselves to shine brilliantly, so they try to command groups.
Watching Alfric’s actions now made memories from the past slowly rise up.
As Etar hurriedly tried to argue back, I cut in first.
“Sit down, Alfric. Everyone else is sitting—why are you the only one standing?”
Now then, this was the strong straight pitch I was throwing.
If it was the Alfric I knew, he would definitely take out magic here.
A very familiar magic that I knew well.
“So you’re going to the end…….”
Unable to contain his anger, Alfric finally cast a threatening spell.
Just as I expected—the Light Element’s highest-efficiency magic, the Light Sealing Sword.
I deliberately acted frightened and startled, putting on a performance.
“If you don’t keep proper manners, I won’t care whether you’re a new Sculptor member or not—I’ll attack you. Even if it looks like an ordinary spell, its lethality is…….”
While Alfric was threatening me, I reached out with my fingertip and gently brushed the edge of the Light Sealing Sword.
The tip of my finger was slightly cut, and a single thick drop of blood formed.
“Pretty usable. It used to be at a pathetic level back then.”
“……What?”
Only then did Alfric sense that something was strange.
The Light Sealing Sword was not a spell that could be touched so casually, and moreover, it was because I spoke as if I knew the past.
“Pass. You’ve changed quite nicely, Alfric?”
And then I revealed my true self as a Flewd Elementalist.
My hair, mixed with black and red, was quickly dyed white, and my pupils also turned white.
“Keuk.”
Etar was forcefully holding back the laughter that was about to burst out.
“Uh……?”
Tresha showed a dumbfounded reaction, as if he couldn’t understand what was happening.
Alfric froze on the spot.
Using Flewd magic, I erased every single Light Sealing Sword that Alfric had manifested.
“Alfric, why are you copying my appearance? Especially that robe. Weren’t you the one who used to curse behind my back, saying how uncomfortable something like that was?”
“……?”
The moment I spat out those words, Tresha and Alfric looked at Etar.
“It’s Lord Arkis, you idiots. He came back alive because he wanted to see us.”
For a moment, silence fell over the headmaster’s office.
The Ed Family’s main residence in the Underworld.
In the dining hall, the mages of the Ed Family were gathered together harmoniously.
Unlike other families, the Ed Family’s table was not a long, stretched rectangular table.
It was a small round table, good for gathering together, eating, and talking.
The gathered mages were Ever, Sparkle, Balak, Cullem, and Nylon.
They were in the middle of enjoying their meal together.
Among them, the mage who was the most excited and whose voice was raised to the fullest was Sparkle.
“I’m telling you it’s true! Like! Ah! Lord Arkis just! My shoulder! Here! Here! He just touched it, and all my magic was completely neutralized!”
She was recounting the happening that had occurred at the tavern earlier that day.
As if she had witnessed a heroic tale with her own eyes and was boasting about it, Sparkle spoke in an agitated voice, even spraying saliva.
“……Was it really Lord Arkis?”
But the other mages looked unconvinced.
It wasn’t that they didn’t want to believe—it was that they couldn’t.
The legendary mage, Arkis Aimer.
The shock that such a mage was none other than Artel, a student they themselves knew well, left everyone momentarily stunned.
“It wasn’t like when you drank a potion and barely suppressed my fire with manifested orbification! He erased all my magma more easily than blowing out a candle with a breath! Even Elder Vise can’t do that!”
Sparkle had truly had a rare experience that day.
After seeing Arkis Aimer’s magic, she realized that she was a frog in a well.
A desire to learn that had been extinguished long ago began to burn once again in her chest.
“But…… even if it’s Flewd, is that really possible……? Like you said, Elder Vise is also Flewd, but he can’t do that.”
Ever asked.
“You idiot!”
Sparkle smacked the back of Ever’s head hard as she explained.
Sticking close to Vise, she had picked up his habits at an accelerated rate.
Didn’t people say that you learn bad things quickly?
That was exactly Sparkle right now.
“Lord Arkis Aimer is a 10th Circle Mage! An Archmage! The only one in the Magical Society who can receive the 10th Circle! Elder Vise is an amazing Flewd too, but he’s a 6th Circle Mage. That’s a difference of four whole circles, so of course Lord Arkis can do it!”
10th Circle.
It was a truly unfamiliar number.
Those who had the Tyrant as their enemy did not acknowledge the Tyrant as a true 10th Circle Mage Archmage.
As a result, the 10th Circle had long been branded as a number that appeared only in legends of unclear origin.
“Somehow, that student…… I said from the moment he came to the 3rd Class that he was something special. His Tap-Taking level made me want to learn it myself. You’re lucky, sis, getting to see that directly with your own eyes.”
Cullem said.
It was the moment the secret behind Artel’s extraordinary talent was unraveled.
“Hey! Cullem! Apologize right now! ‘Student,’ really? It’s Lord Arkis!”
With just that one incident during the day, Sparkle had completely become a follower of Arkis Aimer.
She had been utterly captivated by Arkis Aimer’s simple yet powerful magic.
“……Uh, Lord Arkis.”
Cullem, having a fiery older sister, had no choice but to lower her tail.
“I once vaguely heard it from Father a long time ago. They said Lord Arkis was a Vision Power user? Did you happen to see that too?”
“Vision Power……? That so-called non-existent resource—Lord Arkis Aimer can use that?”
Sparkle’s expression fell into shock once again.
Then she muttered, “He didn’t show that……. What a shame.”
“Anyway! Seriously amazing! Amazing! So cool! The best!”
It was truly the sensibility of a girl in love.
Sparkle kept raising both index fingers, her praise of Arkis Aimer showing no sign of stopping.
“Bro, sis looks like she’s going to get lovesick at this rate. Right?”
Cullem noticed and whispered to Nylon.
Nylon nodded slowly with a light smile.
It was while the lively and noisy meal was continuing for quite some time.
The five mages froze simultaneously, as if their bodies had stiffened.
Because an enormous magic power was felt from very nearby.
“Wh-what is this? This magic power? This…… I’ve never felt magic like this before.”
Sparkle spoke first.
“Me neither……. Why would this kind of magic power be in the family……?”
It was a magic power the Ed Family mages had never experienced even once.
Ddrdrdrd-!
Clang-!
Soon, under the influence of the powerful magic, the dining hall windows began to vibrate and eventually shattered, unable to withstand it.
And they doubted their own eyes.
From the main gate of the Ed Family, a vortex-like passage that seemed to connect the earth and the sky.
Filled with water droplets as small as grains of sand, it was slowly approaching this way.
“……Isn’t that the Water Element and the Wind Element?”
Sparkle said.
“Everyone, grab your potions. And drink as much as you can. It looks like the Lamic Family and the Mirne Family.”
Nylon immediately grasped the situation and shifted into a combat-ready stance.
‘But who is it? Magic power of this level that I’ve never felt before……. Don’t tell me, the heads of the two families?’
Soon, from within that vortex, two mages revealed themselves.
Female mages in sky-blue and gray.
“Damn it!”
Nylon’s heart dropped heavily.