novelraw Chapter 26
Chapter 26
Chapter 26
It was certain.
Right now, Nide was helping Vir, who used the same water eleme nt, with her own magic.
She hadn’t frozen the water droplets Lamik had manifested completely; she had only lightly frozen the surface so they could pierce through my curtain of fire.
Since nothing looked suspicious on the outside, neither the teachers nor the students watching the duel noticed anything odd.
‘What is she thinking?’
Nide was still looking at me, smiling with only the corner of her lips raised.
That smile held nothing but provoking, mocking, unpleasant emotions.
Had she perhaps received a request from the Lamik Family to help him graduate as the top student?
Whatever her purpose was, Nide had chosen the wrong opponent.
“Where are you looking!”
While my gaze lingered on Nide for a moment, the overconfident Vir hurled a manifested water droplet toward me.
“Even if you’re a Double Caster, you’re nothing special, huh? You can’t even block my water droplet!”
Judging by his reaction, Vir didn’t seem to realize that Nide was helping him.
He truly believed it was his own magic.
‘Doesn’t matter. Whether he knows or not.’
I pushed my right hand into the manifested curtain of fire and lightly clenched it.
A blazing gauntlet formed over my hand.
“I’ve never seen that kind of magic before. Turning magic into a tool?”
Vir asked with obvious confusion.
“I developed it myself.”
He was still just a 1st Class student—an age where they believed magic could only be manifested from afar and shot toward an opponent, bound by fixed preconceptions.
And the reason I bothered to display this magic was to warn Nide.
It meant: ‘Don’t provoke me with magic that amounts to nothing more than that of a mere professor.’
Vir hurled another water droplet at me.
Thud!
Crack!
I caught the flying water droplet with my fire-magic gauntlet and squeezed.
Having absorbed Nide’s magic, the water droplet that contained a faint trace of freezing shattered helplessly and evaporated.
I shifted my gaze slightly to look at Nide’s face—she was simply nodding slowly.
‘Truly a professor whose intentions can’t be read.’
Wasn’t her purpose to help Vir win?
If that had been the case, then the moment I shattered the droplet, she should have worn a startled expression—yet she looked like that.
“Wh-what is this!”
As her water droplet broke apart and disappeared, Nide seemed offended and sent the remaining two droplets at me indiscriminately.
“Professor.”
Just as Vir’s droplets were flying toward me, I deliberately spoke to Nide.
“……What is it?”
It wasn’t to break her concentration.
Nide was at least a 7th Circle Mage.
The only thing that could disrupt the concentration of a mage who had reached that realm was a hallucinogenic drug—nothing else.
A mage’s basic discipline was the ability to focus even in extreme circumstances.
She had long mastered that discipline.
I simply wanted to ask what I was curious about.
“Just because I’m sitting on the Fire Element Stone, I don’t have to use only fire during the duel, right? I’m a Double Caster.”
“That’s true, but why ask that all of a sudden?”
That was enough.
Right as Nide’s water droplets reached in front of my eyes—
I manifested the basic darkness-element magic, Dark Space, toward Vir.
From the black sphere created over the crown of Vir’s head, shadows spread like a mane and engulfed his entire body in an instant.
At the same time, the water droplets aimed at me lost their target and flew around helplessly like flies in the air.
Then I looked at Nide and raised the corner of my lips.
‘This way, you can’t help Vir.’
I had already shattered a water droplet containing traces of her freezing magic.
That alone should have been enough warning for Nide.
But the fact that she had helped him was known only to me—none of the students or teachers in the dueling hall noticed.
In such a situation, if I suddenly attacked Nide, I would only put myself in a difficult position.
So the method I devised was to blind Vir, the caster.
Of course, even blind, a mage could recall the last location they saw their opponent and shoot magic there.
But this was 1st Class.
For a mage to control magic at that level, they needed to be at least 4th Class or higher.
The proof was that as soon as Vir was trapped in Dark Space, he couldn’t find his target even with me right in front of him; his droplets were colliding with each other in the air.
If Nide tried to help now by adjusting Vir’s droplets to aim correctly at me, the teachers would notice something strange.
Even if she was a mage from a prestigious family, casting magic far beyond the student’s level would be suspicious.
I had planned this because Nide would never want this duel to appear riddled with abnormalities.
As expected, Nide no longer helped Vir.
Rather—she couldn’t help him.
Whoosh!
Just as I had done with Wolpis, I set fire to the Dark Space trapping Vir.
At that moment, Wolpis, who was on the second floor, wore a displeased expression.
About three seconds passed before Nide opened her mouth.
“Vir student’s gauge has burst. Cease your magic.”
As I withdrew my spell according to her instruction, Vir collapsed onto the ground.
He wasn’t unconscious; his body simply lacked strength because of the effects of my magic.
He trembled weakly, trying somehow to stand.
“That was a bit excessive, Student Artel.”
“I don’t know. I think the excessive one is someone else.”
“…….”
A silent battle of glares filled with tension began between me and Nide.
The one who looked away first was Nide.
“What is the Water Element teacher doing? Get down here at once.”
“Y-yes……! Professor!”
The poor Water Element teacher caught the stray flames of her frustration.
There was no need for him to ask “What do you mean?”—and even if he did, it was Nide who would be cornered, so her attempt to smooth things over with irritation was obvious.
When the teacher came down, lifted Vir onto his back, and ascended to the second-floor element stone, Nide shot a glance at me and asked,
“Will you continue, Student Artel?”
“Yes.”
Before I even finished speaking, she quickly proceeded with the drawing, and the result was Russel of the light element.
Nide had glossed over everything as naturally as she could.
The selected Russel came down confidently and stood before me. The look in his eyes was as if he were staring at some heinous criminal.
“Begin.”
As Nide proceeded, she attempted to manifest some kind of magic, but……
“Get up there, you bastard.”
I instantly set Russel’s hand on fire.
“Ah! Hot!”
Startled, Russel flailed his burning hand wildly in the air, hopping in place—then ended up pressing his flaming hand against his own gauge.
Pop!
I did not miss that moment and detonated the flames, and the impact burst Russel’s gauge along with it.
“Student Russel, go on up.”
“Ah……?”
It had all happened so quickly that he wore an expression of disbelief.
But for some reason, he accepted the outcome right away, shoulders slumped, and headed up to the second floor.
All the duels that followed were boring for me.
Perhaps because these were 1st Class students, none of them could manifest anything beyond basic magic, and even that had a very narrow range of application.
There wasn’t a single student worth paying attention to.
Even if someone did have talent, it meant no one here had the ability to display it properly yet.
[Scoreboard]
-Fire : 18(18)
It was when I had achieved my eighteenth consecutive victory.
“Fire element is confirmed as first place. Student Artel, you may head up now.”
From the six subjects, three students participated each, and since I defeated all of them, Fire naturally secured first place.
Upon receiving the instruction, I headed up to the second floor and leisurely watched the remaining students’ duels.
“Student Artel! You really worked hard!”
Ever, especially thrilled, patted my head.
I wasn’t exactly pleased, but what could I do? I currently looked like a student in my early teens.
After a long while, the results of the First Weekly Joint Subject Magic Duel were announced.
The scoreboard was displayed in ascending order of ranking.
[Scoreboard]
-Fire : 18(18)
-Darkness : 6(4)
-Earth : 5(3)
-Wind : 4(1)
-Water : 3(1)
-Light : 2(1)
-Summoning : 0(0)
“Oh dear……”
Of all things, the Summoning subject—where Kiena was—was last place.
But…… unfortunately, it wasn’t an unexpected result.
In reality, summoners were considered the weakest among mages.
I felt sorry for Kiena, but it was the natural outcome.
The lesson content claimed that summoners had the highest chance of being accepted into the main academy, but this was the truth.
To be honest, I had no idea why a teacher would tell such an obvious lie.
Now that the results were out, this meant the 5,000 points had to be forfeited.
“Students, thank you for your hard work. This concludes the weekly joint class.”
Nide was the first to leave.
Following her, students of the other subjects rose from their seats and began exiting the duel hall in an orderly manner under the guidance of their instructors.
“Hic… sniff……”
Kiena sat there sniffling, shedding small tears.
I supposed her points had already been deducted.
Nide entered the faculty office and activated the mob inside.
This mob was exclusively linked to the professors, the vice headmaster, and the headmaster of each class.
Unlike the student mob, it couldn’t be carried around and could only be used inside the faculty office.
The only ones who could carry their mobs were the headmaster and vice headmaster.
The person Nide attempted to contact through the mob was Vice Headmaster Draco Former.
-Yes, Professor Nide.
“Yes, Vice Headmaster. As you instructed, I used a student to gauge Student Artel’s mana.”
The reason Nide had helped Vir was also due to orders from above.
It wasn’t to improve Vir’s grades, but rather to measure Artel’s abilities.
She had done it specifically during Vir’s turn because, being of the same element as herself, she could assist him without being detected.
-How was it?
“It was unbelievable. Even if he’s a Double Caster……”
As she responded, Nide recalled the moment Artel thrust his hand into the curtain of fire, using it as a gauntlet to shatter Vir’s water droplet—enhanced by her own magic—and the moment he trapped Vir in Dark Space and glared at her.
Nide had seen through it.
The purpose behind Artel trapping Vir in Dark Space—
It had been intentional magic designed to plunge the caster into darkness so that Vir would lose his target for the spell he had manifested.
As proof, the moment he trapped him, hadn’t Artel looked at her and smiled?
Nide described the situation in detail to Former.
-……A 1st Class student?
Naturally, Former doubted his ears.
But since Nide had seen it herself and experienced it directly, there was no room for doubt.
“Yes, his knowledge of magic, his understanding, his application—none of it is lacking. Even a 6th Class student in this branch wouldn’t think to utilize magic that way. Especially the sight of him turning a curtain of fire into a gauntlet—that was a magic I had never seen before.”
-This is quite something……
“He even shattered my freezing magic with that gauntlet. Even if I did inject only a minimal amount of mana, it’s still not magic that a 1st Class could ever break.”
-Let me switch over for a moment.
In that moment, another voice came through the mob.
It was a voice Nide knew very well.
“Headmaster……?”
-Yes, Professor Nide. It is I. He inserted his hand into an already manifested curtain and turned it into a gauntlet? And with that, he broke your freezing magic?
“That’s correct.”
-If it happened during the weekly duel subject, then all the teachers must have seen it. Teacher Wolpis of Darkness would have seen it as well.
“Yes, he looked rather displeased.”
-Hmm……
A long silence followed through the mob.
-……I believe I’ll soon have an important mission for you.
After quite a pause, Etar spoke with difficulty.
“I’ll be waiting, Headmaster.”
-Very well.