novelraw Chapter 108 : Chapter 108
Chapter 108 : Chapter 108
Volume 2
Chapter 32 : A High-Stakes Gamble
“By the way, are your injuries all right?”
After Pink Bear left in utter dejection to attend that inquiry conference, Gran dismissed the other teachers as well, then turned to Professor Prang and asked,
“An injury caused by the Holy Sword should not be that easy to heal, should it?”
“There is still about a third of the Holy Light left in my body. It has not yet been dispelled, and my chest still aches.”
Professor Prang lowered his head and gently pressed a hand to the right side of his chest.
“But a full recovery is only a matter of time. I may be old, but I am not so frail that this alone would bring me down.”
“Oh? You are sturdier than I thought.”
Professor Gran raised a brow.
“After all, it was one of the five Holy Swords of the Life Church. I thought you would be flat on your back for ten days or half a month. Who would have thought that after only a few days, you would already be up and moving again?”
“It is not that my body is sturdier than you imagined. It is that the Holy Sword was weaker than expected.”
Professor Prang said softly, “That sword had been sealed all along.”
“What?” Professor Gran froze.
“Before Belena was completely controlled by the Love God, she sealed the Holy Sword.”
A complicated expression appeared on Professor Prang’s aged face.
“It was a trigger-based magic seal. If anyone tried to forcibly break it, the Holy Sword would be destroyed from within.
“So even the Love God could do nothing about it and was forced to use a Holy Sword with most of its power sealed away.”
“She really took advantage of the Love God not understanding magic.”
Professor Gran sighed with feeling.
“You had a fine student, Prang.”
“Indeed.”
Professor Prang turned his head, as if he could once more see that girl who, after that brief greeting, had smiled and vanished, waving to him.
“She was always a student I was proud of.”
...
“Come to think of it, Mentor Meradomir seems to have disappeared ever since then.”
Professor Gran personally brewed some tea and set a cup before Professor Prang.
“It is such a rare opportunity too. I had wanted to ask her about a few things related to ancient potions.”
“Do not disturb Mentor Meradomir. She is very busy right now.”
Professor Prang let out a sigh.
“After dealing with the evil god matter, the very first thing she did was take from me the detailed information on all the current students.”
“The students’ information? Then does that mean...”
“Most likely.”
Professor Prang picked up his teacup and took a sip.
“That is, after all, the lifelong pursuit of Mentor Meradomir. There is no way she would give it up. It is only... her haste this time makes me somewhat uneasy.”
“Did waking her ahead of time really affect her after all?”
“Do not say such dispiriting things now. Mentor Meradomir would be displeased to hear them.”
Professor Gran rolled his eyes, then said excitedly,
“What I am even more curious about is which lucky fellow will become the one chosen by the mentor.”
“Lucky fellow? Not necessarily.”
Professor Prang gazed at the tea stem floating in his cup and gave a bitter smile.
“That is an incomparably mad path. If an ordinary person steps onto it, he will most likely end with nothing left of him, not even bone.”
...
“It somehow feels as though peace returned all at once.”
In the quiet hospital room, Muen turned his head and looked out through the pale curtains.
The sunlight was bright.
From time to time, laughter full of youthful energy drifted over from somewhere not far away.
The entire academy seemed to have already emerged from its previous ordeal and recovered its vitality once more.
“Without realizing it, so many days have already passed?”
After that incident ended, Muen had been sent to this room for treatment and, incidentally, “quarantine,” because of the injuries on his body and because he had come into close contact with that monster contaminated by the Love God.
At the time, Professor Gran’s treatment had only been a rough magical one.
After all, a Crowned One had personally struck him, so in order to avoid any lingering aftereffects, the academy still put him through a full series of physical examinations.
To Muen’s great relief, aside from that white-haired little powerhouse, apparently no one had been able to detect the “blessing” of the King of Withering on him.
Thinking about it, that made sense.
Compared with the simple and direct bestowal of power from a god, a divine favor that was itself the manifestation of part of a god’s authority was naturally much harder to detect.
Otherwise, someone like Ann, one of the God’s Chosen, would not have remained in the Duke’s residence for ten years without his so-called father noticing anything strange.
The fact that that white-haired little powerhouse had seen through him at a glance was what was abnormal.
It could only be treated as a special case.
Otherwise, what Muen would have faced just now would not have been a mature beauty with a slender waist and a magnificent bust, but the Empire’s special organization for handling incidents involving evil gods, 【Silencers】.
Those gloomy people who hid in black robes all day would not care in the slightest that he was the Duke’s son.
Once he fell into their hands, nothing good would ever come of it for Muen.
Fortunately, the worst-case scenario had not come to pass.
And during this period, aside from doctors and the professors and teachers the academy had sent to ask him a few questions, no outsiders were allowed to have any contact with him.
Muen had also used this almost completely solitary and quiet environment to sort out his thoughts.
That exchange with the black book still felt as though it had happened only moments ago.
“So in the end, was it all because I was too weak?”
He had learned a new martial skill and defeated Rein, one of the best among the second-years. Muen had thought everything was moving in a better direction.
He had thought he was finally beginning to shake off the miserable cannon-fodder fate of a blond villain.
But now it seemed he had been thinking far too much.
If the black book had not used an evil god to forcibly shove the trajectory of this world’s Fate onto an unknown path completely divorced from the original plot, what awaited him would have been certain death.
“To avoid a fate of certain death, the destiny of the entire world had to be thrown into utter chaos... Just how much malice does this world have toward me?”
Muen looked at his own hands and murmured softly,
“And in the end, was the solution really still something so simple and crude?”
He was not strong enough.
That was the root of why he could do nothing but let Fate toy with him.
If he had been stronger, if he had been as strong as Ariel, or even stronger—
Then in the original Fate, even when facing the saintess controlled by the Love God, he would still have been able to survive.
But that was only an if.
Muen knew very well that for him, gaining that kind of power within a single short year was simply impossible.
Ariel was already far ahead of him, and she still had her protagonist halo, her cheat powers, and even a mysterious older-sister figure in the ring who understood ancient magic and could guide her.
On the road of growing stronger, she was a genuine rich second-generation talent. By what right could someone like him, who had nothing and could only get beaten in the black book every night, ever hope to catch up?
The black book knew it was impossible too.
That was why it had chosen to interfere with Fate itself.
But Muen understood all too clearly that interference on that level could never happen a second time.
When the next wave of malice from Fate arrived, everything would depend on him alone.
And that day would probably not be far off.
Had the second prophetic dream not already given him the answer?
On some future day, someone would tear out his heart and he would die.
So...
“Is there any way at all for me to grow stronger faster?” Muen could not help letting out the mournful cry of a dying salted fish.
“Oh? You want power, do you, boy?”
A cool voice sounded out.
On the chair by Muen’s bedside, the very chair Hathaway had been sitting in just moments ago, there now sat a petite girl with white hair and crimson eyes.
“Huh?”
Muen was startled, but the moment he saw who it was, he froze for a second, then immediately put on a slightly ingratiating smile.
“Your Excellency? What brings you here?”
“I came to see you. Is that not allowed?”
The girl twined a finger through her pure white hair, looking somewhat lazy, as if she had only just awakened from an afternoon nap.
“Of course it is allowed, of course it is. It is only...”
Muen scratched his head and carefully chose his words.
“I do not think I have the qualifications to deserve a personal visit from someone like you.”
Muen was not about to believe that merely waking her up earlier and pinching her cheek once had somehow brought this loli-shaped powerhouse so close to him.
This was not some harem light novel where every female character would throw herself at the protagonist for free.
So if she had come, she definitely had a purpose.
“You are smarter than I expected.”
The girl’s eyes, clear as amber and seemingly able to see straight through a person, glanced at Muen.
Then the corner of her lips lifted slightly.
“So, as I said just now, do you want power, boy?”
“Hm?”
“I happen to be in need of a final disciple. I will give whoever becomes that disciple of mine both power and knowledge, selflessly at that. Well? Are you interested, boy?”
“A final... disciple.”
As he turned over the true meaning of the girl’s words in his mind, Muen could not help going blank for a moment.
The petite white-haired girl before him was not merely a girl.
She was a top-tier powerhouse who had slept in that special space within the academy for who knew how long, and who could even drive back an evil god.
In the original plot, she should only have appeared at a very late stage, but because the black book had disturbed this world’s Fate, she had been forced to step onto the stage early.
If Muen could cling to the thigh of a being like this, it would be the most ideal outcome imaginable, with benefits and no harm.
Perhaps it would even let him break free of that predetermined miserable fate.
But...
How could he, Muen Campbell, possibly receive a gift from Fate so easily?
“So... why?”
Muen came back to himself. His lake-blue eyes fixed tightly on the white-haired girl.
“Why choose me? Because of the King of Withering’s power inside me?”
“The King of Withering? Hm... that counts as part of the reason, I suppose.”
“Part of it? Then the other part...”
“Hehe...”
The girl suddenly smiled brightly.
But that smile sent a chill straight through Muen.
She suddenly raised a hand and extended one finger toward him.
In an instant, dread swept over him.
A violent sense of crisis, together with a nauseating premonition of death, battered Muen’s mind again and again.
At some point, the world had turned blood-red.
And in Muen’s eyes there remained only the girl, whose face had suddenly become as hideous as a demon, and the utterly real killing intent in her eyes.
“What is going on? Did she really still come here to kill me?”
That thought flashed through his mind for only an instant before he had no more room to think.
Because that slender finger had already arrived.
It was like a mountain crushing down upon him, and Muen felt an oppressive force so terrible it seemed ready to grind him to pieces.
“Kh...!”
His body was instantly dealt grievous damage.
Muen coughed up a mouthful of blood, along with shattered fragments of his internal organs.
Death was closing in.
And at that very moment, he felt something cold in his palm.
Like a blade.
Without even a moment’s hesitation, Muen tightened his grip around that familiar short blade in his hand and slashed at the white-haired girl whose face had become as hideous as a demon.
“You overestimate yourself.”
The girl let out a disdainful sneer.
“Do you think you have any chance at all of surviving?”
Before the blade even reached her, Muen felt a sudden emptiness in his arm.
He stared in stunned silence.
Everything below his elbow had vanished at some point.
But this time, it had not been neatly taken apart like a toy.
It had exploded.
That was right—exploded. In that instant, Muen’s arm, hand, and fingers had all burst into a cloud of blood mist.
A wave of agony crashed over him.
Muen’s face instantly twisted.
He paid that pain no mind, pain fierce enough to make an ordinary person faint on the spot.
After being brutalized countless times inside the black book, he had long since grown used to suffering like this.
He immediately thrust out his other hand and caught the falling short blade.
Then he slashed again.
Bang!
There was no surprise.
Everything below his elbow exploded into blood mist once more.
“Why struggle?”
The girl looked at him with pity.
“If you would only stop resisting, I could let you die without any pain at all.”
Why struggle?
Why not simply die?
At the sight of that pitying look on the girl’s face, a volcano-like fury suddenly erupted in Muen’s chest.
He had struggled for so long.
He had suffered death so many times inside the black book.
He had grown used to death, grown used to pain, thought of nothing at every waking moment except getting stronger.
And all of it had been for one reason—
To avoid walking down that road of true death.
And now she wanted him to stop resisting?
She wanted him to die just like that?
To—hell—with—you!
Even if you are a powerhouse, even if you are strong, you do not have that right!
Muen suddenly lunged forward and, like a beast, bit down on the hilt of the short blade.
His eyes were blood-red. A low growl rumbled up from his throat, and without a shred of hesitation, he hurled himself at the enemy before him, an enemy he could never possibly defeat.
Even if I die, I will still—
In an instant, the world cleared.
The blood-red world, and the girl’s demon-like face, vanished all at once like a brief nightmare.
Bright sunlight poured through the gap in the curtains, dappling Muen’s still-twisted face and making him squint.
“This is...”
The short blade was gone from his mouth, and both of his hands were still intact.
It was as though none of those horrifying scenes had ever happened.
Muen still held that lunging posture, only frozen in place now, making him look not so much like a hunting beast as...
Some depraved immortal on the verge of committing an outrage against an underage girl.
“Yes. That is exactly it.”
The girl paid no attention at all to the offensiveness of Muen’s posture. Instead, she cupped his face in both hands, gazed at the savagery that had not yet faded from his expression, and revealed the satisfied look of someone admiring a work of art.
“That savagery and viciousness in your bones beneath an exterior like a lamb’s, that fearlessness and madness of someone who treasures life beyond measure and yet seems to have long since grown used to death—this is what I wanted. Only someone like that can accomplish it.”
“Huh?”
Muen was still somewhat dazed.
But he seemed to have realized something as well.
The killing intent the girl had shown him just now had only been an illusion she deliberately created.
She had merely wanted to test something.
But even if you are a powerhouse, that does not mean you get to toy with me like this!
Muen flared up in anger.
“What exactly are you trying to do?”
“Hehe, you are angry? That is only natural.”
The girl smiled.
“But since you asked so directly, and I was never one for beating around the bush, I will speak plainly.
—I want to use you, Muen Campbell.”
“What?”
Muen froze again.
Because the girl’s bluntness was too blunt.
“So the reason you want me to become your disciple is also because...”
Muen twitched at the corner of his mouth.
“That is right. If you become my disciple, I will do everything a teacher ought to do. But at the same time, you will become material for my experiments. I will use you thoroughly to fulfill one of my long-cherished wishes.”
A fervor wholly at odds with her appearance rose in the girl’s eyes.
“A wish... one I have pursued all my life.”
“I cannot help feeling...”
Muen narrowed his eyes at the girl, who now seemed like a completely different person.
“You are planning to treat me as a lab rat.”
“Hm, a lab rat? That is a very fitting comparison.
“But unlike an ordinary lab rat, although the process may be just a tiny bit dangerous, if it succeeds—”
The girl laughed softly.
“Muen Campbell, you will obtain the power you have always dreamed of!”
“The power I have always dreamed of...”
Muen swallowed hard.
Those few words truly did carry tremendous temptation for him.
And Muen believed that, with the stature of the being before him, she certainly would not lie to him.
Only...
“If I may ask, what do you think the odds are that this lifelong pursuit of yours will succeed?”
“I do not know.”
“You do not know?”
“What I want to accomplish is something unprecedented. There is no experience whatsoever for me to draw upon. Which means that the odds of success may be one hundred percent, or they may be zero.”
The girl looked at Muen seriously.
“Until everything is complete, not even I know whether this road can truly be walked.”
“In other words...”
Muen sat there somewhat blankly.
“That is right. This is a high-stakes gamble. For me, what is at stake is the path I have pursued all my life, and whether you, whom I have chosen, have the capacity to bear it. And for you, what is at stake is whether I am truly worth trusting, and whether the final result will be good or bad.”
“So—”
The girl extended her hand to Muen.
In those clear crimson eyes burned a fire utterly unlike that of someone ancient, hot-blooded and fierce.
“Will you join me in this gamble, boy?”
“...”
Faced with the girl’s invitation, Muen fell into deep thought.
He did not think this powerhouse meant him harm. If she truly bore any malice toward him, she could have crushed him to death with a single finger back in the flower sea.
So, just as she had said, this was a high-stakes gamble upon a path even she herself could not fully see through. She valued him only because he happened to be suitable.
Then should he agree?
Should he agree to this gamble down an unseen road and into an unknown Fate?
Muen considered the matter for a moment, then arrived at his answer.
Because the black book had long since told him what he needed to do.
He had an existence outside ordinary Fate.
So if he wanted to shatter the shackles of ordinary Fate, then he would have to walk an extraordinary path.
And besides, just as the girl had said, what he truly, desperately, unbearably longed for was power.
That brief illusion just now had only made him more certain of his own helplessness.
So there was nothing to hesitate over.
It was called a choice, but in truth, from the moment the white-haired girl appeared and began laying out those temptations one by one, Muen had already lost the option of refusal.
Like a moth lost in the night glimpsing fire—knowing full well that it did not necessarily mean salvation, and yet still throwing itself toward it without regret.
“I am willing to join—hm?”
Muen reached out, only to grasp empty air.
Because the girl had already withdrawn her hand and now wore a deeply meaningful smile.
“I am very pleased that you feel that way, but I am sorry, boy. I do not teach fools.”
“Huh?”
Muen was stunned by the girl’s sudden verbal blow.
It felt like teasing an adorable cat at home, only for the cat to suddenly launch an uppercut straight into his face.
His mind was left reeling.
“A... a fool? What do you mean?”
“Before coming here, I checked your grades. On your last exam in Fundamentals of Magic, you scored only three points.”
The girl’s gaze turned cold, as if she were looking at a piece of trash.
“That is a score so low that even if you had stepped on the paper, the footprints you left behind would probably have filled in more correct answers.”
“Th-that was only because I was a little too playful last semester.”
Muen awkwardly looked away.
“If I work hard from now on, I will definitely be able to catch up little by little.”
“I believe you can do that. But I cannot wait for you to catch up little by little. I do not have as much time as you think. Otherwise, I would not have come looking for you this impatiently.”
The girl glanced down at her own delicate young hands and sighed.
“So I can only give you one month.
“In the monthly exam one month from now, your score in Fundamentals of Magic must be a passing one. That is the foundation of everything.”
“One month?”
Muen’s expression froze. “The first-year monthly exam?”
“The second-year monthly exam.”
The girl was expressionless.
“But how is that possible?”
Muen’s eyes widened.
“To learn in one month what others learned in a whole year—no, a year and one month—how is that not absurdly difficult?”
“That is your problem. All I can say is... do your best, boy.”
The girl rose to her feet and turned her head to one side.
Her gaze passed through the layers of walls and landed upon someone else—a certain flat-chested girl who had still been wrapped up like a rice dumpling a few days ago, yet was now already lively again, laughing and bickering with her childhood friend.
In the girl’s eyes, that flat-chested girl also gave off an extremely unusual aura.
“You are special, but you are not the only special one. I cannot stake the pursuit of my entire life on you alone. To me, you are merely one possible choice.”
The girl turned back, and her gaze regained its usual cool indifference.
“One month from now, use your actual grades to give me your answer, Muen Campbell.”
“That will also be my test for you.”
She turned as though preparing to leave.
“Wait.”
But at that moment, Muen called out to her.
“Your name. I cannot keep calling you ‘Your Excellency,’ can I?”
“My name?”
The white-haired girl revealed a wistful look and sighed softly.
“I threw that sort of thing into the river of time long ago. As for how you should address me—Meradomir. That is my surname. You may call me... Teacher Mera. Yes, Teacher Mera.”
“I have grown tired of hearing the word ‘Mentor.’”