Chapter 28
Silence fell over the stands that had been noisy just a moment ago.
Students, professors, and even the outsiders all stared at me blankly.
I was a little flustered too.
I hadn't expected it to end with a single Magic Missile. Wasn't he supposed to be the best spellcaster among the second-years?
Well, it didn't really matter either way. The quicker it ended, the better for me.
“Yaaawn... It’s over, right?”
The very moment I turned around with a long, languid yawn.
A noisy clatter echoed from far off in the stands.
I whipped my head around, and white-haired mages caught my eye as they hurried down in a flurry.
“W-wait just a moment!”
“Student, that magic just now... Could it be that you directly used the mana of nature?”
“Impossible! To think you’d actually bring that theory into reality!”
“Truly... truly a historic discovery!”
The mages from the Magic Tower spilled out their words over one another.
Their eyes looked downright ferocious, as if they might devour me alive.
At that moment, Dean Raymond, who had quietly appeared from behind, cut in with a cough.
“I told you, didn’t I? This year’s academy freshmen are pretty strong.”
A sly smile appeared at the corner of the dean's mouth.
Hmph. The way he was puffing himself up with a smug snort was a little annoying.
“No, this is way beyond just being ‘pretty strong’!”
The mages from the Magic Tower couldn't hide their excitement and raised their voices.
“All the mana that exists in nature might as well be that child’s mana!”
“That’s... that’s practically the level of founding an entirely new school of magic...”
“What are you making such a fuss about? At most, it was just using an advanced spell called telekinesis magic to cast one basic spell. You could call it the height of inefficiency.”
He called it the height of inefficiency, and said I still had plenty to learn.
Dean Raymond burst out laughing with an “O-ho-ho-ho!!”
Listening to that calmly, I felt so absurd I let out a dry laugh before I knew it.
Our dean was practically copying what I said word for word.
“What are you talking about! The very point is that he drew upon the mana of nature itself!”
Another mage from the Magic Tower jumped up.
“Do you truly not understand how amazing it is to cast magic with the purest mana?”
“Didn’t the dean see its power? He knocked his opponent out in one blow with nothing more than a basic spell!”
No, as if Dean Raymond wouldn't know that. Can't you see the corners of his mouth keep twitching as he tries not to grin?
You people are getting thoroughly toyed with by him right now.
Seeing the Magic Tower mages getting excited and chattering away, the students in the stands began to stir a beat later.
“Those people are mages from the Magic Tower, right?”
“If even those picky Magic Tower people acknowledge it, then it must really be amazing.”
“Come to think of it, they said he blew away a building wall...”
As the murmuring grew louder and louder, my ears started to feel muffled.
My head was starting to pound too. All I wanted was to get away from the noisy place and roll around on a bed.
“Can I go now? Since I was the last one, I think class is over too.”
The very moment I said that and was about to step down from the platform.
“Wait, student!”
The voices of the Magic Tower mages stopped me in my tracks.
“We haven’t gotten a proper look yet! Could you show us a little more?”
“One of the purposes of the Magic Exchange Tournament is to present magical achievements to outsiders, isn’t it? Please, one more magic duel with another student!”
Their gazes were filled to the brim with desperation as they looked at me.
If I left like this, it looked like they’d leap from the stands and grab me.
While I scratched my head, clearly exhausted, Dean Raymond said to me with a pleased expression,
“Student Lunaris. Could you do one more magic duel for these stubborn fellows who came all this way?”
“It’s a pain...”
“Instead, I’ll excuse you from all of my classes next month.”
“...!”
That was a little tempting.
With one Heavenly Demon TS Beam... no, Magic Missile, I can score two weeks off? Two shots, and I can score a month?
This is literally creating time. Yep, yep.
I rolled my eyes a little and asked back casually.
“Sure, then. But even if I fight, who am I supposed to fight?”
“Dean, if you permit it, I’d like to take her on once.”
At that moment, a black-haired male student suddenly climbed onto the platform.
“I’m confident I can hold out a little longer.”
“Edwin Belka... Well, if he’s a student, he’s not a bad opponent.”
Saying that, Dean Raymond subtly watched my reaction.
I gave a long yawn and nodded.
“Well, I don’t mind.”
From the look of it, he seemed to be the strongest among the first-year Magic Department students.
Even so, he was probably about on par with the second-year top student who gets dragged out by the academy staff over there, I guess.
As he stood in the middle of the platform, Edwin lifted one corner of his mouth in a smirk and spoke.
“I’ve wanted to face you once someday, and this worked out nicely.”
He immediately drew up his mana.
Earth-colored mana began to ripple around him.
It looked like he’d prepared quite a bit.
“Let’s see who the real top student is, okay?”
“...You talk too much.”
I jerked my right arm back.
The space behind me caved in and twisted under telekinesis magic.
“Wouldn’t you be better off chanting a spell instead of wasting time?”
Dozens of pure white magic circles rose above my head.
They were all magic circles drawn from mana squeezed out of the distorted space.
Edwin’s pupils started to tremble.
He hurriedly thrust both hands forward.
After confirming the translucent magic circles were stacking layer upon layer,
I twisted my fingertips downward.
The dozens of magic circles above my head all burst into light at once.
-BANG! KABOOM! KWAAAANG!!
Pure white beams of light poured down like rain.
They hammered the barrier again and again.
“W-what... This absurd power...!”
As the barrier made of mana broke apart and re-formed over and over, Edwin’s body kept getting pushed farther back.
Sweat began to bead thickly on his forehead.
The sight of both his arms trembling violently was plain as day.
Even so, he was somehow holding out.
Keeping this up for so long was more than I expected.
I refuse any overtime beyond this.
“Uh, w-what?!”
This time, I cast telekinesis magic on Edwin.
With a flick of my finger, his body was pulled toward me.
The guy who was dragged in front of me in an instant looked utterly flustered.
He instinctively tried to draw a magic circle under his feet, but it was already too late.
I lightly thrust my left hand forward.
A jet-black point appeared at the center of my clenched fist.
A point that condensed the surrounding space.
A time bomb that didn’t know when it would go off trembled.
Before I knew it, the corners of my mouth had curled up.
A pair of fear-filled eyes flickered faintly before me.
The advantage of using natural mana is that I don't have to worry about magic going berserk.
Thanks to that, I can use intermediate magic as intermediate magic should be used.
So— I don't have to hesitate over whether my opponent might get hurt.
-KWAAAANG!!
With a thunderous roar, a shockwave surged outward.
Through the billowing smoke, Edwin’s body shot high into the sky.
His body floated up, flew in a parabola, and tumbled across the platform.
I lifted my chin slightly and looked around.
Silence.
Students, professors, and even the loudest Magic Tower mages were all speechless.
In the empty silence, the sound of dry swallowing stood out especially loud.
“...Haaam.”
Well, it took a little longer than expected, but this should be...
“Grr... Not yet!”
The moment I turned around.
Edwin staggered and got back to his feet.
“It... It’s not over yet.”
Now that I looked closer, his whole body was covered in dirt and dust. It looked like he’d coated himself in mud with magic.
“I’m... I’m just getting started.”
Edwin spat a mouthful of blood-tinged spit onto the ground and bared his teeth.
...Wow, he’s really tenacious.
“Why don’t you stop now?”
If this goes any further, it won’t end with just getting hurt.
Even after my warning, Edwin let out a dry laugh as if it didn’t matter.
“You don’t often get real combat experience like this... and you think I’d stop now?”
His swollen eyes still hadn’t lost their fighting spirit as they stared straight at me.
“Or what, don't tell me you're already tired? Hah...!”
At the subtle provocation, a dry chuckle escaped me before I knew it.
Well, I’m not tired, but I do feel like I’m about to die of sleepiness.
“...I honestly don’t know anymore.”
I once again used telekinesis magic, trying to pull Edwin toward me.
But this time, he didn’t budge.
He wrapped himself in mana, blocking the telekinesis from interfering.
“I won’t fall for the same trick twice!”
Saying that, Edwin hurled a spear shaped from earth at me.
I quietly looked at the spear before me.
Then I took one big step forward.
In an instant, my field of view flipped over, then returned to normal.
“W-what?!”
Before me stood Edwin, not the stone spear, with a stunned expression on his face.
“Blink...? No, I didn’t feel any mana move...”
Before Edwin’s muttering could even finish, I grabbed his collar.
I met his eyes as he flinched and jerked his head up.
“Cool off.”
A frigid chill spread from my fingertips.
Ice crystals instantly covered his body.
Edwin froze solid, unable to move.
By now, his momentum had clearly been blunted.
Once I let go, his frost-covered body swayed and then collapsed to the floor.
A silence colder than frost settled over the platform and the stands.
With both hands braced behind me, I arched my back with a crack.
Ugh. I’d just woken up and already done intense exercise; there wasn't a single part of me that didn't ache.
“That should be enough, right?”
I was just waving my arms around as I headed down from the platform.
“Student Lunaris!!”
And sure enough, there were people who actually leaped over the stands.
They were none other than the mages from the Magic Tower.
“Just a little! Just a little of your time!”
“How exactly did you extract the mana of nature? Hm?”
“That movement magic just now! It seems to work on a completely different principle from Blink, but what on earth was it!”
The way they glared at me with burning eyes was downright terrifying.
I leaped away without looking back even once.
If I got caught by those magic-obsessed wraiths, I'd end up doing nothing but discussing magic for days on end.