Chapter 66
Late in the predawn hours.
It had long since gone dark, but the light in the dean’s office on the top floor of the Magic Hall still hadn’t gone out.
Dean Raymond, head of the Magic Department, sat on a plush sofa and leafed through the papers.
They were none other than the report on the incident caused by Lunaris that Howard, the chief professor, had tossed down earlier that day.
"Hmmm—"
Her body felt as heavy as lead.
Fatigue had seeped deep into her bones from the academy schedule and the succession of Magic Tower meetings.
And yet, strangely enough, she still couldn’t sleep.
"Did I drink too much coffee..."
The dean muttered as she looked down at the coffee cup, now cold.
She had long since thought she’d become immune to caffeine.
Or was it because the professors who had descended on her during the day had been so loud that the noise was still humming in her head?
Anyway, that Howard bastard sure does have an incredible voice.
Dean Raymond pressed her temples.
Maybe this was a mage’s intuition.
An intuition that said she shouldn’t fall asleep now, that something might happen.
An intuition that was difficult to explain logically.
Come to think of it, the outside did seem a bit noisy.
More precisely, she could feel the flow of mana in the air twisting ever so slightly.
To ordinary mages, it would be the kind of sensation they’d brush off as feeling a little off today.
But as an Archmage, she could feel that subtle difference far more distinctly than anyone else.
The moment the thought that something might explode flashed through her mind.
-Knock, knock.
A knock broke the quiet stillness.
Unlike the unruly bastards from earlier in the day who had pounded on the door with force, this was a very gentle sound.
Of course, the urgency was the same.
"It’s open~ Come in."
The door opened, and a man came in breathing hard.
Who was that again? He had a rather familiar face.
Ah. He was the youngest professor in the Magic Department, newly appointed this semester.
She remembered his face because he was a former slave who had spent more than ten years being ground down and kicked around under the chief professor before finally earning a professorship.
After tidying his clothes in front of Dean Raymond, who was sitting on the sofa with her legs crossed, he spoke in a tired voice.
"Haa, haa... Dean! You were still here? The lab lights were on, so I came to check just in case."
"Thank you for taking the night shift. More importantly, what brings you here at this hour?"
"Yes, well..."
The professor stopped mid-sentence and swallowed hard.
His face was a mix of bewilderment and awe.
"I think you need to go to the practice building right now."
Dean Raymond’s eyebrows shot up.
"What is it? I thought the routine maintenance on the magic devices installed in the practice building wasn’t for another half month. No, more importantly, isn’t this time supposed to be Liliana’s assignment, not mine..."
"W-well... Student Gaios Leonhardt and Student Lunaris Evermoon are having a rematch after yesterday."
"...Huh? What did you say?"
As if she’d been waiting for it, Dean Raymond stood up from the sofa.
Then she pulled over the robe she had left far away with telekinesis.
"I need to go at once!"
A broad, cheerful grin spread across the dean’s face.
The look of exhaustion had already vanished without a trace.
She had been wanting to see Lunaris’s achievement with her own eyes anyway.
"Looks like she’d crossed another wall while I wasn’t looking..."
Maybe the reason she had been unable to sleep so horribly tonight was that it was an omen to witness this historic moment with her own eyes.
The moment when the one and only student Archmage, the Empire’s youngest Archmage, would be born.
*
The practice wing, in the basement of the Magic Hall’s main building.
Even though it was late in the predawn hours and the moon hung high in the sky, the sparring arena’s stands were packed with people.
Not only the professors and guards on night duty,
but even sharp-eyed students who had caught wind of it somewhere and sneaked out in their pajamas behind the maids’ backs.
So many people were watching the events unfolding in the sparring arena.
Dean Raymond, who had joined the crowd late, gaped at the scene before her.
"..."
Meteors crashed down, and flames surged upward.
Storms raged, and frost scattered.
Amid the exploding light, space screamed and warped.
It was a scene like a natural disaster.
At the center of that chaos was Lunaris.
She stood rooted in place as if nailed there.
Only her fingers moved.
The lightly sweeping motions of her hand through the air were graceful, like a conductor’s.
Her mouth didn’t chant an incantation; it only let out a languid sigh.
There were no complex formulas to be seen.
Even the magic circle—the gate through which magic passed—only flickered for an instant before disappearing.
There was no process one could call spellcasting.
Only the result existed—only the phenomenon.
"She actually... crossed it."
Archmage Raymond shuddered.
Rapid chant? Shortened casting? She had already long since gone far beyond that category.
That was.
An abnormal phenomenon that had omitted the logic and causality making up magic entirely.
At the same time, it was every mage’s ideal.
What stood here now was.
Another Archmage who had risen to Raymond’s own level and was looking at the same view.
That child had tonight... no, perhaps last night.
She had crossed the wall that mages devote their entire lives to reaching.
At Elterion Academy, another Archmage had been born for the Empire.
"KRAAAAH-!!"
A knight stood against that living natural disaster.
Gaios Leonhardt.
He advanced, relying on nothing but a single sword, tearing through flames and crushing ice.
Faced with that overwhelming firepower, he looked as precarious as a little boat caught in a raging tide.
Even the mages who despised swordsmen sent him sympathetic looks.
But he did not sink.
Instead, he cut through the waves, slipping into the gaps in the magic and stubbornly closing the distance to Lunaris.
"This is insane..."
"I-isn’t that guy crazy?"
"It’s way too different from the magic I know..."
"Is Senior Gaios really okay?"
The students in the stands let out dazed cries of amazement.
"Heh heh... impressive."
"To think this is a duel between students..."
"I feel like I should be the one learning from them."
Even the professors were speechless.
Not only Lunaris, but Gaios as well, had long since surpassed the level of a student.
-KUGUGUGU!
The battle grew increasingly fierce.
Space distorted, and the floor of the sparring arena cracked.
The defensive barrier that Raymond and Liliana, the two deans, had repaired and improved year after year began to tremble.
It was a barrier that could block even top-tier magic, but with high-tier spells going off in rapid succession and mana-laden sword energy mixed in, trouble was inevitable.
The barrier itself was one thing, but Gaios’s condition was even more serious.
Every muscle in his body bulged as if screaming.
Unable to withstand the overload of mana, his capillaries burst and his bronze skin flushed red.
The sight of him swinging his sword, wringing out power beyond his limits at the cost of his life, was harrowing.
"S-Shouldn’t we stop him, Dean?!"
"Student Gaios, this will be dangerous if you keep this up!"
The professors who had been watching blankly soon realized how serious the situation was and began to murmur.
"Student Lunaris isn’t in her right mind either! We have to stop her!"
"Every single spell is a killing spell!"
"At this rate, someone will die!"
A few professors went pale and headed for the barrier control device.
No, they tried to.
"Stop."
A low voice held them back.
The one blocking them was none other than Dean Raymond.
"Dean! This is more than a normal problem..."
"Leave them be."
Even while blocking the other professors, the dean’s eyes remained fixed on the sparring arena.
"If anything happens, I’ll take responsibility."
"This isn’t a matter of taking responsibility or not!"
"If someone gets badly hurt like this, there’ll be no turning back!"
Despite the professors’ protests, Raymond remained steadfast.
"Can’t you all see it? Both students are trying to push past their limits!"
One of the few important turning points in life.
The very moment you break your shell and burn yourself to shine.
Dean Raymond raised her voice.
"As a teacher, how could we possibly obstruct the path they’re trying to open?"
At that resolute voice, the professors flinched and exchanged wary glances.
Only the dean was still seeing those two as ‘students’.
Even so, the atmosphere inside the sparring arena continued to race toward its critical point.
-KWAAAANG!
Gaios was swept up in the storm of mana.
His body was already in tatters.
His clothes had long since burned away into rags, and there wasn’t a single intact patch of skin left.
And yet he did not retreat; instead, he went forward.
He actually sped up.
He kept going.
Discarding both the compulsion to cut and the obsession with winning.
He walked and walked, thinking only of taking the next step before him.
Ironically, the power carried at the tip of his sword only grew stronger.
Only the pure will to move toward Lunaris remained.
-Thwack!
Gaios kicked off the floor and leapt into the air.
He dodged the torrent of magical power by a sheet of paper’s thickness.
At last, he reached Lunaris.
"..."
Lunaris, whose eyes had been half-closed, lifted her brows ever so slightly.
Her lips parted just a little.
"This should be enough exercise after a meal."
With a short exhalation, Gaios thrust out the mana-wreathed wooden sword.
A single thrust, wringing out every last drop of strength.
Just as that strike was about to rush toward Lunaris’s nape...
A brittle, hollow sound slipped from Gaios’s fingertips.
It was the sword, before the swordsman, that had reached its limit first.
Unable to withstand its owner’s strength or the enemy’s magic, the wooden sword finally crumbled into powder and scattered away.
"Ah...!"
A mournful gasp burst from the onlookers.
At the most crucial moment, too.
If only the weapon had held up, he would have been able to reach her.
What a hollow ending.
A swordsman who loses his sword might as well have lost already.
But Gaios did not give up.
"I... can’t... end it like this...!"
The mana afterimage was etched where the wooden sword had vanished.
Blue flames blazed over it.
In the fleeting instant as the powder scattered,
Gaios’s empty hand grasped a formless sword.
A blade made solely of pure mana and fighting spirit, blue enough to make the eyes sting.
"...Mana Blade!"
The professors cried out in unison.
Sword manifestation.
Gaios had finally shattered that wall as well.
Of course, he would still have to keep walking a much longer road.
But he had finally gained the qualification to walk the path that Archmages like Lunaris and Raymond had taken.
"...Oh."
Lunaris let out a small gasp as well.
It was a purely sincere expression of admiration, with not a trace of ulterior intent.