Chapter 91
The god most sentient beings in this world believe in is none other than “nature.”
Of course, there are also dark mages and dark elves in the distant Holy Kingdom who worship a single god in the shadows.
But even so, they make up less than ten percent of all sentient beings.
For one thing, gods and angels said to exist somewhere up in the sky are invisible.
And demon gods or witches are only believed through hearsay—“they supposedly existed long, long ago”—nothing more.
But natural phenomena are something you can feel on your skin right away.
If you see a volcano erupting before your eyes, a typhoon raging, or the ground turning over in an earthquake, anyone would have manners drilled into them.
Not to mention, even a person with no faith at all is bound to develop some.
That is also why archmages earn so much respect from so many people.
Because they are walking disasters that embody natural phenomena themselves, they were regarded as absolute beings.
However.
If those who imitate natural phenomena and wield them are called archmages,
then what should you call the one who redefines the laws of nature?
*
16 duels, 16 wins, 0 losses.
That was the official magical duel record between the head of the Magic Department, Raymond Cloud, and plain old student Lunaris Evermoon.
Of course, all 16 of those wins had been against High Mage Lunaris.
This was the first time he was facing Archmage Lunaris.
Raymond swallowed hard.
Honestly... he was a little spooked.
If they fought seriously, he couldn’t guarantee victory.
It wasn’t for nothing that he had been so careful all vacation not to offend Lunaris.
But now there was truly nowhere left to retreat.
“Waaah! Head Raymond!”
“Show us the power of the faculty!”
“The number two of Elterion Academy!”
Voices cheering Raymond on rang out from beyond the pitch-black darkness.
“Why are you all doing this to me...? I don’t know... I’m scared too!”
Naturally, he couldn’t let it show.
Head Raymond pretended to be calm and took out four mana stones of different colors from inside his robes.
Top-grade mana stones worth dozens of gold coins each—he really flexed.
When he shattered the mana stones, the spirits of the four elements appeared all at once.
Raymond’s reputation might be a little questionable, but he really was a skilled mage.
He hadn’t earned his seat as an elder of the Magic Tower, his post as academy department head, and his title of archmage through politicking and bluster alone.
The moment Head Raymond swung his arm, the mana of fire, water, wind, and earth, unrefined and raw, surged over Lunaris.
It was the height of inefficiency, hardly even worthy of being called magic—just a scattering of mana.
Its sole focus was casting as quickly as possible.
After all, his opponent was the fastest mage.
“Hmm.”
Lunaris lightly flicked her left hand, the one not holding Arke.
With that tiny gesture alone.
Countless ash-gray magic circles filled the vault of the night sky.
Countless stars strewn across the cosmos slipped out of their orbits.
Soon, hundreds and thousands of beams of light poured down like rain.
-Kwa-gwa-gwa-gwang!!
The deafening explosion shook the dorm room—or rather, the night sky.
Raymond’s elemental storm collided with the meteor shower, and mana and starlight scattered in all directions.
“Urgh...!”
Even as Head Raymond let out a faint groan of pain, his arms never stopped moving.
He unraveled formulas and drew magic circles one after another.
High-grade fire magic, high-grade water magic, then top-grade earth magic and top-grade wind magic.
It was intricate, fast, and above all, destructive.
He somehow matched the casting speed of the fastest mage.
Not only had he shattered four top-grade mana stones at the start, he had also poured out nearly half the mana in his body just to buy time.
But even then, he was only barely keeping up.
Unlike the frantically busy Head Raymond, Lunaris looked extremely relaxed.
[Meteor Fall.]
She still held Arke in her right hand and did nothing more than flick her left hand this way and that.
Head Raymond’s magic was repeatedly blocked by the starry light pouring down like a natural disaster.
If anything, the aftereffects of the explosions were only adding more scratches to Head Raymond’s body.
In the end, Head Raymond couldn’t take it anymore and raised his voice.
“What are you all doing?!”
Going alone was impossible.
While the knights and maids drew Lunaris’s attention, he had to prepare a stronger spell.
“Get behind Student Lunaris while you have the chance...!”
But.
“...Huh?”
For some reason, he couldn’t feel the presence of all those people anymore.
When he turned his gaze in confusion,
“Grrr...”
“M-my body won’t move...!”
Everyone had been subdued by telekinetic magic and was flattened against the floor.
So that’s why she’d been using only one hand all along. She’d been dealing with the others using the hand that held her staff.
Then Lunaris let out a long, drawn-out yawn and said,
“Head Raymond, aren’t you being a little too serious?”
“Could you please be quiet?! Can’t you see I’m concentrating?!”
Raymond shouted shrilly, veins bulging in his neck.
His head already felt like it would burst from unraveling formulas and drawing magic circles, and now having to talk on top of that had pushed his brain into complete overload.
“No, I mean... at this rate Linea Hall is going to collapse.”
And yet that damn student was just calmly taunting him, which made her all the more aggravating.
“Are you planning to write another incident report?”
“Isn’t this the world Miss Lunaris altered anyway? Then even if we break it a little, it won’t affect reality!”
“Well, strictly speaking, it wasn’t me but this damned staff that did it on its own... yawn—”
Lunaris scratched her head, then suddenly gripped Arke with both hands.
“It seems like it’s been quite a while, so let’s wrap this up.”
The moment she declared she would get serious—
the magic circles filling the night sky began to shine pure white.
[Nebula Collapse.]
At Lunaris’s low murmur, the sky began to collapse.
“Ah, damn it...!”
Head Raymond knew it instantly.
This could not be stopped.
No ordinary defensive magic could withstand it.
Then there was only one option.
All he could do was obliterate the collapsing world outright with a powerful offensive spell.
Head Raymond drew the power of the four spirits to its limit and cast the strongest magic he could.
[Quaternity Burst!]
He wouldn’t be able to borrow the spirits’ power for a while, but now was not the time to hold back.
...Needless to say, this wasn’t a situation where dark mages or the Resistance had stormed Elterion Academy.
They were just trying to wake up one lazy student.
If Head Raymond ever came to his senses, he’d definitely suffer a brutal reality crash.
Fortunately—or unfortunately, he didn’t seem to have realized that yet.
Soon, pure white light and a multicolored storm collided head-on.
-Kwaaaang!!
With a tremendous explosion, the world turned white.
Raymond lost consciousness in the blinding flash.
*
The light went out.
The starry sky cleared, revealing once again the familiar sight of the dorm room.
The room was, surprisingly, perfectly fine.
It was Lunaris’s reality-altering magic that had protected the dormitory building.
Head Raymond was exempt from writing the incident report.
The building was fine, but the people were not.
Head Raymond had been folded in half and hanging from the window frame.
Knights and maids were sprawled haphazardly on the floor.
That no one had been seriously injured in all this was nothing short of a miracle.
“L-Lunaris... won?”
“Even Head Raymond couldn’t do anything against her...?”
“What on earth happened in the dark?!”
Those gathered around Linea Hall muttered in stunned disbelief.
Seeing only the result and not the process made the shock all the greater.
While everyone was whispering among themselves, Lunaris stretched and let out another long yawn.
“Now it’s finally quiet.”
Of course, she could go to class and sleep with her face on the desk.
But that would hurt her back too much. It was inconvenient, too.
After all, sleep was best enjoyed on an A-rank bed, hugging one’s beloved pillow tightly.
Lunaris stretched out her legs and lay back on the plush mattress.
At that moment.
-Psssh.
The bed crumbled into jet-black powder.
At the same time, Lunaris’s body plopped down onto the floor.
“...Ah.”
The problem was that, of all things, the bed had been caught up in the starry sky too.
At least her beloved pillow, which she’d been clutching tight, was unharmed... though what was there to be thankful for?
“Ah, seriously...”
A curse slipped out of her mouth.
In the end, Lunaris dusted off her backside and got to her feet.
Then she slung Arke over her shoulder and draped her beloved pillow over it.
She looked exactly like a refugee.
The place she floated herself up to with telekinetic magic was...
“...Lady Lunaris?”
It was none other than Princess Celestina’s room on the top floor of Linea Hall.
“H-how did you get here...?”
The captain of the princess’s guard, who was stationed at the door, asked in alarm.
Having no idea what was happening on the floors below, he was utterly bewildered.
He had definitely sent a large number of subordinates to wake Lunaris.
Could they all have been taken down?
“May I come in?”
“Huh? Ah, yes. Her Highness will be pleased too... no, more importantly, how did you get up here?”
“A few things happened.”
With that, Lunaris flung the door open.
During vacation, Princess Celestina had told her she could come into the room anytime and make herself comfortable, so she had no hesitation.
Lunaris was the type not to refuse such special treatment.
Inside, Princess Celestina was just in the middle of getting ready to attend her morning lectures.
“Eek—wh-who... wait. Lu, Luna?!”
After confirming Lunaris’s reflection in the mirror, the princess opened her eyes wide.
“How did you get here...”
“The knights you sent turned my bed into powder.”
Lunaris answered shamelessly and flopped face-down onto the bed.
“Ahh, this is it...”
That plush, sink-in feel was the best.
As expected, an A+-rank bed—no, an S-rank bed—really was different.
“I’ll be borrowing it for a while.”
Princess Celestina quietly watched Lunaris rolling around on the bed, then let out a soft sigh.
Then she stood up, walked over to the bed, and gently shook Lunaris.
“Luna, wake up. You need to go to class.”
“...”
“I’ll lend you the bed later—tonight, no, this afternoon, okay?”
“I don’t wanna-”
Lunaris grumbled with the blanket pulled all the way over her head.
“Will you get up already?”
“Is that an imperial order?”
“...No. It’s a friend’s request.”
At that, the princess put a hand on her hip and looked down at Lunaris with a deliberately stern expression.
“I... just feel lonely going alone.”
“...”
“Will you go to class with me?”
Lunaris turned her head and quietly met Princess Celestina’s eyes.
“You can just go with your escorts.”
“You knocked the escorts out, remember?”
“...Ah. Right, that does make sense.”
Soon, Lunaris let out a long sigh.
“Well, I’m awake anyway.”
Lunaris slowly dragged herself to her feet.
“Just for today.”
She left her beloved pillow right there on the bed.
It was a strong declaration that she would come right back and sleep as soon as class was over.