WETRIED TRANSLATIONS

Wizard of the Abyss

[Translator – Aren]

Chapter 37 - Growth (12)

The number of Mana circles didn’t just show a difference in raw output.

If magic is the act of painting over the world, then the Mana circles represent the number of colors available to you.

That was why the greatest gulf between stages is between the 1st star and the 2nd star.

There was a vast difference between a painting drawn with a single paint or one drawn with two. As vast as the difference between heaven and earth in every single way.

'The result is already predetermined.'

Even faced with this strange phenomenon, Lumia’s thoughts remained unshaken.

She clenched her fists as her Fire Spirit was reforming.

Dercia’s disciple, Jern, was it?

He just sat there on the ground, bloodied, with one arm resting on his propped-up knee, his piercing gaze fixed on her.

Usually in these kinds of situations she would see fighting spirit, anger, hatred, or at least desperation seeking for a way out in her opponent’s eyes.

However, she couldn’t find any of that in his face.

Jern simply observed her.

...with those unreadable eyes devoid of color.

"How unsettling.”

Lumia muttered unconsciously and even took a step back before she knew it.

He was only a 1-star mage, and yet—

"Tsk."

Those eyes were completely empty, but because of that, they showed her own reflection like a mirror would.

And what Lumia saw in those twin mirrors was mockery.

She gritted her teeth. Eight blazing fire spirit arms reached out at once, grabbing handfuls of the sand around her.

The molten sand shot forward like a hail of bullets—

Only to suddenly veer off course, harmlessly dropping to the ground.

That in itself couldn’t be called strange. If he was interfering with her Fire Spirit Manifestation from a distance, then of course he wouldn’t be affected by mere grains of sand. She had only thrown them to find out whatever unknown spell he was using.

However, Jern remained completely still.

He didn’t chant, didn’t gesture. He didn’t even blink.

Whatever spell he was using, it seemed to be so familiar and ingrained in him that he could use it with ease.

-What?

Lumia’s mind was in utter disarray. No matter how powerful a spell, they could never outclass elemental magic at a 1-star level.

No, in fact, the more powerful a spell was, the more it would often end up far inferior to basic elemental magic when used by lower-star mages. After all, most of them were created by 5- or 6-star mages and were thus useless until one reached that level.

And yet, even though this was supposed to be only 1-star magic, it somehow dealt with her 2-star Fire Spirit with the same ease as twisting a child’s arm.

"...Interesting.”

It turned out that her opponent wasn’t someone she could dismiss.

The fire dancing in Lumia’s right hand began to burn even brighter.

At the same time, the Fire Spirit Manifestation drastically swelled in size. She squeezed out all the mana she had kept as reserves for emergencies.

She knew that she wouldn’t be able to use any magic for days after keeping up this state for 30 minutes, but that was a lot better than suffering the humiliation of being defeated by a commoner.

Lumia launched a flaming fist with all her might at Jern, who still didn’t show any reaction at all to all of this.

-Fssssshkkk…!

And before the punch could land, the fist completely vanished.

As expected. When the first fist vanished, another immediately replaced it while the missing one was regenerating.

It was a simple exchange of mana.

Unleashing a storm of fierce blows, Lumia, still maintaining her mask of composure, called out to him.

"Can you really keep this up? I don’t know what kind of magic it is you’re using, but we can at least infer that it drains quite a bit of mana.”

"Hmm..."

Jern seemed to ponder for a moment, then chuckled.

"I think I’ll be fine."

"...If you say so.”

Lumia smiled as well.

She could keep attacking like this hundreds of times.

Changing the flame’s color and size were mere tricks.

What she was using now was nothing more than flames mimicking the appearance of a Flame Spirit, after all.

They carried no binding force. Even if Jern took those attacks head-on, he’d suffer hardly any damage if he used his defensive magic.

However, Jern didn’t dare to check and kept erasing all of them.

At 1-star, using a spell that could interfere with other magic with such an absurd range. Something that should only be possible with the rarest of high-level spells.

There was no way that it required less mana. If that were the case, the entire framework of magic would crumble.

Their eyes locked fiercely as fists rained down and instantly vanished over and over.

Ten times.

Twenty times.

...A hundred times.

"...Just what—”

It took 237 strikes for Lumia to finally doubt her own eyes.

Still nothing.

Even after dismantling that many attacks, Jern still didn’t show the slightest hint of strain.

'He has to be bluffing…right?'

That was the only explanation she could come up with for this. Nothing else would make sense.

"Hmm."

"Ugh."

Jern groaned slightly and rose to his feet, to which Lumia took a few steps back.

But this time, she didn’t chide herself for it.

She didn’t even notice that she did it. All her attention was solely focused on Jern’s every move.

Even though he was in the middle of a battlefield, the boy just calmly brushed the sand off his pants, casually speaking to her.

"Are you done?”

Lumia’s expression completely froze.

She had fought mages stronger than her countless times.

Ones that were able to shake the earth, hurl meteors down on her, or even summon monsters from nowhere.

And yet, all of that was still comprehensible. She was sure that she would be able to reach that realm as well sooner or later.

But what was happening before her eyes was far beyond anything she could comprehend.

She couldn’t even start to fathom what method he was using to bring about this effect.

And this realization didn’t just bring about irritation in her; unease started creeping up in her chest as well.

"...Not yet!”

The Fire Spirits multiplied.

This time they were real. Actual Fire Spirit Manifestations, not those cheap copies she had been using before. Dozens of them surged into existence.

'If I can’t get his mana to bottom out like this—’

Then she would just crush him by unleashing all of these fists at once.

Lumia, who gritted her teeth so hard that they started to ache, clenched her fists as dizziness overtook her mind.

"Let’s see you erase all of these…!”

"Guess I’ll have to retaliate then, huh?”

Jern answered with such composure that it only highlighted her strained appearance as she forced herself to maintain her spell.

That calmness of his gnawed at her, to the point that an inexplicable, ugly emotion boiled up inside of her.

"--What are you talking about?!”

Jern raised a hand.

Lumia scoffed. If it wasn’t that bizarre vanishing magic but instead a straightforward clash of spells, she was confident that she would never be defeated, not even by a fellow 2-star mage.

Sensing that her victory was imminent, she hurled the manifestations towards the ground.

"Your Highness."

Jern asked in a soft tone, utterly inappropriate for this situation.

"Do you know where you are right now?”

"-?"

What nonsense a nonsensical question.

Thinking that he was stalling, she neither paused nor honored it with an answer.

Just as the flaming fists were inches away from Jern’s face—

He chuckled, spouting even more nonsensical, bizarre things.

"Well, if you really knew, you wouldn’t be using fire magic.”

"What—?”

32 flaming fists had instantly vanished.

All of them were snuffed out by a single wave of Jern’s hand.

Lumia froze. Partly because of this sudden erasure of her Fire Spirit Manifestations, and also because…

Crrrrunch—

"Kgh."

Partly because of this pressure so intense that she couldn’t even breathe properly suddenly pressing down on her.

Now completely frozen in place, she glared at Jern, confusion evident on her face.

'Te-Telekinesis?!'

How could something like Telekinesis exert such suffocating pressure—

No, this wasn’t Telekinesis. It was something different.

Something cold with an unpleasant, clinging texture washed over her body. She even had this inexplicable feeling that something was watching her, gazes crawling all over her.

Jern walked forward with unhurried steps, his hand closing around empty air, as if he was trying to grab something.

Gasping, Lumia fought down this inexplicable feeling rising up her throat, drowning it in anger. She clutched the flame still burning in her hand.

Her whole body was instantly engulfed in flames.

'I didn’t really want to use this, but…!’

She had no other choice.

It was the very first protective spell taught to her as a princess.

Flame Scales.

As long as the flames around her burned, no harm would ever come to her body covered in them. It was a spell optimized for defense to ensure her survival and usually impossible to learn below 3 stars.

Of course, the only reason Lumia was able to wield it was through some underhanded means.

A princess had to be able to protect herself under any circumstances. She had borrowed from every spell and method, forbidden or not, available to her to at least be able to activate Flame Scales at any time.

Naturally, using it in this situation was rather humiliating. After all, she was using the last safeguard available to her to prevent her death in a mere duel.

And against a 1-star mage at that…

"Kgh…”

But she would worry about that at a later point.

Right now, escaping from her current bonds was all that mattered to her.

Once Flame Scales was activated, no spell below 3 stars could affect her. So, whatever strange power he was using, whether it was Telekinesis or otherwise, it would be nullified.

Or so she thought, at least.

"...Huh?"

The flames engulfing her body instantly extinguished.

Lumia’s mind went completely blank at this shocking sight.

"It won’t work.”

A soft voice reached her ears.

It came from right in front of here. So Jern was standing directly before her.

"Yo–u—!”

She immediately summoned up all the mana left in her.

She wasn’t in any state to think about efficiency or strategy, so she simply flung the strongest spell she could muster at him.

It was nothing but a child’s tantrum. Nothing that could pierce through Jern’s ‘Purge.’

He only shook his head, somewhat annoyed, and clenched his right hand even tighter.

"This is getting a bit dangerous.”

"Ugh-!"

The invisible pressure on her increased slightly to the point that she couldn’t even use her magic anymore.

She was unable to manifest Flame Spirits.

Her Flame Scales would instantly extinguish as soon as she summoned them.

This marked the end of her struggle.

She was reduced to simply thrashing her legs in helpless protest with the strength of a normal girl her age.

—What else could she do?

When she realized that this was all she had left in her arsenal, a realization struck her like a hammer.

She was utterly at the mercy of a foe wielding magic completely incomprehensible to her.

"The more you struggle, the worse it’ll get.”

Forcing herself to meet those unreadable eyes, Lumia finally understood what that strange, inexplicable feeling building up inside of her was.

"Okay, so how about we have a little talk now?”

"...Hic."

It was—

Fear.

* * *

A person must take responsibility for their actions.

And taking responsibility was something so terrifying and unpleasant that one would rather avoid it.

Which was why one should always be careful with their actions.

For that reason, I had never really intended to defeat the princess. If I did, Lumia would probably hold it against me, hound me endlessly until the differences in our weight classes would make themselves known.

I could just crush her completely here and now, but if her pride took a hit from it, that would only spell disaster.

No, the point of all this was to show her that I wasn’t one to be trifled with. So she wouldn’t think of picking another fight with me or Dercia so easily.

"Your Highness."

First, I released the pressure.

"K-kyaa…”

...Kyaa?

As soon as she regained her freedom, the princess stumbled back with a look of terror on her face, collapsing into the sand like a frightened little girl.

While my mind froze in shock, she looked up at me, her eyes trembling.

I quickly scanned our surroundings and extended my hand.

"Your Highness, let me help you up.”

"D-don’t touch me!”

"Pardon?"

I tilted my head, but when she saw my gesture, the princess hiccuped, drew her knees close, and gave me a frantic nod.

"...I-I understand. I’ll apologize. I was wrong. I take it back. Your master made the right choice…”

"Well, that’s not exactly what I wanted. Umm, but you are right about that."

"Hic."

This wasn’t good.

If things continued like this, there was a good chance that the crowd would start getting the wrong idea. So I leaned closer to her to make the princess aware of that matter.

"Your Highness."

"Y-yes?”

"Everyone’s watching.”

"..."

"Please take my hand.”

I kept my expression as serious as possible and offered my hand again.

Still trembling, the princess looked up at the surrounding audience, then slowly placed her hand in mine.

I pulled her up, continued to hold her hand, bowed deeply, and then raised my voice so everyone could hear.

"I have learned a lot. Thank you for your guidance!”

Only then did the confused spectators dare to look around, whispering to each other.

"What… just happened? Was Her Highness continuously canceling her spells…? I thought she was toying with him.”

"Maybe she was helping the commoner with his training?”

"Hmm, that could be it, I suppose…?”

The truth didn’t matter here. I leaned slightly closer to the princess, whose body was still trembling like a cell phone on vibrate mode, to whisper to her ear.

"Your Highness.”

"...Y-yes?”

Her reaction was almost worth pitying. I could actually see goosebumps rising from all over her body with my naked eyes.

Still, I said what I needed to say, even if it might earn me ridicule or glares.

"The reason Lady Dercia chose me over you wasn't because I'm more outstanding than you. She chose me because I’m unique. You’ve probably seen the strange little tricks I can do, so I’d appreciate it if you just let this pass generously.”

"I-I understand. I won’t say anything to you or your master again.”

"Your tone."

"...Huh? M-my…tone?”

"Your tone just changed. You don’t need to force yourself to use polite speech either.”

"V-very well. I shall no longer… approach you or your master…”

She had changed it from “She won’t say anything to us” to “She won’t approach us.”

Thump, thump, thump—I could tell by the intensity of the princess’ heartbeat. I could sense and the chattering of her teeth that she was genuinely terrified of me.

...I hoped that this fear wouldn’t turn into anger later on.

-Clap, clap, clap.

At that moment, I turned my head to see Dercia sitting amidst the silent audience, clapping with a completely expressionless face. When had she come down from the terrace?

I’d been with her for long enough to tell that despite her blank face, my master was currently in quite the good mood.

Well… as long as she was satisfied.

"The victor is Princess Lumia!”

The host raised the princess’ still trembling hand while I quietly slipped away.

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