Chapter 68
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 68
Chapter Title: Blue Pine Festival (9)
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A chilling gale blew fiercely. Even though it wasn't particularly cold weather for April.
And lightning accompanied it. The sky was so purely blue it bordered on azure.
"Hiya...!"
It was a clash of nerves between grand mages. Cheon Hyun-ah gripped her wide-brimmed hat tightly and crouched low, letting out a hollow laugh.
No matter that she was a full-fledged A-Rank Awakener, a grand mages' quarrel was beyond her league.
She knew there was nothing good to come from getting caught in the middle, so she just kept an eye on the situation while looking after Cheon Woo-hyuk.
Her younger brother was already eyeing Seol Ha-yeon warily, his gaze narrowed.
Her opponent was one of the nation's three grand mages. In a time when the title of grand mage was practically recognized as super S-Rank, Ice Empress Seol Ha-yeon had reached that position at just twenty-two—a once-in-a-generation genius.
She was twenty-five now, which only meant she was at the peak of her powers.
In truth, the one feeling the most conflicted, being the closest in age and a contemporary, was Cheon Hyun-ah herself.
But right here, she didn't have the standing to join the conversation.
All she could do was keep quiet and wait. Suppress her presence and pray the two mages' talk ended smoothly.
The Cheon siblings stayed silent like that, and it was then that Seol Ha-yeon took another step forward.
Click...
With the clear sound of her heels, the chill filling the surrounding space intensified.
It wasn't ferocious. Just frigid.
A sensation as if a blizzard could whip up here any moment. No, an instinct that the grand ice mage would make it so.
Cheon Se-hee didn't overlook her impudent junior's antics.
Crackle-!
She summoned lightning. With just the small current at her fingertips, she swung her hand, and the cold was shattered by intense heat.
One could call it nullifying magic through sheer difference in caliber.
Not this time.
"The match has only just started, hasn't it...?"
"......"
Seol Ha-yeon twisted her lips, while Cheon Se-hee simply regarded her with emotionless eyes.
A natural expression floated over Seol Ha-yeon's face, tinged somewhere with mockery.
"You've had that look like you want to chew me out ever since earlier, Auntie. Oh, doesn't like the title? Ahaha."
What was new about that?
Seol Ha-yeon added that coolly, flicking her hand dismissively and tilting her head up.
Relatively petite in height and build, looking up at her opponent was Seol Ha-yeon's role.
"I sent you a message. Why no reply? It's been a while since we met, and we're close enough for casual chit-chat, aren't we?"
She taunted Cheon Se-hee in a sneering tone, while Cheon Se-hee restrained her emotions as much as possible and shook her head.
"Hush now. The match is ongoing."
Even so, Seol Ha-yeon's smile didn't fade. It was bound to turn out like this anyway.
She knew. No, precisely because she knew, she'd come confront her so directly.
"Ah, the match, you say..."
One corner of Seol Ha-yeon's mouth curled up in a sneer. A smile unmistakably laced with derision.
Cheon Se-hee instinctively frowned and turned to her.
And her ominous premonition hit the nail on the head.
Seol Ha-yeon grinned widely and tossed her silver hair back with a flourish.
Looking at Cheon Se-hee—and beyond, at the two twenties in the stadium's center—she declared with utter conviction in a single phrase.
"My disciple's going to win anyway, so what's the point?"
"......"
The atmosphere in the stands...
...could only cool even more rapidly.
Crackle...!!
A thick strand of current traced down Cheon Se-hee's cheek. She lifted her head, and at the same time, Seol Ha-yeon circulated her mana.
Whirr! The rings in her mana heart, storing her power, let out a pleasing hum, tensing her entire body. A warm-up, so to speak.
Cheon Hyun-ah, hiding in the back row of the stands, gasped in shock, and Cheon Woo-hyuk's eyes widened too.
No way they'd actually throw down here just because they didn't like each other.
But their expressions were so deadly serious that an inexplicable anxiety arose.
Well, Seol Ha-yeon was smiling, but still.
As the siblings' tension peaked and the grand mages' standoff reached its critical point...
Seol Ha-yeon moved her hand.
Pzzt-!
Cheon Se-hee's eyes flashed with lightning too.
And Ryu Jin-seong plummeted from the sky.
....
....
....
"Huh?"
Breaking the momentary silence, Cheon Hyun-ah let out a bewildered voice.
Freefall.
Boom!!
Splitting the middle of the stands—precisely between the two grand mages—the third grand mage, who had likely appeared to mediate, shone with his characteristically gloomy eyes.
Straightening his briefly hunched back, Ryu Jin-seong summoned darkness to envelop his body.
His intent to block the overheated pair was obvious to anyone. He turned to Cheon Se-hee first, about to say a few words.
"Long time no see, Miss Cheo—"
It was the same line he'd once used on Fist Empress Baek Mu-yeom.
Among high-rank Awakeners, Ryu Jin-seong was surprisingly young.
Unexpectedly, he was a man who knew courtesy. The pity was he never got the chance to greet her.
Before Ryu Jin-seong could continue, before Cheon Se-hee could respond...
"Hyah!"
Seol Ha-yeon packed snow into a baseball bat shape and swung it hard. A powerful strike to Ryu Jin-seong's occiput!
Splat!!
Ryu Jin-seong face-planted forward. Even his large frame couldn't react to the sudden ambush.
Thud! He smashed his face into the cold concrete floor...
And Seol Ha-yeon snorted 'Hmph!' while crumbling the bat.
Her eyes now glared at Ryu Jin-seong with utter displeasure.
"I told you. Don't show your face in front of me after that trash proposal."
"......"
"Ugh, what if my disciple gets the wrong idea because of you? How do you plan to take responsibility?!"
Ryu Jin-seong ground his teeth. He wasn't one to show emotions usually, but even he felt shame.
He hadn't realized it then, but now he did. Ryu Jin-seong had come to understand how rude an emotionless proposal was.
He couldn't say he fully empathized emotionally, but he got it intellectually.
So he did feel some personal guilt toward Seol Ha-yeon.
But hitting him in the back of the head? Ryu Jin-seong thought, Like master, like disciple.
'...Whatever.'
But Ryu Jin-seong was Ryu Jin-seong. A grand mage like Black Heaven wouldn't bat an eye at getting hit by a much younger student.
He got up roughly from his spot and casually took a seat nearby.
"Why not just watch the matches."
He gestured toward his fellow grand mages(?) in the back. His tone somewhat indifferent and flat.
"Isn't it your disciples fighting? Instead of wasting time bickering, wouldn't it be better to see the outcome first and talk then...?"
"......"
"......"
Cheon Se-hee and Seol Ha-yeon fell silent. They did settle into their seats, albeit half-heartedly.
They didn't reply, but perhaps they saw the logic in it.
Of course, they naturally shifted to seats away from Ryu Jin-seong's row.
This was all too familiar for these three grand mages.
In the end, they left Ryu Jin-seong abandoned in the back and sat separated by one seat between them and him.
They'd assumed a stance to watch the match, at least on the surface...
"Auntie."
"......"
"You listening? And you remember our bet, right?"
That didn't mean the conversation was over.
Seol Ha-yeon let out a scoff.
"Loser's disciple strips naked and kneels... Nothing major, but it'll kill some time. At least it'll be fun to watch. Right?"
"Ha?"
Cheon Se-hee's face twisted properly. Cheon Hyun-ah and Cheon Woo-hyuk, who had been stealthily creeping closer from behind, whipped around to Seol Ha-yeon in shock and horror.
"No, I'm fine with it, though."
Seol Ha-yeon, unperturbed by the family's stares, hummed cheerfully.
"Of course, that'll never happen, but if by some miracle I lose, make me do the penalty in front of my disciple. Gotta show off this pretty body of mine."
She swayed her upper body playfully while watching the match. She showed complete faith in her disciple's victory...
And judged that her disciple held the edge in actual skill.
Well, the student Cheon So-yul was impressively capable too, but she still believed.
Her disciple would never lose!
"Go, disciple!"
She bounced in place to cheer her on. Probably not visible from Lee Hyun-jin's angle, but—
Anyway, Seol Ha-yeon never even considered her disciple losing.
Lightning flickered.
Ice walls crumbled.
Until, beyond the momentarily darkened sky, a massive lightning greatsword plummeted from above the stadium.
She trusted Lee Hyun-jin's abilities.
He absolutely wouldn't lose.
...Or so she thought.
"...Huh?"
She panicked for a moment. That attack—that attack was dangerous. The timing was bad enough, but an AoE spell striking everything was the worst matchup for ice mages.
She herself had trained her stamina to cover that defensive weakness, even forcing her fifteen-year-old disciple into endurance training.
But still, that wasn't something you could dodge or block just by building stamina, was it?
Seol Ha-yeon's expression hardened. The smile vanished, her body twitching instinctively.
'Wait, no—.'
Purely as a master, just as she unconsciously began forming mana flows in her body to protect Lee Hyun-jin...
Rumble!!
A cyan-white bolt erupted from the stadium's center, shooting skyward.
It wasn't Cheon So-yul's.
Silence descended on the stadium.
Quiet. Still.
More eerie, more chilling, and strangely shaped.
Like sharp icicles rising—the owner of that lightning was... probably.
"......"
Seol Ha-yeon's face drained of color in an instant.
As if hyperventilating was next.