Chapter 220
Chapter 220
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 220
Chapter Title: Eloise Arin
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Gwoooo….
The silent stage, now emptied of all spectators who had fled.
A magical gale swirled around the standoff between the mages.
Around two hundred mages encircled Arin.
“That ungrateful devil!”
“If you don’t want to die? What insolence toward the Tower Master!”
The Tower Master was the lord of the Magic Tower.
And at the same time, the ruler of the world of magic.
A position akin to the emperor governing this world.
Yet she spoke to him so casually?
It was unimaginable to the mages of the tower.
“Eloise, that child must have been exposed to some unknown evil energy!”
“Indeed. Otherwise, how could she wield such power…!”
From among the murmuring mages.
Step.
The Tower Master, Gospelheim, stepped forward.
“Who are you? What manner of being are you, to emanate the aura of a Tower Master like myself?”
“…….”
Arin bit her lip tightly.
Her opponent was Gospelheim.
A mage she had once defeated in the past.
‘But.’
The situation was different now.
It wasn’t one-on-one, and elder-level mages surrounded her on all sides.
“……Don’t touch my professor. If you don’t, I won’t kill you either.”
Fwoosh!
The flames blooming in Arin’s palm.
Unmistakably the signature flames of Eloise.
“Hmm.”
Gospelheim lifted his staff with a look of intrigue.
‘Intriguing though it may be.’
This was his Magic Tower.
‘A tower cannot have two masters.’
Woooong!
Around Gospelheim, verdant wood-attribute runes engraved themselves.
The rune of the Haim family, symbolizing life.
“You’d do well not to act rashly. You can’t win against me due to our elemental mismatch…!”
Arin too drew Eloise’s rune in the air.
Even amid this, she didn’t forget to protect her professor, whose vitality was fading.
“Heh, we’ll see about that once we clash.”
Gospelheim swung his staff.
His eyes gleamed with azure radiance.
At the same time, a storm of mana surged!
The elemental magics of the two archmages clashed, tearing through the air.
Kwaaaaang!
A deafening roar echoed.
* * *
“Cough!”
Damn it.
Ptoo!
I spat out the endless phlegm and blood surging up my throat.
I had expected it, but those mage bastards.
Were beyond imagination.
To be so utterly powerless.
Even as I was being pummeled, I kept searching for the essence.
Like how it had helped me against Aranbalon last time.
Hoping it might intervene.
“…….”
But it ignored me completely.
From what I could surmise now.
The essence had a habit of not even deigning to respond to opponents not on its level.
In other words, only at the level of a dragon or ‘Ancient Magic’ (SSS Grade) would it flick a finger?
Those mages were less than insects in its eyes.
Fucking haughty existences.
“Boy, are you alright?”
The old man muttered with a worried expression.
“You stubborn fool. Didn’t I tell you? It was reckless.”
‘Still.’
A person should stay true to themselves.
I’ve always been reckless.
Honestly, I still am.
I simply acted as I wanted, as my heart dictated.
‘And.’
I’ve never failed by doing so.
Look at now.
Thanks to my reckless fight.
Arin awakened faster, didn’t she?
Because of that.
She might have taken a detour, but now she could take the shortcut.
At the cost of pain.
“Cough!”
I spat blood again.
Excruciating pain surged from my punctured lungs.
But for me, with maxed Pain Resistance, it was bearable.
Kwagagaga!
Even now, the world shook from Arin and Gospelheim’s fierce battle.
With each vibration, my condition worsened.
My vision blurred, vitality ebbed.
I’d lost so much blood, dizziness set in.
“Urk, Professor…! A-Are you okay?!”
“Urgh, Arin.”
“P-Professor?!”
“Don’t forget. This place… is just a world in your memories.”
That Gospelheim glaring with wide eyes over there.
Those mages wielding staves and casting spells to check her.
They were all just people she had dealt with before.
Just existences from the ‘past.’
“A world… in my memories?”
Arin muttered dazedly as she emanated energy.
Swoosh.
Gazing at her, I slowly gathered my energy.
[Using Skill: ‘Skeleton Lord Summon’ (S-rank).]
[Using 10 Stamina.]
[‘Dana’ appears.]
Dana had already been unsummoned.
But using just 10 stamina to resummon her—that was the reason my unique ability was so cheat-like.
“Dana…!”
I barely pried open my heavy mouth.
“M-Master!”
Though in skeleton form, she somehow seemed pale.
Was it just my imagination?
“Dana, use Recovery… on me.”
“Yes, Master. Please wait!”
[Skill: Recovery]
[Level: Max]
[Description: Reverts the body’s state to a previous condition.]
[Effect 1: Reverts the body to its state 24 hours prior. Cannot be used on the already dead.]
[Effect 2: Reuse cooldown - 30 days.]
[Effect 3: Uses 50 Stamina.]
Recovery.
The ultimate cheat skill that could revive a dying body.
My trump card.
I pulled it out before it was too late.
* * *
‘Right.’
Arin gripped her staff tightly.
This was a world in her memories.
The beings before her eyes were ones she had already faced.
Ones she had personally sealed with her own hands.
‘And I was already dead, wasn’t I?’
So what was there to fear? What was there to dread?
This space was illusory anyway.
Mere phantoms.
‘Therefore.’
Thud!
Arin straightened her back and slammed her staff into the ground.
Kugagagaga!
In that instant, an immense wave of mana surged from her body.
‘Therefore, I can use every magic I know here.’
The magics of the forbidden tomes all demand death as their price.
Too powerful for a mere human soul to wield.
Among them.
Arin recalled the most powerful flame magic she knew.
One that could incinerate Gospelheim and the two hundred mages here.
One that could shatter this world of memories in a single blow.
‘Hellfire.’
Even though.
It inflicted pain enough to tear the user’s soul apart.
‘Otherwise, the professor might die.’
Between [untying the ‘resentment’ lingering in her memories] and [cherishing the memory of the professor who reached out to her].
If she had to choose one.
‘It’s the latter.’
Arin simply wished for the professor to be safe.
Wished for the life of the professor she must serve for the rest of her days not to end here.
If that came true, her own ‘resentment’ didn’t matter.
Besides, this was a fragment of her own memories.
If the professor died here…
Wouldn’t it be no different from killing him with her own hands?
She could never allow that.
Absolutely not.
“You all… just disappear from my trauma now. I no longer… hate you.”
Please.
Vanish from my memories.
Andrew still crawling on the ground.
The Eloise family head glaring at her with bulging eyes.
‘All of them.’
She needed none of them.
It was all in the past.
What mattered to her now.
Was saving the professor.
And serving the professor.
Even in the original world, they had tried to take something from her.
Tried to fulfill something through her.
But now.
She didn’t want to give it up.
She couldn’t yield the professor.
Swoosh.
Arin opened her palm.
Fwoosh!
Azure flames bloomed there.
[‘Hellfire’ (SSS Grade) activates.]
The infernal blaze said to burn all creation.
An ancient magic no mere human could wield.
Her body began to burn.
Her soul began to burn.
‘Kuuuuugh…!’
Arin gritted her teeth.
Tears streamed from her round eyes.
Her frail body trembled, unable to withstand the heat.
At the same time.
Kwagaga!
The mages began to panic.
“Argh, aaagh! It’s hot! So hot!”
“W-What kind of flame magic is this?!”
“Shield! Raise shields! Duke Magor! Surround us with Water Shield now!”
Splash!
Magor conjured a Water Shield in a cold sweat, but.
Fizzle!
It evaporated the instant it formed.
Indeed, the supreme fire-attribute magic that ignored elemental advantages.
Azure flames surged into the sky.
The mages’ staves melted.
The stone floor turned to lava, the stage becoming a molten sea.
“This… is impossible…!”
Even Gospelheim was helpless.
He could only stare blankly at the blaze like a natural disaster.
Arin muttered in a trembling voice.
“……Tear apart, world.”
Kugugugu!
The risen hellfire engulfed the world.
Yet amid it all.
The infernal flames spared only the spot where the professor stood.
“……Tear apart, memories.”
Arin.
Overcame all her ‘resentment’ and past memories.
Burned them away with the flames.
Conquered them with the flames.
She incinerated everything, leaving only the sole ‘light’ that had shone in the fragments of her memories: the professor.
Kwagagaga!
Cracks rent the Magic Tower—no, the entire world.
* * *
The whole world was ablaze.
Spectators, mages, even family heads.
The entire world melted in the flames.
The sky was red, the ground red.
The floor was already a lava field, the tower hollowed out like it had taken a nuke.
In just 10 seconds.
No, less than 5.
In contrast.
Woooong!
Thanks to Dana’s touch, my skin was regenerating.
My spent stamina returned.
Vitality surged through my body, wounds closed.
Lost blood replenished.
A miracle from a single skill.
“Keuh, keuhuh!”
The world still burned.
In the burning world, Arin’s soul trembled.
It suffered.
It wept.
“……I have to save… the professor. The professor.”
In such agony.
Arin didn’t even notice me approaching, fully recovered.
Since I shared emotions to some extent with my summons.
I could guess her horrific state.
“……Please. I’ll forget it all if I have to. Revenge or whatever, I don’t care. Just vanish. Leave the professor… leave the professor alone.”
The flames roared.
Even as the world melted away, hot flames shot into the void.
Within them, only she and I remained unscathed.
And.
Clearly, Arin was out of her mind.
“…….”
I clenched my teeth.
Her body, visibly scorching hot.
I embraced those flames without a moment’s hesitation.
To share her pain.
“You can stop now, Arin.”
“……Professor?”
Flinch!
Arin’s body jerked.
“Huh…?”
Then she opened her eyes and looked at me.
The moment she confirmed I was unharmed.
Her trembling body began to calm.
The endlessly surging energy began to subside.
Fwoosh….
The flames began to die down.
“It’s all over. Now wake up.”
“Wake up?”
“I told you. This place is just your memories. An illusion.”
“……Memories, illusion.”
Arin, suffering the Hellfire’s aftereffects, murmured.
“Ah, right.”
“…….”
“It doesn’t… hurt anymore. My body isn’t burning.”
“Yeah, even that Hellfire. It was just your imagination.”
Hellfire’s price is death?
So what.
Arin was already a dead soul.
An existence that doesn’t die even when killed.
An undead.
That instant.
Flash!
Light burst, and the flame-filled world vanished.
We appeared in a dark space, like the middle of the cosmos.
A hazy atmosphere, like when using memory recreation.
Yes.
‘This space…’
Relief bloomed through my body.
From experience, we moved to such a space when a quest cleared.
“Professor.”
Before long.
Eloise Arin, in ghostly form, approached.
Not the girl I’d known, but the full adult Tower Master.
“Thank you, Professor.”
“…….”
“For staying alive. For being my master…. And for coming to my lonely past and fighting alongside me….”
Fwoosh!
Flames bloomed from Arin’s body.
“It was my first time experiencing it. The letter you gave me, the delicious food, and those moments researching and exploring magic together…. I’ll never forget them for the rest of my life.”
Don’t worry.
We’ll keep researching magic together from now on.
“I’m okay now. I don’t hate Andrew. I don’t loathe the family head. I burned all those memories away and replaced them with ones of you…. Those are more precious to me.”
Arin smiled.
Her eyes no longer looked sad.
The negative emotions of sorrow and hatred melted away like ice.
Only the emotion of anticipation bloomed, like a fresh flower.
Thus.
[Tower Master ‘Eloise Arin’ acknowledges you as her true master.]
[All stats increase by 10.]
“I’ll spend the rest of my life serving you, Professor. Is that okay?”
[Congratulations!]
[To save you, Eloise Arin has completely forgotten her ‘resentment.’]
[Clearing Stage: ‘Eloise Arin’s Resentment’!]
[Clear rewards arrive!]
I am one of the four great Tower Masters of the magic world.
I succeeded in awakening Boneo, Arin.