Chapter 116
Chapter 116
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 116
Chapter Title: Void Dragon
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“…….”
Rev and Delphine’s duel was about to begin.
And the sole spectator watching it…
Was just me.
The reason the other students hadn’t shown up wasn’t simply a matter of bad timing…
Rev had permitted only me to observe from the start.
【Oh…! Looks like it’s starting!】
Lamenta bounced excitedly in front of me, where I sat blankly with my chin propped on the table, staring at the screen.
[Why are you here?]
【Huh? Rev said I was bothering him and told me to get lost!】
[I see.]
I leaned my upper body against the table, lifting my head just slightly to gaze at the screen.
Delphine and Rev faced each other, radiating an atmosphere thick with imminent tension.
In their taut standoff, an utter silence flowed, not even the sound of breathing audible.
“…….”
I slowly straightened my posture.
I could no longer afford to watch in a slouched position.
Sitting back against the chair’s backrest, I silently stared at the screen.
【Aren’t you gonna write any more?】
Beneath Lamenta’s excitedly hopping feet lay my notebook, densely filled with notes.
It detailed Delphine’s habits, patterns when casting spells, everything.
But… there were no pages left to write on, nor anything more to record.
With my turn tomorrow, it seemed better to watch and learn directly with my own eyes.
And right then…
-…….
-……!!
As Rev’s red eyes gleamed on the screen…
A brilliant light descended from the sky simultaneously.
Delphine reflexively deployed a magic circle overhead, erecting a basic defensive spell.
Kwarrrrum───!!
An enormous roar, felt even from outside the screen, shattered Delphine’s magic circle.
But Delphine didn’t panic.
…Snap.
With a flick of her finger, magic circles floated up in a chain reaction through the air, all firing toward Rev at once.
-Damn…
The spells all crashed into Rev…
But Delphine’s expression showed no sign of improvement.
-Whoooosh…!
The smoke that had filled the air dispersed…
Revealing Rev standing amid it.
-…….
A still subspace, devoid of even a whisper of wind.
In its center… a storm raged.
Clouds in the sky gathered around Rev…
And just as divine retribution chosen by the gods was about to strike down upon Delphine…
-Student Rev.
-……?
Whoosh.
Delphine swiftly raised both hands.
-I surrender.
-………???
Wobble—
My body, which had been intensely focused with my chin propped up, shook at Delphine’s words.
So deeply immersed was I that those words felt utterly anticlimactic.
‘That’s it?’
【Huh?】
Lamenta, who had been flipping through my notebook beside me, reading page by page, also tilted her head.
As if she couldn’t comprehend the scene on the screen…
She scratched her chin with a tiny hand made of shadow, forming a V-sign.
“…….”
Regardless, Delphine appeared unfazed.
She walked out of the subspace and met my gaze.
“Oh… You were here, Student Adel?”
[You’re surrendering?]
A professor uttering ‘surrender’ against a student.
Wasn’t it beyond embarrassing—practically humiliating?
“Student Adel. There are things in this world humans can’t handle.”
[Huh?]
“What they commonly call natural disasters.”
[Why bring that up?]
“Storms, earthquakes, landslides… Humans can only accept them.”
[?]
“But… I think this. If you can avoid it, avoiding it is always the right answer.”
[??]
“And I was the first to recognize that natural disaster.”
[Professor.]
“What would you do, Student Adel? If a storm came rushing right at you, would you stand there unmoving even after seeing it?”
[Professor?]
“I simply chose to preserve my life.”
[Ah, sure.]
Never pegged her for that…
But she’s a bit pathetic.
***
And so… the next day.
My duel with Delphine was now mere hours away.
[So please hurry up.]
“…Hey, you ditched class just for that one thing and came all the way here?”
[Why else would I skip class?]
Uncle Pergon seemed clueless as to why I’d set aside the academy’s lessons to visit the forge.
Clang…! Clang…!
The hammering grew fainter… and finally ceased.
“…….”
Atop the anvil, a single shortsword quietly gleamed.
Its form was flawless, unlike last time.
All that remained was the finishing touch.
“…You must be loved by that dragon.”
[Suddenly?]
“A dragon giving away part of its own body to a mere human.”
[And?]
“You asked me before… what love is.”
[?]
“Love… means being able to give everything for that one person.”
[Don’t say creepy stuff.]
That thing called ‘love’… gets reinterpreted as ‘obsession’ for me.
And that’s terribly frightening.
Uncle Pergon would understand if he experienced it once.
Just how terrifying that dragon’s love is.
“Well… if that’s how you feel, that’s a shame.”
[What a shame.]
Swoosh.
Uncle Pergon carefully lifted the finished shortsword.
And… without a word, he thrust both it and his own hand into the furnace flames.
“Human life is but a fleeting moment to a dragon.”
Roar…!
The flame-infused shortsword flickered with a bluish hue, emitting light.
“But you… turned that fleeting moment into eternity.”
A moment later.
Pergon withdrew the shortsword from the flames and plunged it into cold water.
Sizzle…
Steam dispersed, and silence descended.
“I hate to admit it, but you’re impressive.
Plop.
Finally… the shortsword rested in my hand.
Its blade was dark as pitch-black, yet faint purple glints danced across it depending on the angle.
It was a familiar light.
And from the hilt onward, the shortsword’s body bore…
White, intricate lines, as if fragments of 【Seraphim’s Crown】 had been melted in.
[Does it have a name?]
I twirled the shortsword this way and that as I asked.
Pergon fell silent for a moment.
He simply stared at me quietly… then slowly opened his mouth.
“……Long ago, in the primordial void, a dragon was born.”
The void of creation, where nothing existed.
A world that was ‘nothingness’ itself.
“Because it did not exist, it was complete. Because it was not complete, it existed—a dragon.”
It had no form, no name.
Perfect because it did not exist, imperfect the instant it did.
“The world…”
Thus, the world…
Gave that paradoxical being a single name.
“Called that being the ‘Void Dragon.’”
***
Clunk.
As the auditorium doors opened, the murmurs ceased in an instant.
…I advanced through the silence.
“…Tch.”
Some students glanced at me, suppressing inferiority and jealousy with clicks of their tongues.
Today, those sounds rang especially loud.
“Hey~ Valedictorian! Third Place wants you to lose!”
“What bullshit!”
“Cough…!”
A few voices cheered for me…
But it was just an assignment… Did it really need this much attention?
Just an ‘assignment’… just ‘homework’…
Yet students had flocked en masse, as if it were a duel to crown the strongest human here.
Step.
Before I knew it, I stood before the subspace portal.
One step forward, and I’d be in.
“…….”
Think.
If I were Delphine… how would I prepare for this?
Delphine was already inside the subspace.
The terrain there would favor her, and I was the latecomer.
So…
She’d have the first strike, naturally.
…Step.
I took one step toward the portal…
And the next instant…
- Fwoooosh──!
A massive fireball hurtled from afar… crashing down on my head.
But I inhaled deeply, wrapping a thread of mana around the shortsword.
Swoosh…!
The shortsword, attuned to the mana thread, writhed like a serpent.
───────!!!
The massive fireball collided with the shortsword’s trajectory…
Split cleanly in half, scattering and vanishing in the air.
‘…….’
Beyond the vanished flames, hidden magic circles lit up simultaneously…
───!
But the shortsword, dangling from the mana thread, writhed like a serpent once more, deflecting the spells and reverting the incantations to nothing.
‘You’re there.’
Maximizing 【Laplace’s Eye】 to view the world…
I could see.
The flow of magic power, the grain of mana.
All of it now revealed Delphine’s position to me.
Click.
I gripped the shortsword and aimed its tip at Delphine’s location.
✦━━━━━━━━━━━━✦
【Void Dragon】
Rank: Legendary
Because it did not exist, it was complete. Because it was not complete, it existed—a dragon.
You have captured the ‘fleeting moment’ of the dragon born from the void.
That fragment of a ‘fleeting moment’ was reborn in human hands as ‘eternity.’
And that ‘eternity’ has once more dwelled within the dragon.
Unique Skills
: 【Annihilation】
The dragon’s fang denies reality.
All defenses crumble, all meaning vanishes.
: 【Mirror】
The dragon’s scales revert all magic to its origin.
Cast spells regress to their starting point.
The being born from nothingness…
Will ultimately return all to nothingness.
✦━━━━━━━━━━━━✦
This is just an ‘assignment.’
Just a ‘spar.’
And yet…
I wanted to affirm myself, even a little, within it.
‘…Jealousy.’
…I’m jealous.
No, inferiority? Or perhaps an inferiority complex.
‘…….’
Everyone gazes at the shell built of lies, ‘Adel.’
But no one has ever seen the real ‘me.’
Or maybe… did the real ‘me’ even exist to begin with?
…I don’t even know that.
“Oh my…”
I’m jealous.
Of Delphine, who rose from ‘weakest’ to ‘strongest,’ affirming her own existence.
“That’s cheating, isn’t it… Student Adel.”
I feel an inferiority complex toward myself.
Bearing the false name of strongest, standing at the highest place…
Yet unable to believe in myself even there.
“Come.”
That’s why…
I want to defeat Delphine.
Not to deny him, but because I want to become like him.
Like the weakest who believed in herself.
To surpass the strongest who deceived himself… and become one who believes in himself.
“…….”
From a distance.
Delphine was definitely watching me.
…Snap.
And… as Delphine snapped her fingers—
────!!
Magic circles glowed beneath my feet.
“With my ‘weakest,’ I will topple your ‘strongest.’”
Delphine was serious.
He was dragging out his past self as the ‘weakest’ and hurling it at me.
And I…
Faced that hurled ‘weakest’ with my false ‘strongest.’
‘…For myself.’
As always, giving my all.
To turn my falsehood into truth.
I aim this blade… at Delphine.