Chapter 29
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 29
Chapter Title: Blooming
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The boy faced the red-and-black-skinned Mazoku, focusing on the flow of mana that filled his body.
Under the tutelage of the continent's greatest lightning mage, he had spent the last month studying the structure of magic and the nature of mana. Thanks to this, the boy could feel the mysterious power flowing through him more clearly than ever before.
In his mind, a calculation took place, materializing mana into electricity, and electricity into the spell known as ‘Blooming’.
The mana in his body passed through his brainstem, transforming into crackling lightning that began to erupt from every corner of his being.
The lamp shattered, oil scattered in all directions, and flames brightly illuminated the dark cave.
Thanks to the light, the dazed faces of the Mazoku, caught off guard by the surprise attack, were clearly visible.
A faint smile on his lips, the boy focused on the series of calculations unfolding in his mind.
Before studying under Alter, the boy had never experienced such a sensation.
He had simply uttered the word ‘Blooming’ and unleashed the immense amount of lightning that burst from his body.
He hadn’t understood the process by which that lightning was generated, nor how it was converted into the spell ‘Blooming’.
But now, things were completely different from those ignorant days.
The boy could feel the entire process—mana turning into lightning, and lightning becoming the specific spell called ‘Blooming’.
Thanks to Alter's teachings, the boy had drawn closer to the core of the power known as magic.
He had only learned the basics, but the performance and precision of his magic had improved beyond comparison.
A sense of omnipotence he had never felt before, a confidence that he could do anything, filled the boy's chest.
“Blooming.”
With the finally uttered name of the spell, everything around him was enveloped in a pure white light.
After the immense flash covered the area, the sound of air being torn apart by lightning followed belatedly.
The swamp cave literally vanished before the boy's eyes, and the Mazoku inside, who had been staring at him with dazed expressions, were engulfed in the massive electrical charge and turned into white dust.
“...Huh.”
The boy, looking slightly bewildered, glanced around at the thundering surroundings.
It had definitely been a dark cave enclosed by walls... but when he came to his senses, he saw a sky where dark clouds were beginning to gather.
Around him, there was, quite literally.
Nothing left.
A cold sweat trickled down the boy’s cheek, only to be instantly vaporized by the surrounding electrical currents.
“Is it over?”
Before the boy’s eyes, only a white plain stretched out. Before he entered the cave, there had been a swamp filled with fallen trees and thick mud, but after the instantaneous flash, even that was gone.
“...Is there, uh, anyone there? For real?”
Wondering if any Mazoku could possibly have survived that immense blast, the boy pointed a finger forward and casually shot out a jolt of electricity.
A massive current coursed through the air, spreading in all directions, and promptly pulverized the empty lot once more.
The endlessly branching electricity passed through the ionized air, generating heat in a space where there was nothing left to burn. And that sudden heat, in turn, created a vast thunderstorm in the sky beyond the horizon.
Above the plains stretching beyond the horizon, thunderclouds gathered, noisily exchanging bolts of lightning amongst themselves.
“Uh...”
The boy had become incomparably stronger than he was before Alter’s teachings.
It was a moment where he witnessed his own growth firsthand, yet the boy didn't seem entirely pleased.
“...If I’d known it would be like this, I would’ve tried chanting the new ‘incantation’ I developed.”
He had been spooked by Alter’s warning that chanting an incorrect incantation could actually reduce a spell’s power, so he had opted to simply state the spell's name...
But against ten ordinary Mazoku, he was well beyond the level where he needed to worry about a drop in power.
‘I never imagined it would be this much.’
It was only natural, but the boy's growth rate far surpassed that of an ordinary mage.
The former master of the Magic Tower, renowned throughout the continent, had moved into the room next to his in the castle and was personally teaching the boy every day.
In the boy's world, it was like having the country's top SAT prep instructor move in next door and give him private lessons every single day.
On top of that, the boy's magic stat was 20, incomparably higher than the average mage's stat of 13.
Stamina. Strength. Agility. Luck.
He had focused solely on magic, sacrificing all four of these stats crucial for survival.
It would have been stranger if his growth rate *wasn't* incredible, but...
‘Still, even I didn’t know I’d grow this fast.’
“I’m definitely past level 20. Should I consider myself around mid-30s?”
The boy still couldn't accurately gauge his own level.
How could you know if your score was 1,000 or 10,000 when the punching machine only goes up to 999?
‘Let’s just say I’m exactly level 30. There’s nothing more dangerous than becoming arrogant and overstepping my bounds.’
The boy gave himself an almost excessively harsh evaluation and raised his head.
A mage who could change the weather beyond the horizon and call down lightning from a clear sky with a single flick of his finger couldn't possibly be a mere level 30, but...
The build he’d designed when creating his character was just that unique.
The electricity constantly erupting from the boy’s body had now brought a black thunderstorm even to the once cloudless sky above his head.
“...Using a week’s worth of mana all at once is certainly incredible.”
It had been a full three weeks since the boy had last used Blooming.
One might think that if you saved up mana for three weeks without using any magic, you would have three weeks’ worth of mana accumulated in your body.
But that wasn't how it worked in reality.
Even if a mage diligently saved up mana for three weeks without casting a single spell, they could only store a week's worth at most.
The reason was simple. No matter how brilliant a genius, a mage was still only human.
Humans, naturally, have their limits. Just as there’s a set amount of food you can eat at once no matter how long you’ve starved, and a set distance you can run at once no matter how much energy you’ve conserved.
This human limit applied equally to the amount of mana a mage could store at one time.
Thus, the maximum amount of mana a mage could store in their body was merely a week’s worth.
Spending more time without using magic beyond that point doesn't allow the body to store more mana, just as resting for a long period doesn't grant a human infinite stamina.
‘Still, it’s not enough. At this level, I’d be hard-pressed to survive against a high-ranking Mazoku, let alone an Overlord.’
The boy tore his eyes away from the white lightning burning at his fingertips and slowly began to walk toward where Rireu and the support troops were waiting.
Someone overhearing his thoughts might say they weren't fitting for a mage powerful enough to change the very landscape with a single gesture.
But considering the boy's fatal flaw... it wasn't an entirely unreasonable thought.
The boy lacked agility, stamina, and strength, and to top it all off, he was born with the worst possible luck.
He had the power to shake the heavens and the earth for five minutes... but that was all he had.
What if an Overlord cornered him, forced him to use Blooming, and then simply ran away until the duration was up?
Or what if they launched a surprise attack at a speed he couldn't even perceive before he could even use Blooming?
Even with Blooming active, if an opponent capitalized on their speed, his disastrous physical abilities would make it difficult to even land a proper hit.
Think back to his battle against the Overlord Maltiel.
Even when he had the chance for a perfect counterattack, his lack of agility prevented him from landing the blow.
Therefore, the boy could not be satisfied with this level of power.
He was, after all, the one expected to be the hero who would end this terrible war by shoving the Demon King and the devils back into hell.
And he absolutely had to live up to those expectations.
It wasn't just out of a simple sense of duty or guilt for deceiving people.
As the boy recalled, this game had a ‘bad ending’.
If the protagonist failed to defeat the Demon King and the devils within the time limit, the Sword Saint, who had been constantly holding the Mazoku in check, would finally die. The Mazoku would then launch an all-out offensive, annihilating every living being on the surface... an ending with truly no hopes or dreams.
The time limit wasn't incredibly tight, but it meant he had no time to slack off.
He had to steadily raise his stats and become truly as strong as the Sword Saint.
If he didn't, not only he, but all life on the continent would be destroyed.
If that happened, there would be no one left to carry the corpses to the cemetery in a cart.
No one to mourn the dead, no one to grieve for them.
“...This is insane, really.”
A sigh escaped him under the unimaginable pressure.
The faces of the game characters he had created flashed through his mind one by one, and he felt an urge to meet them in person and apologize.
For bringing them into this crazy world and forcing them into a half-insane build.
‘Sorry, Fist, Zombie, President...!’
“Hoo...”
He sighed and started walking toward where the support troops were waiting.
With each step he took, plasma flowed along the surrounding air currents.
“That was incredible power...”
Rireu approached him from among the support troops, who were waiting some distance from where the cave had been, and let out a breath of admiration.
The surrounding terrain, once filled with mossy trees, swamps, and caves of all sizes, had been turned into a pile of white ash by the immense power of the lightning. All that remained in the area was a deeply gouged crater and the exposed bedrock that formed the foundation of the land.
“...And that's the power of a mage who's only been learning magic for about a month?”
“Damn, if we’d been waiting any closer... there wouldn’t even be a body left, would there?”
“They said he was a prodigy who would grow to be on par with the Sword Saint... The rumors weren't exaggerated after all.”
Exclamations of awe poured from the soldiers who had been watching from dozens of paces away.
Hearing the praise for Bin that reached her long ears, Rireu couldn't help but smile.
She was simply proud that her fellow disciple, studying magic under the same master, was such an incredible person.
“You could’ve held back a little. You left nothing for the backup team to do.”
Rireu’s tone was full of amusement.
“It’s still not enough. If I’d used three weeks’ worth of mana, I could have burned away even the bedrock. No, if I had at least tested the incantation...”
The boy let out an awkward laugh, as if even he hadn't known he was this powerful, and pushed down his bangs, which kept rising due to static electricity.
“Three weeks’ worth? What do you mean by that?”
His fellow disciple asked the boy, who was speaking nonsense.
After all, the fact that a human could store a maximum of one week’s worth of mana was practically a law of nature.
Of course, as a mage's level grows and their circle advances, the amount of mana they can store in their body does increase.
It was the same principle by which an athlete, through training, can run farther and eat more than an ordinary person.
However, as the amount of mana a mage can store increases with their circle, their mana recovery rate also increases in tandem.
Therefore, the proposition that ‘the maximum amount of mana a mage can store is one week’s worth’ always holds true.
But three weeks.
Rireu was about to dismiss it, thinking the boy hadn't properly understood their master's teachings.
“...There’s a way.”
That is, until he said those words with a meaningful smile.
“What do you mean...”
Rireu was about to ask the boy if he knew something.
But at that moment, the white-haired boy lost consciousness and began to collapse limply, like a puppet with its strings cut.
He had spent too much time admiring his own unimaginable power, regretting not testing his incantation, and worrying about the countless tasks that lay ahead. Because of that, the five minutes had already passed.
Rireu reflexively rushed forward and pulled the collapsing boy into her arms.
If she let him fall onto the exposed bedrock, his delicate skin would surely be scarred.
“...Huh? Oh?”
Holding the boy's body, Rireu blinked blankly for a moment before her long ears turned bright red and she lowered her head.
Rireu, who had spent her entire life studying in the Magic Tower, had never held a boy her age in her arms before.
...Although there was that one time she’d thrown herself into his arms while half out of her mind.
“Uh, ah, ahh...”
Holding his light, frail body, Rireu lost the ability to speak.
It felt strange.
Her head grew hot, and soon her whole body began to heat up. Blood rushed madly through her veins, and she had no idea how to describe the feeling.
Unable to either set the boy down or hold him tighter, she just floundered... and to the distant soldiers, she looked as if she’d been struck by lightning.