Chapter 101: Resin Is Optimistic
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 101: Resin Is Optimistic
Groups that trained mages had existed for a long time, but it had only been a little over ten years since the dungeon known as the Magic Tower and its current system were established.
To be precise, it began when the current Dean appeared, seized control of the board of directors, and established a dictatorship.
There wasn’t much backlash during that process.
Based on his immense wealth, the Dean created an environment perfectly suited for mages to conduct their research.
Mages possessed a thirst for knowledge and a desire for honor, but they lacked a lust for power.
Since they were all obsessed with proving their own brilliance, the appearance of a Dean who took over the tedious administrative and operational tasks was a welcome development.
Furthermore, after the Magic Tower dungeon was created, he quickly conquered over ninety percent of it. The financial stability achieved through the magic stones harvested from there only caused his approval rating to soar.
Resin was a member of the 8th class of that Magic Tower.
Specifically, she was a graduate of the year the Final War ended.
She had always drawn attention with her flashy magic and sheer firepower, and she relished that spotlight.
Whenever she unleashed endless flames and wide-area spells, her peers were busy gaping in admiration.
However, the professors never acknowledged her brilliance.
“Ho, Narupa. To use magic for dishwashing… truly impressive.”
“You regulated the temperature all night just so dew wouldn’t form on the grass? You have a natural gift.”
What the hell is that?!
Magic is supposed to be about erasing enemies without a trace using overwhelming output!
Why are they marveling over dishwashing and temperature control?
Look at me.
Look at this magnificent magic that turns the entire area into a sea of fire!
True to her nature as someone who considered herself a born genius, Resin worked hard.
It was the Magic Tower, after all.
To think they could make a genius like her actually put in effort.
Believing that all the praise directed at Narupa was merely intended to provoke her, she pushed herself desperately.
She pursued stronger magic, wider-range magic.
Resin appealed to the world by demonstrating the maximum level of violence magic could manifest.
However, the results were disastrous.
“The valedictorian of the 8th Magic Tower class is Narupa Diberuper! The salutatorian is Resin Luna!”
Despite Resin growing stronger by the day, the top spot went to Narupa.
It was unfair.
A fraud who used magic for petty tricks had taken the top rank—simply because she was the daughter of the Great Mage, Bisharen Diberuper.
“Why! Why is someone like Narupa ranked higher than me! Dean! I object to this!”
“Ahai~ You are the salutatorian precisely because you don’t understand why. Muehehehe…”
Resin protested immediately, but the short, ugly Dean dismissed her objection with some vague, plausible-sounding nonsense.
“Just you wait. We’ll see who climbs higher!”
From that day on, Resin became an adventurer.
She burned with the ambition to reach the pinnacle through combat, her main specialty.
Additionally, her resentment toward the ugly Dean led her to a point where she loathed all unattractive men.
Perhaps that was why.
The reason she had strayed toward Claude while leaving the devoted Alto behind likely stemmed from that as well.
Resin was arrogant by nature.
While she felt grateful for the support he provided—both material and emotional—she considered him beneath her class.
By the time Mirei’s party began treating him as a nobody, she had come to accept his devotion as something he should naturally do to serve a woman of her caliber.
When they became a Hero-rank adventurer party, Resin learned that the magitech company Narupa had founded was flourishing even more than expected.
But Resin, full of confidence, only scoffed.
“Still using petty tricks until the end, I see. To think you’d end up in the business of a mere merchant.”
Since she believed her greatness as a mage was a cut above, Narupa’s company looked like child’s play in Resin’s eyes.
If you ever cross me, I’ll burn your precious company and factories to the ground.
That was Resin’s arrogant inner thought.
She had proven herself by becoming a Hero-rank adventurer and even had a handsome lover.
All that remained was clearing each dungeon.
Judging by her rapidly improving skills, that goal wasn’t far off.
World, behold!
Behold this glorious process of Resin Luna carving her name into history!
I am different from that incompetent bitch who gloomily steals honor by relying on her bloodline!
Narupa, I won’t be like you. I will be someone who shines by my own name, not my father’s!
…Or so she thought until just a few months ago.
Before she had stupidly mistreated Alto and let him go.
Lukart had changed.
Simply because the “ugly man” was gone, people dared to despise and pressure them, despite being a Hero-rank party.
The bullying began, led by that one-eyed Branch Manager, and it worked perfectly.
Resin trembled every day with a sense of humiliation.
It was deplorable that she had to endure being yelled at by a pathetic failure of a Branch Manager who dared to lift her chin high in her presence.
She tried to act cute toward Claude to soothe her troubled mind, but he brushed her off, demanding she buy him luxury goods and claiming he couldn’t trust women who treated their party’s man like that.
Resin, who had a strong sense of vanity and a need for validation, was deeply disappointed in Claude.
Yet, she craved him all the more because he had become something difficult to possess.
That lasted until she discovered that the man they had driven away was actually Alto Bertrand.
“Entertain me—!!!!”
That day, when they reunited at the northern border of Lukart, he was a completely different person.
He wasn’t the same Alto who did chores while being pushed around by Mirei’s whims in the early days of the party.
Seeing Alto—holding massive daggers in both hands, his shirt discarded to reveal every muscle in his upper body bulging and rippling as he charged forward to slaughter enemies without hesitation—Resin was completely captivated.
That is what a real man looks like.
A real man, worlds apart from those “pretty boy” parasites who hide behind women to leech off them.
And simultaneously, fear and panic rushed in.
That man was indeed Alto Bertrand.
If anyone could see that performance and still not believe it, they were as good as blind.
And what did that mean?
It meant that Mirei’s party, including herself, were the ultimate bitches who had committed infidelity while having a National Merit Recipient by their side.
“Mirei! Krima! Run!”
They were fucked.
A thick darkness settled over her life, which had once been as flashy as her magic.
She realized now that the darkness, which had been creeping up from beneath her feet for some time, had finally reached her throat.
She had to live.
She had to survive to do anything.
She chose the possibility of hope in the future over her immediate pride.
Diane seemed to have died long ago, and that shallow bitch Krima had fallen behind on her own somewhere along the way.
Resin didn’t look back.
She was a cold-blooded mage who only associated with people of her own class.
Women who were less than husks without Alto weren’t worth her time.
Even as her life hung by a thread, even as she fled, Resin did not give up.
Rather, her heart burned with excitement.
Alto Bertrand!
He was the ultimate man.
A man who suited Resin Luna better than anyone else.
Only a hero who slays the Four Heavenly Kings of the Demon King and saves the world is worthy of my status.
On the other hand, there was also fear and resentment.
“Damn it… why didn’t you tell only me…? Because of those other pathetic bitches? You’re too much, Lord Alto. I would have been different.”
Surprisingly, Resin had her own way of understanding why Alto hadn’t revealed his identity.
The problem was that her “understanding” was entirely filtered through her own delusions.
Resin understood it as Alto being wary that women would flock to him just for his title if he exposed his status.
Including the rest of Mirei’s party in the category of women who were only at that level, Resin believed that she at least wouldn’t have been like that.
She believed she could have loved him sincerely.
Because she was a woman capable of doing so.
However, she lacked the self-awareness to realize that she was the one who cared about a person’s “title” more than anyone else.
“Because of that idiot Mirei…!”
Because she had hung around that bitch, she had lost one of her greatest values to someone like Claude.
It was a blunder.
An irreversible blunder.
But it was fine.
Great people learn from failures and mistakes to become more perfect.
Even if rationalizing it like that was painful, it meant she was becoming complete.
If Lord Alto pointed this out later, she would just have to apologize with tears.
To think that I, of all people, would apologize with tears.
It was only possible because it was Lord Alto, and it was the only thing Resin admitted was purely her own fault.
But still, if it hadn’t been for that bitch Mirei!!!
With that resentment, she looked down at Mirei, who was working hard with a pickaxe and a shovel.
“Huff, huff… Resin, is this the right spot?”
“…”
Resin was annoyed and intentionally didn’t answer.
“Dammit… is it really right to keep digging like this!”
The 3rd floor of the Magic Tower dungeon.
The maximum height allowed for a party of fewer than three people.
The two of them were aimlessly digging up various parts of the dungeon.
Resin let out a sigh and reluctantly soothed Mirei.
“There’s no ‘certain’ spot. I’m just hoping there’s a path.”
“We’ve been shoveling for days. Is this even useful?”
“I told you. The Magic Tower is a dungeon of possibilities. It holds the potential to lead to shortcuts to higher floors or rooms hidden with miraculous opportunities, even from the lower floors. If we find that, we’ll be of help to Lord Alto—or I’ll become strong enough to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with him.”
“The end of that sentence sounds a bit strange?”
“What is?”
“Why is it only you becoming strong enough to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with him?”
“Did I say that?”
“You did. I’m sure of it.”
You actually caught that?
Resin’s expression said exactly that.
Mirei wasn’t a complete fool either.
Just as Mirei, noticing the contempt in Resin’s expression, was about to speak, Resin quickly changed the subject.
“I heard some news from outside.”
“You, answer my—”
“They say Claude’s balls were crushed, his tongue was pulled out, and Gerend became a royal gigolo with only one nut left.”
“Huh?”
“And in the Duchy, some weird thing called the Black Rose Movement is trending. Well, that has nothing to do with us.”
“Forget that, just answer my—”
“Lord Alto cleared the Dakuren Dungeon in Hus.”
“…What did you just say?”
A dungeon clear.
Hearing the achievement of the goal that had been their lifelong wish from someone else’s mouth, Mirei could only blink.
“I said Lord Alto cleared the Dakuren Dungeon. He personally took down one of the Four Heavenly Kings, Barion of Solitude, there.”
Mirei almost dropped her shovel.
Her palms were drenched in sweat.
“They say those who were with him were the adventurer Rene’s party.”
“Rene…”
“It should have been Mirei’s party.”
“…”
Resin whispered as she swapped Mirei’s shovel for a pickaxe.
“Our mistakes are one thing, but if we want to return to Lord Alto’s side, we have to get stronger. Both you and I.”
A moment later, Mirei silently swung the pickaxe.
But there was no strength behind it.
Resin, about to get annoyed again, shut her mouth when she saw Mirei weeping uncontrollably.
Pathetic bitch.
Yes, you must be drowning in regret for the man you let go.
So am I.
But I am different from you.
I will pull the situation back to me.
When that time comes, someone like you will…
Resin was a more optimistic person than one might think.