Chapter 309
Chapter 309
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 309
Chapter Title: Selvia and the Mad Wizard's Great Labyrinth
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I want to kill the mad mage.
Any student who'd sat through his classes had thought it at least once. No one knew where he got them from, but every week he dished out some fresh hell no one could have even imagined in a lifetime. How could you not boil with rage?
If it were just pointless torture designed to inflict suffering on people, you could give up clean and flop over dead. But no—every trial felt like it was just barely within reach if you pushed a little harder.
You could beat this if you really tried. You sure you wanna just sit there? Really? He'd prod you just enough to spark your motivation. That insidious difficulty tuning pissed you off even more.
And the most infuriating part? After writhing and rolling around in agony, you'd actually get better.
"Sw-swinging a sword at someone... that's too scary. The thought of hurting another person... it just freezes my hand..."
A student who'd once trembled at the mere idea of violence against others...
"Get outta my way, you bastards—I'm going first!!"
Soon wouldn't hesitate to smash a blunt weapon into some other student's unprotected skull.
That said, separate from the hellish difficulty of his lessons... the mad mage himself had this sloppy, airheaded side to him somewhere. If you only saw him in class, he'd seem like the academy's ultimate black curtain boss.
But chat with him one-on-one after class, and...
"Professor, what are you doing face-down over there?"
"Oh, student... a coin rolled under the sofa, and I'm trying to fish it out, but my arm's just a tad too short. So close, yet so far."
"...Can't you just use magic?"
"That'd feel like losing to a coin. Hold on, it's almost there... if my fingers were just a bit longer, I'd snag this no problem. Ugh..."
He came off more like a young guy with a couple screws loose than some great devil fattened on student suffering.
And yet, the way he'd swept through the academy like harvesting black mages, or the stories you'd hear now and then about his exploits out in the wider world... they made you look up to him again. It was half and half.
So one day, someone straight-up asked him.
"Professor, why is your class so... uh, fucked up?"
"Ah, that? I consulted an academy expert once. Asked what kind of experiences students really needed."
"Ooh, and...?"
"Trials. Massive trials that brush against transcendence. Countless brushes with death and the boundary of life, hardships and adversities you can only overcome by surpassing your limits. That's what he said, and it hit me—they all came to the academy prepared for that."
"........."
The mad mage's mouth didn't stop there.
"Originally, I planned to mix in some entertainment. You know, like rec time at training camps. Stuff like 'how to escape sweet illusions' or whatever..."
"Ah, aah."
"But this is way better now. Building resistance to temptation by chatting up your dream girl? Nah—rolling around and conquering like this levels you up way faster. Right?"
He laid out his original plan for a kind, wholesome class schedule, and the listening student's face grew stiffer by the second.
Once the explanation wrapped, the student muttered to themselves with hollow eyes.
"Who the hell was that guy."
After that, rumors started quietly spreading among academy students about "Murim Public Enemy X." Some lunatic had blabbed with his three-inch tongue, robbing them of the sweet times that should've been theirs.
And in their place came tentacle confusion, sensory reversal flips, TS dungeon reversals. How could they forgive that?
Of course, sure, lower difficulty means slower growth. I get it. If you're gonna shine as a combat operative down the line, grinding hard at the academy pays off long-term... I get it!
I know this cohort's being hailed as the golden generation thanks to it...
But, but!
But...!!
"Give me back my fantasy ideal...!!"
Couldn't help the rising fury!
So after "Murim Public Enemy X" was outed, about 50% of the academy students' curses targeted X. Whoever he was, may misfortune, trials, and suffering dog him!
Did those heartfelt wishes reach the heavens?
"........."
Selvia ended up snared in the mad mage's Great Labyrinth.
A lobby finished in sleek white walls. And a door to Stage 1. No exit, but a timer counting down 24 hours. You'd have to survive inside that long to get out, come hell or high water.
Laze the day away doing nothing and leave? Or tackle some brutal challenge before heading out? That seemed to be the intent.
This was the entrance to the mad mage's Great Labyrinth.
Selvia thought.
She had no idea how team competition scores were calculated. But 『The Mad Mage's Great Labyrinth』 having the highest points meant it was proportionately brutal.
Because the creator was the mad mage.
The causality was backward. It wasn't high points because it was hard—the moment the points were set high, the mad mage "balance patched" it to match.
『Alexon & Alejandro's Glory of Battle』 scored 113 points.
『The Mad Mage's Great Labyrinth』 was pegged at 179 points.
A whopping 66-point difficulty jump... Better brace for it. Selvia steeled her mind and opened the door.
"Clear this, and I can lap Snow White for the win!"
Creeeak—
What unfolded was a forest of tentacles.
-Irión, baby, Irión, come play in our arms.
-Ripe, oh so sweet fruit grows ripe here.
Layered with multifaceted mental assaults via whispers.
Swish. Sswish. Swish.
And slender poison needles firing intermittently, near-silently.
"Damn it, what the hell is this hellhole—why does the academy even have something like this—!!"
"Poison needles incoming! My body, my body's burning up..."
"Mom, Mom's here. Mom!"
Nearly all the terrorists kidnapped into the 『Great Labyrinth』 by Enbus's scheme were wandering in a daze here. No one had ever seen or heard of a place like this.
"........."
Selvia watched for a bit, then crossed her arms and drawled nonchalantly.
"Eh... it's the entrance, so maybe that's why. Not that hard."
Dodge the tentacles, block the mental attacks. If you'd faithfully attended classes so far, you could sleepwalk this.
Three academy students killing time playing tic-tac-toe on the bare floor, dodging the occasional tentacle ambush, waved at Selvia.
"Yo, Selvia's here."
"Hey, we were waiting on one more for the AoE slot. Wanna join? We go once you're in."
"Sweet. Positions all filled? But I haven't seen you guys at the mansion—what'd you do to get here?"
"Well... outside there's this stage called 『Which One's the Poison Mushroom?』 worth 7 points. Figured no way they actually mixed in real poison shrooms, so I ate one... no poison, but it teleported me inside the Labyrinth."
The student who'd stumbled into the Labyrinth via one bad choice shook his head with a "rolling cigarettes" face. The other attractions weren't slouches either, apparently.
Selvia, now matched into an instant party of four, stood with them in formation. Scout, tank, AoE, single-target: a stable comp.
First, the scout weaves through tentacles to find a path. No defensive line's perfectly uniform, so even tentacle forests have dense spots and open ones.
Scout picks the route, watching movements and speed carefully.
"This way. Advance."
"That side looks pretty sparse—how about it?"
"Saw a terrorist get nommed there earlier. Giant tentacle underground."
Advance the route, prioritizing stamina conservation. Eliminate unavoidable or tricky tentacles. Tank blocks attacks targeting the DPS.
"Flank watch. Giant tentacle incoming...?"
"That's an illusion."
"Illusion, yeah. Dude, how green are you to fall for that?"
"Hey, people can misjudge sometimes..."
Counter mental attacks with info checks, block poison darts with Selvia's timed heat waves.
The ad-hoc four-man party meshed like precision gears, steadily carving through the tentacle forest. It looked so effortless, even the terrorists dangling like ornaments from tentacles felt the reality check.
Dungeon-diving pros watching via external screens gawked and asked the student beside them.
"That team's pro-level dungeon crawlers. Better than our fifth-years by a mile... Mind telling me their names?"
"Far as I know, there's a separate dungeon club. Those two are knight hopefuls, and the girl's a grad school prospect..."
"Dungeon crawling ain't their future goal? They're crushing it."
"Wellll..."
Training where one slip meant death, without the actual risk. Experiences more diverse than traveling the country, without leaving the spot.
The mad mage's classes—whether students wanted it or not—broadened their horizons. Now they could punch out a surprise tentacle from a corner on reflex.
The result: a floor raised across the board.
"Everyone's at that level, right?"
Terrifying horizontal leveling-up.
"Stage 3's solo, I guess. Nice work, Selvia."
"Didn't expect the ground to vanish there. We'd have wiped without you... but could you dial down the heatwave temp? It's brutal partying with you."
"Then go team up with Snow White!"
"She doesn't do teams..."
After parting with her pickup squad, Selvia entered the next stage. Smooth sailing so far.
She'd been startled when the floor suddenly sank like in Cat Mario, but top academy kids could double-jump anyway.
Selvia handled it by blasting an explosion below to launch the whole team.
"Hmm... easier than I thought."
Made her wonder if the mad mage had dialed down the difficulty for the kids' festival, giving spectators a show.
Or maybe Oppa was going easy on her... She entertained the thought briefly.
Clunk—
And it shattered the instant she entered.
"........."
Stay calm. Every problem has the setter's intent. Selvia soothed herself and methodically broke it down.
First: fully armed soldiers surrounding her with rifles. Thanks to her modern outing with Aisha, she knew firearms' power.
Against Flame Seraphim casting, three shots would probably end her.
Soldiers hunkered behind thick cover. Needed a shield hot enough to incinerate cover instantly or melt incoming bullets en masse.
Next.
Glint from a distant rooftop: sniper. Too far to rush first. Had to handle pinpoint large-caliber sniper rounds.
Focus heat on incoming trajectories to melt them instantly. Next.
Heat-sensing mana mines in a circular zone. Trigger on temperature rise—power probably instant-death level.
But casting Flame Seraphim spikes local temps sky-high. Transcendence would set them off. Without it, couldn't hit bullet-melting heat.
So...
"Cast Flame Seraphim, but control wasted heat to bind it within range, deploy even shielding, counter intermittent snipes, and melt the enemy's volume fire all at once."
Hone control to the limit. Overcome transcendence's soft underbelly with raw physicality.
In short: attain Courting Flame Serpent-level control and defense.
Beep.
The digital board lit up with 000. Selvia knew without explanation: it tracked try count. Probably ticks up per retry.
She slapped her forehead.
"...Just tell me to straight-up ascend already?!"
Every problem has the setter's intent.
Selvia grumbled but sensed the mad mage's "don't die" intent in this one. Worth a shot.
"Alright, let's try..."
She realized there was no mid-run quit button on her 71st try.
If she could go back in time.
-Trials.
If she could leap through time and fix her mistakes.
-Trials are needed. Massive ones brushing transcendence! That's the one thing academy kids lack!
If only...
-Countless dances on death's edge, hardships and adversities only overcome by surpassing your limits!
She'd blast past-self's yap with Radiant Cascade.
"You crazy bitch, Selvia..."
219th Try: Flame Seraphim Variant 『Flame Wings』 Acquired
Complete
And 219th clear: failure.