Chapter 165
Chapter 165
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 165
Chapter Title: Autumn, New Semester (8)
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The duel was over, and the winner had been decided.
It was a duel that had everyone on the edge of their seats every single moment. The spectators let out held breaths and erupted in cheers. Many were swept up in the heat of the battle. Their noise echoed through the colosseum.
-Waaaaah!
Cheers and applause.
Praise poured down on the duel’s protagonists.
“That’s right, Rak! Everyone, this young one is the prized disciple of the White Mage Tower!”
“White, please...”
“Haha! This ‘once again’ proves that white is superior to black, doesn’t it? The loser should just stay defeated like a good loser!”
“...I’m going insane.”
Among them, one particularly rowdy spectator stood out, but even that voice was drowned in the cheers. Amid the noisy stands...
Belnoa, standing in the arena, stared blankly at the crowd.
It was a strange feeling.
This kind of refreshing sensation was a first.
The pouring cheers didn’t feel annoyingly loud like they used to. They weren’t just noise. It was unfamiliar, but a pleasant unfamiliarity.
“Feels good, doesn’t it?”
Belnoa turned at the voice.
Rak was looking at her with a refreshing smile. He wiped the blood from his mouth and continued.
“To think you’ve come to know the joy of dueling—you’re a proper warrior now...”
“What are you talking about?”
She cut him off with a wry smile, but Belnoa didn’t exactly deny it. Warrior or whatever, she wasn’t sure about that...
But she had a vague sense of the joy of dueling.
A battered body.
The crashing exhaustion from squeezing out every last drop of mana.
Both Rak and Belnoa found even standing a chore. Leaning on each other’s shoulders, they staggered toward the waiting room. They’d just been fighting to the death, yet now they walked arm-in-arm.
The duel was over.
It wasn’t a messy duel that left lingering emotional barbs. They’d both given their all. The process was clean, so the result was clean too.
The duel was over, and the winner was set.
Belnoa, who had always held the top spot, stepped down to second place. Rak’s name rang out from the crowd’s mouths as the new top rank.
Rak van Grace
The northern duke’s heir smiled at the sweetness of victory.
2.
The duel that had set Aphria ablaze was finally over. Students filed out of the colosseum under the faculty’s guidance. Belnoa, who had left the colosseum first, glanced at the procession from a corridor window.
There sure were a lot of them.
With that thought, Belnoa walked along the corridor. Unlike the noisy outside, the hallway was quiet. As she walked the empty corridor, the sharp smell of medicine wafted over, and the infirmary came into view.
Thud. Belnoa stopped in front of the infirmary door. She figured she’d borrow some painkillers and bandages. She healed quickly from all the breaks nowadays...
But pain was still pain.
“......”
Reaching for the door, Belnoa looked at her fingers and let out a deep sigh.
Not a single finger on either hand was intact. She hadn’t noticed during the heat of battle...
But now they throbbed.
‘...Grabbing anything would hurt like hell.’
After a moment’s hesitation, Belnoa nudged the infirmary door open with her toe. Just as she took a step inside.
Rustle.
Was the door already open? A breeze from inside ruffled Belnoa’s bangs. Blinking, she peered into the infirmary.
“Oh.”
Someone was sitting inside.
The breeze made glossy ash-gray hair sway. She waved at Belnoa.
“You’re quick.”
“...Professor Lania?”
Why was the professor here?
Just as she was about to ask, Lania wagged her finger toward the chair in front of her.
“I borrowed it for a bit. No backtalk—come sit.”
“Pardon?”
“I said sit down.”
Belnoa tilted her head but obediently sat. Lania reached for the shelf and deftly pulled out some medicine.
“I’ve broken a lot of bones myself, you know. Last time, the way you bandaged yours was so sloppy.”
“Huh? Sloppy how...”
“You didn’t even set the bones right and just left them to heal on their own—that’s why your fingers look like that.”
She pointed at Belnoa’s fingers.
Sure enough, the index finger she’d broken most was crooked. As Belnoa stared at her hand, Lania beckoned.
“Stretch your arm out straight.”
Belnoa did as told.
Lania gripped her wrist and twisted the arm this way and that. She clicked her tongue.
“See? Shamans’ fingers are all like this. For mages, the fingers that draw circuits are life itself—how are you supposed to use them all mangled like that?”
She lowered her head slightly.
“Let’s reset the bones while we’re at it.”
“...Pardon?”
‘Reset the bones?’
Was that something you could just do easily?
Belnoa blinked at Lania in front of her. She lowered her head slightly. Ash-gray hair fell, revealing her round crown to Belnoa’s eyes.
Grip.
Lania clutched Belnoa’s wrist firmly with one hand and stroked the broken finger with the other. The ticklish sensation, the occasional sting, made Belnoa grimace.
It was an odd feeling.
Belnoa now knew the identity of the woman bowed before her. The legendary Ash Mage. And here she was, fiddling with Belnoa’s broken bones to fix them.
‘It’s still hard to believe, honestly...’
The images just didn’t overlap.
The Ash Mage in the records was mostly frowning. Objectively handsome, but more sharp and piercing than soft.
Compared to that, the woman before her?
Softer than sharp. Anyone unaware of her true nature would easily mistake her. She looked gentle, kind, pure.
Same now.
Belnoa turned her head slightly away from Lania tending her finger. Something itched inside her.
“P-Professor, when will it be... done...”
“Wait. I can almost see the framework now?”
...See the framework?
“Huh?”
“I picked up a few tricks peeking over Sara’s shoulder, you know? Even if she’s a saintess, she sets bones pretty damn well.”
Though it hurt like hell.
Lania muttered that and suddenly gripped Belnoa’s finger hard. Belnoa’s eyes flew wide. A muffled scream escaped her lips.
“One, two.”
Crack, crick.
“Three.”
Crick-crack-crack!
Sparks flew before Belnoa’s eyes.
“Arrrghhh!”
She couldn’t hold back the scream. Belnoa shuddered and tried to flee, but Lania’s grip on her wrist was ironclad.
“Hey, hold still!”
The tickling was long gone.
Pain had taken its place. Literal bone-crushing pain. Sparks burst nonstop before her eyes as Belnoa writhed.
“This way? No, this side more...”
Lania muttered while jiggling Belnoa’s finger every which way. Belnoa’s thrashing made it hard to treat.
“Try to endure it.”
She belatedly cast a pain-relief spell, but it didn’t erase the agony completely. In the end, Lania layered on multiple spells.
‘Ah, finally settling down.’
Slump. Belnoa’s body went limp.
In the silence, eerie cracks and pops rang out one after another. They stopped after about ten minutes.
“Ah, done.”
It was all fixed somehow.
Lania looked satisfied at Belnoa’s fingers. She wrapped them in bandages and lifted her head slightly.
“...What? Why are you like that?”
Belnoa was leaning her head back, staring blankly at the ceiling. Drool seemed to trickle from her mouth...
But Lania decided to ignore the trivial.
“Hey, it’s over.”
“Sip, y-yes?”
Belnoa opened her dazed eyes.
She stared blankly at her fingers. Neatly set, her eyes were vacant.
“Belnoa, you there?”
That was when the door slid open and someone entered. Belnoa looked at the newcomer with hollow eyes.
“Took me forever to find you. Oh? Professor Lania’s here too?”
It was Chloe. She approached casually, saw Belnoa’s fingers, and exclaimed in admiration.
“Whoa, what’s this? I came to rebandage your usual messy job, but it’s already done?”
You can wrap this neatly?
Muttering that, her childhood friend looked at her in wonder...
Belnoa replied weakly.
“...Wasn’t me.”
“Then?”
“I did it.”
Chloe turned to Lania.
Lania, sitting across, shrugged like it was nothing. She continued.
“Looks good, right?”
“Yes! Super neat! Professor, you know this stuff too?”
“I know a lot.”
Amazing!
A bit.
Belnoa watched their exchange of compliments with cold eyes. Her childhood friend, who always shone like light, seemed dim now. Only darkness filled this place.
3.
The external visitors’ waiting room.
In a VIP lounge set aside, the lords of the Black and White Mage Towers chatted while waiting for their disciples.
“See, Black? What did I tell you? Rak proved white’s superiority over black...”
It was one-sided, though.
‘How many times is she going to repeat the same thing?’
Yetoal frowned. The White Tower Lord’s nonstop chatter made him want to plug his ears. It was loud. Very.
“I get it, I said.”
“Haha! Losers always have to endure the humiliation, you know? Just sit there and listen to the winner’s boasting!”
As Celly Drivela rambled on endlessly, Yetoal even felt pity.
‘How badly scarred was her pride up north for her to try recovering it like this?’
White Mage Tower Lord, Celly Drivela.
The Celly he remembered...
Would act like this to mend wounded pride.
‘By boasting. Excessively so.’
And to Yetoal, Celly was way over the line now. Repeating the same story over and over made it obvious.
“...White’s better than black, meaning I’m better than you...”
Yetoal looked at her with pity.
‘Come to think of it, she said she was planning to recruit Professor Lania to the White Tower.’
He recalled hearing that.
And judging by White’s current state...
That plan had failed miserably. In a way that bruised White’s pride.
“...What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Nothing. Keep talking.”
“I’d do it anyway?”
Yetoal sighed and let Celly’s words flow in one ear and out the other.
‘When the hell is he coming?’
He was sitting here to see that prized disciple of the great White Tower Lord, but the boy showed no sign of appearing.
“White, is your disciple even coming?”
“He’ll be here soon?”
“Did you tell him ahead?”
“Nope?”
“What?”
Yetoal frowned.
“How’s the kid supposed to know to come here without a word?”
“I’m his master.”
What did that have to do with it?
“Rak always comes straight to his master first after winning a duel. He knows I visited, so he’ll be here soon?”
Our Rak is such a good boy.
Celly shrugged as she said that. Her shoulders had some tension.
“Just wait a bit more! Unlike some disciples, our Rak knows to respect his master!”
Another 30 minutes passed.
Rak didn’t come.
Author's Note
A bit late, sorry...!