Chapter 174
Chapter 174
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 174
Chapter Title: The Madman, and the Nightmare (4)
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“Today’s lecture ends here.”
The two-hour lecture had finally come to a close.
The students, who had been fully immersed for all but the first few minutes, let out heavy sighs of relief. Amid the groans rising here and there, Kellhalrm leisurely stepped down from the podium.
The looks in the students’ eyes as they watched his retreating figure were markedly different from those at the start of the lecture.
At first, when he’d flatly declared “No” to a longstanding conundrum in elemental magic theory, they’d dismissed him as an arrogant know-it-all mage riding high on his own hype... but that impression had flipped long ago. Now, respect shone clearly in their gazes.
It had been a lecture worthy of that.
The two-hour session had been nothing short of perfect for aspiring Wizards. It tackled a question every one of them had pondered at least once—a problem with no apparent answer—yet the professor had laid out clear guidelines to approach it.
They could see the path forward.
They’d grasped how to tackle it.
“Something about it...”
“There’s a method like this, huh? Using it this way...”
Kellhalrm’s novel application of circuit designs.
A good number of students were scribbling it down in their notes. It was revolutionary. Amid the unfamiliar approach, they felt an odd sense of familiarity.
“This feels kinda...”
“Like Professor Lania’s lectures.”
The lecture from the end of last semester.
Professor Lania’s class on basic spell applications.
That one shared the same underlying context as this just-concluded lesson.
Finding the strange within the familiar.
The process of tearing a single spell into dozens of variants.
Finding enlightenment within the strange.
The topics differed. The handling of circuits differed too. Yet the core piercing through those topics was shared. The students felt a strange sense of déjà vu.
“...Hey, am I the only one, or...”
“What?”
“That lecture just now... doesn’t it make more sense than Professor Lania’s?”
Someone muttered it.
It was just a quiet whisper among themselves, but it reached the ears of a certain professor with exceptionally sharp hearing. Lania’s eyes widened.
“Nah, it’s just because we heard Professor Lania’s first. The topic felt familiar, so it clicked better.”
“Yeah? Hmm, maybe.”
“No homework’s nice, though, right?”
“Can’t argue with that.”
Haha. Light laughter rippled among the students.
“Wish that prof would stick around Aphria.”
“Yeah. Seems like a seriously skilled mage, doesn’t he? Wizard class with real roots, like he said...”
It was just casual chatter.
The topic shifted quickly, the students’ small talk drifting elsewhere... but a certain petty mage couldn’t let it slide.
Tremble.
Lania’s shoulders shook.
“...Professor?”
Only Resti, sitting beside her, shot her a puzzled look. Just then, Lania whipped her head around.
“Resti.”
“Yes?”
“Battle Mage.”
Lania enunciated each syllable deliberately, putting force into every letter.
“What do you think of the Battle Mage class?”
“...Pardon?”
Resti blinked.
It was an utterly out-of-left-field question. Unable to grasp the intent, she tilted her head.
‘What do I think...?’
Truth be told, she didn’t have strong feelings either way.
Resti majored in both Summoner and Wizard lines simultaneously. Class distinctions held little meaning for her.
“Hmm...”
Should she just say what came to mind?
Resti continued with her immediate thoughts.
“Using Stock to boost spell activation speed and stocking various spells... it’s a class that creates a lot of variables in real combat... right?”
“Yes, exactly.”
“I’ve heard it has no bad matchups, mixing in martial arts and strike spells. There are tons of books on it in the Ashen Mage Tower. Since it was created by the previous Next Mage Tower Lord...”
It was a fact.
The Ashen Mage Tower had an unusually large collection on the Battle Mage class. Even on the first floor, in the visitors’ waiting room, dozens of volumes lined the shelves.
With that, Resti gauged Lania’s reaction.
“Yes, that’s right.”
The professor nodded repeatedly in satisfaction, looking for all the world like a parent hearing praise for their child. Seeing that, Resti had a pretty good idea why Lania’s shoulders had been trembling throughout class.
‘...Well, it is the class her brother made.’
Raniel van Trias.
The Battle Mage class had been created by that Ashen Mage. It must’ve stung to hear it called rootless.
‘I noticed last time too...’
She gets sensitive whenever the Ashen Mage comes up. Are she and her brother close? It was a mystery to Resti.
“Yeah, that’s right. So what if it lacks roots? Look how efficient it is.”
Even as Resti mulled that over, Lania stroked her chin, muttering nonstop.
Clink.
Tearing her eyes from Lania, Resti packed her things and prepared to stand. Time to head to the next classroom.
“Well then, Professor Lania, I’ll...”
Be off now.
Just as Resti rose with her farewell, Lania muttered something.
“...I’ll prove it.”
Her voice was chillingly ominous.
Resti flinched, her shoulders jerking.
‘Prove? Prove what?’
Since when was “proof” such an ill-omened word?
An inexplicable chill made Resti freeze mid-motion. Awkwardly posed, she turned to Lania.
“Prove it, prove it...”
The lecture had ended long ago, yet the professor was immersed in some other topic.
“Oh? Ah, sorry.”
Noticing Resti’s gaze, Lania let out an “ah” and turned to her with a sigh. A smile played on her lips as she spoke.
“Go on. You’ll be late for your next class.”
The same gentle tone as always.
But beneath that softness lurked a razor-sharp blade. Gauging it, Resti nodded slowly—very slowly.
‘Whatever she’s thinking...’
I don’t want to get too involved.
Resti thought suddenly.
2.
Several days had passed since the madman, Kellhalrm, arrived at Aphria. In that time, the Hounds taking turns surveilling him were at a loss.
“So...”
The operation’s overall commander—and the most skilled among the Hounds—Tracker Kalt spoke up.
“After observing and compiling Kellhalrm’s routine over the past four days... this is all you’ve got?”
He incredulously held up the report.
It was laughably simplistic. Hounds weren’t incapable of reports. True to their training in all practical skills, their competence was nothing to scoff at.
Yet somehow...
“This is seriously it?”
Why was it so half-baked?
Kalt waved the papers in front of the Hounds’ faces, reading aloud from the report.
“Class. Meditation. Walk. Meditation. Class.”
“......”
“Class, short walk. Meditation again. Staring blankly on a bench in Aphria’s garden section for three hours.”
“...Y-Yeah, that’s real. I saw it.”
One oblivious Hound raised his hand, but shrank back under Kalt’s sharp glare and lowered it.
“This is really everything?”
“That’s all there is, senior.”
Looking as baffled as he felt, the Hounds slumped their shoulders with sighs.
“No magic circles or traps in the works. He even borrowed a lab to prep for his next class... thought something was up, but nope—just making worksheets like normal.”
One Hound who’d said that handed over a sheet he’d swiped from the lab, just in case. Kalt checked it.
“......”
It was just a worksheet. Plain as day.
No hidden ciphers. Vertical, horizontal—it was a worksheet. A bog-standard one with blanks to fill.
“...What the hell?”
Kalt’s words voiced the Hounds’ collective bewilderment.
Who was Kellhalrm?
The Madman himself—the superhuman they were warned to watch most closely. The lunatic mage. That was how the world saw him.
‘This is...’
But peeling back the layers?
Nothing special. Utterly mundane. Wholesomely so. He’d come to Aphria to give “special lectures” for the students.
“Why... is he so damn normal?”
A madman acting normal.
Prepping classes wholesomely. No flaws even if you squinted. As Kalt stared at the worksheet in a daze, one Hound spoke up.
“Uh, Kellhalrm... he really just came to teach at Aphria, right?”
“No way.”
Kalt cut him off flatly.
There was reason they’d poured so many resources into Aphria. Most Hounds just followed orders from above, but not Kalt.
He was a battlefield soldier.
Obeying superiors was a soldier’s virtue, but the demon realm was different. You had to make your own calls, act on your own judgment more often. Kalt was a soldier who’d crossed that realm.
That’s why he knew.
This op had more than one red flag. First Princess Leruel’s warning wasn’t empty. Kalt knew it. Frowning, he spoke.
“Stick to him in shifts. No incidents so far doesn’t mean none ahead. Stay sharp and keep at it.”
The Hounds nodded.
It was an order from the famed Tracker Kalt, who’d racked up merits on countless battlefields. None dared take it lightly.
The Hounds headed to their posts.
Once they were gone, Kalt let out a long sigh and muttered.
“...Senior’s probably prepping something too.”
The figure embedded in Aphria.
The Ashen Mage, Raniel van Trias.
Recalling his senior steadied Kalt’s breath. No ally was as reliable as the Ashen Mage.
‘Who else but senior could “safely” take down a superhuman?’
She seemed impulsive and carefree... but she was deeper than she looked. She had to be preparing for this situation.
Definitely.
He quite respected his senior, even if she didn’t flaunt it.
“She’s got a plan.”
Kalt muttered.
3.
“I will prove the superiority of Battle Mages.”
In the Mana Trading Studies professor’s office.
Lania sat alone, staring holes into her desk. On it lay a single sheet of paper.
“To that halfwit who can’t even handle a proper scale and wound up half-crippled... I will prove the practicality and superiority of Battle Mages. I have a duty to do so...”
A special lecture application.
“Prove it, prove it...”
The lecture topic.
She inscribed words into the still-blank field.
Scratch.
The pen glided across the paper.
As she wrote, Lania pondered. Most people misunderstood the Battle Mage class. It had been misrepresented from the start, so that was natural.
Practicality, utility, fluid tactics.
She acknowledged it all.
Acknowledged, yes—but those weren’t the roots of Battle Mage. It needed cruder terms. To her, the class’s creator, its essence boiled down to this.
[Topic: Methods to Slaughter Wizards]
The counter to the Wizard class.
The Battle Mage class had been born from devising ways to hunt Skeval—the ancient skullhead who’d reached the pinnacle of Wizards. Thus, its roots lay in crushing Wizards.
It crushes the “rooted” ones.
A class proven by stylishly beating them down.
“Who’s this rootless punk to...”
Who lectures roots in front of whom?
The victor has roots.
Roots aren’t bestowed—they’re seized.
‘Seize them.’
Her logic was a bundle of contradictions, but sadly, no one was there to point it out. Nor was anyone to note that her own class was registered as Wizard, not Battle Mage.
Scratch.
For a while, only the sound of the pen on paper echoed.
Author’s Note Kalt, slated to get his foot chopped by the axe he trusts.