Chapter 65
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 65
Chapter Title: Laziness and the Mage (3)
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"...Lunaris?"
The bewildered voice of senior Gaius buzzed faintly in my ears.
But it felt distant, like I was hearing it from underwater.
The world seemed to crawl by in slow motion.
My eyes and ears couldn't keep up with the explosive speed of my thoughts.
-Wooooong!
The air began to tremble faintly.
The natural mana drifting around me started taking shape on its own.
Twisted and tangled mana circuits.
Equations stretching out long enough to fill the air.
Magic circles meshing together like intricate gears.
All of it was getting on my nerves.
The countless processes and procedures required to cast spells felt like utterly useless shackles.
Suddenly, the circuits, equations, and magic circles before my eyes shattered into pieces.
Glittering fragments scattered like grains of light.
My mind, which had been endlessly calculating magic, felt empty.
Intuition and instinct rushed in to fill the void.
It was a fresh, novel sensation—not me understanding magic, but magic understanding me.
-Swoooo...
The mana storm swirling around me calmed in an instant.
As if nothing had happened.
"..."
I blinked vacantly.
Sensation returned to reality.
Senior Gaius stood there frozen with a dumbfounded look on his face.
And in my hand was still the half-eaten meat sandwich.
"...Nyaaam."
I blankly shoved the sandwich into my mouth and chewed. Yeah, meat always tastes good no matter when you eat it.
I swallowed the sandwich whole and licked the sauce off my fingers.
Yep, now I'm pretty full.
"Huuu-"
With my belly full, random thoughts started creeping in.
My stomach felt bloated, so I kinda wanted to move around a bit.
And while I'm at it, test out this newly redefined magic.
"Senior Gaius."
"...Uh, yeah?"
"Wanna spar?"
Senior still hadn't grasped the situation and blinked as he asked back.
"...What?"
"A duel. Right now."
He scratched the back of his neck with a blank expression.
The guy who had just covered the cafeteria in equations and magic circles suddenly calmed down and suggested a fight—who wouldn't be baffled?
"Well, I'm game... but isn't it getting late?"
"I just feel like it right now."
I hopped down from the chair and bounced in place.
My body felt as light as a feather.
"Days like this don't come often, you know?"
"...Fine. But go easy on me this time."
Senior Gaius let out a resigned chuckle and picked up the wooden sword he'd leaned against the wall.
"You should at least give me time to prepare against magic."
"Hmm—I'll try."
*
I headed to the magic building's training hall with senior Gaius.
The same place where I'd clashed with Dean Raymond Cloud in a magic battle.
"...I didn't know a place like this existed."
Senior Gaius looked around in admiration.
The floor was tiled with special shock-absorbing material, and the walls were reinforced with triple layers of top-grade defensive barriers—a sparring arena made for mages.
"The facilities are impressive. Way better than the swordsmanship department's training grounds."
True to its reputation as the jewel of Elterion Academy, receiving all the support, he nodded approvingly.
"You've never been to the magic building before?"
"What business would a swordsmanship student have here?"
Senior Gaius shrugged and added,
"Swordsmanship and magic departments aren't exactly on good terms to begin with. No point coming here just to pick fights, so I avoided it on purpose."
Fair enough. It's infamous how mages and swordsmen don't get along.
They're not called "magic blankets" and "sword morons" for nothing.
We faced each other in the center of the arena.
The distance between us... about ten steps, give or take.
"How do you wanna do this?"
I asked in a bored tone, hands shoved in my pockets.
"I ambushed you yesterday, so I'll yield the first move today?"
"If you're offering, I won't say no."
Senior Gaius gripped his wooden sword tighter and narrowed his eyes.
"You sure? If I go first like this, you won't even have time to cast."
"Doesn't matter."
I shrugged lightly.
Casting? I don't need that to use magic just fine.
"Then..."
Senior Gaius vanished from my sight in an instant.
Fast.
In the blink of an eye, the distance between us shrank to zero.
The senior who appeared right in front of me swung his wooden sword down in a straight line.
-Whoosh!
The wooden sword plummeting to split my skull stopped a hair's breadth from my head.
"...You held back at the end, didn't you?"
I stared at the wooden sword and asked.
"I said you didn't have to go easy."
The wooden sword trembled, along with the bronze muscles of his arms, like they were spasming.
As if something invisible had seized both his arms.
"Haha... I worried over the wrong person."
What bound senior Gaius's arms was none other than telekinesis magic.
This was one spell I could use as naturally as breathing even before my enlightenment.
"Now it's my turn."
I pulled my hand from my pocket and snapped my fingers lightly.
-Snap.
In that instant, a small black sphere appeared right in front of his solar plexus.
"...?!"
There was no warning.
No time spent weaving chants or gathering mana.
The black sphere greedily sucked in the surrounding air.
Then it exceeded its limit and ballooned in a flash.
-Boom!
"Kuh?!"
Just before the explosion, senior Gaius instinctively leaped back and rolled across the floor.
Cold sweat poured from him, his eyes wide with shock.
"That just now... a mid-tier fire spell?"
"Eh... something like that."
"No way. A mid-tier spell that even Elterion Academy grads barely manage by graduation... cast with no prep, no cast time?"
Before he could finish, I flicked my index finger upward.
-Wooooong!
Pure white circles blanketed the ceiling.
No need for drawing complex magic circles.
Just thinking "pour down" was enough.
-Rumble rumble rumble!!
Soon, a white rain poured from the ceiling.
A downpour of Magic Missiles.
"Damn it...!"
Senior Gaius wrapped his body in mana and dashed across the arena.
Beams of light slammed into the ground along his path—boom boom boom.
I watched him for a moment, then swept my finger horizontally.
This time, translucent wind blades tore through the air.
-Clang! Kaang!
Senior Gaius unleashed sword aura to shatter the wind and twisted his body to dodge the mana bolts raining from above.
"As expected of an Imperial Knights recruit. If I hadn't ambushed and ended it yesterday, this would've dragged on."
"Standing still... huff, without moving... haa, a single step... kuh! You're one to talk..."
As senior said, I stood there with legs crossed, just twitching my fingers this way and that.
Thanks to the images I envisioned in my head overlaying onto reality.
Man, magic's firing off perfectly today?
"Hah, huff...!"
Senior Gaius was being cornered bit by bit.
Panic was clear on his face.
Well, yeah—this kind of sparring must be new to him.
Normally, when a swordsman spars a mage, the swordsman charges and attacks while the mage uses blink to keep distance and waits for a chance to land one spell.
Mages are specialized for war, not one-on-one duels, after all.
But the way I use magic is a bit different from your average mage.
"It's like... swinging magic... around like a sword... kuh!"
Should I push harder?
My body was starting to heat up.
The moment I envisioned a spell one level higher than what I'd used so far,
the temperature in the room plummeted.
White frost crept across the floor.
In an instant, ice flowers bloomed up to senior's ankles.
"Kuh!"
He stomped to shatter the ice, but the real spell was unfolding separately from the ceiling.
Ice chunks began pouring from the faint clouds overhead.
The same magic that crushed the wyvern.
Senior Gaius let out a silent shout and sent his mana into overdrive.
Blue mana surged like flames.
His boiling sword aura smashed the incoming beams and ice chunks indiscriminately.
Senior deflected all my spells and finally closed in right before me.
At the same time, the wooden sword in his hand crumbled to dust.
It couldn't withstand the rampaging mana.
"Hah, huff... haa..."
Senior Gaius gripped the hilt alone, breathing raggedly as he glared at me.
His body was covered in sweat, scorch marks, and frost— a total mess.
"Sh... should I wait while you get a new wooden sword?"
"...Ha."
Senior Gaius laughed hollowly and pulled a spare wooden sword from the corner.
He came prepared, huh.
"By the way, Lunaris... you really okay?"
Senior aimed the wooden sword at me and asked.
"I'm fine. If anything, I'm feeling a bit pent-up now, so I wanna let loose more."
"...How are you not even breaking a sweat after unleashing magic non-stop?"
Senior muttered to himself with a look of utter defeat.
I chuckled and extended my hand.
"Why bother using the mana inside me?"
I compressed the air to squeeze out natural mana, then ignited a flame.
Senior Gaius's eyes widened at the sight.
He recognized it instantly, as expected.
I toyed with the blazing flame like a plaything and continued,
"Mana's everywhere around us—why not use it?"