The End of Demon Magic

With the final question, a colossal magic formation bloomed into the air before us.

Dozens of interlocking formulae tangled together like a spiderweb, a structure so convoluted that unraveling it at a glance was all but impossible.

No matter how I looked at it, it appeared to be a grand-scale spell that would take several capable mages casting in concert.

"You want me to use this alone?!"

The moment she read the question, Ah Seo-ah's eyes wavered.

Improving an existing spell was already considered one of the highest and most punishing fields of magic.

She'd read a handful of papers on spell refinement herself.

Every one of them was the distilled fruit of formulae and research by people with real names in the magical community.

"Uuugh……"

Could I really pull something like that off?

A wave of anxiety crashed over her—

Smack!

—and she slapped both her cheeks with her palms.

Then she muttered the one phrase she needed.

The words Lee Tae-hyun drilled into her so relentlessly at every practice session that her ears had grown calluses.

"It's not 'can I do it.' I will do it!"

Gritting her teeth, Ah Seo-ah began dismantling the formula from its foundations.

The magic was so ancient and weathered that simply comprehending its intent was a struggle.

What kind of spell could be this chaotic and this precise at the same time?

"There's no way they'd give us an impossible problem."

The Hall sets daunting tasks, but never ones that cannot be solved.

That was a truth she'd realized while watching Lee Tae-hyun cut down machine after machine.

So this one, too, had to be—

"Possible!"

Ah Seo-ah copied the magic formation stroke for stroke, then poured mana into it.

Whuuuum…! Hmm….

As expected, the spell refused to function properly.

The mana kept snagging at intervals, choking the flow again and again.

Is the structure itself just broken?

But no—even amid this confusion, there was a certain order to be found.

It was like watching 'a storm that blows in a fixed pattern,' 'a flame whose temperature never changes,' 'vegetation that grows into an identical shape,' and 'a current that always flows the same way' all at once.

Stacked together, they looked like the lawless chaos of nature itself.

Separated one by one, they were unrealistically, perfectly regular….

"Wait. Just a moment."

A light flashed through Ah Seo-ah's churning mind.

Four distinct rules visible within a single spell.

At first she'd assumed that was because it was a grand magic meant for multiple casters—but.

"What if it was a spell meant to be cast by one person from the very beginning?"

She widened her frame of reference.

She questioned the premise of the Hall's problem, and drew her own conclusion from within it.

The conditions stated in the question might be a deliberate misdirection.

If the task is to restructure a formation, and you attach the condition that it must be cast by a single mage…

then the mind is led, all on its own, to assume the original spell was never meant to be cast alone.

All the more so when the formation is as vast and labyrinthine as this one.

"Which means…!"

Ah Seo-ah's memory rewound to a short while ago.

On the way to the Hall—Ji Yeon-ha, raining down several spells simultaneously and shooting a Guardian out of the sky.

Quadra Casting.

Multi-casting, as commonly understood, exists to deploy several different spells at once.

That was simple common sense.

But the problem before her could never be solved by anyone shackled to that common sense.

"A single spell, manifested through multi-casting!"

It felt like gears that had been grinding askew this whole time finally locking into place.

When designing a spell, don't lock your structure into parallel or serial—blend them fluidly according to each component's nature.

Taking Ji Yeon-ha's lecture from earlier as her guide, Ah Seo-ah began restructuring the magic.

As if possessed, her hand never stopped, her eyes never once blinking.

And the result—

"Haah… haa…!"

Ah Seo-a clutched her throbbing head in both hands.

She'd pushed herself far too hard; dizziness and nausea were churning her stomach inside out, but she couldn't afford to collapse yet.

Through the screen, she could see the verdant glow of the blessing's aura.

Ah Seo-ah mustered a weary smile and picked her crumpled wizard's hat up off the floor.

"I… pulled my weight…."

The instant the exams ended, Ji Yeon-ha and Ah Seo-ah were transported back to the garden.

"I watched it happen with my own eyes, and I still can't believe it. You're genuinely incredible."

Ji Yeon-ha stared at the devastated garden in open dismay.

The ground had been crushed and shattered to fragments, as though a meteor had come down on top of it.

"Are you all right?"

"…Yes."

Ah Seo-ah gave a small nod at Ji Yeon-ha's question.

In truth, a skull-splitting headache had been threatening to bring her to tears for a while now, but she couldn't whine about something like that.

Not when someone else was enduring far worse pain than hers at this very moment.

"Lee Tae-hyun!"

At the center of the ravaged garden, Lee Tae-hyun lay collapsed on the ground, his Demon Dragon Transformation undone.

His eyes were squeezed shut, as though sunk in a deep, deep sleep.

Ah Seo-ah rushed to his side.

"H-hey! Wake up! Are you okay?!"

His face was deathly pale, drained of all color.

Dark, near-black blood seeped sluggishly from the wounds covering his body.

Only harsh, ragged breaths escaped him at intervals—until his eyelids fluttered half-open, and his gaze found her.

Those lifeless eyes stared blankly, vacantly, back at her.

"H-hey… hey! What's wrong with you…? You look like a dead man walking…."

Ah Seo-ah's voice shook uncontrollably.

"Get up… say something mean like you always do… insult me, I don't care…."

"…I'm sorry."

At that sudden apology, her heart dropped straight through her chest.

"S-sorry about WHAAAT?!"

"……"

"Sob… hck…! Get uuup…!"

The tears she'd ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠been holding back through all that pain finally began to spill.

She'd finally been useful, and now—was it already too late?

"I'll do anything you say… anything at all… so please… sob!"

She was no longer capable of rational thought.

If Lee Tae-hyun really died like this—

then what was she supposed to do from now on?

If her guiding star vanished and she was left groping through the dark with no direction—

she would freeze in place forever, unable to take a single step.

"I'm sorry… I'll be good, I won't fool around anymore… I'll do whatever you tell me, and I'll do it right…."

So please.

Live.

Don't die on me like this.

"…Did you finish milking the dramatics?"

Just then, a voice heavy with exasperation drifted over from behind her.

"If you're done making fun of me, I'll get up now."

"…Wow. You really don't fall for it."

"Telling a genuine corpse apart from someone playing dead is required coursework."

"Funny, I see one person here who apparently never enrolled in that class."

Lee Tae-hyun—half a corpse mere seconds ago—sprang briskly to his feet, met Ah Seo-ah's eyes, covered his mouth, and burst out laughing.

"Man, I was moved. Had no idea you could bawl like that."

"Ah… u… YOOOOU…!"

"You said you'd listen to everything I told you, didn't you? No fooling around. A promise is a promise, right?"

Her small face turned the red of a boiled beet in a single breath.

"G-grrrrrAAAAH! JUST DROP DEAD!!!"

Ah Seo-ah wrung out the last dregs of her mana and unleashed an offensive spell.

A blast easily large enough to kill him outright, had Ji Yeon-ha not thrown herself in the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠way….

"Seriously! I am SO annoyed right now!"

After the exams were over.

Ah Seo-ah grumbled and vented nonstop the entire time she was dusting herself off.

"I said I was sorry."

"Like that fixes anything?!"

"That was a bit much, I'll admit. The poor girl's mind nearly broke, you know."

"…Was it really, now?"

No ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠matter how I looked at it, I doubted my little death act would have driven Ah Seo-ah to a mental breakdown.

"W-what are you even saying?! If that guy disappeared off the face of the earth, I'd be relieved!"

"Hmm… is that so?"

Ji Yeon-ha eyed Ah Seo-ah with a look that said, 'Funny way of showing it, considering how spectacularly you were sobbing.'

"For the record, I have a legitimate grievance here. I nearly died for real back there."

Granted, it hadn't been quite the immediate-fading-breath spectacle I'd shown Ah Seo-ah.

But if things had gone even a little further, my body would have been wrecked beyond any hope of recovery—or I might have actually crossed over into death.

Demon Dragon Transformation.

No one could dispute its tremendous power, but using it to its full potential was clearly going to require further growth.

"Th-that's…."

Ah Seo-ah mumbled around her words, then spoke in a voice barely above a crawl.

"…I'm sorry."

"Well, sorry's something. Still, it's true that the buff you earned at the end is what brought that thing down."

Ah Seo-ah had earned her share of credit in this raid.

"Good work."

"…Mm-hmm."

I went out of my way to praise her, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and the reaction was depressingly muted.

Normally she'd shoot back something like 'Obviously! I'm a genius—worship me more!' But now, all I got was a tiny mumble from beneath a hat mashed down over her eyes.

It was so unlike her that I was about to ask what was wrong when—

"And…."

Whooom!

The scenery transformed in an instant.

From the ruined floating garden to a space brimming over with the fused aesthetics of magic and engineering.

At its center, a tower of interlocking gears and mana circuits soared high into the air, and around it sprawled an enormous circular table.

"Where are we?"

But now, every last seat stood empty.

What on earth had happened to this world?

Clunk! Bzzzzzzz!

The central tower whirred to life, and three books descended from above.

"Oh my!"

Ji Yeon-ha leapt into the air and hugged her skill book tight against her chest.

"You were telling the truth!"

Her eyes sparkled like someone had inlaid them with stars.

Well, fair enough—to her, that book wasn't just a skill book.

Gripping my own share in hand, I barely managed to suppress the swell of emotion rising in my chest.

Finally…!

I had it in my grasp at last.

The power that would vault Cheonseong to the next stage—and the key item that could lessen humanity's suffering.

Carefully, I slid the skill book into my subspace.

"So that's finally done."

"Uuugh… so tired…."

"Hehe. Looking at it just melts the fatigue right away, doesn't it?"

We'd push the Magic Crafting discussions to tomorrow.

Today, I was going home to collapse into bed.

My body was already screaming at me to.

"Well then, time to head ba—"

Before I could even finish the sentence—

The moment I read those words—

my consciousness sank into darkness.