Chapter 6
Chapter 6
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 6
Chapter Title: The Long Winter
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That winter was long.
It lasted a full three years.
They said abyssal horrors had overrun the North Pole, and two Fake Warriors had been dispatched to put them down.
It was an era of peace. All through that endless winter, the boy trained under Skalji Ludwig.
The focus of his training was mana conditioning and awakening his magic eyes—and to awaken Bell Quirius, he first had to...
“Master Bell Sidias at will. Now, read it fast! Don’t miss a thing!”
“Yes!”
“You planning to just stand there gawking until the enemy spell activates? Move faster!”
Every time he taught the boy one thing and watched him grasp not ten, but a hundred more, Skalji felt pure joy. The boy’s genius defied description.
What took a dullard ten years, an average talent one year, and a genius a month—he absorbed in a single day.
All he needed was time. Time for his eyes to adapt and his mana to grow.
The boy enjoyed it, too.
Standard magic lessons would have bored him to tears. But the Ludwig family’s secret arts opened up a whole new world of knowledge he’d never known.
And the payoff was worth it.
The power to freely control any supernatural ability—what a lavish gift compared to his previous life, where he’d had no foundation at all.
“Training truly shines when your life’s on the line.”
“I know.”
“I’m about to fire a fireball at you. If you can’t dodge, you die.”
Skalji said it, but if things got truly dangerous, he’d dispel the spell with his own Bell Quirius.
“Sip...”
The boy took a deep breath and nodded. Cold sweat poured down his body, his white breath rising in the winter wind.
“Now!”
Skalji was an exceptional mage.
What separated mages from battle mages was calculation speed. Even by Lin’s standards, Skalji’s was impressive.
‘If he’d been around in my time, Skalji might’ve joined Rista’s party instead of me.’
Good thing he hadn’t. As the fireball rushed in, heat haze warped his vision wildly.
“Bell Sidias!”
The fireball closed in. Agonizing heat scorched his skin.
“Hurry, Rain!”
Bell Quirius’s activation was theoretically complex from the start. He had to instantly calculate all five Ludwig secret spells and infuse mana into his eyes.
Beyond Bell Sidias’s three stages—quickly reading, interpreting, and piercing a spell—he had to layer on formulas to interfere with and manipulate its power.
Thinking about it now, turning something like this into a family secret art... Was Ryuken Ludwig the type who hated mages?
“Rain!”
The fireball was right in his face.
But the boy thought: Multiple spell calculations? That’s nothing to me.
Casting five spells took an instant.
Suddenly, blood streamed from both eyes, and searing pain hit as if his retinas were burning—melting.
Huh?
The world drowned in horrific crimson, and everything turned to numbers.
010101010101
Snowflakes swirling white before him, Skalji shouting urgently in the distance, the fireball blazing madly right in front—everything!
In that instant, Rain knew his eyes had changed. Bell Quirius had activated.
Incredible.
Truly incredible.
The entire universe decoded into math equations, beaming info straight to his brain—an impossible sight.
- Once Bell Quirius recognizes the info, you’re set. Treat it like mental math: rewrite the formulas you see however you want.
It resembled Bell Sidias, but something was decisively different.
The numbers...
They felt tangible, like rippling water you could stroke. Reach out or glance, and they scattered or distorted oddly—as if he could interfere with it all.
┏ 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 ┓
ㆍTwo triangular magic circles.
ㆍFormula-type Ruticen runes.
ㆍSize: 17 axel, range: 23 gimite.
┗ 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 ┛
Analysis complete.
Modification beginning.
Twist the launch rune to “跋”? It’ll add meaningless properties, desyncing from the equation—turning the solution imaginary.
That means one thing.
The spell returns to nothingness.
Once he interfered, the fireball roaring and singeing his face scattered into countless embers the next instant. The world fell silent.
The boy heard only his own breathing.
Then a sharp sting in his core—mana depletion. Skalji caught him as he staggered.
“Grandfather, did I... get it?”
“Yes! Look at your eyes! Mana’s all that’s left! Hahaha! This is insane... Bell Quirius at fourteen!”
Skalji laughed then, but he couldn’t laugh forever.
‘I only reached that realm at thirty-nine...’
Even he had been hailed a once-in-a-century genius in the current magic world.
So what was Rain?
Could you even call him a genius? This talent could upend the Empire’s magic history.
“Rain, whatever path you choose, whatever life you live—I won’t care.”
“...?”
“But at sixteen, knock on the door of the magic university, Delaiten. You’re a gem.”
Magic university...
Honestly, he had zero interest.
His interest lay in Delaiten’s affiliated Central Magic Library. Wasting time? No thanks.
“Graduate Delaiten top of your class, and you get to view Archmage Lin’s corpse. You know that, right?”
“Yeah, sure...”
Stop desecrating corpses already.
What’s so great about gawking at a frozen dead guy? They call that a perk?
“Not really interested.”
“I felt the same. But aren’t you curious what Hero Rista’s note to Lin said?”
What...?
What did Rista leave for me...?
“No one’s awakened Bell Quirius at your age—ever. With that power, you could decipher the note.”
He just sat there stunned, absorbing the bombshell. But looking back later, that was the beginning.
This is a story of travel.
Following Rista’s letter, tracing old comrades’ footsteps, journeying the world and recording it all.
And on that path.
Until he met that child.
* * *
He turned fifteen.
Torrential rain hit at summer’s start—a perfect excuse to stay at Ribarden Magic School instead of heading home.
After submitting his Delaiten application, he’d grown interested in classes, occasionally auditing them.
Ribarden, in the Empire’s mid-capital Rainbow Garden, was divided like other magic schools: elementary, middle, and high divisions.
Ordinary mages graduated all three and took the Bandoran (1-star) exam to become full mages.
Prodigies got Bandoran after middle school and entered magic universities.
“Today’s lesson is factorization. You covered basics in middle school, but now we go advanced...”
Rain watched the students more than the material.
“Hey, how do you solve this?”
“Lemme see your notes.”
“This is brutal. Should I just drop math?”
“Crazy bastard—mages dropping math? That’s fart or fact?”
Asking about unknowns, tackling hard problems together... laughing and chatting through it.
‘Filling each other’s gaps... just like traveling with Rista’s party.’
Nothing like Lin’s life: facing the tower headmistress for basics, holing up memorizing formulas.
‘Kinda fun, maybe...’
But uh oh. Slight problem. How to act around peers?
‘Didn’t know as Lin, and now I’m a magic house heir?’
Pre-regression Rain had been an outsider hermit—no help there.
Useless me!
“This might’ve screwed me over...”
Best bet: Lin’s memories. Dig into the past.
When was it?
Some moment, chatting party attitudes.
- May the gods grant peace to these souls, Durshiel.
Fride, Fire Dragon’s Shrine Maiden, laid hands on fallen warriors’ foreheads, praying. Sobs rose from the crowd.
As republic religion head, wherever Fride went, people begged tears for the dead’s peace.
Lin might’ve been moved by her kind, gentle act, proxying prayers skyward. Of course.
- Knowing Fride’s true face, I just feel dizzy.
- What, you punk?
Lin’s quip made Fride snap. Kies nodded vigorously in agreement; Rista waved it off.
- Fride? I don’t see it that way.
- Rista gets it! These bachelor-stinking guys, just—
- Not dizzy, just a bit nauseous? Like, a tiny bit? This much?
Triple attack left Fride’s face beet red.
- I’m a shrine maiden! Republic’s top two! Gotta I puff smoke like with you idiots? People want a certain image!
- Sure, sure. Lady Fride’s right.
Lin teased half-heartedly; Fride bristled, then stuffed her pipe.
- Hmph. Even sly brats like you’ll have to fake it someday. We’ll see—I’ll roast you proper.
- No thanks. Why should I?
- Hero party’s archmage being timid, unsmiling, spewing venom? People’d be disappointed. ‘Imposter?’ they’d ask.
Lin laughed often after joining—not always, but regularly. That was his true self.
Shy with strangers, natural for a slum-and-tower boy with primal wariness.
Lin’s face turned serious; he snapped his book shut.
- Acting... how? Iron face like Fride? But that needs her wide mug.
- Get over here, you’re dead!
Fride beast-roared with punches and kicks; Kies held her back as Rista sat by Lin.
- What book?
- Gren Benibelt’s ‘Dragonkin History - II’.
- ...Lin, no need to act. Fride’s a special case.
- Special?
- Be yourself. Sure, brighter and more confident’d be nice? But no need to force it. You’re great as is.
Rista met his eyes, smiling softly. Lin felt sudden embarrassment surging, ducked his gaze.
- Tch, don’t need to say it—I won’t act. Don’t want to. But...
- But?
Huh? Huh?
Urging with closer grin, Lin pushed back, mumbling barely audible.
- ...I want to change.
Like Rista, Kies, Fride.
Bright, bold, kind... able to give smiles. Couldn’t rewrite innate personality, but someday.