A lot of adventurers saw us trying to jump on the roof and fired all their spells and darts at us.
“She was right! We’re under attack! Take them down!”
“Fireball!”
“Icicle lance!”
The fireball and ice lance that flew toward us were cast by some S rank adventurers and taking those hits without any proper defense would surely hurt a bit.
I held Mylarka in my arms to shield her, but all it took to defend us was a gesture of her hand—all the attacks vanished in thin air before hitting us.
“Restricted area annihilation n°91 – Absolute domination field.”
I can protect us from anything I already know, but I can’t keep track of all these attacks. I have to write how to dispel them all inside the structure of the field. It’s expanding 0.3 seconds slower than the other defensive fields… but I can finally field-test it.
Mylarka only created eighty fields, as far as I knew, and yet she cast the 91st.
Many of them were defensive, however it looked like this one blocked any long-ranged attack, no matter if it was a spell or a projectile.
She’s always so amazing… with that, not even an entire army is a big deal.
We didn’t have time to talk right now, so I made the piece of magic tool I had with me vibrate to call the others for help.
I could tell that Mylarka was thinking and monitoring the situation at inhuman speed. If she didn’t, she probably would’ve failed to isolate us from that storm of attacks.
“W-What the hell…?! Magic can’t reach them?!”
“No way! There’s no way a S rank has the better of us! There must be some trick!”
Keeping a low profile since forever was bearing its fruits now, since the thought of being attacked by SSS ranks didn’t even cross their minds.
Then, a thought flashed in my head.
They said that she was right a minute ago… so she had warned White Capricorn that we might’ve tried to attack them in this way.
But if she knew, then…!
Mylarka looked up at me with a puzzled expression—she had noticed what was going on and was about to say something when the air in front of us started vibrating.
Our enemy, three more casters on the roof, were casting something to prevent us from landing. We were about to face another wave of attacks, but this time it was on a totally different scale.
I understood what Mylarka was about to tell me: she couldn’t stop the next attack because she didn’t know it… but I did.
That was Spirit Actualize, the first spell that my teacher had taught me to bring out my true potential… and the spell that changed my life.
Now I didn’t need to see her face. I was sure that it was her.
I always caused a lot of troubles to people when I was a child who didn’t know how to use magic because I used it in rushed ways. Then, my teacher taught me how to control it—she had cast her spells on me so many times that my body just learned them.
Still, if a S-rank adventurer used SSS-rank magic, not only they would run out of magic power, but they’d risk the magic to respond with a counterphase and literally self-destruct.
When someone doesn’t have enough magic power, the operating magic will borrow the amount it needs from the nearby people even if it means sucking them completely dry… which leads to death, since everybody needs at least a tiny bit of magic power to live.
I focused all my senses and thought about what to do, then I noticed that the three casters wore a collar. They were probably forced to act that way.
Did you hate me so much for not coming back to you, Teacher…?
I couldn’t let her kill people, although indirectly, because of me.
I had to cut the magic threads that forced them to be her puppets before it was too late, but how could I do that? Landing and attacking them would take too much, and they looked about to fire.
Somehow, Mylarka understood what I was thinking and cast a spell so fast I barely noticed.
Restricted area annihilation n°66 – Disintegration field.
The field of her previous spell shattered in splinters that cut through the air and stuck to the casters’ collars, destroying them in an instant. The next moment, all three of them looked exhausted, and we finally landed on the roof, finally out of sight from the spells and arrows coming from down below.
I freed Mylarka from my embrace and sprung onward, my magic sword imbued with Silence rune in hand, slashing through the three casters, who fainted and fell on the ground. This way their magic power was sealed and nothing would’ve messed it up for some time.
“Thank you, Mylarka, you saved them. They would’ve been goners if they fired.”
“It was strange that I didn’t know what that spell was, so I acted on impulse. Your Silence blade comes in handy in times like this.”
She stared at me as if urging me to talk while I dragged the bodies to a save spot, then, not bearing her prying gaze anymore, I spoke.
“We’re going to face the woman who taught me magic.”
“What…? Why would she put up this mess with the guild?”
“She probably saw me or got to know about me. I mean, that I’m a Guild Master.”
“And she became the mastermind behind all of this because she didn’t want you to? This is a bit far from what I’d call ‘throwing a tantrum’.”
Yes, she was right. Mylarka always was.
However, we couldn’t apply common sense on my teacher. She was something that transcended it, as a ‘miracle’ born once in a thousand years… just like us.
“Mastermind? Please, don’t soil my reputation with your nonsense. I only had him come back to this guild.”
Her voice rang from behind us.
I turned around while scanning the roof, and the only way up to here from inside the building was literally on the other side… how did she appear from behind us without using Transfer Magic…?
I couldn’t think of anything. Maybe she didn’t use magic at all and just managed to recreate what only Transfer Magic could do with her sheer power.
She appeared out of thin air like that even the first time we met. That time, she let out a mischievous laugh.
She called herself ‘immortal’ in the past and seeing that she was exactly like I remembered was indeed unsettling.
Her silver hair reflected the light from the sky, spreading it around her body like a white aura, which clashed with her deep blue eyes, colored like the darkest sea.
The vibe she let off wasn’t divine like Yuma’s.
My teacher’s ‘light’ was cold and inorganic in a way that mere humans couldn’t possibly hope to grasp.
I never even grasped her name, that’s why I only called her ‘Teacher’.
“You brought Sweet disaster with you because you guessed I was here? You weren’t sure you could do it alone? I guess you’ve grown only on the outside. Your heart must be the same as the kid you were when you’ve left.”
Her seraphic smile clashed with her venomous words, proving once again that she was like the embodiment of duality.
I felt my chest tightening under the raging waves of nostalgia.
When I was a child, I thought she’d be forever out of reach. However, now I saw her as an adult I could even surpass… if only she allowed me to.
If she wanted, the distance between herself and the rest of the world would just become impossible to overcome.
“Unfortunately, I can’t let you keep calling me a kid.”
“Drop the grown-up act. You were nostalgic when you saw me, didn’t you? What, did you expect I’d be crooked and ruthless no matter what? Does that mean that you accepted me, Dee?”
“Grrr… you do sound quite the egoist, and I’ve already had enough. I don’t care if you’re Dick’s teacher, I can’t turn a blind eye to what you’ve done. Why on earth did you raise a dust in the capital?”
Teacher took a step toward us with her guard lowered, her smile still cloudless.
“Take another step and I’ll blast you away.”
“You should know how to use Transfer Magic if you use Space Expanding Magic. Should I teach you how to do it? Now Dee should be able to handle it too, so should we step back in time like in the good ol’ days? You don’t have what it takes to beat me.”
I was the only one she’d always been kind to.
No matter how immense her power and confidence were, she had seen something in me that drove her to always repeat me the same words as a curse—you’ll kill me when I’ll want you to.
“Why did your heart break? I couldn’t get it when I was younger, but now I can tell.”
“Oh, can you? Can you really tell that I’m changed when you don’t even know my name? You have yet to know anything.”
I hated those eyes.
I hated how they could see through everything like the world was made of glass, and I hated those words always filled with wickedness.
The equipment under her overcoat made her look no different from a being descended from heaven, and her dark blue eyes were mirrors of a gaze that could drag anyone down the darkest abyss.
When I managed to look away from them, I saw that there was a collar around her neck—it was the magic tool that commanded all the others’.
If I asked her why she had shaped it like a collar, she would’ve probably said that ‘ruling on someone means ruling on yourself as well’.
“Mphph… I see. Dee couldn’t forget about me because we’re related by magic, unlike you guys, huh? So you remember my words. What I gave you.”
She was trying to reopen a very old scar in front of Mylarka.
When I was a child, I believed I was the strongest and no one could beat me. Still, my teacher showed me how terribly wrong I was.
It was her who taught me about true power and the most beautiful side of humans… as well as their most cruel and wicked one.
I didn’t remember what she was referring to. Our time together was simply filled with terrible memories I didn’t want to recall.
I could feel Mylarka’s gaze on me. She was probably worried and that made me lose as a man… I had to stand for myself.
“I forgot all you said. I’m living as myself, not as something you’ve made.”
“You’re lying. I still remember it vividly and so you do. That’s what I taught you.”
“Dick, we don’t need to talk anymore. It doesn’t matter what she’s been for you in the past.”
Mylarka could craft devastating magic fields in a few moments, but Teacher didn’t look any worried about that. She wasn’t paying the genius girl any mind.
“Dick doesn’t belong to you. Do you want to command him? I’m sorry to inform you that he’s not so weak to listen to someone like you.”
“No one will ever stand between Dee and I. He’s still using the magic I taught him, after all.”
“So what? Pupils can overcome their teachers and get away from them.”
“Thank you, Mylarka, but you don’t have to worry. I’m okay.”
I grabbed my sword, casting Spirit Blade on it right away, and my teacher unsheathed the one she had tied to her hips. Her attacks were so powerful that she didn’t need a big weapon to crush her opponent, that’s why she used a thin sword.
It was called ‘fairy sword’, and it was made with extremely rare materials. It was the strongest weapon I knew for mages, since it had a very high affinity to magic, especially to Support Magic.
There was a time where I looked for one as well, but then I realized I didn’t need it. I mean, I could just try to reproduce one with a normal sword, although I didn’t know if it would turn out as much as powerful. Honestly, I had yet to try it out.
I learned how to use swords and magic from my teacher… that’s why I needed to overcome her now.
If I didn’t, her time will never restart flowing. I had to show her that I was changed and that she couldn’t control me anymore, otherwise everything would be the same forever.
I wasn’t a child anymore. The path I was walking on after I had left her was the product of my choices and I had no intention to go back to my teacher.
“I cut your body and healed it back so many times that you ended up learning Healing Magic, how to handle a fight to death and how to use a sword. Now come, Dee. Let’s step back in the past.”
“Yeah, let’s fight to death. Otherwise you’ll never understand.”
“You are the only one who doesn’t understand, Dee. Why… why do you not do as I say?”
I heard Mylarka gulping down and taking a step back. My teacher’s overwhelming bloodlust almost snatched the air from our lungs.
A SS rank’s mind would’ve gone completely blank from this. They’d probably cower in fear.
I did that too when I experienced it the first time.
But since I’ve been part of the expedition, I was grown.
Then, my teacher blinked away and reappeared right in front of me, her fairy sword strengthened with Spirit Blade already cutting through the air.
Our swords clashed together and she cast ‘Spirit blade – Attack rise’, multiplying abysmally the amount of magic power her sword stored, then slashed again.
I did the same and our swords clashed again, our magic power tearing and raging at each other’s until hers exploded and I was sent flying.
The next moment, she blinked away using Teleport and I felt her bloodlust crushing me from behind.
I heard Mylarka screaming something and my teacher whispering sweetly into my ears—bye bye, Dee.
I felt her sword piercing through the many layers of defensive spells I cast beforehand with ease. It was about to split my heart in two when I managed to use Teleport to shift behind my teacher who stood unmoving for a moment, then let her guard down.
“I never said I couldn’t do it. Aren’t you jumping to conclusions?”
“Dick…!”
Mylarka let out a voice so relieved and amazed I thanked this moment from the bottom of my almost-cut-in-two heart.
However, my teacher wouldn’t let the fight end with this, and if she was coming at me again in the same way, I believed we would just replay what had just happened.
Then, she blinked away, taking some distance between us.
“I’m glad you did that. I would’ve failed to rise you if you didn’t.”
“I’m glad I could meet your expectations, but stop holding yourself back, Teacher.”
I wasn’t the same as five years ago. I changed, and I needed to make her accept it with this fight… no matter what.
A lot of adventurers saw us trying to jump on the roof and fired all their spells and darts at us.
“She was right! We’re under attack! Take them down!”
“Fireball!”
“Icicle lance!”
The fireball and ice lance that flew toward us were cast by some S rank adventurers and taking those hits without any proper defense would surely hurt a bit.
I held Mylarka in my arms to shield her, but all it took to defend us was a gesture of her hand—all the attacks vanished in thin air before hitting us.
“Restricted area annihilation n°91 – Absolute domination field.”
I can protect us from anything I already know, but I can’t keep track of all these attacks. I have to write how to dispel them all inside the structure of the field. It’s expanding 0.3 seconds slower than the other defensive fields… but I can finally field-test it.
Mylarka only created eighty fields, as far as I knew, and yet she cast the 91st.
Many of them were defensive, however it looked like this one blocked any long-ranged attack, no matter if it was a spell or a projectile.
She’s always so amazing… with that, not even an entire army is a big deal.
We didn’t have time to talk right now, so I made the piece of magic tool I had with me vibrate to call the others for help.
I could tell that Mylarka was thinking and monitoring the situation at inhuman speed. If she didn’t, she probably would’ve failed to isolate us from that storm of attacks.
“W-What the hell…?! Magic can’t reach them?!”
“No way! There’s no way a S rank has the better of us! There must be some trick!”
Keeping a low profile since forever was bearing its fruits now, since the thought of being attacked by SSS ranks didn’t even cross their minds.
Then, a thought flashed in my head.
They said that she was right a minute ago… so she had warned White Capricorn that we might’ve tried to attack them in this way.
But if she knew, then…!
Mylarka looked up at me with a puzzled expression—she had noticed what was going on and was about to say something when the air in front of us started vibrating.
Our enemy, three more casters on the roof, were casting something to prevent us from landing. We were about to face another wave of attacks, but this time it was on a totally different scale.
I understood what Mylarka was about to tell me: she couldn’t stop the next attack because she didn’t know it… but I did.
That was Spirit Actualize, the first spell that my teacher had taught me to bring out my true potential… and the spell that changed my life.
Now I didn’t need to see her face. I was sure that it was her.
I always caused a lot of troubles to people when I was a child who didn’t know how to use magic because I used it in rushed ways. Then, my teacher taught me how to control it—she had cast her spells on me so many times that my body just learned them.
Still, if a S-rank adventurer used SSS-rank magic, not only they would run out of magic power, but they’d risk the magic to respond with a counterphase and literally self-destruct.
When someone doesn’t have enough magic power, the operating magic will borrow the amount it needs from the nearby people even if it means sucking them completely dry… which leads to death, since everybody needs at least a tiny bit of magic power to live.
I focused all my senses and thought about what to do, then I noticed that the three casters wore a collar. They were probably forced to act that way.
Did you hate me so much for not coming back to you, Teacher…?
I couldn’t let her kill people, although indirectly, because of me.
I had to cut the magic threads that forced them to be her puppets before it was too late, but how could I do that? Landing and attacking them would take too much, and they looked about to fire.
Somehow, Mylarka understood what I was thinking and cast a spell so fast I barely noticed.
Restricted area annihilation n°66 – Disintegration field.
The field of her previous spell shattered in splinters that cut through the air and stuck to the casters’ collars, destroying them in an instant. The next moment, all three of them looked exhausted, and we finally landed on the roof, finally out of sight from the spells and arrows coming from down below.
I freed Mylarka from my embrace and sprung onward, my magic sword imbued with Silence rune in hand, slashing through the three casters, who fainted and fell on the ground. This way their magic power was sealed and nothing would’ve messed it up for some time.
“Thank you, Mylarka, you saved them. They would’ve been goners if they fired.”
“It was strange that I didn’t know what that spell was, so I acted on impulse. Your Silence blade comes in handy in times like this.”
She stared at me as if urging me to talk while I dragged the bodies to a save spot, then, not bearing her prying gaze anymore, I spoke.
“We’re going to face the woman who taught me magic.”
“What…? Why would she put up this mess with the guild?”
“She probably saw me or got to know about me. I mean, that I’m a Guild Master.”
“And she became the mastermind behind all of this because she didn’t want you to? This is a bit far from what I’d call ‘throwing a tantrum’.”
Yes, she was right. Mylarka always was.
However, we couldn’t apply common sense on my teacher. She was something that transcended it, as a ‘miracle’ born once in a thousand years… just like us.
“Mastermind? Please, don’t soil my reputation with your nonsense. I only had him come back to this guild.”
Her voice rang from behind us.
I turned around while scanning the roof, and the only way up to here from inside the building was literally on the other side… how did she appear from behind us without using Transfer Magic…?
I couldn’t think of anything. Maybe she didn’t use magic at all and just managed to recreate what only Transfer Magic could do with her sheer power.
She appeared out of thin air like that even the first time we met. That time, she let out a mischievous laugh.
She called herself ‘immortal’ in the past and seeing that she was exactly like I remembered was indeed unsettling.
Her silver hair reflected the light from the sky, spreading it around her body like a white aura, which clashed with her deep blue eyes, colored like the darkest sea.
The vibe she let off wasn’t divine like Yuma’s.
My teacher’s ‘light’ was cold and inorganic in a way that mere humans couldn’t possibly hope to grasp.
I never even grasped her name, that’s why I only called her ‘Teacher’.
“You brought Sweet disaster with you because you guessed I was here? You weren’t sure you could do it alone? I guess you’ve grown only on the outside. Your heart must be the same as the kid you were when you’ve left.”
Her seraphic smile clashed with her venomous words, proving once again that she was like the embodiment of duality.
I felt my chest tightening under the raging waves of nostalgia.
When I was a child, I thought she’d be forever out of reach. However, now I saw her as an adult I could even surpass… if only she allowed me to.
If she wanted, the distance between herself and the rest of the world would just become impossible to overcome.
“Unfortunately, I can’t let you keep calling me a kid.”
“Drop the grown-up act. You were nostalgic when you saw me, didn’t you? What, did you expect I’d be crooked and ruthless no matter what? Does that mean that you accepted me, Dee?”
“Grrr… you do sound quite the egoist, and I’ve already had enough. I don’t care if you’re Dick’s teacher, I can’t turn a blind eye to what you’ve done. Why on earth did you raise a dust in the capital?”
Teacher took a step toward us with her guard lowered, her smile still cloudless.
“Take another step and I’ll blast you away.”
“You should know how to use Transfer Magic if you use Space Expanding Magic. Should I teach you how to do it? Now Dee should be able to handle it too, so should we step back in time like in the good ol’ days? You don’t have what it takes to beat me.”
I was the only one she’d always been kind to.
No matter how immense her power and confidence were, she had seen something in me that drove her to always repeat me the same words as a curse—you’ll kill me when I’ll want you to.
“Why did your heart break? I couldn’t get it when I was younger, but now I can tell.”
“Oh, can you? Can you really tell that I’m changed when you don’t even know my name? You have yet to know anything.”
I hated those eyes.
I hated how they could see through everything like the world was made of glass, and I hated those words always filled with wickedness.
The equipment under her overcoat made her look no different from a being descended from heaven, and her dark blue eyes were mirrors of a gaze that could drag anyone down the darkest abyss.
When I managed to look away from them, I saw that there was a collar around her neck—it was the magic tool that commanded all the others’.
If I asked her why she had shaped it like a collar, she would’ve probably said that ‘ruling on someone means ruling on yourself as well’.
“Mphph… I see. Dee couldn’t forget about me because we’re related by magic, unlike you guys, huh? So you remember my words. What I gave you.”
She was trying to reopen a very old scar in front of Mylarka.
When I was a child, I believed I was the strongest and no one could beat me. Still, my teacher showed me how terribly wrong I was.
It was her who taught me about true power and the most beautiful side of humans… as well as their most cruel and wicked one.
I didn’t remember what she was referring to. Our time together was simply filled with terrible memories I didn’t want to recall.
I could feel Mylarka’s gaze on me. She was probably worried and that made me lose as a man… I had to stand for myself.
“I forgot all you said. I’m living as myself, not as something you’ve made.”
“You’re lying. I still remember it vividly and so you do. That’s what I taught you.”
“Dick, we don’t need to talk anymore. It doesn’t matter what she’s been for you in the past.”
Mylarka could craft devastating magic fields in a few moments, but Teacher didn’t look any worried about that. She wasn’t paying the genius girl any mind.
“Dick doesn’t belong to you. Do you want to command him? I’m sorry to inform you that he’s not so weak to listen to someone like you.”
“No one will ever stand between Dee and I. He’s still using the magic I taught him, after all.”
“So what? Pupils can overcome their teachers and get away from them.”
“Thank you, Mylarka, but you don’t have to worry. I’m okay.”
I grabbed my sword, casting Spirit Blade on it right away, and my teacher unsheathed the one she had tied to her hips. Her attacks were so powerful that she didn’t need a big weapon to crush her opponent, that’s why she used a thin sword.
It was called ‘fairy sword’, and it was made with extremely rare materials. It was the strongest weapon I knew for mages, since it had a very high affinity to magic, especially to Support Magic.
There was a time where I looked for one as well, but then I realized I didn’t need it. I mean, I could just try to reproduce one with a normal sword, although I didn’t know if it would turn out as much as powerful. Honestly, I had yet to try it out.
I learned how to use swords and magic from my teacher… that’s why I needed to overcome her now.
If I didn’t, her time will never restart flowing. I had to show her that I was changed and that she couldn’t control me anymore, otherwise everything would be the same forever.
I wasn’t a child anymore. The path I was walking on after I had left her was the product of my choices and I had no intention to go back to my teacher.
“I cut your body and healed it back so many times that you ended up learning Healing Magic, how to handle a fight to death and how to use a sword. Now come, Dee. Let’s step back in the past.”
“Yeah, let’s fight to death. Otherwise you’ll never understand.”
“You are the only one who doesn’t understand, Dee. Why… why do you not do as I say?”
I heard Mylarka gulping down and taking a step back. My teacher’s overwhelming bloodlust almost snatched the air from our lungs.
A SS rank’s mind would’ve gone completely blank from this. They’d probably cower in fear.
I did that too when I experienced it the first time.
But since I’ve been part of the expedition, I was grown.
Then, my teacher blinked away and reappeared right in front of me, her fairy sword strengthened with Spirit Blade already cutting through the air.
Our swords clashed together and she cast ‘Spirit blade – Attack rise’, multiplying abysmally the amount of magic power her sword stored, then slashed again.
I did the same and our swords clashed again, our magic power tearing and raging at each other’s until hers exploded and I was sent flying.
The next moment, she blinked away using Teleport and I felt her bloodlust crushing me from behind.
I heard Mylarka screaming something and my teacher whispering sweetly into my ears—bye bye, Dee.
I felt her sword piercing through the many layers of defensive spells I cast beforehand with ease. It was about to split my heart in two when I managed to use Teleport to shift behind my teacher who stood unmoving for a moment, then let her guard down.
“I never said I couldn’t do it. Aren’t you jumping to conclusions?”
“Dick…!”
Mylarka let out a voice so relieved and amazed I thanked this moment from the bottom of my almost-cut-in-two heart.
However, my teacher wouldn’t let the fight end with this, and if she was coming at me again in the same way, I believed we would just replay what had just happened.
Then, she blinked away, taking some distance between us.
“I’m glad you did that. I would’ve failed to rise you if you didn’t.”
“I’m glad I could meet your expectations, but stop holding yourself back, Teacher.”
I wasn’t the same as five years ago. I changed, and I needed to make her accept it with this fight… no matter what.
