Chapter 15 Translator: XZY Chapter 15: Master and Disciple (5) ***
Murmurs went back and forth among the servants.
The sight of Diella burrowing under the broken platform, and Reigh raising his mana to manifest 1-Star magic.
The situation was shifting from a magic duel that gauged each other's magical skills with formality and etiquette to, literally, a practical brawl.
The head butler Delon swallowed a dry gulp of saliva as he watched the scene.
For now, the conditions for ending the magic duel according to the rules had not been met. No one had gone over the fence, and no protection ward had been activated.
However, could this still be called a magic duel? Was it really alright not to stop this situation, where they were just fighting each other emotionally?
For now, no instructions had been given by the Grand Duke of Duplein, who was watching the situation from the railing. He was just watching the duel with serious eyes.
The head butler Delon thought of stopping them on his own authority, but the seriousness of the two people, who were gritting their teeth and engaging in the duel with all their hearts, stopped him.
Kwagagak! Kwadeuk!
Reigh organized his thoughts as he ran between the ice pillars.
If he tried to break the platform floor to chase Diella, Diella, who had detected the mana at that moment, would pour out attacks.
If so, Reigh had no choice but to stop his chant to defend against that attack, or turn his magic to defense. That state of confrontation was bound to continue.
While continuing that war of nerves, Reigh realized.
Diella was trying to make this state of confrontation continue in this way, to waste Reigh's mana.
Reigh, who was firing 1-Star magic wantonly, and Diella, who was just repeating the basic use of mana.
Even if their proficiency in magic was different, it was as clear as day who would get tired first.
Tadadak!
Reigh ran across the top of the platform.
Even though the sound of his footsteps must have spread under the platform, Diella's magic did not manifest. It was just as he had suspected.
Diella was selectively interfering only when Reigh manifested magic. It became clear that she was forcibly inducing a war of attrition.
'You used your head! But... that's just a cheap trick...!'
A magic duel was basically about competing with each other's magical skills, but since the situation had become like this, there was no need to be polite and only use magic.
Reigh then kicked off the platform's fence and jumped up, grabbing the flagpole on the outer edge of the platform.
A flag with the crest of the Duplein family was flying. Reigh paid it no mind and kicked his way up to the top of the flagpole. The veins on his brawny arms rose.
The place Diella's attacks could reach was only the top of the platform. If he climbed to a higher ground, Diella's level would not allow her to pierce the platform and hit an unseen enemy. From here, even if he fired magic wantonly, Diella would not be able to respond.
However, there was also a disadvantage for Reigh. In a situation where he was hanging on to the flagpole, it was difficult to chant properly, so the power of the magic was reduced, and since he could not move freely, his mobility was also reduced.
Even if he fired magic from here and broke the platform floor, he would only become a good target for Diella's magic.
Perhaps Diella had intended it this far.
And Reigh went one step further than Diella's intention.
Chwaak!
Reigh undid the clasp of the cloak he was wearing and wrapped the cloth of the cloak around the flagpole.
And he gathered mana and slammed a 1-Star magic 'Mana Arrow' into the bottom of the flagpole.
Kwaang!
Kkigigik, kkiik.
The flagpole, which had received a great shock to its lower support, was about to fall over.
Paying no mind to the servants' surprised shouts, Reigh then grabbed the cloak wrapped around the flagpole and pulled his center of gravity towards the platform. It was to control the direction in which the flagpole would collapse towards the platform.
He would use the collapsing flagpole to smash the platform.
If he broke the platform without using magic, Diella would not have time to react, and he would also have a passage to enter the space under the platform where Diella was.
On an equal battlefield, Reigh would definitely win.
The premise of that would not be broken even if the sky split in two.
Kkigigigik!
Kwaang!
And so, the flagpole slammed into the platform, and dust rose.
Reigh jumped to the side just before falling and rolled on the platform. A lot of dust got on his body here and there, but he paid it no mind and looked at the side where the flagpole had slammed.
One side of the platform, made of wooden planks, had collapsed. The geographical advantage that had been protecting Diella had completely disappeared.
Reigh threw himself into the collapsed gap without hesitation.
Kaang!
It was not difficult to predict that she would aim for the moment he landed.
An ice pillar manifested by Diella attacked him, but Reigh quickly drew out his mana and shattered the pillars. And as he dusted off his hands, he turned his gaze to grasp Diella's location.
Under the collapsed platform.
Sunlight occasionally came in through the gaps in the broken wooden planks, but most of the space was quite dark despite it being broad daylight. He looked for Diella's location, but her figure was not visible under the platform either.
'...What? Did she go outside the platform?'
When Reigh looked under the platform, he saw that the hole that Diella had initially blocked with ice was open again.
Below the hole, there were traces of an ice pillar that Diella seemed to have stepped on to climb up.
When Reigh showed a movement as if he would break the platform and come down, Diella had this time finished preparing to climb up on the platform herself.
'This... rat-like...!'
She had no intention of fighting on equal terms. If there was a skill gap, she would induce the opponent's confusion with the advantage of the battlefield and tactics.
It was the combat style of mercenaries, who lived a life where they did not know when or where they would be forced to fight against the strong.
Above and below the platform. A situation where their positions were reversed.
This time, Diella was occupying the top of the platform, and Reigh had come down below. The fact that the situation was the opposite of just before meant that all the conditions had been reversed.
Reigh maintained his composure. He had just experienced it, but the top of the platform, where one had to indirectly reveal one's location, was much more disadvantageous.
This time, since he had occupied the space under the platform, he had become more advantageous, if anything, not more disadvantageous.
He could either climb up on the platform again, or he could grasp Diella's location from here and land a single blow.
And so, as soon as Reigh grasped the sound of Diella's footsteps, a mana arrow flew in that direction and struck.
Kwagagak! Kwagwang!
The mana arrow that directly hit Diella's feet shattered the platform.
At the same time, Diella, who had been hovering above his head, was forcibly pulled down to the ground.
Pasasak! Paak!
As Diella fell under the platform, dust rose again.
His vision was not clear due to the thick dust, but there was a place where he could roughly feel Diella's presence. Reigh drew out three more mana arrows and slammed them all into the place where Diella was likely to be.
Kwagwang! Kwang! Kwang!
The dust cleared from the aftermath of the impact, but he did not feel any sign of the protection ward being activated. It had not hit.
Reigh quickly kicked off and ran, clicking his tongue. And before Diella could change her position again and use her cheap tricks, he gathered his mana with the intention of finishing it quickly.
And so, Diella's figure was revealed in the dust.
At that moment, Reigh's pupils trembled.
A stream of blood was flowing down one side of the girl's forehead. It seemed to be a wound she had gotten while falling.
Seeing as she was moving well, it did not seem to be a major wound, but Reigh knew well what a scratch on the body of a noble young lady meant.
The girl, her robe covered in dust, was drawing out her mana again.
What was in her eyes was venom.
That's right. Venom.
What Reigh had seen in Diella's eyes since her childhood was that venom, which would not distinguish between means and methods to reach a goal, whatever it may be.
Sometimes it was painting, and sometimes it was magic. The girl tried until she died at whatever she did, and she achieved nothing. When one slammed into something with all one's heart and achieved nothing, what came rushing in as a reaction was endless emptiness.
Where did that venom, which had nowhere to go, head? It was obsessively used to harm the servants to protect her aristocratic authoritarianism and to guard that last remaining value.
And then, as always, she would just sit in the annex with empty eyes and spend meaningless time.
Watching that sight, Reigh had thought time and again. Diella was a person of only that much.
However, with venom, what was important was what direction it was given.
If one met a person who could lead that direction well, it would sometimes turn into wings on one's back.
Jjeojeojeok
Diella, who was protecting her body with a rising ice pillar, looked exhausted.
Unlike Reigh, she was a girl whose stamina was greatly drained just by manifesting magic a few times. Now it really seemed to be her limit.
It was a pity, but Reigh was not one to go easy on her just because she was bleeding a little.
And so, as he approached, it was the moment he was drawing out the mana arrow that would be the final blow.
Chwaak!
"Kuaaak!"
Diella grabbed the dirt on the floor and threw it into Reigh's eyes. It was a pettiness that could not even be imagined as the action of a noble.
As Reigh stepped back, clutching his eyes, she flew her cloak and kicked him in the lower abdomen.
Kwazazak!
She tried to attack Reigh by drawing out an ice pillar like that, but Reigh gritted his teeth and blocked the attack with his bloodshot eyes wide open.
Pababak!
Through the ice pillar that had been shattered by Reigh's mana, Diella's gritted-teeth expression could be seen.
Reigh could easily read her will in that appearance of Diella.
I want to win.
I want to win somehow, without distinguishing between means and methods. I want to win and prove my worth.
The matter of protecting her master or whatnot was a problem for later.
Right now, Diella just wanted to win somehow. The fighting spirit in her eyes was burning fiercely.
Was that girl really the same person as her, who had been cooped up in the annex with cold and empty eyes?
Reigh swallowed a dry gulp and gritted his teeth. Even so, he could not lose.
Diella took advantage of Reigh's hesitation and kicked off the collapsed flagpole to climb up. Her movements were nimble, as befitting her who had roamed the forest and painted landscapes since she was a child, but it was just a meaningless struggle.
All the variables she had prepared had been completely overcome. Reigh also kicked off the flagpole and climbed up on the platform.
There, Diella, who was scraping up the last of her mana from the bottom, was waiting.
'Think of it as making a brushstroke.'
Under the night sky, the mercenary-turned-boy with his long white hair had said.
Looking up at the stars that were densely packed like salt, he made a single stroke with his finger, using the wide-open night sky as a canvas.
As he was drawing between the stars and making constellations, mana was already in his fingertips.
The girl had looked at the world with eyes full of the starry sky and tried to draw it.
Looking at the forest at night, she held a brush in front of a canvas. As she was moving the moon, which was just sitting there in the sky, onto the canvas, it felt as if the energy of mana in all things was caught in her eyes.
An evening with a warm wind blowing. A zelkova tree standing alone in the middle of a meadow.
Spring. Night. And stars.
If magic was to bring what one imagined into reality, then what was the difference from painting a picture?
Mana was the paint, the spell was the brush, and a single painting was the magic brought into reality.
Therefore, the girl dipped a stiff, well-worn brush in paint and made a brushstroke on the world.
Hwaak!
As the white-haired master had advised, she just made a single stroke of mana.
The girl liked that moment the most, when she made the first stroke on an empty, white canvas.
The mana manifested from her fingertips wrapped around her body, and then, with just a single grasp, it gathered at her fingertips and blossomed into a flower.
Reigh's eyes, who was climbing onto the platform and raising his mana, went wide.
Covered in dust, there was no sense of a noble's dignity, and the single stream of blood flowing by her eye added a sense of gravity to her.
Even the servants, who had flocked to the platform thinking they really had to stop her now, all froze.
Hwaaaak!
What blossomed from the girl's fingertips was the 1-Star magic 'Ice Spear.'
The frozen spear floated around her, and then flew towards Reigh at an incredible speed.
The spear, which rushed in at a speed that was hard to even follow with the eyes, filled Reigh's vision.
"Keuk!"
Reigh gritted his teeth and cast a spell.
A 1-Star magic that had suddenly flown in from Diella, from whom he had thought there would be no firepower to pierce his defense.
It was sudden, but he just had to block it and counterattack in that moment. Now Diella would have scraped up her mana to the bottom and would have no means to resist.
And so, Reigh, who had lowered his posture, gathered his mana. He focused all his mind on hitting Diella with a mana arrow while avoiding the ice spear.
Kwaang!
Once again, dust rose on the platform, and a protection spell was cast in the dust.
The fact that a protection spell had been manifested meant that the match was over.
The vassals and servants, who were quietly watching the rising dust, all swallowed a dry gulp.
This was because everyone was curious about how the end of this grim struggle had turned out.
And so... the dust that had been filling the top of the platform little by little cleared and disappeared.
Woooong
And the one on whom the protection spell had been manifested... was Diella.
She, who had collapsed from exhaustion, gritted her teeth as she watched the defense magic unfold.
"Heok... heok..."
Reigh had rolled on the floor and managed to avoid the ice spear. And he had somehow succeeded in landing the last shot on Diella.
Reigh, who was completely exhausted, managed to get to his feet.
Soon, tears began to well up in the eyes of Diella, who was sitting on the floor, gasping for breath.
It was Diella's defeat.
"..."
Soon, Diella, who was greatly disheartened by the fact that she had lost, began to cry her eyes out.
Reigh could only stare at Diella's appearance with wide eyes.
<><><>
'She used 1-Star magic...?'
The duel itself was not that long. It was only a few minutes.
However, in that short time, the platform collapsed, dust rose, and a brawl broke out in an instant.
It had happened suddenly in a very grim atmosphere, and the Grand Duke of Duplein did not give an order to stop them.
An intuition that he should watch and see what would happen had stopped him.
"What... what is this...! Does this make any sense?! What a frivolous and unsightly...!"
"..."
Miriella, who was watching from the side, shouted, gritting her teeth.
"No dignity, just getting dirty, and this is a magic duel...!"
"..."
"This... I can't just watch this anymore! That person who is a magic master. Was he teaching Diella this kind of thing? Was he injecting this kind of thing into our Duplein family's young lady, who should always be graceful and aristocratic?!"
Miriella ran out of the terrace, fuming with anger. The servants who were watching from the side were startled and quickly followed her. It seemed she intended to grab Derek by the collar and confront him right now.
The Grand Duke of Duplein did not hear Miriella's anger.
Whatever she was saying from the side, he was just quietly watching the sight of Diella crying on the platform.
Raymond Oswald Duplein, the head of the Duplein family, was a man who had roamed the battlefields since he was young.
He had fulfilled his duty as a noble of the empire on the battlefield and had seen countless people until he became the master of this Duplein family.
Those who were born with noble blood and had achieved many things usually had sparkling eyes. However, there were also many who were not like that.
Some achieve their dreams and succeed, and laugh, while others lose their dreams and are frustrated, and cry. That was the way of the world.
"..."
The reason he felt a sense of unease at the sight of Diella, who was gritting her teeth and using all sorts of tricks to win against Reigh somehow, was because the sight of his youngest daughter that he had seen had changed a lot.
He remembered the sight of that girl, who had been cooped up in the annex after countless frustrations and was staring at the wall with empty eyes.
When one experiences too many frustrations at a very young age, one often becomes like that. Since time was usually the medicine, the Grand Duke of Duplein had tried to embrace the girl somehow.
However, it was not that a part of his heart as a father had not ached.
He had embraced Diella in the ducal estate, hoping that light would one day return to those empty eyes.
Until it seemed that it was really the limit, he had watched her wandering somehow.
He was waiting, believing that she would surely find her way back.
There was usually nothing else a parent with a wandering child could do.
However, the girl of today had a will.
In a duel where everyone predicted her defeat, she had tried to win somehow, without distinguishing between means and methods.
In that appearance, where she was shedding tears because she was angry about her defeat, the desire for victory and the desire for recognition were burning fiercely.
It was a sight that could not have been imagined when she was cooped up in her room in the annex covered with thorn bushes, staring at the wall with empty eyes.
Handling some mana and learning a few ceremonial spells were things that could be done as time passed and she grew older.
As long as she was born with the blood of the Duplein family, it was just a matter of how fast or slow she was, and she would have reached a certain level.
Therefore, the fact that Derek had made her manifest magic a little early might not be a huge contribution from a long-term perspective.
However, he had proven that Diella could do it, and he had presented the possibility that she might even be able to win in a duel where everyone predicted her defeat.
He had also constantly reminded her of the fact that if there was something she wanted, she had to reach out and seize it.
Only then did the Grand Duke of Duplein realize.
What the boy named Derek had taught that Diella was not mere magic.
─What Derek had taught was 'ambition.' He had planted a flame in that tiny girl's heart.
That small girl had absorbed the ambition of that boy, who had looked up at the starry sky and reached out even in the gutters of a dark slum, as she trotted after him.
It was what those who had shone their eyes extraordinarily even in the midst of war had held in their hearts, and it was what some had fallen into countless frustrations and had never held in their hands for their entire lives.
Its value was different from just knowing how to use a few spells. The Grand Duke knew well that that lava-like, burning ambition was one of the most important factors that determined the course of life.
"..."
The Grand Duke's eyes, who was quietly watching Miriella going down towards the platform, fuming, narrowed even more, and he soon frowned.
The Grand Duke of Duplein then closed his eyes slowly.
After being quiet for a long time like that, he soon opened his eyes and called the name of the head of the maids.
"Katarina."
"Yes, Your Grace the Grand Duke."
"I should also go down to the platform."
"Understood."
He then went down the stairs of the main hall with the servants. His steps were heavy and deliberate.
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