Chapter 48
Huge ringing in the ears, a massive shockwave.
When Lir finally came to her senses, the first thing she noticed was the gold melting around her, and her body covered in dust after being rolled for dozens of meters.
“Haa…!”
Lir’s head burned with heat.
The enormous shockwave created by the boy with white hair tore through her hastily erected defensive barrier as if it were nothing.
The shockwave, having pierced through her defenses, struck Lir directly, causing her to tumble dozens of meters as she lay flat on the ground.
The roaring sound seemed to threaten to split her skull. Despite this, she instinctively placed her hands on her ribs, despite the excruciating pain making it hard to tell which ones were broken.
Her legs and arms began trembling violently. The greenhouse flower, raised in the shadow of her Master, let out a quiet groan as she experienced the searing pain of fractures for the first time in her life.
Ffshhh…
At the sound of crackling electricity reaching her ears, Lir let out a whimper from the unimaginable pain.
Even as her limbs trembled and chills ran down her spine, a fire ignited within her heart.
“Let’s begin.”
Looking up with great effort, she saw the boy with white hair standing proudly, emitting a vast surge of electricity.
“…Haa, haa…”
Breathing heavily, she couldn’t take her eyes off him.
As a Mage, she was certain she was witnessing something she could never afford to miss—an indescribably exciting scene unfolding before her eyes.
Pssh…
The air itself burned.
The boy’s fingertips gathered an enormous beam of light. A giant with a spider’s face yelled something and began charging toward the boy.
While Rex and Trian raised their arms to protect their eyes in fear of blindness, Lir couldn’t tear her gaze away from the light gathered at the boy’s fingertips.
Even if it blinded her, it would have been worth it.
She didn’t want to miss a single moment of the spectacle before her.
Whoosh—
A massive burst of energy traveled in a perfectly straight line like a drawn line, piercing through the giant’s heart.
The air burned. Branches of lightning extended through the ionized oxygen.
From the source of the lightning, a massive fire began to blaze around the boy with white hair.
“The stench suits your disgusting face.”
The oxygen in the air ignited by itself, scorching the black robe of the boy.
Yet even in this fiery blaze, the boy did not flinch.
As the giant screamed louder, burning skin appeared under its charred flesh. With every step, the giant trampled the molten gold, sending it spewing into the sky.
The giant’s arms and legs became covered in liquid gold.
The boy withdrew the luminous column of light from his fingertips and flicked the fingers of his other hand.
A spark of lightning erupted between his thumb and forefinger, then branched out into several, then hundreds of lightning bolts.
The spider-giant’s body was bound by these lightning threads.
The pure white threads emitted powerful currents, burning every peripheral nerve in the spider-giant’s body, causing it to convulse.
The lightning originating from the boy’s hands continued to split and expand throughout the dungeon.
Spiders that had begun emerging from walls, perhaps mistaking the chaos for an opportunity, were struck by lightning bolts and flailed in seizures.
“…Y-you arrogant fiend!”
Who could have guessed how many billions of volts the giant with a spider’s head endured?
Even covered in such an overwhelming amount of electricity, beyond what Lir could comprehend, the giant continued moving.
The pitch-black skin of the giant’s hands began bubbling from the enormous heat, and its already burnt fingers crumbled and mixed with the molten gold on the ground.
Even as the soles of its feet melted, the giant’s steps became shorter with every stride.
It was a situation where anyone else would collapse in agony or die from shock, yet driven by a single instinct, the monster extended a black hand towards the boy with white hair.
It squeezes. It shatters. It turns into dough and is shoved into its mouth.
This monster, designed solely for this purpose, did not stop. Its only reason for existence was not survival but slaughter.
The fist continued to push forward, tearing through the air filled with thousands of lightning bolts.
Even as the arm began to melt and break apart, the giant paid no heed.
Fingers that had disappeared, followed by an arm reduced to molten puddles, were ignored as well.
The reason for its existence was not survival, but slaughter.
“Discharge.”
And so, the boy with white hair,
brought death to the dreadful creature born out of slaughter.
The world, once bathed in blinding white, was instantly plunged into darkness.
The streaks of lightning that had spread in all directions vanished in an instant. Lir’s vision went pitch black, and it was no different for everyone else.
Boooom…
Even with the afterimage of lightning still burnt into her vision, a massive vibration ran through Lir’s body. The surroundings trembled as if an earthquake had struck.
Bang!
A thunderous roar shook her already broken ribs.
The light.
It strangely enough, reached Lir later than the sound.
No, the light must have arrived much earlier, but perhaps her overtaxed optic nerves were only now informing her brain of its arrival.
Lir’s skin burned intensely.
Through her slowly returning vision, she could see the boy’s figure. He stood farther away than before, when she had last seen him before her vision went black. She hadn’t even realized her body had been propelled further back by the shockwave.
Her brain struggled with just recognizing the overwhelming light entering through her eyes.
“This is…”
Despite the pain coursing through her body, Lir let out a sigh of amazement, utterly absorbed in the scene before her.
Right now, there was no time to dwell on the pain. She had to engrave every detail of this spectacle deep into her mind, not missing a single moment.
The ionized oxygen and flames scattered around her obeyed the boy’s command, enveloping the spider-giant’s body.
No matter how much the spider-giant burned and suffered, it remained resolute in its instinct to swing fists—until it was finally overcome by an unfathomably powerful shock exceeding billions of volts, transforming the monstrosity into a pile of white ash. Only a grotesque half-burnt head remained on the ground.
“Haa…”
Lir could not help but sigh at the realization of how far she had been thrown from the boy by the shockwave.
She wanted to be as close as possible…
…to witness the genius whose magic would save the world.
It was only now, at this moment, that Lir fully understood what she had previously failed to recognize, due to the boy’s usual antics and below-average stamina.
An overwhelming talent beyond both frustration and despair.
“…”
Some may be overwhelmed with futility and powerlessness upon witnessing such overwhelming talent. It’s not surprising. The emergence of a monstrous talent that surpasses lifetimes of effort often plunges those who strive into despair and self-reproach.
“…This is it…”
But occasionally, there are those who, upon witnessing such overwhelming talent, do not sigh in despair but in awe.
“Gold, heat, light… No, light is too broad a term…”
The word genius refers to those who, despite seeing a talent far surpassing their own, possess the audacious ambition to aim for, maybe even surpass, such heights—even if just for a fleeting moment.
“Flare? No, flare implies something too fleeting. A more appropriate word….”
The spark kindled in her heart quickly grew into a raging flame.
Inspiration. Yes, this is what inspiration truly means.
The massive light brought by the boy ignited a flame of inspiration in the chest of another genius, Lir.
What this flame could refine was now entirely up to her.
—
For the mages of this world, their very first spell might as well be a ticking time bomb.
It’s like a child wielding a gun loaded with live ammunition or an egg in a microwave—when disaster strikes, nobody would be surprised.
This was nothing short of a stroke of pure luck.
Sure, with my luck at only 1 out of 100, one might question how this could qualify as “luck.” But nothing else could explain it.
My very first spell, something I had never tested, performed flawlessly. I could feel an unprecedented power explode throughout my body.
“You’re insane! Could you have gone any easier?”
Trian shouted at me, showing his skin blistered from the scorching air. His longbow was broken for some unexplained reason.
Surveying the surroundings, it was a complete disaster zone. The walls of gold around us had all collapsed, and the massive gate lay scattered on the ground. Where the spider-giant had stood was now a vast wasteland, with spider corpses and debris scattered chaotically beyond.
“Indeed, General! We were nearly done for just now,” Rex approached, his face dripping with cold sweat, mirroring Trian’s sentiment.
…I didn’t expect my magic to be so powerful either.
After all, it was a spell I’d never tested before. Honestly, I didn’t expect such impressive results…
“…”
Behind Trian and Rex, Lir appeared with her golden hair fluttering.
Her eyes were fixed on me, but it seemed her mind was elsewhere entirely.
“Conduct… No, no… It’s not right… Not conduct… Something else…”
…I have no idea why she suddenly seems so disconnected. Did one of the bolts strike her?
“Let’s get out of here. You’ve destroyed almost all the monsters around, so there shouldn’t be anything left.”
Trian, still rubbing his bright red skin, approached the corpse of the treasure guardian with a grumble.
Grind, Grind!
The metallic plating then began to scratch and move, creating an ominous gap that seemed to lead to infinity.
As the white ash of the treasure guardian’s body began to sink into the void like fine sand, its grotesque forty-two-eyed head followed suit, lifelessly disappearing into the abyss.
After a while, a massive black door rose from the void where the treasure guardian’s remains had just been absorbed.
The gold-strewn chaos of the room and the mysterious door right in the middle.
Trian wasted no time in opening it.
The same black void that had absorbed the treasure guardian’s body awaited us behind the door—just like the entrance to a dungeon: completely dark, revealing nothing even when illuminated with light.
“Let’s get out of here. It’s scorching thanks to someone.”
Trian, looking thoroughly disgruntled by the situation, stepped into the void without hesitation.
Rex followed suit, slipping into the pitch-black darkness.
My back still felt as if it was bubbling with heat. I needed to see a cleric immediately to prevent any further damage.
“Rex, wait.”
Despite the urgency of our situation, I stopped Rex.
Turning back, he gave me a puzzled look.
“What is it, General?”
“Take a look at that.”
My finger pointed to a vast pile of gold coins, glittering jewels, and a snow-white horn lying amidst them—the treasures the treasure guardian had defended.
“…Why bother with the treasures in this situation? And we don’t even have a sack to carry that much gold. General…you have more material desires than I thought.”
“Everyone deserves their share for their hard work. Trian’s already gone ahead, and Lir… well, she’s a little off her game right now. So, Rex, would you mind? As for the sack… Well, couldn’t we use that horn to carry some gold? It’s hard to leave empty-handed after so much effort, isn’t it?”
“Hmm… It’s none of my concern, I suppose. Very well.”
Though battered and poisoned, Rex accepted my request without hesitation. He approached the gold and jewels scattered in the center of the treasure guardian’s chaotic chamber and reached for the white horn.
The moment he did so, the white horn disintegrated into molecules, disappearing into a fine mist that seeped into Rex’s arm and chest.
Rex, startled by the unexpected turn of events, began frantically patting his chest with his large hands.
Anyone would react the same way after being poisoned and having something unknown penetrate their skin.
“A life token.”
It’s of little use to me as a Mage, but it’s quite valuable for a Barbarian.
Especially for one like Rex, who would surely find a proper use for it.
“General! What is this…?”
“It won’t endanger your life. I’ve tried it on myself. As for how to use it… Well, you’ll probably get the gist.”
I then pulled Lir’s robe, who had been muttering to herself, and led her out of the dungeon first.
“Hurry up, we need to get you healed.”
As we entered the dungeon earlier, so it was now—surrounded by the thick blanket of pitch-black darkness.
