Chapter 66

Lucy Mayril (3)

Fallen leaves bounced with every step I took.

I was wandering around the mountain as if I was half-floating, and when I came to my senses, I was already halfway up the mountain.

I sat at the top of a vaguely visible coniferous tree and looked down at the mountain. The colors of the forest, which were once colorful, have gradually subsided.

The autumn leaves of late fall disappear one by one, and the mountains prepare to welcome the next season.

The girl looks blankly at the sky.

I sniffle and take a breath, and sticky moisture sticks to my lungs.

“Is it going to rain?”

I repeated it quietly. It feels much more youthful and pure than my original voice.

A girl with a quick turn of mind becomes aware as soon as she hears her own voice. Ah, this is a dream.

When I lowered my head and looked at the clothes I was wearing now, I saw that it was not the academy uniform I usually wore, but an old blouse I wore while walking in the mountains long ago.

The scenery you see is also not Aken Island.

The Rameln Mountains in the northern part of the empire where I spent my childhood. An old cabin can also be seen between the spreading tree branches.

What is the reason why I dream about my childhood now?

I’m not a girl who thinks deeply enough to analyze such things. However, if it is a dream, I want to recall good memories.

What comes to mind is the owner of the cabin in that scene.

He has a bushy beard, wrinkles and a hunched back, but he is an upright man.

He calls himself an academic, but is also a top-notch wizard. All I usually do on that subject is chopping firewood, reading a book in an armchair, or playing a musical instrument while staring blankly at the fireplace.

These are all trivial things.

An archmage who was already in the twilight of her life when a girl was just born into the world. What kind of life he has lived is completely unknown territory for the girl.

While I’m dreaming of old times, I’ll just look at that old man’s face. With that thought in mind, the girl lightly strengthens her legs and kicks the tree.

The sound of the wind cutting through the sky and the fluttering of clothes beats on my ears.

The girl quickly jumped up and reached the front of the hut, then naturally rolled up and landed.

The sight of that old cabin makes me feel like I’ve returned to my hometown.

When I look at the pretty window on one side, I can see the shadows flickering. It is not difficult to picture the back of the old man sitting in a rocking chair in front of the warm fireplace light, waiting for the girl.

The girl walks slowly and approaches the hut. For some reason, I feel excited, which is unusual for her.

– Fighting. Tuk. Tuk.

However, there is a fact that the girl overlooked. The humid air that had always made my chest feel damp. As if to recall the foreshadowing, rain soon begins to pour down.

“...”

The rain suddenly became thicker and drenched the girl. Clothes stick to the skin because of the damp moisture. A few strands of hair stick to the cheek, showing off their presence.

The girl looked up at the pouring rain for a moment, then turned her gaze back to the cabin and swallowed her breath.

The lights are off in the cabin that seemed cozy just a moment ago. The light from the bonfire visible through the window disappears in just a few seconds.

The eaves are full of spider webs, and even the neat doorknobs are covered in dust.

This is a nightmare.

Even if you realize it, you can’t help but feel tired.

I quickly opened the door and looked inside the cabin... there was someone still sitting in the rocking chair.

Dark interior. The old man turns his head little by little through the humid air.

It is a skeleton without any flesh. He grits his teeth and looks at the girl.

As time passes, the bones have already crumbled and centipedes crawl through the holes where the eyeballs should have been.

He continues gritting his teeth and then whispers to the girl. Why didn’t you save me? Why did you pretend not to know me when you had the chance?

There is no change in the girl’s expression. As always, I stare at the skeleton with blank eyes.

The skeleton curses the girl.

Don’t think that the things around you will last forever. One day, like me, you will crumble away in the ravages of time and you will be left alone, counting the days until you die. You know very well that loss comes without any warning.

After saying that, the sight of the teeth clinking together and stopping looks like a creepy smile.

The girl still doesn’t move. Little by little, the skull crumbles into powder and disappears.

The skeleton completely loses its shape, and only the clothes it was wearing remain, flopping down on the chair.

-Woe!

Lucy opened her eyes and raised her upper body.

“...”

The location is room 203 in the closed building.

The bachelor’s department is making every effort to restore Ofilis Hall, but it looks like it won’t be possible to move back in until at least next semester.

Until then, the old abandoned building has been decorated and used as luxuriously as possible. Still, it couldn’t be as luxurious as the Ofilis building before Banpa.

Since the situation was unavoidable, most students had no choice but to accept it.

In such a strange state, by the time lunch passed and Yenika had come to help her with elemental arts mastery training, Lucy had actually become more alert.

It feels like he’s particularly hostile toward Yenika... In fact, his expression seems closer to fear rather than hostility.

He jumps up in a cold sweat and keeps blocking Yenika from getting closer... If you ask him to explain why, he just shakes his head.

At the same time, I can’t tell which beat they’re asking me to play because Yenika is looking at me with the intention of biting me as soon as I get close to within a few meters.

Yenika, who had been receiving hostility from Lucy for several days already, was just feeling unfair.

There’s something about being treated in that manner that makes her angry, but because Jenica’s nature is good to begin with and Lucy is giving off an unusual sense of discomfort, she just doesn’t know what to do.

“I guess I really must have eaten something wrong. He’s a temperamental child by nature, so if things continue like this, he’ll quickly get angry.”

I had no choice but to say that.

In the end, Lucy clung to my back like a cicada and was glaring at Yenika.

The way it wraps its arms and legs and stares at it as if telling it to go away is like a kid trying to stop someone from taking his things.

Yenika tilted her head a few times with an anxious look on her face, then sighed and left the camp.

*

Intermediate Fire Magic ‘One Point Explosion’

is a magic developed from the ignition spell, and is an intermediate level magic that causes a small explosion by concentrating magical energy on the point of view and holding it tightly.

Firepower and scale are ultimately proportional to the amount of magical power, so depending on the user, there were cases where it ended up causing burns, and in some cases, archmages could completely destroy buildings.

It’s a spell that seems very small compared to the ignition spell, but it’s not a mid-level magic for nothing. The advantage of the one-point explosion comes from its overwhelming versatility.

Ignition magic, which has a long casting time and clearly shows flames spreading, is easy to deal with.

However, the ‘one-point explosion’, in which flames bloom instantly from the targeted point, has an overwhelming amount of impact, and if you do not quickly catch the flow of magic power, you will be struck in an instant without any time to react.

“I can’t learn the basics even if I spend all day... I can definitely feel that the difficulty level of learning increases significantly from intermediate level magic.”

Since it has almost no magical talent, it takes quite a while to learn mid-level magic. Is it still like this even though I did some preliminary study during the elemental science lecture?

Even though I’ve been training all day using the most efficient training method, I don’t think my name will appear in the skill window, so I’m exhausted at this point.

The sun was already setting, but I felt empty because I didn’t seem to have achieved any results.

“Ugh... let’s eat something.”

I closed the book on elemental science and threw it around.

And then he lifted the lump of luggage on his knees.

Lucy couldn’t bear to leave, so she sat on my lap all day while I read a book on elemental science and studied magic flow.

“...Ugh...!”

Lucy stretched out her small body and then spoke again with a blank expression on her face.

“...I’m hungry.”

“Go eat something. Meal time for the Ofilis Hall students will end soon.”

“huh.”

Surprisingly, Lucy stood up without much resistance and was about to leap in the direction of the Ofilis Hall when she suddenly adjusted her posture.

He looks at me while standing straight on the tree stump and then asks.

“Hey.”

“why.”

“What are you going to do when I go?”

I think it’s really weird that Lucy asks this question.

While I was gathering firewood for the bonfire to eat, Lucy looked at me intently.

“I have something to do after eating.”

“to do?”

I quickly turned my head and looked towards the simple wooden table. Above it is the key to the secret safe that Professor Glast handed over.

Gradually, the bachelor’s investigation was completed, and the entrance to the secret laboratory that Professor Glast had created without permission was closed.

I was thinking of entering the library through the hole Lucy had drilled.

Once I entered, I had to check what the library was like... and what the contents of the safe were.

It’s too late to put it off any longer, so I’m planning to move tonight.

“Before that, we should check the bonfire and fireplace. The temperature may drop below freezing at night, so if you do something wrong, you could freeze to death.”

It’s time for winter vacation.

Even though I’m wearing a lot of clothes, once the sun goes down, my breath starts to seep out. For the time being, I plan to maintain double heating using the flame in the mug. Since there would be no need to use a large amount of magical power right away, it was wiser to save firewood.

If you join DEX, you won’t have to worry about this.

Should I join Dex Hall or live in a cabin? Both arms of the scale swing back and forth like reeds. It would be good to set a course of action for the future by at least deciding clearly before the vacation starts.

Lucy seemed to be examining my expression, perhaps aware of my concerns or not...

“Let’s go together.”

It was such an incomprehensible sound.