Chapter 29

The boy, facing the demons with their red and black skin, focused on the flow of mana surging within him.

Thanks to studying magic’s structure and the very essence of mana every day for the past month under the continent’s greatest electro-mage, the boy could now feel this mysterious power within him with even greater clarity.

In his mind, mana concretized into electricity, and electricity into the magic known as ‘Bloom.’ A calculation was taking place.

The mana within his body morphed into crackling lightning, surging through his brainstem, before erupting from every corner of him.

The lamp was shattered, oil splattered everywhere, and flames illuminated the dark cave.

Illuminating the bewildered faces of the demons, caught off guard by the sudden attack.

A faint smile touched the boy’s lips as he concentrated on the sequence of calculations unfolding within his mind.

Until learning from Alter, the boy had never felt such sensations.

He had simply uttered the word ‘Bloom’ and unleashed the vast amount of lightning erupting from his body.

He hadn’t understood the processes that birthed that lightning, or how it transformed into the magic of ‘Bloom.’

But now, those days of ignorance and the circumstances were entirely different.

The boy could feel every process, from mana transforming into lightning, to that lightning becoming the concrete magic known as ‘Bloom.’

Thanks to Alter’s teachings, the boy had drawn closer to the very heart of magical power.

He had only learned the basics, yet the performance and precision of his magic were incomparable to what they had been before.

An omnipotent feeling, one he had never before experienced, a confidence that he could accomplish anything, filled the boy’s chest.

“Bloom.”

With the name of the spell finally uttered, everything around him was enveloped in a blinding white light.

After the immense flash flooded every direction, the sound of the air tearing apart from the lightning belatedly followed.

The cave in the swamp vanished from the boy’s very eyes, and the demons within, staring at him blankly, were also consumed by the immense electricity, reduced to a fine white dust.

“…Uh.”

The boy, slightly bewildered, looked around at the thunderous surroundings.

It was definitely a dark cave, with walls on all sides… but when he came to his senses, he saw a sky beginning to swirl with ominous clouds.

Around him, quite literally.

Nothing remained.

Cold sweat trickled down the boy’s cheek, instantly vaporized by the surrounding electricity.

“Is it over?”

Before the boy’s eyes lay only a vast, white plain. Just before entering the cave, the swamp, with its fallen trees and thick mud, had stretched in every direction, but after the momentary flash, even those were gone.

“…Hello? Is there, like, anyone there? Really?”

The boy, with the thought that perhaps, despite the immense electric shock, some demons might still be alive, extended his fingers forward and lightly discharged an electric burst.

An immense amount of current traveled through the air, spreading in all directions, and reduced the entire open space to dust once more.

The relentlessly spreading electricity passed through ionized particles, creating heat in a space where there was nothing left to burn. And that sudden heat generated a vast thunderstorm in the sky beyond the horizon.

Over the plains stretching beyond the horizon, the thunderstorms gathered, noisily wrangling as they exchanged lightning amongst themselves.

“Oh…”

The boy was far stronger than he had been before receiving Alter’s teachings.

It was a moment to witness his own growth with his own eyes, but the boy did not seem entirely overjoyed.

“……Had I known, I might have tested that new ‘chant’ I developed.”

He’d chosen to simply recite the magic’s name, plain and simple, intimidated by Alter’s warning that mispronouncing an incantation could actually weaken the magic’s power.

But he was already past the point where he needed to worry about weakening magic against a mere ten ordinary demons.

‘I never imagined it would be this much.’

Obvious as it was, the boy’s growth rate far surpassed that of ordinary mages.

The former owner of the magic tower, whose name was known throughout the continent, had moved into the room next to his in the castle, and was tutoring the boy directly, every single day.

In the boy’s reality, it was like the top tutor in the best cram school moving next door and coming into his room every day to help him study for the college entrance exam.

To add to that, the boy’s mana stat was 20, incomparably higher than the continental average of 13.

Stamina. Strength. Agility. Luck.

He’d sacrificed all four of those stats vital to survival, concentrating solely on mana.

It would have been strange if his growth rate *hadn’t* been immense…

‘Even so, I didn’t think he’d grow this quickly.’

“He’s definitely past level 20, so can I assume roughly mid-30s?”

The boy still couldn’t accurately gauge his own level.

How could he know if he was at 1000 or 10000 points when the punching machine only measured up to 999?

‘Let’s assume level 30, there’s nothing as dangerous as getting arrogant and acting above your station.’

The boy appraised himself harshly, perhaps excessively so, and lifted his head.

There was no way a mage who could change the weather beyond the horizon and call down lightning from a clear sky with a light flick of his fingers was only around level 30…

But the build he’d created when generating his character was uniquely unique, after all.

The electricity constantly erupting from the boy’s body had already brought a dark thunderstorm to the sky above him, which had been cloudless only moments before.

“…Gathering a week’s worth of mana and using it all at once, it truly is something else.”

It had been a full three weeks since the boy last used Bloom.

Logically, if he hadn’t cast any spells and simply accumulated mana for three weeks, his body should hold three weeks’ worth.

But reality didn’t quite work that way.

Even if he diligently gathered mana for three weeks without using magic once, a mage could only store up to a week’s worth within their body.

The reason was simple. No matter how exceptional their talent, a mage was still merely human.

And humans, of course, have their limits. Just as one can only eat so much after fasting, or run only so far even when conserving energy.

This human limitation equally applied to the amount of mana a mage could store at any given time.

Thus, the limit of mana a mage could store within themselves was only about a week’s worth.

Even if they spent more time without using magic, their body wouldn’t accumulate any further. It was not like a human’s stamina could be stored indefinitely, no matter how long they rested.

‘Still not enough. At this rate, surviving against even a high-ranking demon, let alone an Archduke, will be difficult.’

The boy tore his gaze away from the pure white lightning crackling at his fingertips and slowly walked towards where Lir and the support troops were waiting.

Anyone overhearing this thought might say it wasn’t something a mage powerful enough to alter terrain with a mere gesture would say.

However, considering the boy’s fatal flaw… it wasn’t entirely unfounded.

The boy lacked agility, stamina, and strength, and was even cursed with the worst possible luck.

He possessed the power to shake the heavens and earth for five minutes… but that was all he had.

What if the Archduke cornered him, forcing him to use Bloom against his will, and then simply evaded him until the duration expired?

Or what if, before he could even activate Bloom, the Archduke launched a surprise attack at a speed he couldn’t even perceive? How could he possibly respond?

Even with Bloom active, his disastrous physical abilities would make it difficult to land a hit if his opponent prioritized speed.

Just think back to the battle against Archduke Maltiel.

Even with a perfect opportunity for a counter-strike, his lack of agility prevented him from landing the blow.

So, the boy couldn’t be satisfied with this level of performance.

After all, he was the one expected to hurl the Demon King and his devils back into hell, ending this wretched war.

And he absolutely had to live up to that expectation.

Not solely out of a sense of duty, or the guilt of deceiving the people.

As the boy remembered, this game had a ‘Bad Ending.’

If the protagonist failed to defeat the Demon King and his devils within the time limit, the Sword Saint, constantly harassed by the demonkin, would finally succumb and die, triggering a full-scale demonic invasion that annihilated all life on the surface… a truly hopeless ending.

The time limit wasn’t excessively tight, but that didn’t mean he could afford to slack off.

He needed to steadily improve his stats, to truly become a powerhouse on par with the Sword Saint.

Otherwise, not only himself, but all life on the continent would perish.

And then, there would be no one to haul his corpse in a cart to the graveyard.

No one to mourn the dead, no one to grieve.

“…This is insane, really.”

He involuntarily sighed from the unimaginable pressure.

The faces of the characters he’d created in the game flickered past, one by one, and a feeling welled up within him: he wanted to meet them and apologize.

For creating them in this mad world, and for forcing them onto a build that was half-crazed.

‘Forgive me, Fists, Zombie, Mr. President…!’

“Hoo…”

He sighed again and started walking toward where the reinforcements were waiting.

With each step he took, plasma rippled through the surrounding atmosphere.

“Such formidable power…”

Lirr approached him amidst the waiting support troops, a murmur of awe escaping her lips. They were a good distance from where the cave had been.

The surrounding terrain – moss-laden trees, swamp, and burrows both large and small – had been reduced to a field of stark white ash by the immense lightning strike. All that remained were the deep, gouged holes and the exposed bedrock that formed the land’s foundation.

“…This is, at most, the power of a mage who’s been learning magic for barely a month?”

“Madness, if we’d been waiting any closer… We wouldn’t have even left corpses behind, would we?”

“To think he was a promising prodigy who would grow to the level of that Sword Saint… The rumors weren’t exaggerated, after all.”

Murmurs of admiration poured from the soldiers, who had observed from dozens of paces away.

Lirr listened to the praise aimed at Vin, carried on her long elven ears, and a smile crept onto her face without her conscious prompting.

She couldn’t help but feel proud that a disciple learning magic under the same master as her could possess such extraordinary talent.

“Couldn’t you have held back a little? There’s nothing left for the standby team to do.”

Lirr’s tone was light with amusement.

“Still not enough. If I had gathered three weeks’ worth of mana before using it, I could have incinerated the very bedrock. Or, if I had at least been able to test a proper spell…”

The boy offered an embarrassed laugh, seemingly surprised by his own capabilities, and brushed down his bangs which kept rising with static electricity.

“Three weeks’ worth? What does that even mean?”

His senior disciple asked, directing the question at the boy who spoke in nonsensical terms.

The maximum amount of mana a human could store was universally understood to be a week’s worth; it was practically a law of nature.

Of course, a mage’s maximum mana capacity would increase as their level rose and they advanced in the circles.

It was like how an athlete could run further than the average person through training, or eat larger quantities.

However, as the amount of mana a mage could store in their body grew, their mana regeneration speed increased alongside it.

Therefore, the adage ‘a mage can only store, at most, a week’s worth of mana’ always held true.

But three weeks?

Rire attempted to brush it off, concluding that the boy hadn’t properly understood his master’s teachings.

“…there is… such a thing.”

That was before he left those words behind, accompanied by a significant smile.

“What is that supposed to….”

Rire was about to ask if the boy knew something.

But in that instant, the white-haired boy lost consciousness and began to fall limply, like a doll with its strings cut.

Admiration for her own power that exceeded imagination, regret that she should have tested the spell. And all the time spent idly worrying about the countless assignments that lay ahead had already caused five minutes to slip by.

Reflexively, Rire swiftly moved and pulled the falling boy into her arms.

If she’d let him fall onto the bare bedrock, his fragile skin would surely be scarred.

“…uh, uh?”

Rire, holding the boy’s body in her arms, blinked blankly for a moment, then blushed the tips of his long ears crimson and lowered her head.

Having studied only in the magic tower her entire life, this was the first time Rire had held a boy his age in her arms.

…Though he had rushed into her embrace once before, half out of his mind.

“Uh, aah…”

Holding his light and delicate body, Rire lost her words.

The feeling was strange.

Her head grew hot, and a feverish heat began to rise through her entire body. Blood surged madly through her veins, and she couldn’t begin to explain what this feeling was.

Her flustered appearance, unable to either lay the boy’s body on the ground or hold him tighter… to the soldiers in the distance, she looked as if she had been struck by lightning.