Chapter 48

Immense ringing. A colossal shockwave.

The first thing Lir registered, belatedly regaining her senses, was melting gold and herself, covered head to toe in dust after being hurled dozens of meters.

“Haa……!”

Lir’s head burned.

The immense shockwave unleashed by the white-haired boy had mercilessly torn through the shield she had frantically erected, as if it were nothing.

The shockwave, having pierced her shield, struck Lir’s body directly. Flattened against the floor, her body tumbled for dozens of meters.

The ringing hammered at her skull, threatening to shatter it. Tormented by the noise, she instinctively reached for her ribs. Pain flared, suggesting they were broken, though she couldn’t pinpoint the exact location.

Her legs and arms began to tremble uncontrollably. Having spent her life sheltered by her master’s shadow, the delicate flower greenhouse now experienced the searing pain of bone fractures for the first time, and she let out a soft moan.

Psssht……!

A crackling, like electricity catching fire, echoed in Lir’s ears as she groaned in a pain unlike any she had ever known.

Even as her arms and legs trembled, and a deep chill gripped her entire body, something began to burn within her chest.

“Let’s begin,” he said.

With great effort, she lifted her head. A boy, his hair white as snow, stood there with a haughty expression, radiating an immense current of energy.

“…Haa, haa…”

Even as she struggled to breathe, she couldn’t tear her gaze from the boy.

She was certain that a scene no mage could ever afford to miss was about to unfold before her eyes, and the thought set her heart aflame.

Fssss…

The air itself caught fire.

An enormous light coalesced at the boy’s fingertips. The giant with the spider’s face roared something and began to charge.

Lex and Trian shielded their eyes, fearing blindness, but Lir couldn’t take her eyes off the light gathering in the boy’s hand.

Even if it meant losing her sight, it didn’t matter.

She couldn’t bear to look away from that light for even a single moment.

Whoom—

The immense energy carved a perfectly straight line, like one drawn with a ruler, and pierced the giant’s heart.

The air ignited. Lightning, branching like veins, spread through the burning air and ionized oxygen.

A colossal inferno began to blaze, centered around the white-haired boy who stood at the epicenter of the electric strike.

“The smell of burning is as repulsive as your face,” he said.

The oxygen in the air spontaneously combusted, singeing the boy’s jet-black robes.

Even as flames erupted around him, the boy didn’t so much as blink.

The giant roared, a sound that echoed the boiling of its very skin, as it charged the boy.

“Ughaaa!”

Even with its heart pierced by a pillar of searing light, the spider-faced giant knew no retreat. Its feet splashed through the molten gold, sending spatters soaring into the air.

The molten gold clung to the giant’s massive arms and legs.

The boy retracted the pillar of light emanating from his fingertips and raised his other hand, snapping his fingers.

A bolt of lightning erupted between his thumb and forefinger, then fractured into dozens, hundreds of arcs through the ionized air.

The spider giant, lunging towards the boy, became entangled in a web woven of lightning.

The pure white web pulsed with immense current, incinerating the spider giant’s every peripheral nerve. Soon, its colossal body convulsed.

The lightning, born from the boy’s hand, continued to split and spread, saturating the entire dungeon.

Far off, spiders began to emerge through collapsed walls, only to stumble into the heart of the storm, struck by lightning and flipping onto their backs in fits.

“…This, arrogant brat!”

How many millions of volts were coursing through its body?

Lirr couldn’t even begin to imagine the sheer power that the spider-headed giant endured and still, it continued to move.

The skin of its blackened arms bubbled. Fingers, reduced to ash, crumbled and fell, merging with the molten gold.

The feet that grounded it melted. With each step, the giant shrank as its legs dissolved.

A situation that would have driven any creature to shrieking pain or fatal shock, yet the monster, driven by a single instinct – slaughter – reached a blackened hand towards the white-haired boy.

Crush. Destroy. Mold into dough and devour.

Designed for nothing else, this creature would not cease until it fulfilled its purpose. The mission it was born for.

The fist tore through the air, saturated with thousands of lightning strikes, and advanced.

Its arm began to melt and tear, but the giant paid it no mind.

Fingers had long since vanished, and then the palm melted away, even the wrist collapsing, but the spider giant paid no mind.

For his reason for being in this world was not survival, but slaughter.

“Discharge.”

And the white-haired boy.

Brought death to the creature born with the gruesome task of slaughter upon its back.

The world, once painted in pure white light, was seized by darkness in an instant.

The lightning bolts that had stretched in all directions vanished momentarily. Lir’s vision turned pitch black, and so did everyone else’s.

Kugugung…

A massive tremor reverberated through Lir’s body, in which the afterimages of lightning still lingered. As if an earthquake had struck, everything shook violently.

Crash!

The thunderclap rattled her broken ribs.

Light.

Strangely, it reached Lir later than the sound.

No, perhaps the light had arrived long before. It was just that Lir’s optic nerves were overloaded, belatedly transmitting the arrival of light to her brain.

Lir’s skin burned, stinging painfully.

The boy’s figure came into view, in Lir’s eyes that had barely begun to function again. The boy stood farther away than before her eyes were engulfed in darkness.

Her body, unable to withstand the shockwave, had flown even further. She had no idea when she had been thrown back again.

Her brain was already struggling, merely to recognize the immense light entering through her eyes.

“This is…”

Lir breathed out in awe, gazing at the scene unfolding before her. Pain tormented her whole body, but her brain had no time to spare for such trivialities.

She needed to etch this spectacle into the deepest recesses of her mind, leaving nothing behind. A few cracked ribs, bruised and bloodied flesh, burns from the scorching air – none of it mattered to her now.

Ionized oxygen and flames, scattered everywhere, their electrical current following the boy’s command, enveloped the arachnid giant’s body.

Despite the agony of his limbs blackening and charring, the monster, driven by instinct, continued to swing his fists, until the sheer impact, far exceeding hundreds of millions of volts, reduced his entire being to a pile of pure white ash. Only a half-burnt, ghastly head remained on the ground.

“Haa…”

Lierre couldn’t help but sigh at the fact that the shockwave had pushed her so far away from him.

She wanted to see it as close as possible.

The magic of the genius who would save the world.

She usually joked with him, saw his quirky side, knew he was laughably out of shape, so she hadn’t fully grasped it, but at this moment, Lierre felt that truth acutely.

An overwhelming talent that erased any feeling of resentment or futility.

“…”

Some might witness this overwhelming talent and succumb to despair or powerlessness.

It wouldn’t be strange. The appearance of a monster who surpasses everything built up over a lifetime has a way of plunging those who strive into despair and self-loathing.

‘…This is it.’

But there are those, a few among the many, who, upon seeing such overwhelming talent, utter not a sigh but an exclamation of wonder.

‘Gold, heat, light. No, not light. Not such a broad term. Something more specific…’

The word ‘genius’ referred to those who, upon seeing a monster far superior to themselves, swore to reach that level someday… No, to surpass him, even if only for a fleeting moment.

It was the word for those who lived with such absurd passion burning within their hearts.

‘A flash? No, flash implies something too momentary. A more fitting expression…’

The small spark she’d kindled in her heart suddenly blazed into a raging fire.

Inspiration. Yes, that was the right word to describe it.

The immense light the boy brought forth ignited a flame within Lier, another prodigy, a spark she recognized as inspiration.

What she would forge with this flame was now entirely her own affair.

* * *

For the mages of this world, a newly crafted spell was akin to a ticking time bomb.

Like an egg in a microwave, or a child holding a loaded pistol, disaster felt perpetually imminent… Such was the nature of a spell fresh from the forge.

This was nothing short of a stroke of incredible luck.

One might quibble, arguing what kind of fortune could stem from a paltry ‘one’ unit of luck, but there was simply no other way to explain it.

A spell conceived only moments ago.

My untested creation bit true, beautifully true, and I felt unprecedented power erupting from every fiber of my being.

“Madman, couldn’t you have shown some restraint!”

Trian shouted at me, his skin glowing crimson from the searing heat. The longbow slung across his back was, for some reason, snapped in two.

Surveying the surroundings, I saw utter chaos reigned. The golden walls that had hemmed us in had completely collapsed, and the massive gate lay shattered upon the ground. Where the spider giant had stood, a vast, empty plain stretched out, beyond which the spider’s corpse and remnants were scattered haphazardly.

“Indeed, General! We almost found ourselves in a truly dire situation.”

Rex, dripping with cold sweat, approached, equally perplexed.

…Well, even I hadn’t anticipated such potent magic.

The spell hadn’t been tested, not even once. Honestly, I hadn’t expected it to be this effective…

“…”

From behind Trian and Rex, Lier appeared, her golden hair fluttering.

Her gaze was fixed upon me, but her mind seemed focused elsewhere, lost in some peculiar concentration.

“…Flawed, no, no… ‘Flawed’ isn’t quite the word… “

……Why his mind suddenly snapped, I couldn’t fathom. Had he been struck by some stray lightning bolt?

“Let’s get out of here. Though I suppose you’ve smashed every monster around so thoroughly, there’s nothing left anyway.”

Trian, his skin inflamed and red, spoke with irritation, then approached the ashen remains of the treasure guardian.

*Grrrk, grrrk!*

The sound of metal plates grinding and scraping against each other echoed, and a vast, bottomless pit opened beneath the guardian’s corpse.

The pristine white ashes whispered like fine sand as they were drawn into the emptiness. Moments later, the enormous head, riddled with forty-two randomly placed eyes, tumbled limply into the void as well.

After a brief pause, a door seemingly forged from pure darkness rose from the abyss that had devoured the treasure guardian’s body.

A golden chamber in ruins, and in its heart, this newly formed gate.

Without hesitation, Trian opened the door.

The same void that had swallowed the treasure guardian awaited us beyond the threshold. It was identical to a dungeon entrance, refusing to reveal anything despite our light.

“…Let’s just get out of here. It’s disgustingly hot, thanks to someone.”

Trian, with a weary shake of his head, stepped into the void first.

I followed close behind, squeezing my body into the inky blackness.

My back was still simmering; I needed to see a cleric for healing quickly, or this would become a real disaster.

“Lex, over there.”

Though I knew every second counted, I stopped Lex.

He pulled his foot back from the edge of darkness and turned to face me.

“What is it, General?”

“That.”

Before me, where I pointed, lay a mountain of gold coins, jeweled ornaments, and a pristine, ivory horn.

The rewards from the dungeon, guarded by its treasure keeper.

“……Why bother with treasure at a time like this? Besides, we don’t even have sacks large enough to carry that much gold. General, you’re… more avaricious than I thought.”

“Everyone deserves recompense for their hardships. Trian has already gone on ahead, and Lyr… is in a rather unstable state right now. So, Rex is the only one I can ask. As for sacks… well, perhaps we can stow some gold inside something like the horn? It seems wrong for everyone to leave empty-handed after all this effort.”

“Well… it’s no great concern of mine. Understood, for now.”

Though wounded and suffering from poison, Rex obeyed my request without complaint. He reached for the pristine horn, intending to use it to contain the scattered heaps of gold littering the treasure keeper’s ravaged chamber…

In that instant, the pristine horn disintegrated into its constituent molecules, which began to flow along Rex’s arm, seeping into his chest.

Caught off guard, Rex frantically patted his chest with his thick hands.

…Already poisoned, and now some unknown substance burrowing into his chest – anyone would react like that.

“Consider it payment for your life.”

Useless to a mage like myself, but an artifact of immense value to a barbarian.

And if that barbarian is Rex, then I trust he’ll find a good use for it.

“G-General! What is…?”

“It won’t endanger your life, I know from experience. As for how to use it… well, you’ll figure it out, I imagine?”

I grabbed Lyr’s robe, pulling him away from his muttering and derangement, and exited the dungeon first.

“Come now, you need treatment.”

Just as when entering the dungeon, a pitch-black darkness enveloped me.