Chapter 20
Right after that.
“Who are you, really?”
Instead, Banshi spat out the very question I should have been asking.
The twisted Banshi’s hair color began to change.
Her red hair vanished, turning into a completely pure, delicate white.
Even her pupils faintly faded into white.
“Why do you have that color…? And even your eyes….”
That was unmistakably the color of a Flewd Elentalist.
And one that could be considered at the level of a 6th Circle Mage.
At the sa ti, seven elental spheres manifested before her face.
“No matter if you’re a Double Caster, you’re just a 1st Circle. So how can you sense that! Ah, right. Now it makes sense. The reason you called here separately was to capture , wasn’t it? Since when have you been watching ?”
“What?”
Banshi kept throwing out incomprehensible nonsense.
Who was watching whom?
And she was the one who approached first.
“What are you talking abou—”
And then the seven elents she had manifested.
Flewd, fire, water, light, darkness, earth, and wind spheres attacked indiscriminately.
I deflected them one after another with the six Fire Balls I had already summoned.
“A 1st Circle not only having six mana but using those six to fight against seven? Are you also Ed Etar’s dog? No wonder—ever since you claid to be a Double Caster of fire and darkness, I knew sothing was off!”
Why would the words “Ed Etar’s dog” co out of Banshi’s mouth?
That was what I should have been saying…
“……?”
“A Double Caster born for the first ti in 500 years, and why is it this school of all places, and with the sa elents as the Headmaster and Vice Headmaster? The answer is simple. You were a Double Caster trained by the Headmaster and Vice Headmaster. Why? To kill , a Flewd Elentalist!”
What on earth was she so confidently certain about?
Did she not know that Double Casters couldn’t be created through training?
Or… did that an Double Casters could be artificially produced in this era?
Despite all the nonsense, one thing was clear—Banshi spoke of Etar as if he were her arch-nesis.
“Die! Ed Etar’s dog!”
Having already lost her reason, she further strengthened her magic.
The six spheres she had manifested changed shape, swelling to a massive size.
Magic powerful enough to fill this entire dueling arena.
The water elent turned into a sea, and the fire elent combined with water and wind, transforming into a sea of fire and firestorm that charged straight at .
At the sa ti, all sides turned dark—I could see nothing, hear nothing.
She had completely blocked my vision using the dark elent.
A superior version of Dark Space.
‘This is dangerous.’
I had expected at least 3rd Circle, but she was beyond that.
How could such a young girl manifest magic of this level?
And how could she wield the Flewd elent?
And why would such a girl harbor hostility toward Etar?
Especially, why would she believe he was monitoring her and trying to kill her?
I had to uncover all of it.
‘First, I need to neutralize Banshi’s magic.’
I had planned to keep hiding that I was a Flewd Elentalist, but she was one too.
If I used half-asures, I would be the one overwheld.
I stretched my hand toward the darkened void.
“Orbization.”
Kuuuuuuuung—!
The Flewd elent began gathering in the air, forming a sphere.
Its size soon grew to the maximum, appearing before like a massive white full moon.
Orbization was magic on the level of a 9th Circle Mage.
A spell that manifested an Orb—a magic tool used by mages—through pure magic alone.
Its effect was to maximize the inherent nature of the elent.
For example, if one Orbized fire, rely standing near it would engulf everything, even people, in heat strong enough to lt them.
The Flewd elent I wielded was the root of all other elents.
Therefore, with a Flewd Orbization active, every elent except Flewd was absorbed and couldn’t manifest, and even already-cast magic was nullified.
“You… no way, that’s…”
All the magic Banshi had cast was consud by my Orbization.
The firestorm and sea of fire rushing toward disappeared, as did the darkness.
When my vision cleared, I could see sothing transparent covering Banshi’s entire body.
“Invisible Arm, huh?”
A 6th Circle spell where the Flewd elent was wrapped around the caster like armor to defend against magic.
Since it used the Flewd elent, it could block every elental spell—making it the strongest defensive magic.
The fact that she had even equipped Invisible Arm ant she truly intended to kill .
Banshi seed shocked, her eyes wide, unable to speak.
“Judging from your reaction, you know what Orbization is. But how is soone who can cast 6th Circle magic stuck in 1st Circle? And you’re even a Flewd Elentalist. I heard Flewd Elentalists had vanished.”
“How… how can you be a Flewd Elentalist like …? I’m the only survivor of my family… And you even used Orbization, a 9th Circle magic… You’re not Ed Etar’s dog…?”
“…Family?”
A family na spoken by a Flewd Elentalist.
Combining the two, only one place ca to mind.
“You… you’re from the Emt Family?”
“……”
Banshi said nothing.
Which all but confird it.
The Emt Family was the only Flewd elent family.
But they had no high-circle mages.
Even by the standards of my past life, their family head had barely been 6th Circle, so they hadn’t been particularly famous.
To establish a family, the head needed to be at least 7th Circle, but the Emt Family had been allowed to form simply because they possessed the rare Flewd elent.
“I see. Now it all makes sense. When we sparred, I felt sothing like the wind elent inside your Fire Ball—so that was because you were a Flewd Elentalist.”
The mystery of why I sensed an elent other than fire, despite her clearly not being a Double Caster, was solved.
“But you say you’re the only survivor? Does that an the Emt Family has been wiped out?”
The student I had mistaken for Etar’s spy seed to be holding a far greater truth.
From what Banshi said, it sounded as though the cause of the Emt Family’s destruction was connected to Etar.
The way she kept calling “Ed Etar’s dog” made it even more suspicious.
I pressed into that point.
“And why would I tell you anything?”
Banshi still kept her guard up against .
But even if I told her, “I am Archis Eir,” she wouldn’t believe , nor did I intend to explain.
“Looks like you’re having trouble grasping the situation…”
I lifted Banshi’s body into the air using the Flewd elent.
Then I brought her body close to my Orbization sphere and threatened her.
“The mont your body is pushed into that Orbization, you’ll vanish without a trace. Not even a corpse will remain. Your life is in my hands, so if you want to live, you’d better speak obediently.”
For now, the most important thing to was what Banshi knew, and why she held such particular hostility toward Etar.
To get those answers, I used a slightly coercive thod.
Depending on her answers, I might even turn this student into my follower, just as I had done with Hei and Kiena.
At the very least, this student considered Etar the greatest enemy of her life.
Banshi kept trying to manifest counterattacks, but she couldn’t overco my magic.
She seed like a mage whose limit was the 6th Circle.
As expected, the Emt Family was unmistakable. One of their defining traits was being unable to surpass the 6th Circle.
“You really don’t listen.”
Just as I pressed her close enough for her nose to touch the sphere—
“Th-the Emt Family…!”
At last, realizing she couldn’t escape, Banshi cried out in panic.
“They fell 250 years ago! There were no survivors except ! My father, the family head, and my mother, my older sister, my older brother, my younger siblings—every single one of them… burned alive in agony.”
“Burned?”
If it was fire, then…
“I saw it clearly with my own eyes—Ed Etar, that bastard, leading the Etar Family and slaughtering everyone in our family. And that bastard stood there with his arms crossed, smiling with satisfaction as he watched my family writhe in the flas…!”
“Etar… wiped out the Emt Family?”
Two hundred fifty years ago was fifty years after I had been killed at the summit by Tyrant.
More precisely, it was the year the main academy was founded.
But what reason would Etar have had to destroy the Emt Family?
“You look barely over ten years old right now, so how exactly did you personally see sothing that happened 250 years ago?”
“To enter this school, I kept taking dicine that stopped my growth. The Emt Family also had extensive knowledge of pharmacology.”
“Why?”
“To kill Ed Etar, the one who destroyed our family! I’ll return the exact sa suffering he inflicted on us…!”
Banshi glared at as she answered.
Rembering the day her family fell, tears gathered at the corners of her eyes.
“So you prepared for admission all this ti just for revenge, is that it?”
She didn’t answer.
But her expression held faint traces of affirmation.
“Then how did you alone survive? If you saw it with your own eyes 250 years ago, that ans you were there at the scene.”
“Soone saved .”
“And who was that?”
“I didn’t see the face, so I don’t rember. A white light suddenly flashed.”
She didn’t seem to be lying.
“Then the way you look now is how you looked 250 years ago?”
This ti, she only nodded slowly.
“……”
So Etar committed such an atrocity 250 years ago.
Suddenly, Walfis’s words from the darkness-elent class resurfaced in my mind—“A Flewd Elentalist must not be born.”
‘Does that an he was acting under Tyrant’s orders?’
If so, then Etar must be a mage who would kill the mont he realized I was alive.
Tyrant believed that a Flewd Elentalist was his greatest enemy, so it made sense that he eliminated the only Flewd-elent family, Emt.
But why was Etar the one who carried out the plan?
As if he were Tyrant’s personal enforcer…
And the one who fought Tyrant in my stead on the day I died at the summit was…
“Wait. You said Etar was standing with his arms crossed? Two hundred fifty years ago?”
“I saw it with my own eyes. Even that chilling smile…”
Etar had suffered severe damage to his legs when fighting Tyrant at the summit.
I had thought he’d never walk again, but perhaps he’d been treated by Tyrant, the fad pharmacologist, and sworn allegiance afterward.
“All right, then another question. Why did you think I was Etar’s dog? And earlier, you spoke as if Double Casters could be trained—what was that supposed to an?”
“……”
But suddenly Banshi’s expression changed as she glared at .
The tears clinging to her eyes were still there, but the sadness vanished—replaced by a gaze filled with certainty.
“Why are you looking at like that?”
“Tell what you are, and I’ll answer. How are you a Flewd Elentalist—how can you manifest Orbization?”
“Did you forget? Your life is still in my—”
“No. Now I’m sure. You know nothing. That’s why you’re trying to learn from right now, aren’t you? If I die, that’ll be troubleso for you too, won’t it? Because you won’t be able to learn anything you want to know.”
“……”
Banshi cut off.
As expected of a mage who had lived through countless hardships for 250 years—her mind remained sharp even when her life was held in soone else’s hands.
The way she had persuaded Ever to let her duel with now made perfect sense.
She was right.
If I t Etar, I’d learn everything eventually, but there was a huge difference between eting him while knowing the current era’s circumstances and knowing nothing at all.
Right now, I desperately needed Banshi’s testimony.
“Fine, you win.”
I dismissed both the Orbization and the magic holding Banshi in the air.
Thud!
“Ugh!”
Banshi fell from the air to the ground, letting out a short groan at the heavy impact.
“Banshi, use that sharp mind of yours and think. The family head of the Emt Family was Emt Vise, right? Short, with spiky hair like mine, completely white. I used to find that rascal quite adorable.”
“……”
Fallen to the ground, Banshi propped herself up with her arms and lifted only her torso—but froze in place.
“The Emt Family is naturally limited to the 6th Circle, right? But a Flewd Elentalist capable of using Orbization, a 9th Circle magic—who could that be? You who lived through 250 years should know.”
“N-no… it can’t be…”
And then Banshi’s eyes widened excessively, trembling.
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