How to Survive at the Academy - Ch. 241
TL: TangSanFan
ED/PR: Tanthus
***Bellbrook Subjugation Battle (9)***
― Crackling, crackling.
The feel of the cotton quilt tickling the tip of my nose was pleasant, prompting me to stroke it across my face a few times without reason.
As I lent my ear to the crackling sound of the fireplace and surrendered to its warmth, I would inevitably fall asleep before I knew it.
Peeking out from the blanket, the diminutive figure of Lucy Mayrill takes a glance around.
In front of the fireplace, seen through the gap in the fluffy cotton quilt, sat an old mage.
It seemed as though he was there to keep watch by her side until Lucy fell asleep, poking at the burning logs with a poker now and then without any particular task at hand.
The backdrop of Gluckt Eldervain, now completely aged and barely able to support his own body, was so pitiful that one might worry a mere touch could bring him crashing down.
He says he’s lived enough. He questions the meaning of living any longer, but as he’s still alive, so he persists.
When asked what all that meant, Gluckt never gave a clear answer, simply preparing meals for Lucy instead.
‘I’ve lived quite long.’
As the flames flickered, the numerous shadows filling the cabin swayed along with them.
On this night, devoid of stars, the fireflies took their place, clinging uselessly to the windowpanes, emitting their light.
A wrinkled hand, gripped tightly around the fireplace poker, comes into view.
‘Back in the day, I hated my master.’
Perhaps she had taken too long a nap, as Lucy struggled to sleep. Gluckt noticed this and began to speak in a calm, settling voice.
Was he aware that reciting old stories is the best tactic for a child throwing a tantrum at bedtime?
Gluckt Eldervain, who had already lost his entire family at a young age and with it, all meaning and motivation to live.
When he eventually approached the Great Sage, proclaiming he no longer wished to live such a painful life… The sage struck young Gluckt with a smack of the hand.
It was unbelievable that a figure of such high standing, a master of holy magic, would resort to fisticuffs… But Gluckt was left feeling listless as that was followed by bright laughter and energetic speech.
― ‘Live first, then speak! You know nothing!’
After that, as the first disciple banished to Acken Island… his life became a whirlwind of events.
He found himself constantly causing incidents, dragged around as an assistant to his master, who conducted dangerous experiments in the name of research… Days were filled with shouting, anger, or deep sighs much more often than not.
His master showed him the view from the top of Orun Mountain, made him tremble before a giant wind wolf for the first time, laughed heartily at his shaking figure, scolded and treated him when he got hurt, was somber when research didn’t yield results, but then would excitedly recite mana theories the very next day.
Being swayed like this, Gluckt found himself becoming a fully-fledged mage without realizing it.
Continuing to dedicate himself, he gathered followers claiming to be his disciples.
Books he had scribbled notes in for theory consolidation were read and praised by people.
He exerted his strength, pitying the lives unjustly dying on the battlefields.
He fought directly against the calamitous demon and spirit tribes.
He fell in fiery love with a woman of destiny, experienced having a family.
Lost his family in battle, risking his life, and lost a loved one.
Amidst sorrow and misery, realizing there was still something worth protecting, he tried to stand again.
He argued with factions slandering him and shook hands with those supporting him.
He studied, taught, fought, fled, cried, laughed, got angry, and reconciled.
To think that after all this, he would end up in a cabin that no one visits, deep in the Rameln mountain region.
The words of Gluckt in his younger years, predicting a life ending in solitude, weren’t entirely off the mark.
After all, the person who knows his life best is himself. Even at such a young age, he might have already had insight into his destiny.
Nonetheless, if there was something he hadn’t considered, it wasn’t the outcome but the process.
‘Without even realizing it, people who I never asked for started relying on me, burdening my shoulders. They came of their own accord, clapping, chattering, laughing, crying, worrying, and getting angry… I’ve thought more than once how annoying and noisy they are and have wanted to send them away.’
Was he considering whether these words were too complex for young Lucy? Though worried, he let out the sentiment slowly, hoping that a grown Lucy would one day fondly remember it.
‘It feels empty without them.’
The old man, leaning back in his wooden chair and smirking faintly, was etched straight into Lucy’s eyes.
‘Life isn’t easy. But, Lucy, when you reach the end of your life… I hope you can reminisce just like this.’
Without ever looking back at Lucy, who was peeking through the gap in the quilt, Gluckt quietly stared at the ceiling and fell into sleep, lost in memories of the distant past.
‘I’m glad I decided to live, after all.’
― CRASH!
Was it a fleeting glimpse of the past? Roused by what seemed like a sudden vision of a cabin in the distant Rameln mountain region, Lucy clenly clenched her jaw, forcing her mind alert.
She was at the plaza entrance to the living area.
After exchanging elemental magic several times with the Great Sage Sylvania, failing to withstand Bellbrook’s magic assault, it ended up striking the living quarters.
Although she had layered multiple defensive enchantments around her body, every joint screamed from the residual shock.
Reaching to the ground to get up, it was sticky—her own blood had pooled on the floor.
With no sign of disturbance, Lucy drew up her mana for hemostasis, it seemed the fountain in the plaza area had been struck squarely.
Beyond the soaking wet ground all around, she could see a horde of demon tribes. The group of survivors fighting the demons stared in shock towards her, but Lucy, shaking the water from her body, stood unfazed.
In the sky, Sylvania appeared, drawing more mana with that immense staff.
Lucy spat out the blood in her mouth and gripped the tattered blouse tightly, drawing up her mana.
“Is it you maintaining that seal around Bellbrock, Lucy Mayrill?”
Sylvania looked at her grand-disciple with an almost wholly absent trace of rationality.
Lucy realized immediately who the adversary was, yet she showed no panic.
Instead, she just shook her head steadily.
“Just stop it, please! Please stop! Please! Just stop it! Stop! Stop! Please stop!”
Her sharp, almost scream-like cry made Lucy’s head ring, and she scowled.
Already exhausted from dealing with Bellbrook, facing such a grand master of holy magic at the same time was too much.
It’s an excessive action.
Yet, Lucy Mayrill keeps her head held high. There is no intention to flee or fall.
Even while dripping blood, she does not stop pondering.
“Since you can’t directly subdue Bellbrook, you are relying on the sealing magic circle I had set up in the past, clinging onto it forcibly to maintain it, right?”
She mutters something incomprehensible. Lucy Mayrill hasn’t done anything.
Nevertheless, she doesn’t really seem to object.
“People with enough magic power to sustain such a large-scale magic circle are rare. It’s you… You are the variable that triggered all this… Lucy Mayrill… heh… heh heh heh… That’s right… as long as you… as long as you’re gone.”
Lucy closed her eyes tightly for a moment amid the flowing blood.
She had heard the story of Bellbrook’s revival several times from Ed. Lucy had repeatedly said she would shoulder that burden with him.
Despite the blood, Lucy continues her train of thought and arrives at a conclusion.
“She’s gone mad, pitifully so.”
Lucy gazes at Sylvania with a vacant look in her eyes.
“No matter how supreme the magic of divinity is, to achieve such an enormous outcome that can leap across the flow of time, there are limits to the magical power one human can possess. To overcome such a distant future in one leap, it just doesn’t make sense…”
While Lucy often looks dazed and confused, her insight remains sharp.
Understanding the magic of divinity better than anyone, Lucy knows well.
Magic that can flit into the future like a form of time travel simply cannot exist. And even if it does, a human’s magic power could never handle it.
Then how can Sylvania exist in ‘this’ time?
The answer is simple.
It’s not that the world’s time has been sped up; it’s that her own time has been stopped.
Intermediate divine magic ‘Time Prison.’
A spell that can stop a target’s time until the caster’s magic power runs out.
If one were to cast it on themselves… A crude and violent method, but theoretically, it’s not impossible to be sent into the future.
Sylvania’s past obsession with researching the flow of magical power and calculative formulas in Arkensum.
How much magic would need to be poured in to pass through the time of Bellbrook’s revival… Sylvania had been progressing with that calculation.
But that’s not the end of it, simply calculating the amount of magical power doesn’t suffice.
When such significant divine magic is cast on oneself, the personal magic bound to the caster would also be confined in the Time Prison… rendering the spell ineffective. It’s like blocking the caster’s own magical power.
Therefore, there is a need to reroute the magic power to maintain the Time Prison to an external source.
The spell to reroute one’s inherent divine magic power to an external magical stone or another repository, especially an unimaginably large amount of magical power.
The ‘replacement magic’ Merilda spoke of, Sylvania’s research in Arkensum.
Finally, some pieces of the puzzle seemed to fall into place. Lucy raised her head and gazed at the towering mountain on Arkensum.
The peak of Mount Orun.
The ‘Altar of Replacement’ that Ed guarded during the new student class assignment exam.
The identity of that altar, unknown in origin and background, was the trace of Sylvania’s magical research aimed to catapult herself into the future.
“She intended to go beyond the precipice.”
Like explorers heading toward an unknown continent. Launching a sailboat across the vast sea, biting down hard… she wanted to witness it with her own eyes.
The point of convergence into darkness observed by the Great Sage Sylvania, designated as the ‘Cliff Point’.
The Great Sage Sylvania threw herself into the future to venture beyond it…
To confirm with her own eyes that the future continues, even if unobserved.
However, the part the Great Sage Sylvania had to brace for… was enduring the long years within the Time Prison.
Even if the body’s time halts, consciousness blooms even in the darkness. The flow of the mind is not affected by the Time Prison.
Amidst the deep, settling darkness, the Great Sage Sylvania endured those long years through sheer willpower alone.
But even Sylvania was human.
The mental strength of a human has limits.
The foundational fear of darkness already gnawing at Sylvania.
The endless fear that even made Prince Lindon tremble and hide in the corner of his room, she was exposed to it endlessly throughout the long years trapped in the Time Prison.
The old Sylvania had withstood and endured.
From all the fears of the end, she managed to smile, cherish life, and showed resistance to the dark whispers that crept in at every opportunity.
However… in the end, her spirit was broken because… she was human after all.
Even if Lucy didn’t know the whole story, she could at least surmise why Sylvania had become drenched in madness.
She had to suffer endlessly through those long years. From the foundational fear she had fought against her whole life.
Thus, it wasn’t impossible to empathize with Sylvania. The numerous accomplishments she had built in the past, the efforts she had made to continue the future of the world. They all deserved recognition for their struggles.
But Lucy had no intention to succumb here.
Lucy had her own things she wanted to protect.
What Lucy wishes to protect is not grand or significant. Not the future of the world or a foundational darkness so vast that ordinary people can scarcely comprehend.
“I’m sorry about this.”
Lucy seldom uses formal language. Nevertheless, standing before her teacher’s teacher, Lucy bowed her head momentarily.
“I’m not wise enough to think about grand things like the world or the future. You know that, don’t you? A disciple doesn’t always grow up as one wishes.”
What Lucy wants to protect is merely the life of a man. A story of a pathetic fallen noble living in the northern forests.
Since he provided a reason for her to live her empty life… then it’s her turn to protect that man’s life with all her might.
She doesn’t attach grand reasons such as the fate of the world or the darkness of origins to this process. Lucy isn’t bound by such fates.
She is paying back what she received. She received life, so she returns it in kind, which seems to be proper according to the laws of reciprocity.
Lucy clenches her fist, splattering blood. She realizes that if she pushes too hard, her life might indeed be in danger, but she doesn’t hesitate.
All the stars in Arkensum’s sky had vanished.
Covered by thousands of Lucy’s elemental magic circles, the sky was no longer visible.