Priest (5)
Among the servants, murmurs were spreading.
Diela was digging beneath the shattered platform, and Raig was drawing up his mana and manifesting 1-star magic.
This was no longer a magic sparring match where they observed formality and etiquette and measured each other's skills, but literally a real, physical battle.
Head butler Delron swallowed his dry saliva as he watched that scene.
For now, by the rules of a magic duel, the conditions to end the match had not been met. No one had gone over the fence, and the protection magic circle had not been activated.
However, could this still be called a magic duel anymore? Would it really be okay not to stop a situation where they were just fighting each other emotionally like this?
For now, no instruction came down from Duke Duplein, who was watching from the railing. He was merely watching the duel with serious eyes.
Head butler Delron considered stopping it with his own authority, but the seriousness of the two, who were clenching their teeth and facing the duel with full resolve, held him back.
–Crash! Crunch!
Raig ran out between the ice pillars and organized his thoughts.
If he tried to break the platform floor to pressure Diela, then Diela, sensing the mana, would pour attacks onto him.
Then Raig would have no choice but to stop his incantation or divert his magic to defense in order to block those attacks. That kind of standoff would inevitably continue.
While continuing this battle of nerves, Raig realized something.
Diela was trying to maintain this kind of standoff to waste Raig's mana.
Raig was firing off 1-star magic indiscriminately, while Diela was merely repeating basic mana usage.
Even if their proficiency in magic differed, it was obvious who would get tired first.
–Thump!
Raig ran toward the upper part of the platform.
Even though the sound of footsteps should have spread below the platform, Diela's magic did not manifest. As expected.
Diela only interfered when Raig was about to manifest magic. It became clear that she was forcibly inducing a war of attrition.
'She's using her head. But.....in the end, it's just a cheap trick.....!'
A magic duel was basically about competing in magic skills, but if things had come to this, there was no longer any need to observe etiquette and only use magic.
Raig kicked off the platform's fence and jumped up, then grabbed the flagpole on the outer edge of the platform.
A flag bearing the crest of the Duplein Ducal House was fluttering. Raig didn't care and climbed straight up the flagpole. Veins stood out on his thick arms.
The place Diela's attacks could reach was only the top of the platform. If he went to higher ground, with Diela's level she wouldn't be able to hit an enemy she couldn't even see through the platform. From here, even if he fired off magic, Diela wouldn't be able to respond.
However, from Raig's point of view, there was also a disadvantage. In a situation where he was clinging to the flagpole, it was hard to properly chant, so the power of the magic would be reduced, and since he couldn't move freely, his mobility would also drop.
Even if he fired magic like this and broke the platform floor, he would only become an easy target for Diela's magic.
Diela had probably intended even this much.
And Raig stepped one step further ahead than even that intention.
–Whoosh!
Raig released the clasp of the cloak he was wearing and wrapped the cloth of the cloak around the flagpole.
Then he gathered his mana and drove a 1-star magic, 'Mana Arrow', into the lower part of the flagpole.
–Boom!
–Creak, creak.
The flagpole, having taken a huge impact on its lower support, began to topple.
Ignoring the cries of the servants, Raig pulled the cloak wrapped around the flagpole and yanked his center of gravity sharply toward the platform. It was to adjust the direction in which the flagpole would fall toward the platform.
Using the collapsing flagpole like this, he would smash the platform.
If he destroyed the platform without using magic, not only would Diela have no time to react, but he himself would also gain a path to enter beneath the platform where Diela was.
On equal ground, Raig would definitely win.
There was absolutely no way that premise would collapse.
–Creak!
–Boom!
The flagpole slammed into the platform, and a cloud of dust rose.
Just before falling, Raig jumped sideways and rolled on top of the platform. His body was covered in dust, but he didn't care and looked toward the place where the flagpole had been driven in.
One side of the platform made of wooden planks had collapsed. The geographical advantage that had been protecting Diela was completely gone.
Without hesitation, Raig threw himself into the collapsed gap.
–Clang!
It wasn't hard to predict that she would aim for the moment he landed.
The ice pillar manifested by Diela struck at him, but Raig quickly drew out his mana and shattered the pillars. Then, brushing off his hands, he turned his gaze to locate Diela.
Below the collapsed platform.
Sunlight occasionally came in through the gaps in the broken wooden planks, but most of the space was quite dark despite it being broad daylight. He looked for Diela, but her figure was nowhere to be seen even below the platform.
'.....What? Did she go outside the platform?'
When Raig looked around below the platform, he saw that the hole Diela had initially blocked with ice was open again.
Below the hole, traces of ice pillars remained, as if Diela had stepped on them to climb up.
When Diela saw Raig showing signs of breaking the platform and coming down, she had instead already finished preparing to climb up onto the platform herself.
'Damn it.....like a rat.....!'
She had no intention of fighting on equal terms. If there was a difference in strength, she would use the battlefield's advantage and tactics to induce confusion in her opponent.
It was the fighting style of mercenaries, who lived a life never knowing when they might be forced to fight the strong.
Above and below the platform. Their positions had reversed.
This time, Diela occupied the top of the platform, and Raig was below it. The fact that the situation was the opposite of just now meant that all conditions had been flipped.
Raig maintained his composure. As he had just experienced, the top of the platform, where one had to indirectly reveal one's position, was far more disadvantageous.
This time, since he was occupying below the platform, he had become more advantageous, not more disadvantaged.
Either he could climb back up to the platform, or he could just find Diela's position from here and drive in a decisive blow.
And so, the moment Raig caught the sound of Diela's footsteps, a Mana Arrow flew in that direction and struck.
–Crash! Bang!
The Mana Arrow struck directly beneath Diela's feet and smashed the platform.
At the same time, Diela, who had been moving above his head, was forcibly dragged down to the ground.
–Rustle! Thud!
As Diela fell below the platform, dust rose again.
Because of the thick dust, his vision wasn't clear, but he could roughly sense where Diela was. Raig drew out three more Mana Arrows and drove them all into where Diela was likely to be.
–Bang! Bang! Bang!
The dust was blown away by the aftermath of the impact, but there was no sign that the protection magic circle had been activated. They hadn't hit.
Raig clicked his tongue and kicked off the ground, rushing forward.
And before Diela could change positions again and use more cheap tricks, he gathered his mana, intending to finish it quickly.
Then, Diela's figure emerged from within the dust.
At that moment, Raig's pupils trembled.
A line of blood was flowing down one side of the girl's forehead. It seemed to be a wound from the fall.
Seeing that she could still move well, it didn't seem like a serious injury, but Raig knew very well what a wound on the body of a noble Young Lady meant.
The girl, with her robe covered in dust fluttering, was once again drawing out her mana.
What filled her eyes was malice.
That's right. Malice.
Since childhood, what Raig had seen in Diela's eyes was that malice that, no matter what the goal was, would stop at nothing to reach it.
Sometimes it was painting, sometimes it was magic. The girl worked herself to death at whatever she did, and yet achieved nothing. If you throw yourself in with all your heart and still achieve nothing, what comes back in return is endless emptiness.
Where did that malice, which had nowhere to go, turn to? To protect her own aristocratic sense of authority and guard the last remaining value, she obsessively took it out on the servants.
And then, as always, she would just sit in the annex with empty eyes, passing meaningless time.
Watching that, Raig had thought many times. Diela was only that kind of person.
However, what matters with malice is what kind of direction it is given.
If it meets someone who can guide that direction well, sometimes it can turn into wings growing on one's back.
–Crack!
Diela, who was protecting her body with rising ice pillars, was clearly exhausted at a glance.
Unlike Raig, she was a girl who lost a lot of stamina just by manifesting magic a few times. Now, it really seemed to be her limit.
Unfortunately, Raig was not the kind of person who would go easy just because she was bleeding.
As he approached, it was the moment he drew out the Mana Arrow that would be the final blow.
–Swish!
"Kuaak!"
Diela grabbed the dirt on the ground and scattered it straight into Raig's eyes. It was pettiness that couldn't be considered the action of a noble.
As Raig covered his eyes and staggered back, she swung her cloak and kicked him in the lower abdomen.
–Crunch!
She pulled out ice pillars and tried to attack Raig, but Raig, glaring with bloodshot eyes, clenched his teeth and blocked the attack.
–Shatter!
Between the ice pillars that were smashed by Raig's mana, he could see Diela's face with her teeth clenched.
From that appearance, Raig could easily read her will.
She wants to win.
She wants to win no matter what. She wants to win and prove her own worth.
Protecting her magic master or whatever came after that.
Right now, Diela just wanted to win somehow. The competitive spirit in her eyes was burning fiercely.
Could that girl really be the same person as the one who had been stuck in the annex with cold, empty eyes?
Raig swallowed his dry saliva and clenched his teeth. Even so, he couldn't lose.
Taking advantage of the moment Raig hesitated, Diela kicked off the collapsed flagpole and climbed up. As someone who had wandered through forests drawing landscapes since childhood, her movements were nimble, but in the end it was nothing more than meaningless struggling.
All the variables she had prepared had been completely neutralized. Raig also kicked off the flagpole and climbed back onto the platform.
There, Diela was waiting, scraping together the last of her remaining mana.
–'Think of it as painting with a brush.'
Under the night sky, the mercenary-born boy with white hair hanging down said.
Looking up at the night sky filled with stars like grains of salt, he used the wide night sky as a canvas and drew a single stroke with his finger.
As he drew between the stars and made constellations, before he knew it, mana had already gathered at his fingertips.
The girl looked at the world with eyes full of the starry sky and wanted to paint it.
Looking at that forest in the dead of night, she would hold a brush in front of the canvas. As she transferred the moon hanging alone in the sky onto the canvas, it felt as if she could see the aura of mana dwelling in all things.
A warm evening breeze, a zelkova tree standing alone in the middle of a field.
Spring. Night. And stars.
If magic is something that brings what you imagine into reality, how is it any different from painting?
Mana is the paint, the spell is the brush, and a single painting is magic brought into reality.
That is why the girl dipped her stiff, well-trained brush into the paint and painted over the world.
–Whoosh!
Just as her white-haired master had advised, she simply drew one stroke of mana.
The girl liked that moment the most, when she drew the first stroke on a completely empty, white canvas.
The mana manifested from her fingertips wrapped around her body, and then, with a single swing, gathered at her fingertips and bloomed like a flower.
Raig's eyes, who was climbing onto the platform while drawing up his mana, went wide.
Covered in dust so that there was no trace of noble dignity, and with a single line of fresh blood flowing near her eye, it added a sense of desperation to her.
Even the servants who had rushed toward the platform thinking they really had to stop this all froze.
–Whoosh!
What bloomed from the girl's fingertips was the 1-star magic, 'Ice Spear'.
The frozen spear floated around her, then flew toward Raig at an unbelievable speed.
The spear that rushed in at a speed too fast to even flinch filled Raig's vision.
"Kuhk!"
Raig clenched his teeth and cast magic.
A 1-star magic suddenly flying at him from Diela, whom he thought didn't have enough firepower to break through his defense.
It was sudden, but if he just blocked it and counterattacked in that instant, it would be over. Now Diela would truly have no means left to resist, having scraped together all her mana.
Lowering his stance, Raig gathered his mana. He focused all his mind on avoiding the Ice Spear and driving a Mana Arrow into Diela.
–Boom!
Once again, dust rose from the platform, and within the dust, defensive magic manifested.
The manifestation of defensive magic meant the match was over.
The retainers and servants who had been watching the rising dust quietly all swallowed their dry saliva.
They were all curious about how this desperate fight had ended.
And so.....little by little, the dust that had filled the platform cleared and disappeared.
–Whoosh
And the one on whose side the defensive magic had manifested was.....Diela.
She, who had collapsed from exhaustion, clenched her teeth as she looked at the defensive magic spread out around her.
"Huuk.....huuk....."
Raig had rolled on the ground and barely avoided the Ice Spear, and somehow succeeded in driving in the last shot into Diela.
Completely exhausted, Raig struggled to get to his feet.
Then, little by little, tears began to well up in the eyes of Diela, who was sitting on the ground, gasping for breath.
It was Diela's defeat.
"…."
Soon, Diela, deeply hurt by the fact of her defeat, began to cry bitterly, her eyes welling up with tears.
Raig had no choice but to stare at that 모습 with his eyes wide open.
*
'She used 1-star magic.....?'
The duel itself was not very long. It was only a few minutes.
However, in that brief time, the platform collapsed, dust rose, and a physical battle broke out in an instant.
It happened suddenly in such a tense atmosphere, and Duke Duplein did not give any order to stop them.
It was because a hunch telling him that he should watch what would happen stopped him.
"What is this.....what is this.....! Does this even make sense?! Such frivolous and vulgar.....!"
"…."
Miriela, who had been watching together from the side, shouted while clenching her teeth.
"There's no dignity, it's just getting dirty, and this is called a magic duel.....!"
"…."
"This.....this is something I can't just stand by and watch anymore! That so-called magic master, was he teaching Diela this kind of thing?! To our Duplein Ducal House's Young Lady, who must always be elegant and aristocratic, he was instilling this kind of garbage?!"
Miriela stormed out of the terrace in a rage. The servants watching beside her were startled and hurriedly followed. It seemed like she was about to grab Derrick by the collar and demand an explanation.
Duke Duplein did not even hear Miriela's anger.
No matter what she said beside him, he was just quietly watching the sight of Diela crying on the platform.
Raymond Oswald Duplein, the Family Head of the Duplein Ducal House, was someone who had wandered battlefields since he was young.
As a noble of the Empire, he fulfilled his duty on the battlefield, and until becoming the master of this Duplein Ducal House, he had seen countless people.
Those who achieved many things by inheriting noble blood usually had eyes that sparkled. But there were also many who did not.
Some achieved their dreams and smiled, others lost their dreams and cried in despair. That is how the world works.
"…."
The reason he felt a sense of unease at Diela's 모습, using every dirty trick to somehow beat Raig, was because the 모습 of his youngest daughter that he had seen had changed a lot.
He remembered the girl who, after countless frustrations, had locked herself in the annex and just stared at the wall with empty eyes.
If you experience too many frustrations at too young an age, that is usually what happens. Since time is usually the cure, Duke Duplein tried to hold the girl in his arms somehow.
However, as a father, his heart had not been completely free of pain.
Hoping that light would someday return to those empty eyes, he kept Diela within the ducal residence somehow.
He had watched her wandering until it seemed like it really was the limit.
Believing that she would surely find her own path and return.
That is usually all a parent with a wandering child can do.
But the current girl had will dwelling within her.
In a duel where everyone predicted her defeat, she tried to win somehow, no matter the means.
The sight of her shedding tears of frustration showed a burning competitive spirit and a strong desire for recognition.
It was a sight unimaginable when she was holed up in the annex, covered in thorns, staring blankly at the wall.
Handling mana a little, and learning a few ceremonial magics, was something that could be done with time and age.
As someone born with the Bloodline of the Duplein Ducal House, it was only a matter of whether it was fast or slow, and she would have reached a certain level eventually.
So, even if Derrick manifested magic a bit early, from a long-term perspective, it might not be something that could be called an enormously great contribution.
However, he proved that Diela could do it, and even in a duel where everyone predicted defeat, he presented the possibility that she might win.
He also constantly made her realize that if you want something, you must reach out your hand and seize it.
Only then did Duke Duplein realize.
What that boy named Derrick had taught Diela was not merely magic.
– What Derrick taught was 'ambition'. He planted a flame in the chest of that tiny girl.
The ambition of that boy who looked up at the starry sky and reached out his hand even in the dark gutters of the slums—that tiny girl had absorbed it completely by following him around.
It was what those who shone exceptionally even in war held in their chests, and it was also what some fell into countless frustrations and could never grasp for their entire lives.
It was different in value from merely knowing how to use a few magics. The Duke knew well that that lava-like, blazing ambition was one of the most important factors that determined the direction of one's life.
"….."
The Duke's eyes, which had been quietly watching Miriela going down toward the platform in a huff, narrowed further, and he frowned.
He closed his eyes tightly like that.
After staying still for a long while, he opened his eyes and called the head maid's name.
"Katarina."
"Yes, Your Grace."
"I should go down to the platform as well."
"Understood."
He went down along the stairs of the main hall together with the servants. Each step he took was heavy with weight.
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