Ch.156156. Self (4)

“Junon… Why are you…”

“Enough. First, drain the magical power from the formation.”

Junon didn’t immediately destroy the magic circle.

Mana down.

He said to drain the magic first before breaking the formation, as the sudden interruption of the smoothly flowing magical power could cause a backlash to Aris. However,

“…Drain the magic first? You call that a solution?”

“Aris!”

Instead, Aris began struggling to force the interrupted flow of magic back in.

“No.”

There are children in there.

Children who stepped forward on their own to prove that her teachings weren’t wrong.

When this might be the only chance to save even one of those children, how could she give up?

“Ugh! Are you really going to be this stubborn?”

“I don’t plan to argue with you here. So… just stay away before you get caught up in this too.”

“Are you insane? Using something like this could kill you!”

“I know!! I know that!! But I… I have to do this!!”

She had to be stubborn.

Even knowing her body might not survive, she had to deploy this magic.

Without completely blasting away this dome, there was absolutely no way to save those children.

“Damn it…!”

“…”

Good. The only obstacle had been pushed back, unable to withstand the raging flow of magical power.

With the sensation blocking the Alphaid Line finally gone, the spell begins to unfold.

A lotus bud blooms beautifully, covering one-third of the dome.

Then the bud reveals its hidden technique as its petals fully bloom.

The fully opened petals gradually expand to cover the entire area.

‘This should… do it.’

It’s enough power to completely devastate the front.

By causing an explosion with her maximum output, at least some of the people inside should be able to escape.

────!

A deafening roar accompanied by a violent gust sweeps through.

And so Aris closed her eyes just like before.

Ready for both the magical backlash and the damage her body would take within the range. All prepared.

But… why isn’t anything happening?

“…Huh?”

Backlash? Damage? Loss of consciousness?

None of it came.

Having experienced this once before during the Osoptera War, she clearly knew where her limits were.

By now, her overloaded body should have collapsed on its own.

Fatigue should have built up throughout her body, her mind should have stopped thinking, and she should have already fainted, her consciousness cut off from feeling anything.

Yet there was no sensation of the world turning upside down.

She could smell the blood from the wound where she had forcibly torn off a branch.

She could even feel the sweat that had run down her forehead cooling on her skin.

This meant she wasn’t experiencing any of the symptoms associated with depleted magical power in her body.

Aris opened her eyes.

She immediately tried moving her body.

“I’m… completely fine?”

This couldn’t be right.

She had caused an explosion powerful enough to devastate everything in front of her, filling her vision with black smoke.

At the very least, she should have been caught in her own magic, standing directly in its range.

Yet her body wasn’t even singed.

And it didn’t seem like the magic had malfunctioned either.

What was it? Why? Why on earth?

As she examined her body with multiple question marks in mind, she noticed something different on her arm.

“What is this?”

A bracelet. A strange bracelet she had never worn or brought with her.

But looking closely, she could tell what it was.

Bluschwar Arc.

A pair of black bracelets used to share stored magical power or protect important individuals.

What had dwelled within it was certainly magical power.

But now it was completely depleted.

‘Could it be… instead of getting caught in the magical flow, someone put this on me to reassure me?’

Who would have done such a thing?

There was only one person who could fill this.

The silhouette visible through the black smoke felt familiar.

The very person who had put the bracelet on her.

“You… what exactly…”

“Instead of looking at me, you should see what changed from doing something like that.”

A finger from within the not-yet-fully-dispersed black smoke points ahead.

Unlike where they stood, the smoke in front had almost cleared, and though a large hole had formed in the dome, it was already in the process of repairing itself.

If any students had escaped, their voices should certainly have been heard by now.

The only presence she could sense was Junon right behind her. Not a single person had escaped from the dome in front of her.

“That can’t be…”

Despite pouring out that much firepower, not even a scratch.

Helplessly, she realized she couldn’t reach the main body, let alone hear any voices, as the distance remained too great.

“No, that’s impossible…! If I use my remaining magic one more time…”

Crash!

With the sound of breaking glass, the magic circle shattered into pieces.

Immediately overcome by dizziness, Aris collapsed to the ground.

“You, you…!”

“Seems you still haven’t come to your senses.”

“Why have you been interfering since earlier! Why did you suddenly appear and… ugh!”

Her shoulder throbbed with pain. The pain that hadn’t been felt at all until now made her eyes squeeze shut as soon as Junon’s hand touched her shoulder.

She figured she must have been hit by some blunt fragment and tried to brush it off.

But as soon as she turned her head back, Aris realized. This kind of pain wasn’t the issue.

“Do you understand now? What happened because of your reckless attempt to force your way through with power.”

“Why… you?”

“Because even I couldn’t stop all of it.”

Because she had seen the man’s arm covered in red liquid.

The feeling of the iron-scented liquid was still only on her hand where she had first been scratched. The other red liquid now flowing down was, of course, his.

‘That means… the reason my body is unharmed…’

There was no way she wouldn’t have been caught in the range of a spell that drew out her mana to its limit.

She had been prepared for the possibility of losing an arm or having parts of her body burned, even knowing her life would hang by a thread given the power that could devastate the entire area.

He had blocked it.

Just like in that alley where he had blocked even the Eight-Directional Lotus, he had raised a magical shield.

There was a smell.

The iron scent coming from his clearly exposed arm.

That which had flowed down his arm to reach his hand full of calluses and blisters, soaking his clothes red—this pungent smell.

It was the scent of his blood. The source of this smell tickling her nostrils was his blood, shed in place of her own that should have been spilled long ago.

“Urgh…!”

Bile rose up.

It wasn’t because of the smell of blood from outside.

It was because of her own disgust spreading from her mouth through her esophagus, not just her stomach but her entire body.

Who exactly was she receiving help from?

From someone she shouldn’t even have made eye contact with after that one mistake, and yet she had done something like this again because she couldn’t control her temperament?

‘What have I, what have I done…!’

She was crazy.

You’re insane, Aris McKenheim.

“───.”

Eventually, unable to contain her disgust, bile surged up and poured out of her body.

It was truly filthy and obscene.

Though it would have been much clearer than someone’s blood soaking clothes or the blood still flowing from the wounded arm.

***

“Hah, hah…”

Emptying and refilling. Emptying again and refilling again.

She didn’t know how many times this process had repeated, but it felt like she had vomited all the gastric acid, leaving her stomach completely empty.

Her breathing was labored from spitting out the disgusting foreign substance so many times.

As the heat drained from her body, her mind finally began to cool down as well.

“…”

At last, the emotions cleared from her desperate mind, and reason stamped itself firmly in place.

This was what Aris had gained after vomiting her guts out several times—she who had been so focused on saving the trapped children that she could only see straight ahead.

“Junon…”

Her mouth was parched after spitting out so much gastric acid.

The clear, bright tone that had once energized even the students no longer came from those dry lips.

Nevertheless, she managed to make a sound from those parched lips, even if it was hoarse.

Because there was something she absolutely had to say now.

“I… I can’t fight using my body. I can’t flexibly deflect enemy attacks or nimbly move to pierce vital points with a blade.”

She had only ever used magic.

“I’m not smart either. I don’t have the brains to teach tactics or strategy.”

She couldn’t even study properly, let alone teach others.

“I borrow other people’s brains. And I borrow the time that others have earned for me. Yet despite that, I’m the one who rushes ahead and causes trouble.”

A half-wit whose body moves before her brain. That’s exactly who she is.

“I’m… a fool who can’t do anything alone…”

Because she had always been with others.

Because she had been in the comfortable position of only having to exert her power while leaving the most important things to others.

That’s why she couldn’t do anything at all.

Despite earning a title and receiving people’s cheers, support, and expectations, she couldn’t do anything on her own.

She couldn’t even save the students being dragged away by monsters right before her eyes.

So, this time too.

“Please… please, please save those children inside…”

She had to rely on someone else while hunching her shoulders.

On the man who had been wounded in return for saving her from being torn to shreds.

This thought, born from self-loathing—wishing someone else were in her place—was not the sixth time but the seventh.

“I don’t care what you make me do later…! Just please… please save those children!!”

Junon.

That final place belonged to him.

Even in this situation, he would show success.

He would form a perfect formation unlike her own and reduce casualties, just like before.

Even in a worsened situation, he would find and realize a thread of hope.

Just like when the Osoptera invaded.

Aris’s scream, squeezed out through her hoarse throat, echoed.

After the echo came a quiet stillness.

Only when something dripped onto Aris’s neatly folded thighs did Junon walk forward step by step.

Then, gathering plenty of magical power in his hand, he struck the dome.

“It’s impossible.”

“What…?”

Aris’s heart sank.

He said he couldn’t do it. The one person she had believed without a doubt could accomplish it most certainly and perfectly.

Her gaze naturally went to his eyes.

“I’ve called for support, but Sirah is larger than expected, so by the time they arrive, it will be too late. In the end, there’s no one else to call.”

So… those children can’t be saved…?

That’s not right.

You can do it.

Just like when you stopped the Osoptera, even saved Erica—you can do it!!!

She wanted to shout that at the top of her lungs, even if her voice was hoarse and strained.

But,

“So get up quickly and follow me. You want to save the kids, right?”

“…?”

“It’s impossible for me alone because there’s no support, but with two people including you, Aris, it’s possible. Completely. So stop moping and get up.”

He tells her to stand up.

Saying it’s possible.

“And you know what? If they’re your students, you should save them yourself, not me. Why are you trying to dump that on me?”

With a strangely complaining tone, he rotates his wounded shoulder to check its condition.

After that, without adding anything more, he walked past her toward the dome.

His steps were confident, as if he had finished all calculations.

“…”

There was no way reinforcements would arrive.

Only two people to rescue the students isolated inside the dome.

Most people would shake their heads.

And yet somehow, she felt it might be possible.

No. At this moment, his back didn’t question the possibility.

It approached like an established fact.

Already, Aris was following behind the back of the most reliable person, feeling a heavier guilt than ever before in a corner of her aching heart.