Ch.418Episode 16 – The Six Million Dollar Man

# Flame.

Purity, passion, immortality.

Earth.

Invincibility, life, roots.

Two forces with opposing natures collide. As sorcery shakes the earth and dominates space, magic burns the sky and heats the air.

Camilla, who summoned flames, set fire to the empty air. When Fatima, who had twisted the ground, stirred the sand, the fierce momentum of the flames was greatly diminished.

Fire and sand, sorcery and magic.

The magician and sorceress facing each other on the battlefield exchange blows, searching for each other’s weaknesses. They aim for each other’s lives.

“Not bad, huh?”

Fatima, forming a hand seal, pulled her right foot back. As her hand imbued with sorcery struck the floor of entangled concrete fragments and sand, the sand taking the form of a snake extended with fierce speed.

Debris heaving and earth writhing. As Camilla leapt onto an abandoned car and took flight, flames poured down from the air.

The sorceress dodged the magic with ease.

Earth is the domain and servant of an earth-element sorceress. The sand would not idly watch its master in danger.

“You’ve got skill. And guts too. But is that all you’ve got?”

The provocation continued, stimulating her pride. Like a surfer riding a wave across the sea, Fatima slid across the sand as her lips began to form a curved smile.

Camilla said nothing.

“……”

Curving fingers. The thumb gently covers the four fingers from index to pinky.

A posture of wetting fingertips with water and flicking them to shoot droplets. A hand gesture typically seen in childish pranks.

However, not a trace of playfulness could be found in Camilla’s expression.

She bent her fingers and extended her arm to aim at her target.

Though the gesture was playful, her attitude was serious, and as if to prove that seriousness, the magical power contained in her fingertips was tremendous.

She inhales, drawing in magical power, and exhales, releasing air. Magical power flows like a river.

The flicked flame shoots out in a fan shape.

## Episode 16 – The Six Million Dollar Man

A bright red light illuminated the world. It was a flame carrying intense heat.

Fire, by its mere existence, evokes awe and instills fear in those who behold it.

But what is truly frightening is not the fire itself.

-Boom!

A fragment of concrete that flew through the flames crushed a car. The ground that had been writhing beneath the blue sedan surged upward, and tons of metal floated in the air.

Sand crept through the cracks in the torn metal plates, tickling her eyes. As she covered her nose and mouth with cloth and frowned, she heard a cackling laugh. Camilla stepped to the left and threw a fireball into the thick dust.

Her hair, which reached her shoulders, fluttered. The cold desert air swept away her sweat, and tiny particles covered her skin.

Though her movements weren’t flashy, her magic was powerful. The flame that bloomed from her fingertips illuminated the darkness and quickly pursued its target.

It didn’t reach.

“Ha!”

The sorceress slid across the ground. The sand enveloping her feet moved her away from the flames. The rising debris blocked the approaching fire.

The sorceress, who dodged the attack with ease, was smiling. As if she found this whole situation enjoyable.

The compatibility was bad. Sand, of all things. Even Camilla’s fierce flames lost their momentum when they touched the sorceress’s sand. Unlike the river-element sorceress who manipulated water, this earth-element sorceress who controlled sand was a practitioner of a much higher level.

When the sorceress waved her hand, an enormous amount of soil and sand rose up. The soil scattered everywhere was saturated with groundwater.

Camilla’s gaze darkened as she observed this.

Noticing her gaze, Fatima wore a sneer.

“What’s wrong? Things not going as planned? You seem to be having trouble focusing.”

It was true.

Camilla knew better than anyone that she wasn’t concentrating properly.

She exerted more effort to gather her scattered focus. But she still couldn’t reach her goal.

“Hmmph-“

She inhaled, gathering magical power. The natural magic dissolved in the atmosphere entered her body on the wind.

Oxygen transported through blood vessels. Similarly, the magical power within her body seeps through invisible pathways.

She regains her composure.

Magic power condensed at her fingertips like morning dew.

When she flicks the fingers held down by her thumb—

“…Bang.”

An explosion spreading in a fan shape.

Light filling the space where darkness has been pushed back. Dazzling flash and fierce momentum.

The sorceress in the precariously flickering shadows.

Fatima gritted her molars and clapped her hands together.

‘Damn it!’

The flames that tore through the air and plowed through the front charged toward her.

Deepened darkness and flickering dazzling flashes. Light and shadow created by the advancing flames. The sorcery born from her hands sprinkled dense colors into a world full of shadows.

The earth began to undulate as if an earthquake had struck.

Debris poured down and the ground rose. Just before the fired flames reached her. Fatima, who had barely completed her sorcery, could see the pillar of fire soaring high into the sky as she was buried in debris and sand.

*

There are several ways to enhance the power of magic.

The most representative examples are the quantity and purity of magical power.

‘The power of magic varies greatly depending on the amount and purity of magical power invested. Let’s look at an example.’

Whoosh. A small flame blooms in her hand. The red flame kindled by the magician. A woman watching this scene cast a spell.

The flame born in the woman’s hand was not much different from the flame kindled by the magician. At least in terms of size, the two flames were similar.

However, while one burned a deep red, the other blazed blue. Camilla, who possessed the scientific knowledge that the outer blue flame, dimmer than the brightest inner flame, is actually hotter, slapped her knee in understanding.

‘It’s the difference between premium and regular fuel, right?’

‘……’

‘…Or not?’

The master was dumbfounded by her disciple’s words.

She was quite offended that the principles of the greatest discipline that could touch the truths and principles of the world were being compared to mere gasoline sold at gas stations, but since it wasn’t exactly a wrong interpretation, she let it pass.

‘That’s right. Even with the same type of magic, the power varies depending on the amount and purity of magical power invested. Just as premium gasoline improves fuel efficiency.’

Grand Duchess Alexandra Petrovna took Camilla, who was ignorant about magic, as her disciple.

Even a good teacher might hesitate to teach a student with no background knowledge, but the Grand Duchess willingly taught her everything from start to finish.

The Grand Duchess spent most of her time teaching the fundamentals of the discipline, but the most valuable teachings took place elsewhere than the classroom.

Satisfying curiosity was the virtue the Grand Duchess valued most.

Learning without curiosity cannot be called true learning, and blind faith is an obstacle that covers the eyes and ears.

So whenever Camilla came running with a book, saying she had something she didn’t understand, the Grand Duchess always smiled and received her questions. Without caring about place or time.

Rather, on days when she didn’t ask questions, the Grand Duchess would visit her before bedtime and ask if she had any questions, showing how enthusiastic she was about education. Or perhaps it was just the sentimentality of an old woman who was fond of a girl young enough to be her great-granddaughter.

In any case, the time spent teaching and learning magic gave satisfaction to everyone. Both to Camilla who was studying, and to Grand Duchess Alexandra Petrovna who was teaching her.

Then one day, the Grand Duchess received a strange question from her disciple who came to see her.

‘Professor.’

‘What is it?’

‘Is there another way to increase the power of magic? Besides the amount and purity of magical power.’

The Grand Duchess pondered for a moment upon receiving the question.

It wasn’t because Camilla had asked something too obvious. She already knew that what was obvious to her might not be obvious to a child.

Rather, she couldn’t understand the intent behind the question.

‘The power of magic. I’m not sure exactly what kind of magic you’re referring to, but if it’s magic intended for combat rather than everyday life…’

The grand magician, who had been closing her eyelids and connecting her thoughts, nodded gently and continued.

‘It would be emotion, of course.’

As the age of knights and heroes came to an end.

And the age of magic and science raised its curtain, mysteries were unveiled.

Divinity, magic, mystery. Things that were considered incomprehensible domains beyond human knowledge began to be dismantled piece by piece at the feet of intellect.

Magic, once the exclusive domain of magicians, has now permeated throughout society. A world has arrived where even non-magicians can use magic with the help of machines.

People call them magical devices.

‘The way to enhance the power of magic injected into magical devices is to increase the quantity and quality of magical power. That’s why they develop capacitors that can hold more magical power, more pure magical power with superior magical stones. On the other hand, the best way to enhance the power of magic handled by people, not machines, is emotion.’

‘Emotion?’

‘Yes. Emotion.’

Joy (喜), anger (怒), sorrow (哀), pleasure (樂), love (愛), hatred (惡), desire (慾). The seven emotions possessed by humans.

The Grand Duchess explained that these become the driving force for magicians to handle more powerful magic.

‘It is very important to enhance magical achievement through learning and experience. A building without a foundation easily collapses in a small wind. But child, simply knowing a lot doesn’t make one an excellent magician. One needs the will to take one more step forward, no matter how desperate or painful it is.’

Camilla asks.

‘Hmm… Do I have such will?’

‘Of course. Everyone has will. You certainly do too.’

‘I’m not sure. It doesn’t really resonate with me, I guess.’

Child.

A gentle voice tickles her ear, and a warm hand rests on her head.

The grand magician, placing her hand on the magician’s head, smiles softly.

‘You have something troubling you, don’t you?’

*

She crosses her thumbs twice and claps her palms together.

The sound of the ground rumbling is heard, and walls rush in from front and back.

-Crash!

Camilla barely managed to throw herself out of the range of the sorcery. The walls that had rushed in to crush her collided with each other.

Bricks and stone dust flying in all directions. She rotates her wrist once and throws flames high into the sky.

Whoosh! The flame drawing a long red tail traces a parabola.

“…!”

Fatima, who confirmed the magic flying toward her, quickly bent her waist.

With a crumbling sound, half of her body sank into the sand. In the blink of an eye, the ground had collapsed and a pit had formed.

The sand displaced in the process of excavating the space formed a hemisphere and covered the pit. Soon, the flames pouring from the sky collided with the sand roof.

“Ptui!”

The sorceress who emerged from the pit spat out the sand that had entered her mouth.

Though she had been shot in the abdomen, she maintained her composure. The source of that composure came not from her own skill, but from her opponent’s limitations.

“Getting tough for you, isn’t it?”

It was a question directed at the magician. The sorceress added.

“You’ve been using magic lavishly from the start. But suddenly your pace slowed down? Your power too.”

Slender fingers tremble slightly.

The corners of the sorceress’s mouth curve upward.

“Running out of magical power?”

Not just her fingers, but her entire hand is trembling. Her arms twitch slightly, and the legs supporting her body shake very subtly.

Initial symptoms that appear when magical power is depleted.

Fatima, who had guessed Camilla’s condition, infused magical power and rotated her wrists in opposite directions with her palms together.

“You’ve got skill but no experience, I see. You’ve been firing magic without even knowing your own body’s condition.”

“……”

“You should have thought about the consequences before using magic like that.”

Whether it was intentional psychological warfare or she just wanted to mock, Fatima kept provoking her.

Camilla looked at her opponent with blurry eyes. More precisely, beyond the sorceress, to someone who would now be across the sea.

She asks.

‘You have something troubling you, don’t you?’

‘Trouble? Me?’

With mysterious silver hair and blue eyes. The Grand Duchess, whose eyes shine like embedded sapphires, bends her waist slightly and smiles.

‘Yes. You.’

-Whoosh!

Flames flicker and sand dances. The sand under the sorceress’s control approaches from underground. The ground writhes, and flame streams scattered like a comb plunge into the writhing surface.

Fatima clicked her tongue and pressed her thumbs together again.

‘Um… Well… I don’t really have anything to worry about?’

‘Do you really think so?’

‘Yes.’

‘Really?’

-Thud!

A fist imbued with sorcery strikes the wall. When the fist surrounded by an ominous color touches the outer wall, cracks begin to form in the building. An ominous color melts into the gaps between the spreading cracks.

‘Child. From what I can see, you are harboring a worry. A very big one at that.’

‘……’

‘Do you really not know, or are you pretending not to know?’

Magical power bursts from the sorcery that has wedged into the cracks. The cracks etched into the building were as numerous as a spider’s web, and the magical power was powerful enough to shatter the concrete.

The concrete broke into pieces and fell away. The building, divided into several pieces, resembled a Jenga tower made of blocks.

If there was a difference between Jenga and the building, it was size.

If there was a characteristic shared by Jenga and the building, it was that it wouldn’t be strange if it collapsed at any moment.

The sorceress, who had been forming hand seals and chanting spells, swung her arm wide to strike the fragmented building. At that moment, the sharp concrete fragments split into several branches began to fall onto Camilla’s head.

-Crumble…!!

Camilla barely escaped death by rolling on the ground. However, what the sorceress aimed for was not her death.

As the building collapsed and dust scattered in all directions, vision was blocked. Camilla, who had risen from the pile of debris, hurriedly looked around, but her opponent was already close by.

“Found you.”

With her legs buried in sand, the sorceress climbing over the debris with sorcery looked like a person riding on a snake’s head.

The sorceress who had climbed over the building caught the magician in her sight. Unlike before when she had been dodging skillfully, that woman was now standing still.

This time, she could surely catch her.

The sorceress, wearing a deep smile, dismantled the sorcery contained in the sand enveloping her feet. Then she brought her hands together and began preparing a new sorcery, chanting a spell.

“……”

Her body won’t move.

To be precise, it was moving very slowly. Like someone trapped in the flow of time.

Dust and powder pouring down, sand flowing down from the top of the pile like valley water, flying embers, fingers slowly crossing.

In the slowly flowing time, Camilla gently closed her eyes. And recalled.

A question the Grand Duchess had asked her long ago.

‘Child. What are you afraid of?’

The blue eyes disappeared.

Camilla’s lips parted.