episode_0051

A week had already passed since Asel regained consciousness.

Irina and Bel returned to Wiheim a few days ago. However, Ena still stayed near Asel, spending her time closest to him. It would be a lie to say it wasn’t burdensome, but even so, Asel didn’t deliberately push away his master’s worry and affection.

It was natural. Ena hadn’t stayed here for her own gain, but purely to look after Asel, so there was no reason to push her away.

However, putting that aside, being completely prevented from going outside the room was a bit much.

“Could I go for a short walk?”

“No.”

“When am I returning to the academy?”

“Sometime.”

“I need to report my survival.”

“Do it later.”

Everything was like this whenever he tried to do something outside the room. Occasionally, when Ena went out, he tried to force the door open, but the magic circuit was so complex that it took too long. Ena’s return was faster than undoing the locking magic.

He was even caught attempting to deactivate the magic, making the circuit doubly tangled and chaotic. It was a spell formula so incredible that its proper function in that state was miraculous. Asel, admiring Ena’s skill in spellcasting, completely gave up on escaping by himself.

Unless Ena were away for about three hours. Until then, he couldn’t even dare to try.

‘I’m completely imprisoned.’

By this point, he couldn’t help but realize it. Asel realized he was imprisoned and let out a low groan. Ena, who was sitting next to him reading a book, glanced at him.

“What’s wrong, Asel? Are you still hurting?”

“…No. I’m perfectly fine.”

Asel lifted the glasses he was wearing with his index finger and said. Ena sent him a briefly suspicious look in response, but soon focused back on her reading. Asel secretly took off his glasses and, upon seeing a vision so blurry it seemed shattered, frowned deeply.

Honestly, imprisonment or whatever, as long as he was with Ena, it didn’t matter. If it became truly impossible, he could just ask for help from the outside.

What was important was his eyes.

His body had recovered to a certain extent. His magic circulated well, and even after brief strenuous exercise, intense pain didn’t rush in. But his eyes caused a pain that felt like his brain was cooking, even if he kept them open properly for just a short time.

It wasn’t simply pain occurring just before awakening his eyes. It was a much more complex cause.

‘I didn’t know my talent would blossom in this direction too.’

The acquired awakening of evil eyes wasn’t common, but it wasn’t a non-existent case either. In such cases, as a cause and effect of an action or absorbing an elixir, one awakens the most suitable evil eye without any hindrance.

Theoretically, Asel should have been like that. But his innate talent held him back.

‘There are too many suitable evil eyes, so I can’t choose one.’

The magic types Asel primarily handles exceed at least five. Besides these, he also applies and uses basic magic from other types, and if he researched them thoroughly, there was ample potential to use them as mainstays. In such a situation, with various kinds of evil eyes resonating with each magic type, his eyes and brain were being overworked.

‘To end this, do I have to choose? Or do I have to wait?’

He didn’t know. Still, the fortunate thing was that thanks to the glasses, there was no major hindrance to daily life. It seemed there would be no problem pondering it slowly until he returned to the academy. There was no need to act impatiently.

Asel thought that and gazed at the bracelet wrapped around his right wrist.

Putting aside his worries about the evil eyes, the most important thing currently was integrating the remote interception spell formula, which he had been contemplating for weeks, into electric magic.

‘There’s no need to sit at a desk and ponder it.’

He had already confirmed the spell formula. A magic that automatically intercepts and reflects attacks beyond perception. He closed his eyes and drew the intricacies of that spell formula in his mind. He integrated it into the electric spell formula he had already constructed and slowly channeled his magic. In that process, he revised any parts that caught or where the flow of magic changed strangely.

The creation of magic. An extreme realm requiring great talent and effort, even if not at the Grand Master level. Asel achieved this less than 10 years after learning magic. It was a wondrous achievement that most mages would weep blood upon realizing, yet Asel himself frowned because he wasn’t satisfied with the magic he had created.

‘Faster than this.’

He compresses the destructive power and speed unique to electric magic to the extreme in the created spell formula. A portion of the magic that cannot withstand the compression spills outwards, but he doesn’t stop compressing nonetheless. In that state, if an external attack comes in, the compression is released, and magic and lightning surge explosively.

Thus, the creation of magic is completed. Since it was a magic he had been anticipating for a long time and had already constructed the spell formula to some extent, the work wasn’t too difficult.

Asel smiled satisfactorily and opened his closed eyes. And he met the eyes of Ena, who was looking down at him.

She blinked her lake-blue eyes and opened her mouth.

“…You just created magic.”

“Uh… yes.”

“What kind of magic is it? Show me.”

Ena, who had already seen the magic Asel created at the lake, wasn’t surprised that he had created magic. Instead, she pursed her lips as if curious.

Asel smiled and showed her the magic he had created.

***

“I’ll be out for a bit. Rest.”

Ena said. Wearing her going-out hat for the first time in a while, she opened the door that had always been locked and went outside. Asel saw her off with a smile, then quickly got up from his seat and opened the window.

Even this had been locked by Ena, making escape through the window impossible, but at least opening the window was possible.

That was exactly what Asel was aiming for. He poked his head slightly out the window and shifted his gaze to the side. Then he could spot a carrier pigeon shivering in the corner. The moment the carrier pigeon’s eyes met Asel’s, it cried out and flew towards him.

[Squawk! Squawk!]

“Yes, you came well.”

Asel grabbed the carrier pigeon’s hot metal neck and brought it straight into the room.

The carrier pigeon that hadn’t returned after being ordered to deliver a letter to Ena. That metal machine had returned after Asel was imprisoned in the cathedral, but it had continued to wait outside the window, following its master’s command not to show itself until he personally sought it out.

As it was an engineering machine with autonomy, waiting indefinitely was quite a difficult experience even for the carrier pigeon.

Of course, Asel didn’t pay attention to such things. He immediately sat down at the desk and began writing a letter to be sent to the academy.

Ena said there was no need to report his survival to the academy. Since she didn’t fundamentally like the academy much, and given that such an incident had occurred, her feelings towards the academy must have broken through the floor and burrowed underground.

He understood. Even Asel himself realized that his trust towards the academy had decreased compared to before.

They definitely said it was a request that had undergone inspection, but suddenly an 8th-Rank Necromancer popped out.

From Asel’s perspective, there was no way he couldn’t suspect that the academy hadn’t properly inspected the request, or that there was a traitor who had manipulated things to push the students into a death trap.

Whether it was true or not wasn’t that important. The very act of the continent’s most prestigious academy doing something that raised suspicion was the problem. Perhaps Frede was currently bustling around providing explanations.

However, apart from that, he intended to report his survival. It was a decision made for the people he had become close to at the academy, rather than for the academy itself.

The death of someone one considered a friend, even if not incredibly close, often comes as quite a shock.

Furthermore, Grace was someone who had directly witnessed Asel’s death in the previous timeline. If she received news of his death shortly after reuniting, it was obvious that her improved mental state would rapidly worsen.

‘I have to prevent that.’

It wasn’t just Grace. The team members who escaped, including Saya. Asel didn’t want to make them feel guilt or a sense of debt.

“Deliver this one to the Academy Headmaster. Since he’ll be at the academy, I don’t need to give you a mana source to find the location, right?”

[Whirr!]

“Okay. And this one, give it to Saya at the academy. I’m counting on you again this time.”

Asel said, stuffing the letter into the carrier pigeon’s body. The carrier pigeon nodded fiercely and ravenously devoured the magic Asel provided.

Then it vanished beyond the open window with an acrobatic flight. Asel closed the window only when the carrier pigeon was no longer visible.

Turning his body, the needlessly large room came into view.

‘There’s nothing special to do now.’

The letter he finally sent after waiting for Ena to leave. Other than this, there were no other fixed plans. Asel pondered how to spend this time and decided to at least do some light exercise.

He needed to do rehabilitation anyway. He had to lubricate his creaking joints that hadn’t been properly used for days and stimulate his muscles to recover his lost strength.

And… thinking of muscle strength naturally brought back the battle with the Necromancer.

The pattern of combat he experienced until meeting her was generally one of not moving much, acting with minimal movement, and barraging with magic. In battles against strong opponents like the Necromancer, he could absolutely not do that. He had to move as quickly as possible to change the tide of the battlefield or shift the situation to his advantage.

To do that, physical stamina was essential.

‘It’s annoying, though.’

Asel sighed deeply at the fact that he had to exercise, something he had never done in his life, but since exercise wasn’t bad for the body, he decided to do it with a positive attitude since he was doing it anyway. He immediately threw his coat onto the bed and lay on the floor, starting push-ups.

His knowledge of bodyweight exercise relied on his memories from his previous life. He did push-ups until failure, followed by squats and burpees.

After that, sweat poured down like a waterfall. Asel regulated his breathing, pushed back his sweat-soaked hair, and slightly lifted his top to wipe his face.

At that moment, the door burst open, and Ena returned.

“I’m back. Asel, are you uncomfortable… anywhere…”

Ena, who had returned carrying a bag full of bread, said that, then saw Asel, whose upper body was slightly revealed, and immediately closed the door again.

Bang!

The door that closed with a loud bang. Ena stood before it and took a deep breath.

“??”

An intense torrent of emotions, to the point where even she didn’t know why she was acting like this. She had merely caught a glimpse of Asel’s sweat-soaked abdomen, but her head was so hot it felt like it was cooking. Her heart pounded as if it were broken, and the blood flow throughout her body accelerated wildly.

“Master? What’s wrong?”

“…Ugh!!”

At Asel’s worried voice coming from beyond the door, the electrical signals throughout her body reacted with a jolt. Ena prioritized calming down rather than immediately figuring out the cause of all these strange phenomena.

“Hoo-ha, hoo-ha, hoo-ha.”

She took deep breaths to calm her heart and cooled her hot head with a mage’s rationality. After that, her emotions subsided to some extent. Ena took a final long breath, then adopted her usual poker face and opened the door.

At the same time, she met the eyes of Asel, who was standing in front of the door.

“Are you alright?”

Asel asked, his face wet with sweat.

Bang!

Ena closed the door again.