Magician Marigold

29.

“You already know you can’t win, Lancel.”

Lightning spread out in all directions, taking on a plasma form.

Extremely condensed bundles of energy began to carve into the earth like angry octopus tentacles.

KWA-KWA-KWANG!

The entire landscape shook as if an earthquake had struck.

The Magic Power Marigold unleashed turned the ground Lancel was standing on into a complete wasteland. It wasn’t easy to even maintain his balance.

9th Circle Magic. Lightning Whips.

“Easy, easy!”

SWHOOSH!

Magic Power, lashing out like a whip, flew menacingly towards Lancel.

“Oh dear.”

Radiance burst forth from Lancel’s blade. He aimed for the moment the stream of Magic Power tried to wrap around him and swung his blade with all his might.

CLANG!

The lightning was severed in an instant.

The plasma scattered into the air, disintegrating into particles. It left behind dazzling sparks, as if unwilling to be neatly extinguished.

“Kuh-uhk!”

A portion of his hair caught fire. His whole body felt scorched, burning and tingling.

“To block that, you truly are amazing, Lancel.”

“Doesn’t sound like a compliment.”

“It’s genuine.”

Unlike him, who was exhausted, Marigold appeared calm. She floated leisurely in the air, holding her staff aloft.

“If only all knights were like Lancel.”

Crimson sparks erupted from Marigold’s eyes.

Eight bundles of plasma once again extended from her center.

KWA-KWA-KWA-KWANG!

Overwhelming power swept across the field. It stretched out dozens of meters in an instant.

A chain of Magic Power bundles crushed everything in its path like soft tofu—rocks, trees, the dirt ground, even the Academy buildings nearby.

It was an unpredictable, ever-changing movement where one couldn’t even guess what was coming next. Before he knew it, three or four Magic Power whips were targeting Lancel simultaneously.

Even for Lancel, if he were grazed by those, his body wouldn’t be left intact.

“Oh dear.”

Lancel was focused on dodging.

The ground was already so devastated that there was nowhere to step. Melted stones and gravel flowed like lava, forming an obstacle course.

Whether there was a chance of winning or not wasn’t the important thing. The question was whether he could touch her even once.

‘Did they mess up the Archmage setting or something?’

It didn’t seem this intense even in the game. Could this be the ultimate form of a mage? Lancel was constantly helpless.

Approaching her wasn’t easy. Getting within her reach only twice so far was Lancel’s limit.

He hadn’t even been able to swing his sword. An opaque barrier was protecting her.

“I won’t drag this out. For your sake, Lancel.”

GROOOOOOOAN!

It was then.

A chilling shriek echoed from Marigold’s palm.

Compression, compression, compression, compression—Magic Power and air, compressed without rest, emitted light and eventually formed a black sphere.

“……!”

Lancel already knew what that Magic was. That’s why he couldn’t hide his bewilderment.

“Why is the dummy data…?”

12th Circle Magic, ‘Dark Sphere.’

His sister, who was skilled at game development but completely ignorant about space science, saw the black hole photo released by NASA and immediately—

-This would be perfect as Magic!

—excitedly threw it into the game.

-Will that even work?

Due to his objection, it remained only as dummy data, the ultimate secret of the magic system.

‘Wasn’t it unimplemented?’

From the start, the concept of the 12th Circle was unimplemented.

Even within the game, Magic was only implemented up to the 9th Circle to balance the power.

Beyond that, it was closer to Cthulhu than a romance fantasy. All plans were scrapped during the testing phase.

‘Why is she using that?’

The appearance of Magic classified as dummy data and the 12th Circle was already not normal.

In the setting, the Chief Court Wizard and the Magic Tower Master, the greatest mages on the continent, were both at the 8th Circle.

The 9th Circle, the standard for an Archmage, had only been achieved by one person in history.

In that situation, the 12th Circle?

It was a concept that should never exist.

Something was wrong.

“Mary, you…….”

But what was formed on Marigold’s palm was clearly the 12th Circle Magic, the Miniature Dark Sphere.

An accretion disk appeared around the fiercely rotating dark sphere. A small black hole.

The air ceaselessly sucked into it emitted a terrifying scream.

KIIIIIIIIIIIIING!

‘……This was really unwinnable, wasn’t it?’

Yes.

Marigold in front of Lancel was already far beyond an Archmage.

“This is the end, Lancel.”

One who had mastered even the Magic that existed outside the game, perfectly manipulating it, a being who had far transcended the existence of a mage.

A superhuman in the literal sense.

A human closer to God than anyone else.

“I’ll end it now.”

Therefore, Lancel couldn’t help but feel unnatural about that sight.

.

.

.

“A nightmare?”

“Yes, it seems to cause nightmares.”

It was a memory from long ago.

“The kind of dream is different for everyone, but it’s said that it starts when Miss Mary falls asleep and continues until she wakes up. Professor Laura, do you know anything about it?”

At Lancel’s question, Professor Laura rested her chin on her hand and seemed to recall something for a moment.

Lancel waited silently for her to speak.

The ‘nightmare incident’ that Marigold had caused, which had made her an outcast at the Academy, was bothering him.

“Hmm. It’s definitely mental Magic, but a dream…….”

Laura finally opened her mouth.

“If it’s related to dreams, it might be a succubus phenomenon.”

“Succubus phenomenon?”

“Yes. It’s a magical phenomenon that, literally, makes the target dream. No one knows how it manifests. There hasn’t been much research on mental Magic yet. It’s Magic mainly used by demons, Monsters, and other races rather than humans. So, there are limitations to the research.”

Mental Magic.

In the game, it was Magic used to inflict sleep, confusion, and darkness.

Does that mean Marigold was unconsciously using it?

‘Well, she’s a hybrid of another race. She grows grass on her head, after all.’

Thinking about it that way, it made quite a bit of sense.

“Some people feel it as a good dream, while others feel it as a bad dream. Everyone is different. But the reason most people feel it as a nightmare is……probably because they can’t escape it on their own?”

Laura took off her glasses and continued.

“It lasts for a moment if it’s short, and several months if it’s long. Most people cleanly forget it when they wake up. But everyone remembers that they were trapped in a dream.”

“So, there are people who remember the contents of the dream?”

“Very rarely, only those who had a good dream.”

“……It’s fortunate that they forget the nightmare.”

“You could see it that way.”

Laura shrugged.

“What kind of dream they have depends on the person. Dreams are thought to be infinite possibilities, but that’s not really the case.”

“Is that so?”

“Of course. No matter how strange the dream is, it’s still just imagination. Imagination is ultimately only possible up to the limit of a person’s imagination.”

Now that he heard it, it was true.

“Interesting.”

“Should I tell you more?”

“I’ll pass on that.”

.

.

.

Lancel returned from his brief reverie.

The 12th Circle Magic lingering in Marigold’s hand.

The reason why something that shouldn’t exist in the game was realized wasn’t because she was a powerful mage.

The reason why Marigold was an Archmage, a transcendent being, a Cthulhu-like existence, a human infinitely close to God, was, when you looked at it, somewhere else.

Yes, it was Lancel.

Because this dream was Lancel’s dream.

Mary was just a stranger who had entered it.

The reason she realized the 12th Circle Magic was simple. She was just taking the strongest form within the limits of Lancel’s imagination.

Who besides Lancel would even know that such Magic existed in this game?

This world of imagination, which regressed every 30 years, was the same. It was a world that could be realized because Lancel was a regressor.

He was sure that Marigold in this iteration probably didn’t even know the concept of ‘regression.’

Marigold in the dream had grown based solely on the imagination borrowed from Lancel, from beginning to end.

She was just a guest.

“Right. This was my dream.”

Why was he thinking the other way around?

Lancel had thought that he had entered Marigold’s dream.

But it was actually the opposite. This was the dream he was dreaming. The world he wanted.

Not Marigold’s.

It was the ideal world Lancel himself had wanted.

The imagination of wanting to be happy. The imagination of wanting to live in a peaceful world. The imagination of a harmonious life. The imagination of wanting Marigold to become an Archmage. The imagination of wanting to marry Marigold……?

‘This isn’t it, is it?’

Anyway, Marigold was just keeping him from escaping this dream.

Lancel was the owner of the dream.

—Succubus phenomenon.

Lancel was just in the same situation as the Academy students who shared a dormitory with Marigold that day.

“Hmm.”

All the pieces fell into place.