The Problematic Child of the Magic Tower
[Translator - Night]
[Proofreader - Gun]
Chapter 327: Terror (5)
“......”
As the freak turned his head, the long, dry bangs hanging over his face shifted aside for a moment.
What was briefly revealed beneath them was a steel mask covering his entire face.
Even so, it could not hide the rage burning within his eyes.
‘Why?’
Countless questions burrowed into his mind.
First of all, even he himself could not understand why he had spoken the name Gilly out loud.
In his memories, Gilly had always been a mischievous boy with a bright smile.
The atmosphere he gave off was completely different from the rage-filled monster before him.
‘Then why did I...’
Why had he, even for an instant, thought this person was Gilly?
What in the world was making him so angry?
‘And why...’
Why did the sight of him, consumed by fury, feel so unbearably sad?
There was so much he wanted to ask.
He wanted to talk, to hear his voice.
Calming his turbulent heart, Oscar spoke politely.
“First of all, thank you for helping me. He was quite a tough opponent to handle alone.”
“......”
“I am Oscar Crucian, a Level 7 mage of the White Tower. If it isn’t too much trouble, may I ask your name? For some reason, you remind me of someone I know.”
“......”
No reply came.
Instead, he felt the stranger’s heated gaze carefully examining his face.
Not avoiding the stare, Oscar continued cautiously, as if dealing with a wild beast.
“Do you happen to know the name Gilliot Dominic?”
“......”
What kind of answer would he get?
A strange tension filled the silence for a moment.
“Gil... ly.”
At last, the tightly shut stranger opened his mouth.
His voice was cracked and rough, like someone with a severe cold—or someone who hadn’t spoken in a very long time.
Swallowing a small disappointment, Oscar replied,
“Yes, that’s right. Gilliot Dominic. The person I’m looking for. At the White Tower, currently—”
“Gil... ly. G-Gilly! Gilly! Gillyyyyy!”
Repeating the name over and over in his hoarse voice, the stranger suddenly clutched his head.
As if crying out in pain, he shook it violently, his whole body staggering.
Startled by the unexpected reaction, Oscar asked,
“W-What’s wrong?”
“Giiillyyy, Gillyyyyy!”
“Yes. Perhaps that’s your—”
Before Oscar could finish, the stranger abruptly froze.
Then he stared straight at him.
Sensing an inexplicable unease from that movement, Oscar cautiously began gathering mana.
“Gillyyyyyyygh!”
“......!”
The stranger kicked off the ground and shot forward like a streak of light.
Dozens of wind blades erupted in his wake, sharp as arrows, all rushing toward Oscar.
“Ugh!”
The speed was almost impossible to track with the eyes.
He had known the man was fast, but facing the attack firsthand was beyond anything he had imagined.
‘Faster than any wind... no, any magic I’ve ever seen.’
The stranger’s wind had already surpassed even the rotational speed once wielded by Isel.
Judging that dialogue had failed, Oscar immediately shifted into combat stance.
“......I suppose I have no choice. If you won’t tell me, I’ll just have to take that mask off myself.”
“Grrraaaah!”
A warm breeze swirled gently around Oscar, softly pushing away the enemy’s violent winds—
and at that very moment, a dark shadow fell over his face.
‘He closed the distance this fast? Close-quarters combat?’
Sure enough, the stranger’s leg, wrapped in black wind, came crashing down at terrifying speed.
Boom!
Oscar hurriedly crossed both arms to block, but even that sent his body flying backward.
Before his feet could even touch the ground—
“Grrraaaah!”
The stranger closed the gap instantly, driving a fist upward toward Oscar’s solar plexus.
Mid-air, falling with gravity—checkmate.
Oscar’s eyes narrowed.
‘No fundamentals. A complete mess of a fighting style.’
Objectively speaking, it didn’t even come close to Killian’s level.
What was surprising was that it was still extremely dangerous.
‘In fact, the opposite.’
Overwhelming speed that completely compensated for the shallow, crude technique.
That alone was enough to knock down most knights.
‘But...’
If this was all he had to show, he wouldn’t reach him.
Glancing at the incoming fist, Oscar gathered mana beneath his feet.
“Air Walk.”
With the spell complete, Oscar, who had seemed to have nowhere to dodge, suddenly stepped onto the air.
This was not flight, but walking.
At this moment, he no longer needed the ground in order to walk.
“......!”
Noticing him halt in midair, the stranger adjusted his attack trajectory upward—
but—
Tap tap tap!
Running across the air, Oscar slid smoothly and covered the stranger’s mask with his palm.
“Let’s have you take a short nap.”
Oscar-Style Martial Arts, Secret Technique – Chapter 1
Sound of the Waves
WOOOOSH!
A carefully controlled wind instantly tore through the stranger’s body from the inside.
Landing softly on the ground, Oscar watched the motionless figure.
He should be in a near-coma for at least ten minutes.
“......”
Swallowing hard, Oscar extended a trembling hand toward the mask.
What kind of face lay behind it?
Expectation mixed with fear and anxiety.
‘Whatever the result, don’t be disappointed. Don’t worry.’
If it was Gilly, he could fix him somehow.
He could bring him back to how he used to be.
They could laugh and live happily together again, like before.
With that earnest wish, his hand carefully removed the mask—
CRACK!
“......?”
A sharp pain shot through his wrist.
It intensified rapidly, twisting his face in agony.
“Ugh!”
At the end of his hurried glance, he saw his wrist crushed in someone’s grip.
At the same time, he felt a gaze upon him.
Slowly raising his head, he met a pair of eyes staring from within the cold mask.
[Translator - Night]
[Proofreader - Gun]
‘He woke up? This fast? Impossible—how?’
Oscar’s eyes trembled in shock.
How many seconds had passed?
Twenty?
Thirty?
He had expected at least ten minutes.
“Blink.”
First widening the distance, Oscar glanced at his wrist.
Bent at a grotesque angle, it dangled limply.
‘Can’t use this in this fight.’
Calmly assessing the damage, he wrapped mana around it like a bandage.
He wouldn’t be able to use it in combat, but it would at least dull the pain.
Crack, crack.
The stranger rolled his neck as if checking his condition—then—
“......!”
In the blink of an eye he closed the distance and threw a punch.
Bang! Bam! BOOM!
A dozen exchanges occurred in an instant.
Blocking all the attacks with one hand, Oscar’s expression twisted.
‘Even with mana reinforcement, this much?’
His arm was already tingling as if it might cramp.
If he took much more, even his good arm might become unusable.
Alarm bells rang in his head as he reset his stance.
‘This won’t work. I need to take back the initiative first.’
The opponent was the type who, once he seized momentum, would press on until death.
Stopping that flow was crucial.
“Grrraaaah!”
The stranger charged again like a beam of light.
Watching him to the very end, Oscar slightly lowered his eyes.
His breathing stabilized, and his hands traced a gentle circle.
“......Even a deeply rooted tree will snap before a great storm.”
But there exists something that, though endlessly bending before fierce winds, never breaks.
Like a raging typhoon approaching him, the stranger was met with Oscar’s principle of softness overcoming hardness.
Oscar-Style Martial Arts, Secret Technique – Chapter 3
Sway of the Reed
Like reeds swaying in a field, Oscar’s hands softly redirected the stranger’s punch.
To a third party, it might have looked like a rehearsed performance.
“......!”
His trajectory twisted, the stranger shot away like a bullet, smashing pillars before embedding himself into a wall.
Structures collapsed, dust clouds rose, and Oscar held onto a thread of hope.
‘Please... just stay unconscious.’
Keeping his guard up, he watched the rubble.
Then—
WOOOOM!
A massive gravitational pull erupted from the debris, sucking everything inside the building toward it.
“Ugh!”
The sudden typhoon-like force made it hard just to stay standing.
The floor, ceiling, and walls were torn apart—then the storm suddenly vanished.
“......”
But it hadn’t disappeared.
It had merely been compressed.
BOOM!
Bursting from the wreckage, the stranger rose, his entire body wrapped in black wind.
‘A body clad in a typhoon compressed to the extreme...’
Even brushing against it would erase flesh and bone without a trace.
And how much faster had he become now?
“All I wanted was to see your face once, and you’re charging a premium for it.”
Letting out a faint sigh, Oscar readied himself again.
The figure standing atop the rubble vanished from sight.
“......!”
Completely lost.
Biting his lip, Oscar desperately pulled at the threads of space.
‘Move locations as fast as possible.’
Each time his figure appeared somewhere in the airport, everything at that location was instantly destroyed.
BOOOOM!
Where the black storm landed, nothing remained but utter devastation.
Worse, each time he teleported, the gap between them shrank.
‘Just how fast is he?’
Fast enough to catch up to spatial teleportation.
And Blink consumed far too much mana.
Realizing the situation was worsening, Oscar teleported again—
“......Ah.”
The stranger, instinctively reading his movement pattern, was already waiting there with an outstretched hand.
As that hand filled his entire field of vision—
“......!”
Suddenly, the stranger withdrew and leapt backward.
Immediately after—
KRAAAASH!
A massive bolt of lightning crashed down between them through the shattered airport ceiling.
“Kh... keugh.”
Rising in the distance was none other than Isel Marcos—
the man whose throat had been slit and was presumed dead.
“I... can’t... die... like... this.”
Like someone returned from the gates of hell, he spat out metallic, grating words that twisted one’s expression just to hear them.
Oscar drew a deep sigh, noting the triangular positioning between the three of them.
“......Looks like it’s going to be a long night.”
[Translator - Night]
[Proofreader - Gun]

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