The Problematic Child of the Magic Tower
[Translator - Night]
[Proofreader - Gun]
Chapter 133: Artificial Island, Ivemir (10)
"Killian! Watch out above..."
"Veronica! At your feet..."
Fran, running at the back while constantly shouting warnings, trailed off.
Before his warnings even reached them, the two had already fended off the ambush with ease.
Feeling a bit awkward, Fran fell into deep thought.
'...Wait, am I the most useless one among us three?'
He was confident he could rival even Oscar in terms of sheer destructive power.
The problem, however, was sustainability.
Even now, all he was doing was trailing behind them without contributing much to the battle.
'I came out of grueling seclusion training to get stronger, to avoid being a burden to my comrades.'
'This won’t do. I need to take down the next enemies we encounter.'
Just as he was feeling guilty, he gripped his whip.
At that moment, Killian suddenly glanced back, his eyes settling on the whip in Fran’s hand.
"Save it. There might come a time when we really need that whip’s destructive power."
"Huh? Oh, yeah... I guess using it here would be a bit of a waste."
Fran, reassured by Killian's words, loosened his grip on the whip and chuckled awkwardly.
"If we need it later, let me know anytime. But this basement is larger than I expected. Are we there yet?"
"......"
Just as Fran mentioned, quite some time had passed since they parted ways with Oscar.
They had already fought off four waves of mages emerging from the walls, ceiling, and floor.
Yet, they still hadn't reached the mana facility.
Something felt off.
"Wait a moment."
Killian halted the group and slowly approached one of the walls.
Following him, the other two discovered deep claw marks, as if a beast had scratched the surface.
Veronica narrowed her eyes, recognizing the shape.
"Hey... Aren’t these your claw marks? That whole wolf thing?"
"Yeah."
Killian nodded.
"I started marking the walls as we moved. I made this one about six minutes ago."
"So, if we’re seeing it again, that means we really are going in circles?"
"For now, that seems to be the case."
"What is this, some kind of maze...?"
The three looked around.
With its high ceiling and wide corridors, the basement didn’t feel like a maze at all.
Shrugging, Fran muttered,
"Hmm. If it’s a maze, should we try the left-hand or right-hand rule?"
"You mean tracing one wall with your hand to eventually find the exit?"
"That’s what I learned."
"That only works if all the walls are connected. If there's even one intentionally isolated space, you'd just keep looping forever."
Veronica's explanation made Fran scratch his head.
"Then what do we do?"
"Close your eyes, both of you."
Killian’s sudden request made Veronica frown, but Fran closed his eyes immediately.
"They’re closed."
"What do you sense?"
"It’s dark. I can’t see anything."
"...I didn’t mean for you to see. I meant listen."
"Listen?"
Focusing on his hearing, Fran picked up a steady sound through the ambient noise.
Shwaaa...
The sound of a massive waterfall crashing into a pool below.
Fran’s eyes snapped open, realization striking him.
"Ah! It’s the sound of a waterfall!"
"Exactly. And the mana facility we’re looking for must have a waterfall."
"So we just need to follow the sound?"
"That’s the idea. Lead the way."
Killian confidently resumed running, and right on cue, more mages emerged.
While the other two held them off, Fran concentrated all his senses on the sound and called out,
"Wait! The sound’s getting farther away! We need to go right at that last junction... but there’s no path!"
"...Are you sure?"
"I'm 100% sure."
"I'll handle these guys. Figure it out."
As Killian charged toward the enemy, Veronica approached Fran.
Closing her eyes, she focused on the sound, then frowned.
"He’s right."
"See? But there’s no path."
"......"
After a brief hesitation, Veronica spoke cautiously.
"When we looked at the map earlier, wasn’t this basement’s layout really simple?"
"From what I remember, yeah?"
"But now, it feels like a maze, and we keep looping back to the same place..."
She stepped toward the wall, running her hands across it.
"There’s only one explanation. A new wall was created at a junction that was supposed to be open."
And the method behind it was easy to guess.
"If they can create illusionary mages, there's no reason they couldn't create walls too."
Sure enough—
When Veronica touched a particular spot, she suddenly recoiled.
"...Magical repulsion."
"The same kind that kept us from leaving the building?"
Fran clicked his tongue.
If that were the case, they wouldn't be able to break this wall either.
Even Oscar had been repelled when he tried.
"......"
Veronica studied the wall for a moment before enveloping her hand in mana and touching it again.
Bzzz!
A louder crackle of resistance pushed her back, and Fran barely caught her.
"Hey, what are you doing?"
"...Now that I’ve felt it more closely, I’m sure of it."
She looked at her tingling hand and grinned.
"This wall’s magical repulsion is way weaker than the one above ground."
"Now that you mention it, Oscar got thrown back way faster up there."
"Looks like that guy is wearing down the enemy more than we thought."
In other words, they hadn't invested as much power into this barrier.
"Of course, even at this level, neither I nor Killian can break through it."
"......Step back for a moment."
Fran, upon hearing those words, let go of Veronica’s shoulder and spoke.
He had realized what he needed to do.
Feeling the grip of the whip in his palm, he thought to himself.
“I’ve already used the Dance of Steel once in the battle in the hallway before the dormitory...”
Today, he would likely be able to swing it two more times at most.
Woooom.
The magic within him surged rapidly, heating up his circuits.
“Wind Lord.”
The entire whip in his grasp transformed into wind.
Even that alone made his mana drain away as if it were water in a pot with a hole in the bottom.
[Translator - Night]
[Proofreader - Gun]
But his preparations weren’t finished yet.
‘My wind is harder than steel.’
He imbued the entire wind-forged whip with Breath of Steel.
‘My wind is faster than sound.’
On top of that, he enchanted it with the Jet Booster spell.
With that, everything was ready.
A technique forged by combining three spells—his fastest and strongest attack available.
“Here I go!”
The whip he swung tore through the air.
Kwaaaang!
Rather than the sound of a whip crack, it was more like a massive boulder smashing against a wall.
“Huff... Huff...”
He had only swung it once, yet his entire body was drenched in sweat.
But Fran expressed neither exhaustion nor pain.
Crack. Crrrack.
The spiderweb-like fractures spreading across the wall made him forget all else.
Watching the wall crumble like smoke, he shouted.
“Killian! I made an opening!”
“Well done!”
Killian, having successfully shaken off the pursuing mages, dashed through the newly revealed path.
After running for another ten minutes, the temperature around them suddenly dropped.
It wasn’t just cool—it was outright cold.
“...We’re here.”
The three of them were left speechless at the grand sight before them.
Aside from the small space where they stood, the three surrounding walls—on the left, right, and front—were entirely composed of waterfalls.
“...With a facility like this pouring out mana, it’s no wonder it never runs dry.”
“How do we shut it down?”
“There’s something over there.”
Approaching cautiously, they found something that unmistakably resembled machinery.
After inspecting it for a moment, Fran spoke.
“Hmm, I have no idea. Anyone know how to turn this off?”
“Not me.”
At that response, both Fran and Killian turned to stare at Veronica.
She flinched and asked nervously.
“W-Why are you looking at me?”
“Why do you think? You’ve been to a mana power plant before—with Oscar.”
“Yeah, but back then...”
A memory flashed through her mind.
She had spent the entire day hunting slimes, only to freeze up completely in front of the monster, unable to do anything.
Recalling that shameful moment made Veronica’s ears turn red with embarrassment.
“Are you kidding? Did I go there to inspect the core or something? I never even touched any of the machines! How would I know? If anything, you have a driver’s license!”
“...This is completely different from a car.”
“So, that leaves us with only one option.”
Startled by Killian’s remark, Fran clung to the machine.
“We can’t just smash it! What if something goes wrong?!”
“...I never suggested anything that barbaric.”
Shaking his head, Killian lit a cigarette and spoke, his gaze fixed on the massive waterfalls.
“This mana-generating facility works by converting the waterfalls’ force into mana. In other words, if we stop the waterfalls, the mana production will naturally cease as well.”
“...Wait, why are you suddenly so logical?”
Fran stared at him in disbelief.
Veronica, who fully understood his reaction, chuckled.
“Funny, isn’t it? I’ve been telling you—he only pretends to be dumb.”
“I’ve never pretended to be dumb.”
“Anyway, so we just have to stop that thing, right?”
Kwoooosh!
The three of them looked up at the raging waterfalls.
A new issue occurred to Fran, making him ask,
“But, you know... Isn’t stopping the waterfalls even harder than shutting off the machine?”
“Let’s look around first. There might be a lever or a button somewhere.”
As they searched the area—
Ssssshh...
—a figure quietly emerged from the floor behind them.
“Tsk. Another nuisance. I’ll handle it. Let’s get rid of that thing quickly and—”
Just as Veronica was about to deal with the unexpected enemy, her eyes narrowed.
A strange sense of unease crept up her spine as she quickly scanned their opponent from head to toe.
“...Something feels different this time.”
For starters, the numbers were off.
Their previous foes had always come in groups of ten or more.
This time, however, only one enemy had appeared.
“Do they really think they can stop us with just one?”
That didn’t make sense.
Which meant there had to be a hidden reason behind this decision.
“...I have a bad feeling about this.”
Killian, who shared the same unease, made the first move.
His plan was simple—dodge the enemy’s front, slip behind them, and tear them apart with Wolf’s Song.
Every mage they had fought in this facility had failed to block that attack.
“Was my unease just paranoia?”
Killian briefly tilted his head in doubt as he darted past, studying his opponent.
Then—
“...!”
A chill ran down his spine.
The enemy mage’s eyes were locked onto him, tracking his movements perfectly.
‘They can follow my speed?’
The moment he realized that—
The world twisted.
A strange, floating sensation overtook his body.
Then, an overwhelming force crashed into him.
“Kuhak...!”
Killian was slammed into the ground.
At the same moment, dozens of Veronica’s fire arrows rained down toward the enemy mage.
“Stop.”
With a simple gesture of the palm, the arrows froze in midair.
With an air of casual confidence, the mage swept their gaze over the three of them and clicked their tongue.
“Tsk. This technique takes decades just to restore the soul after one use... I’d rather not have used it, but I suppose I have no choice.”
With those words, thirteen magic circles materialized behind them.
“The price of sacrificing thirteen souls... I’ll collect it in exchange for your lives.”
[Translator - Night]
[Proofreader - Gun]

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