The Problematic Child of the Magic Tower
[Translator - Night]
[Proofreader - Gun]
Chapter 258: Blooming the Flower (9)
Inside the subspace.
The mages, who had stepped into the white void where nothing existed, were bewildered for only a moment.
“We should step back.”
“So that we don’t interfere with the proof of the sacred color, I understand.”
At Andre’s words, the mages withdrew to the rear.
After confirming that they had put some distance between them, Kudel spoke.
“You seem quite nervous.”
“......”
Lloyd didn’t answer.
But he couldn’t help but agree with Kudel’s words.
Right now, he was nervous.
‘This is the second duel.’
Just a few days ago, in the first duel... he had suffered a crushing defeat.
‘I felt the wall.’
An unbearably high and thick wall.
His attacks hadn’t worked, and Kudel had swallowed his flames whole.
Even when he used World Liberation, he couldn’t even catch a glimpse of Kudel’s world.
That was the kind of overwhelming gap it had been.
“I’m looking forward to it. What entertaining sight will you show me today?”
“......”
Clench.
At Kudel’s mockery, Lloyd clenched his fists tightly.
The sneer that had flown at him as he fled like a beaten dog that day still rang in his ears.
“Well then, let’s finish quickly and head back.”
Kudel grinned.
Seeing that, Lloyd bit down hard on his lip.
‘He’s doing this on purpose.’
Originally, Kudel’s demand was to seize Lloyd’s flames.
But within a few days, the conditions had changed.
His intent was all too transparent.
‘He intends to torment me to the end.’
First, he would order Lloyd to forge the Flower of Refinement at the Red Tower.
If he refused, endless torture would follow.
If Lloyd endured even that, only then would Kudel finally take his flames.
The clear malice in his gaze made Lloyd feel sick.
“......”
At the same time, fear gripped him.
Because he wasn’t sure he could win.
On the other hand, the visions of what would happen if he lost kept replaying endlessly in his mind.
If he could, he might have run away right then.
“Mr. Lloyd.”
It was then.
At the soft voice, Lloyd turned to see Oscar nodding.
“It’s fine to waver. Just remember what you should believe in.”
“......”
Lloyd’s eyes widened slightly.
Do not waver, never be nervous—those were the words drilled into him countless times when he first entered the army.
But what he heard now was the complete opposite.
‘It’s fine to waver?’
Normally, he would have dismissed it as a trivial comfort and erased it from his mind.
But now, he could understand the meaning.
‘Even if I waver a thousand times, it doesn’t matter.’
The ember of a dream resurrected from the depths of memory.
If he held onto that to the end, no matter how many times he wavered, the result would not change.
His trembling fists grew still.
“Hoo.”
With a heavy exhale, he let his tension flow out.
“Alright then, let’s finish this quickly.”
Because he had a place he must return to.
“Hm.”
Realizing that Lloyd was no longer nervous, Kudel squinted one eye.
He didn’t like it.
But to keep trying to rattle him with words would be unsightly.
“......Come.”
With his hands behind his back, Kudel yielded the first move.
Lloyd didn’t hesitate.
Exploding flowers—Flame Petals—instantly encircled Kudel in the shape of a ring.
“Oh, this is......”
Just as Kudel was about to show off his knowledge of magic—
“Explosion Wheel.”
Boom!
A massive detonation erupted before he could finish, shaking the entire subspace and raising a colossal cloud of dust.
At the blast site rose flames as tall as a building.
“......Someone was speaking. Where did you learn such rudeness.”
With a low voice, the flames vanished instantly.
Or rather, it was more accurate to say they were “sucked away.”
Not a trace of soot remained on Kudel Redmane’s crimson robe after he absorbed all the fire.
“Ha, to absorb the opponent’s flames.”
“As expected of the Red Tower Master... worthy of being called the master of all flames.”
Kudel chuckled as though nothing had happened.
“It’s good that you started strong. But is that all?”
“......”
He was right.
Explosion Wheel was the strongest, most powerful spell Lloyd could use.
If it didn’t work, there was no stronger magic left to cast.
“I see.”
Lloyd nodded slowly.
Just like in the last duel, he felt it with certainty.
“......What is it that you see?”
“That with flames, I can never defeat you.”
“Keuk.”
Kudel Redmane laughed darkly.
“Correct. But realizing that now—what do you intend to do?”
“......I’ll return it first.”
Lloyd grasped his chest tightly.
With a pained expression, he forced out stifled groans.
Then he pulled something from within and tossed it before Kudel.
“......”
Kudel’s eyebrows twitched hard as he looked down at it.
He glanced back at Lloyd and asked,
“Are you sane?”
“I’m fine. As you can see.”
Lloyd’s face was drenched in sweat, but his expression was refreshed.
“......Do you even know what you’ve just done?”
"I performed the 'Fire Snatching' myself, so how could I not know? Ah, in this case, it should be called 'Fire Shedding.'"
Not stolen, but discarded by his own hand.
Lloyd had spat out the essence of all the flames he had built up over sixteen years.
He even sealed the circuits used for flame magic.
“I can’t make sense of this.”
Kudel shook his head.
He never imagined the man would be mad enough to abandon his flames voluntarily.
[Translator - Night]
[Proofreader - Gun]
“Because you couldn’t beat me with flames, you threw them away entirely?”
He had thought Lloyd clever.
But wasn’t this the height of foolishness?
A laugh escaped him.
“Foolish. Pitifully foolish. Do you really think this will let you reach me?”
Lloyd didn’t respond.
He didn’t know if abandoning flames would let him win, but one thing was certain—he would never reach Kudel by clinging to them.
“If you want, you may absorb it.”
At Lloyd’s words, Kudel grinned, then crushed the flame essence beneath his foot.
“Do I look like a fool?”
No matter how tempting, he wasn’t foolish enough to pick up such a thing in a duel.
He didn’t believe Lloyd would act without reason.
Watching him, Lloyd muttered,
“Good. I’m glad you didn’t trust me until the end.”
“......What?”
Even as Kudel asked, radiant light burst at his feet.
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It was the move Lloyd had prepared, even at the cost of discarding his flames.
“The name of the spell... yes. Smouldering Resentment, aged sixteen years.”
Boom!
The flame essence exploded, erecting a massive pillar of fire in the white space.
Kudel, standing atop it, was hit directly.
“Graaah!”
A ragged scream tore from his mouth.
He could absorb and absorb—but the sheer volume of sixteen years of accumulated flame essence could not be absorbed all at once.
‘Now, the next phase.’
Lloyd didn’t lower his guard.
Of course, he hadn’t assumed this single move would end the fight.
After all, his opponent was Kudel Redmane, the master of flames.
“Hooo.”
Closing his eyes, Lloyd focused, drawing forth the power to unleash his own world unlike ever before.
“Ghhk!”
As the fire pillar subsided, Kudel strode forward.
His crimson robe was riddled with holes, embers still eating through it.
“......I acknowledge it.”
The burns on his face quickly healed back to normal.
With eyes blazing with fury, he glared at Lloyd.
“In nearly twenty years, you’ve given me the most joy.”
“I’m honored.”
“Yes, be honored.”
Kudel’s mana flared like flames.
Cracks spread across the white subspace.
“O-Oscar!”
“Ghh... I’m holding it!”
Oscar hastily pulled more threads of space together, trying to keep the subspace from breaking apart.
That mad old man had grown monstrously strong over twenty years.
From the rifts leaked crimson light and the howling of stellar cores.
“Since the war’s end, you are the first to witness my world.”
Throne of the Sun, Solar Regia.
Above all their heads rose a massive red sun.
Its rays did not merely shine downward, but moved like living creatures, dominating the space.
“......”
The ground beneath their feet was like obsidian.
As though molten sand had hardened, the earth mirrored the red sun above like a black mirror.
It was as if two suns existed simultaneously, in the sky and on the ground.
At the center of that obsidian plain, upon a blazing throne of crimson flame, sat Kudel.
Clad in his crimson robe, he looked every bit a god ruling over the world.
“......”
From his throne, he looked down on Lloyd.
His eyes asked: against a world like this, what could a mere insect like you possibly do?
“So this is your world.”
Truly, it was overwhelming.
Every breath seared his lungs; his skin dried out as if all moisture was stripped away.
Even his mana felt as though it were evaporating under that sun.
“......If I had seen this world when I was young, I might have bowed down.”
“It’s not too late even now.”
Kudel spoke, extending one last hand.
“Bow before me now. Forge the Flower of Refinement and dedicate it. Do that, and I will pass all I have onto you.”
Lloyd shook his head.
From his body, tiny sparks of mana sprouted like seedlings.
“I refuse. If I inherit that, I’ll truly never be able to go home.”
“......I see.”
Kudel withdrew his hand.
With cold eyes, he pronounced judgment.
“Very well. Begone.”
Rumble!
The sun fell.
Its massive weight plummeted from the sky, and Andre cried out.
“No choice. I’ll intervene! We must stop this—”
“No.”
Oscar hastily cut him off.
Staring at Lloyd’s back, he continued.
“It’s not over yet.”
“But that spell is beyond what Lloyd Schultz can withstand!”
“Is it, really?”
“You fool! This isn’t a game! What do you trust in—”
Andre was shouting, veins bulging, when half the obsidian plain disappeared.
“World Liberation—Eternal Bloom.”
In place of the obsidian appeared desert sand. Kudel scoffed.
“Useless. With that world, you can’t even stand against me.”
He had already shattered that world just days ago.
He hadn’t even needed to summon his own then.
“......”
Lloyd looked down at the sand swallowing his feet.
As the massive sun descended, he closed his eyes.
‘Remember.’
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Normally, it worked once out of ten tries.
But that didn’t matter.
‘It’s okay to waver.’
The answer was within him.
If he trusted in it and kept moving straight ahead, then even if he wavered a thousand times, he would eventually arrive.
“......”
A breeze blew.
It swept away the clouds covering the sky.
Sunlight poured down—not the searing, destructive sunlight of Kudel’s sun, but the gentle warmth of a spring day in a forest.
Then the wind scattered the sand on the ground.
Beneath it was fertile soil, a vast field of rich earth.
At some point, a small flower had appeared in Lloyd’s hand.
“Eternal Bloom.”
This was the place where his dream came true.
A realm where flowers never wither, yet forever bloom.
Holding his old friend, Sydney, Lloyd aimed at the sun and whispered softly,
“Bloom—Cradle of All Things.”
[Translator - Night]
[Proofreader - Gun]

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