While trying to detect the mysterious figure who killed Ms. Bargot, Zich kept glancing back at the traces of the attack.
‘It was extreme heat that killed her.’
Everything that the light pillars touched was scorched black. Zich assumed that the parts that were now gone probably evaporated from the extreme heat, but this was not the most frightening part. The most frightening part was how fast everything evaporated.
‘It all happened in an instant.’
As soon as the light pillar appeared, everything disappeared; it was as if everything the pillars touched teleported to another space.
‘Those pillars must have contained an unimaginable amount of power.’
Zich was on the highest alert because of how powerful that attack was.
‘Is it magic?’
It was an attack that used nature and reproduced special abilities. This attack was slightly different from Joachim’s Blood Domination. Magic took an extremely long time and effort to master. Moreover, every time a person used magic, they had to say an incantation. But the overall effect and magnitude of a magic attack were enormous.
‘Considering the attack just now, this person is not an ordinary magician.’
Furthermore, even though Zich had been focusing all his attention on Ms. Bargot, it was extremely rare for him to not sense anything until the moment of the attack. The person was definitely a formidable figure. However, Zich could now clearly sense someone behind a huge tree.
“Hey, let me see your face! Don’t worry, I’m not going to attack you. I just want to know who you are and why you came here.” Zich’s tone returned to his usual easygoing and casual tone. But the only thing casual was his tone; he was still on full alert towards the mysterious figure.
Snap!
Zich heard someone step on the grass. The mysterious figure slowly came out from behind the tree.
‘Ah, wow!’
Zich almost let out his admiration. Stunning—that was the first word that popped up in his mind when he saw the person come out. Her silver hair glistened in the light, and her red eyes looked like jewels. By a slight degree, she could be considered even more beautiful than Lubella, and when she passed by, everyone would naturally all stare at her.
Zich immediately thought, ‘She doesn’t look human.’
However, no matter how beautiful she was, it didn’t change the fact that she was an extremely suspicious figure. Zich was not so foolish to lower his guard just because his opponent was pretty.
‘No, on the other hand, beautiful people can be more dangerous.’
Ms. Bargot, who laid on the ground with her lower body gone, was a clear example of this.
“All right, pretty lady, what is your identity? Why are you here?” Zich tried to get information from her. They were in Dracul’s castle; it was not a place random people could enter, especially at a time like this.
‘Is she a magician associated with the Dracul estate?’
Even though he could not immediately rule out this possibility, magicians were extremely rare in the first place. Even though the head of the Dracul estate was a count, it was hard to imagine he would have such a powerful magician under his power.
“…Zich?”
“Huh? Do you know me?”
Shockingly, the woman seemed to know Zich. However, Zich did not know her at all. For a second, Zich thought she might be someone he wasn’t able to remember. Did he not remember her because he met her in Steelwall and they didn’t meet each other for a long time? Zich looked at her from head to toe.
‘…But I don’t know this person?’
No matter how much time passed, there was no way Zich would not be able to remember a person like her.
“…Zich…Steelwall…” She muttered Zich’s name again.
“Since you call me Steelwall, did we meet each other there? I’m sorry, but could you introduce yourself again? Even though I can’t believe that I would forget a beauty like you, I honestly think this is our first time meeting.”
“…”
“Or did you actually see me from far away and fell in love with me? Then why didn’t you tell me! If a beautiful lady like you came to meet me, I would have run to you at once. Could you perhaps tell me your name or where you live right now? It’s definitely not because I find you suspicious or anything like that; I’m just really interested…”
“…No.”
“What? What do you mean no?”
“You are not…Zich Steelwall…”
“Miss, what are you saying? Didn’t you know me in the past? I did throw away my family name, but Zich Steelwall was my name in the past…”
“Zich…”
Her red eyes stared directly at Zich, as if she was trying to extract his real self out.
“…Moore!”
Whish!
Everything happened in an instant. As always, Zich was trying to get information from the other party in a leisurely manner, but in the next moment, he took out his sword. With bloodthirst, Zich tried with all his might to move his sword as far as possible. However, he was blocked by a semi-transparent wall.
Crash!
He infused so much mana into his sword that a giant explosion erupted when he hit the wall. Zich continued to push his sword.
Screech!
But his sword could not move even an inch.
‘Magic Barrier!’
With this, Zich was now completely confident that his opponent was a magician. Zich opened his mouth as he saw her through the semi-transparent wall. “Hey miss, do you want to go out on a date with me? I suddenly have an intense interest in you. Don’t worry, I’ll cover all the expenses, find a nice location, and take care of all the meager details. All you have to do is just talk with me a bit.”
“Wow, that is…” She glared at him. “An awful way to ask someone out on a date!”
Explode!
The magic barrier exploded. The force of its explosion pushed Zich back.
‘Damn!’
Zich clicked his tongue as he got further away from the silver-haired woman.
‘It’s not good to be far away from a magician.’
Even though Zich had some long-range attacks, he was still a swordsman. In long-range attacks, magicians definitely had the advantage.
The silver-haired woman took her hand out and began to murmur incantations. “El. Latel. Le. Ward.”
A circle with a myriad of symbols began to appear in front of her hand. It was a magic circle.
‘I can’t let her finish!’
Zich ran towards her again.
Flash!
The magic circle in front of her hand shone, and once again, a pillar of red light stretched out in front of her. Zich had already experienced the magnitude of that force. Without even thinking of fighting against it, Zich evaded the red pillars.
‘Why the heck is it so fast?!’
Zich was surprised by the magic that flew past him. Magic at this level had a tremendous number of incantations for one to remember. However, she had only said a few words.
‘Incantation Reduction!’
It was one of the requirements for a high-level magician to know—a skill that allowed users to shorten spells when using magic.
‘And now that I think about it, she set up a magic barrier in an instant too.’
Zich was sure that it had been ‘Silent Incantation’ which was an even more advanced skill than Incantation Reduction. As expected, it seemed as if his opponent wasn’t just any ordinary magician.
‘She’s a high-ranking magician. And she doesn’t seem like those types of protected magicians who fight at the rear; she’s a magician who specializes in combat.’
The more he found out about this woman, the more Zich became curious about her. Just from a glance, he could tell that they didn’t have much of an age gap.
‘If she knows that my name is Zich Moore, I wouldn’t be surprised if she regressed like me.’
If that was the case, it was natural for her skills to be much greater than what her appearance suggested.
Whoosh!
He swung his sword towards her again, but she didn’t falter.
“Clate! On!”
Whoosh!
Sharp blades formed near her body. Zich quickly crouched.
“Kuh!”
Zich avoided the blades, but they left whirling winds that made him off balance.
“Suni! Con! Chanwel!”
Bam!
The ground shot up and whacked him. Zich was barely able to block the attack with his sword and was pushed back.
‘Damn it! She is really skilled in combat!’
The magician used wind magic against Zich. The wind attack was precise enough to not pose a great danger to bystanders who could be close by, but it broke its opponents’ balance through a strong blast even if it didn’t land directly on its target. As the magician wanted, Zich lost his sense of balance. As soon as that happened, she stomped the ground and flung Zich into the air.
‘A huge one is coming next.’
With a wider distance, she no longer had to worry about getting sucked into her own magic. All that was left for her to do was to use one of the most advantageous abilities that a magician had and sweep the entire area with a wide-reaching firepower.
“Wing! Son! Clowey! Jinun! Ahatrim!”
A huge fireball appeared in front of her. It was already amazing that she could use different types of elemental magic, but it was more surprising that she could use the right magic in the appropriate situations. However, Zich wasn’t an easy opponent either.
Whoosh!
He threw his sword against the fireball and aimed it towards her. The silver-haired woman looked surprised like she didn’t expect Zich to throw the only weapon he had. But she soon closed her mouth again and shot out fireballs.
‘She can also do Incantation Suspension?’
Incantation Reduction and Silent Incantation were skills that lacked high power, but they were still a very complicated form of magic. However, Incantation Suspension was different. If a magician stopped their incantation in the middle, the spell usually fell apart and nothing would happen—they would have simply wasted their mana.
However, if the magician was familiar with Incantation Suspension, they could forcibly materialize an incomplete spell as long as its power level was on the lower end, like now. Zich’s sword and fireball clashed against each other in the air.
Craaaash!
Strong heat waves flared out with an explosive sound. However, what was dangerous wasn’t really the heat waves.
Whoosh!
Zich’s hands filled with mana.
Clang! Clang! Claaaaang!
Zich’s hands swung madly. Something kept roughly hitting his hands and bouncing off. However, Zich couldn’t block all the attacks, and soon, his body was wounded from head to toe. Sword fragments were hitting Zich. After using the skill, ‘Burning Sword,’ his sword had lost durability; so, when he poured a great amount of mana into it and clashed it with a magic fireball, it broke into pieces as he had expected.
‘Let me see.’
Zich landed on the ground and wiped his stinging wounds. Then, he looked at the silver-haired woman.
‘It doesn’t seem like that had much of an effect.’
He was disappointed. But this didn’t mean the silver-haired woman was completely fine. There was a semi-transparent wall in front of her; but behind the wall, she was spilling blood from all over her body. It seemed she had evaded Zich’s sword at the last moment, but her injuries were clearly worse than Zich’s.
Her red eyes glanced at Zich.
‘Woah. She’s angry.’
But Zich wasn’t scared at all. Instead, he smiled wider for her to see; for him, his opponent’s rage brought happiness and their despair brought joy to him.
“Lala! Lastel!”
Wing!
A small magic circle formed in her hands. In front of it, two icicles appeared and shot towards Zich.
‘Wow. Ice elements now?’
His opponent might really be a magician who had mastered all the elements. Zich scowled.
‘Since the situation was urgent and my sword lost its durability, I threw my sword away—but it’s definitely uncomfortable to not have a sword.’
But Zich was also familiar with bare-handed martial arts. He gripped both of his fists tightly and dashed towards the silver-haired woman.
Whoosh!
He evaded the flying icicles. The silver-haired woman prepared her next spell.
“Ugh!” She raised her arms and scowled.
“Huh?”
It was only for a moment, but her movements were awkward—unfortunately for Zich, it was for a very short moment.
“Ryde! Well! Crohn!”
A gigantic gust of wind came upon Zich.
“Hu-ah!” Zich fiercely spun mana around his body and collided with the gust of wind.
Boom!
The impact made such a commotion that it was hard to believe that the sound had been made by a person moving against the wind.
‘Damn, it hurts!’
He succeeded in piercing through the gust of wind, but the injuries on his body increased. And he didn’t have time to drink more potions. Zich dashed towards the silver-haired woman again. Their battle intensified. After losing his sword, Zich swung his fist around and the silver-haired woman shot out magic attacks.
Crash!
Zich smashed the stone spears that shot up from the ground and spat.
‘There is something strange about her.’
The silver-haired woman’s abilities were strange. Both her magic skills and combat senses were impressive, and she perfectly grasped what spell she should use in each scenario to place Zich into the most difficult spot. Yet, the movements she made in between the attacks were very awkward. A magician skilled and used to battles like her should be able to react immediately, but there was a slight delay after every attack she made.
‘If she really did regress, this wouldn't be strange…’
Zich had been like her when he first battled at Steelwall. It was the result of the difference between his overflowing battle experiences and lacking physicality. Although what Zich had done was close to impossible, it didn’t mean that no other person would be able to do the same.
‘But it’s too severe.’
Rather than having a mismatch between experiences and physicality, she moved as if ‘her experiences’ had been artificially programmed into her.
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