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Chapter 253: Blooming the Flower (4)

Have you ever felt overwhelming fear?

Before this question, it’s necessary to clarify exactly what fear is.

Fear can largely be divided into two types:

Biological fear and psychological fear.

The former is the feeling when confronted with a mighty beast or power you cannot resist.

The latter is the feeling when faced with incomprehensible phenomena or ghosts.

“……”

Once again, have you ever felt overwhelming fear?

If someone were to ask him that, Oscar was ready to nod frantically.

To categorize precisely, it was both biological and psychological fear.

“Humans are truly fascinating.”

“…Edna?”

The Edna he had left behind (or abandoned?) in the capital was standing at the door.

With a venomous expression on her face, one he had never seen before.

“I now understand what it means when they say people change between entering the bathroom and leaving it.”

“O–Oh, it’s a misunderstanding.”

Oscar leapt up from his chair and shuffled back toward the window as he shouted.

It felt as though all the blood in his veins had frozen.

“Misunderstanding?”

Edna sneered.

And her face remained terrifying.

Oscar pointed it out.

“Y-Your eyebrows are at a weird angle right now!”

Like someone was pulling them upward, forming a sharp V-shape.

He swore she looked more venomous than any demon he had ever seen.

“I waited and waited. Surely you would come soon. Just a little longer and you’d use spatial magic to come fetch me.”

Like an actress in an extreme play, Edna recited her monologue as she walked slowly closer.

Her green eyes fixed on him without wavering.

“Why did you do it?”

Thud.

His back hit the glass window.

With nowhere left to retreat, Oscar hurriedly apologized.

“S-Sorry. I was too overwhelmed at the time.”

“Overwhelmed…”

Edna slowly nodded and reached out her hand.

At the indescribable fear, Oscar squeezed his eyes shut.

Tok!

A light flick on his head.

When he opened his eyes again, her eyebrows had returned to their usual angle.

“Don’t ever do that again.”

“Y-Yeah, of course.”

Breathing a sigh of relief with cold sweat on his brow, Oscar quickly offered her a seat.

As he poured her a drink, he asked.

“How did you get here?”

“Took a taxi.”

Even so, arriving from the capital to Sirin in just a day?

Sensing his doubt, she added further explanation.

“I flew as far as I could with what little mana I had recovered, then once it ran out, I took a taxi.”

“Ah, I see.”

Fortunately, he had booked her a hotel before they parted, and even gave her emergency money.

“Sorry again. You must have drained the mana you’d just recovered.”

“It’s fine. I’ll just focus on resting for now.”

“Actually, about that…”

Oscar quickly explained everything that had happened in the two days since the White Night Festival.

After hearing it all, Edna murmured.

“Quite a lot has happened while I was away.”

“So, what do you think? Can you do it?”

“You mean teaching them as their instructor? Hmm.”

After a short pause, Edna nodded slowly.

“As an Observer of the World and Arbiter of Balance, I still feel hesitant about personally teaching anyone. But in this case, I’m only acting as a proxy to deliver your words, so I don’t see a problem.”

“Good. That’s a relief.”

That eased one of his burdens.

Sasha was one thing, but Lloyd was someone Oscar found difficult to teach directly.

“You won’t reveal your identity to Lloyd?”

“…Not yet.”

The time would come to tell him, but now was not that time.

Edna, staring straight at him, sipped her tea.

“I trust you’ll handle it well, but it’s best not to delay revealing your identity too long.”

“Why?”

“Because your counterpart is Lloyd.”

With that, Edna closed her eyes, unwilling to give any more hints.

* * *

“…Edna Sol Laplace?”

Watching Lloyd’s expression upon reuniting with Edna was amusing.

It was rare to see his usually stoic face swayed by emotion.

“It’s been a while, Lloyd.”

“How are you here… Since when?”

“Since three days ago.”

In those three days, she had invested heavily to restore Lloyd’s mana circuits.

Now, while not perfect, they were fairly stable.

Sasha added an explanation.

“When we said we retrieved the White Tower’s documents from beyond the Red Mountains, it was actually documents Edna had been keeping. That’s what you should tell him.”

“…She says.”

They were still like this.

Even though they had reconciled, their relationship remained awkward.

‘Well, they were apart for nearly sixteen years.’

And Sasha had spent that whole time disliking Lloyd.

Bridging that gap overnight would be difficult.

Still, time would naturally resolve it.

Oscar explained why he had called them today.

“You both know His Majesty declared the Proof of Color. Today we’ll decide who the candidate will be.”

“I’ll go.”

“I’ll do it.”

They spoke almost simultaneously, then turned to glare at one another.

“I know the Red Tower Master better than anyone, and now that I’ve recovered, I’m the one who should go.”

“The Tower Master must protect their mages. I should go.”

Curious, Edna asked Oscar.

“Why are they like this?”

“They’re awkward with each other.”

Their impatience would resolve itself soon enough.

Oscar continued.

“The candidate will be chosen through a duel.”

“A duel?”

Lloyd turned sharply toward him.

“You mean whoever wins will be sent to the Proof of Color?”

“No. Edna will watch your duel and choose who she thinks is more suited to face the Red Tower Master. Victory isn’t the absolute criterion.”

In other words, compatibility mattered more than raw strength.

With a week left until the Proof of Color, any deficiencies could be patched in that time.

Hearing this, both Sasha and Lloyd brimmed with confidence.

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‘This will be interesting.’

Honestly, people would pay to see this.

Oscar Sage’s disciples facing off.

Level 8 versus Level 8.

The strongest in flame magic against the strongest in wind magic.

Any one of those titles could sell tickets.

“What limits should we have?”

“None. Just avoid lethal attacks, and show your full power.”

In other words, a true duel of unleashed worlds.

Lloyd stood up.

“Then let’s move at once. To the training hall?”

“No. The training hall’s wards won’t withstand your mana.”

Those were never built to contain duels between Level 8 magi.

Oscar snapped his fingers, opening a rift the size of a door.

“You’ll duel in there.”

“…A spatial rift.”

There, no matter how violently mana clashed, there’d be no consequences.

The four stepped inside, taking their positions in the white space.

When ready, Edna spoke.

“Begin.”

At her word, Oscar immediately raised a Wind Shield.

‘Ugh, both their mana is…’

Immense.

The storm of mana alone pushed him back.

Shielding himself and Edna, he thought.

‘When a Red Tower mage and a White Tower mage clash, only one thing matters—’

Who seizes initiative.

Flame can feed on wind, and wind can feed on flame.

The battle would be about who dominated the field first.

Lloyd struck first.

“Pillar of Fire.”

With no wasted chant, the magic circle completed, and beneath Sasha’s feet, the ground turned red.

She instantly leapt back, and—BOOOOM!

A fiery column shot up to the ceiling.

“……”

Lloyd frowned unconsciously.

Sasha’s figure had been hidden by his own flame pillar.

And of course, that was no coincidence.

‘Thanks to her Red Mountain expedition?’

Her battle sense had improved a lot.

Using his own magic as cover, Sasha counterattacked.

“Gale Smash!”

A colossal wind hammer formed behind her and slammed into the fire pillar.

KWAAAA!

The fiery column bent sharply, redirected straight toward Lloyd.

“…!”

He hadn’t expected his spell to be turned against him.

But unshaken, he whispered:

“Pillar of Fire.”

This time, a pillar erupted behind him, surging forward.

BOOM!

The two pillars collided and canceled out.

‘Remarkable.’

Oscar couldn’t help but marvel.

Sasha’s instincts were excellent, but what impressed him more was Lloyd’s control.

‘A fire pillar is by default an upward spell.’

The entire formula is structured on that premise.

And yet Lloyd reconfigured it mid-battle to fire horizontally from thin air?

That meant he had the computational power to rewrite a spell structure on the fly.

“……”

“……”

Only one clash had happened, but the fight paused.

Both knew—this kind of exchange was pointless now.

So naturally—

“World Liberation.”

Both unleashed their worlds at once.

The white void split—half became a vast meadow.

Sasha’s world, One Thought, Pure Land.

‘Always so warm.’

Forged from her desire to protect loved ones, it suppressed all evil while empowering allies.

Her meadow spread until it met the midpoint.

From that line onward stretched Lloyd’s world.

“It looks… terribly lonely.”

It was the first thing Edna had said since the duel began.

And she was right. Lloyd’s world was desolate.

Beyond the meadow lay endless sands, a sea of desert.

Thousands of flowers dotted it, but each remained tightly closed.

Above hung a sky heavy with black clouds, without a single ray of light.

Where Sasha’s world brimmed with green and sunlight, Lloyd’s was quiet, suffocating, and bleak.

“World Liberation—Eternal Bloom.”

Endless cycles and impermanence.

Lloyd slowly raised his hand, and flames engulfed the desert, burning the flowers.

At once, the shut buds forced open.

“Bloom.”

From the flames burst thousands of lotuses.

Flowers that exploded upon ignition, drifting toward Sasha like dandelion seeds.

Oscar, staring, cried out involuntarily.

“Stop! That’s enough.”

Both turned to him as he declared.

“Edna has decided. The one who will enter the Proof of Color is Lloyd.”

Expressionless as ever, Lloyd retracted his world.

Sasha, however, looked stricken by the outcome.

‘Sorry, Sasha.’

But the moment he saw Lloyd’s world, Oscar had no choice.

Whether it was the Red Tower Master’s creation or Lloyd’s own doing, one thing was certain.

‘That world of his…’

It was twisted.

More precisely, its very purpose was wrong.

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