Chapter 15
‘For real? So suddenly? Why? I didn’t agree to fight!’
Sigrin, who’d been casually munching an apple to spectate, looked around.
The sheer absurdity froze her thoughts.
She stared at Luca, blankly chewing her apple.
‘Oh, I’ve been trapped.’
With the fight delayed, Luca must’ve spread rumors to corner her with a crowd.
Smart move.
“Princess, with all these spectators, feeling the fight vibe now?”
Luca, visibly tense, raised his weapon and crouched. Light orbs floated above his head.
“Yeah. So thrilling.”
“….”
At the thought of public humiliation from the start of academy life.
Sigrin used her newly learned ‘Eye of Ether’ to check Luca’s core.
A silver circle the size of two fists in his brain, and one the size of one fist in his dantian.
‘That’s a double core.’
As Teacher Angel mentioned, he had two cores, the brain core larger than the dantian one.
The ‘ki’ from his dantian core flowed to his arms, wrapping his weapon.
She’d wondered about his fragile mirror sword, but he reinforced it with ki.
Sigrin smiled calmly and rummaged through her pocket.
‘Gotta escape.’
No weapon, no strategy. No plan.
Her crew always said the best self-defense was running.
Still chewing her apple, she searched her jacket pocket.
‘Let’s see, the short-range teleport bracelet…’
Huh? Stolen. She’d grabbed it from the case, but someone pickpocketed it in the chaos.
With Lemaos crowded, thieves were likely rampant.
“If you’re just standing there, I’m attacking first.”
Dash!
Mistaking her rummaging for drawing a weapon, Luca leaped forward. The light orbs above moved with his mirror sword’s angle.
He swung.
Flash!
The intense light reflected by the sword hit Sigrin’s eyes, whitening her vision. Blinded, she couldn’t see Luca’s movements.
She’d seen this skill when he fought Kelnor.
Blinding with reflected light before attacking.
‘Damn it. I really didn’t plan to fight today.’
She wanted to fake a faint, but his speed made decisions impossible.
In the brief moment her vision was blocked, Luca closed in.
His mirror sword flashed inches from her face.
Determined to see where she’d be hit, Sigrin kept her eyes open.
‘Wait… Why’s the sword turning green?’
Clang!
“….”
“….”
The mirror sword didn’t touch her and shattered.
A stunned Luca’s eyes widened.
Crunch…
Sigrin, feigning calm, took another bite of her apple.
The fight started so suddenly, she hadn’t ditched her snack.
‘What? What did I just do?’
She stared at the shattered mirror pieces.
They were wrapped in silky green light. She knew what it was.
No way, no way!
‘Amazing Chem-Chem Wrapping??’
The light from the sword blinded her, and simultaneously, chemforce wrapped the blade.
Luca’s ki, encasing the mirror, was amplified by chemforce, shattering the fragile glass.
A sentence from the book flashed in her mind.
Chemforce is transmitted through the light reflected by objects, making it highly sensitive to light.
Gasp.
Like this?
Sigrin let out a hollow laugh. Overjoyed, her legs wobbled, so she leaned on her stronger leg.
“What!! She smashed Luca’s weapon without touching it!!”
“Wow… Someone can be that relaxed against Luca?”
“How’d she do it?? That level of telekinesis is top-tier magic, right?”
“….”
“Is this mafia already at archmage level?”
Seeing his shattered sword, Luca raised his fists, switching to hand-to-hand. Silver ki swirled around them.
With a frenzied expression, he swung at Sigrin.
Boom! Boom!
But his fists didn’t reach her.
They hit an invisible wall, creating small white ripples.
‘Shield ring, thank you.’
Though her bracelet was stolen, the slim ring remained in her pocket.
The shield magic took time to activate, only now kicking in.
“How’d she cast magic instantly?”
“No cast time! No magic circle trace!”
“That’s transparent shield magic, right? That’s high-level too!”
It’s not. It’s money magic.
It lasted a minute and needed a day to reuse, so it wouldn’t help with the next attack, but it bought time.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Luca ferociously pounded the shield outside. Veins bulged on his ki-wrapped fists and arms.
His muscles looked sharper than before.
Grinning savagely, he smashed the shield.
His bloodshot eyes were terrifying.
And then.
Crack!
‘Aaaagh!’
Money magic was succumbing!
His strength was insane—cracks formed in the shield. Even a cheap shield shouldn’t break to bare fists.
“Shield’s breaking!!”
“Drümuel, you madman! Never disappoints!”
‘Gotta do something before this brute breaks the shield.’
Luck was one-time. With the tide in her favor, she had to act fast.
Recalling the chemforce sensation, Sigrin held the apple core toward the sun.
Uh, Amazing Chem-Chem Wrapping!
It worked easily.
Aligning the core with the sun, green energy swirled around it.
‘Chemforce clings to ether, right?’
Recalling the book, Sigrin gripped the core.
She threw the chemforce-wrapped core at Luca’s dantian core.
Too busy smashing the shield, Luca didn’t notice the weak apple scrap.
Tap.
The chemforce on the core flowed naturally into his dantian.
Just as it altered his ki on the sword, it could disrupt his core’s ether flow.
As chemforce enveloped his core, Sigrin sensed its foreignness through imagination.
It felt like a third sense awakening.
Like untangling knotted thread, she scattered the pulsing ether mass.
No fitting technique name came to mind.
‘Scatter.’
Whoosh!!
The ki enhancing his body cut off. The ether in his core dispersed to his body’s edges.
“What…?”
His legs buckling, Luca staggered, confused by the unknown technique.
‘Should I simplify technique names? It worked instantly.’
But relief was brief. Luca steadied himself, regathering the scattered ether.
‘Chance. Seal his movements while he’s weakened.’
Looking around, Sigrin spotted a large trash can.
Luckily, it held mostly light trash, easy to lift.
Clank!
She swiftly flipped it over Luca’s body.
This blocked his vision and movement temporarily.
But moving too fast, her feet tangled. Falling, she pushed the can hard downhill.
With her weight, Luca lost balance.
The can rolled down the slope.
Toward the lake below.
“…!!”
A loud splash followed.
✦ ✦ ✦
“….”
Among the silent crowd, Angel stood, staring blankly at Sigrin.
Thud! Clatter!
He dropped his books and organized papers.
A book titled ‘Variant Cores and Enhancement Studies’ hit the ground unceremoniously.
Covering his trembling lips with a pale hand, Angel’s hands shook.
“…Found you.”
My soul.