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chapter 28
The first match of the tournament preliminaries.
Three hours had passed.
“Arghhh!”
Crack. His crushed hand throbbed in agony. The grip strength felt as though it was pulverizing his bones.
Bzzzt! Since earlier, electricity had been surging through his entire body, just enough to keep him from passing out. It hurt like hell.
It hurt. It hurt. Damn it, it hurt!
What the hell is going on?
Through his dazed mind, he thought:
Why am I in this state?
Why was he sprawled on the ground like some defeated loser, while that damned woman stood over him?
“Your voice is too quiet.”
His limbs bent into an L-shape.
“ARGHHHH!”
It wasn’t physical violence, but magical torture.
Exactly what he had once done to Canis Escliffe last year.
At least, that’s how it felt to him—an eternity. For the one suffering, time always stretches dozens, even hundreds of times longer than it does for the one inflicting pain.
Marco struggled through the torrent of agony, trying to steady his mind.
Y-yeah… this must be someone’s spell…!
When people are faced with something unbelievable, their minds instinctively reject it.
It’s a defense mechanism—an automatic correction of “the incomprehensible” into “something explainable.”
That was exactly the state Marco Crav was in.
There’s no way Escliffe can use magic. Someone in the stands must be interfering…
“You’re not actually thinking, ‘There’s no way Escliffe can use magic, so it must be someone in the audience,’ are you?”
“Hhhk…!”
BOOM! Canis’s strike sent Marco’s body flying, slamming it into the ground far away. Exhausted from hours of torture, he writhed on the floor, gasping for breath.
Canis looked down at him and laughed.
“How stupid. You have eyes, don’t you? You should know that’s impossible.”
“M-my… thoughts…”
Step. Step.
Each of Canis’s footsteps rang in Marco’s ears like thunder.
By now, his body was etched with fear of her. Warmth spread beneath him.
Canis bent down, speaking with mock sympathy.
“Poor thing. Did it hurt so much that you lost your mind?”
“A-ah… uh… ahhh…”
“Can’t even speak anymore, huh?”
Her soft voice slid into his ear. The sudden kindness after cruelty gave his gray eyes a flicker of hope.
“You really shouldn’t have bullied weaker students from the start.”
And then, she shattered that faint hope to pieces.
“Guhh! Cough! P-please… stop…!”
Marco doubled over, coughing after a blow to the stomach, begging for mercy. But Canis had no intention of granting it.
Her dry voice cut him down.
“Did you ever stop when someone begged you to?”
And the audience, watching it all unfold, sat in utter silence.
Of course, it wasn’t out of disinterest. They were all simply overwhelmed by the sheer force Canis Escliffe radiated.
Every mind in the stands was racing.
Aiden, who had come as part of the Academy to watch the Magic Department’s tournament, folded his arms as he watched from the audience.
His chest stirred with unease.
Canis Escliffe…
It was the shock of discovering an impossible possibility in an unexpected person.
She awakened her mana.
The stronger the mage, the later they manifest magic for the first time.
Innate mana matures over the years, until finally, one can bring it forth.
In Aiden’s case, his mana blossomed barely a year and a half after birth—ruining the emperor’s rare hopes for him.
As a result, his magical ability was only mid-to-lower tier—ordinary, really.
At least as far as mages went.
But what about Canis Escliffe?
He remembered a conversation between the duke and the emperor when she was four:
“If your daughter’s manifestation is this late, she’s destined to become someone history remembers.”
“Haha, without a doubt. I may not be fond of how much she resembles her late mother, but I have high hopes for her talent.”
Up until her fifth birthday, she had been the talk of high society.
Countless nobles with children her age envied the duke.
Even if the duke disliked her, he believed she’d bring great honor to the Escliffe name.
At least, until she turned six.
“The Escliffe girl is six this year, isn’t she?”
“And still no manifestation…”
“Then she’s clearly a non-mage. Damn it, the duke was so smug all this time.”
“Meanwhile, the crown prince manifested mana at three and a half. Truly gifted.”
From then on, she became infamous in a very different way.
Canis Escliffe’s very existence was a blemish on her family’s perfection.
“A non-mage as heir? The Escliffe house is finished.”
“I hear the duke’s illegitimate child is a prodigy.”
“What a shame. If only they had been switched…”
“Still, better a pure-blooded noble daughter than a bastard. At least she’s the fruit of two great houses.”
A disgrace.
A laughingstock.
The stupid, talentless first daughter of the Escliffe family.
That was her identity.
At least, until just now.
There’s no doubt. She is a mage now—undeniably so.
Even the greatest archmage in recorded history, born centuries ago, hadn’t manifested mana until half a year after turning five.
If Canis hadn’t been hiding her powers all this time, then she had just become… an unprecedented existence.
First manifestation at twenty years old…
Of course, she hadn’t just awakened this very moment.
If she had, there’s no way she could already wield her power so freely—completely toying with Marco Crav, who had been practicing magic for eighteen years.
Even so, it’s an absurd miracle.
Even if she had hidden it, her manifestation would have been no earlier than ten.
Aiden recalled a conversation he’d had with her just days ago:
“-You’re a Sword Master?”
“…So that’s what it was.”
He might be a once-in-a-century genius of swordsmanship—but she possessed a gift so rare, it wasn’t even in the history books.
That was why, even covered in blood, she had stood proudly before him. Why she had instantly recognized his identity.
A deep smile spread across his lips.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the stands—
“Hey, th-that…”
“Wh-what do we do? Aren’t we all screwed?”
“Calm down. How do you even know this is real?”
“Are you blind? Anyone can see it’s her magic! No one else could cast in her place!”
Students were trembling in fear, finally grasping the situation.
Most of them were the ones who had tormented Canis mercilessly in the past.
And why had they been able to do so?
Because Canis Escliffe was a non-mage, the disgrace of her house.
But now, their only excuse for bullying her was gone.
They were now at the mercy of her wrath.
And no one—not even the Academy—would protect them.
Just as Canis had never been protected.
And it wasn’t just the students who were shaken.
“Th-this is impossible…”
Professor Bernua, who had been at odds with Canis since the start of term, was trembling uncontrollably.
The coffee he had poured to enjoy while mocking her humiliation lay spilled on the ground.
Normally obsessive about cleanliness, he didn’t even think to pick it up.
“Did… did you know the Escliffe girl had manifested?”
“Of course not!”
Selina, the pink-haired daughter of Count Rememberal, spoke gravely.
“At the start of every year, the Academy tests every student’s mana levels. And Canis Escliffe’s mana level in the first semester of her fourth year was…”
Someone answered for her.
“Zero.”
Yes.
While mana levels fluctuated day to day for most students, hers had never changed since enrollment.
Zero. Absolute zero.
That was the number everyone here associated with her.
“In that case, it’s certain. The Escliffe girl…”
Selina Rememberal declared quietly:
“…is an extraordinary archmage, awakened at the age of twenty.”
Her crimson eyes glimmered as she spoke.
