Chapter 15: Wizard(3)

What happens when a person experiences extreme mental shock?

First, they lose their sense of reality.
It feels as though they’re watching someone else’s experience, not their own.
This is the brain’s most primal way of protecting its owner.

‘Is this a dream?’

The same phenomenon was occurring in Lucy Ignis’s mind.
Avalli, who had started reading right next to her, felt miles away.

It was a dream.
It had to be a dream.

If what she had just witnessed was real, then everything Lucy knew had to be questioned.
Human feet were meant to walk on the earth, and noses and mouths were meant to breathe the air.

Avalli was different.

Beings without magic power couldn’t use magic.
It was possible to utilize external magic reservoirs like artifacts, but there were no such devices visible nearby.

To reuse the earlier analogy, it was as if Avalli was currently walking with her head buried in the ground, breathing, and kicking the air with her feet.
And what was even more shocking—

‘…How can she use magic when I only taught her the incantation?’

Magic was the art of manipulating magic power.
To cast a spell, one had to draw out magic power from within their body, control it with chants and hand signs, and finally, manifest the refined energy into reality.

Lucy had only taught Avalli the incantation.
She hadn’t even considered the possibility of it working, so she hadn’t bothered explaining how to manipulate magic power.

Chanting an incantation without manipulating magic power was meaningless.
What mattered in the intricate mechanism of magic was the content, the magic power itself.
No matter how polished the exterior, a machine couldn’t function without its internal components.

“This children’s book is surprisingly mature.”

But Avalli had made a machine with no internal components function.
It was impossible, but she had done it.
Otherwise, she wouldn’t be sitting there, slightly blushing, engrossed in her reading.
It was an innocent appearance befitting her age, but—

‘Monster.’

In Lucy’s eyes, Avalli looked like a monster from myths, something that shouldn’t exist in reality.
Though she hadn’t realized it herself, Lucy’s entire body was trembling from the incomprehensible fear.

“Oh, right. Lucy unnie?”
“……”
“Lucy unnie!” (TL Note: Unnie is an honorific used by younger females to address older females.)

Only when Avalli called her name loudly did Lucy snap back to reality.

“Uh… uh, yes?”

She stammered, and Avalli scratched the back of her head with an embarrassed expression.

“Sorry. I got so engrossed in the book that I forgot our promise.”
“Promise?”

What promise?
Lucy racked her empty mind and finally recalled the favor she had asked of Avalli in exchange for teaching her the spell.

An examination.
She had said she would examine her.

Examine her?

‘Me?’
Obtaining her own research lab at the Magic Tower was a significant achievement for Lucy.
But in the grand scheme of the Magic Tower, Lucy had only just reached the entrance. She wasn’t a particularly exceptional mage.
She needed to produce results in her small lab and grow to reach a higher level.
Lucy’s inflated ego had deflated like a punctured balloon the moment she encountered this incomprehensible being.

‘…It’s impossible.’

Lucy couldn’t examine the girl.
She didn’t want to examine her.
If she did, she might lose her mind.

“…No, it’s okay.”
“It’s okay?”
“Yes. It’s okay.”

Lucy, her pupils dilated, replied without meeting Avalli’s gaze.
Avalli was momentarily taken aback by her sudden change in attitude—

‘…Is she tired?’

It seemed like she had been engrossed in the book for quite some time— she concluded.

“Alright. It’s late, so you should get some sleep. We can do it tomorrow morning.”
“No, it’s not that—!”
“If it’s not that, then what?”

Avalli tilted her head and asked.
A cold sweat trickled down Lucy’s back at the gesture.

“If it’s not that, is there some other reason?”

It was a question born of pure curiosity.
But in Lucy’s mind, those words took on a completely different meaning.

‘……Another reason?’

Another reason.
There was no other reason.

She had approached Avalli out of pure curiosity.
But would Avalli be satisfied with that answer?

Avalli, who possessed no magic power and didn’t know how to manipulate it, had successfully cast a spell.
In other words, she was a monster capable of changing the world with her will alone.
No, not a monster, but closer to an omnipotent god.

What if, when Lucy answered ‘pure curiosity’, Avalli wasn’t satisfied with that answer?
What if Avalli felt uncomfortable with Lucy and had some negative thoughts?
Those thoughts would become her will and—

“…Yes, I’m a little… tired. Let’s do it tomorrow. Tomorrow.”
“Should I turn off the light?”

Lucy nodded stiffly.
She was clearly not in her right mind, but to Avalli, who had just met her today, she simply looked exhausted from her journey.

The possibility that Avalli herself was the cause of Lucy’s distress didn’t even cross her mind.

The lamp was extinguished, and Avalli and Lucy lay down on the small bed.
Avalli had slightly hoped for some ‘girl talk’, but… Lucy turned her back to Avalli and remained motionless.

‘I should just go to sleep too.’

Avalli’s eyes slowly closed.
Thirty minutes passed, her breathing even and her chest rising and falling rhythmically.

Finally, Lucy sat up.
She hadn’t been sleeping.

‘How can she sleep with that next to her?’

It would have been more comforting to stick her head in a hungry lion’s mouth and try to sleep.
Lucy got out of bed as quietly as possible.
She didn’t think she could escape the monster’s perception like this, but it was better than lying in bed waiting for death.

As Lucy carefully gathered her belongings and was about to leave the room—
—Creak.
A loud noise from the floor broke the silence.

“Where are you going, Lucy unnie?”

Avalli’s sleepy voice spoke from behind her.
Lucy’s mind went blank, but her desperate survival instincts conjured up a clumsy lie.

“…B…Bathroom.”
“Oh.”

What meaning was contained in that short sigh?

“Be careful.”
“Y…Yeah.”

Only after hearing Avalli’s even breathing again could Lucy move.
She slipped out of the room, tiptoed through the living room, and finally made it outside—

“Gasp—!”

She finally exhaled and started running with all her might.
Using every physical enhancement spell she knew, she leaped over the village wall.

Traveling alone through the Great Forest in the dead of night was practically suicide, even for a mage.
But it was better than spending a night next to Avalli.

If she died by a demonic beast, that would be the end of it—
But if she stayed next to Avalli, she didn’t think death would be the end.

Perhaps due to the midnight sprint, Lucy’s frail body quickly began to scream in protest.
Even with magical enhancements, her base constitution was that of a fragile girl, so her body was overloaded.

But Lucy couldn’t stop.

‘…I have to tell the Magic Tower.’

She had to inform the Magic Tower about Avalli.
This wasn’t something she could handle on her own.

It was questionable whether even the entire Magic Tower could handle Avalli.

It was a judgment made in a state of panic, but… it wasn’t entirely wrong.

While escaping the depths of the Eastern Great Forest, Avalli had hunted countless demonic beasts.
In the process, she had absorbed all the ‘magic stones’ into her body.
In simple game terms, they had become ‘experience points’ that fueled Avalli’s growth.

Dozens of traits synergizing exponentially.
An absurd amount of experience points impossible to obtain through normal means.
Thanks to those experience points, Avalli had already surpassed human limitations.

The wish Avalli had made upon arriving in Asha Village, ‘I want to hide my true identity.’
That wish had become ‘magic’ and transformed Avalli into an ‘ordinary’ girl.
So much so that even an ordinary mage like Lucy couldn’t detect even a sliver of her magic power.

So, Lucy’s judgment had been wrong from the start.

It wasn’t that Avalli lacked magic power.
On the contrary, she was overflowing with pure magic power.
Avalli reverting to her original form on the night of the full moon was a kind of overflow.

[Child of the Moon] [Full Moon Frenzy] [Midnight Magic]

The combination of these three traits, all related to the night and the moon, caused her magic power to overflow, rendering her ‘concealment’ ineffective.

So, although Avalli hadn’t realized it herself, she was closer to an omnipotent being than anyone else.
Even a glimpse of that power had nearly broken Lucy’s mind.

‘I have to run.’

Lucy continued running through the midnight Great Forest, consumed by a terrifying fear—

“Huh?”

Just before she exited the Great Forest, she found herself back at the entrance of Asha Village without any warning.

Only then did Lucy conclude that it was already over.
From the moment she dared to pry into that monster, escaping this village had become impossible.

“Haha…”

Her interpretation wasn’t far from what had actually happened.
The moment Avalli worried in her sleep, ‘Why isn’t she back yet?’, her transcendental magic power had warped space and dragged Lucy back to the village.

“…Haha… Hahahahaha….”

Lucy chuckled dryly and re-entered the village.
Praying desperately for Avalli’s mercy.