NOVEL ONLINE FREE Chapter 167
Rosha moved towards the source of the suspicious magical power.
As if waiting for her, a white staircase leading downwards appeared before her eyes.
“Hmm…”
The path she had taken until now was a splendid corridor lined with classrooms and research labs. But the passage she was stepping into now was a bit different.
‘It’s so narrow that two people can’t walk side by side, and there are no windows at all. Plus, it’s all white.’
White has no special meaning in magic. However, according to a passage in the early part of
Even if that wasn’t the case, looking at how things were going, it was definitely a formation.
‘My sense of direction… is very different from the outside.’
Rosha’s eyebrows curved slightly as she realized that while she had clearly been going down, she was now climbing stairs.
If she tried to go left, she would end up going in the opposite direction, and with the front and back connected, she couldn’t be sure if she was making proper progress.
Moreover, she couldn’t stop carelessly.
She felt anxious that the moment she stopped, all directions would be distorted.
‘If only I had learned about formations normally…’
Formations were a type of defensive technique installed in space, requiring almost no magical power but with strict activation conditions and a lot of preparation needed.
Rosha, who had to travel here and there as part of the attack team, naturally wasn’t well-versed in defensive techniques.
But she didn’t panic.
There was a reason why she hadn’t bothered to learn formations.
“…Is it this way?”
With each step she took, golden lines moved like waves.
Although her sense of direction was a bit off, the light of the ‘lantern’ was still straight and clear.
There is always a living gate in a formation. In front of her ability that illuminated where the living gate was, formations were of no use.
All Rosha did was simply walk through the formation.
Tap tap tap-
The sound of a single person’s footsteps echoed all around.
The narrow passage occasionally split into multiple paths like a spider web, and sometimes bones of people who had died who knows when were rolling around.
But surprisingly, nothing happened to her.
She just followed the ‘lantern’ and before she knew it, she was outside.
If there was one problem…
“…How much time has passed?”
The sun was already starting to set.
It seemed at least two or three hours had passed, but she didn’t feel like she had wandered in the windowless passage for that long.
It felt like she had been in the passage for less than 30 minutes.
Was it a place where not only direction but even time was distorted?
‘I only meant to take a quick look, I didn’t expect it to turn out like this…’
She couldn’t even imagine what the others might be thinking by now.
Anyway, there should be something to learn, so she decided to look around first.
It was like a small garden set up outdoors.
The garden, where deep green trees and bushes were harmoniously arranged with purple flower buds, was in the shape of a regular octagon.
In the center was a snow-white pavilion with four pillars, and the clear sky with white clouds floating was in the shape of a perfect circle.
The rest of the space was covered in hazy fog like a blank space.
“What is this? Was there a place like this?”
As she was absentmindedly admiring the surreal scene, suddenly she felt a presence and turned around to see a boy approaching. He was a sensitive-looking boy with messy hair and thick, round glasses.
“You are…”
“How did you get here?”
A husky and aggressive voice, probably due to puberty.
As soon as Rosha heard that voice, she remembered seeing him at the title conferment ceremony.
You know, that boy who was glaring at Rosha while supporting the elderly woman who was said to be the headmistress of the Magic Academy.
‘At that age, with such free movement within the academy, and considering his closeness to the headmistress…’
In fact, the boy’s identity was obvious.
“Yurik Plitz?”
The only son of Viscount Plitz, and the youngest professor at the academy who had gained the titles of ‘Genius of the Century’ and ‘Prodigy of Magic Formulas’ during Rosha’s absence.
That very boy, known to be sixteen years old this year.
By the way…
“I didn’t know you were also well-versed in spatial formations.”
“Please call me Professor, not by my first name, Lady Roshanak. And in case you don’t know, the formation here was created by the Headmistress, not me.”
“Ah, is that so?”
“…Yes. It was made with great care over a very long time, so it would be troublesome if you interfere again this time.”
“When did I ever interfere… Oh, that.”
He seemed to be referring to what happened at the title conferment ceremony. When she had unintentionally intervened in the formation the headmistress had spread to catch the attackers.
‘Now that I think about it, his snippy attitude seems to be because I troubled the headmistress.’
Did they have some kind of connection?
Anyway, Yurik was much smaller than the average sixteen-year-old, so his attempt to act tough just looked cute.
Rosha smiled slightly and asked:
“So what’s hidden here? At first I thought someone was up to something suspicious in the academy, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.”
“Suspicious… Aren’t you the suspicious one, Lady Roshanak?”
“What? Me?”
“As soon as the title conferment ceremony ended, you visited the academy under the pretext of giving a lecture, and now you’ve come this deep into the formation.”
“The lecture was at the request of Heres, I mean Marquis Lycaon-“
“The formation here doesn’t open its entrance to people who visit the academy for purely lecture purposes. It judges intentions.”
“…”
“Moreover, this is a space that has been painstakingly crafted to tangle space and time so that it’s absolutely impossible to break through in the middle. Even if someone did break through, they wouldn’t escape serious injury, and inside the formation, intruders lose their sense of direction and most starve to death.”
Suddenly, she recalled the bones she had occasionally seen on her way.
The academy hadn’t been built for even 3 years, but this seemed to be the reason why those bones looked very old.
“So, I’d like to hear how you were able to come here in such a short time… I need to know to reinforce any weaknesses in the formation.”
Yurik had a determined face. He seemed unwilling to back down on this, but unfortunately, Rosha’s answer could only be meager.
“I just… saw the path.”
“What? Don’t joke around. This is important.”
“But it’s true.”
This was also why she didn’t learn formations.
Since there’s always a living gate in formations, they would inevitably be broken before Rosha’s [The Guiding Lantern].
Of course, Yurik, not knowing this fact, looked even more displeased.
“…If you’re going to be this uncooperative, I can’t cover this up on my own. We’ll have to officially raise this issue at the academy level…”
“No, I’m telling you, I just followed the suspicious magical power I sensed.”
“…You sensed magical power? From outside?”
When she nodded, Yurik looked very serious.
Seeing him mutter ‘That shouldn’t be possible…’, it seemed the formation was designed so that magical power couldn’t be sensed from outside.
It was at that moment.
Yurik suddenly raised his head and looked at the sky.
The sky that had appeared circular was slightly shaking with a creak.
“Why is the sky suddenly…”
As if realizing something, the boy’s face turned pale.
Though the exact details were unclear, it was certain that a problem had arisen.
Moreover, Rosha knew one more piece of information at this point. The surface of the platinum ring that had been cold was rapidly heating up.
‘This is…’
There was only one thing the change in the ring meant.
Froy was coming.
Crack-
The sky splits.
This wasn’t just a figure of speech, it was cracking like glass with hairline fractures, gradually revealing the hidden side.
In the gap of pitch-black space that didn’t reflect even a sliver of light, revealed beyond the blue sky that had been torn apart.
Near the rippling curtain of magical power beyond, a familiar man appeared.
“…”
His face, frozen so stiffly it was scary, softened for a moment.
As his eyes met Rosha’s, his expression settled into calmness as if momentarily relieved. Seeing that, some emotion gripped her.
A ripple stirred in the lake of her heart that had been calm just moments ago.
“…I thought you had disappeared again.”
Froy, who had quickly approached, whispered almost inaudibly.
From his slowly blinking eyelids, both relief and embarrassment could be felt.
Why hadn’t she noticed until now?
It was only a few hours of separation, but seeing his hands trembling slightly, he seemed very anxious about the situation of her disappearing.
Was this an aftereffect of her having been asleep for 3 years? Or…
“Your Grace Duke Echerzen! How could you do this!”