Vol 2 Chapter 24 – The Birth of the Magic Swordsman【Vol 2: The Blazing Labyrinth and the Lonely Witch】

Several hours after Elmina went back to the cave, I was still standing alone in the wasteland.

The sun was sinking below the horizon, and the sky was dyed a burning crimson.

A cool breeze gently brushed over my body, still hot from training.

(…People’s feelings really are hard.)

I’d made Elmina mad again.

I still didn’t really understand why she got upset whenever I exchanged letters with Lilia.

The system called a woman’s heart was more complex and bizarre than any hidden mechanic in all the games I’d ever mastered.

(Ever since Misaki betrayed me, I’d built an invisible wall between myself and other people—especially women. If I didn’t get too involved, I wouldn’t get hurt again. Maybe that fear made me a coward, and maybe that’s what dulled my emotions.)

But I didn’t have time to wallow in sentiment.

I looked down at my left hand.

It held the theory and techniques of magic that Elmina had drilled into me over three years.

Then I looked at my right hand.

It held the principles of the sword that Lilia and Master Glen had taught me over ten years.

Lilia’s sword, straight and true like the sun.

Elmina’s magic, proud and noble like flame.

(If I combine these two powers into one…)

It was the combat style I’d been imagining in the back of my mind ever since I came to this world.

A strongest form that didn’t exist in the game Arks Ende—one that belonged to me alone.

“…Let’s try it.”

I muttered to myself and drew the longsword Master Glen had passed down to me.

I drove the scabbard into the ground, then focused my mind.

I began slowly refining the enormous amount of mana inside my body.

(Just like Elmina taught me, don’t just gather it. Follow the spell system—carefully, precisely weave it together.)

In my left hand, a basketball-sized fireball—《Fireball》—formed.

But it was nothing like the one from three years ago.

The mana compressed to its limit gave off light and heat like a miniature sun.

(Next, Lilia’s teaching. A sword isn’t something you swing with brute force. You swing it with your whole body, like you’re creating a flow.)

I raised my sword into a middle guard and focused my breathing with the Glen-Style method.

The tip of the blade went perfectly still.

Only the sound of the wind passed by my ears.

And then—.

“—Hah!”

With a sharp shout, I stepped in.

I slammed the 《Fireball》 in my left hand against the blade of the sword in my right.

(Ordinarily, two different kinds of energy would just collide and make the mana explode. But I’ll use 【Edit】 to tweak this sword’s definition rules a little. State: from “steel” to “mana affinity state.” This can work…!)

Sssssssssss!!

Just like I predicted, the sword didn’t repel the mana. It wrapped itself in flame like a sponge soaking up water.

The blade glowed red-hot, warping the air around it like heat haze.

Magic and sword had fused together perfectly.

(It worked…!)

I fixed my eyes on a huge boulder in front of me and drew back the flame-wrapped sword.

“—《Flame Sword—Blaze Slash》!”

I brought the sword down together with the improvised technique name I’d just made up.

The slash I unleashed wasn’t just a physical strike.

Scorching flames rushed forward in a crescent-shaped blade and tore into the boulder.

BOOOOOOM!!!

With a thunderous crash, the massive boulder was split clean in two.

Its cut surface had melted smooth, like it had been sliced apart by a laser.

“…Haha, damn. That’s incredible.”

A dry laugh slipped out of me at the power, even greater than I’d imagined.

This was a magic sword.

A new power born by fusing two different sets of principles—swordsmanship and magic.

This was one answer I’d reached after thirteen years in this world.

(Not enough. This isn’t all I’ve got.)

I raised my sword again.

This time, wind magic.

I formed a whirlwind in my right hand and wrapped it around the blade.

“—《Wind Sword—Vacuum Blade》!”

The slash I unleashed became an invisible blade that tore through the air and drove deep into a different boulder than before.

A sharp scar was carved into the rock’s surface, like the wind pressure alone had gouged it out.

(This is amazing…! Way too amazing…!)

An 《Ice Sword》 that freezes everything it touches with ice magic.

A 《Thunder Sword》 that makes godspeed slashes possible with lightning magic.

New techniques kept being born one after another.

It was only possible because I fully understood both Lilia’s swordsmanship and Elmina’s magic theory.

Everything they’d spent thirteen years teaching me was taking shape in this single moment.

How much time passed while I kept swinging in a trance?

Before I knew it, the sky was completely wrapped in darkness, and the full moon was lighting up my figure.

“…You’re watching, aren’t you, Elmina?”

I sheathed my sword and called out toward the cave we were using as our base.

No answer came.

But I knew she was there.

She’d been there the whole time, ever since I started training with the magic sword.

After a while, Elmina slowly stepped out from the cave entrance.

Her face didn’t have that usual sour look on it.

She was just staring at me, stunned.

“…What was that?”

She muttered in a trembling voice.

“You saw it. I just combined the magic you taught me with the swordsmanship Lilia taught me. That’s all.”

“Just… combined them?”

Elmina looked back and forth between the giant boulder split in two and the one gouged by wind, like she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

“I’ve never even heard of anything like that. It’s nothing like ‘Enchanting’ a sword with magic. It looked like you were launching magic itself as a sword slash… What kind of logic is that?”

“The logic, huh… I can’t really explain it that well myself.”

That was a lie.

In my head, the theory was perfectly assembled.

Use the centrifugal force and wind pressure created by swinging the sword to heighten the spell’s directionality, then use the microscopic spell formulas carved into the blade with 【Edit】 as triggers to activate specific magic at specific timings—

But I had no intention of explaining that to her.

This was my trump card alone.

“Still… I needed everything you taught me about magic, and everything Lilia taught me about the sword. That much is true.”

When I said that, Elmina lowered her gaze with a complicated expression.

For a second, her red eyes seemed to glint in the moonlight.

(…My magic and that girl’s sword are mixed together inside him…)

I could practically see the storm raging inside her.

(It seriously ticks me off. The magic I spent three years drilling into him is mixed together, inside him, with the sword of some girl I’ve never even met…!)

Jealousy.

Possessiveness.

The discomfort of feeling like her territory had been invaded.

(But…)

She remembered the trail of the magic sword I’d swung.

Flames danced, wind swept, ice sparkled.

It was rougher than any magic she knew, and yet—

(…It’s beautiful…)

Elmina was shaken by the fact that she’d thought that without meaning to.

The ultimate combat art, where power and technique fused perfectly.

Seeing it in front of her, her pure curiosity as a mage had outweighed her jealousy.

“…Is Lilia really that amazing?”