Chapter 14

Chapter 14

First floor of Panroa Hall’s male dormitory wing.

Snore—

As expected, the paladin on night duty was deeply asleep and couldn’t pull himself together.

Roan quickly bypassed the duty office and headed toward the end of the hallway.

A supply room where cleaning tools and simple implements were kept.

Normally, it was locked so that students couldn’t enter.

Click—

Roan opened the door easily.

Since he knew that the key to the supply room was hidden in a locker nearby.

‘Easy.’

Although he would have to pay a fine for violating school rules if he ran into professors or patrolling paladins.

‘Such a variable is nothing.’

For Roan, the deployment of personnel near the dormitory at each hour was clear to his eyes.

The optimal time he had memorized over and over again for the sake of clearing was exactly 3:17 AM.

Furthermore, if he slipped out through the window of the supply room, he could enter the mountain behind the dormitory without anyone approaching within 100 meters.

‘The headmaster’s random encounters still remain…… well, I won’t have to worry about that.’

Although Harden’s existence was the last remaining obstacle.

In any case, the Holy Spirit wasn’t someone he could avoid just by being careful, and the probability of the event occurring itself was extremely low.

If he wanted to avoid such a Harden, he would have to give up slipping out of the dormitory in the middle of the night altogether.

Roan moved quickly and entered the mountain behind Panroa Hall.

The gloomy atmosphere was dismal, but Roan didn’t even care.

At this point, he knew that it was a place with absolutely no dangerous events.

‘Seeing the results today, I have to go to obtain the Choir within this week.’

It was because he needed to raise his stats as quickly as possible.

The Choir was an artifact, a holy relic hidden in one of Acherandir’s hidden dungeons.

As far as Roan knew, it had the lowest conquest difficulty and was universally useful.

However, a dungeon was still a dungeon, so he needed to prepare proper attack magic.

‘I might catch someone’s eye, so let’s go as deep as possible…….’

Even while running out of breath on the rough mountain path, Roan moved his feet busily.

***

A cliff half backing the school.

Only when Roan reached that place did he finally stop, catching his rough breath.

“……I shouldn’t be visible at this distance, right?”

First of all, he had avoided the risk of getting caught as much as possible.

Roan sat on a suitable rock and began to recall the black magic he could use right away.

‘First, the easiest one is blood magic…….’

Although there were quite a few branches of black magic, the easiest one to access among them was blood magic.

Unlike other black magics, the caster’s blood could be used as a reagent, making preparation for casting very easy.

And it was much more powerful than black magic used without reagents.

Of course, there was also a worrying part correspondingly.

‘The key point is how blood magic will look when translated by False Divinity.’

Actually, this was the same for other black magics too.

Especially, blood magic was more of a problem.

No matter how he thought about it, a clergyman scattering dark red blood around was strange, wasn’t it.

“Hmm. For now, I should try using it.”

If he tried it and it felt completely strange, he could think about it then.

Roan pulled out a dagger and pricked his finger.

Along with a sharp pain, blood formed on the wound.

The most basic stage for using blood magic.

Using blood flow control, he planned to float a small amount of blood in the air, and then expand its volume using the modified Flesh Explosion he used in basic healing.

‘Under normal circumstances, it would be utterly impossible, but…….’

No matter how much only regeneration was left in Flesh Explosion, separate blood would not multiply on its own.

However, where was this place.

Pluck—

Roan plucked a weed that was stepped on randomly under his feet.

Then, placing it gently on the blood floating in the air.

He used Flesh Explosion just like that.

‘……By the way, is this really Flesh Explosion at this point?’

It felt like it had become something far beyond the original magic, but anyway.

Whoosh—

Flesh Explosion, having gone through False Divinity, became a magnificent holy magic and regenerated the blood.

The weed, which was full of the energy of the sacred land of Acherandir, assisted the process.

Gush—

Soon, the blood, which had been smaller than a fingernail, surged here and there, and eventually grew as large as Roan’s head.

“First, I should store this well……”

Next, he poured most of the blood into the leather canteen he bought in the commercial district, excluding the amount to be used right away.

With this, the basic preparation to use blood magic was finished.

‘The reagent comes from my body, and I can multiply it as much as I want just by plucking weeds?’

Even though it was something he did himself, it went so smoothly that Roan was dumbfounded.

If it were a general character, let alone modifying magic, they would have to pour an enormous amount of effort and money just to multiply the amount of blood.

He was a black mage, but he was happy to be an Acherandir student!

‘……No, this isn’t right.’

It wasn’t like he had Stockholm syndrome.

Out of all those numerous bad circumstances, to talk of happiness with just this.

At any rate, the real start was from now.

‘First, Blood Fragment.’

The most basic attack magic that divides blood mixed with mana into small fragments to attack.

The size and number of fragments are determined by the quality of mana, and the quality of blood affects the destructive power.

Roan closed his eyes and recalled the magic circle of Blood Fragment.

The memory was faint, but that alone was sufficient.

Since his talent regenerated and added the remaining parts.

‘A rock of that size should be enough, right?’

After completing the magic circle, he aimed at a rock of a size that could sufficiently withstand the destructive power of Blood Fragment.

And when he breathed in his black mana.

Hummmm—

False Divinity broke the magic circle into pieces as before, creating emblems and Hilonian.

As expected, it was a form Roan did not know, just like during Flesh Explosion.

‘It feels like something extremely complex, though……?’

Moreover, because it was extremely long and complex, a slight doubt arose.

Translating Blood Fragment into holy magic turned out like that?

However, when the blood was quickly rearranged according to the fully translated black magic.

“????”

Roan could only be flustered, not even thinking of using the magic.

First, the number of fragments was not common sense.

Right now, even roughly counting, the amount exceeded several hundreds.

Roan had also never handled this many fragments at the same time.

If he knew how to use Blood Fragment like this, he would use a higher-level magic, rather than using a basic magic.

But that wasn’t even considered important.

“……Judgment of Holy Blood?”

Roan muttered the name of the holy magic in his memory in a dazed voice.

‘Since False Divinity exists, I expected the color to change to some extent…….’

He had only expected it to turn white so it wouldn’t look like blood.

Since with that level, he could sufficiently find something to make excuses for among basic holy magics.

But the golden color embedded in each fragment, enough to dazzle the eyes, was…….

Roan had a few memories of seeing a magic exactly like this while playing “God & Devil.”

That was none other than ‘Judgment of Holy Blood.’

‘No way.’

But no matter how he thought about it, that was too much.

For Judgment of Holy Blood was one of the series of ‘Holy Blood,’ a lost past holy magic at the current point in time.

And that, too, was a high-level holy magic used only by archbishop or cardinal classes and above.

The reason Roan recognized ‘Judgment of Holy Blood’ was also because he had barely witnessed the battle of the cardinal at the time in an episode returning to the past.

‘That was a completely overpowered skill.’

According to the settings, ancient holy magic possessed far stronger power than the current one, so the power of Judgment of Holy Blood was truly enough to make one’s jaw drop.

Meaning, the basic black magic Blood Fragment had now become that Judgment of Holy Blood.

“……It might all be a bluff.”

But Roan decided to be a bit calmer.

From experience, False Divinity was exceptionally good at packaging insignificant black magic as if it were something grand.

This time, too, it might just look golden and flash on the surface, but in reality be a normal Blood Fragment…….

─────!!!!

“…….”

However, right after the magic flew, Roan’s mouth ended up tightly shut.

There was one piece of good news and one piece of bad news.

‘First, it naturally wasn’t Judgment of Holy Blood.’

The good news was that, as expected, that brilliant appearance was False Divinity’s bluff.

If it were truly Judgment of Holy Blood, the ground itself would have disappeared entirely.

However, it was much stronger than a normal Blood Fragment.

That was because the quality of Roan’s mana and blood was far more excellent than imagined.

‘And the bad news is…….’

Roan looked blankly around the landscape that his magic had wrought.

The target rock, as large as a house, turned into dust and vanished by the time it took all the fragments.

The surroundings were also a mess, as if they had taken a bombing.

Since the destructive power of the magic was too strong, the bad news was that someone must have noticed at this rate.

‘Let’s run away first!’

Feeling an instinctive sense of crisis, Roan tried to head down the mountain immediately.

He had only come to practice a basic black magic to conquer a simple, easy dungeon.

What on earth was this mess!

‘Anyway, this authority has no helpful side!’

Hum—

As Roan scolded harshly, False Divinity vibrated the circuits as if aggrieved.

After giving a localization translation in its own way, the fellow who was the master was complaining for no reason.

Moreover, the reason Blood Fragment became that strong was not because of itself, but because of the master!

In any case, Roan was also in a hurry in his own way.

No matter how much he found a place where he wouldn’t catch attention on the school’s side.

Since he made such a fuss, someone must have felt it.

‘And if that person is someone like Professor Kaina…….’

Just the thought made him shudder.

There was no choice but to leave the place as quickly as possible.

Just as Roan quickly took his direction downward.

“───!”

He ended up startled.

Suddenly in the darkness where there was nothing.

“You use quite a cool magic?”

A whitish form seemed to arise, and then Harden appeared!

‘They say an unlucky fellow breaks his nose even if he falls backward!’

Roan was surprised to the point that he couldn’t even scream, but he regained his composure as quickly as possible.

Whether it was Roan’s original nature, there was no need to make an effort for this kind of thing.

“Magic, what do you mean by that?”

“……Isn’t that too shameless a statement?”

When Roan replied casually, tilting his head as if he didn’t know the reason, Harden pointed backward with a gesture of his chin as if dumbfounded.

There, naturally, lay the mess wrought by Blood Fragment.

“I came out for a walk because I couldn’t sleep, and lightning struck. It is dangerous, so I am about to go inside quickly.”

“Oh, is that so. Lightning suddenly. Were you very surprised? I will take you to Professor Kaina.”

“……I’m sorry. I was just practicing simply.”

Roan admitted quickly.

Thinking he could deceive Harden.

It would be easier to use black magic in front of Professor Kaina and insist it was a newly developed holy magic.

“Why do you keep trying to hide it. Calling it cool magic is real. I think it has been over a thousand years since I last saw it too……”

Harden flew here and there in the form of the Holy Spirit, continuously making sounds like, “Ho~ Ho~.”

Then he dropped right in front of Roan again and clicked his tongue.

“Tsk, if you do simple practice a few more times, Acherandir won’t survive.”

“……I’m sorry.”

Roan bowed his head again.

From Harden’s perspective, didn’t some black mage fellow smash his sacred land.

……It was really not intentional.

“Never mind. More importantly, it is a relief that I hastily cast a barrier thinking it was an attack. I told you not to do anything that would get you caught, but you couldn’t even wait that short time……”

Although Harden was saying completely correct things, Roan was inwardly aggrieved.

‘I didn’t intend to go this far either!’

He had only used a single basic black magic just to obtain a simple artifact.

If he used high-level black magic later, what would pop out.

Meanwhile, Harden was managing his surprised heart in his own way.

‘My word, I thought he was just a reasonably cute fellow, but what is this…….’

When Roan first used Blood Fragment, Harden ran directly instead of calling other dependents or paladins.

It was because the energy felt was unusual.

Because of this, he even set up a barrier to prevent the matter from growing, but what on earth.

The freshman black mage fellow was using something similar to ancient holy magic.

Moreover, after finding out that the original was merely a modification of Blood Fragment, he felt goosebumps for the first time in thousands of years.

……Although there were no goosebumps to feel.

In any case, Harden could grasp the circumstances at a glance.

‘A talent that comes once in thousands of years and some suspicious snake-like authority are entered into one body, so this disaster happens!’

No matter how simple it was, modifying basic magic to use at one’s own will was a difficult task even for a considerable authority.

If it were that easy, why would they study and research based on records passed down through generations.

They would just make it on their own.

But an otherworldly talent that accomplishes such work in a single night.

And an authority called False Divinity, whose limits were hard for even Harden to guess.

The two combined to perform the absurd deed of reproducing part of the appearance and power of ancient holy magic.

‘……At this rate, he might be more outstanding than me in my youth.’

Although he hated to admit it terribly, such a thought naturally arose in Harden’s mind too.

Not only was the descendant of a destroyed great family actually a genius black mage, but he also possessed such an authority?

If coincidence reached this level, the term ‘God’s will’ was fitting.

So Harden decided to watch Roan’s talent a bit more.

……It would have been better if it were a talent for holy magic instead of black magic, though.

“Hmm.”

Every time Harden glanced around and looked back at Roan, Roan winced inwardly, feeling guilty.

From the perspective of the thousands-of-years-old Holy Spirit, it was a fairly cute sight.

“Still, since I watched a fun show, I should express my appreciation. Take it.”

Then he pulled out a thick wallet from his robes.

‘Can the Holy Spirit carry a wallet?’

Although a minor question arose, Roan soon let it go.

Since he wore clothes, what was to stop him from carrying a wallet.

On the other hand, it would be Roan’s side who would decline if Harden went around naked.

“Here.”

Clink—

Harden placed a coin in Roan’s hand.

“Thank you……?”

Roan, who bowed his waist, tilted his head.

Clink? A coin?

“……Isn’t this an Imperial gold coin?”

Even to Roan’s eyes, what the headmaster gave was a sparkling gold coin.

Harden asked back with a smirk.

“Yes, it’s an Imperial gold coin. Why? Is it not enough? Shall I give you one more?”

‘He did it on purpose!’

Knowing better than anyone that only Talents were used in the school, to give an Imperial gold coin.

Normally, he would have wanted to see the student who received the pie in the sky tremble.

“Thank you.”

Roan rather bowed his waist deeper, as if it worked out well.

“……Eh? Why?”

Naturally, the one who became bewildered was Harden’s side.

It was even more so because he grasped that Roan was sincerely grateful.

Has this fellow not been to the commercial district yet?

However, Roan had no words, and only smirked.

‘Anyway, my Talents are overflowing!’

After all, he already possessed 10,000 Talents.

Even though he spent some in the commercial district, it was merely a drop in the ocean.

Therefore, gold coins that could be used even after graduation were more useful.

Having no way of knowing such circumstances, Harden nodded, feeling an inexplicable discomfort.

“Well, since you’re grateful, that’s fine. I will maintain the barrier a bit longer, so do well. Return to the dormitory after doing it moderately.”

“Yes, thank you, Headmaster.”

This was an unexpected harvest.

Harden disappeared smoothly just as when he first appeared, but Roan bowed toward that direction.

‘He is a true educator!’

To show consideration like this without distinguishing the student’s origin and major(?), what a benevolent human figure.

Even though he looked like that, it seemed he didn’t remain as the Holy Spirit until now for nothing.

Eventually, Roan returned to the McGodal Room by the time the eastern sky turned bluish.