The Return of The Mythical Archmage [EN]: Chapter 386

The Mythical Archmage’s Rebirth-387

Inside the first trial gate, located between the Luminescent Mana Stone Cave and the Green Fortress.

Ray Bell Vaitner slowly opened his eyes.

“……You’ve come.”

It was a much faster retry than he had expected.

He thought it would take at least a month.

‘To think he found the answer in just a week.’

Ray Bell Vaitner’s eyes shone with a brilliant light.

He was looking forward to it.

What form would Shin Ha-yul’s new Vaitner style take?

How would his mythic magic evolve?

His heart was pounding.

‘It’s been a long time since I felt like this.’

Excitement. Thrill.

These were emotions he hadn’t felt in a long time.

It might have been the first time he felt this way since he combined the Vaitner style with myth to create mythic magic.

‘But, it’s strange.’

He looked up at the ceiling with eyes full of excitement.

‘A retry after only a week… It’s much more likely that the successor gave up without finding any answers and was forced to retry.’

Logically, it doesn’t make sense to create a new mythic magic in just a week.

To attempt a retry in a week means there’s a much higher chance that he gave up on the task.

‘But I don’t think that’s the case at all.’

But somehow, he didn’t think that was the case.

There was no way he would have given up.

He would have found the answer.

He would have created a new mythic magic.

That was the only thought filling his mind.

‘……Was I this emotional at 21? To be able to trust someone this much after only seeing them twice.’

The Ray Bell Vaitner in this gate was a magical persona [a magical construct embodying a specific aspect of a person] that embodied the 21-year-old Ray Bell Vaitner.

The current Ray does not share memories with the Ray Bell Vaitner who appeared in the previous Mimir’s Book.

Therefore, this Ray saw Shin Ha-yul for the first time a week ago.

It’s far too short a time to trust someone so openly.

Why on earth was he trusting Shin Ha-yul so much?

As he said, was it because his 21-year-old self was emotional?

‘No. That’s not it.’

No.

Regardless of being 21, Ray Bell Vaitner was not the kind of person who trusted someone so easily.

There was another reason why the current Ray Bell Vaitner trusted Shin Ha-yul so much.

‘The reason I trust him so much is because he is a pioneer, and…’

Shin Ha-yul.

It was because he, like himself, was a pioneer creating a new path.

Because he thought of things he hadn’t thought of and put them into action.

Because he was a challenger who could build a different domain and think differently from himself.

That was why he trusted Shin Ha-yul so much.

‘It must be because he’s a challenger who rejoices in failure.’

Ray Bell Vaitner remembered clearly.

He clearly remembered Shin Ha-yul’s expression when he told him a week ago that his mythic magic was clumsy.

‘A person who can recognize failure and smile would never give up.’

He was smiling.

Even though his efforts were denied, he was smiling as if he was genuinely happy.

For him, the hope of being able to improve was greater than the despair of failure.

Such a person would not falter.

There was no way he would give up.

‘Come on. Come quickly.’

Ray crossed his arms and looked beyond the gate.

He earnestly wished that the successor, who was now infusing mana into the gate, would open the gate and come in.

He wore a faint smile on his face, full of excitement.

Thud-!

And not long after, the gate opened with a thud.

“I apologize for making you wait.”

Shin Ha-yul appeared beyond the wide-open gate.

A beard that had grown haphazardly because he hadn’t groomed it. Messy hair.

He looked like a shut-in who had been cooped up in his room for a week.

“You don’t need to worry about it. You’ve returned much faster than I expected.”

Looking at Shin Ha-yul’s unkempt appearance, Ray smiled broadly.

“So, did you properly solve the task I gave you?”

“Yes. I’ve found my own answer.”

The sun-like eyes, contrasting with his unkempt appearance, made him smile.

“Can I look forward to it?”

That expression. That appearance. Those eyes.

Those were the things Ray Bell Vaitner often saw in the mirror in his younger days.

It was the face that appeared only when he had pushed all his concentration to the limit and produced a result.

“Yes. You can look forward to it.”

That was why Ray couldn’t help but smile.

He could anticipate that the answer the successor had brought would be beyond his imagination.

He couldn’t help but smile.

“Alright. Then I’ll look forward to it.”

Mana surged from Ray’s body.

The mana flickered fiercely, filled with the determination to exclude the enemy before him.

“Yes. I will do my best not to disappoint you.”

Shin Ha-yul’s mana showed no change.

When facing such mana, there should be at least some reaction.

But Shin Ha-yul showed no reaction at all.

“This is the new Vaitner style that I’ve improved this time… no.”

He was just calm.

Like a still lake on a windless day.

“It’s ‘my’ Vaitner style.”

His mana spread out like a lake.

As if to subdue the fierce mana that Ray had emitted.

As if to cover the world with calmness.

It filled the space.

“Red.”

The mana reversed all at once.

As if a blank sheet of calmness had been splashed with red paint.

It fluctuated violently.

“Beginning.”

And that paint began to draw a picture.

A picture of a geometric shape that was impossible to describe.

Most people wouldn’t be able to understand what that picture was.

No, they wouldn’t even be able to perceive that picture at all.

That picture was one that only those who carried on the Vaitner style could understand.

‘The Beginning.’

The theme of that picture was ‘The Beginning.’

Shin Ha-yul was now using red mana to shape the origin of the beginning.

“Flame.”

The origin of the beginning that was created in that way soon began to burn.

As if to claim that everything in the beginning was born from flames.

A mysterious flame with contradictory origins, both destroying and creating life, filled the surroundings.

“……Haha.”

Seeing that, Ray laughed.

It was a bright laugh, as if he had never laughed so brightly before.

“To express the myth of Ignis with just three words.”

The myth that had unfolded anew before his eyes was so beautiful and wondrous.

He couldn’t help but laugh.

“Excellent.”

Ray clapped his hands with sincerity.

A round of applause of praise for the successor who had created this spectacle.

And a round of applause of gratitude to his junior for allowing him to see such a sight.

“Your current myth does not forget the past and lives in the present.”

Clearly, just a week ago, it was a myth that had forgotten the past and was immersed in the present.

But now, it was shining brightly as one, as if it had never denied the past.

“Indeed, it is fitting that you call it ‘your’ mythic magic.”

Ray Bell Vaitner withdrew his mana.

“It’s enough.”

There was no need to see any more.

There was no value in testing anything further.

“You pass.”

It was a perfect pass, beyond all expectations.

* * *

“You pass.”

“…….”

I was momentarily stunned by my master’s declaration of passing.

I had been bracing myself for the fierce battle that was about to unfold, but now that it was over, just like that.

It was inevitable that I would be momentarily stunned.

“You… pass?”

“Yes. You pass.”

Whatever it was, I had passed, so that was that.

I was about to cancel Ignis.

“Wait.”

My master stopped me.

“Leave that magic as it is for a moment.”

For a moment, I thought he was going to retract his declaration of passing.

“Just a little longer. I want to watch your magic.”

Of course, that wasn’t it.

My master just wanted to watch my magic a little longer.

“Indeed. The more I look at it, the more beautiful it is.”

My master’s eyes emitted a moonlight-like glow.

It was as if he was bewitched by a fox, hazy.

“The abbreviation of myth. The abbreviation of words. And finally, the abbreviation of the magic system. This magic is full of the beauty of abbreviation. It’s as if a festival of abbreviation has opened.”

As expected of my master.

He seemed to have seen through the core of this magic at a glance.

“There should not have been even a 0.0001% error in realizing each abbreviation. And to bring all these abbreviations together…”

My master’s eyes shone with a light of shock and admiration.

“This is not something a human can do. Did modern technology go into the coordination of this abbreviation?”

My master asked, looking at the choker around my neck.

Since it was something a human couldn’t do, he must have thought that I had received help from a ‘machine’.

“No, it’s not.”

But it wasn’t.

“……It’s not?”

“Yes. It’s not.”

It was true that I used computer processing technology to handle this task, but the computer processing technology was only used as an aid.

There was someone else who handled this task.

“Then, are you saying that you did this coordination yourself?”

“That’s not it either.”

Of course, it wasn’t me.

“If it wasn’t you, and you didn’t use modern technology…”

Who was it that handled this task?

My master’s eyes were asking that.

“It’s someone my master knows well… no, someone my master knows best.”

“……Someone I know best?”

My master frowned, looking like he didn’t understand.

‘As I thought.’

Seeing my master’s reaction, I could tell.

‘The master here now is different from the master I met in Mimir’s Book.’

If it was the master I met in Mimir’s Book, he would have immediately thought of ‘Mimir’ at my words.

The master in front of me now was a separate Ray Bell Vaitner who had embodied his 21-year-old self.

‘Mimir might be a little… sad if she knew.’

In other words, the master in front of me now was not the master who had reconciled with Mimir after opening his heart.

Mimir would be a little sad if she knew.

“Why aren’t you answering?”

“Ah.”

It seemed like I had been thinking for too long.

I immediately cleared my mind and focused on my master again.

“The person who made this abbreviation a reality is Mimir.”

“……What?”

My master’s eyes widened.

“Mimir? How could Mimir…”

From that reaction, I could tell one more thing.

‘How could Mimir?’ means that he knows that Mimir can’t be here right now.

In other words, the master here not only has the memories of his 21-year-old self, but also has all the memories up to the moment of his death as Ray Bell Vaitner.

‘He must have kept the memories in the state they were just before death. And only embodied his 21-year-old body.’

Only his body was 21 years old, and his memories were all the way up to the moment of his death.

“I used a persona to bind Mimir’s soul, which my master had bound to Mimir’s Book, to another place.”

“……With a persona?”

My master’s eyes shone with curiosity again.

“To do that, you would have needed the data of the magic system I used when I created Mimir’s Book.”

“Yes. If I didn’t have it, it would have been impossible.”

“……Hoo.”

A different light flowed from my master’s eyes.

“That means that my clone, which was bound to Mimir’s Book, passed on the data about Mimir’s Book to you through a memory transfer magic.”

“Yes. That’s right.”

“……Hmm.”

My master stroked his chin.

“I even used memory transfer…”

He seemed to be having complicated thoughts.

“It seems like something happened between Mimir and me.”

“Yes.”

“……I see.”

My master smiled bitterly.

“I want to ask what happened… but I’m also afraid to ask. That child was resenting me. Surely…”

“No.”

I interrupted my master and said firmly.

“Mimir was not resenting you. She was just a little mistaken.”

My master stared straight into my eyes.

He seemed to be trying to discern the truth of my words through my eyes.

“……Is that so.”

After about 10 seconds of eye contact, my master smiled bitterly again.

“Then, that’s truly fortunate. Truly… fortunate.”

Then, with complicated eyes, he stared into the air.