Academy’S Gumiho Is A Magical Genius [EN]: Chapter 160

The Gratefulness of a Teacher is Easily Forgotten (5)

Domain.

A single magic.

Or, in a space where one’s ideals are amplified, a magician gains power comparable to a god.

…That’s just an illusion created by ordinary people, young magicians who admire great magicians, and the media.

Does God feel like a joke?

If merely recreating a space centered around oneself is enough to be called a god, then players beyond a certain level are all gods.

Do we revere something so common and low-level as a god?

No, absolutely not.

A Domain is merely an awareness of magic.

How can one reveal their will and knowledge to the world?

That fragment of an idea is [Domain].

Beyond that is [Sanctuary].

At the very least, if you want to brag about being a magician who wields power comparable to a god, you should be able to handle a Sanctuary to save face.

However, there was something about Isabel’s Domain that made people shudder.

‘Decomposition, absorption, and reduction of magic?’

Sticky tar. The night sea with no moon or starlight was Isabel’s unique Domain.

Despite its origin being light, something felt off about seeing it as light.

Light that doesn’t shine.

The light source, having lost its color and radiance, spread out as wide as the sea, as if to dye the world in its own image, devouring colors from its surroundings.

The red of blood.

The white of eyes.

And the complex colors of corpses, and so on.

The black sea, having absorbed all the colors in the vicinity and turned them black, eventually dragged the objects into the sea.

‘…So, she’s converting the stolen colors into magic power.’

It’s a more complex process than I thought.

Moreover, Isabel’s black sea, 「Like Ink, One is Blackened」, dyed the entire area black, but its ability to distinguish between friend and foe was amazing.

As proof, the black sea did not extend its reach to me, the students, the nearby siblings, or the corpses of those who died unjustly.

Dyeing in black and converting into magic power was only applied to the building, the corpses inside the mansion including the Baron, and the scales and skin of Jormungandr.

“Looks like you’re starting to struggle. Kids.”

“Yes?”

“Go help your friend.”

Swinging her arm, its bones tattered and shaking like a promotional balloon, she pressured the students.

*Your friend is working so hard, what are you doing just standing here?* She didn’t say it, but they understood each other with just a look.

This was possible because Isabel had been constantly pushing Jormungandr. Somehow, her ability and that sea serpent seemed to be incompatible.

‘…Coincidence?’

Or is it fate?

I was deep in thought.

If it’s truly a coincidence that she, who will be the most active by the protagonist’s side, is Jormungandr’s natural enemy…

This is a bit suspicious.

‘…There’s something I don’t know.’

My head has been clouded by the repeated variables since coming to the inner world, but remember.

Surely, the clue to explain this sense of unease is not far away.

With that single thought, I left the students behind and began to search for something on the floor. And the moment I found that ‘something’ and held it in my hand…

Thud!

All five senses shut down.

Even the sixth sense doesn’t react.

‘What is…?’

Startled by the sudden phenomenon, I dyed my eyes purple and observed the flow of magic power, layering on top of it, but I couldn’t see anything.

My surprise at the sudden phenomenon was short-lived.

Intense magic power filled with will unfolded before my eyes as a landscape.

‘A mind’s eye?’

This was a trace of someone’s strong will left in the present world.

It was just a fleeting trace, so ordinary people wouldn’t be affected at all, and wouldn’t even recognize it.

But my senses calmly accepted the mind’s eye.

And so, the scene that unfolded was this land.

However, it was a landscape quite different from now, a land where the gentle spring breeze and the swaying grass and flowers were charming.

The sky was not covered by the great magic to avoid winter, and the mountain range visible beyond was full of lush greenery.

‘This isn’t winter; it seems like spring is fully arriving and summer is approaching?’

A sight that cannot be seen in the northern lands where winter has been constant for years.

I was lost in thought for a moment at the sight that was so different that it felt out of place from the present, when I heard a middle-aged voice.

“Is this our last spring?”

“Your Excellency, please don’t say that.”

A man wearing the same armor as Thermia said.

His exact physique was not visible because it was covered by armor, but the man, who appeared to be old, reached out his hand towards the sky.

“It is natural to prepare for winter as spring passes and summer approaches.”

Small, white snow fell on his outstretched hand.

It was only a speck, but perhaps because it landed on the cold metal armor, the snow did not melt quickly.

It melted slowly over time.

That sight was like the future of the North, and the Baron clutched his head.

“It’s a headache. An eternal winter is coming. Why has God abandoned our northern land?”

The magicians of the magic tower built in the North a month ago said in unison.

An eternal winter will soon come to the North.

However, they withdrew in advance, saying that they themselves did not know the cause.

“The chaos is not just in our North. The eastern lands are suffering from drought due to the intense sun, and the Empire’s allies are turning their backs one by one. Even the kingdom of Elion, far away, is rumored to have been destroyed last night among the nobles.”

“The whole world is hopeless.”

With the situation like this, it is difficult to expect aid from the central nobles.

Thanks to the recent chilly weather, even if I wanted to deny it, I had no choice but to nod at the magicians’ words.

The prophecy that an eternal winter would come to the North was gradually becoming a reality.

A situation that was a headache in many ways.

At that moment, there was a creature running energetically through the garden, as if nothing was wrong. The black thing was running well with its tiny eyes and small body.

“It’s very active. Is it still a puppy?”

“No, that child is a watchdog that my grandfather brought. It’s a magical beast picked up from the northern forest, so he guessed that if raised from a young age, it would surely become a loyal and strong watchdog, but…”

In the end, it’s in that state.

The chubby body running after the flying butterfly was so slow that it was doubtful whether it really intended to catch the butterfly.

To that extent, an ordinary hunting dog raised by the central nobles would be more reliable.

His grandfather gave affection and love even to such a creature, but he [the Baron] did not even have the generosity to give to a magical beast.

He’s leaving it alone because it’s his late grandfather’s legacy.

If that wasn’t the case, he would have killed it long ago.

A magical beast that just barks noisily.

“I don’t think our Baron, who has a lot of headaches because of the swarm of magical beasts rampant in the mountains, would think that way.”

“!!!!”

A voice suddenly heard from behind.

Strangely, classic lines such as ‘Who are you!’ did not come and go.

The Baron, who turned around, and the man in armor were silently confronting the man whose face was completely covered by a hat.

That was all.

In the silent stillness, I thought quietly.

That was neither a woman’s voice nor a man’s voice.

‘The voiceprint is bizarre.’

The human voice has a unique pattern.

If you reverse-calculate it, you can even find out who the other person is, but the voiceprint of the guy wearing the hat exceeded the shape that a human can make.

It didn’t seem like he was voice-changing, and there was no sign that he was using magic to conceal himself. His voice was simply heteromorphic [irregular in form].

“What do you want from us?”

“I don’t want anything.”

“What?”

“I don’t want anything from you. But you must have something you want.”

The sentences he speaks are suspicious.

If it’s a man who has calmly evaded the knights guarding the castle and entered the garden in the mansion, anything he says would be suspicious.

But the suspicion that Baron Eports is feeling now was not an emotion created by the environment and situation.

“Enduring winter and opening spring.”

“…How do you know that?”

“Because it’s written all over your face.”

“…….”

It was a suspicion as if he had encountered something that humans could not understand.

“I’ve come to make you an offer.”

“Can that offer save us from the winter that will drive the North into a corner?”

“Of course. Endless winter is like destruction, but the expression ‘salvation’ is a bit ambiguous.”

Because my proposal is not very kind.”

After that, the suspicious conversation continued.

I couldn’t hear such details.

This is just spying on the most intense trace engraved in the mind’s eye. Their words began to be heard again when they reached the end.

The Baron who shook hands with the man wearing the hat.

Afterwards, the man in the hat put things he didn’t know where he got from into his arms.

A small egg and a small snake that couldn’t bite a person.

The Baron, holding the two in his arms, asked him.

“I gladly accepted the offer, but what are these two in the end?”

In the circumstances, it seemed that the egg and the snake would act as important keys to ending winter and opening spring.

But I could only imagine because I didn’t hear their conversation properly.

Therefore, I listened carefully even to the back part of the conversation where the subject was omitted.

“…MacGuffin. These are just MacGuffins [a plot device].”

The man in the hat evaluated the egg and the snake like that.

With that answer as the last, the sound was cut off again.

The two did not have a conversation after that, and the man wearing the hat soon disappeared strangely like smoke.

The Baron created a workshop in the basement and experimented with this and that in a place that looked like a laboratory.

The man in armor grew old and sick. His armor and will were passed on to a girl who grew up in the slums and was indebted to the Baron. It was Thermia.

The old man became a sacrifice.

His body was tortured by the Baron, and he became the same as the corpses around him.

Such scenes were repeated several times.

The corpses piled up, and the basement became deeper and deeper to store them and experiment with something, and one day, black water suddenly poured out from the corpses.

It was the resentment and malice of the people.

The scene that unfolded afterwards was that the black egg that had sucked up people’s malice gradually grew bigger.

The enlarged egg sometimes looked like a well-ripened fruit.

The snake, coiling under the egg and taking its place, absorbed the dregs that the egg had not absorbed and gradually grew its body.

The snake, which did not feel the need to consume food, fell into a long sleep and gradually grew its body in the basement.

After quite some time had passed.

The egg was eventually stored in the mansion, and the snake, which had become too huge, simply dug deep into the ground and fell asleep.

After that, the scene in front of me suddenly accelerated.

I came into his eyes, and my students were also visible.

The Baron, who somehow had a strange smile, then chained the siblings.

Chains that were quite different from the chains I cut, chains connected to the snake in the basement.

He muttered, ‘It’s finally over…,’ and laughed.

He looked like a broken doll.

And at the last moment.

The Baron’s mouth, swept away by the sword energy revealed by my sword along with his family, was full of smiles. It was like the expression of someone who had succeeded in something they had wanted for a long time.