The Rebirth Of The Hero’S Party’S Archmage [EN]: Chapter 96

96.

“I can’t do it, I don’t want to.”

Lin, covered in sweat, threw down the practice staff with a frustrated sigh and plopped down.

“A mage just needs to be good at magic, why close combat? I won’t do it!”

The suggestion to teach Lin close combat came from Keyes.

After Lin was nearly killed when she was separated from her comrades and isolated during the battle ten days ago, the party’s atmosphere became sensitively sharp.

“Get up, Lin.”

Rista strode up to Lin, her expression unusually stern and resolute.

“It’s hard, I don’t want to.”

“It’s natural for it to be hard. Nothing in this world is easy.”

“Magic wasn’t this hard.”

Lin retorted with a sulky face, and Rista sighed as if she couldn’t help it.

“Lin, who has shown a genius-like talent for magic, might find it hard to understand… but it’s good to know for sure this time.”

“Know what?”

“Lin, talent doesn’t make a person. Time makes a person.”

“……?”

“The sweat and tears you shed while thinking it’s hard, those very moments gather to create your future self. Nothing else, just those moments.”

Time, not talent… Lin blinked blankly, and Rista smiled and held out her hand.

“……”

Lin looked back and forth between the smile and the hand, and finally grabbed the hand and stood up.

“Lin, martial arts are just like magic.”

Rista gathered only the essence of practical combat and created five stances to teach Lin.

These stances each required different muscles and strengths, with the aim of ensuring that she thoroughly learned how to use her entire body.

“Just like how solving magic is easier if you know several mathematical formulas, if you know how to use your body, you can easily learn even the movements you’re doing for the first time.”

Only Rista and Keyes knew that this was something they had considered not only for the war but also for after the war.

Even the sad heart contained within it.

After the war, Rista hoped to be of some help in the long journey of the boy’s life, where she couldn’t go with him.

‘This is absurd…’

Wibber, who had no way of knowing that the boy had received such training from Rista, could only marvel at Lane’s astonishing growth rate.

When learning a movement for the first time, he was clumsy and awkward, as most humans are.

But from the tenth or hundredth time onwards, wasn’t he gradually achieving a posture similar to Wibber’s?

‘He’s not just talented. How many hours has this guy been doing this?’

Wibber accepted Lane’s request to teach him setter [the player who sets the ball for an attack].

Did his mind change?

Absolutely not.

He was deliberately trying to make Lane cry out by pushing him tens of times harder, to make him say he couldn’t do it and give up. But this guy…

– What are you doing, not setting the ball!

He’s actually asking for more training?

One day, after training late into the night, he even said something strange.

– Wibber, you’re really amazing.

– What?

– When I learn from Logan or Nora, I don’t really get a feel for it, but when I hear your explanation, I know exactly what it feels like.

Is he provoking me right now? How much do you think I’ve been pushing you to make you suffer? There’s no way he wouldn’t know that?

He glared suspiciously, but Lane chuckled, patted him on the shoulder, and ran towards the [True] dormitory.

– Well, I’ll see you tomorrow! Sleep well!

As he watched his retreating figure with an astonished face, Caden’s words suddenly came back to him unbidden.

– Lane Ludwick is different.

No, that can’t be.

They’re all the same.

All nobles are the same. Two-faced, arrogant, conceited, annoying…

“Young Master, one more nice serve!”

At that moment, Logan’s energetic shout dragged Wibber out of his reverie and back to reality. At the same time, a fierce cracking sound rang out.

“Gertrude!”

Once again, it was a serve that sharply pierced the corner. But this time, Gertrude Panton threw herself into its trajectory.

The Panton family has traditionally pursued both literary and martial arts, and Gertrude’s physical abilities, raised in a place that seeks the union of martial arts and magic, were certainly extraordinary compared to her peers.

The magic sphere, which seemed to be caught in her neatly gathered hands, spat out a fierce current the next moment and bounced backward.

“Two consecutive service aces…?!”

Everyone was momentarily speechless at the unexpected situation, and then burst into cheers. Krista Warden’s eyes were also wide open.

‘Gertrude was just perfectly in the course of the spike serve. It was natural to raise the ball stably. But…’

The only reason the magic sphere shows such a rebound phenomenon is when the defender fails to calculate the mathematical formula ordered by the attacker.

‘At that speed, he’s ordering the inverse function of an irrational function?’

Gertrude alternately rubbed her tingling arms from the impact, and let out a hollow laugh as if dumbfounded.

‘The faster the ball, the shorter the time to calculate the mathematical formula…’

I think only a handful of people in the country can perfectly receive that ball?

“Gertrude, I heard you’re close to Ludwick.”

At that moment, Maya Snark’s coldly thrown words made Gertrude’s eyebrows twitch.

“Are you trying to say that I let it go on purpose?”

“Not necessarily, but.”

“It’s so absurd, should I see if you can say that even after receiving it yourself?”

It was such an unbelievable situation that Maya couldn’t help but suspect it. Gertrude is a talented player who secured a starting position as soon as she joined the team.

“Okay, okay, Super Receiver Rowenbelt Kanwer is here!”

The person who appeared with the whistle at that moment ended the conflict.

“Everyone, loosen your expressions. I’ll take care of all those serve one-tricks.”

The second-year student in the back of Griffinballer went out, and instead, the third-year Rowenbelt, who had a small height and a nimble physique, walked onto the court.

‘That guy is…’

Wibber’s eyes narrowed, and at the same time, sighs leaked out from the audience seats here and there.

“Hmm?”

Logan whispered to Lane Ludwick, who was wondering why the stadium was buzzing, handing him the ball.

“Rowenbelt Kanwer. Griffinballer’s hard receiver.”

“Ah, that guy…”

“Be careful. The moment you get used to the Young Master’s serve, it will be difficult.”

Hard receiver, it’s easy to understand as a master of receiving who specializes only in receiving (cannot participate in attacks).

Yes, that’s what it means.

Then it’s best to keep him from touching the ball as much as possible. My goal is to score at least 3 points with my serve.

“Okay, here I go.”

The first foot to step out is the left foot.

At the same time as finishing three approaches, concentrate the leg strength and jump.

In order to draw the necessary power from the abdominal and back muscles, twist the back from the stomach as much as possible, and then load all the elasticity and repulsion that resists that power onto the ball.

‘It feels good…!’

The moment he fiercely struck the ball, it was such a perfect serve toss and serve spike that he even felt a dizzying pleasure.

It certainly was.

Before the cracking sound of hitting the ball was over, another cracking sound burst out from over there. In the time it took to blink an eye.

“Oh, sorry, I miscalculated a little!”

When Rowenbelt, who rolled once on the floor with a flexible receive motion, said that, the ball was floating leisurely over the net.

However, since the answer to the mathematical formula was wrong, the right to attack returned to the challenger team.

Lillian took an underhand stance at the ball’s landing point.

“Chance ball!”

But the moment that easy ball went up, it was the challenger team that was flustered.

Lane immediately ran to the front center, the setter’s position, but… Wibber, who was standing there, didn’t move out of the way and jumped up.

He wondered if he was going to break the rules he had set himself and set up, but he had simply jumped up out of habit after being distracted for a while.

“…!”

Therefore, he awkwardly switched from a set-up motion to a spike motion in the air, and instead of tossing the ball, he struck it down as it was.

“Not so fast!”

Griffinballer was not going to be fooled by such a clumsy two-stage pass feint. The ball was instead slammed into this court by two blocking walls that were immediately erected.

A strange silence flowed.

It was a cold and sharp silence, different in quality from the silence that Lane had caused with two serves.

Logan narrowed his eyes and tensed his muscles.

“Wibber, you don’t mean to tell me you were planning this…”

Wibber was also flustered, but his pride did not allow him to apologize for it as a mistake.

Therefore, he silently turned around and met his gaze, but surprisingly, it was the person who should have been the most angry in this situation who mediated it.

“It’s okay, Logan. There’s no need to get angry. It’s just one point, we can make it up again, right?”

“But Young Master, that guy definitely did that on purpose!”

Logan’s anger was based on reasonable grounds.

What kind of guy is Wibber?

He’s Ryanheart’s starting setter.

There’s no way a skilled player like him would make such a ridiculous mistake. From the beginning, it was strange that he helped Lane. It seemed clear that he had joined the team to make them lose the game.

“On purpose? No. I think he knows he made a mistake himself.”

But the personality Young Master.

Lane Ludwick, who should be blaming Wibber more than anyone else in this situation, shook his head and said.

“If we start nitpicking at things like that, there’s no end to it? You’ll just get intimidated and make more mistakes. Why do we need to do that to each other?”

He smiled brightly at Logan and Wibber, who had widened their eyes in bewilderment.

“We’re all here together after a lot of trouble. Let’s have fun.”

That was the warrior’s mindset that the boy had learned from Rista 300 years ago, the trace of the truth that illuminated an era.

Nora, Caden, and Lillian, who had been watching the conversation that had almost reached its extreme, each had a smile on their faces.

Professor Owen, who was looking down at the court with his arms crossed in the audience seats, also had a smile on his face.

‘Although they are lumped together and called the Eight Great Factions, there are many factions that are at odds with each other, and the later generations are more likely to be on bad terms with each other than on good terms.’

It was hard to believe that he had brought together those five later generations into one, but after seeing that just now, I can understand it a little bit.

– That damn Logan, he’s been getting along with the personality Young Master too much lately! The rumors are spreading all over the school!

– Th, that’s… the Great Master told me to get along with him? I’m acting!

– You damn Logan! How dare you tell me a damn lie in front of me? Should I smear shit on your mouth so you can open it properly?

Only after scolding him like that did Logan confess his true feelings, even though he was embarrassed.

– Lane Ludwick is, uh, something, a little different.

– Something different?

– He treats me like a real friend. He’s a noble, and even the heir to the Five Great Families…

– You? You, who are worse than a monkey?

– Yes. That’s why I think we became friends. I want to help him with anything…

That’s right. In Lane Ludwick’s world, there is no distinction of status that any noble implicitly holds.

In this , there are only colleagues who explore magic together.

It is that pure mindset, not derived from bloodline or wealth, that makes Lane Ludwick a true noble.

‘And that is what leads to obedience from the depths of the heart, not the subjugation forced by the class system.’

Valensidice, who had reached the same thought as Owen, also had a faint smile on his face.

‘Like a butterfly drawn to the scent of a flower.’

* * *

At that moment, the § rune engraved on his left palm blazed, and Lane felt a pain like scraping bone with a knife and gasped.

A new stroke is being added to the rune.

Lane always wears gloves on his left hand to hide the rune, so he didn’t know why… but if Rudien had been nearby, he would have seen this window.

Socrafres.

– You can inherit the progress of ‘Unique Magic’ research from the surrounding environment.

– Progress 49.8% -> 50%.

– ‘Unique Magic’ Understanding, 50% achieved.

>>>

Brante.

– Changes to the magic circuit have been identified: Flowing Quantity Worldly One => Flowing Quantity Worldly One – Alert.