A Returner’s Magic Should Be Special - Chapter 94

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 94. They Move Forward (4)

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Over the course of the past week’s training, Pricel had visibly brightened.
The work was grueling, but the fact that she was finally beginning to learn something real had reinvigorated her. At last, it felt like she was truly attending the Hebrion Academy.
Dezir’s party had taught her so much. Thanks to them, she’d been able to grow rapidly. She had even managed to deploy Watering—supposedly the most difficult of the 1st Circle water magic.
‘What will I learn today?’
As her abilities grew, Pricel naturally became more confident. She greeted everyone she met with a bright smile, and people who knew her were so taken aback they’d actually double-check that she was really Pricel.
“……?”
As Pricel walked down the corridor, she noticed a crowd of students gathered and murmuring about something. Curious, she changed direction toward them.
It was where the lockers were. When she glimpsed a familiar face through the crowd, she quickly wedged her way in. The moment she recognized the student sitting slumped at the center of the throng, she couldn’t help but cry out.
“Erje!”
Erje had been a friend from Pricel’s previous party. With a frank and open nature, she had many friends around her—and Pricel had been one of them. Now she sat staring at her locker with a deathly pale face.
The instant Pricel saw Erje’s locker, her words caught in her throat. The sight laid bare before her was far too horrible, matched only by the sickly metallic stench radiating from within.
Inside the open locker lay what appeared to be animal entrails scattered in disarray, blood dripping from them and staining the floor crimson.
“This… this is…….”
Pricel recognized this scene. It was only too familiar to her.
“E-Erje! Are you alright? Are you hurt anywhere?”
“Pricel……?”
Erje turned to look at her. But her eyes held the expression of someone staring at an enemy.
Pricel froze in confusion.
“Why… why are you looking at me like that, Erje?”
Erje wiped away the tears streaming down her cheeks with the edge of her collar.
“Don’t play innocent. It’s nauseating.”
Pricel had never imagined she’d hear such words.
They hadn’t been bosom companions, exactly, but they’d been close enough.
Yet standing before Pricel now was nothing but a girl consumed by hatred.
Erje laughed bitterly at Pricel’s vacant stare.
“If you’d just stayed, I never would’ve been treated like this.”
Pricel’s heart felt as though it were being torn.
“Why do you think I’m the one you should blame for this!”
This treatment.
Harassment.
It was what Pricel had endured all along.
But once she transferred to Dezir’s party, the harassment had stopped.
She’d thought it was over.
But the target had simply shifted.
“Because you ran away.”
“…….”
And that new target was none other than Erje, her former teammate. The bright expression Pricel had once known in her was now gone entirely.
“I don’t want your pity. Get out of my sight.”
Erje turned away from Pricel and began organizing her locker.
Pricel felt a sharp ache bloom in her chest.
She too had been bullied not long ago. Those had been lonely hours with no one to help her.
Precisely because of that, she understood Erje’s feelings better than anyone else. It must have been painful, sad. Resentment would be natural.
But that was all she understood.
“Erje, you’re mistaken about something.”
Erje’s eyes widened at the unexpected reply.
“The person you should resent isn’t me. I’ve done nothing to deserve your blame.”
“……What? You ran off to another party and I became the target instead! How could you say…….”
Pricel cut her off.
“So why do you think you’re being bullied because of me? You’re being bullied because there are people bullying you. Stop turning away from reality.”
“My, my. Someone’s grown quite bold in the time we haven’t seen each other. Does your new party teach eloquence too?”
With the sound of measured footsteps, a girl in an immaculate uniform emerged from the crowd.
Reda Idel.
She was a member of a party that had subcontracted work to Pricel’s former group—and a woman who had tormented her relentlessly.
“……I’m simply speaking the truth. It’s what should have been said all along.”
“Is that so? And what does that change? No matter how much you and your ilk prattle on, it’s nothing but an irritant.”
Reda waved her hand dismissively, as though brushing away a fly.
“I’ve no further interest in you. Just stand back and watch from a distance. This has nothing to do with you anymore.”
“No. I can’t accept that.”
“What? You really…….”
“Now I see it clearly. You’re nothing but a coward—preying on the weak while fleeing from the strong.”
Pricel’s words struck at Reda’s pride, and she spoke through gritted teeth, her voice trembling with fury.
“Pricel, you seem to be laboring under a misunderstanding…….”
She began to weave her magic.
“Just because you’ve joined Dezir’s party doesn’t mean your true nature has changed, does it?”
Deploying magic within the academy was against school rules. Yet Reda seemed utterly indifferent to such restrictions as she unleashed a 2nd Circle attack spell directly at Pricel.

[Wooden fist.]
[Water shield.]

“Agh!”
Thud.
There was no contest. The defensive magic Pricel conjured tore apart like tissue paper. As a 1st Circle mage, she stood no chance whatsoever.
When the wooden fist slammed into her abdomen, Pricel was driven hard against a locker.
“Ugh…….”
Despite Pricel’s pained gasp, Reda planted her foot on the girl’s waist, grinding down.
Reda showed no sign of stopping. She retreated a step, then began weaving a second spell.

[Bind of Root.]

Crack.
Wooden vines erupted from her spell circle, coiling around Pricel’s body.
“Now, repeat after me: ‘A lowborn commoner like myself deserves to die for daring to speak against a noble.'”
“……You’re the worst.”
“Well, if the head is empty, the body must suffer for it.”
The wooden vines wrapped around Pricel’s frame tightened further, crushing down upon her.
The sensation of her body being compressed, as though it might shatter.
Yet even so, Pricel refused to cry out in defeat.
“That’s enough.”
Crack!
In an instant, Reda’s spell matrix shattered. The wooden vines that had bound Pricel vanished without a trace.
“You, you……!”
“Step away from Pricel.”
It was Dezir. He approached them slowly, gesturing with a single motion of his hand.
Reda felt humiliated, but knowing full well his strength, she had no choice but to back away.
Yet even as she retreated, she struggled to comprehend what had just transpired.
‘When? How did he—?’
Reda hadn’t even perceived Dezir’s spell calculation. His computational ability was utterly overwhelming. The gap between their strengths defied comparison. Her pride as an Alpha Class mage crumbled in an instant.
“Dezir…….”
Pricel coughed as she pushed herself up from the ground.
Dezir’s eyes traced the vivid red welts scattered across her exposed skin. Some had already begun to bruise.
“I’d hoped not to lose my temper with other students…….”
Dezir advanced toward Reda with measured, purposeful strides.
The sheer intensity of his approach sent her instinctively backpedaling—until her spine met stone. There was nowhere left to retreat.
“You’ve crossed a line.”

[Slate.]
[Create marsh.]

Reda felt her body being pulled into the wall itself. It was as though the stone were consuming her. She thrashed and struggled, but each movement only hastened her descent into the barrier.
“Wait, wait! What are you—!”
Moments later, her body was half-submerged in the wall. She could not move. Only her fingers retained any mobility. With only her head protruding, the sight was almost comical.
“Get me out! Get me out!”
“If I’d meant to hand it over, I wouldn’t have put it there in the first place.”
Reda deployed magic in a desperate bid to escape.
But a single, economical gesture from Dezir Armang shattered every spell taking form. She had no recourse whatsoever.
“How—how dare you do this to me and think you’ll walk away unscathed!? You’re confident in your abilities, I see, but when the professor arrives, you’ll pay for this. I swear it.”
“You’d do better to worry about yourself. Your body right now is fused with the wall—parts of you are physically bonded to stone through the Slate spell. Touch this carelessly, and some of your limbs will tear clean off.”
“Wh—what are you saying?”
Dezir Armang began weaving another spell.
Reda, seized by an instinctive dread of where this was heading, thrashed wildly—but the outcome remained the same.
The magic completed.
“And this is an Enlargement spell. Usually it’s used to expand the size of objects, but with the right application, it can also fill gaps in walls.”
Dezir Armang’s fingers swept lightly across the surface of the wall where Reda lay buried.
“If I treat you as a gap and activate this magic, what do you think will happen to you, wedged between those stones?”
You’ll be crushed.
“……!”
“I promise you. It will be agony unlike anything you’ve ever known.”
A thin smile spread across his face.
There was something almost chilling in the way he smiled.
Tears welled in Reda’s eyes—terror had overcome her.
“Stop! This is enough. This is enough, I understand now!”
“Did you stop when those children you tormented begged you to?”
The spell’s formula blazed brighter.
“Aaah!”
Would he never cease? Reda’s tears flowed freely now. All her nobility, all her pride as an aristocrat, crumbled away as she broke into sobs. She wailed without restraint.
“I was wrong! I was wrong! Please, forgive me!”
Her makeup ran, her face became a pitiful ruin. Yet Dezir Armang’s magic did not stop.
“……!”
The moment Reda imagined the horrific pain about to come, she shut her eyes and curled into herself without thinking.
A moment passed, but no agony arrived. Sensing nothing, Reda cautiously opened her eyes.
What she saw was Dezir Armang looking down at her with utter contempt.
“You should have said that from the start.”
“…….”
Dezir Armang turned toward Pricel, who lay behind him. He knelt and helped her to her feet.
“I’ll take you to the infirmary.”
She asked him a question.
“How did you know to come here?”
“I was passing through the area and sensed someone channeling magic. I wondered what was happening, so I came to check. I never imagined it would come to this.”
Had Pricel been suffering direct physical assault, Dezir Armang would never have found her in time.
“I’m sorry, Pricel. You said you’d handle this yourself, but I couldn’t just walk past.”
Pricel smiled at Dezir Armang.
“No. If anything, I owe you my thanks. Thank you, Dezir Armang.”
Dezir Armang saw the pain lurking beneath her smile and clenched his teeth.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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