A Talentless Mage Devours a Disaster-Class Future - Chapter 38

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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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Chapter 38

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[!] A new Quest has been assigned.
[!] You stand at a Crossroads of Destiny.
[!] All your choices and their consequences at this Crossroads will be reflected in your rewards.
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『Quest: Destiny – Fire and Ice』
― 『Quest Overview: Fleeing the Salamander, you have arrived at a paradoxical destination—the Extreme Cold Containment Chamber. To survive, you must choose. Will you face fire, or face ice?』
― 『Objective: Survive in the Extreme Cold Containment Chamber until a Patrol arrives, or eliminate the Salamander.』
― 『Reward Amount: To be determined at settlement.』
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A system window glowed crimson—the color Yggdrasil favored.
The moment Aion read the phrase Crossroads of Destiny, his eyes grew heavy with dread.

He had already learned from obtaining Meltdown that the harder a Quest, the more exceptional its rewards.

But by the same logic, didn’t the Crossroads of Destiny mean that Yggdrasil was calculating his odds of survival here as extraordinarily low?

【Suryu: …This is strange. The Crossroads of Destiny should only occur in events connected to the past of an Extremist, shouldn’t it?】
【Hwayeom: Listen, Mado! You never said a word about what the future would bring for us. So why is this happening?】

Perhaps sensing the gravity of the matter, the Extremist of Magical Engineering answered at once.

【Mado: This has nothing to do with you. This is an independent event happening only to Aion in this world.】
【Hwayeom: Independent… event?】
【Mado: What unfolds here is entirely his own destiny.】

At his words, the Extremists began murmuring among themselves.

【Hwayeom: It’s true… the things happening lately are completely different from how Aion’s life unfolded when I lived through it.】
【Daeji: He’s receiving far more attention than he would have originally. Is that the reason?】
【Suryu: Enough speculation. Aion’s life hangs by a thread right now. We need to focus our minds.】

The Extremists pooled whatever information might prove useful, their thoughts urgent and jagged.

【Hwayeom: The Salamander is a lesser monster that drags molten lava of Extreme Heat wherever it goes. But the thing’s size is so abnormal that a first-year student at Aion’s level shouldn’t be facing it at all.】
【Daeji: Mark this well—Flame Magic has no effect whatsoever on that creature. So don’t bother counting on Hwayeom’s magic either.】
【Hwayeom: With Meltdown, I could erase that lizard without leaving a trace! …But the problem is, this wretch can’t deploy it at anywhere near the level required.】
【Suryu: Its weaknesses are only the extreme yin of Water Flow or the extreme limit of Ice Binding. You could fight it with other magic, certainly, but as the others said, with what you can muster at your current level… it’ll be difficult.】

Flame Magic won’t work. Water Flow and cold are its vulnerabilities.

Aion turned his gaze to Kael, who stood beside him trembling like an aspen leaf, and asked quietly.

“Water Flow Magic or Ice Binding Magic…”
“You’re asking me that now? Me—the heir of the Pairon Family, a house renowned for Flame Magic?”

Kael snapped back irritably.
Aion accepted that his question had been misguided and immediately turned his mind to other possibilities.

‘…There must be some way.’

Aion forced his mind to work, even as the cold froze his thoughts.

This chamber was a sealed room where one could freeze to death, and beyond the hole torn in the ceiling above loomed a Salamander—hot as a wildfire.

Even if he somehow clawed his way back up through sheer force, it was obvious he’d be marked again—clear as day.

And the brutal truth was that the Heavenly Movement Technique alone couldn’t inflict any meaningful damage on that colossal monster.

In short: surrounded on all sides.

Fire above. Ice below. No way out.

“How likely is it that a supervisor patrols this area sooner than expected?”
“Slim to none. They’re short-staffed on monster management, and one of the handlers got suspended after that incident where a Baicom trampled a student.”
“…….”

【Hwayeom: They say even an unlucky bastard falls backward and breaks his nose. You’re exactly that type.】
【Daeji: Wait—the student who got trampled by the Baicom? That’s this idiot, right? Tsk, tsk.】
【Saengmyeong: It’s bad enough he was struck by the Baicom, and now his life hangs by a thread. Everyone, please stop.】

“Is there any way to reach the control room from here…?”
“By your count, we have five minutes left. No—barely three now. Can we even find a way in that time?”

Kael’s voice carried the weight of despair.

“Damn it. I’m sick of doing nothing but shoot down every idea you throw at me, but I can feel myself leaning toward one conclusion: we fight that Salamander up there. Curse it all! My magic isn’t strong enough to take it down….”

Think. Keep thinking.
Don’t stop.

Aion repeated this to himself ceaselessly. With each tick of the second hand, their time dwindled.

A breath escaped his lips.

The air that touched his cheek froze deep in his lungs, yet Aion’s frost-rimmed brow didn’t flinch.

‘There’s something I’m missing. There has to be.’

Aion closed his eyes.
The terrible chase through the corridors with the Salamander flickered through his mind.

The melted ladder.
The Pipe sections gouged and scarred.
Yes—corridors crammed with Pipes, their surfaces inscribed densely with Rune Inscriptions.

‘Wait… hold on….’

Among the sights he’d glimpsed while fleeing, something jarring surfaced in his memory.

Pipes inscribed with Rune Inscriptions.
Until he reached this chamber, he’d assumed all of them were identical.

But now, turning it over in his mind, the Pipes he’d seen while falling past them had been subtly different in shape.

How to describe it…

‘Their interiors… they glowed blue?’

But even if that were true, what difference would it make? As long as he remained here, two minutes stood between him and death.

Two minutes was far too brief to decipher the Pipes’ true nature.

Was such a thing even possible?
Without expert knowledge of Magical Mechanisms, he’d never….

That’s…

‘……A magical device?’

Only one person came to mind.

Someone who understood the facilities of the Third Breeding Ground better than anyone else.
Aion quietly posed a question to the presence in his mind.

‘Mado.’

【Mado: What is it?】

‘Those pipes we passed on the way. The ones with rune inscriptions on them—what kind of facility were they?’

【Mado: …Pipes? Ah, you mean those.】

Mado answered as though it were nothing of consequence.

【Mado: The air circulation system for the breeding grounds. The exhaust facility removes the stench from the monsters and maintains the environmental conditions suited to each breeding area….】

In that moment, the Extremist of magical engineering seemed to notice something and posed a question in return.

【Mado: Aion, this is important. Have you, by any chance, seen a section where the pipes were stained blue as you came this far?】

Aion gave a small nod, careful that Kael wouldn’t notice.

‘Yes. That’s exactly what I was about to ask you.’

The Extremist of magical engineering responded to Aion at once.

“I can’t… I can’t hold on any longer. We have to get out of here now…. Even without a plan… we’ll have to fight the Salamander….”

Kael trembled violently, his lips turning a sickly blue as he chattered them together.

“……Why?”

Aion answered without shifting his gaze.

“…Never mind.”

He glanced upward at the dark gaping hole in the ceiling above them and spoke to Kael.

“I’ve got a plan.”

***

A hastily constructed makeshift ladder swayed perilously.

Aion and Kael clung to that precarious footing and barely managed to reach the edge of the massive hole the Salamander had torn through the ceiling.

The moment both of them scrambled out of harm’s way into the passage above.

Crash—!

Boom!

Kael stared down into the void below, muttering as though to himself.

“Even the way back is gone now.”
“That’s enough. We finish it here.”

At Aion’s flat reply, Kael let out a hollow laugh.

“Right. If everything goes according to plan, anyway.”

Whoosh—

Kael straightened from his vantage point and turned toward Aion.

“But honestly, my life has never worked out that way.”

He drew closer, his voice dropping.

“Are you certain?”
“Certain?”
“One wrong move and we burn to death without even time to scream—alone in this place where no one would ever know. A dog’s death, plain and simple.”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“You asked if I was certain. I’m answering.”

Aion replied without so much as a flicker of expression, as though the cold of the Extreme Cold Containment Chamber had frozen his very face.

“I am certain.”

Kael clicked his tongue at that.

“…Tch. Where does that confidence even come from?”

As Kael began to move away, Aion spoke to his retreating back.

“Kael, I don’t know what kind of life you’ve lived. But confidence is sometimes meaningless.”
“What are you trying to say? Feed me some worthless sermon?”
“Whether you have it or not. Whether you’re skilled or clumsy.”

Aion fell silent for a moment before continuing.

“Some things must be done regardless of all that.”
“You mean like the two of us being trapped in this breeding ground, facing off against that insane fire salamander?”

Aion gave a slight shrug.

“This is a fight we cannot avoid.”
“Hah.”

Kael’s expression turned rueful, and he made a dismissive gesture.

“Well, I’ll keep that gem of wisdom in mind—if we actually survive this.”

With that barbed remark, Kael disappeared into the distance.

They had no way of knowing exactly where the salamander was hiding, so they needed to secure escape routes as thoroughly as possible.

Hope of simply enduring until rescue was never part of the plan.

The salamander was a creature with a terrifying obsession with its prey—it would find Kael and Aion again soon enough.

If he encountered that creature in an isolated place, the outcome would be catastrophic.

That’s why Kael was moving with urgency as well.

Aion, too, advanced slowly toward the planned position.

A narrow corridor where thick, frozen pipes twisted together like a spider’s web.
Darkness pressed in from all sides, pitch-black and suffocating, though ominous crimson light seeped through large holes in the ceiling, casting grotesque shadows that writhed and danced.

Keeeeng….

Keeng….

Sharp, piercing sounds cut through the silence at irregular intervals.

They came from Kael.

Sounds meant both to lure the salamander and to pinpoint each other’s location.

And there was one more purpose to this plan—a rather critical one.

“Hah….”

Crack!

Aion struck his own cheek hard.

He’d been exposed to the extreme cold far too long. His reflexes might be dulled. That wouldn’t do.

A predator could emerge from anywhere, at any moment—he needed to pull his scattered mind back into focus.

As he walked through the darkness, he felt as though invisible eyes were licking the nape of his neck.
A primal terror: that in a moment of carelessness, a crimson maw might burst from the black and shred him to pieces in a heartbeat.

It was like a cruel exchange of breath, with his very life as the stake.

Yet strangely, Aion’s mind had settled into a cold, crystalline calm.

Apart from his numbed senses, he remained composed—as if this terror were something he’d grown accustomed to.

Even as death crept toward his throat, his heartbeat remained steady, and beneath frost-rimmed brows, his gaze held no tremor.

The touch of death. It was no stranger to Aion.

The barren tundra of the north, where blizzards howled without mercy—if one were to recall what life he had lived in that place…

In the tundra, death had always been a shadow at his side.
And so, even before this overwhelming terror, Aion could instinctively reclaim his breath and sharpen his senses to a keener edge.

This was a hunt. It simply wasn’t taking place on the tundra.

Boom-boom-boom—!

Then the entire corridor shook as if it might collapse, and the pipes overhead began to drip and melt, releasing plumes of smoke.

Ssssshhhhh…

Roooaaarrr!

“Shrieeeeeek!”

A salamander dripping molten lava thrust its grotesque head through the gaps where severed pipes lay tangled.

Extreme heat poured from its maw in a searing torrent, dispelling the lingering cold that clung to Aion and engulfing him in an instant.

The acrid stench of sulfur was suffocating.
In the darkness, its bloodshot eyes fixed upon Aion with unblinking intensity.

A predator’s cruel exultation rippled across the creature’s gaze—the gleam of hunger found.

“Grrrraaaaahhh….”

Rumble-rumble-rumble-rumble…

Deep in its throat, a searing inferno began to roil and build—a molten tide that would reduce everything to ash.

“Lucky it was me, then.”

That Aion, not Kael, had come face-to-face with the salamander was fortune for them both.

Neither could have predicted who would encounter it first, but it was Aion who had chosen to meet it alone.

Whoooosh-!

The moment Aion spotted the creature, he bolted toward the direction from which Kael’s signal had been sounding.

Pound-pound-pound-pound-pound-!

He felt the salamander give chase immediately.

He sensed it—by movement, by heat.

When he reached the corner, scanning left and right as he ran, Aion spun about to face it.

Aion and salamander locked eyes once more.

“This time will be different.”

With that cold declaration, Aion’s will expanded into the void, grasping something hidden in the darkness with iron certainty.

Rumble-rumble…

“Shrieeeeeek!!!”

Just as the salamander’s jaws gaped open to unleash an overwhelming torrent of flame—

Screeeech-!

One of the two pipes Kael had severed was wrenched violently by the Heavenly Movement Technique, cracking across the salamander’s snout.

“Grrraaaahhh….”

Whoooosh-!

Hisssssss-!

The flame scorched the wrong target, and the salamander fixed Aion with an even more vicious glare.

Aion smiled faintly and curled his middle and index fingers inward simultaneously.

Click—

Click—

“Let’s keep going.”

The Talentless Mage Swallows a Catastrophic Future — Episode 38

Author
Wang Mozhi
Publisher
Daon Creative
Planning / Editing / Production
Yeon
Cover Design
Dalli

UCI
G720:N+A036-20260706063.0038

ⓒ2026. Wang Mozhi

※ This e-book is a copyrighted work protected under the Copyright Law of the Republic of Korea.
No part of this work may be reproduced, reprocessed, or redistributed in any form without the express permission of the author and publisher.

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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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