Memoirs of a Wicked Magician - Chapter 88

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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 88
“Caliona? What are you doing here again…?”
Why did this woman suddenly jump out like that?
Stella’s expression upon encountering the uninvited guest was truly a sight to behold.
Caliona descended to the ground with Liriope in tow, then spoke with icy precision.
“You still haven’t figured it out? I already found the core of the Ruins and dispelled the magic.”
“What? Already?”
Stella’s incredulous retort only drew a cold smile across Caliona’s lips.
“My, how deeply you must have been absorbed in that pointless business, not to have noticed such a thing until now. It’s not as though you’ve left your brain outside.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Did I misspeak? Or could it be that you’ve lost your Mana Detection Ability entirely—rather than being too careless for place and time to notice the Ruins’ core had been dealt with?”
With that, Caliona’s Mana swept forward dismissively, striking the ground.
The forms of the children scattered across the floor vanished like a lie.
Stella belatedly realized her mistake and hurried to explain the situation before her. But Caliona’s mockery had already pierced her eardrums first.
“Of course, that’s why you’ve always stumbled just short of the 21st Floor.”
That jab struck precisely at Stella’s weak point, turning her insides upside down.
A strained, heavily suppressed voice leaked from between her clenched teeth.
“No, wait—there’s been a misunderstanding. These aren’t all things I did. Rather, I was the one who suffered…! Can’t you see the state I’m in?”
Anyone with functioning eyes would have noticed Stella’s pitiful condition.
Caliona, fortunately blessed with intact vision, raked her gaze from top to bottom before asking.
“Who did you suffer at the hands of?”
“That wretched girl right there! She’s the one who put me in this state!”
But Stella’s indignant cry caused Caliona’s expression to grow even colder.
“You’re spouting absurd nonsense. A new student who just arrived at the estate defeated Stella, who stands on the threshold of conquering the 20th Floor, and reduced her to such a pathetic state?”
In that moment, Stella froze.
“Do you really intend to explain it to Cameron that way?”
“That is…”
“It would be far more plausible to say you were caught in ancient magic remaining in the broken Ruins. Did you perhaps see an Illusion? It’s not uncommon for those caught in magic from a broken Ruins to inflict harm upon themselves.”
The words sounded, by any reasonable measure, entirely convincing.
‘An Illusion? There’s no way… But then again, there’s a point to it.’
Stella’s confused gaze alternated between the familiar spatial domain she had created and Liriope’s unconscious-seeming face.
Her mind, besieged by extreme anxiety and fear, began instinctively rationalizing itself in search of peace.
It was infinitely easier to accept the explanation of an Illusion than to acknowledge the fact that she had been pathetically defeated by this junior as inexperienced as a puppy.
Shortly after, Stella finally steadied herself and rose unsteadily to her feet, straightening her disheveled form.
“Oh my… I’m afraid I’ve shown you quite an embarrassing side of myself. You’re right, as you say, Caliona. Now that I think about it, I remember. I was injured trying to protect the new student from the magic of the broken Ruins.”
Stella had a gift for subtly warping and editing circumstances to her advantage.
Moreover, shame belatedly washed over her at having displayed such a miserable state not to anyone, but to Caliona.
“But Caliona, don’t you have a terrible memory?”
Perhaps to counterbalance that humiliation, she straightened her spine stubbornly despite her injured condition. Then she deliberately sharpened her correction of Caliona’s words.
“I haven’t failed at the 21st Floor because I lack skill—I simply haven’t taken the test yet, as I’ve told you several times. It’s purely so I can hone my abilities with the utmost humility to become a talent worthy of Belegort…”
“Yes, of course. All the basement dwellers say the same thing.”
But this time too, Caliona merely laughed openly, a scoffing sound that cut like a blade.
Liriope, feigning unconsciousness in Caliona’s arms, heard her sister systematically dismantle Stella with words and struggled not to laugh aloud.
Stella’s trembling fists tensed, veins rising to the surface. Her carefully manicured nails snapped sharply under the fierce grip.
Blood dripped steadily from that wound, yet Stella seemed unable to feel the pain.
In truth, her entire body was already in tatters, so a small thing like this was hardly painful.
She stared only at Caliona before her with eyes darkened by brooding anger.
“Caliona… Just what have you been trusting in to act so arrogant?”
“What else?”
The air between them was razor-sharp, ready to cut at the slightest movement from either party.
A violent exchange of offensive magic could have erupted at any moment, yet neither person moved rashly, only allowing the surrounding cold to grow increasingly dense.
Then, by degrees, the blood vessels straining in Stella’s neck began to subside.
She slowly caught her breath and dissolved the emotions still raging tempestuously within.
“How conceited.”
From Stella’s lips, still bloodied from biting down moments before, flowed sharp censure wrapped in a veneer of civility.
“If you keep acting so full of yourself over mere favorability, you’ll soon find yourself in serious trouble. The distinguished members of Belegort all possess excellent judgment. Which is precisely why any momentary interest one of them shows in a junior like yourself cannot possibly be sincere.”
‘What is she saying?’
Liriope was bewildered by Stella’s incomprehensible words.
Acting conceited over mere favorability?
The distinguished members of Belegort?
Someone among them was taking an interest in Caliona?
At that moment, an ominous premonition that defied explanation brushed across Liriope’s spine—though this was surely mere coincidence.
She startled, sensing the faint outline of a vile face connected to Caliona from the past—that distasteful entanglement—and hastily cast the image away.
Meanwhile, as Stella spoke, stronger conviction began to grow in her thoughts, and her expression gradually regained composure.
“That’s right. To put it another way, it’s just like someone who’s tired of the finest delicacies they’ve eaten their whole life becoming momentarily interested in some exotic dish by chance. Once the curiosity is satisfied, they’ll obviously grow bored again.”
“You’re talking nonsense today.”
But Caliona was utterly unmoved by Stella’s words.
“You’re the only one who wants to ride on others’ coattails and hold forth. Don’t you know that yet?”
Rather, she regarded Stella with a gaze of contempt far more cutting than mockery, and continued.
“You seem to still be mistaken, but I trust only myself.”
Clang!
A sharp sound rang out as though struck by a hammer against glass, and gossamer-thin threads extended rapidly through the air.
But this time it was Caliona’s magic at work, not Stella’s or Liriope’s.
Stella’s Spatial Domain Design Magic shattered under the force of greater Mana, and the surrounding landscape began to crumble like glass.
Stella’s expression fractured in a similar manner, then distorted completely in an instant.
Thus the three women stepped out together from the domain Stella had created.
* * *
“What’s this, why are you only just coming out now? This is ridiculous.”
But the moment they emerged from Stella’s domain, they were greeted by the sharp, frost-laden voice of a boy.
The three girls froze in place upon confirming who had been waiting for them, each for her own reasons.

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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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