Chapter 170: Flamme: I'm Curious
At the last possible second, a pure white light, brighter than anything she had ever cast, shot from less than a meter away and flew straight into the monster's open maw.
Pop!!!
There was no great explosion, just a soft, almost sickening, sound. The monster froze in mid-air, the light in its mouth instantly dissipating. In the next second, its head, and half of its chest, just... vanished.
Its headless body, carried by its own momentum, flew a few more meters and crashed to the ground a short distance from her, sending up a cloud of dust.
Her heart had almost stopped.
She slowly turned her head.
He was standing right beside her, slowly lowering his hand. For a fleeting moment, she thought she saw a wisp of a terrifying, pure white magical energy still lingering at his fingertip, but then it was gone, as if it had been her imagination.
"Don't be afraid," he said, his voice a strange and piercing sound that instantly chased away all of her fear. "No matter what happens, I'm right here with you."
"T-teacher Rhodes!" Her voice trembled with the aftershock of her near-death experience, and tears welled up in her eyes. A new, complex feeling, a feeling of an overwhelming gratitude and a deep, profound dependence, welled up within her. "Th-thank you," she said, and, almost unconsciously, she reached out and grabbed his sleeve.
She was still just a child, and it was only natural for her to be afraid. He understood.
"There's no need to thank me," he said, and gently patted her on the shoulder. "It's a teacher's responsibility to protect his student."
But their brief moment of warmth was shattered by a cold voice.
"Responsibility?"
Serie was now standing a short distance away, the raw power of her own magic still swirling around her. Her piercing gaze made the girl's heart, which had just begun to calm, start to race again, and her grip on his sleeve tightened.
"If she cannot even handle a small difficulty like this, then that so-called 'responsibility' is meaningless."
The smile on her face froze, and was then replaced by a look of shame. She lowered her head, not daring to meet her teacher's gaze.
Serie's eyes swept over the massive corpse on the ground, and then fell upon her. "I have told you," she said, her voice filled with an unconcealed disappointment, "that a single magic shield is not enough to block the attack of such a monster. Why did you not create more? Why did you not use your magic to interrupt its attack? To just stand there... it was the height of foolishness."
Every word was a new and deeper shame. She had panicked. Out in the distance, just picking them off, the monsters hadn't seemed so terrible. But up close, to be the target of that dark, malevolent energy... all her training, all her skill, had vanished, leaving only a primal instinct to defend. If not for him...
"I'm sorry, Teacher Serie," she said, her voice a soft, ashamed whisper. "I was... too afraid. I'm sorry."
"Fear is an excuse for the weak," she said, her voice still a cold and unforgiving sound. "On the battlefield, fear will only get you killed. You need to be calm. You have the ability to cast a spell faster than that creature, but you panicked, and you did not trust in your own magic."
Seeing that she was about to continue her harsh critique, he stepped in front of the girl.
"That's enough, Serie. It was her first time in a battle of this intensity. She's already done better than most mages. And her fear... it's a natural human reaction. All she needs is more experience." She had been so sheltered, had never even killed a single monster before. And her first real battle had been this. In his opinion, she had done well.
"And besides," he said, a knowing look in his eye as he glanced at the massive crater she herself had just created, "I don't think you were all that calm yourself." He had seen her on the battlefield, a smile on her face as she had reveled in the chaos of battle. The two of them... they were two extremes. The one, frozen in fear, and the other, lost in a bloodlust she had not felt in a thousand years. She, too, needed to be calm. After all, the real boss had not yet appeared.
A flicker of something, a hint of a guilty conscience, appeared in her eyes. She just huffed, and her gaze moved from the girl to the battlefield below, a silent admission of his words.
"The rest of these small fry... I'll take care of them. You two..." she paused, and her gaze fell once more on the girl's tear-streaked face, "...stay here." And with that, she was gone, a streak of light in the midst of the densest concentration of monsters, and in her wake, a trail of ash and death.
The girl watched her go, and with a long sigh, the tension finally left her. She secretly wiped away her tears, a new wave of gratitude for him welling up within her. He had protected her again.
"It's alright," he said. "Serie is just... a little strict. She has high expectations for you."
"I know, Teacher Rhodes," she said, her voice a low and quiet sound. "I wasn't good enough. I disappointed her." She tightened her grip on her staff. "I'll go and help—"
"No, Flamme," he stopped her. "You need to rest now, not push yourself."
"But, teacher, I can still—"
"You've already used up almost all of your mana," he said, his gaze as if seeing right through to her exhausted state. "To overexert yourself will not do you any good. And besides..." he looked down at the battlefield below.
There, she was the eye of the storm, a whirlwind of death and destruction, and in her wake, a series of bloody flowers bloomed. It seemed she had learned a few new and interesting spells.
"Do you see? With Serie here, the outcome of this battle has already been decided." His voice was calm, but filled with an unshakable faith in her strength. Before them was not just a mage, but a Grand Mage, a being who had lived for over a thousand years.
And the girl, following his gaze, was once again struck with a sense of awe. Her teacher's power... it was terrifying.
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