◈ Episode 485. The Foundation (1)

Yugweed was dying.

‘……It was a pretty nice sight.’

The moment the influences of the two Great Monsters collided.

A strange phenomenon had occurred.

I wondered if I could search through all the books of the Magic Tower and not find anything about it.

Suddenly, I was worried.

A nagging feeling that there weren’t just one or two great monsters on the rampage right now. What if, somewhere on the Arcana continent, another Great Monster had emerged and was causing the same phenomenon she had witnessed.

‘I’d be tempted to complain to the Magic Tower.’

Of course, there’s no way to do that.

‘I don’t even deserve that.’

I’m just a former Elder Mage, not a member of the Magic Tower

Yes, the former Elder Mage.

An incompetent who had never escaped the shackles of contradiction at the top of the Magic Tower.

Acknowledging that fact makes her feel better.

Yugweed swallowed hard.

“I can assure you, even without my help, you will be able to see through this phenomenon. Unlike me, you are leading an unprecedented age, are you not……?”

Tower Master, Marcelo, and Chief Lee.

Yugweed had no doubt in their abilities.

No, how could she doubt them.

She remembered their first meeting.

A swarm of portal lights on the top floor of the tower.

‘Really, I thought it was unusual from the beginning.’

And I couldn’t look up in shame.

Even with three demon worshippers beside me.

I hadn’t even noticed.

Only.

‘They say the place makes the man.’

From the moment Senios died.

Yugweed, you shouldn’t have faltered. Yes, the Gentle Giant lived up to her name. You had to hold your center and support the swaying Magic Tower.

Kugugugung.

A moment of barely catching my breath.

A distant vibration.

Yugweed breathed a sigh of relief.

“I’m glad we fell together.”

An incomplete Prototype Rift created by the upheaval in the field.

But even as she was caught in the rift, Yugweed remained focused. She forced the golem, which had reached its limit, to move, grabbing the two great monsters by the ankles and dragging them into the Prototype Rift together.

The price of her will was being paid in full.

Yugweed was crushed beneath the shattered remains of the golems, unable to offer any resistance. The side effects of squeezing the magic out of her drained body were not to be ignored.

It had been quite some time since she’d been caught in the rift. Normally, even trace amounts of magic should have been restored, but Yugweed’s magic hadn’t been restored at all.

Still, Yugweed laughed.

“…… I envy you, Senios.”

An Ice Cap that never melts.

As befits his nickname, Senios is an Elder Mage who is sleeping soundly in the Magic Tower.

In the past, I sympathized with your situation when you became a spectacle…….

Crumble.

Yugweed among the shards of a fallen golem.

She stared at the golem’s core, which glowed magnetically.

It was not glowing with her own magic.

The golem’s core was trying to fulfill an old contract.

“I’m going to be no better than the monsters themselves, with nothing to show for it. Would you rather envy my plight, Senios……?”

You have a crazy side despite your appearance.

Swoosh.

Yugweed focused on the glowing core and the increasingly clear sight of the great monster. Looks like the game is up. Two great monsters are drawn into the prototype rift like water ghosts.

One of them was no longer intact from the battle with themselves.

Clearly, the breath of the lesser of the two had run out.

The glow of the core gradually brightened.

“This one is about to be settled.”

It had been so long, I wondered if she had forgotten.

I expected a little bit.

Of course not.

Oried, Spirit King of Earth.

“I’ve gotten what I wanted, now it’s my turn to give it to you.”

The Magic Tower, the Arcana continent’s most powerful military organization.

It takes overwhelming power to ascend to the top. Every Elder Mage of all time was once a candidate for the Tower Master or had proven themselves early on as a senior mage.

Yugweed was no exception.

Why is she called the Gentle Giant?

It’s because Yugweed is a giant’s imitation.

Yugweed was the only mage who could manifest a golem.

I guess this is the magic light.

A distant past.

The praise heaped upon her echoes in her ears.

-“Your manifesting powers are beyond imagination, Adept Mage Yugweed……! To be able to summon an artificial summoner of that size, even your master could not manifest such a thing.”

-“You’ve already surpassed me, Yugweed.”

-“A golem, indeed, the stuff of legend, though no one could understand your magic if it were written down. From the power of the underlying magic core to the power beyond common sense…….”

A childhood of innocence.

Yugweed was favored by Oried.

No, not really.

There was an unspoken deal between them.

Yugweed didn’t think much of it.

“It hasn’t been a bad life, Oried, thanks to you.”

As Chief Lee once said, there is give and take in everything.

It was just time for me to give to Oried.

Now, swallow.

“All of me, according to the contract.”

kudeug.

The core of Oried’s power burrows into Yugweed’s chest.

At the same time, Yugweed’s body centers around it.

The fragments of the fallen golem began to gather.

Yugweed realized.

With this, Oried had surpassed the limits of the Spirit.

She could affect the Arcana continent.

‘I wonder what I’ll do with my body.’

You would never do the right thing, Oried.

If your intentions were pure, you would never have offered me, a mere fifteen years old.

You would never have offered me such a contract.

But I wasn’t worried about the Arcana continent.

Like the contradictory elder mage that she was.

Because she trusted ‘someone’.

‘……I’ll ask you one last favor.’

With that, Yugweed’s consciousness fused completely into the magic core. A golem, even more massive than the one Yugweed had manifested, began to spring from the prototype rift.

With a snap of the fingers.

Kwazik.

Great monster.

It was a golem so huge that it crushed the two great monsters that had been stuck together. Such a change would cause the rift to rapidly increase in decay.

[※Warning: Prototype rift collapses.]

Yugweed, is now a single magic core.

A blazing flame of magic.

It seemed to say so.

Please stop this old man’s behavior, Chief.

*

“……Oried?”

Something must be going on between the Spirit Kings.

Now that I’ve gotten a sense of Oried’s intentions from the system message.

Phoenix, the Spirit King of Flame, seemed to sense something was amiss.

He wasn’t the only one.

“I know this is sudden, but I have a message for you……!”

The World Tree’s permission slipped from Hiel’s lips. The spirits who had not fallen from purity, but had appeared on the Arcana Continent in the Age of Purity, brought news.

“Anomalies have been detected on the Arcana Continent.”

“State the coordinates.”

“According to Aerial, it is located at……!”

Aerial, the Spirit King of Wind.

No wonder he’s so upbeat about the news.

A subordinate spirit, Sylphid, relays the specific location.

“The Elder Mage, Yugweed, is in the vicinity of the disappearance……!”

I’m sorry, Oried.

At this point, it’s safe to say your excuses are gone.

I did not hesitate.

I followed Sylphid’s lead and manifested the portal.

Hiel followed me, and Phoenix spoke to me.

“I wish to be of service to you.”

[You have acquired command of the flame spirits under Phoenix, the Flame Spirit King.]

The implications of the flashing message were great, but I didn’t make my usual fuss. Yes, it was. For once, I, Lee Hoyeol, and Grandfell’s sentiments were aligned.

Yugweed’s voice echoed in my ears.

-“Then, I’d like to request the New Era’s Magic Tower, Chief Lee.”

Yugweed, the elder mage.

Well, at least she and Marcelo are kindred spirits.

In fact, she was the only one in the Magic Tower who could be considered an adult.

Why, the other two were…….

‘Senios is one thing, but the cat tower master is another.’

They weren’t really adults.

I mean.

I concentrated on controlling my rampaging magic.

What am I feeling right now?

Facing Oriade. I don’t care if she’s an Earth Spirit King, or what level she’s at, or what her backstory is, whatever. It was to the point where I was seriously worried that magic would suddenly appear.

But.

“Lord……!”

Hiel’s voice was like a slap in the back of the head.

Goosebumps rose.

The other side of the portal.

Sprawled out at the target coordinates.

A boulder unlike any monster I’d ever seen before.

Kugugugung.

The knowledge of magic that had been drilled into my head told me.

No, it’s no ordinary boulder.

That’s a golem.

A Giant Soldier powered by magic.

That was why I was certain.

“It is you, Yugweed.”

In this era, only the Elder Mage Yugweed, who was called a Gentle Giant, could manifest a giant that could be called a Golem. It was no wonder that the unflappable Hiel stuttered.

It was the giant’s size.

As far as I could see.

The golem had only one arm.

I glanced down.

Blue blood was oozing from between the golem’s fingers.

It explained the situation on my behalf.

It was the wind spirits who liked to talk.

“……blue blood?”

“Certainly, the blood of the giants!”

“Bella’s Colossus has fallen……!”

Bella’s Colossus.

Apparently, it was the great monster that encountered Yugweed.

It must have pushed Yugweed to the limit.

To the point where it was caught in the Prototype Rift.

However, for Yugweed, who has become a fusion intelligence.

It no longer seemed to pose any threat.

The meaning of the words was simple.

[The Fused Intelligence, Yugweed, appears on the Arcana Continent.]

Yugweed has become a threat to the Arcana continent.

And that such Yugweed has been released.

The Prototype Rift has collapsed.

‘The collapsing rift…….’

I’ve faced it time and time again.

Especially now that the high-ranking demon kings had gained influence.

The real world was full of collapse rifts.

But this was different.

For one thing, I knew the intent now.

Raymon Sean.

The black heart of that bastard.

He wanted to fuse Reality and the Arcana Continent.

He wanted to break down the boundaries between reality and the Arcana Continent.

That was the [『Anomaly』 he was after.

I asked myself.

‘Where did I get the insight?’

Inside the prototype rift.

More precisely, the stage inside it.

I saw it in the unfolding landscape of reality.

That’s what gave me goosebumps. Maybe that collapsed prototype rift was connecting the 『Arcana Continent』 to [Reality].

That would explain Oried’s choice.

What if Raymon Sean had intended this development? Just as he had pushed the Shadow God into a corner, there might have been something that had forced Oried to make this choice.

That guess.

“Claudi. I don’t see it.”

The Phoenix stopped beating its wings and landed beside me.

“Half of its body is invisible.”

The phoenix’s words confirmed my suspicions.

The Fused Intelligences that appeared on the Arcana continent were exactly half of them.

So, where are the other half of the Fused Intelligence?

Damn it.

They’re in the real world.

.

The Republic of Korea.

The Capital.

Seoul.

Magic Tower’s Chief of Staff’s office.

“……Why on earth did you assign me to be your acting Chief of staff?”

Bensch William was racking his brain at his desk.

Suddenly, a huge shadow fell across his vision.

The sunlight from the window had completely disappeared.

Suddenly, a calculation flashed through his mind.

The height of the Magic Tower.

The size of the mysterious obstacle.

……gugugugung.

And although it is subtle, the amount of impact is enough to cause the Magic Tower to vibrate.

The decision was made.

Bensch picked up the quill, his expression serious.

──────

Interim Acting Chief Bensch William reports.

As of this time, all members of the Magic Tower are permitted to depart the Tower.

Quickly eliminate the threat that has arrived in the world of adventurers.

──────