Chapter 685 – Crossing Paths, Interlocking (2)
[The Magic Tower has been defeated. The portal is now closed.]
It didn’t take long for the players to understand the meaning of the mosaic system message. After all, the Magic Tower’s portal was the only known path to the Arcana continent.
Chaos quickly ensued.
“Th-The portal’s gone?!”
“Gone? What are you talking about? It’s probably just invisible!”
“No, seriously—look! LOOK!!”
In and out. But not through the portal.
Players’ bodies simply passed through thin air.
Nam Cheolmin, who had rushed to the Magic Tower upon hearing the news, turned pale.
“The Magic Tower… lost?”
His brain screamed at him.
That this was absurd. Impossible.
It was the occupational hazard of being an analyst. Nam Cheolmin had a rough grasp of the Magic Tower’s strength.
He had always been thankful that such a place—filled with monsters—was an ally.
‘Except for the Tower Master, Marcelo.’
Even excluding Marcelo…
‘Even if Taemin has grasped the essence of the anomaly.’
There was no guarantee he could overpower a senior mage who had not yet reached that domain.
The stat and tier gap was simply too large.
‘Even the AAU couldn’t gauge their true levels.’
And now, not just one or two senior mages, but the entire Magic Tower had been defeated?
That was why the message was so shocking.
At first, Nam Cheolmin didn’t think too much of the broken message.
“A system glitch of this scale… That alone says something.”
But the more immediate crisis demanded his attention.
“Nam Cheolmin!”
He turned toward the urgent voice and saw Schreig, the Guild Master of Second Sun, approaching.
But why was a hardliner like Schreig here?
“Schreig?”
Reading the confusion on Nam Cheolmin’s face, Schreig explained.
“The Magic Tower was supposed to finish enchanting my new gear today. I came to pick it up. Once I entered Arcana Continent, I planned to use a portal scroll to get straight to Behemoth’s Maw. But now this? What the hell is going on?”
That explained it. Nam Cheolmin nodded and gave a brief explanation.
Schreig’s thick eyebrows twitched.
“Hold on. The Magic Tower lost?”
“We’re not completely sure yet.”
“No, I saw the message too. Parts of it were garbled, yeah—but if you piece together the words for ‘defeat’ and ‘closure’… it makes sense.”
Schreig had fought on the frontlines of the Holy War Alliance.
He, too, had felt the power of the Magic Tower firsthand.
Nam Cheolmin muttered grimly.
“We have no choice now but to get to the bottom of this.”
“Fine, but didn’t you say the Magic Tower’s sealed?”
“It was. But it’s still the Magic Tower we’re talking about.”
Above all, the Magic Tower was a place of strict rules.
No matter the circumstances, they would not miss a deadline—especially not for an enchantment request made to Schreig.
“So, lead the way.”
“M-Me?”
“Yes. You can do it.”
Schreig didn’t want to stand out in such a sensitive situation. But under Nam Cheolmin’s pressure, he approached the Magic Tower steps.
“It’s completely locked off.”
From the players’ murmurs, it seemed that non-Tower members couldn’t even set foot on the steps.
But they had something—a temporary pass.
“You think this thing’ll actually work?”
The enchantment request form.
Unlike the skeptical Schreig, Nam Cheolmin was confident.
“Just wait. The path will open—like magic.”
Shhhhh.
“Ooh!”
Nam Cheolmin was right.
The line stating the completion time glowed with mana, and the barrier blocking the steps began to fade.
The two men didn’t miss their window.
Step.
Wasn’t he scared? For someone who looked so normal, Nam Cheolmin climbed the stairs without fear. Schreig asked where they were going.
“If we’re heading to Garnet Hall, we need to turn here.”
“Read the room. As soon as we finish our business, we’ll be kicked out.”
“Oh, yeah? Got a better idea?”
Nam Cheolmin adjusted his glasses.
“The Healing School’s private chamber.”
“Are we even allowed in?”
“Would they really turn away a visitor checking on a patient?”
Thanks to his daily visits to Taemin, who had previously recovered in the Magic Tower, Nam Cheolmin easily found his way to the Healing School’s chamber. But—
“…Y-You expect me to believe that?!”
Pause.
His hand froze on the doorknob.
The voices from within were too serious.
Nam Cheolmin recalled:
‘That voice…’
It was Cle Odia, an adept mage from the Healing School. Her voice wavered in disbelief.
And the one speaking opposite her—
“I’m only reporting what I saw.”
—was Jesse Hainnes, the eyewitness to the incident.
*
Read only on pindangscans
*
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Her heart pounded.
At the entrance of the sealed area—Mugan—Hoyeol stood.
More precisely—
“…Chief Lee?”
Senior mages and the ghosts of amethyst hall lay scattered on the ground.
At the center stood Chief Lee Hoyeol, as calm as ever, even as Tower Master Marcelo gasped for air.
“I can’t believe Chief Lee did this.”
Jesse looked to Cle, who seemed on the verge of tears.
With Senior Mage Bellier gone to the Demon World to support the Holy War Alliance, Cle was now in charge of treating the wounded.
‘I don’t want to believe it either.’
It was hard to accept.
-“Jesse Hainnes, I entrust this to you.”
That had been Hoyeol’s first request to her.
Cle lifted her head. Her eyes shimmered but no tears fell.
Still filled with doubt, she asked Jesse:
“Tell me exactly what happened.”
“What do you mean?”
“For healing, I need to know what state they were found in.”
The Magic Tower’s executives lay unconscious.
“The common diagnosis is mana exhaustion…”
But the severity of injuries varied per individual. Jesse closed her eyes to recall the scene more vividly.
『Mana traces don’t lie.』
Recalling the adage mentioned countless times in magic books, Jesse struggled to understand the situation. Of course, it was not easy. Everything would become experience. So much so that the pointed hat, which had vowed not to interfere, opened its mouth.
-This was real combat magic.
-And high-tier spells, no less…
-The Chief has done something outrageous.
Yes.
Hoyeol had defeated dozens of senior mages and Tower Master Marcelo.
He left them in a state of mana exhaustion and entrusted the cleanup to Jesse before departing.
She recalled the question the former Tower Master had asked:
-What purpose could he have in Mugan?
With that in mind, Jesse recounted everything—except one thing:
She omitted all mention of Mugan.
“That was a wise decision, Jesse.”
Cle murmured.
‘There must’ve been a reason for the clash…’
Depending on that reason, the Magic Tower’s punishment for Hoyeol might change.
But the former Tower Master had an idea of what punishment awaited.
‘He might become a permanent enemy of the Magic Tower.’
Not even Tower Master Marcelo could prevent that.
Unsealing Mugan and attacking within the Magic Tower had resulted in major casualties.
Still—
“But if there’s a reason, he might have a chance to explain.”
The cone hat added quietly:
-Let’s hope he had a good reason.
Jessie bit her lower lip.
‘…I hate this.’
A reason?
Of course she didn’t know it.
Not once had she truly understood the Chief’s intentions—not during the Ascura Raid or now.
But regardless of his reasons, Jesse couldn’t accept what Hoyeol had done.
She didn’t care to understand. She just hated it.
Her eyes drifted to the wounded.
Even the ghosts of the Amethyst Hall, who had recently returned, had followed Hoyeol with genuine loyalty.
‘Even if there was a reason…!’
Jesse didn’t want to believe they had fought each other.
The growing heaviness in her heart made her think:
‘It’d have been better if I hadn’t known anything.’
Or if he hadn’t asked her to clean up the mess…
That request was a recognition of her.
And also his refusal to run from responsibility.
When Jesse fell silent, Cle nodded.
“It wasn’t much, but thank you.”
Despite the details, Cle still couldn’t believe Jesse.
Grip.
Her hand clenched the blanket she was pulling over a patient.
‘Unless I saw it myself, I won’t believe it, Chief Lee.’
The man she knew cared deeply even for a single herb.
Cle focused.
‘Bellier isn’t here.’
The Magic Tower’s leadership was gravely injured.
Even Bellier had never faced something like this.
Cle forced herself to stay strong.
She’d have a story to tell Bellier upon her return.
“O red river that flows through flesh…”
Chanting a spell.
To heal something she didn’t understand, she needed more precision than ever.
The Magic Tower’s leaders were in horrible shape.
“Let the rain of mana fill you completely.”
Hummmm—
As her magic enveloped one of the fallen senior mages, Cle’s brow twitched.
‘…This is different?’
If their mana circles were intact, then normally mana would flow through them.
Mana exhaustion was when that flow stopped due to lack of energy.
Cle checked their conditions again.
‘I thought it was definitely mana exhaustion…’
But as she chanted, she saw the truth.
The mana was flowing.
But—
‘It’s flowing in reverse.’
Bellier’s teachings came to mind.
-“Amateurs say healing magic is just casting a spell on the wounded. But no—healing is the most mathematical magic of all.”
A mage’s mana naturally repels foreign mana.
Belier had called it mana homeostasis.
If so—
‘This makes sense.’
Cle opened her eyes.
‘If it’s just reversed mana flow that their bodies can’t adapt to…’
Then maybe their injuries weren’t as bad as they seemed.
The realization made her smile without meaning to.
There was only one person who could reverse someone else’s mana flow.
Cle whispered softly.
“…I’m sorry, Chief Lee.”
*
*
In his hazy consciousness, Marcelo remembered.
-“According to the rules of the Magic Tower, you may try to stop me. This is a real battle, so you’re free to use actual combat magic. I will gladly face even arcane magics.”
Yes, that’s what he had definitely said.
.
.
.
The magics raining down were brutal, each and every one.
‘Are they venting everything they’ve built up against me?’
It made sense now why the past Lee Hoyeol had once been confined in the Magic Tower’s depths. That meant—well done, Lee Hoyeol.
“If it’s for your sake…”
With such a justification,
“I’ll now begin the first and last ‘special lecture’ of the Reversal Magic.”
I could use tricks and still be shameless about it.
–
–
–
Pindang: sorry for the late update, I got sick