Chapter 250
Splash!
Simon dove into the sea with a powerful leap, stretched his body straight like a fish, and sliced through the waves, swimming smoothly forward.
“Oh~”
Dick, who was swimming beside him, looked at Simon with a surprised expression.
“A typical mountain bumpkin swims this well?”
“...Don’t underestimate me. There are rivers in the mountains too.”
“Hahaha! That’s true, that’s true!”
Simon shot a brief glare at Dick, then took a deep breath and dove underwater.
As soon as he entered the water, the world around him completely changed.
A quiet space where no sound could be heard except the water. It was so peaceful, it felt like being in a mother’s arms, and his mood became calm and drowsy.
But there was no time to be caught up in the emotion.
‘Now that I’m in the water, I should start with an offensive spell.’
Simon drew a magic circle by squeezing Darkness into his palm.
‘Ah!’
But he had underestimated the difficulty of drawing a magic circle underwater.
The circle began to collapse from the edges before he could even form a proper ring. The Darkness dissolved like ink, dispersing around him, then vanished without a trace.
‘The base collapses before I can even insert the reinforcement formula.’
Drawing a magic circle underwater was an entirely different matter from drawing it on land. In terms of difficulty, it felt ten times harder.
He continued retrying to gather data.
‘I’ll have to simplify the magic circle way more. Even if I sacrifice power and firing speed, it’s meaningless if I can’t form the circle at all.’
After many failures, he finally succeeded once. Still, it seemed completely unusable in an actual combat situation.
But since he had formed it, he decided to try firing it.
He aimed the magic circle at an octopus swimming nearby, hoping it would become today’s lunch.
‘Dark Torpedo!’
Whooshhh!
With a burst of bubbles, the Darkness projectile launched from the magic circle and surged through the water.
It flew faster than expected, and Simon cheered inwardly.
Thunk!
But he missed the octopus, and it hit a nearby rock instead. The startled octopus quickly scurried into a crevice.
Gurgle!
Simon, now out of breath, quickly swam up to the surface.
Puhah!
As he emerged, it felt as though time, which had been paused, resumed.
The clear sky without a single cloud came into view, and from the beach ahead came the noisy laughter and chatter of students.
‘One more time!’
Simon raised his right hand above his head. Compared to underwater, the magic circle formed at an incredible speed.
‘Ugh, why is this simple formula so difficult underwater?’
Once the magic circle was complete, Simon lowered his palm.
“Dark Torpedo!”
The torpedo launched outside the water and plunged into the sea.
Bubbling and propelling forward, the projectile was impressively fast. At this speed, he felt confident he could even hit a Keyzen student.
‘If only I could recreate this power while underwater.’
Next, he prepared the breathing magic circle he had spent all day developing with Maelyn.
It took five minutes. After carefully completing the circle, Simon activated the runes.
Whoosh!
Air from the surroundings was sucked in.
“It works!”
While Simon was immersed in testing…
“Simon! Simon! Look at me!”
Nearby, Dick was darting around chaotically wearing a pair of swim fins he had made.
“I made these myself and they’re seriously awesome!”
Mana was continuously being emitted from both of Dick’s legs, propelling him rapidly along the beach.
“It’s a huge success! If I sell these to the other students before the test, I’ll definitely be rich—whoaaaagh!”
Suddenly, a hole appeared in the swim fin, and mana exploded like a booster, launching Dick into the air.
His body drew a slow arc through the air, flying over the sea and landing…
Crashhh!
…Right into a sandcastle some little kids had been building, headfirst.
The sandcastle crumbled completely, and the kids’ smiles disappeared.
After twitching his legs for a moment, Dick pulled his head out and stood up, spreading his arms with a grin.
“Ta-da~! I’m the princess who lives in the sandcastle!”
The children burst into loud sobs.
‘...Seriously.’
Simon let out a dry laugh, then turned to look at the magic circle forming on his right hand.
The direction of the clock hand drawn in the formula pointed from the left end to the right end. It meant it was fully charged.
Simon covered his mouth with the magic circle and dove back into the sea.
Splash!
‘It works!’
Thanks to the air escaping from his hand, he could breathe without trouble.
‘Ugh, but...’
Since he was just covering his mouth and nose with his hand, both air and water were coming in together.
Unable to endure it for long, Simon soon resurfaced.
‘I focused too much on completing the formula and overlooked something so basic...’
Still, it seemed like a simple enough problem to fix. Simon swam back to the beach.
Meanwhile, Maelyn and Kamibarez were setting up a sunshade.
It was big enough to comfortably fit four people. Underneath, they had arranged portable chairs and a table. On the table, several magic circle blueprints were spread out.
Maelyn was even personally setting up a security magic circle. She was extremely thorough with security.
“Need help with anything?”
As Simon, fresh out of the water, approached, Maelyn didn’t even turn around before immediately scolding him.
“Hey! Who said one person can work while the other just plays? Why are you so late?”
“Sorry, sorry. I guess I got a bit too excited.”
“That support pole keeps shaking, can you go che—…”
Maelyn’s words cut off mid-sentence as she turned her head.
Her face turned bright red, and Kamibarez also had her hands over her mouth, her eyes darting around.
“What’s wrong?”
Simon blinked.
He didn’t realize it at all, but his thin shirt had become soaked and was clinging tightly to his muscles.
In fact, wearing the shirt made his chest and abs stand out even more.
“Wh-what are you doing! I said go check the pole!”
“Okay.”
As Simon quickly moved to check the pole, Maelyn and Kamibarez exchanged a furtive glance. Kamibarez whispered in the tiniest voice.
“I didn’t notice when he was wearing the school uniform…”
“Y-yeah, exactly.”
They quietly admired Simon’s back. As he grunted while lifting the pole, his well-defined back muscles moved as if they were angry.
“There! All fixed. One of the poles was inserted backward.”
When Simon turned around, both girls quickly spun their heads the other way.
“Th-thanks, Simon!”
Kamibarez said with a forced smile.
“Would you like something to drink?”
“Yes, please.”
She hurried off to get juice, and Simon walked toward the table.
‘Ack!’
As Simon suddenly came closer, Maelyn blushed and shouted.
“Hey! Stop right there!”
“Huh?”
“You just came from the water! If you touch the blueprints, they’ll get soaked! Sit over there!”
Simon was the obedient type.
He sat in a chair and checked the magic circle he had made earlier, wearing a serious expression.
‘...So hot.’
Maelyn fanned herself frantically, trying to cool off.
The three of them worked together to improve the magic circle based on Simon’s feedback.
Each of them actively contributed ideas, refining it into a magic circle that first-years could realistically use while maintaining efficiency.
“How about this?”
Maelyn launched a new Dark Torpedo magic circle with enhanced bindings.
Thunk!
The torpedo flew out, drawing a soft arc before thudding to the ground.
Simon shook his head.
“With this, it can be used underwater, but you’ve sacrificed too much. If the speed and power drop this much, it’s better not to use it at all.”
“Hm.”
Maelyn also seemed to agree, deep in thought.
“How about we put the Dark Torpedo on hold for now?”
Then Kamibarez cautiously offered a suggestion.
“When it comes to offense, instead of making some new shared spell, I think it’s better for each person to slightly tweak their specialty so they can use it underwater.”
Simon agreed with that as well. There was no problem developing the breathing magic circle together, but offensive spells required too many sacrifices to be usable underwater.
The best strategy was to form the magic circle above the surface and then enter the water to use it.
“Still, it wasn’t a waste. I studied formulas usable in the ocean while making the Dark Torpedo, so if I apply this to my major spells…”
“I’m back!”
Dick burst into the sunshade, dancing as he entered. Maelyn stopped mid-sentence and shot him a glare.
“What took you so long, you stupid sandcastle princess.”
“The kids wouldn’t stop crying, so I just built them a new sandcastle.”
Dick made up an excuse with a cheeky grin and stood next to Simon.
“So, what’s the result of the meeting?”
Simon explained it to Dick.
They’d decided to focus on utilizing each person’s specialty for offense, and to concentrate more on breathing and swimming techniques useful in the ocean.
Dick readily agreed.
“Then I’ll sit out this round?”
Maelyn said as she stepped outside the sunshade.
“One person has to stay here and keep watch, who wants to do it?”
“Me! Me! I’ll stay. I’m dead tired from playing with the kids.”
Dick said, slumping into a chair.
“I can’t swim that well yet… so you two go!”
And so, this time, Simon and Maelyn headed toward the beach.
Until they reached the shore, the two of them didn’t say a word to each other.
‘There’s nowhere to look.’
Simon was walking straight ahead, avoiding his gaze due to her outfit. That type of swimsuit was way too revealing from his perspective.
‘…When’ll his outfit going to dry?’
Maelyn, too, was self-conscious about the person next to her.
Finally, as they reached the water, she opened her mouth.
“You go first, Simon.”
Maelyn, her sky-blue hair fluttering, prepared a dark spell. Simon nodded and dove into the sea first.
He sliced quickly through the water, then looked back. Maelyn had drawn magic circles on both feet and was leaping into the air.
<Ice Road>
Fwooooosh!
Ice burst out from beneath her feet, and her body shot across the beach like a projectile.
Simon’s mouth dropped open. She was running on the ocean using ice.
‘That’s amazing!’
Her ice-type magic was at such a high level, it made him wonder why she hadn’t trained in it sooner.
If she hadn’t been so conscious of Serne, who was strong in dark flame spells, she might’ve reached an even higher level by now.
“Achoo!”
Of course, there was the issue that she was sensitive to the cold.
Clearing her throat with a small cough, she stopped her Ice Road and dove into the sea like a diver.
Underwater, she activated the spell she had prepared earlier. Simon marveled as shards of ice shot through the sea.
‘She was really upset when her ranking dropped during the last BMAT… Looks like she’s determined to make a comeback this time.’
He couldn’t afford to lose. Simon pulled a skeleton out from subspace.
“!”
He tried to activate Bone Armor, but the skeleton floated helplessly to the surface before it could do anything.
Overlord was also impossible. Since he couldn’t perform the trigger action, pressing his left foot to the ground, inside water, the spell couldn’t activate.
Watching Maelyn fire off ice underwater with such power, Simon pondered in silence.
‘What’s the best way for me to fight underwater?’
* * *
“Hwaaaaaaahm.”
A man lying on a sunbed under a parasol let out a long yawn. His skin was tanned, and he wore a white baseball cap on his head.
He rubbed his eyes and smacked his lips.
“Do we really have to train all the way out at the beach?”
In response to the man’s question, the friend lying on the opposite sunbed replied with a smile.
“Cut them some slack. If our teammates get expelled from Keyzen, we’re the ones who lose out.”
“Group projects, huh. But seriously, what kind of training do you even need for fighting in the ocean?”
The friend chuckled and shrugged.
“You’re a special admit and a naval battle specialist, so you wouldn’t get it. When they found out the theme of the third exam was the sea, everyone panicked.”
The man adjusted the brim of his white cap.
“Is it that big of a deal? Whether it’s the sea or land, a fight’s a fight… Huh?”
Out in the middle of the sea, he saw a clean path of ice stretching forward. Sitting up, he grabbed the brim of his hat and lifted it.
A girl with sky-blue hair in a swimsuit was skating quickly across the ice. The sight was stunningly beautiful.
“That girl’s amazing. Do you know who she is?”
His friend let out a dry laugh.
“…You really don’t know anyone outside of a few people from our class, huh.”
“I haven’t even memorized all our team members’ names yet.”
He had such selective memory that if someone wasn’t of interest to him, he could forget them within ten minutes.
“Hahaha! She’s actually kind of famous. Maelyn Villene from the Ivory Tower.”
Thud!
Suddenly, the man on the sunbed was sent flying to the side. In an instant, he grabbed his friend by the collar and shouted, his voice tight with urgency.
“Ra-Raheim?! What the hell?!”
“Say it again. Say it clearly.”
His eyes glinted.
“From where? What’s her name?”
The friend looked flustered. They’d been hanging out all semester, but this was the first time Raheim ever reacted to a person’s name like this.
“M-Maelyn Villene!”
“Wasn’t this year’s new Ivory Tower student Serne Eindark?”
“I-I don’t know! But I heard she’s from the Ivory Tower too!”
At that, Raheim let go of his friend’s collar. The friend landed hard on the sand, coughing.
Raheim’s expression turned serious.
‘To hear that name here…’
Superb.
When are we getting more free chapters?
Thanks for the new chapters
Very good story and translation but half the chapter aren't for free and it is wayyyy too expensive will it stat like tjis foreve or will it get free after some time