VIP Chapter 404: Have You Heard of “Ice Array (Attack)”? (3k)
“Oh? Is there a young lady here who knows magic?”
It wasn’t Liya who noticed her, but the girl herself who called out to Liya first, appearing to be drawn to her hat. She picked up an apple from a stall and walked towards Liya.
…A weirdo?
But if someone from the Dungeon were to “go incognito” from inside, she would surely be the strangest person in the entire city. Could it be…
As Liya was thinking this, the child approached.
“You, help me see if some modern magic made this apple this red.”
“…Me?”
Before Liya could react to what was happening, the child who had come closer suddenly patted her shoulder and spoke in a very quiet but clearly overbearingly imperious tone:
“We’re both mages. I don’t have any money on me right now, so please pay for the apple for me~ Thank you.”
“Ah?”
By the time Liya reacted, the child had already brushed past her shoulder, wrapped in her tattered coat, with the apple she’d taken from the stall, and bolted.
“What… Who was that!?”
“Hey, give me back my apple! Did she just talk to you? Are you in cahoots with her?! I mean… why steal something, and only steal one apple? Isn’t that a bit… stingy?”
Seemingly rendered speechless by the child’s inexplicably arrogant and petty behavior, the stall owner, who had been intending to give chase, could only stay put and scratch his head.
“I’ll pay for her. I’m going to chase after her. If you see her again, notify me immediately – See? I’m easy to find, right?”
“Uh… Okay?”
Liya chased after the disappearing patch of dirty brown coat.
She was small, she shouldn’t be fast.
But…
If she was “Al,” if she was that Fire Dragon, if she was the Emperor formed from the personality left behind by the original witch “Iaar,” why would she look like a child?
Uh…
Of course, perhaps it wasn’t strange for the witch to be a child in the first place? Moreover, her behavior of stealing an apple and having another mage cover for her seemed… quite “witch-like,” didn’t it?
After all, Liya herself was still…
“Oh? You really paid for me, that’s good, good. You seem like an excellent mage.”
“Huh?”
Liya looked up and saw her sitting on a large tree beside her.
Her eyes widened…
At this moment, she had a little bit of belief that the child before her was that “Fire Dragon.”
Because looking up from below, her ill-fitting and tattered coat couldn’t hide her tail. A red tail, coiled up as if not wanting to be seen, was clearly visible when looking up from under the tree.
And her coat, which had been covering her head, was now taken off, making her pair of dragon horns exceptionally obvious.
She looked very much like a… half-dragon.
Liya was a bit surprised. In this world, there were humanoid half-beastman races discovered in remote forests, but there had never actually been a half-dragon race.
Beings called “Dragons” existed in vague historical records from “a thousand years ago,” but after that, they could only be found in Dungeons, so it was unlikely they would have fused with humans.
Only a few “Dragonkin” had been seen among the Dungeon Emperors, but those “Dragonkin” were essentially appearances conjured by certain ancient dragons, not their actual physical forms.
But…
She was a living example, appearing before her. And not just outside the Dungeon.
Did such a creature truly exist?
“Your name… it couldn’t be… Al, could it?”
“Oh? My name is that famous – no, how do you know? I haven’t told anyone this name!”
She was quite vigilant.
“Oh— you must be a spy sent by that… Adventurer’s Guild, right? That’s why you recognized at a glance that I’m from that side.”
Al said, pointing to the entrance of the Dungeon in the distance. The entrance to the Endless Ash Dungeon was similar to the stone gates of the primitive era, basically just a pile of granite roughly stacked together. In terms of style, it matched Al’s tattered, primitive-looking attire quite well.
Liya thought about the “kind words” she might hear—
“Lord Al~ Don’t eat apples in the tree, come down quickly. After all, this is not very suitable for someone as noble as you. No matter how much you want to eat, I’ll… buy that much for you, okay?”
Liya said with a fake smile, while fiercely pinching her own thigh.
She had never appeased a child so humbly. When she was out and about, she was usually the one being appeased like a child.
“No. Red apples taste like this, so a small taste for research is enough. There’s no need to eat too much.”
Al sat on the tree, turning the apple she had already bitten down to its core in her hand.
She seemed to show great “care” for this apple, yet also not much care.
Her attitude wasn’t like that of a child greedy for fruit, but more like an “experimenter”? She just wanted to observe and research something she hadn’t seen before.
Even tasting it was just one part of the process.
“You, you’re a mage, right?”
“Yes, why…?”
“That’s great. There’s a library here filled with lots and lots of magic books, and they only seem to let ‘mages’ in – but they don’t acknowledge me as a mage.”
“A library? Hmm… there does seem to be a library here.”
Liya had seen it when she arrived, but that library seemed to be funded by the Magic Academy of Entak First Academy, and it indeed only allowed “mages” to enter, perhaps even mages who had graduated from Entak First Academy.
But…
Libraries in such remote villages are usually just for show; there probably won’t be any good books inside.
When it comes to good books, you still have to go to the witch’s library…
“Okay. I’m sure there will be plenty of magic books in there, right? I’m particularly interested in one book. You either take me in, or help me get the book out.”
“Yes, it’s possible, but I don’t think there will be… what book is it?”
Liya felt she was reaching her limit in pacifying a child.
Fortunately, although this Empress expressed herself and behaved like a child, in terms of obedience, she seemed both motivated and eager to learn, quite “well-behaved.”
“Ice Array (Attack).”
“Eh?!”
“A few days ago, a guy with a shield used this thing – it just sounds very, very… familiar.”
Rarely, Al showed a hint of confusion on her face, not looking as confident as before.
“The name always lingers in my memory, and that little girl used it so beautifully. It’s rare that I want to research what it is…”
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“So, Iaar believes the key to defeating her lies in ‘Ice Array (Attack).’ What do you think, Young Master?”
“…Perhaps.”
Will didn’t say much; he merely acted as a “guide.”
“Then Iaar shall go and fetch that book. Perhaps looking at the real object will allow the Young Master to find the answer.”
In these past few days, he had only been doing one thing by Iaar’s side:
Returning to the past.
Even though he couldn’t see with his eyes, he could hear sounds, perceive the temperature around him, sense the things around him, and then realize one thing…
He was gradually returning to the “memories” of the Hysterm Family.
Today, he watched Iaar perform the “training” she was supposed to do all day.
It was still the same set he had left behind before, whether it was high-temperature training, endurance training, or the study of “Ice Array (Attack)”… It made Will feel that she was too obedient. In reality, with her current strength, it wasn’t a matter of lacking “hardware,” but of not finding the right method.
And that method…
It was indeed within “Ice Array (Attack).” If Will’s memory of the original work regarding “Ice Array (Attack)” was correct, its final move could ignore the Fire Dragon’s flashy tricks and directly break through it.
There was no need to analyze the BOSS’s skills or abilities; just that one move would be enough to win.
“Young Master, Iaar is back. Is it okay for me to sit by your side like this?”
He heard Iaar’s voice growing closer. Then, Iaar placed a chair beside him, and he heard the sound of a thick book being gently placed on the table.
Sound could bring back memories.
Will remembered that in the small garden, under the same warm sunlight, he used to sit on a light wooden chair and listen to Iaar’s obedient voice.
Yes…
Everything was being forcibly pulled back by Iaar to his teenage memories.
“Young Master, speaking of which, even though you can’t see, Iaar has arranged the entire garden, including the appearance of every flower, to match the look of the Hysterm Family’s garden before.”
Iaar said with a smile.
She pointed to the garden in the distance. Although Will couldn’t see, she still made the gesture foolishly.
“The garden from before? Speaking of which, what I disliked the most was the jasmine flowers directly facing the table back then. They were too fragrant and made me dizzy.”
“Yes, Iaar remembers, so in this garden, they have been replaced with unscented varieties.”
It was like a memory of a perfect day where time stood still forever.
What Iaar was letting Will experience was precisely such a scene.
“…You’re too meticulous.”
“Young Master, the book is here, you can touch it.”
Iaar said, raising his right hand. Will, guided in the darkness, reached out to the air before him, and then, in the dim blackness where he could vaguely see the table, he touched the book.
The pages felt a bit old, even excessively rough.
Exploring further, one would find that the page opened on this book had countless folds.
From what started as a small, folded triangle, it gradually grew larger, until countless layers of folds turned the corner of the page into a rolled-up state.
It was like having read this book over and over again, always pausing on the same page at different times, folding it, and then coming back to it later.
She had indeed read this book many, many times.
Even though Will couldn’t see the “notes” left on the book now, by touching the folds, he could imagine what Iaar had done.
