Chapter 149

Chapter 149

It isn’t fun.

It was a simple process. Merlin had carried out more complex image-making and magic system setups on a regular basis.

It isn’t fun, so it’s not possible.

Merlin imagined the final product. He had done something like this countless times before, as evident in his recreation of an entirely new nucleus for his internal Gold Core. If he could accomplish this monstrous feat, fixing Miho’s genuine qi issue was child’s play.

It isn’t fun, so it’s not possible. You’ll definitely fail.

“Shut up! Shut up!”

While screaming, Merlin reconfigured Miho’s spiritual power.

And he failed.

“Ugh… ah…!”

“H-huh?”

As he sensed Miho’s genuine qi levels dropping dramatically, Merlin quickly circulated his internal qi. However, it didn’t work. Nothing was operating as he intended, and his mind became blank and devoid of thought.

“… Idiot.”

At some point, a young boy with black hair appeared behind Miho, frowning. At that moment, Merlin realized something.

The young boy was Merlin- no, Yongno. It was Yongno when he was young.

“Eh… what did I say? I told you it wouldn’t work.”

“W-wait a minute. I… I… I….”

“Idiot. If you continue doing stupid things, you’ll just carry additional guilt. In turn, that’ll make me feel even more uncomfortable.”

Miho extended her arms and wrapped them around Merlin’s neck. There was no strength behind this action whatsoever; she was already heading toward her eventual death.

Miho pulled herself close to Merlin. When their noses almost touched, she spoke.

“Merlin, you see my left eye, right?”

Her left eye shone like a brilliant jewel. It wasn’t merely a figure of speech; her round eye truly looked like a brilliantly shining ruby. It was the pinnacle of the red fox’s Magic Eye, the Jeweled Magic Eye. Miho’s eyeless right eye was closed as tears of blood flowed from it. She had closed this eye because she couldn’t remove the bullet that was stuck inside the eye socket, and Miho didn’t want Merlin to see such a gross image.

“When I die, take my eye. Though it might sound disgusting, my eye is a great treasure. When I die, my remaining monster qi will be concentrated there, so it might prove useful in various applications.”

“W-what are you talking about? L-let’s get out of here first. Let’s find a quiet place and continue your treatment- hmm?!”

While Merlin was trying to speak as quickly as possible, Miho had brought herself up to kiss him. When Merlin froze in surprise, Miho pulled back and smiled.

“I don’t have much time, so don’t cut me off. Honestly, you’re terrible at reading the mood, and you have so many innate talents that one can’t help but dislike you, but….”

Miho stared into Merlin’s eyes and rubbed his cheek tenderly. Then, the last glimmer of light left her gaze.

“I liked you a lot.”

“Ah….”

As if she had fallen asleep in his arms, Miho’s eyes closed as her body slumped against Merlin. Merlin couldn’t help but have a vacant expression; he couldn’t keep up with all these rapid developments.

Miho told him she’d already stated this, that she was beyond help; however, the truth was different. Merlin could have helped. It was absolutely within his abilities. Moreover, it was something so easy and simple.

However, he ultimately failed.

“Why! Just why!”

He could have done it. Without any uncertainty, he could’ve saved her. In the past, he had completed far more complicated procedures as a joke, something for mere entertainment. Yet, he still failed today. He failed during the worst possible situation, simply because ‘it wasn’t fun’….

“Ah… argh… ah…!”

Merlin became enraged. He couldn’t manage to do this, yet the enemies who attacked and killed Miho could do it. Merlin fumed. An NPC in a virtual game died, but his heart and mind were crumbling.

“… Phew.”

However, something unexpected happened. Moments ago, Merlin had been in a turbulent, depressed state, but now, he stood without any hint of malice, anger, or pain in his expression.

“… Will I eventually run away once again?”

Merlin mumbled as he laid Miho gently on the ground. Then, he moved his right arm.

Plop!

With his right hand, Merlin dug into his left eye and yanked it out. Though users couldn’t experience pain inside DIO, doing something like this was still unheard of. Merlin then scooped out Miho’s left eye. In stark contrast to his previous action, Merlin was extremely careful when removing Miho’s eye.

“Foolhardy woman.”

Merlin mumbled as he placed Miho’s jeweled eye into his empty eye socket. Soon, a soft light shone from his hand. It was a treatment spell that he wasn’t too experienced in using. Despite being surrounded and his Howling Spell soon dissipating, Merlin moved nonchalantly without hurry.

“Escape, master! An extremely dangerous foe is headed toward you! At the least, it’s a being at the level of an Eight-Tailed Fox!”

Due to the chaotic nature of the battle, Quiet Heaven could only give supporting assistance from the sky. Quiet Heaven relayed the enemies’ movements and constantly sent warning messages to Merlin. Of course, Quiet Heaven wasn’t too worried. Though Quiet Heaven felt for Miho… she had died, so now, Merlin’s safety was the most important priority. Since a Gate Ring operated almost instantaneously, it would be difficult for the oncoming enemies to get ahold of Merlin.

“I see. It’s from the fairy faction. A Class 7 mage at that.”

“Master! Escape!”

From the sky, Quiet Heaven sent another warning message to Merlin, but the latter acted as if he didn’t hear and looked up at the sky, which was covered with dark clouds.

“It seems like it’s going to rain soon.”

While Merlin softly muttered to himself, he heard the sound of a loud engine coming from afar.

Vroom!

In a shocking turn of events, a car was approaching. The design was a bit unique, as the vehicle was relatively flat but had large tires. Surprisingly, it was moving faster than 200 kilometers per hour.

Screech!

“Hahaha! Who was the one who used that spell earlier!”

A small yet rotund dwarf exited the vehicle and spoke in a booming voice. He held an abnormally huge handgun in his left hand and a baton-like stick in his right.

“Oh my god! It’s Crazy Tain! I never thought he’d personally come to a place like this!”

“Lieutenant General Tain!”

“Hahaha! Yes, your Lieutenant General Tain has arrived!”

After his appearance, the dwarves celebrated with cheers while the holy knights screamed profanities. Merlin felt that this sort of response was worthy. The dwarf was short and muscular, but the magic power emanating from him was considerable. Forget one against a hundred. The dwarf’s fighting capabilities could allow him to fight a thousand enemies at once effortlessly.

Sss.

Right at that moment, the Sky Island of Ouranos reached its time limit. The small island that had been floating in the air turned to dust and scattered, and the pressure it exerted also disappeared.

“Oho, I wondered who cast such a spell. I guess it was a human?”

With a handsome mustache prominently displayed on his face, Tain stared at Merlin. He was quite far from this area, but once he felt the Howling Spell’s magic power, he rushed over. However, unlike the fluid, chaotic, and powerful magic power that he felt earlier, Tain felt very little power emanating from Merlin, so he was confused.

“Merlin! What are you doing? Flee!”

Quiet Heaven was circling in the sky, and it felt as if it were going to go crazy. The Gate Ring could activate near-instantaneously, but in front of a foe like Tain, Merlin couldn’t easily operate it. Tain’s magic power was at a level where he could instantly kill Merlin without giving him any chance of resisting. However, Merlin simply stood and stared at Tain. At that moment, Merlin spoke to Quiet Heaven.

“I’m not going to run. I’ve decided to kill everyone here.”

“W-what? What are you talking about….”

“Leave.”

Woong!

Once Merlin whispered the order, Quiet Heaven found that its surroundings had changed. Now, it could sense its master’s presence far away. In a split second, Quiet Heaven had been moved over ten kilometers from his master.

“W-what? Is this… did he use teleportation? Master can’t use teleportation, though, no?”

While Quiet Heaven was bewildered by its situation, Merlin continued to stare at Tain. Perhaps it was due to what Merlin had said aloud, but for whatever reason, a dangerous smile appeared on Tain’s face.

“Oho, so you’ll kill everyone here. Did you include me when you stated, ‘everyone here’?”

“…”

Merlin didn’t respond, and this wasn’t because he was afraid. As if he didn’t have any interest in Tain, Merlin looked up at the sky.

“It’s time.”

“Hahaha! The balls on this kid! You scrawny human being, how dare you ignore me….”

Boom!

As he yelled, Tain raised his defensive barrier. ‘Something’ had fallen from the sky. In terms of size, it was smaller than an average person’s finger; however, the force and power behind it wasn’t something Tain could ignore.

“W-what was that?”

“Did you see what it was?”

The gathered dwarves and gnomes noisily clamored amongst themselves as they didn’t see what Merlin had done. However, Tain was the most flustered out of all.

“Hey! You bastard, what did you just do?”

Tain looked around to see what had attacked him, but he couldn’t find anything. Was it a magic bullet? Yet, the trajectory and attack operation didn’t fit that form of attack. As an accomplished mage with extensive knowledge in all things magic, Tain couldn’t recognize what Merlin had done. However, rather than mull over this discrepancy, Tain refocused his attention on Merlin.

“Ha! Whatever. I’ll just kill you-”

Boom!

Yet, Tain had to quickly raise his defensive barrier once more to avoid another attack from the sky. Since he was paying a bit more attention, Tain realized what had attacked him.

“W-what the hell? A water droplet?”

“To be more precise, a raindrop.”

“What the hell are you up to….”

An average person wouldn’t have understood Merlin’s words, but the accomplished mage, Tain, instantly understood the situation. He heightened his senses and focused on the sky.

“… This… doesn’t make any sense.”

Anything that fell was affected by gravity, so when an object dropped, it gained speed through acceleration. However, a raindrop didn’t follow that principle, as it reached terminal velocity much earlier due to air resistance.

“You’re quite wise and also perceptive as well.”

“You bastard….”

When a raindrop fell and collided with air molecules, the raindrop repelled the air molecules, and the air molecules also repelled the raindrop with the same force. This meant that a raindrop would possess the same force in the opposite direction. As a result, the resultant force of the system became zero.

When the resultant force was zero, an object was either not moving or was traveling at a constant velocity. In the raindrop’s case, it fell at a constant velocity due to inertia.

Often, when raindrops fell, people imagined the shape of the water droplet to have a round bottom and a pointed top. In reality, a raindrop was not a water droplet but was instead flattened.

“What if the raindrops don’t experience air resistance?”

“What a scam! Do you think such a thing is possible?! Do you know how far it is from here to the rain clouds?”

Tain shouted in shock, but Merlin answered calmly.

“The dark clouds above are quite high. They’re 4,215 meters above the surface. I would have preferred the clouds to be 6,000 meters high….”

Merlin had eliminated [Resistance] on the raindrops. In other words, he had made it so that air resistance didn’t apply to them. Hence, the system’s resultant force was no longer zero, and the raindrops would follow the same principles of gravity and acceleration as any other object, albeit in a vacuum-like setting. Hence, the raindrops were falling at tremendous speeds. Moreover, with his water attribute affinity and control, Merlin made the water droplets gather into finger-sized beads in the clouds.

“Nonsense! Liar! It’s impossible to control one’s magic power from such a range!”

“That goes for dunces like you who can only understand and operate on coordinates near you. It doesn’t apply to someone who can use an absolute coordinate system.”

“W…what?”

“An absolute coordinate system. A mage like you should know what I’m talking about, right?”

Mages usually used one of two approaches to set their coordinates. One approach was the ‘direct coordinate approach,’ which relied and centered on the mage’s coordinates to anchor coordinate settings. This approach was comparatively easier and used the mage’s senses to cast basic magic spells. Another approach was the ‘indirect coordinate approach.’ This was often utilized for ranged magic spells and teleportation. In this method, the mage had to establish an outside anchor or center point. For ranged spells, there was typically a curse placed on an opponent’s body, while a pre-made gate was used for teleportation.

“Nonsense! You’re not a Great Mage or an Ancient Dragon, so how could you use an absolute coordinate system?”

There was a third, more foundational coordinate mapping skill: the absolute coordinate system. This relied on a dimension’s unique coordinate system or, to be more precise, the absolute coordinate system was a spatial coordinate system.

Unfortunately, most mages would find this impossible to use because coordinates were always changing based on the constant physical changes within a world. If a mage started chanting and inputting coordinates for a spell, those coordinates would be incorrect by the time they cast their spell. It didn’t matter if the caster stayed still. No matter what, the universe was always in motion, from the celestial bodies’ movements to the rise and fall of the moon and sun.

Mages could obtain the absolute coordinates by reading their surrounding coordinates through a magic field, but since absolute coordinates were always changing, the incorrect coordinate inputs would nullify their spell before they could even cast it. This was also why the absolute coordinate system could only be used by a Class 9 Great Mage or a dragon species that possessed a near-infinite amount of knowledge.

Boom!

Tain raised his handgun, a Hand Cannon called Violent Rage, and fired it at Merlin. However, Merlin had already moved ten meters to the side. It was unbelievably quick teleportation. There was no way Tain could catch Merlin.

“You… who are you?”

“Who am I… that’s an interesting question. I was getting tired of my name, ‘Yongno,’ anyway.”

Tain couldn’t contain his astonishment and continuously sighed, and as Merlin stared at him, the player smiled coldly.

“I’m Merlin, Great Mage Merlin Emrys.”

Once Merlin finished speaking, it started raining heavily.