138. Value (3)
A cloud that rotates slowly around a point.
The magical power that gathered with him and a streak of lightning that eventually struck.
The blue lightning flashed like a flash of light and left a huge wound on the ground.
White snow dust rose and clouded the surroundings like a mist, and the ice wall Oliver had built blew away without a trace.
All that was left was a hollowed out area of scorched ice.
Merlin thought it was a bit overkill, but he quickly turned off his nerves and approached the spot where the lightning struck.
A light wind blows away the snow with his gestures, and he sees the ground with nothing left.
“Am I overestimating? no no… Even if it is, can it disappear like a dream?”
That was then.
Something popped out from under the hollow icy ground.
With a bullet of hate, Merlin took a step back from the unexpected attack, ripped a piece of paper and lightly blocked it.
Although the power wasn’t very threatening, it was an attack that stabbed the mark.
While grasping the situation, something grabbed Merlin’s ankle.
Hands covered in ice and snow were sticking out of the ground and grabbing Merlin’s ankles.
“like·····.”
After a brief exclamation, a hand pulled Merlin down.
Merlin was dragged under the icy ground without any resistance, looking like an ant in an ant hell.
After a few seconds of silence, bang! With a loud noise, an iceberg rose from the ground and vomited up two people.
With Merlin and Oliver, Merlin stood proudly at the top of the iceberg, and Oliver was tossed around the floor.
Before long, Oliver’s clothes were rags, and his body was full of minor bruises and abrasions.
Taken from n̲o̲b̲l̲e̲m̲t̲l̲.̲c̲o̲m̲
No, you think you’re lucky enough to have dealt with Merlin?Anyway, Oliver got up desperately. Against Merlin, he could not be distracted for even a single moment.
His stamina was already low, but he couldn’t.
“I think that’s great.”
When I was out of breath, thankfully Merlin spoke to me first.
Oliver took a breath and answered.
“What are you talking about?”
“When I was about to hit you with lightning, didn’t you take advantage of that opportunity to intervene in ice magic to take control and then go underground? . . . great. Heartily.”
Oliver took a deep breath and answered. A chill crept into my body.
“Thank you for the compliment. Trying to live… I was lucky.”
“I was lucky. It is an expression often used when demeaning others. Luck doesn’t always follow suit. I really think it’s great. Usually, when there is a difference in power like this, people get desperate and give up easily. Old people shouldn’t say things like this, but young people these days have no guts.”
“I don’t want to die yet, so I’m just desperate. There are so many things I want to know.”
“What do you want to know so much? What is it that makes you so curious?”
Merlin said, pointing to the targeting surrounding his body.
He installed it as unnoticed as possible, and he was a really quick-witted person.
Oliver extracted magic power in one hand and emotion in the other and put it on the ground.
With magic, ice the size of a house was pulled out of the ground, and targeting was applied around the ice with emotion.
Then, in conjunction with the targeting placed around Merlin, it blew a huge chunk of ice on four sides.
“her······.”
Kwagwagwagwagwang ━━━━━!!!!
The ice crashed against each other with a roar like a mountain collapsing.
With a huge impact, pieces of snow and ice covered Merlin’s surroundings in pure white.
It was not an attack that could have survived from a common sense point of view, but the problem is that Merlin is not a person calculated by common sense.
Oliver extracted emotions with both hands, put them in the shadows, spread them to the left and right, surrounded the surroundings, and activated numerous small shadow spikes like needles towards the center.
Fab ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba-ba-ba-ba-bah-!!
He attacked Merlin, who did not know where he was, with a sharp piercing sound.
But what
Instead of feeling his hand, a purple magic portal appeared in front of Oliver, and as it was, countless shadow spikes pierced Oliver.
“Ugh…!!”
Fortunately, the quality was lowered due to the focus on the number, and only two or three of the dozens of shadow spikes penetrated the black suit.
The moment I took a moment to catch my breath in pain, a great wind blew and the snow dusted off where Merlin was.
Then I saw Merlin standing there, wrapped around him like a donut with a purple portal.
At best, I thought it would be blocked with defensive magic, but not only defending but also counterattacking at the same time.
Experience also far outstripped Oliver. I didn’t mean to despair though.
“minion.”
The five minions they planted when they first entered the ground rose at Oliver’s call, spitting bullets of hate over Merlin’s head.
Merlin ripped the five pieces of paper and threw them as if he had already figured this out.
The minions were split in half as the bullets of hatred poured out.
All attacks ended in vain. It was fine though.
I knew right away that I wasn’t the kind of person who could do anything like this.
[black suit]
[lay the foundations]
[Burning life]
[Muscle Up]
[terrible angry]
[endurance skin]
Oliver wore a black suit that woven emotions, vitality, and magical power together, and then applied numerous disease-type black magic over it.
Whenever a disease-type black magic that dramatically increases physical abilities and attack power in exchange for vitality is applied, the vitality that makes up the black suit is noticeably burned, its color darkens, and its appearance changes violently.
Oliver rushed to that state. Didn’t drag for long.
Faba Baba Baba Bang – Pang!!
The ground shook at the kick that hit the ground, and Oliver soared. And as it was, he threw the quarterstaff towards Merlin with all the weight and strength of his body.
Despite approaching fairly quickly, Merlin calmly corrected the book without panicking and swung it in the direction of the quarterstaff’s attack.
Kang ━━━━━━━━━!!!!
A shock wave spread in all directions with a sound as if two massive objects collided, and the iceberg on which Merlin had climbed cracked.
“hahaha·····! very good-”
-[Black Javelin]
Oliver covered the quarter staff with a black javelin to further increase the stabbing attack.
The thick book he was wielding with his shield and hammer ripped apart with a crackling sound, and at the same time Merlin’s chest was pierced by the quarterstaff.
Although, it was just a clone made of ice.
“Ah, as expected…”
As Merlin’s ice clone shattered, it shattered like an iceberg, and three sheets of paper poured out and attacked Oliver.
The forearms, thighs, and flanks weren’t fatal, but they certainly did.
The black suit ripped lightly, and Oliver flew away and fell to the floor.
My whole body literally throbbed.
ha. ha. Oliver took a deep breath and tried to stand up.
However, the limit was to get down on one knee as if he had really run out of stamina.
The iceberg split in half, and Merlin in it walked out.
He didn’t look tired at all.
“…by any chance, is that also an ice clone?”
“Well, let’s come. That seems like a matter for a young friend to figure out. Bad adults never tell the truth. That’s good for you.”
“Are you a bad adult?”
“Most of the people around me have no choice but to be inferior.”
“You are kind. Are you teaching me that?”
“········.”
“Can I ask a question to the owner of the bookstore as a guest of the bookstore?”
“Try…”
“I suddenly wondered, why did you use strength as a measure of human value?”
“What a stupid question. Because strength is a human value.”
“It’s stupid, I don’t know why. Could you please tell me more easily?”
Merlin looked at Oliver for a moment and said.
“I don’t know how to explain this obvious story. Can I give you an example to make it easier to understand?”
“Yeah, that’s fine.”
“Then I will take the children you saved as an example.”
“Rossburn?”
“exactly. Why did you save that child?”
“He’s a great kid. It’s brave, it’s strong, and it’s emotionally pretty.”
“I think so too. I think it would be nice to see the other children acting as the eldest brother. He is also in a difficult situation… But objectively, the child is nothing more than an orphan. Such a widespread orphan. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“········.”
“And it still is. They miraculously survived, but that’s really rare. As proof of that, there are countless children like Rothburn in the world, but most of them are unable to get out of that situation. That is the value of those children. because I don’t have the power. It’s uncomfortable, but it’s the truth.”
Oliver remembered what Merlin had said in the past.
Most people find the truth uncomfortable.
“How do you understand? young friend?”
“…and half.”
“half?”
“Yeah, rationally, that seems to be the case. In the orphanage and in the mine, most of the time when I came out of the world, it was just as the old man said. However, I do not want to agree.”
“Why?”
“Because I saw it. Weak, but defeated, beautiful and valuable.”
Oliver said, thinking of Marie, the Blitz Wizard, Joseph, Cant, Murphy, Edith, Jane, Duncan, etc.
They were weak or lost to Oliver, but they were valuable and beautiful in their own way.
“More than anything. What is it like to be in a world where you have to be strong but have value? Isn’t it a boring world?”
Merlin looked at Oliver silently and clapped his hands.
pair- pair- pair-
The sound of applause of restrained emotion had the effect of evoking the atmosphere.
“Hey, that’s a nice word. ‘Isn’t it a boring world?’ That’s a really cool word. If I were a woman, I would fall for it. I had no idea that in a world like today, there would be a young man who would say such a thing with a bare mind.”
“Is that so?”
“exactly. You have to prove your ability to say such a nice thing. Otherwise, you will receive a cruel ridicule. You say loser’s bullshit. Isn’t it ironic? To say the ideal, you need realistic power.”
oh······. Oliver seemed to realize something.
It takes power to say something. Naturally, it felt like it was touching my skin at this moment.
“okay····.”
“exactly····. In that sense, I will ask Will you keep fighting with me? You can stop at this point. It seems like you’ve seen everything you can see. It’s satisfying enough to keep fighting without giving up. Above all else, I don’t think my friend’s status is young anymore.”
Merlin said, scanning Oliver from head to toe.
In reality, Oliver’s condition was not zero. His clothes were already in rags, and his body was covered in half-melt snow.
But Oliver could not readily nod his head. Even though he was tired, Merlin’s words bothered him, so he couldn’t.
“Were you satisfied? Fight me?”
Merlin thought for a moment, then brought his thumb and forefinger together.
“It’s a very narrow pass.”
“Then we will fight a little longer. Your help is not worth it.”
“Oh, that would be great, but can you fight like that?”
“Would you mind waiting a moment?”
Oliver looked inside his arms with those words. It was a mess inside from fighting, and I couldn’t figure out where it was.
The moment I thought I had lost something, I grabbed something in my hand.
“that·····.”
“It’s Pilgaret. Just one moment…”
Oliver took the pilgaret in his mouth, extracting energy, and creating a small fire in his hand.
Then he sucked his mouth and drank as much as he could.
Smoke coming through the lungs with him.
In the smoke, the memories and emotions of Duncan’s life and death and life were concentrated.
There was a small tremor in Oliver’s face.
[Hell Summon]