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Chapter 256: Blooming the Flower (7)
For all that “training” had begun, it wasn’t the sort that made you sweat or run around.
That kind of training was for when your level was low.
Already at Level 8, Lloyd understood most things the moment they were said.
In short, his training proceeded with him sitting quietly in a chair.
“First, we’ll start by befriending the wind.”
“There’s really no need to…….”
“To walk a thousand steps, you must first take the very first one. Stop talking and follow along.”
“…….”
Edna began by teaching him to grow close to the attribute called wind.
It was the basic material one first learned upon entering the White Tower.
She’d expected him to push back, but Lloyd, surprisingly, obeyed more meekly than she’d thought.
“Not like that. Unlike flame, wind has to be handled more gently.”
“Like this, then.”
“It’s still too rough.”
It wasn’t that Lloyd lacked understanding of wind.
He’d lived in the White Tower until he was fifteen.
But because of the restriction the Red Tower Master had put on him, he hadn’t used wind at all for sixteen years.
Naturally, the wind he wielded now was rather different from that of ordinary White Tower mages.
“……Was it like this?”
He was reclaiming a full sixteen years.
With something that felt both familiar and strange—wind that seemed like it would scatter if he grasped too hard—Lloyd was regaining his old touch.
On the first day, the second day, the third…… when the sixth day had passed, Edna finally nodded.
“Mm. At that level, it’s not a bad wind. As expected of Level 8—your application is fast.”
“This is only ‘not bad’?”
“Yes, though the comparison group is Oscar Sage’s wind.”
“…….”
In that case, he could understand.
Lloyd, unconsciously bobbing his head, dispersed the wind and asked,
“By the way, what’s Oscar doing and where?”
He’d spent six days focusing on the wind itself.
That guy had acted like he was going to teach him something, yet he hadn’t shown his face even once in the past six days.
“I called him a little while ago. He should be here soon. He said his preparations are done.”
Preparations?
Had he been making arrangements separately in order to teach something?
Just as a small curiosity sprouted, Oscar appeared and gestured for him to follow.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll know when we get there.”
“Can’t we do it in the training room?”
“That would be difficult.”
Oscar let out a brief laugh and pressed a certain floor button on the magic elevator.
Lloyd’s eyebrows twitched slightly when he saw it.
[This is the 10th floor.]
Beyond the opening doors spread the scenery of the 10th floor—the garden.
Oscar, who stepped out first, turned back and asked,
“Aren’t you getting off?”
“……Why did we come here? I don’t have time to clear my head. I don’t need to, either.”
“I didn’t bring you for a stroll. It’s for training, so just follow me.”
For training?
Lloyd, wearing a somewhat dissatisfied expression, moved his feet.
But his legs felt heavy, as if they were submerged in water.
“…….”
His body was telling him it disliked this place.
The reason wasn’t hard to find.
Sixteen years ago, this was precisely where he’d decided to leave the White Tower after spending the night in tears.
“Come along.”
Oscar strode out with long steps.
Having missed the timing to say anything, Lloyd let out a faint sigh and followed after him.
After they’d walked through the garden for quite some time, Oscar stopped before a massive tree.
“…….”
Arriving there, Lloyd looked up at the tree.
Complex emotions were mixed in his eyes.
“How is it?”
“What answer are you trying to get?”
“Isn’t it beautiful?”
Beautiful?
Lloyd frowned without meaning to and shook his head.
“I don’t know. All I felt the whole time walking through the garden was displeasure.”
“That’s a shame. Compared to sixteen years ago, there should be many newly added flowers.”
“Just tell me what kind of training we’re doing here.”
“What more is there to teach? The preparations are already complete.”
Oscar continued.
“You’re Level 8. Do you really need someone to teach you anything? As for the Sky-Cleaving Sword, once you use it a few times you’ll get the feel for it, and you’ve come to handle the attribute of wind freely—no problem there either.”
“……If you mean there’s nothing to teach, I’ll be going.”
As Lloyd began to turn his body, a line of voice held him in place.
“Recall it. Was this garden a place filled only with sad and painful memories for you?”
“…….”
“Why did you like this place? Where did the child go who was captivated by the fragrance the garden exuded and its beautiful figure?”
Had Sasha even told him that much?
Lloyd, looking weary, asked,
“What are we supposed to do by recalling that now?”
“You can complete your half-made world. And to repeat myself, that isn’t something I can do for you. You have to realize it yourself.”
What Oscar could give were only hints.
“Think carefully about what your dream was when you were young. That will fill the empty part of your world.”
A dream, huh.
It now felt far too distant to recall.
Splashed with cold reality and shoved along by it, what he’d chased wasn’t a dream but plans.
‘What was it?’
He couldn’t quite remember.
He felt like there had been something, though.
‘No, this isn’t the time to be mulling over this.’
In just two days he would have to fight the Red Tower Master.
Lloyd shook his head.
“No matter how I think about it, there’s no time to recall that sort of thing. I’d rather learn more high-level magic…….”
“There will be plenty of time.”
At those words, a powerful magic emanation was felt from Oscar’s direction.
Startled, Lloyd looked at him.
‘Power enough to make me feel threatened?’
A Level 8 mage, against a mere Level 6?
But the moment he saw the hole that had formed in the space before Oscar, his mind finished understanding it.
‘Space magic.’
With that kind of power, it made sense.
Seeing it, Lloyd braced himself without thinking.
“What are you trying to do right now?”
“You said you’re short on time, so I intend to make up for that part.”
Oscar spoke.
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“Go on in.”
“……In there?”
“Inside the subspace, time flows faster. It’s perfect for recalling old memories. Even if not that, you can get in more magic training.”
“…….”
Just as he said, in a situation where time was lacking, it was as good a proposal as any. Sunk in thought, Lloyd asked,
“What are the conditions for coming out?”
“Once you complete a world you can be satisfied with, you should be able to come out.”
“And if I fail to complete it?”
“In that case, you’ll have to wait out the full time before you can leave.”
Oscar did a brief calculation.
“Let’s see—we nested it five times, so time should flow 100,000 times faster…… and I plan to pull you out after about twenty-four hours outside.”
Having finished his math, Oscar said,
“That makes it roughly 274 years.”
“……What?”
Lloyd’s eyes shook for the first time.
Thinking you could train here for 274 years—that was the thinking of an amateur.
He knew the limits of human mental endurance.
‘Which means, if I fail to complete my world within a certain span…….’
It meant his mind would collapse into a state that was neither dead nor alive.
Oscar asked,
“If you’re the timid sort, you don’t have to go in.”
When he put it like that—
“……Who are you calling timid?”
Lloyd’s eyebrow twitched once, and he stared at the hole, now grown large enough for a person to pass through.
He gulped and hesitated a moment.
“Aren’t you going in?”
“I will. I just need a second to steel myself…….”
That guy was his disciple.
* * *
“Cough, cough! Ptoo!”
Hurled without warning into the subspace, Lloyd coughed up a storm.
Oscar Crucian—who knew he’d treat someone unprepared like this?
He couldn’t believe it.
“…….”
Lloyd slowly looked around the inside of the subspace.
It was a desert.
An endlessly spreading, arid desert.
From a sky clogged with dark clouds, not a single ray of light came through, and the ground was filled with sand.
Here and there in that sand, flower buds that had never managed to bloom hung their heads.
‘So this is what he prepared over six days.’
He’d configured an environment inside the subspace similar to his own world.
There was only one difference.
“…….”
Before Lloyd stood a single withered, desiccated tree.
He found himself walking toward it.
‘Looks like it’ll die any moment.’
No—perhaps it was already dead.
There wasn’t even a single leaf clinging to it.
“…….”
Only then did Lloyd look around him.
What filled his vision were ashen storm clouds and ocher sand.
The sight was desolate—and lonely.
‘Was it like this.’
Ironically, he had never properly faced his own world.
Whenever he used it, it had always been only when he needed to finish off an enemy quickly.
“Wind.”
When the wind blew, the flower buds trembled.
Naturally, none of them bloomed wide.
“…….”
Ordinarily, he would have set them alight.
He would have forced their mouths open with searing flames and turned that sorrow toward his enemies.
“…….”
Without realizing it, Lloyd lowered his hand.
He didn’t feel like setting them on fire now.
Probably because he’d stopped by the garden before coming here.
‘The garden.’
Oscar had been right.
In truth, that place wasn’t one of only sorrow and painful memories.
It was closer to the opposite.
‘It was the place I loved most.’
The reason was simple.
It was where the flowers he loved, the wind, and the people were.
Lloyd sat down on the hot sand before the withered tree.
‘It used to be different.’
When he was little, the first feeling that arose at the sight of a withered tree, he remembered, was pity.
Now it was different.
Those feelings had dried up—just like the tree before his eyes.
‘My dream, huh.’
Oscar had told him to recall what his dream had been.
If he did, he would naturally be able to complete his world.
Lloyd slowly closed his eyes and set off on a long journey to that travel destination called memory.
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