My Wood Release Makes a Lot of Money

Who won?

They all wanted to know.

The steam quickly rose and dispersed, revealing the figures inside.

The layer of lava armor on Chiba's body had vanished. His face was deathly pale, his eyes were closed, and he no longer had the strength to keep fighting.

Thud!

He toppled sideways and hit the ground.

But what shocked Shadow Skull was the gaping hole in Puroke's chest, opposite Chiba. The flesh around its edges had been charred, and his insides, along with many of his organs, had melted.

Chiba could no longer fight. Puroke was dead!

That was the result of their final clash!

"That guy... he actually had that kind of power?" Ultear murmured.

The lava armor was powerful enough to pose a certain threat to her, even at her peak.

Having lost Puroke and their A-Class mage, Shadow Skull was thrown into chaos. Under Ultear's lead, they killed almost all of them.

But Shadow Skull's members had outnumbered them by so much that, by the time they had wiped Shadow Skull out, Grimoire Heart's members had also been annihilated.

Inside the Magic-Sealing Space, only Ultear and Chiba, who had fallen unconscious from using too much Chakra, were still alive.

Blood flowed in rivers around them, and corpses littered the ground.

But Ultear seemed to be accustomed to such sights. She sat on the ground, her face pale from exhausting her magic power.

She struggled over to Chiba's side, then found that he was indeed unconscious rather than dead, and breathed a sigh of relief.

Wait, why am I worried about whether he lives or dies?

Ultear felt that she had changed, that she had become very strange, seemingly quite different from who she used to be.

Why... am I worried about whether this guy lives or dies?

She looked at the unconscious Chiba, confusion in her eyes.

Time passed slowly, and heavy snow began to fall once more. Glaring red blood stained the ground, and the bodies were buried beneath the snow.

A bloodstained girl knelt in the snow, an unconscious boy beside her.

Ultear was waiting for the Magic-Sealing Space to disappear.

She waited as she recovered her magic power. Though her clothes were in tatters, she was an Ice-Make mage, and this degree of cold was nothing to her.

Finally, at some point, the enormous barrier of light vanished.

Ultear felt the magic power inside her, which had been suppressed by the Magic-Sealing Space, recovering rapidly.

But suddenly, a ray of light burst out of the snow. Immediately afterward, a book shot out from beneath it and flew swiftly toward Ultear.

The book then abruptly dissolved into wisps of light that entered Ultear's body.

She panicked. She could clearly feel that her magic power, which had just been unsealed, was being suppressed again—and even more strongly than it had been by the Magic-Sealing Space!

Ultear recognized the book as the one Qiaote had tried and failed to open.

The book seemed to have locked onto Ultear alone. Whether or not it was opened, it would be used on her. It was only a matter of when.

It was essentially a Magic-Sealing Space for one person, and it suppressed... all magic power!

In other words... Ultear had temporarily lost the ability to use magic!

"My magic power... it's all been suppressed..." She stared at her small hands, somewhat bewildered.

"What should I do?"

"No, I can't die here..."

She gritted her teeth and struggled to her feet, then looked at Chiba in the snow and managed to lift him onto her back.

She staggered off in a direction. In fact, she didn't know where it led, but it was better than staying where she was and waiting to die.

She could no longer use either Arc of Time or Ice-Make Magic.

For the first time, she felt what it was like to lose her power.

And with her magic power completely suppressed, exhaustion, hunger, and even cold began to overwhelm her.

Only now, after losing all her power, did she feel the helplessness... and even despair... she had felt back at the Magic Development Bureau...

She was tired. She no longer had the strength to carry Chiba any farther.

Am I going to die?

What fitting retribution...

She felt around, then wrapped her arms tightly around the unconscious Chiba, trying to find some warmth from his body.

A long time later...

"Ugh... who's squeezing me...?"

Chiba slowly opened his eyes in the snow.

He had dreamed that he was sleeping in a world of ice and snow, chilled to the bone. Then a giant octopus had appeared out of nowhere and wrapped itself tightly around him, squeezing him until he could barely breathe.

After being squeezed for a while, he had woken up.

Then he discovered a girl whose face had gone deathly pale from the cold, hugging him tightly and clinging to him like an octopus.

The girl's eyes were closed. She seemed to have passed out.

"An Ice-Make mage froze unconscious?" Chiba was quite puzzled.

He looked around and found nothing but snow in every direction, with no one else in sight. He was a little dumbfounded.

Once again, he had no idea where he was.

He realized that every time he passed out from using too much Chakra and woke up again, he had no idea where he was.

"I'm already terrible with directions, and now this." Chiba grumbled, then tried to pry open Ultear's arms, which were exposed to the cold air.

But he couldn't budge them.

He stood up, lifting Ultear's body along with him.

"Damn, don't tell me you're dead, big sis?" He felt her small hand and couldn't sense any warmth at all. Chiba began to panic.

After all that, is she still going to die? Then how did she survive until Tenrou Island back then?

"Chi... ba..."

A very, very faint murmur reached his ears.

"You're not dead, big sis! Are you all right?" Chiba asked hurriedly.

"My... magic power was sealed..." Ultear murmured softly, utterly weak.

No wonder an ice mage had frozen stiff in the cold.

"I'm so cold... I'm so hungry... so... sleepy..."

Chiba jolted and hurriedly said, "You can't sleep, big sis! If you fall asleep, you might die, and if you die, it's all over!"

"Die..."

"I... I can't die... I still want... still want to see Mom... I can't... I absolutely can't... die here..."

The girl clinging to him seemed to draw on immense strength. She opened her eyes and struggled to keep them from closing.

"Hang in there, big sis! I'll make us a house to stay in!" Chiba said quickly to Ultear on his back. Then he clasped his hands together and shouted.

"Wood Release, Four-Pillar House!"

As his shout faded, trees burst up from beneath the snow. In the blink of an eye, they formed what could only be called a simple wooden cabin.

Yamato's version of Wood Release!

He had only just mastered Wood Release Ninjutsu, and his Four-Pillar House could only be called beginner-level Wood Release. It was extremely crude, nowhere near as exquisite and intricate as Yamato's. Still, it could just about be considered a house.

He could already picture a rising new star in the Kingdom of Fiore's real estate business!