"You bastard... you're nothing but a country bumpkin who doesn't understand the true meaning of magecraft!"
Faced with Roland's merciless, cold mockery, Araya Souren frowned and stared at him with murderous eyes that looked ready to cry.
"No wonder you associate with someone like Aozaki. Just another lucky fool who stumbled into a little power and dreamed of claiming honors that didn't belong to her. That's why the Association gave her the most fitting color. In the end, she's nothing but a defective product called the Crimson of Pain!"
"Do you know? In the Mage's Association, the highest-ranking magi are awarded color titles, with the Three Primary Colors being the greatest honor of all. Aozaki wanted 'blue,' just as her surname suggests, but the Association wouldn't give it to her."
"Her own little sister stole her inheritance, and even the familiar she so painstakingly found fell to her sister. Someone who joined to exact revenge isn't suited to a pure color. So Aozaki received orange, the opposite of her surname, a color just as vulgar as her given name. Haha, isn't that a perfect title for that woman?"
At the mention of this, a satisfied smile involuntarily appeared on Araya Souren's face. He rattled on like a machine gun, perfectly displaying his affected nature.
When actually facing people stronger than himself, such as Touko Aozaki and Araya Souren, he had always hidden behind a courteous exterior, not daring to complain much. But once he believed he had the upper hand, he would constantly seek others' approval through his words.
"Exactly. That's why Aozaki always rates me so poorly. I specialized in runes first, and I earned my reputation as a Puppeteer first, too."
"And yet her attitude fooled those imbeciles. The way she belittled me made them believe my abilities