Spells Show Their Might

Time rewound to before the bolt was smashed loose.

The moment Richard stepped out of the Observation Cabin, he spotted the Black Bear Gang's leader ramming the door.

The leader was named Relid. Before being selected as a prospective apprentice, he had been the son of a gang boss in the Brugmansia Territory of the Kingdom of the Golden Flower.

Relid had been born with an excellent physique and possessed innate physical advantages. At only twelve, he had become a Knight Aspirant, and by fifteen, he had already brushed against the threshold of knighthood.

If he had continued training like this, Relid would have become an Official Knight within five years. With another decade or so of training, he might very well have become a Senior Knight while still in his thirties.

A Senior Knight at that age would have been considered a genius even in the Kingdom of the Golden Flower.

By then, the king would have granted him a title, and nobles seeking marriage alliances would have trampled the carpets in Relid's home flat.

But Relid had been selected.

A wizard's will could not be defied. Forget the son of a gang boss—even if he had been a prince, he would still have had to obediently become a Wizard Apprentice.

Relid's father had lamented his fate, but Relid himself did not see it that way.

When he saw the king and a host of nobles lowering their brows and bowing their heads before the wizard during the testing ceremony, a flame rose within his heart.

A flame called ambition.

He wanted to become a wizard and command that extraordinary power.

After boarding the airship, Relid, the gang prince, quickly discovered that the wizards did not care what he did. They only cared whether the apprentices could survive until the examination.

Once he confirmed this, he swiftly gathered a crowd of lackeys beneath him and began his brutal rule.

Anything he set his eyes on would end up in his hands; anyone he set his eyes on would end up in his bed.

Many nobles were deeply disgusted by his behavior, yet not a single one stepped forward to stop him.

Aside from the fact that Relid did not provoke the nobles, the most important reason was that he was a Knight Aspirant.

No noble would clash with a Knight Aspirant for the sake of common trash.

Bang!

Bang!

Relid slammed into the door with a feral grin. He had not yet seen the woman inside; she was probably still a virgin.

At the thought that he would be able to taste such a delectable sweet once he broke down the door, he felt his blood begin to boil.

But as he kept ramming it, a figure suddenly appeared at the edge of his vision.

The person looked somewhat frail and was not very tall. Beneath a head of black hair was a handsome yet somewhat sickly face.

Gulp.

Redley abruptly stopped ramming the door.

"You lot, ram it," he ordered several underlings as he turned around.

Richard watched Relid suddenly stop, and an inexplicable chill crawled through his heart.

It seemed something revolting was about to happen.

"Little beauty, were you among the last batch to come aboard?"

Relid looked at Richard with lecherous eyes, his scarlet tongue unconsciously licking his lips.

Not only was he lustful, he enjoyed both men and women.

And someone like Richard was exactly to his taste.

Richard looked behind himself, but there was no one there.

It seemed Relid really was talking about him.

Then there was nothing more to say.

Richard turned his head woodenly, his expression darkening.

Anger mingled with disgust surged into his heart.

"Die!"

Richard raised his hand impassively. Magic power gathered at his fingertips, transforming into a streak of deep-blue light that shot forth and struck Relid in the chest like a meteor.

Zero-Ring Spell: Magic Missile

In that instant, Relid felt as though an Official Knight had smashed him in the chest with a warhammer. His entire body was sent flying, his face twisted in pain and savagery.

"Wizard! A wizard!"

The underlings beside him were terrified by the scene and hurriedly retreated, but how could Richard let them off?

"You're no different!"

With a cold face, Richard fired streak after streak of deep-blue light from his fingertips, each one accurately landing on an underling.

These lackeys were even weaker than Relid, so naturally they could not evade the missiles. One after another, they collapsed to the floor, groaning without end.

Fortunately, Richard had not been blinded by rage. Every missile had been aimed at the lackeys' legs.

As long as nobody died, everything could be worked out.

Richard stepped forward slowly, blue light flickering at his fingertips.

At that moment, Richard was like a judge of hell walking among mortals, about to use those ghostly blue missiles to pass judgment on the sins of this world.

One step, two steps, three steps.

At last, Relid, who had been lying there pretending to be dead after being sent flying, could no longer keep up the act. Scrambling to his feet, he fled toward the other end of the airship.

"Wizard! Great Wizard! Someone wants to—"

Before he could finish, a Magic Missile landed right between his legs.

In that instant, it seemed as though the sound of an egg cracking rang through the air.

Under that agonizing pain, Relid's eyes rolled back, and he fainted on the spot.

But Richard still wasn't satisfied. The nausea, like he had swallowed a fly, lingered in his chest and refused to go away.

So he strode over to Relid and viciously stomped on him twice.

"Die, you fucking queer. Die, you fucking queer. You crashed into my door, bullied my roommate, and you fucking dared to set your sights on me too..."

"Richard!"

Richard turned around and saw Ellie staring blankly at him.

"Oh, Ellie. Are you okay?"

Richard greeted her as naturally as ever, then wiped the blood off the soles of his shoes on Relid's body.

"You did all this?"

Ellie looked at the scene before her. Relid, who had committed every evil under the sun, had actually been beaten down.

And Richard—the Richard who had been with her all these days—had done it all.

An absurd feeling rose in Ellie's heart, making her feel as though she were dreaming.

When had he constructed Mana Circulation?

The wizard assigned to inspect the airship arrived late. At the same time, the nobles in the Observation Cabin were drawn out by the cries of the Black Bear Gang lackeys, and one after another, they came out to watch the show.

"My heavens, that commoner actually defeated Relid."

"Relid is a Knight Aspirant! Even among us, he's considered formidable!"

"Does that commoner have a magical item? But without Magic Stones, magical items can't be used."

"Could he have already established Mana Circulation and become an official Wizard Apprentice?"

"How is that possible? How could a commoner advance so quickly?!"

The nobles' whispered conversations reached Richard's ears. Setting aside their contempt and shock, the matter of magical items powered by Magic Stones instantly caught his attention.

Magical items? Richard silently committed the information to memory. It might concern his safety in the entrance examination, so he had to treat it with caution.

Before long, a wizard appeared from the other end of the airship and arrived at the scene, fashionably late.

She was a female wizard, apparently in her thirties. Her appearance was rather ordinary, and there seemed to be no mutations on her body... except that the palms of both hands each bore a mouth filled with sharp teeth.

After examining the situation, the wizard left the few men where they were and walked straight over to Richard.

"I'm Billiana. Who did this?"

Seeing this, Ellie immediately tried to speak up for Richard.

"Great Wizard, these people tried to force their way into our room, so—"

But Richard cut her off before she could finish.

"Great Wizard, I don't know who did this either. When I got here, they were already lying on the ground."

Richard looked at Billiana and spoke with complete composure, as though their injuries truly had nothing to do with him.

Billiana gave him a long look, a faint smile appearing at the corner of her mouth.

"Very good. It seems a kind-hearted ghost helped me teach these little punks a lesson. Though it was a bit heavy-handed. If it gets caught, it'll probably be punished."

With that, Billiana patted Richard on the shoulder, then used Levitation to control the people on the ground and take them away from the scene.

Ellie stood beside him, staring at everything in utter disbelief.

"Richard, how could you dare..."

Ellie clutched her chest. She could feel her heart pounding wildly.

Deceiving a wizard—what outrageous audacity that was. Yet Richard had not only done it, but done it so clumsily.

But why had the wizard believed him?

Ellie's mind turned to mush for a moment. It was only when Richard pulled her into the room that she came back to herself.

"Richard, what was that just now?"

Richard sat on a stool, a glint of wisdom flashing in his eyes.

"Ellie, this is how the wizards' game works. On this airship, a wizard's rules are an untouchable red line for people like us. But to wizards, they might just be rules casually decided over a meal by a few people."

"Although I broke the rules just now, Wizard Billiana, who came to inspect the situation, thought I had done very well.

"She didn't want to punish me.

"That was why she asked that question."

Ellie murmured, "Who did all this? There was no way she couldn't tell who had done it, but if the rules were nothing more than wastepaper to her, why did she still ask?"

Richard smiled, a fleeting flash of self-mockery crossing his face.

"Because there isn't only one wizard on the airship. She needed a reason to give the other wizards an explanation.

"Even if that reason was utterly absurd."

To wizards, a badly injured apprentice deserved nothing more than an absurd reason.