Chapter 38
he End of Spring (3)
“Diold!”
Lilliana cried out toward Diold, who had suffered a severe injury in an instant.
He might be a troublesome relative who constantly gave her headaches, but he had never once returned home injured from anywhere.
“Ugh…”
Diold groaned faintly where he had fallen to the ground.
Lilliana was about to rush toward him, but the next shout froze her in place.
“Lil, get back!”
“What—”
She lifted her head.
And there it was—a monster.
A massive creature shaped like a bull glared at her with blood-red eyes and swung a giant axe in her direction.
A direct hit would mean instant death.
Frozen in fear, she didn’t even have time to close her eyes. She simply stared at the minotaur when, suddenly, a massive wall of earth rose up from the ground.
Thud!
That split-second difference saved her life.
As the earthen wall collapsed and a cloud of dust engulfed her, Lilliana quickly pieced together what had happened.
Diold must have used magic.
Monsters could instinctively sense mana.
Which meant the moment he cast the spell, the creature’s attention would have shifted entirely toward him.
Lilliana didn’t call out.
Through the dusty haze, she could see Diold facing off against the minotaur.
“Over here!”
He met the monster with a grim expression.
But there was no way someone like him—who had neglected his training for years due to indoctrination—could defeat a mid-tier monster that even skilled knights struggled against.
“Ugh…!”
Moments later, Diold took a direct hit from the minotaur and groaned through gritted teeth.
If he hadn’t been a geokinetic mage with high defensive ability, that blow would have shattered every bone in his body and killed him outright.
Even so, watching Diold fight with everything he had, Lilliana felt a deep sense of helplessness.
Diold and herself…
She had always thought there wasn’t much difference between them.
She had even imagined that if someone like him wasn’t fit to be crown prince, perhaps she could take the throne herself.
But now?
It was clear—she was nothing but a burden.
Seeing the burning determination in Diold’s red eyes, fighting with all he had despite his limited mana, sapped the strength from her body.
Damn it, damn it, damn it…
What was the duty and right of a royal?
When the entire nation was in danger, she could do nothing.
Knowing it was useless, she still reached out, trying to trace a mana formula in the air.
But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t draw the equation that was burned so vividly into her memory.
Her entire mana circuit thrashed violently.
It was as if her own body was rejecting her—punishing her for trying to use magic without the talent for it—bringing with it a wave of excruciating pain.
Crack.
Her tongue bit down hard, drawing blood, but even that pain was drowned out by the sheer agony wracking her body.
And worse than the pain… was the knowledge that she was leaving everything to Diold while she hid behind him.
Finally, she shouted.
“Diold, get out of the way!”
“Lil?”
“Don’t fight—run, you idiot!”
When Diold started to protest, she yelled through clenched teeth.
“You’re the crown prince! If you die, this country’s future dies with you!”
His eyes wavered at that.
The crown prince’s life was worth far more than that of a mere princess.
If he died, the kingdom would be thrown into chaos. Greedy nobles would scramble to install some distant seventh cousin as a puppet heir.
If that led to civil war, innocent citizens would bleed.
That, she could never allow.
If one of them had to die, it should be her—not Diold.
“But…”
That damn relative.
He must have realized the same thing just now, yet he still lingered like his brain had been rotted away by years of brainwashing.
Or maybe his legs were broken and he simply couldn’t run.
Either way—it didn’t matter.
She pushed her mana to the limit. The power, still trapped within her, thrashed violently.
“The princess’s mana circuit is closed. She has mana, but without an outlet, she cannot cast magic.”
“Can it be opened?”
“The mana circuit is like a blood vessel. Once damaged, it never heals. In the princess’s case… forcing it open would likely kill her.”
That damned cursed constitution.
After hearing the royal court mage’s verdict, Lilliana had given up on magic.
Even if she forced her mana circuit open, she could maybe cast one or two spells—then she’d be dead.
Giving up had been the smart choice.
At least, back then.
But now… things were different.
Yes.
At least, this one time—
She pressed her hands together.
God, I beg you.
I’ve given up my whole life.
So just this once—
Give me the power to save my damn brother.
Like a tidal wave, her mana surged, grinding away at her circuits.
Through bone-breaking agony, a weak point finally shattered.
Mana burst forth from the opening.
Geokinetic Magic, Book 1, Verse 7
Earth Bullet
Of the countless spells in geokinetic magic, this was one of the simplest—something so basic a child could use it to pierce a straw dummy.
But after being sealed for 25 years, the vast mana she had stored turned it into something massive.
BOOM!
A crushing, explosive discharge—so inefficient that any skilled mage would click their tongue.
But the results were undeniable.
“Hah… hah…”
Gasping for breath, Lilliana saw the aftermath of her magic.
The bullet had obliterated the minotaur in one hit, carving a massive trench behind it.
A thick cloud of dust covered the ground.
“Damn…”
Her legs gave out, and she collapsed.
Her broken mana circuit continued to leak life-force-like energy, but she didn’t care.
Covering her eyes with her arm, Lilliana muttered,
“I… I could do it…”
She had done it.
“What was that?”
Cedric, who had been carrying me up the trunk, stopped mid-step at the tremor strong enough to shake the tree.
Izumi, who was leading the way, also tilted his head.
“An earthquake?”
“If it’s an earthquake at a time like this, then it’s the demons’ doing. We need to hurry.”
Cedric was right. The Earth Nation wasn’t a place prone to quakes.
There wasn’t an earthquake in the original story…
If things were already deviating from the original, that was troublesome.
At least until we reached the Celestial Summit, we needed to maintain our information advantage.
A knot of unease formed in my chest.
“Let’s pick up the pace.”
“Yes.”
Even though I was basically baggage, neither of them complained about my urging.
Thanks to that, we soon reached what I had seen in the original story—the “Central” area.
“What the… cyberpunk?”
“This… is something you’d only expect to see in the Principality. I can’t believe there’s a space like this inside a tree.”
“Um… could you describe it for me?”
“Ah.”
Realizing his slip, Cedric began to explain.
“There are these… complicated machines. Um… how should I put it…”
I half-listened to Cedric’s fumbling description.
I could just use clairvoyance to see it for myself—asking had only been to keep up appearances.
It’s definitely an alien space.
If the rest of the Celestial Summit was like a fantasy giant tree, this place was entirely different.
A square room, 20 meters on each side, surrounded by dark steel walls.
Along the walls, large computers lined up in a row—machines about the level of 2nd-generation computers, from the era when circuits shifted from vacuum tubes to transistors.
Naturally, the performance wasn’t great. But in the underdeveloped southern regions of the Eastern Continent, this was technology they couldn’t even dream of.
“It looks like you have to operate those to open the door… but I can’t do this.”
Izumi gave up quickly.
For someone from 21st-century Earth, this antique was so unfamiliar he had no clue how it worked.
“Step aside. Let me try.”
Setting me down carefully, Cedric approached the main board with confidence.
“It’s not a complicated structure.”
To my surprise, he handled the computer with skill.
In the original, Izumi failed to crack the password and just fiddled around until he accidentally opened the way to the core.
The problem was… would we get the same “accidental” success this time?
In the anime, it was pure luck—he just hit buttons at random until it worked.
Better to let the slow but steady approach handle it here. Cedric, as a native of the Western Continent, seemed familiar with the technology of this era.
Good thing.
Honestly, I couldn’t handle it either.
2.5-generation computers? Not my problem.
My major wasn’t computer engineering—it was physics.
I’d sooner build a tokamak for nuclear fusion than try to work this thing.
“…Hmm.”
Carefully working through the problem, Cedric soon groaned. He seemed to have hit a wall.
“What’s wrong?”
“There’s a part that requires using a mana circuit… it’s outside my area of expertise.”
“Can you show me?”
“Of course.”
When I checked the problem, my eyes widened.
This is exactly my specialty.
A lot is happening