Magic Academy's Genius Blinker Chapter 530: Stella (3)

The anticipation passed in no time.

Sealed away for over 500 years, any period shorter than a month seemed like a mere instant in Scarlet’s eternal existence.

Just the briefest wink, a split second that vanished the instant her eyelids fluttered.

"Ah... This is suffocating."

Why did each second drag on so torturously? She had survived far longer, yet now time crawled at an unbearable pace.

Before this, endless years had flowed by without stirring any special feelings about time’s rhythm.

A year gone by, and she’d merely noted another year older. A decade vanished, and she figured the world had shifted slightly.

Yet now, why did time’s creep inflict such deep agony?

Scarlet found that saying rang utterly true and etched it into the void before her.

"Ha..."

Her plight struck her as utterly wretched.

Sprawled flat on the floor, Scarlet gazed vacantly at the ceiling with empty eyes, silently tallying numbers in her mind.

One, two, three...

It wasn’t deliberate.

Pure instinct drove her.

Every instant, she caught herself obsessively marking time’s flow.

"Argh!"

She thrashed her head wildly to shake off the constant time-tracking, but her sharp witch senses captured its march no matter her efforts.

Covering her face with both hands, Scarlet heaved a heavy sigh.

She could be stuck here for hundreds more years, and wasting energy on such petty worries wouldn’t do.

Still, her sharp intellect couldn’t banish the past. Without willfully burying memories deep down, they kept bubbling up, tormenting her despite desperate suppression.

Scarlet had always sealed away myriad memories on purpose before, but now it proved far tougher.

Memories weren’t tangible items to grasp or discard. Not even a mighty witch like her could will away such intense, heartfelt recollections.

Deliberately erasing a memory was futile—you had to summon it first to verify its loss, dooming the effort from the start.

For Scarlet, facing this hurdle for the first time, it felt utterly disorienting.

A witch capable of realizing any vision at last conceded—

Countless feats lay beyond even her grasp.

Those fleeting instants with Baek Yu-Seol etched memories she’d carry forever.

They’d probably haunt her eternally.

Time with Baek Yu-Seol shone as the most brilliant highlights in her dim, prolonged existence. So vivid, just thinking of them welled tears in her eyes.

The Witch Queen, Scarlet.

Poor, miserable Scarlet.

Once dubbed the Blood Witch, she’d never erase these recollections. Even after centuries, upon reemerging into the world—

Should Baek Yu-Seol be gone from it, life’s glow and splendor would dim forever compared to now.

For the first time, she’d grasped true joy and bliss in living.

She’d discovered it far too late.

Only now did she see those six months brimmed with happiness.

Back then, she hadn’t truly relished it, and only in its absence did its worth dawn on her.

How could a single woman prove so foolish and lamentable?

She’d let slip life’s very first joy without fully seizing it—a bitter twist of fate.

Overwhelmed by self-loathing, Scarlet raised her head to stare at the heavens.

Where lay the skies, and where the ground?

Leaning back against the bed, Scarlet let long-buried memories flood back.

Hers had been a existence stained by endless sins.

Despite godlike powers, she’d never dreamed of reshaping the world, pursuing only selfish gains instead.

Vast riches, soaring renown, unmatched might.

Desires common to all mirrored what the Witch Queen Scarlet craved.

Labeled a ’sage’ by some for her deep magical prowess, but how could that fit?

She’d stayed shackled to base human limits.

Her immense strength led her to scorn the frail. She spurned pleas for aid with icy disdain. She ignored myriad wars, fatalities, and catastrophes she could’ve ended in moments, brushing them off as trifles.

Countless deaths from her apathy defied tallying. Blood from her indifference could drown seas.

Strangely enough,

Across nearly a millennium, such reflections had never crossed her mind.

Standing atop the world's highest peak, why had she failed to grow even stronger? Why couldn't she surpass her own emotions?

One after another, the answers now revealed themselves to her.

Scarlet pressed her index finger against her temple.

Pain surged through it.

Recollections of her grave sins and the lives extinguished by her apathy tormented her without cease.

Memories of those six months filled with bliss now overwhelmed her mind.

That explained the excruciating pain.

Eternally bound in an endless loop of memories, forbidden from advancing, if this served as heavenly retribution, then she merited receiving it.

Nevertheless, dread seized Scarlet.

Fear clutched her tightly.

She sensed she might not withstand it.

Wipe away every memory.

Clenching her eyes shut, Scarlet strained to muster the final flickers of her mana. Yet, predictably, it failed.

Regardless of how relentlessly the myriad agonizing memories assailed her, a single radiant recollection had infused her life with profound purpose. How could she possibly delete it?

No means existed to erase only chosen memories. It was complete oblivion or total recall... nothing in between.

Scarlet remained seated, finger to her temple, deep in contemplation. But even wrestling with this decision struck her as spineless, bringing tears brimming to her eyes.

Why had one wielding such colossal power chosen a existence shrouded in secrecy?

And why was she attempting to flee once more?

No individual in this realm outmatched her might, yet myriad people boasted wills vastly superior to her own.

At last, she grasped it—

She amounted to little more than a craven weakling, utterly ordinary. Talent in magic conferred no true greatness.

As that revelation washed over her, an odd sense of relief lightened her burden. Scarlet allowed her arm to fall limply beside her.

"Haah..."

A profound sigh rose from her depths, while the gathered tears spilled soundlessly down her cheeks.

She resolved to embrace her chastisement.

After sampling that ephemeral bliss, she swore off demanding anything further.

Her life brimmed with innumerable misdeeds.

Even bereft of such joy henceforth, she would shoulder the torment each day and persist in existence.

Choosing to surrender it all, Scarlet clamped her eyes tight and tucked her face into her knees.

In that realm, she could perhaps eternally replay that singular instant.

If misfortune befell her, harrowing memories might surge back, yet if fortune smiled—

She might relive the delight of those times anew.

"Why are you crying like that?"

As these notions swirled and she willed herself into slumber, a voice abruptly pierced the silence.

Her heart plunged.

For an instant, 'hope' glimmered in her vision, but Scarlet harnessed her superhuman resolve to quell her impulses.

She knew full well. She comprehended perfectly.

This voice did not belong to Baek Yu-Seol.

No mortal could have penetrated this domain. Not even witch hunters wielding authority beyond worldly bounds had ever breached it.

Despair's sting after clutching vain hope eclipsed the ache of initial surrender.

The entity confining her here mastered the art of her deepest torment.

Precisely when she steeled herself to bear her penalty amid the suffering, it dangled a shard of fabricated hope to intensify her agony.

"Be quiet."

"'Be quiet'? That's so harsh."

"You... you’re just an illusion created by my desperate longing... You tried to torment me, but it’s pointless. I... I..."

With her face still nestled in her knees, Scarlet wrenched out the reluctant words.

"I am the Witch Queen..."

No reply followed.

Expectedly so.

Could a paltry phantom truly fracture the Witch Queen's indomitable spirit? Scarlet kept her head lowered, opting to endure in silence.

Endure? For what...?

Despite the moment when a retort seemed due, the voice failed to reemerge.

True enough, it had been mere fancy.

The very instant she nearly embraced that conviction—

"Scarlet."

"Have you ever heard of a hallucination equipped with the latest system for holding a proper conversation?"

"...What?"

Her heartbeat accelerated once again.

That inflection, those rough analogies, that vexingly recognizable timbre—

It all screamed Baek Yu-Seol.

"I’ve never heard of one. But I guess someone as amazing as the Witch Queen would know about such things, huh?"

Indisputably Baek Yu-Seol.

By the time Scarlet acknowledged it, her head had already risen.

However, Baek Yu-Seol eluded her sight.

Not owing to his nonexistence.

Tears flooded her blurry vision, cascading wildly from her eyes down her face, rendering sight impossible.

Still, through the misty veil, his form stood out clearly.

Baek Yu-Seol drew near with his typical relaxed gait and reached out his hand to her.

Her tears began to fade, letting her eyesight clear as his face came into sharp focus directly before her.

"You... you... how...?"

"Wow, what a nice place. The interior design is so minimalist... so minimalist there’s literally nothing here. At least there’s no dust to clean up. What’s this? Did you buy that table from IKEA?"

Not one word he uttered registered with her.

Nevertheless...

Her thoughts came to a total standstill.

Thinking was beyond her.

An utter fool—that’s what she felt like.

Scarlet, always considering herself clever, had at times pondered the inner world of fools going about their days.

Now she comprehended it fully.

This was the feeling of sheer idiocy.

Something hovered on her tongue, yet no words would form.

Her face froze; she had no clue what expression to show.

Thus, Scarlet devolved into a true fool.

"Ha... hahaha..."

Foolish laughter bubbled from her.

Tears flowed down her cheeks while Scarlet broke into mad giggles. Baek Yu-Seol shot her a bewildered glance, the sort reserved for bizarre behavior.

"What’s wrong? You’ll grow hair on your butt if you keep that up."

"I..."

"You look a little older up close than I thought, but you still look like a high schooler. You’d have no problem going back to Stella."

"St... Stella..."

"Yeah, Stella. How many days have you been skipping without notice now?"

"Going back to Stella... that’s... impossible."

She’d believed returning was out of the question forever, yet Baek Yu-Seol, utterly unfazed, seized her hand and yanked her upright.

Partway held in his embrace, Scarlet peered up at him through vacant eyes. That familiar cocky grin played on his lips as always while he continued speaking.

"How much longer are you planning to stay cooped up here? We’ve got to get back to that miserable school."

As his words flowed on, Scarlet kept weeping and cackling idiotically, causing Baek Yu-Seol to mutter in astonishment.

"Why are you so happy? It’s not even that fun."

"I... I know."

"You’ll have to sit through those boring lectures again, and when the professors lose their temper like last time, you’ll have to swallow your pride and deal with it."

"I know..."

"And when those little punks start acting cocky, you’ll have to bite your tongue and put up with it. It’s going to piss you off, isn’t it?"

"Of course..."

"And you won’t even be able to go out whenever you want. The girls’ dorm supervisor is especially strict about curfews."

All of it was already clear to her.

Yet still—

"So what? What’s the problem with any of that...?"

Scarlet clutched the edge of Baek Yu-Seol’s garment with fierce determination, as though she’d never release it again.

Finally, she let out the words she’d bottled up for so long.

"As long as you’re there."