Chapter 66: “Corona Burn”

I’d like to explain about the magic “Corona Burn” once again. I’ve only used it twice and the first was during that particular Roper battle. The second time was when I used it to offset the weather manipulating magics “Blizzard” and “Tornado” earlier.

“Corona Burn” is the fire attribute’s strongest, a more powerful version of the combustion-type “Burn” magic, should be how I explained it before but to be exact, that’s not completely right.

The thing that burned the Roper’s flesh and offset the giant tornado and blizzard earlier was nothing more than the heatwaves of “Corona Burn”.1 And it was only just for three seconds. The heatwaves alone that existed for that short amount of time already had that much power.

The nature of the magic “Corona Burn” is the condensation of large quantities of magic power to create an artificial sun.2 And while it may be artificial, a phenomenon similar to nuclear fusion3 is occurring inside of it and its temperature likely reaches more than 1,000,000 degrees celsius. The artificial sun itself is practically impossible to use to attack, controlling the heatwaves is the most one can do.

Even I don’t know what will happen if I use the true power of “Corona Burn”. Only that pig god probably knows what would happen if an artificial sun, that takes even me 10 seconds to charge up with magic power, was released without anyone’s control.

Because of that, the instant that thing exited Ada’s hand, I reached out for it without any hesitation.

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「Lily! Lily!」 「… u-… -a……」 「Lily!」

As I opened my eyes, Urania’s face was right before me. Her tear-drenched face reminds me of what happened at the 『Abyssal Forest』 and it’s a bit… painful. I ended up making Urania cry again.

It seems like I’m resting on Urania’s lap4, so I tried getting up for now and pushed my right arm to help lift me off the floor, when I noticed something. My right hand isn’t moving at all.

「…… Say, Urania?」 「What, Lily?」 「I know it’s a weird question, but…… Is my right hand, still there…?5」 「—!!」

From her reaction, I realized what happened. Well, what I did was pretty crazy after all. It’s not just that I can’t move it, but I can’t feel my right hand at all. It feels like there’s nothing from my shoulder and beyond.

I can’t move my neck too much, but since I really need to confirm the situation, I forcibly turn my head.

My right arm is… still there. Just up until the elbow that is. However, even that is burnt into a pure black charcoal and might just crumble away from a simple touch.

「Ahh, this is pretty tough. I was ready for it, but still…」 「Lily…」 「Urania, are you okay? Do you have any burns?」 「I’m alright. It was a little bright, that’s all.」

As she said so, Urania showed a small smile.6 She’s still crying but she probably did so to make me feel relieved. It doesn’t look like she has any injuries, though the black things on her sleeves is likely a result of her attempting to carry me.

「What about Ada?」 「Out of magic power. Don’t worry, she’s unscathed.」

I can feel a slight sting from her tone. It might be from Ada trying to use magic that she can’t control, but I’m sure that it’s because Urania can’t forgive her because I got hurt. Still, if I didn’t stop it, there’s a possibility that not only this mansion but the whole town of Gateskeep will be wiped from the map.

While Ada will probably get a scolding later, she likely won’t wake up today with her magic power exhaustion. Considering her age, she might stay unconscious for a few days.

The “Corona Burn” that Ada cast was in a berserk state, out of control from the moment it was activated. If it wasn’t that hot, I could’ve managed it by creating a large amount of water using 【Dream Fabrication】 but with something hotter than 1,000,000 degrees, even a steam explosion would look cute compared to what would happen.

No matter the cost7, there was a need to remove the magic power from the raging artificial sun, extinguishing the energy sustaining its heat, or else it wouldn’t stop. I’m quite confident with my magic power control. After all, even in my current state, this body that pig god gave me already has high specs in that regard.

Still, the magic I can control from a distance is only my own. It’s pretty obvious but there’s no way magic made by other people would be easy to control. Even still, everybody would die if I didn’t do it, so I was really desperate.

Even if it’s impossible to do from a distance, as long as I can directly touch its magic power, I should be able to pour my own and hijack the control. Thinking so, I extended my arm to directly touch the artificial sun. The moment I touched it, what I felt first was not heat nor pain, but just freezing cold. It was probably because my nerves were burned off before I could touch it or even feel the heat, making me artificially experience the sensation of cold.

The next thing I felt was a tremendous amount of energy. Since Ada can already produce this much magic power at present, there’s no doubt that she’ll be an amazing sorcerer in the future. It was just that tremendous. At the same time, this meant that it would need an equally large quantity of magic power to hijack that energy, so I had a lot of trouble with controlling it.

If not for that, I probably wouldn’t have been injured to this extent. I only did it since I thought it was possible, but it actually wasn’t that difficult to hijack other people’s magic.8 Still, since you’ll need to use more magic power than how much the other party uses to control their magic, it’s just a bit inefficient.

「Urania, would you mind helping me up?」 「Just, sleep for now……」 「No, well, if I do, I won’t be able to do anything else, see.」 「…… Nh.」

Although reluctant, Urania still helped me up. Without my right arm, my sense of balance is out of whack. I just sat up and yet, I was so unsteady that I ended up needing to have Urania to support me.

Thank goodness that I’m a sorcerer. If I happened to be a swordsman or a brawler, I would’ve had no other choice but to retire from adventuring. For now, since I’m scared that keeping my carbonized arm like this might cause some infections, we’ll have to do something about it.

We can get things like bandages, crutches, and wheelchairs from 【Dream Fabrication】 but the problem is the medicine and the likes. There’s no other choice but to rely on magic, but the fact that there’s no specific painkiller magic is another headache. I just hope that there’s morphine in the world or something……