After finishing all the duels I had to fight today, I briefly considered going home but decided to stay and watch Rena’s duel.

I moved to the spectator seats and was looking for a suitable place to sit.

My criteria for choosing a seat were a bit picky.

First, I dislike places where sunlight reaches.

It’s a characteristic of my race.

It’s not like I’d burst into flames or be harmed by sunlight like in fairy tales, but I just didn’t like it because it made me uncomfortable.

I also dislike noisy places.

My ears are better than the average person’s.

Crowded, bustling places were mentally taxing.

The place I found that met these conditions was where I had been sitting initially.

There wasn’t anywhere else that met my criteria.

“……”

But I didn’t want to sit next to Albert.

It wasn’t that I disliked him from the start, but I had a physiological aversion to people whose main job was hunting monsters.

It’s the same principle as humans instinctively avoiding killers.

Having no other choice, I decided to stand and watch.

In the current scene of the dueling arena, I could see Rena and a girl with blue hair.

I believe her name was Wendy.

It was my first time seeing her in person, but I had seen her in Rena’s memories.

It didn’t seem like their relationship had ended well.

-There’s a duel I must win.

Knowing Rena’s past, I could guess the meaning of those words.

Rena seemed to want to hide it as an embarrassing past, but I knew even without her saying anything.

It was unavoidable.

I could glimpse memories just by making eye contact.

If someone asked who I would know the most about, it would naturally be her.

But I wasn’t completely oblivious, so I pretended not to know.

From my perspective, unable to understand human emotions, it didn’t seem like a big deal, but Rena herself appeared to want to hide it.

***

Magic that exceeds a mage’s capacity soon returns to oneself.

Resistance to magic grows as the total amount of magical energy increases.

Even if you increase the power of magic, your resistance offsets the damage that would return to you – that’s the principle.

So what happens if you hold magic with power far surpassing the caster’s resistance?

The answer was simple.

It exhausts the caster’s body before reaching the opponent.

It burns your own body before burning the opponent.

Rena was the same.

The way she increased the power of her magic wasn’t normal.

She layered spell upon spell, overlapping them.

She poured in double the mana, offering it as a sacrifice.

A mere student mimicked the power of a first-class mage for a moment through this shortcut.

Of course, since Rena herself wasn’t yet capable of handling this, she had to endure the pain of her body burning.

That’s why she’s crazy.

“What a madwoman.”

Wendy was shocked by the firepower that far exceeded the student level.

Rena leaped using physical enhancement with magical energy.

Speed was added to the overwhelming firepower.

In a situation like Rena’s current state, where her whole body was burning, directly contacting the opponent was more efficient than releasing flames from a distance.

There’s less loss of magical energy, and the heat of the flames can pressure the opponent just by approaching.

Rena threw a punch wrapped in flames towards Wendy.

It can’t be blocked with ordinary magic.

To defend, Wendy also had to use mana.

There was no time to think about efficiency.

At least if she wanted to live.

“Freeze!”

Wendy raised a huge wall of ice to block.

Fire and ice are opposing elements.

Fire melts ice, so Wendy’s ice spears couldn’t reach Rena. Conversely, the cold could neutralize her flames.

They could nullify each other’s attacks.

So Wendy scattered ice around to extinguish Rena’s flames.

But.

-Whoosh!

If the difference in firepower was this great, even that was impossible.

Rena’s flames devoured Wendy’s ice.

The fire and ice frost clashed in the middle, creating a large amount of steam as they neutralized each other.

White smoke spread like fog, making it difficult to see.

Wendy’s ice melted, but Rena’s flames showed no signs of diminishing.

Instead, they burned even larger.

“You crazy bitch! How much magical energy are you using?!”

Just standing in Rena’s presence made it hard to breathe, and it felt like one’s whole body would be burned.

Wendy swung an ice sword towards Rena.

But it didn’t cut.

It melted before it could slice through flesh.

Wendy extended ice spears towards Rena as she took another step closer.

But they didn’t pierce.

Not even the droplets of ice reached her.

Flames burst from Rena, devouring everything in its way.

“Ugh!”

Wendy barely dodged by turning her body, but she couldn’t avoid the heat that followed the flames.

It was hot.

Extremely so.

She needed to create distance first.

But Rena didn’t allow that.

The flames burning around her moved like living creatures, pressuring Wendy.

They blocked her path.

Wendy’s legs gave out, and she collapsed on the spot.

“Ugh, shit……”

“……”

Rena approached Wendy and looked down at her.

The gaze looking down at her from within the flames resembled someone.

It was the type of eyes Wendy hated.

Rena’s eyes now resembled Iria’s.

‘These crazy bitches, they hang out together, and now they’re both acting insane.’

Wendy thought this as she bit her lip.

“Don’t look at me with those eyes!!”

Wendy’s emotions surged at that moment, and her mana burst out.

It was an action driven by emotion rather than reason.

Since it didn’t come out in the form of a spell, the loss of magical energy was extreme.

A large amount of magical energy burst from the flood of emotions instantly froze and spread out.

The icy thorns pierced Rena’s skin.

Although it didn’t go through the form of a spell, the amount of magical energy contained was enormous, so it made contact.

Of course, even that melted quickly, but it was enough to bind her movement.

Wendy retreated once again in the opening created, putting distance between them.

In the process of retreating, her body’s balance tilted slightly.

Her breathing was rapid.

“Huff, haa……”

Even for Wendy, whose total magical energy was at the top of the first year, the consumption was dangerous.

She felt slightly dizzy due to the large amount that had burst.

Then is Rena, who is burning a vast amount of magical energy in real time, okay?

Wondering how she could do that, Wendy turned her gaze to Rena.

And twisted the corners of her mouth.

‘Of course.’

As expected, Rena’s condition wasn’t good.

Her complexion was pale, and parts of her skin and the hand holding the flames were tinged purple.

As expected.

There was no way her body could be fine while releasing such flames.

Rena’s body was already close to its limit.

She was standing in the arena while pushing her body, which was nearing its limit.

She had endured for a long time.

But now it was time to end this.

Wendy took a deep breath.

“… You’re not the only one who can raise output.”

She wasn’t one to stay stagnant.

Like Rena had done before, Wendy concentrated all the magical energy in her body to a single point.

There was no space to retreat anymore.

If she went back any further, it would be out of bounds.

So she put everything into one attack.

Wendy wrapped her hand in ice at maximum output.

Magic that exceeds the caster’s capacity soon returns to oneself.

For a moment, she felt a cold that seemed like it would freeze her heart, but her opponent was likely in a similar condition.

Wendy, with half her body frozen, stood in front of Rena.

Thus, the two prepared their final blow containing everything they had.

***

The duel that Wendy had turned into a war of attrition now changed into a single clash of firepower.

It had to be this way because Rena had led it to this.

She had driven her to the edge of the arena.

Cornered to the end, Wendy would try to withstand it with all her strength.

So that’s when it had to end.

If fire was an element focused on attack, ice was effective for defense.

A huge ice wall blocked Rena’s path as she leaped wrapped in flames.

It was Wendy’s final burst of cold.

She had to break through that now.

-Sizzle!

The thick ice wall covered the flames.

The opposing forces met in the middle and neutralized each other.

The temperature of the flames began to drop rapidly.

Her eyes stung from the large amount of steam.

Her body was hot like a fireball, and her skin was turning purple from the symptoms of magical energy exhaustion.

But if she didn’t do this, she couldn’t win.

Unlike in the past, Wendy had grown stronger than her.

She had a reason why she had to win, even if it meant pushing herself.

For her, Wendy was an illusion of the past.

She overlapped with her past self.

For her, Wendy was like a mirror reflecting the past.

Rena stood here to face her past.

It was quite a painful process.

-Whoosh!

The flames melt the ice.

The ice cools the flames.

But this time, the heat of the flames was stronger than the cold of the ice.

Even if Wendy had grown, she couldn’t match Rena’s firepower since the past.

More wouldn’t be any different.

“Ugh?!”

Only after breaking through all the ice did Wendy’s figure come into view.

After that, Rena threw a punch to finish it.

The heat around her fist had long disappeared.

With a light impact, Wendy was pushed back.

Wendy, pushed back a few steps from that spot, was out of the arena’s bounds,

And both collapsed from mana exhaustion.