Holy power and black magic are polar opposites.

If black magic is fire, then holy power is water.

And right now, holy water was pouring down from the factory ceiling like rain.

"This isn't… this isn't ordinary holy water!"

"The defensive spells aren't holding…!"

"Ughhhhh!"

"No, no… the shield… the shield is breaking!"

"Aaaaaagh!"

"It’s… it’s burning!"

It wasn’t just holy water. Whatever had been done to it, it melted the dark shields the black magicians had conjured in an instant, and then began to burn their bodies as well.

The air filled with a rancid stench as flesh and bone melted away on all sides.

Squelch—

"Ugh!"

Thud—

"Urgh!"

As holy water rained down, Astra had to sense his subordinates being slashed and pierced by the Northern knights with his eyes tightly shut.

"Aaaaargh!"

"Hyaaah!"

Clang! Clang!

Some of his men, using heightened senses from doping, tried to fight their enemies with their eyes closed.

But even with perfect sight, the Northern knights were formidable opponents.

Victory was impossible.

"For honor!"

Crunch!

The Sigma operatives, determined to avoid capture at all costs, bit down hard and chose death over disgrace.

"Using sprinklers like this… how amusing," came a voice.

The mastermind behind this entire tragedy finally revealed himself.

"You… you!"

The blinding flash was gone, but it would still take several seconds for vision to return to normal.

Astra couldn’t wait that long.

‘Over there! That’s where he is!’

Relying solely on sound, Astra pinpointed where Arad was standing.

"Die!"

Capture was no longer an option.

Whoooosh

He hurled his sword with all his might in Arad’s direction.

"Hah!"

"What?!"

The Northern knights, who had been relentlessly cutting down the Sigma agents, let out genuine exclamations of alarm.

Hearing their voices, Astra felt a thrill of vindication.

Soon, the sound of squelch! would follow, and despair would envelop the scene.

Clang!

But the sound that rang out was far from what he had hoped for.

"!!"

Astra snapped his eyes open in shock.

With his vision still blurred, he squinted at the hazy figure before him.

"…!"

He stared, dumbfounded, at the person who had intercepted his final blow.

A woman with white hair and steely gray eyes, standing in front of Arad with a sword in hand.

Whoosh

She had a short pipe clenched in her teeth.

"Ah… it broke," she said, gazing regretfully at the snapped sword she had used to deflect Astra’s attack.

‘No way…’

Astra instinctively knew.

That woman! The one known as Arad’s secretary and lover, Mary, was actually the Northern Grand Duchess!

"Ha… hahaha! So it was her!" he croaked.

Beside Astra, the rasping voice of a black magician echoed.

One of the black magicians who had miraculously survived the holy water deluge, though his entire body was melted beyond recognition, clung to life out of sheer determination.

"Perish! Final curse of vengeance!"

The black magician, a 6th-circle master, unleashed all his remaining power in a desperate spell aimed at Arina.

[Black Infer…]

Bang!

But the black magician’s last-ditch effort failed.

Whoosh

This time, it was Arad who acted.

Standing beside Arina, he raised a strange weapon in his right hand and fired, blowing the black magician’s head apart.

***

Whoo—

I blew into the barrel of the magnum, a gun modeled after Earth’s design, despite there being no smoke since it used magic bullets rather than gunpowder.

Whoo—

I probably did it because Mary, standing right next to me, was puffing away on her mana-infused pipe.

Click, clack

I carefully inspected the magnum I had just used for the first time. It had cost an enormous amount of money and effort to create. Each shot made my heart race, knowing how expensive it was.

‘Reloading a single time consumes a mid-grade mana stone. Damn…’

Each magic bullet I fired had an equivalent cost to launching a Patriot missile on Earth.

“What is that?” Mary asked, her eyes fixed on the magnum in my hand.

“Oh, this? It’s called a magic gun,” I replied.

One of the primary weapons of the Arcane Punk era—magic guns and magic bullets.

Creating one with the current infrastructure was a massive challenge.

But a challenge is not the same as impossibility.

“Do you plan to mass-produce those magic guns? With just this, you could annihilate all the monsters in the North,” Mary said, her eyes sparkling as if she’d completely forgotten how close she had come to dying moments ago.

“They’re expensive,” I said.

“How expensive?” she pressed.

“About the cost of 20 mana potions for one gun, and that doesn’t include the magic bullets.”

“Gasp!”

“Each reload requires replacing a mid-grade mana stone or better.”

Even though the exorbitant cost shocked her, Mary still stared at the magnum with shining eyes.

“Besides, I’m currently the only one who can make them.”

“Can’t you just train people?” she asked, undeterred.

“Well, that’s true. But even if we make more magic guns, not just anyone can use them. At the very least, you need the mana sensitivity of a first-circle mage,” I explained.

In The Age of Silver 1, magic guns were mostly used by low- to mid-tier adventurers or novice mages who could sense mana.

“Why can only those with magic abilities use a magic weapon like this?” Mary asked.

“To put it simply, magic weapons are like a wizard’s staff,” I replied.

“Ah, I see…”

Mary immediately seemed to understand from the simple analogy.

Mana, as I had explained, is heavily influenced by a person’s will and focus. That’s why magic weapons like magic guns or wizard staffs are different from ordinary magical tools.

Precision and concentration are required during aiming and activation. It’s the human equivalent of a safety mechanism on a gun.

“Do you think mass production will be possible someday?” Mary asked.

“Of course.”

“Then that’s good enough. There are plenty of people in the North who can sense mana, even if just a little.”

Despite the explanation about their high cost and limited usability, Mary refused to give up on the idea.

“Mass-producing magic guns might be tough, but crossbows that fire magic-infused bolts can be made right now.”

“Really?” Mary’s face lit up instantly, her wide smile dispelling the tension as if she had never been concerned at all.

‘Mary… Her swordsmanship isn’t ordinary. This isn’t just the skill level of a magic swordsman.’

Watching her, I couldn’t shake the growing sense of unease.

I had assumed she was primarily a mage with some supplemental swordsmanship training, but I was wrong—it was the opposite.

She had stopped Astra’s thrown sword without even using sword energy.

‘Her skills are on par with a high-ranking knight.’

This was no ordinary level of ability.

‘There were always strange things about her.’

In hindsight, Mary’s behavior and speech were closer to that of a knight than a witch or adventurer.

‘What is the truth?’

It had to be one of two possibilities: either Mary wasn’t the Snow Witch I thought I knew, or my knowledge of the Snow Witch from the original timeline was flawed.

‘Hmm… Let’s focus on the matter at hand for now.’

Setting aside my doubts about Mary, I surveyed the intruders before me.

The black magicians had all died, their bodies unrecognizable, as if they had been drenched in acid rain.

The Imperial Sigma operatives had either fallen to our knights or taken their own lives.

All but one.

“Mmmpf! Mmmph!”

One Sigma operative, who had failed to commit suicide, had been subdued.

“Judging by the look of him, he’s probably mid-ranking or higher within Sigma,” I muttered as I approached the middle-aged agent.

‘Huh?’

I stopped in my tracks.

‘What’s he doing?’

The subdued operative seemed to be preparing something.

“Hrnnngh… Hrnnngh…”

The middle-aged Sigma agent, drooling and tearing up, glared at me with a defiant expression that practically screamed, What are you waiting for? Come closer!

“Really, this is exhausting.”

It was obvious he planned to detonate something the moment I got close.

“Everyone, back away! Quickly!” I shouted, aiming my magnum at him.

The knights immediately released him and stepped back.

“Hrnnnnghhh!”

The determined Sigma agent crawled toward me with his bound arms and legs.

Glint, glint, glint

Something began to glow in his grasp as he crawled forward.

‘A magical explosive!’

It was a grenade-like magical device developed by the Mage Tower.

Bang!

My magnum fired its second shot.

Zap, crackle, crackle

While the first shot had been imbued with light energy, this one was imbued with electricity.

“Grrraaaaagh!”

The middle-aged Sigma operative convulsed and burned, eventually succumbing to the electric bullet.

The powerful current from the bullet disabled the magical bomb he had been holding.

***

Everything Was Over.

The black magic plague that had swept through the North was eradicated.

The demonic lair’s assault on Highcastle, as well as the Empire Sigma’s operation, had been thwarted.

And most importantly…

“Huh…? Huh?!”

“The curse… Harlan’s curse?”

The curse of Harlan, which had bound the witches, was lifted.

“Nice! Nice! Academy! Academy!”

Amid the stunned witches, I let out an enthusiastic cheer.

Now, there were no restrictions holding back the witches.

This meant I could freely make use of them to mass-produce magical engineers.

“Are you that happy?”

A soft voice spoke to me from behind.

“Oh! Lady Isabel, are you feeling alright?”

“Thanks to you.”

Isabel, the Grand Witch of Spring, appeared with her pipe clenched between her lips.

Even with the curse lifted, witches’ love for their mana-infused pipes remained steadfast.

“What did you do with Harlan’s remains, the Witch of Chimes?”

“I cremated them. To make sure they can never be used again. The ashes were scattered over the old greenhouse fields.”

Isabel wore a bright, peaceful smile, more serene than I’d ever seen her.

“But… how did you survive?”

I asked a rather direct, borderline impolite question, unable to contain my curiosity.

“My master told me to stay a bit longer. Said there was still much to do…”

A single tear rolled down the cheek of the elderly witch.

“In any case, I’m relieved you’re safe. To have the curse completely lifted from the Grand Witch of Spring and the Northern witches… It’s truly heartwarming! Hahaha!”

I felt euphoric. Everything had concluded positively.

Especially because the annoying restrictions on the witches were finally gone.

Now, I could fully put them to work—no, expand my business ventures without restraint.

“Sir Arad, for the record, I am no longer the Grand Witch of Spring.”

Isabel’s voice was serious as she looked at me intently.

“The Northern witches are no longer witches either.”

“What? Then…?”

“Isabel, the Mage of Spring.”

“…?!”

“And the witches are now the Northern Mages. The Witch Assembly has been reborn as the Renslet Mage Assembly.”

The wind blew.

A transformative wind swept through the North.

The trials had ended, and the North entered winter. This marked the third year since I had arrived in this world.

***

The Continent’s Sky Moves from Winter to Spring.

Though the continent was transitioning from winter to spring, the North and Highcastle remained locked in cold weather.

Still, it was better than the brutal chill of midwinter.

With the crisp air of the season, the Northerners were busy catching up on work they had postponed during the harsher months, barely noticing the cold.

Ding! Ding! Ding!

At the newly established Renslet Academy, long-delayed projects were finally in full swing.

"Alright, take care and see you the day after tomorrow!"

In the classroom, lessons had been ongoing—or rather, had just ended. The chime of the academy’s bell signaling the end of class had just reached the room.

Whoosh—

Mana-infused smoke, wafting from a teacher’s pipe, drifted like logs burning in a hearth, filling the classroom.

Inside, 40 children sat closely together, all dressed in the academy's uniform: sky-blue tops and black bottoms.

“Oh! I almost forgot. I have homework for you all!”

The teacher, who had been about to leave the podium, stopped abruptly as if the thought had just struck her.

“Memorize the rune letters I taught you today by Monday, alright?”

“All… all of them?”

The children’s faces froze at her words.

For context, the students weren’t only attending magic lessons.

They also learned literature, mathematics, and history from a different teacher with a bureaucratic background. In other words, they already had other assignments.

“Yes, all of them.”

“But there are a hundred of them!”

“Arminian runes are relatively simple and don’t have many characters. You shouldn’t find it too difficult already, should you?”

The female mage, puffing away on her mana pipe, smiled as she looked at the children.

“And just so you know, I’ve gone easy on you. When I was your age, I had to memorize all of these in half a day.”

Back when teaching followed the master-apprentice system, lessons were neither this slow nor this forgiving.

If a child wasn’t exceptionally bright, they wouldn’t even be accepted as an apprentice in the first place.

But that era was over.

Now, the former witches, striving to become "ordinary" mages, had to follow the curriculum of the Renslet Mage Assembly and Renslet Academy.

“Of course, you don’t have to memorize them,” the teacher added, almost casually.

“Huh?”

“Yay!”

The children’s faces brightened instantly.

“However,” the teacher continued, her tone slightly mischievous, “if you don’t, your grades might not be so great. All the lessons this semester will be taught in Arminian runes. And poor grades might make your parents a little sad, don’t you think?”

Naturally, the magic teacher didn’t expect all the students in this class to keep up with the lessons.

If four of them managed to stay on track, that would be a success.

“And with poor grades, you won’t have much of a future as a mage or magical engineer—or even as a bureaucrat, for that matter. Oh, but maybe you could become a knight or a priest? They probably don’t need to use runes.”

The goal of Renslet Academy, as envisioned by Arad and Arina, was clear:

From each class, train four advanced magic users, a dozen or so magical engineers of 1-2 circle proficiency, and the rest as capable clerical staff or lower-level bureaucrats.

This vision was the foundation upon which the academy was built.