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Chapter 170

However, Theta was satisfied with his life.

For him, it was better to live a life of freedom—even if he would eventually starve to death—than to live his entire life as a servant. This was the mindset of every child in the same situation as him.

However, Theta’s life ended in that accident.

“Ugh!” Theta collapsed to the ground. He looked to be about six to seven years old, and he writhed in agony on the floor, with his back twisted at a weird angle.

“How dare an ignorant like you turn down my offer? And so rudely too?”

There was a group of robed individuals standing in front of Theta.

It was easy to surmise that they were mages based on their robes, and they were mages under the royal family of Draia.

“It’s such a bother to be roaming around like this trying to pick someone, and there’s also this beggar—”

“Watch your words,” a middle-aged mage snapped at his companion. “What we are doing is His Majesty’s will.”

“I-I apologize, sir… I didn’t mean it like that.”

“...” The middle-aged mage sighed and said, “The royal mages of Terra do this at least twenty times a year. We barely manage half of that, so you better quit whining.”

“Yes... I\'m sorry.”

“Child.” The middle-aged mage turned to look at Theta. “This relic is far greater than you think. And it’s giving off a response because of you.” He waved a transparent glass rod at Theta’s injured figure, and it started emitting a soft blue glow. The closer the glass rod got to Theta, the higher the intensity of the blue glow. “Do you know what this means? It means you don’t have to scavenge and beg like the children over there. It means that you’ll be above them.”

“...”

“Thousands—no, tens of thousands—of people your age have been tested for mana sensitivity over the last decade, but none of them had a response as deep as yours.”

The middle-aged mage’s words revealed the identity of the odd activity, and it turned out to be a mana sensitivity test. Mana sensitivity wasn’t biased. It didn’t care about economic status or upbringing. A knight could be created by teaching someone swordsmanship, but mages were born rather than made.

Unfortunately, extraordinary mages could only be made if one had extraordinary resources to nurture one. Of course, a nation would be able to easily nurture mages of their own, and it was the reason most nations often dispatched mages to search for talented children to nurture.

“Come with us. We still need to do more tests to confirm things, but if you’re as talented as I think, then you will live an enviable life from now on,” said the middle-aged mage. It seemed that he had long become an expert when it came to the carrot and the stick.

“I—” Theta coughed and bit his bruised lip. He knew that if he followed the middle-aged mage, then there was no way he would ever be hungry again. However, it also meant abandoning his freedom. Moreover…

“Hm?” The middle-aged mage noticed Theta surreptitiously glancing somewhere else. It was only for a split second, but there was no way a mage of his caliber would miss it.

“I see…” the middle-aged mage smiled and asked, “You’re worried about them?”

“...” Theta didn’t say anything in response.

However, Theta’s silence was enough for the middle-aged mage.

“Berkeley.”

“Yes, sir!” responded the young man who stomped on Theta earlier.

“Has the tester responded to any of these children? Even slightly?” asked the middle-aged man while gesturing toward the crowd of orphaned children wearing clothes that couldn’t even be described as clothes anymore with how tattered they looked.

“They’re trash,” replied the young man with a scowl.

“Take out the trash, then,” said the middle-aged mage.

“...!” Theta quivered.

The young man made a sidelong glance at the trembling Theta.

“Right away!”

“N-no!” Theta thrashed violently.

“Emotions are of no use for mages,” said the middle-aged mage with a cold look. “Mages are prepared to sell their souls to demons if that is the price they will have to pay to become an Archmage.”

“I’ll do it! I’ll go with you! Don’t hurt them, please…!”

The children huddled together could hear their conversation, and they started trembling as the young man approached them. The young man made a sidelong glance at Theta and revealed a wide grin.

“It’s too late for you to say anything now. Anyway, we just need to use a memory-erase spell on you later,” said the young man as a brilliant orb of flame manifested over his palm. “Since ancient times, fire is the most destructive attribute, so understandably, fire magic spells are the best spells if you want to cause mass destruction.”

“No, please—no…!”

“Gravity.”

Theta was about to stand up, but the middle-aged man mage cast a spell, making Theta feel as if there was a boulder on his shoulders. It was obvious that the middle-aged man wanted Theta to see what the young man was about to do to the children. Meanwhile, the young man seemed to be taking his sweet time to savor Theta’s shrill screams.

“No…!”

Time seemed to have slowed down as the fireball finally left the young man’s hand and made its way over to the orphaned children. The fireball seemed to be homing in on the children as it never slowed down even as the children started running away.

Amidst the screams of the children and the slowed-down time, Theta blamed himself.

‘If I’d just gone with them, this wouldn’t have happened.’

‘Please… let me rewind time, and I’ll set it right.’

‘I have never asked for anything from you until now, so, please… Please, just give me a miracle this once!’

For some reason, someone seemed to have listened to Theta’s cries.

With a bang, the clouds parted, and the sky seemed to have been split in two.

Theta saw it—a beam of light burned itself into the retina of his eyes.

It was a thunderbolt that was so strong that the adjective ‘overwhelming’ wouldn’t be enough to describe it.

“Thunder Canon.”

Theta’s prayers were answered in an overwhelming fashion.

***

‘Why am I remembering those times?’

Weren’t memories about one’s life supposed to only flash right in front of their eyes when they were on the brink of death?

Yes, that was supposed to be the case, but in the face of Joshua’s lightning, Theta’s brain seemed to have thought that Theta was about to die.

Of course, he didn’t die, so he eventually managed to open his eyes and saw what it meant to be ‘overwhelmed’.

Joshua’s lightning was more dazzling than the thunderbolt of that day, and his lightning vanquished the typhoon that Theta had created, making it seem as if the typhoon didn’t even exist in the first place.

However, the typhoon’s fleeting existence was proven by the fact that the stage they had been standing on had disappeared—replaced by a huge chasm where a shining spear of lightning could be seen.

“This is…” Theta sighed before sardonically, seemingly at himself. “It can’t be Bronto.”

The Primordial Stones were divine artifacts in their own right, but there was no way they could generate this kind of power on their own. This meant that this was only made possible because Joshua Sanders was just that strong.

‘Maybe…’ Theta stared meaningfully at Joshua before saying via voice transmission.

- I’ve changed my mind. Your probability of success. It’s not 0.1%, but rather about five percent, from what I saw just now.

Joshua smiled. It was a massive fifty times increase.

- What an honor.

- Really? You…

Theta stared oddly at Joshua before recalling their conversation back then.

- Why did you abandon your position as a battalion commander and vying for the position of Reinhardt’s King? I don’t get it. It’s such a troublesome position.

At that, Joshua replied without hesitation.

- It’s a matter of principles. And there’s no better way to protect the people I care about.

“...!” Theta\'s eyes widened.

- To protect?

- You may not be able to understand what I’m saying yet.

With that, Joshua turned around.

“I may not understand? What are you talking about?” Theta muttered to himself, “No, I understand it better than anyone else.”

While Theta was mumbling to himself, the host finally appeared in the limelight. He lifted his head and carefully said, “Um, this match…”

“Well, I’m not—” Joshua started.

However, Theta interrupted him. “It’s over. I admit defeat to Joshua Sanders, the representative of the Avalon Empire.”

The huge coliseum immediately went silent at his declaration.

“Then…” the host cleared his throat and swept his gaze across the audience stands before announcing. “Joshua Sanders has emerged victorious in the last match of Group A!”

The host\'s voice loud voice signaled the end of the match between the two youngest Masters—a Mage and a Knight.