Magical User Aozaki Aoko Case Files Chapter 015

What exactly is the Root?

According to mages, the Root is the cause of all things, the so-called First Mover.

If you were to ask Aozaki Touko, she would say the Root is the Akashic Records she pursues.

From Aoko’s own understanding, the Root is ultimate knowledge. Because no matter what you want to know, as long as you can find the origin of that question within the Root, you can immediately derive the answered “effect” from that “cause.” It is the strongest encyclopedia in this world.

Everything is here, and yet nothing is.

Aoko felt her “self” continuously melting. In this ultimate void, she felt nothing, yet seemed to know everything.

Her pain was gone, her wounds were gone, because her shattered body existed between presence and absence.

Aoko desperately wanted to fall into a deep sleep, but a voice deep inside her told her she absolutely couldn’t.

Normally, if a mage reached the Root, their self would instantly be overwhelmed by the Root’s infinite causes, leading to instant assimilation and disappearance. However, something not originating from the Swirl of the Root was undoubtedly mixed within the concept of Aozaki Aoko, this “human.”

And it was this unknown component that firmly maintained her self, allowing her to remain alive within the [].

And as long as she continued to “live,” the “rewards” she took from the Swirl of the Root would only increase…

What did Aoko want again? She couldn’t quite remember… In her daze, Aoko seemed to see the Aozaki family’s magic crest, and also seemed to recall the Fifth Magic her grandfather once cast upon that door…

Magic…

That’s right, she was a Magician.

Aozaki Aoko immediately woke up, instantly gaining a form within the Swirl of the Root.

She immediately touched her wounds, but only felt smooth skin; the wounds had vanished as if they had never existed. Aoko wanted to see something, but saw nothing as if blind, yet also seemed to see everything.

I need clothes, Aoko thought.

The next moment, Aoko’s previous clothes reappeared on her.

Aoko immediately understood the mechanism here. She began to fully operate her magic crest, demanding all knowledge of the Fifth Magic from the [].

Perhaps it was her escape from the hallucinatory state in this chaos, but Aoko immediately felt a strong repulsion. It seemed the Swirl of the Root did not permit such a strong self to exist.

However, Aoko had already begun to absorb the mysteries of the Fifth Magic. She had to master the complete magic, surpassing her grandfather’s, before she was completely stripped from the Root!

As Aoko “questioned” with all her might, the magic crest, which had originally only existed on Aoko’s right arm, now spread to her entire left arm. Moreover, the magic crest on her right arm also became denser, and the glowing patterns became even more bizarre.

The excruciating pain of etched nerves occurred on Aoko’s arms, yet Aoko paid no attention to it. She only wanted to laugh out loud now, and she did.

The Fifth Magic crest covered her arms and began to spread to Aoko’s back. However, just as the crests extending from her arms connected on her back, the wildly laughing Aoko was ejected.

“Ouch!”

Aoko landed on her butt. She rubbed the part of her spine that had been broken by the Killer of Primates, finding it perfectly intact. All her other wounds had also disappeared, as if she had never been injured.

Aoko stood up again, patted her hands. Then she looked around, finding herself in the same cave as before, but the stinky dog that had severely injured her was gone.

She felt at her waist; her casting material pouch was still there, and the casting materials inside had inexplicably been replenished.

Her spellbook was also still there. She remembered something, opened the book, and checked the location of the few scroll pages she had used. She found that the used scroll pages had been restored, but the spells on the scrolls were gone.

Aoko seemed to understand something. She closed her eyes and felt inward. Her body was now excessively healthy, even stronger than before she entered the cave.

The magic net fragments were still there, Aoko exhaled.

As she lowered her head, Aoko’s hair fell down. Aoko grabbed her long hair and looked at it, realizing her hair had turned a fiery red.

Why was this? Some side effect of the Fifth Magic?

Aoko recalled that in her “previous life” memories, Aozaki Aoko in the original timeline also had red hair after activating the Fifth Magic. But now her hair remained red even in its normal state. Perhaps this was a sign that she had fully mastered the magic?

These were all trivial matters, Aoko thought confidently.

She looked back, and the entrance to the [] that had been there was gone. This was merely the end of an ordinary rock cave.

Grandfather wouldn’t blame me, would he? Aoko thought guiltily. Making the entrance to the Root disappear—surely all mages in this world would want to kill her as quickly as possible, right?

But it didn’t matter, Aoko thought confidently. The number of mages in this world who could threaten her now was no more than five.

She walked out of the cave with light steps, unaware that every time she walked a certain distance forward, a section of the cave behind her disappeared.

When Aoko returned to her grandfather’s basement workshop, and looked back again, the cave had completely vanished.

Perhaps it’s like a loophole in the world, Aoko sighed. Now that grandfather was gone and the Root’s cave had disappeared, was she considered a prodigal daughter?

But she had already obtained the complete Fifth Magic, and even formed this magic into a complete Law Crest. That should count as bringing glory to her ancestors, right?

Thinking this, the newly born Fifth Magician Aozaki Aoko no longer felt guilty. She hummed a popular song that hadn’t yet appeared in this era, “cleaning” her grandfather’s magic workshop.

Since the old geezer wasn’t around, it would be a shame to leave these inheritances in this gloomy basement. Aoko, without any guilt, packed up all the remaining books and various Mystic Codes from her grandfather’s workshop, intending to dig another basement in her and Touko’s villa to store them…

Huh? Aoko frowned in thought, was something wrong…?

Well, never mind. Don’t think so much at a time like this. Aoko happily identified the functions of her grandfather’s various magical inheritances, piling them categorized in the center of the room, waiting for the right time to call a car to transport them all away…

—Dividing Line—

“Hey, Touko,” a cute ‘little boy’ with golden hair walked beside Touko and asked, “Is your sister very strong?”

“She’s someone who inherited the Fifth Magic Crest,” Touko said as she walked. “And she also has some strange and rare magic, so of course she’s strong.”

“Then will we win?” the blond boy asked. “Will you win, Touko?”

“We will win.”

Touko said with a firm and certain tone, as if something had already been accomplished.

A confident, slight smile appeared on her beautiful face. Touko looked straight ahead, as if she could already see her sister, who, having only recently inherited the magic crest, was defeated by her and Beowulf.