A wave of despair washed over Elena. After all, she was just a freshman; her Magic Power reserves were nowhere near enough to ignore overwhelming numbers.

"Arthur!! Be careful!!"

Trembling violently, Lilian clung tightly to the hem of Arthur’s robe, shrinking her tiny frame completely behind him.

Even with an A-rank Wind affinity, in the face of this suffocating, blood-soaked slaughter, the girl simply couldn’t summon the courage to cast a single spell.

Just as Elena’s Ice Wall was about to be torn to shreds by the wolf pack...

Arthur, who had been watching coldly, finally let out a sigh.

"Seems like this kind of primitive, brute-force area attack isn’t exactly practical in this world, huh?"

Shaking his head, Arthur withdrew his hand from his warm pocket.

He lengthened his strides, stepping past the petrified Simon and Chloe, past the curled-up Lilian, and walked step by step, unhurriedly, toward the crumbling Ice Wall at the very front.

His steps were so light, as if he wasn’t approaching a feral wolf pack, but simply strolling up to the academy cafeteria’s serving window.

From her peripheral vision, the struggling Elena caught sight of that black figure advancing with leisurely ease.

A flash of shock, instantly melting into pure outrage, crossed her ice-cold eyes.

"Arthur!! Are you insane?!?"

Whirling around, Elena abandoned her usual aloofness, unleashing a sharply scolding roar.

"You’re an F-rank waste with barely enough Magic Power to defend yourself!!"

"Get back and hide behind Lilian’s shield right now!! Don’t come out here and just make things worse!!!"

Even as Elena’s panicked shouts rang out, not a single ripple disturbed Arthur’s expression.

Instead of retreating, he walked straight up to stand beside her.

"Senior, combat isn’t about brute force alone."

Tilting his head, Arthur looked at her flawless face, made heartbreakingly vulnerable by Magic Power exhaustion, and offered a smile that could only be described as gentle.

"Mages fight with their minds."

Without sparing a glance at Elena’s murderous stare, he turned and faced the Ironback Wolves, poised for their final charge.

Crack...!

Elena’s final Ice Wall finally disintegrated into a storm of ice shards under the pack’s relentless impact.

Twenty-plus snarling Ironback Wolves surged forward like a black tide, carrying a thick stench of death, howling as they charged straight for Arthur!!

The closest wolf had already opened a glistening maw, its razor-sharp fangs less than two meters from Arthur’s throat!!

At this critical moment...

Unfazed, Arthur calmly raised his right hand. Index and middle fingers joined, he lightly traced a deeply bizarre rune in the air.

At the exact same moment, a bizarre, guttural single syllable-utterly alien to Elderia’s linguistic roots-twitched from Arthur’s lips.

"Grease."

No wand to channel it. No lengthy, theatrical incantation. Not even a single ripple in the ambient Magic Power.

To the mages watching from the sidelines, it looked like nothing short of a complete farce!!

But the next second, reality bent.

Directly in the wolves’ charging path, a ten-meter square patch of blackened, mud-choked earth suddenly began to glow with a sickly, iridescent sheen.

Thick, viscous, perfectly transparent grease erupted from nowhere, instantly coating the ground in a slippery, glistening layer!!

DND, 1st-Level Spell...[Grease]!!

"Huh??"

The lead wolf’s massive paws had barely touched the oil slick before its traction vanished completely.

Momentum betrayed it. Its heavy body flew into the air, legs splaying out into a mathematically perfect, humiliating split.

Thud!

The lead wolf’s jaw smashed violently against a protruding rock, the sickening crunch of shattered bone echoing through the clearing. Its entire carcass slid outward like a massive bowling ball, tumbling past the rest of the pack.

But it was only the beginning.

The twenty-plus Ironback Wolves behind it, still running at full sprint, couldn’t possibly brake in time. They charged blindly into the slick zone, one after another.

In less than a second, the outer perimeter of the Shadow Forest descended into a grotesquely comedic spectacle of tumbling Magical Beasts.

Some wolves flipped onto their backs, legs kicking frantically in the air like overturned beetles.

Others slammed into their own comrades, tangling into dizzying, fur-clumping knots that spiraled helplessly into a nearby stinking ravine.

One wolf skidded sideways at full velocity, its snout cracking against an ancient oak trunk, instantly rendering it unconscious.

Less than a heartbeat later.

The ferocious, pack-hunting Ironback Wolves that had moments ago radiated pure predatory killing intent were reduced to a writhing, yelping mess of confused, sliding beasts.

From a few yards away, Andrew-who had only just survived his own near-death experience behind that crumbling earth wall-stared blankly. Then, a hysterical, cackling laugh erupted from his throat.

"HAHAHAHA!! Is this some peerless ultimate spell?!?"

Pointing a trembling finger at Arthur, Andrew laughed until tears streaked his face. The near-death experience had only bred arrogance and deep-seated contempt for the commoners.

"You summoned a puddle of slick mud?!? Made the beasts slip?!? THAT’S your so-called combat style?!?!"

"I knew it! Just a worthless F-rank trash, too incompetent to even cast a basic attack spell!!"

"Once they get up, you’ll all be dead-Wait...?!!"

Andrew’s mocking laughter abruptly choked off, like a rubber chicken having its neck snapped.

He saw Arthur slowly reach into his loose sleeves and pull out a small pinch of dark gray bat droppings, plus some yellow sulfur powder.

Arthur pinched the two things between his fingers and gently rubbed them.

His eyes were cold. He looked at them like pigs waiting on a butcher block.

"Young Master Andrew, you really need to read more books."

He didn’t turn around. His voice was full of cold mockery.

"Who told you that low-level spells can’t kill people?"

Arthur squeezed his fingers tight, crushing the powder. At the same time, he spat out a fast, crackling dragon speech spell.

"Fireball!"

A first-level Grease spell plus a third-level Fireball.

In DND wizard classes, they called this combo the "poor man’s thermobaric bomb."

A tiny dark red spark, no bigger than a fingernail, drifted off Arthur’s fingertip.

It drifted slowly through the air and landed right in the middle of the grease slick from the two dozen Ironback Wolves.

The second it hit the ground.

Elena’s pupils snapped tight.

Her S-rank elemental sense slammed a dead-clear warning into her brain. The loudest death alert she’d ever felt.

BOOM...!!!

There was no warning at all.

The moment the spark hit the cross-dimensional grease, it triggered a terrible chain reaction.

A huge orange fireball, bright enough to blind, blew up in the center of the pack.

The blast was deafening. It felt like a god had swung a heavy hammer from the sky.

The insane heat sucked all the oxygen out of the air within twenty meters.

The fire wave rose over thirty feet high and turned the nearby century-old trees to ash in seconds.

"Argh...!!!"

Drenched in grease and blasted by the explosion, the third-rank Ironback Wolves didn’t even get a chance to run.

Their prized steel-like fur caught fire like kindling. They burned up like giant torches.

Their screams lasted less than five seconds.

When the fire turned into a small mushroom cloud and rose up, the whole area went dead silent.

The air reeked of burnt meat. It made people sick.

Where the grease had been, there was now just a huge, black crater. Glassy slag still dripped down the edges.

As for the two dozen third-rank Ironback Wolves, strong enough to match mid-level mages...

...they were completely gone. Not a single whole bone was left. Just black ash on the ground, blowing away in the wind.

Dead silence.

Absolutely quiet.

Kneeling in the mud a few yards away, Andrew’s jaw hung open. He couldn’t hold his bladder. The air around him stank of hot urine. He was completely broken.

Lilian peeked out from behind Arthur. Her golden eyes went wide and blank. Her brain just shut down.

Then there was Elena, standing closest to Arthur.

The S-rank genius girl, the academy’s famous Ice Rose, stood frozen.

She didn’t move. She didn’t even notice her wand fall to the ground.

Her ice-blue eyes locked onto the black crater. Then she looked over at Arthur, casually brushing dust off his hands.

Her lips trembled.

What just happened?

A weird slippery puddle?

Plus a tiny little spark?

Two spells she’d never even heard of. Both had barely any magical energy. Just the lowest beginner tricks.

And together, they wiped out a pack of third-rank magical beasts that had nearly killed her. All at once.

Elena’s whole view of magic just shattered. That lazy black-haired boy had blown it all to pieces.