Strategy for Dealing with Problematic Girls Chapter 242 242: I Obtained Ancient Magic

With the first round of commissions behind them, the Gourt Palace was finally finding its rhythm. On Jhin's suggestion, they settled into a seven-day cycle — five days of adventuring, two days of rest — and Pecorine stopped piling on commissions all at once and running everyone ragged.

During one extermination quest against a Golem Giant, they encountered an extraordinarily rare mutant variant. Mutant monsters like this couldn't be assessed using the ordinary creature-ranking system: their post-mutation traits were the polar opposite of their original racial attributes, and their overall stats saw a massive across-the-board boost.

The mutant Golem Giant they faced was a perfect example. Normally, the species boasted sky-high physical resistance — but this one had near-total magic immunity instead. Its physical resistance, on the other hand, had cratered. Even so, with the general stat inflation factored in, Pecorine couldn't put it down with [Princess Assault] alone.

Jhin had no choice but to draw his Void weapon. Working together, the two of them burned through four full ultimate abilities before they finally shattered the monster's core crystal.

The Void Geno's flashy special effects and unique chanics had completely captured gumin's heart, and she'd been pestering Jhin ever since — begging him to try drawing her Void weapon so they could pull off a dazzling dual [Explosion magic] together.

If firing a Void weapon's ultimate didn't still drain his own stamina and energy reserves, Jhin might have actually said yes. But the psychological damage left by four consecutive [Princess Assault]s was still very much with him, and he'd been turning gumin down ever since.

That fight had been the first ti — since his overall physical stats had climbed to D-rank — that his body had been completely hollowed out. It felt like the marrow had been sucked clean from every bone. He'd floated around in that weightless, ghostly haze, half-convinced the next breath might be his last.

"I don't care! I don't care!" gumin thrashed on the floor like an upended turtle, kicking her little legs in every direction, rolling around in a full-blown tantrum. "If Jhin won't use that super cool chest-grab move to pull out my Void weapon, I'm not going on any more quests!"

"Excuse — 'chest-grab move'?! I didn't touch Pecorine's chest at all, I literally passed straight through it!"

"Kyaru's the one who called it that, don't bla !"

Kyaru felt Jhin's pointed gaze swing toward her and her tail went into a panic, thrashing back and forth as she scrambled to explain. "I — I was just genuinely shocked the first ti I saw it, so I blurted that out. I didn't an anything by it."

"Jhin, don't be mad — here, have so baa-baa milk." Pecorine stepped in as peacemaker, handing him the mug painted with chibi versions of the whole group — the one they'd all secretly conspired to have the furniture-shop owner decorate for him.

Jhin drew a slow, deep breath and let it out. The strawberry milk barely managed to bring him back down from the ledge.

Kokkoro did her best to talk gumin around, but gumin wasn't listening to a word of it. The dazzling special effects of a Void weapon had sunk their hooks deep into the heart of this chunnibyou girl — she'd been dreaming about Void weapons every single night lately.

No Void weapon to play with, and I feel like ants are crawling all over !

But no matter how much gumin rolled and writhed across the floor, Jhin remained unmoved. Realizing that approach wasn't going anywhere, she gave up, scrambled to her feet, and darted into her bedroom.

"Huh? What's gumin up to?"

"Who knows."

A mont later, gumin ca sprinting back holding a scroll. She thrust it at Jhin. "An ancient magic scroll — for you! In exchange, you have to draw out my Void weapon!"

"You're really willing to trade that for this?"

"Absolutely!"

Jhin had to admit — he was tempted. He'd already asked Kokkoro about ancient magic before, but unfortunately she'd had no exposure to the elven variety. During her years of training as a Guide, the books she'd read had been mostly monster encyclopaedias and geography texts.

Besides, all she asked for is the Void weapon draw — she never said anything about actually firing Explosion magic. This deal is pure profit.

A single [Princess Assault] from Pecorine already drained more than half his stamina. If he substituted that for Explosion magic — which packed several tis the punch of a small missile — there was a real question of whether he'd even survive long enough to fire it before getting turned into a dried-out husk.

"Alright, co here."

"Yes!" The mont Jhin relented, gumin shot both arms into the air with a cheer, then trotted over to his side, eyes blazing with excitent and anticipation. She'd already confird it once before — back when Jhin had been too exhausted to move, she'd grabbed his right hand and held it near her chest, and it had worked. She could have a Void weapon drawn from her.

The catch was, if Jhin had no intention of drawing it, gumin could stuff his entire arm through the silver ring of light and nothing would co out. That was precisely why she'd had to resort to trading an ancient magic scroll in the first place.

"Here I go."

"Go ahead — it doesn't hurt anyway. And you've already done it once before, so I'm used to it."

…Is there sothing slightly off about this conversation?

Kyaru opened her mouth and then closed it again without saying a word. She looked around — everyone else had perfectly normal expressions on their faces. If she said anything, it would only make her look like the one with a dirty mind.

A silver-white magic staff slid free from gumin's chest. Jhin tossed the Void weapon over to her, then claid his ancient magic scroll and settled in to study it carefully.

"Ohhhh! The texture, the design — perfect. From this day forward, your na is [True Silver Flash]!" gumin clutched her newly nad Void weapon in a rapturous embrace, rubbing her cheek against it over and over.

The ancient magic scroll described an offensive spell called [Dark-Corrosive Thunder] — essentially a fusion of the lightning and dark elents, designed to alter lightning's usual properties of pure explosion and high heat, and layer in dark-elent traits like corrosion.

The scroll also made a point that Jhin found significant: compared to modern magic, the greatest distinction of ancient magic was the absence of rigid fraworks and restrictions. It was fluid and adaptive, and placed an exceptionally high demand on the practitioner's creativity. That, ultimately, was why ancient magic had faded into obscurity.

After all, a discipline that gated everything on raw talent could never compete with one that anyone could learn. Its decline was inevitable.

Looking at it that way, I don't really need to go hunting for more ancient magic scrolls. Creating my own spells from scratch — that's the authentic path of the ancient magic tradition.

"Jhin, let's go to the Shattered Stone Desert and test [True Silver Flash]'s power!" gumin's eyes burned with feverish excitent, already picturing just how spectacular an Explosion magic release would look.

But Jhin had zero interest in being turned into a dried-out husk by Explosion magic, and very much did want to test his new ancient magic. "I'll pass on testing the Void weapon — I'd get completely wrung dry for certain, and it's anyone's guess whether the Explosion would even fire before I keeled over. Let's try my ancient magic instead."

At that point, Kyaru raised a small hand. "Actually, there's a spell called [Mana Touch] that could temporarily solve the problem of you having no mana of your own."

"Really?"

"Yes. [Mana Touch] links the mana pools of two people together. Grand Archmages use it whenever they're casting massive spells — it keeps the mana supply stable."

With Kyaru vouching for it, Jhin found himself warming up to the idea of firing Explosion magic through gumin's Void weapon after all.

…Maybe worth a shot?

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