My Level Zero System

The remaining Magus couldn't suppress the growing fear in his heart. He hastily activated three layers of [Water Bubble] magic skill to cover his entire body, cowering inside the defense like a turtle.

At the same time, numerous dense spots of fire appeared outside the [Water Bubble] magic skill, illuminating the surrounding area. These fire spots weren't just for light; once an enemy was located, the Magus could completely condense and use them to attack.

A low-class Magus couldn't do this, because if a low-class Magus wanted to use [Fire Magic] to attack, they would have to dispel the surrounding [Water Bubble] or at least open a path. However, he was a mid-class Magus, and both his [Fire Magic] and [Water Magic] had reached mid-class, so such a maneuver was normal for him.

But even with such meticulous defense and counter-attack preparation, the fear in the Magus's heart grew stronger and stronger, becoming increasingly uncontrollable.

Because... he still saw nothing.

Nothing at all.

No sign of Mera, not even a trace.

Although just moments before, when Mera killed the [Air Magic] Magus, she had performed a moment of "vanishing into the wind so completely that no form could be caught," the Magus still thought it was merely a visual effect combined with the dark night, despite how terrifying it was.

Therefore, the Magus lit up the surroundings, hoping to find Mera's true position to attack.

However, he still saw nothing.

"Come out, you coward!" the Magus yelled, calling Mera a coward, but he was the one trembling.

No one replied, and nothing materialized. Mera seemed to have left the area.

"Oh, that's right, isn't it?"

The Magus suddenly realized something.

Mera was very cunning.

This was clearly demonstrated when she tried to trick them into leaving, and then even ambushed him, though unsuccessfully.

The Magus didn't believe Mera could use magic skills so perfectly. The most likely possibility was that after killing the [Air Magic] Magus, Mera had quickly left, leaving the remaining one shouting into the empty surroundings like an idiot.

Thinking this, the Magus's previous fear was quickly replaced by rage.

"Damn it! That little brat..."

The Magus reconsidered and realized he was right. The one who used [Air Magic] was quickly killed because he was careless, while he, regardless of attack or defense, was superior to Mera. That's why Mera didn't target him.

He had just been overly scared for a moment.

And he needed this to rationalize almost losing to a young mid-class Magus.

"Damn it! Don't let me catch you..."

The Magus cursed under his breath, continuing to maintain his state for a while longer. He even scanned further and moved around, but still couldn't find Mera.

At this point, he finally confirmed that Mera had left, and he had just been scaring himself.

Thinking this, the Magus grumbled, hiding the sigh of relief within. He dispelled the [Water Bubble] surrounding him. Although he was an experienced mid-class Magus, continuously maintaining magic skills at high intensity was still a huge burden.

Not everyone was like Kain, with four or five magic systems reaching mid-class to expand their energy limits.

That's why the Magus thought that if Mera was hiding somewhere, she must have reached her limit, as she was only a single-system mid-class Magus.

But at the very moment he was most off guard, at the very moment he was least prepared.

A sound of earth breaking erupted, along with Mera's soft but ghostly voice.

"Got you."

The Magus's pupils contracted violently. He hastily activated his magic skill, but his defensive activation was a step too slow.

The wind whip had already lashed out, wrapping around the Magus's neck, and with a yank, he lost consciousness. The last thing he saw was his own headless body, then everything went dark.

Although a mid-class Magus had very strong resistance to magic skills, even against mid-class magic skills, Mera here not only used magic skills but also combined them with a physical weapon—the specially crafted whip.

A whip with a body refined from steel smelted from Crawler claw components, and saw-like teeth crafted from Nightcrawler claws—its cutting power was beyond question.

Physical weapons were often overlooked in battles between Magus, and this became even more true at higher class levels. For a low-class Magus, physical weapons still had some utility, but from mid-class Magus onwards, physical weapons became too shortsighted and weak in overall combat.

Take the Magus Mera just killed, for example. If a swordsman were to rush at him with a sword in hand, all he would need to do is continuously create [Fire Bullet] attacks. By the mid-class Magus level, he was no longer restricted to creating fireballs from his hand and launching them; he could completely cast spells mid-air and release them as long as they weren't too complex.

So what if you increased the attack range, not using a sword?

This also applied to Mera's whip, which had a much longer attack range than a sword. But even though her thorny whip could easily slash through the Magus's neck, she still couldn't even make the whip touch him before.

Physical weapons alone were too limited, because Magus wielded magic, a far more versatile weapon.

So, how did Mera manage to kill that Magus?

In truth, that Magus wasn't wrong.

Even after realizing her own path, Mera was still not stronger than him in any aspect except for her stealth and mobility granted by [Air Magic]. Furthermore, their energy reserves were not equal.

Therefore, immediately after killing the unfortunate [Air Magic] Magus, Mera made an incredibly dangerous move.

She exploited the moment of confusion when the Magus saw his comrade's death, and she... dug into the ground at the spot where she had just vanished and hid there.

Although he had never truly given her hands-on instruction, Kain had once taught her:

"If you're asking what the most basic form of deception is, it's leveraging emotions."

"Taking it a step further, it's deceiving by leveraging emotions, thereby creating a situation where the opponent believes they are correct, but in reality, they have fallen directly into the situation we wanted them to."

"This is a higher class of deception; we don't need to directly trick the opponent, as the opponent has already done it themselves."

And everything unfolded exactly as Mera had planned, from the Magus's panic to his assumption that she had already fled.

He wasn't entirely wrong; Mera couldn't maintain her hidden state indefinitely. It required using two magic skills, [Air Scream] and [Air Vortex], simultaneously and at a high level. How could Mera sustain that continuously? She could only leverage precise moments.

Furthermore, this combination wasn't yet perfectly honed by Mera; it was still in its nascent stages. So, even if she had gone into hiding, the Magus would have discovered her if he had scrutinized the area with his fire.

As for why she hid precisely where she had vanished, Mera anticipated that the Magus wouldn't truly be at ease, even if he believed she had left.

He would circle around, specifically going to the spot where she had disappeared to confirm her departure. That would be his moment of lowered guard.

And that was when Mera struck. One whip crack, and a very strong mid-class Magus was gone.

This was Mera's strategy of leveraging emotions.

The Magus had been too focused on her hiding with her new skills, his fear driving him to do so, while completely overlooking the possibility that Mera could simply dig underground to escape.

This might sound foolish, but if Kain were here, he could even provide an example to explain it.

It's about prioritizing fear.

The fear of the unknown is far greater than the fear of the known. Or rather, because they know, they aren't afraid; because they don't know, they are afraid.

Mera's disappearance, the death of his comrade—for that Magus, these were the fears of the unknown, fears that compelled him to focus all his energy on them: to search for them, to understand them, an urge stemming from the instinct of a naturally curious being.

From there, the Magus completely forgot that Mera possessed [Earth Magic] to dig and hide, because that act was truly too mundane and obvious.

This is a weakness in the normal human mind—no, to be more precise, it's a weakness in normal thought patterns, as a Magus's mind is inherently far more open and powerful than that of a normal person.

And that was how Mera won, a hard-fought victory, but one she overcame.

However, Mera wasn't arrogant because of it. Her near-death experience had been a wake-up call; even though she was a mid-class Magus, and her opponents weren't the geniuses of Kanzax Academy, there were still many people stronger than her.

So, immediately after killing that Magus, Mera quickly slipped away. She wanted to return to her father, but she hesitated, wondering whether she should tell him the truth.

Her mother's disappearance that year had been a huge blow to Wilfred, and only recently, thanks to their actively restored relationship, had he started to recover.

But telling her father the truth would be like tearing open an old wound that had just stopped bleeding. And Mera couldn't bear to do that.

"I wish... Kain were here..." Mera couldn't help but long for the silver-haired young man even more.