Gariel Cosmo.
The expression on his face, which had been drenched in excitement from his gambling success, sank heavily in an instant.
“Is that really true? That’s way too early!”
“There was an incident.”
Ludger said this as his eyes slid toward the chips stacked in front of Gariel.
“Your bad habit hasn’t changed. Didn’t I tell you to stop cheating at gambling?”
“N-no, that’s...”
Gariel fidgeted under Ludger’s reproach.
The dealer, who had been eavesdropping on the conversation, carefully spoke up.
“Uh, sir. With all due respect, this casino never allows cheating. That remark is excessive.”
There was even a hint of pride in the dealer’s expression about his line of work.
If it had been real cheating, there would have been no way the casino would lose money like this in the first place.
It was natural he reacted sensitively to Ludger’s words.
“The cheating I mentioned isn’t what you’re doing.”
“Pardon?”
“It’s rather this man.”
Ludger pointed at Gariel as he spoke, and the dealer’s face twisted oddly.
“Wait, just a moment. That can’t be. In this place, we can detect if mages use magic. We personally check it all. It wouldn’t be possible for him to...”
The dealer stopped mid-sentence.
Because when he saw Gariel’s anxious expression, not knowing what to do, a strange thought crossed his mind.
The man was sweating coldly, and suspicions that hadn’t been there before began to sprout.
“Sir? Surely... not you, right?”
“H-huh? Oi! What are you talking about! Cheating? I won fair and square! Everyone saw, didn’t they? And besides, with mana detection you’d know whether I used magic or not!”
The more aggressively Gariel shouted, the more suspicion turned into certainty.
The dealer’s face hardened, and the guards who had been waiting on the sidelines began to surround the table.
Spectators, realizing the situation was turning strange, backed away.
Gariel glared sharply at Ludger.
“Are you really doing this? I almost had it all!”
“Had it all? I don’t even understand why you need money in the first place.”
“Of course it’s for research!”
“If it was money for research, I’ve been giving you a steady supply until now. More than you could even use up. And still that wasn’t enough?”
“T-that’s...”
Gariel stammered, avoiding eye contact. Ludger sighed quietly.
“Didn’t I tell you already? It’s just a habit. Gambling is something you should cut off quickly.”
“Damn it! Shut up! You’re younger than me, so stop acting like some elder giving me advice! If not for you, I would’ve won it all and walked away clean!”
By then, the grim-faced guards had closed in, surrounding both Ludger and Gariel.
Even though Ludger looked at them as if to ask why they were aiming at him, he couldn’t escape suspicion, since he was clearly acquainted with Gariel.
“These guards really aren’t afraid, are they? They must know we’re mages.”
Almost as soon as Ludger finished speaking, the guards pulled out their equipment.
In one hand, they held a suppression steel rod.
In the other, a small shield.
Just when Ludger was about to scoff at what they could possibly do with such tools—
Mana flared from the rods, extending their length threefold until they resembled spears more than batons.
The shields also glowed, forming bluish mana barriers around them.
“...So even guards nowadays carry artifacts?”
“This is a rich casino. Of course they would. Forgot where we are? This is Isla Machia. A place where mages roam the streets like it’s normal.”
In Isla Machia, whenever an incident broke out, there was a high chance a mage was involved.
And when mages caused trouble, the scale of damage was on a completely different level from ordinary criminals.
If mishandled, it could cost countless lives.
To prevent such disasters, there needed to be ways to subdue mages directly.
The tools the guards were wielding now were just that.
Anti-mage artifacts.
Mage Hunter (Magier Jäger).
“Looks painful enough.”
“If you get hit, it’s not just painful. These are crafted with state-of-the-art magitech.”
“You’ve been hit before?”
“I’ve seen plenty who have. They ended up bawling their eyes out, dripping with snot.”
“Ah. Very reassuring.”
As the two bantered lightly, one of the guards suddenly lunged from behind.
“You take care of it. [Faust].”
“I told you not to call me by that weird name!”
Annoyed, Gariel still readied himself.
Just as the guard’s baton was about to smash into the back of his head—
“Got you—!”
Whoosh!
The baton, swung with confidence, sliced only through air.
Before the guard could even register his confusion at Gariel vanishing like a mirage right before him—
Thunk.
“Huh?”
The guard’s leg caught on a chair that hadn’t been there before, and he tumbled forward under his own weight.
Behind the fallen guard, Gariel reappeared, whistling casually.
“Damn it! Jimmy! What the hell are you doing!”
“That idiot. How do you miss that?”
Other guards cursed, but those with keen eyes had already stiffened at what they’d just witnessed.
“What was that? Didn’t that mage just... vanish?”
“And that chair Jimmy tripped on—it wasn’t there before.”
“What kind of magic is this? Casting without any formula?”
The guards exchanged glances.
If one wasn’t enough, they’d all attack at once.
“This is your mess, so you deal with it.”
“...If you hadn’t shown up, I would’ve left with my winnings without any problems, you know?”
Grumbling, Gariel crooked his finger at the approaching guards.
“Come on. This one hand is enough to deal with the lot of you.”
“All together!”
The guards moved in unison.
So fluidly that they didn’t trip or block each other, but instead advanced like a single body.
Even for Gariel, it looked like escaping such a net wouldn’t be easy.
The guards were sure of it—until Gariel disappeared from his seat again.
It happened in a blink.
And just as quickly, he reappeared.
As though he had leapt across space itself, Gariel vanished and then materialized again—
And around the guards rushing at him, chairs and random objects rained down all at once.
“Uwaah!”
“W-what the hell!”
The guards were utterly thrown off, unable to make sense of what had just happened.
The bystanders who had been watching were the same, bewildered.
“Wh-what in the world did he just do?”
“What kind of magic was that young man using?”
Only Ludger remained calm, knowing what Gariel’s magic truly was.
‘As expected. No matter how many times I see it, it’s bizarre.’
It was like watching time itself being sliced away and compressed.
As though he alone was moving along an entirely different timeline.
‘Well, that’s not wrong. Gariel Cosmo. That’s exactly what the man’s magic does.’
Gariel Cosmo.
The man who had mastered a peculiar magic, passed down as a one-man inheritance—[Time Magic].
The effect of his magic was absurdly simple.
—To stop the time of the entire world, except for himself.
In other words: Time Stop.
The moment he cast his spell, everything in the world froze.
Living or non-living.
The bug crawling on the floor, the bird flying in the sky, the person speaking mid-sentence, the object falling mid-air.
All of it.
In that frozen world, the only one able to °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° move was Gariel Cosmo himself.
‘To others, it must look like he’s performing miracles.’
And given how broken time magic was, calling it a miracle wasn’t an exaggeration.
Stopping time, of all things?
Such a spell had never been recorded in the history of magic.
‘The reason he could keep winning at gambling was because he changed the dice rolls in the short instant of time stop. It was the same for blackjack or poker.’
By stopping time for just a few seconds, he could peek at his opponents’ hands. That alone meant he could never lose.
That such an incredible ability was being used for nothing more than winning money at the tables seemed ridiculous.
But a power this fraudulent naturally came with massive penalties.
“Haa... ssup... haa...”
Others couldn’t see it, but just watching him steady his breathing told the story.
In stopped time, even the air itself was frozen, so standing still in one spot wasn’t possible.
Gariel had to keep moving endlessly. Worse, because the oxygen was frozen in midair, he was forced to draw in air that wasn’t flowing, making it far more difficult than normal breathing.
‘At least it isn’t true time-stopping—it’s closer to deceiving the world with a miracle. So he doesn’t go blind from being unable to receive photons or anything like that.’
Even the smallest movement consumed enormous stamina.
And this time-stop magic carried more than one penalty.
First.
Living beings could not be touched.
When time was stopped, the caster—Gariel—was forbidden from making direct contact with living creatures.
If a stopped lifeform and a moving Gariel came into contact, the law deceiving the world would collapse, triggering a breakdown of time itself.
The only saving grace was that indirect interference was allowed.
Inanimate objects could be touched freely, so he could use them—placing things above people’s heads, then releasing the stop to let them fall as an attack, like earlier.
But since air was frozen and his breathing unstable, even carrying and moving a chair consumed tremendous energy.
That was why he was panting.
Second.
No magic could be used during stopped time.
Casting a spell alone while the world was frozen and then canceling the stop to win outright—such one-sided combat was impossible.
During time stop, all Gariel could do was move his body on his own.
Though a mage, he had to run with his own legs, lift things with his own arms.
Third.
Reversing time or accelerating it was impossible.
The only thing possible was stopping.
That was the limit and flaw of his time magic.
And while the world’s time froze, the caster’s body still continued aging.
If he lived years inside stopped time, the others would remain young, but he alone would grow old.
For that reason, Gariel Cosmo always ended his time magic quickly.
Otherwise, he’d age twice as fast as everyone else.
In a way, his time magic seemed absurd and miraculous, yet in truth was not so useful.
‘Still, against mere guards like these, it’s more than enough.’
Just as Ludger thought that—
Boom!
The casino entrance exploded, smoke and dust clouding the air.
Guards rushed out, forming up at the doorway as they glared into the haze.
“Who’s there!”
When the dust cleared, a man emerged—wearing a black trench coat and fedora, his skin unnaturally pale.
He stood nearly two meters tall. His bulging eyes rolled in different directions independently, grotesque and uncanny.
And those eyes fixed on Ludger beyond the guards.
“Fou... nd you.”
He bared his teeth in a chilling grin.
“What the hell? You know that guy?”
“Never seen him before.”
“Looks like he knows you, though?”
The pale man lifted a gloved hand, pointing straight at Ludger.
There was red blood smeared across the leather.
He’d already killed someone.
“Kill. Kill them all. Everyone who gets in the way.”
As soon as his command fell, shadows surged from behind him.
They were pale-skinned humans, draped only in rags.
“W-what are those!”
“Block them!”
“Damn bastards! Do you know where you are!”
The pale humans clashed with the guards.
The guards didn’t fall easily. With their expensive artifacts, they formed up in disciplined ranks, blocking and deflecting with spears and shields.
But the pale humans were beyond human.
They bounded on all fours like beasts, leapt with impossible strength, wielded monstrous power.
If the guards hadn’t been armed with artifacts, it would have been a one-sided slaughter.
“What the hell are those things? And why are they after you?”
“They must’ve mistaken me for someone else.”
“Ugh, forget it. Not my problem. You handle it.”
Before he even finished speaking, Gariel vanished from the spot like a candle snuffed out.
* * *
An alley outside the casino.
Having escaped to a safer place, Gariel let out a sigh of relief.
“Made it this far. They won’t chase me here.”
But a voice came from behind him.
“Is this a safe route?”
“Shit! You scared me!”
“What’s wrong?”
“How the hell did you follow me?!”
“I followed your shadow.”
Before Gariel disappeared, Ludger had split off a fragment of Ater Nocturnus and planted it on him.
The moment Gariel fled, Ludger calculated the coordinates and slipped through the shadow after him.
Of course, Rine was with him as well.
Realizing what Ludger had done, Gariel’s face twisted in shock.
“Y-you maniac. You can use spatial movement? What are you, a monster?”
“Funny hearing that from the guy who stops time.”
“Wait. Then what about inside the casino?”
Ludger glanced toward the direction of the casino, where explosions still echoed.
“Well, they’ll manage somehow.”
“Those freaks looked like they were after you. You sure about this?”
“That’s the strange part. I’ve never made enemies here.”
“What about me? What if they’re after me?”
“That’s why I said here.”
Gariel stared at Ludger, then let out a sigh.
“Those guys just now... I think they’re from a new faction that’s surfaced recently in Isla Machia.”
“Those things...?”
Gariel’s expression hardened.
“I don’t know why they’re targeting you, but this isn’t good. If they’ve marked you, you’ll never escape this island.”
And that could have grave consequences for everything yet to come.