Reader Mage-Stubbing August 10! Chapter 25: 25-I Can Cancel Out Magic

Read chapter 25 of Reader Mage-Stubbing August 10! by A_Random_Turtle on NovelPedia.

The System putting up a penalty in the case of a failure made Merlin the most uneasy he’d ever been since walking into Prestige Academy. And that was one of the reasons why his mind was constantly hollering at him to speed things up and not take his time with walking through clearing the Dungeon. It would have definitely been a lot easier for him if Quests had existed in Singularity Mage, he would have at least had an idea of what the System’s penalty could end up being. But they hadn’t. And, if he was to be honest, he wasn’t keen on finding that out. But he knew better than to be hasty. That never resulted in anything good. “Wait.” Merlin stretched out his arm, halting the rest of his party after they had walked a bit over twenty steps. They did as they were told without query. The first hurdle Kieran had come across in the Necromancer’s Lair was a rather simple booby trap, which, of course, was actually anything but simple if one wasn’t expecting it. Kieran had been a special case, because he was, well, the protagonist. Merlin and the others were different. Before they had moved, Merlin had returned back to the entrance of the Dungeon and counted his steps. Kieran had taken forty steps to reach the first booby trap, and Merlin had made sure to replicate those exact steps. Now, he just had to confirm if he had not miscalculated, or if this Dungeon was not what he thought it was. He bent down. “What’s there?” asked Nora, not daring to come close to him. “A booby trap’s supposed to be here,” said Merlin as he brushed his palm over the floor slightly. It was disgusting that he had to go through finding the trap this way, but he could think of no other way. If he was Kieran that would have been different, because the protagonist’s Perception had been so unnaturally high that he had been able to perceive the presence of a trap just by getting close to it. But, alas, he was Merlin. The floor was made up of uneven stone blocks, and Merlin knew that one of those stone blocks was what opened the first booby trap. His intention was to figure out which it was before they moved forward so they could avoid it. And it did not take too long for him to find it, because the stone block that activated the booby trap was an inch higher than the rest of the blocks. He pressed down on it, and a section of the wall to their side flew open, an arrow bolt shooting out of it and piercing the air where Merlin’s mid section would have been had he been standing. Kim Minji yelped, Nora and Chima froze, while Merlin smiled. It’s correct. This is really the Necromancer’s Lair! “W-Was that a real arrow?” Kim Minji asked as the bolt dropped to the floor after hitting the wall on the other side. “That would have really injured one of us. Isn’t this an exam? Are they trying to kill us?” “Relax,” said Chima. “Just take a deep breath and relax. There’s no way the Academy’s trying to kill examinees.” “How are we to explain that then?” Kim Minji bit her lower lip. Merlin felt like he had seen enough of her actions to judge her now. She was quite meek. But that didn’t matter. Turning back meant that they had failed to clear the Dungeon, which meant that they had failed the exam, and he would receive a penalty from the System that he was not exactly eager to find out. “It doesn’t matter what it was. We continue forward,” Nora said, thankfully sharing Merlin’s sentiment. That, however, did not hide her shaky voice. No one would claim that they were not scared of being hit by an arrow, and this was just the first trap. Merlin, personally, knew that it was only going to get worse, and, he too, was scared. But, now, he felt more confident that everyone could get out of this unscathed. He would make sure nothing went wrong. He took the first step towards that by checking every other stone block on the floor around the trap, and when it was apparent that nothing had been modified, he pressed down on the trap again, another arrow flying out, and left his palm there. “You g