I Never Run Out of Mana-Novel

Chapter 176. Gera’s Ability

A middle aged drunkard kicked the door and came in.

He was so drunk that he didn’t seem aware of how hard he kicked the door open.

Waving a loaf of bread in his hand, he spoke.

“Oho. Karupedan is here too? You’ve grown up a lot since I’ve last seen you.”

“……”

“What reason have you come…”

“What reason! I’m here to claim payment for the very same bread that child is eating.”

“Karupedan, you’re done eating, right? Can you go to your room for a bit?”

“Yep.”

“Heh heh! Sure. Hurry up and grow up lots. Only then can you also……”

“Sir. Over there……”

“Sure, sure.”

With the appearance of this man, Gera’s expression soured.

It didn’t seem as if this was the first time for Karupedan, who put the small amount of leftovers in her mouth and walked towards her room.

It was merely a piece of bread.

It wasn’t enough for one to eat their fill, and it wasn’t anything tasty with flavor.

It was just a fist sized plain bread.

Even if they were orphans, this food could be purchased with not even a half a day’s work.

However, for these siblings, who were denied all help, it had become something they could only obtain by paying a steep price.

Gera stopped the man from speaking of foul subjects and guided him to her bed.

Karupedan, who had been playing in the mountains all day, fell asleep near instantly in her room.

After all, she was too young to understand what was going on.

She must’ve thought that Gera-unni had obtained the bread through work.

She must’ve thought that it was her share of the bread that’s left for her on the table as usual.

There was no way that she would’ve known that no one gives work or money to the children of traitors.

Because of that, she didn’t learn the weight behind the bread that she ate for years.

Karupedan’s rage and desperation began not when she had become an orphan, but when she became old enough to understand what Gera was going through.

****

Gera’s robe fluttered as if a strong gust of wind was blowing over it.

Both of her hands were raised towards me, and a red mist rose from them.

I had already swallowed a King’s Marble, and also had many more filling my mouth from cheek to cheek, so I didn’t feel that threatened.

‘Feel free to attack as much as you want. You won’t be able to touch a hair on me.’

I didn’t have anything against Gera, but this was an opponent that I had to defeat in order to progress.

To achieve the new goal I had, I needed to defeat her.

Ignoring the pose she took to attack, I casted a Meteor infused with mana and magical energy.

As expected, I felt that the strength behind this attack was something difficult to handle as of yet.

After all, at the same time as I cast the spell and thought so, the Meteor had already struck my enemy.

Despite being a God of Death, it seemed that she couldn’t stop this attack.

Similar to bullets ripping through a piece of paper, Gera’s robe was ripped apart. Her body that had been completely hidden now was in plain view.

Her skin was pale without any complexion, and she was thin enough to be mistaken for a mummy.

It was enough for me to mistake her hand and feet as roots of a tree.

If how the gods appeared was the same appearance of their forgotten memories……

She must’ve gone through an unbelievable amount of pain.

However, the problem wasn’t her form.

It didn’t matter if she took on the form of a tree or flower.

Gera knew that she could not avoid my attacks.

She also knew of the abilities of the Awakened, since she was the one to have given them out in the first place.

Instead of avoiding my attack, she had chosen to attack, keeping both of her hands that were letting off steam up.

She kept her hands up even until my attack struck her.

However, strangely, I didn’t see any effects from her attack.

Her hands just kept on letting off steam.

I knew that dragging on this fight will cause Gera to suffer more.

I thought that the least I could do for her was to finish her off in a single hit, so I can at least reduce the amount of pain she would feel.

After all, it was a situation where I was 100% sure of my victory.

Looking at Gera, I suppressed the frustration I felt and casted Meteor again.

Nine orbs appeared in the sky, then all came crashing down at once.

However.

“Urgh! What is this……”

I felt that my life was threatened without reason and swallowed a King’s Marble.

A minute hadn’t passed yet, but my body had moved reflexively to try to survive.

On top of that, I cast Mana Shield, which was something that I hadn’t done in awhile due to using the marbles recently.

The entire area was covered in flames.

I was standing amongst the intense flames that had enough power to turn anything into ash.

That’s right. Instead of striking down Gera, the Meteor struck me instead.

Was it because my control over my power was lacking?

No. That wasn’t the case.

Until now, no matter how critical the situation was, I didn’t fail to cast my spells properly.

Despite using powers somewhat beyond my control, I believed that this didn’t occur because of me.

Thankfully, I didn’t receive 100% of the damage.

It was quite a shock, but the damage I received was light. I could easily recover with some healing spells.

I could taste salty blood in mouth.

At the same time, I felt uneasy.

I wasn’t sure what injured my invulnerable body. I also was concerned about how my attack came back towards me.

I believed that the answers to these questions laid with Gera.

I asked her, who stayed still with her hands still raised.

“I guess this is what you meant? The power that I’ll need to face the gods I’ll be facing after you.”

“……”

Gera didn’t answer.

A confirming silence.

To better understand the current situation, I stopped my attack.

If this is Gera’s true power, then any further attacks were rash.

It wasn’t just my attack being reflected back at me, but rather the target of the attack I used being changed to me, so it was that much more dangerous.

Also, when I was talking to her, I saw her form and couldn’t hide my surprise once more.

Only her robe was torn away, while the rest of her body didn’t have a single wound.

Was there an exception to the power of the Piece of Time and Space?

Was it possible for her to break the rules the Unrivaled God set.

‘Was it an illusion or some kind of hypnosis? However, I had my Titan Boots. These boots should block all status effects. I don’t like it, but recovery comes first. The plan to take down Gera follows after.’

Staring at Gera, I casted Mega Cure.

[Target cannot be treated.]

[Target cannot be treated.]

“Damn it…… What is this bullsh*t!”

Gera didn’t take any damage. Compared to that, not only did I take a small amount of damage, but the effect from the Piece of Time and Space that denied healing was applied on me.

It was hard to believe this situation.

I felt as though I’ve fallen into a perfectly orchestrated trap.

Gera remained still even now, and didn’t attack me at all.

It seemed that she wanted me to continue attacking until I would collapse from exhaustion.

Calming myself down from the encroaching suffocating anxiety, I reorganized my thoughts.

The biggest issue was the attack that came at me.

However, trying to understand this part was a contradiction in its own.

I could only assume that this was Gera’s ability.

I didn’t know if she was controlling me or the attack projectiles.

If it was the first, then I couldn’t guarantee victory.

However, if she really was controlling me, then I would be still casting spells on myself.

If it was the latter? I would have a chance if I tweak my attack pattern even a little bit.

Second issue was that Gera did not take any damage.

She had received my skill with a 100% attack success rate directly.

She didn’t dodge or defend at all, and I had confirmed landing my spell directly on her with my own two eyes.

However, instead of receiving any damage, only a bit of her robe was torn.

It didn’t make any sense.

Was it because fire type attacks like Meteor didn’t work on her?

This theory also didn’t make sense.

The Piece of Time and Space allowed me to completely ignore resistances of my enemy.

Taking that into account, what type of attack I sent out didn’t matter.

The inside of my head had gotten complicated enough to give me a headache.

Continuing to ponder, I had arrived at a point where I could not even believe in her existence.

No matter how I looked at it, I couldn’t come up with an answer.

Was there a secret to the area surrounding us, similar to how it was for Hai Yanta and Lai Yanta?

Was it possible that the Gera was facing was just an illusion?

I had to find a clue.

I carefully cast Frost Orb.

It was a pure Frost Orb that wasn’t mixed with mana or magical energy.

It was because I had come to the realization that my attacks could return back to me.

“……”

The Frost Orb flew towards exactly where I had aimed for.

She was able to reflect Meteor, but not Frost Orb?

I tried to think of the difference between the two skills.

First, I knew that the type didn’t matter, so I put that out of the equation.

The skill’s level. It could also be that one was transcended, while the other wasn’t.

Also, Meteor Call was an area of effect spell, but Frost Orb was a single target spell.

“Ah, whatever!”

Risking the damage being returned to me, I cast Meteor.

I couldn’t find a clear answer, and there really wasn’t any other method.

However, the result was quite satisfying.

The attack that I had thought would strike me smashed into the pool of lava instead, where no one was.

This made me remember a monster back in the level 34 dungeon.

An elongated circle shaped monster that looked similar to a mirror hung up on a wall of a room.

That monster perfectly reflected the attack I casted.

This situation was very similar to how that creature reflected both the skill’s amount and type down to the dot.

It was only a theory, but it was also true that it had weight to it.

It seemed that Gera had the ability to completely reflect the attack that she received towards the attacker.

The unsolved mystery was on how she didn’t receive any damage doing so.

It wouldn’t be too late to figure out that part after I proved this theory.

‘I don’t know what type of shield she’s using, but I will penetrate it eventually. I cannot use the same attack two times in a row. I have to do only one at a time.’

Before attacking, I looked through my skill list.

The amount of skills that filled the list made me wonder just when I learned so many of them.

If my calculations were correct, each skill could be divided into four levels of power.

The power of a regular Awakened. Empowered by mana. Covered in magical energy. And finally, both infused with mana and magical energy.

And even excluding the attack skills on the list, I could conjure up at least 200 different methods of attacks with my mastery over mana and magical energy.

Gera didn’t attack anyways.

Instead, she merely waited for me to.

Near her, I began to conjure Mana Towers.

One only from mana, and another mixed in with mana and magical energy.

“It would be great if I made the right guess……”

“……”