The Extra is a Genius!?-Chapter 54: Ash and Frost

The trees thinned into broken rock and dead air.

Noel stepped over a tangle of twisted roots and followed the slope downward, boots silent on dry earth. The forest behind him had already gone quiet, like it wanted nothing to do with what waited ahead.

Varn’s Hollow.

It wasn’t a valley. It was a wound in the land—jagged cliffs, sharp outcrops, fractured boulders rising like broken teeth. Steam hissed from small fissures, and mana in the air pulsed raw and uneven, as if something had torn through it and never sealed the cut.

He crouched behind a ridge of slate-black stone, eyes scanning the field below.

Rotten trees. Claw marks on the rocks. A carcass—something that used to be a deer, now split down the middle, limbs bent the wrong way. No signs of feeding. Just destruction.

He opened his palm, summoned a thin thread of mana, and sent it forward—searching.

The feedback came fast: a blur of corrupted presence circling the area. More than one.

Then one moved closer.

It crept into view from behind a slanted boulder—a Hollow Stalker, quadrupedal and emaciated, with a stretched humanoid torso fused into its back like it had once tried to stand upright but failed. Its mouth was misaligned, filled with irregular fangs. Six eyes blinked at different speeds.

Noel didn’t flinch.

He stood slowly, cloak low, mana gathering at his fingertips.

"Let’s see what you’re made of."

The Hollow Stalker twitched.

Its body shifted with sharp, insect-like spasms, ribs visibly expanding beneath torn flesh. One of its front claws scraped against stone as it dragged itself forward, twitching like a broken marionette. The twisted humanoid torso on its back hung limply, mouth stuck in a silent scream.

Noel didn’t hesitate.

He raised his left hand and summoned mana, letting it pool and condense into a single dense orb.

"Fireball."

The flame materialized instantly—no flair, no heat burst. Just compact, pressurized destruction glowing between his fingers.

The Hollow Stalker shrieked as it lunged, far faster than its broken body had any right to move.

Noel took half a step back and launched the Fireball directly at its face.

Impact.

The orb exploded against its skull, setting part of its head ablaze. Bone cracked. Muscle charred. Smoke rose. But the damn thing didn’t stop.

It shrieked louder and lunged again, this time wild and close.

Noel ducked low, sliding to the side as one claw grazed his shoulder and tore through the fabric of his cloak.

’Too shallow. Need to cripple it.’

As he moved, he extended his right hand and traced a sharp rune into the dirt beneath his boots. Mana surged—cold and precise.

"Ice Spike."

A jagged spear of ice erupted from the ground and pierced the Stalker’s front leg, impaling it at the joint. The creature buckled, shrieking in pain, pinned to the rock.

Noel didn’t give it a chance to recover.

He drew Revenant Fang in one clean motion and moved in close.

No battle cry. No hesitation.

He brought the sword down in a brutal diagonal arc—cutting through neck, sinew, and bone until it jammed halfway through the spine. With a grunt, he planted his foot on the shoulder and ripped the blade free.

The Hollow Stalker twitched once.

Then went still.

Steam hissed from the severed wound.

Noel stood over it, breathing slow, heart steady.

The system chimed softly in his vision.

[Core Progress: +0.04%]

He dismissed the notification without a second thought.

’One. Felt decent.’

He wiped the blade against the creature’s ruined hide and turned back toward the shadows beyond.

There would be more.

There always were.

The second beast came faster than the first.

Noel didn’t see it—he heard it: claws scraping stone, a wet screech, then a blur of movement from his left.

He pivoted, mana already pulsing through his arm.

"Flame Arc."

A horizontal wave of fire burst from his palm in a clean sweep, scorching the cliffside and blasting the creature sideways mid-leap. It rolled across the rocks, hissing, before scrambling upright—one of its limbs now burned down to bone.

It was a Devoralight, insectoid in shape but twice the size of a man, its segmented carapace pulsing with dull purple light. Its thorax was cracked open like a lantern, leaking smoke and mana residue.

Noel didn’t wait.

He sprinted forward.

Mana surged in his fingers again.

"Ice Spike."

A second spear of ice erupted beneath the creature as it regained balance—impaling it from below and freezing its core mid-shriek.

He didn’t even slow down.

Another one came from above—a smaller, four-legged crawler with a bone-plated torso and no visible head.

Noel raised his left hand.

"Frost Wall."

A wide slab of ice materialized between him and the creature, forcing it to land hard and rebound mid-strike. It stumbled, dazed.

"Fireball."

Point-blank.

The explosion took its legs clean off.

He stepped past the smoking corpse, boots crunching on gravel and blood, and scanned for more.

’Frost to bind. Fire to break. Repeat until extinction.’

It wasn’t elegant. It wasn’t balanced.

But it worked.

And he was getting faster.

[Core Progress: +0.11%]

Ten minutes later, he was three monsters deeper and had learned three more things:

Fireball worked best mid-motion.

Frost Wall was unreliable on sloped terrain.

Flame Arc could interrupt channeling attacks... but only once. freēnovelkiss.com

His cloak was scorched at the edge.

His sword arm burned from repeated spell cycling.

His breath was steady.

And he was still moving.

The fourth wave didn’t come from the ground.

It dropped from above.

Noel barely rolled aside in time as a massive weight crashed where he’d been standing a heartbeat ago, shattering stone and throwing up dust.

The creature that rose from the impact was unlike the others.

Spined Howler.

Its body was semi-humanoid, with limbs elongated into brutal arcs. Its skin was dark gray, segmented, and covered in hooked bone spines that clicked softly with every breath. Its head was low and hunched, a gaping maw hidden beneath a helmet of raw horn. Four glowing lines pulsed across its chest, like mana veins exposed and twitching.

It didn’t charge.

It walked—slow, deliberate, each step spreading pressure through the ground.

Noel raised both hands.

’No time to overthink.’

"Frost Wall."

The barrier snapped into place ahead of him—but the Howler didn’t stop.

It slammed through the ice in a single shoulder charge, shattering it like brittle glass and sending chunks flying past Noel’s face.

A shard tore across his thigh.

The pain was white-hot and sudden. His leg faltered.

He gritted his teeth.

Didn’t scream.

"Ice Spike."

The spear burst from the ground—but the Howler twisted mid-stride, letting the spike graze its flank rather than impale it.

It was learning.

’You’re smarter than the others.’

It lunged.

Noel ducked the first claw and countered with a slash from Revenant Fang—metal meeting spine with a sharp clang. The blade cut, but didn’t bite deep.

The creature twisted and drove its elbow into his ribs. He stumbled back, coughing, barely managing to throw his hand forward.

"Flame Arc!"

The blast scorched the creature’s chest—mana veins erupting in steam and blood, slowing it down for a breath.

That was all he needed.

"Fireball."

"Ice Spike."

He layered both spells one after the other—explosion to stagger, ice to finish.

The creature collapsed in a twitching heap, half-frozen and smoking.

Noel stood over it, panting, one hand pressed to the bleeding cut on his thigh.

[Core Progress: +0.21%]

He spat to the side and limped back to a defensible rock outcropping.

He gritted his teeth, wiping sweat from his brow as he settled behind the outcropping.

’Smart enough to read its rhythm. Strong enough to take the hit. Fast enough to end it.’

’Good.’

He downed a restorative potion in silence, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and stood again.

Time blurred.

Noel kept moving—no hesitation, no second-guessing, no words.

He moved from shadow to kill, from kill to motion, like a pendulum sharpened to a point. There was no hesitation. No strategy beyond what instinct refined by pain had already mapped.

One creature after another.

A Glass Maw with a translucent skull—decapitated with a frozen spike through the jaw.

A Vein Crawler that latched onto his arm—ripped free and roasted alive with a close-range Fireball.

Three Marrow Beasts came as a group, fused by rot and bound at the limbs. Noel led them between sharp rock pillars and collapsed one with a Flame Arc, then used Frost Wall to split the others, isolating them long enough to finish the job.

Blood dried on his gloves. Sweat soaked his collar.

His magic was growing ragged, but his body knew the movements now. His mana aligned with his violence. His mind had gone quiet.

No thoughts.

Only control.

The last kill was messy—an overgrown Hollow Stalker that refused to die even after losing half its limbs. Noel ended it by pinning it with an Ice Spike, then walking up and driving Revenant Fang into its spine until it stopped twitching.

No flourish. No sound.

Just weight.

The system finally blinked into his vision.

[Core Progress: +1.98%]

[Total: 49.30% – Novice Core]

He stood still for a moment, chest rising and falling with quiet precision.

Then turned back toward the treeline without a word.

He didn’t run.

Just walked.

The Hollow behind him quieted.

And the night began to die.

The horizon had just begun to crack with pale light when Noel reached the edge of the city tunnels.

His cloak was torn at the shoulder. His gloves were stained dark. His body hurt in too many places to count—but none of it showed on his face.

He moved with the same calm step he’d left with.

Crossed the final shaft.

Closed the hidden grate behind him.

Not a single soul had seen him come or go.

He scaled the academy’s outer wall again under the last shadows of night, climbed down the roof of the library, and landed silent between hedges that hadn’t rustled once.

He reached his dorm at 05:21.

Locked the door.

Dropped the cloak.

Dropped the gear.

Didn’t bother with a bath.

He wiped the worst of the blood from his hands, swallowed the last quarter of a potion, and collapsed into bed.

No alarms.

He closed his eyes.

’Two hours.’

That’s all he needed.

Not rest.

Just enough time to let the body trick itself into surviving another day.