30 Years After Reincarnating, It Turns Out This World Was A Rofan?! novel Chapter 170

RUMBLE—!

"......."

BOOOOM—!

“...It’s noisy out there.”

CRASH!

“Hm, is this taking longer than expected? How peculiar.”

He never cared for what happened outside.

Always locked away in his secluded space, reading books and conducting research.

Yet today, it was unusually loud.

The noise just wouldn’t stop.

BOOOOM—!

Rather than subsiding, the clamor only grew louder.

Noise pollution like this could drive someone to murder.

“Tsk.”

THUD.

In the end, he rose to his feet.

He hadn’t intended to step outside.

“Did something too dangerous for the others to handle show up?”

It felt like something troublesome had arrived.

So, he decided to take a step forward.

To silence the noise.

BOOOOM—!

The Empire’s most impenetrable fortress.

A stronghold that no one had ever breached.

The Ivory Tower of Mages.

A castle in the sky, unreachable by ordinary men.

Now, the so-called sanctuary of mages, known by countless titles, was being reduced to rubble.

By a catastrophe falling from the heavens...

Not once in its thousand-year history had such a thing occurred.

Most places would have already collapsed without even knowing what hit them.

But—

“[Winds of the North, blow!]”

“[Stronger, fiercer!]”

“[Earth, lend me your strength! Harden, become unyielding!]”

This was the Magic Tower.

Mages were everywhere.

Instead of trembling in fear, they burned with rage and unleashed their spells against the intruder who dared to attack their sanctum.

Some worked to repair the crumbling structures, others cast defensive spells, and several tried to stabilize the Tower’s magic field.

And the rest...

“There! That bastard’s the one attacking the Tower!”

“You bastard...!!”

The mages fired off spells without hesitation.

Some might imagine mages to be elegant, refined, and graceful in battle.

But right now? They looked nothing short of savages.

Well, to be fair, anyone would be furious if their home were being destroyed.

Still, for mages, who prided themselves on composure, their current behavior was unbecoming.

And so...

‘What’s wrong with these guys?’

The intruder—the one responsible for the Tower’s collapse—frowned.

He had been toying with the mages one-sidedly, yet he couldn’t shake an odd sense of unease.

Ihan knew mages all too well.

He despised them.

But that hatred had made him the most knowledgeable mage hunter of his time.

No one had hunted mages more fervently than him—an expert born of loathing.

...Which is why this felt wrong.

‘Why are they so pathetic?’

Incantations rang out.

Spells meant to threaten him.

“[Strike down those who stand before me! Burn brighter—brighter!]”

“[Leaves, whisper to me! Earth, bring down your hammer!]”

Flaming arrows made of fire, daggers of leaves, and hammers of earth—all aimed at him.

Yet despite it all—

WHOOOSH!

‘This is too easy....’

Ihan’s fist lashed out, generating a shockwave that obliterated the incoming spells.

Not only did it erase the magic itself, but the frail mages—unprepared for direct combat—were blown away like leaves in the wind.

Overwhelming.

Ihan was utterly overwhelming the mages.

“.......”

Yet, his expression was far from satisfied.

‘They’re not weak....’

Weak wasn’t the right word.

The spells were high-level, sharp, and lethal.

They weren’t even remotely comparable to the magic cadets practiced at the Academy.

...But that was it.

‘These guys are sheltered.’

Ihan quickly understood why his opponents felt so fragile.

A lack of real combat experience.

The Magic Tower—their sanctuary—had been their poison.

‘They’ve been coddled in safety for too long. They don’t know how to hunt. They can toy with weaker enemies, sure, but they rarely face actual battles.’

The more he fought, the clearer it became.

These mages were no different from zoo animals—tigers that had never hunted.

Not wild predators, but creatures fed by hand.

Pathetic.

No wonder they’d been caught off guard.

They were so weak it was almost disappointing!

And so—

—This can’t be all, can it?

Ihan raised his guard even higher.

He knew mages better than anyone.

He hated them but never underestimated them.

If anything, he respected the danger they posed.

Which is why this felt so unsettling.

Was this all the fearsome mages of the Tower had to offer?

...No way.

Ihan never let his guard down.

These parasites had survived a thousand years within the Empire.

There was no way it would end like this.

His hatred only made him trust them more.

And sure enough—

[Uoooo—!]

The mages answered his expectations.

“Well, finally. Now we’re talking.”

Mages—or spellcasters—were often called “the prepared ones.”

It had many meanings, but to Ihan, it simply meant they were schemers always ready for a crisis.

And those schemers had finally—

“The Bronze Giant is moving!”

“That intruder is finished now.”

“Ha! I never thought I’d live to see it activated.”

“...Tch. Too slow, though. Too damn slow.”

RUMBLE!

BOOM!

THUD—!

From within the half-destroyed Tower, footsteps echoed.

Something massive stepped forward.

A bronze giant—standing 10 meters tall—appeared, towering like a walking fortress.

And not just one.

“...Twelve of them.”

Hah.

‘So that’s what they were hiding.’

Ihan grinned as he stared at the twelve giants advancing toward him.

This was more like it.

‘Now this is what I expected from a mage den.’

CRACK!

Ihan clenched his fist with a grin.

*****

The mages of the Magic Tower, though momentarily shaken by the destruction of their supposedly impenetrable magical barrier, did not feel much fear.

And why should they?

The Tower was brimming with means to eliminate intruders like this.

Take the Bronze Giants, for example—they were marvels of arcane engineering, said to embody the collective wisdom of the entire Tower.

A single one could devastate and annihilate an entire territory, and yet twelve of them now stood ready.

The intruder’s death was already a certainty—

CRACK!

“...??”

The mages froze, unable to believe their eyes.

“T-The giant’s arm...?”

“...It’s been ripped off?”

The Bronze Giant’s arm had been torn away.

No spells, no rituals.

CRUNCH!

The intruder—a knight—had ripped it off with his bare hands.

Raw, overwhelming force.

Yet if the knight had heard their thoughts, he would have laughed.

He hadn’t used brute strength.

He’d used technique.

A method known as [Internal Breaking Method].