The Extra is a Genius!? - Chapter 475

Chapter 475: Chapter 475: Breaking the Chains
“Claim reward.”

There was no flare of light. No fanfare. No dramatic pause meant to impress him.

The system reacted instantly.

A clean sensation cut through him—sharp, decisive—like a pressure seal snapping open deep inside his chest.

A weight he hadn’t realized he was carrying shattered all at once, and what followed rushed in to fill the space. Mana surged—not violently, not in waves—but in a single, overwhelming presence. It felt less like something flooding into him and more like something finally allowed to breathe.

Noel staggered half a step, fingers tightening around Revenant Fang on instinct.

“…Status,” he murmured.

The response surfaced at once.

[Mana Core Progress: +10%]

[Current Core Progress: 0.22% — Mana Core: Archmage]

Noel froze.

Archmage.

For a long second, the word didn’t settle. Then it did, and the implications hit harder than any spell ever had.

He had crossed into a tier occupied by people whose names bent history around them. By Nicolas von Aldros, back when his core still existed. By Daemar, standing at the peak of the Imperial Academy. By the quiet monsters every kingdom pretended didn’t exist unless absolutely necessary.

And now—

Him.

Noel closed his eyes.

The mana within him wasn’t raging. It wasn’t roaring or clawing for release. It was there—vast, ordered, attentive. Like standing at the edge of a perfectly still ocean and realizing it was aware of you. Mana that didn’t need channels or restraints to behave. Mana that would listen even without being told how.

Pure, royal mana. Uncontained and unbroken.

“…This is different,” Noel whispered, more to himself than to anyone else.

Not stronger in the crude sense.

Heavier. Denser. Like gravity had decided to acknowledge him.

Behind his eyes, Noir stirred sharply.

‘Dad,’ she said, amazement spilling straight through the bond. ‘We’re—wow. This feels insane. It’s not pushing me at all. It’s like…’

Noel huffed a breath, something close to a laugh escaping him. ‘Yeah. I don’t even know how to describe it either. It’s like the power was always here—I just finally caught up to it.’

Noir’s excitement flickered brighter. ‘With this, we’re not just keeping up anymore. We’re ahead.’

He didn’t deny that.

But his gaze shifted, to the figure slumped in chains before him.

The old man.

Still bound. Still helpless.

Noel’s grip on Revenant Fang steadied, lightning and shadow sliding together along the blade’s edge like they’d finally agreed on how to coexist.

“Later,” Noel said quietly, grounding himself. “We celebrate later.”

He stepped forward.

Noel stopped a few steps away from the chair.

Up close, the old man looked smaller than he had at first glance. Not frail in the way of someone about to die, but worn thin, like a candle that had been burning far longer than it was meant to. Whatever energy remained in him wasn’t flowing so much as lingering, held together by routine and stubborn endurance rather than strength.

Noel could feel it now.

Not by reaching out—but because his mana no longer needed to search. It recognized the absence instinctively, the way silence stands out more clearly after noise fades.

The old man finally lifted his head.

His eyes widened.

He didn’t understand what had changed. He couldn’t have. But his body reacted anyway, shoulders tensing as far as the chains allowed, breath hitching as something vast and unseen settled into the space between them.

Fear.

Pure, immediate, and honest.

Noel glanced down at Revenant Fang.

Lightning traced the blade in slow, steady lines, not snapping or biting, while shadow slid along the metal in quiet layers. They didn’t clash anymore. They moved side by side, like two currents running through the same riverbed, separate but aligned, each reinforcing the other without friction.

That alone told him how different things were now.

He looked back at the chains.

They weren’t simple restraints. Each link carried weight beyond metal, etched faintly with runes worn smooth by time. They could have been as brittle as glass or as unyielding as enchanted diamond—there was no way to tell by sight alone.

Noel wasn’t about to guess.

He drew in a slow breath and let mana sink into the blade, not flooding it, not forcing anything. Just enough to fill every edge with intent. The power didn’t surge. It settled, dense and obedient, responding as easily as a limb he’d always known how to move.

The old man’s breathing grew shallow.

He tried to pull back, but the chains held him rigid, locking him in place. His eyes darted between Noel’s face and the weapon, panic rising fast now that instinct had caught up to reality.

Noel noticed.

He softened his voice—not with false comfort, but with certainty.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” he said calmly. “And I’m not rushing this.”

He adjusted his stance, feet planting firmly in the stone floor.

“You’ve been stuck like this long enough,” Noel continued. “So I’m going to do this once. Cleanly.”

Revenant Fang rose.

The air shifted, not violently, but with a faint vibration, like the moment before thunder breaks far overhead.

Noel moved and Revenant Fang cut through the air in a clean arc.

The sound came first.

A sharp, scraping screech tore through the lighthouse—like dragging a metal fork across a ceramic plate, slow and wrong, a noise that made the skin crawl because it felt like something fundamental had just been violated. The sound echoed off the stone walls, lingering a fraction longer than it should have.

Metal parted with a shrill whine, links severed so cleanly they looked sliced from reality rather than cut. The restraints slackened all at once, tension vanishing in an instant, and with it, the only thing keeping the structure upright.

The chair tipped backward.

Wood struck stone with a dull, hollow thud as the old man fell, still half-bound to the seat, the remains of the chains clattering uselessly around him. Dust puffed up from the floor, drifting lazily through the air as the echo died.

Silence followed.

Noel held his stance for a heartbeat longer, blade still extended, listening. When nothing reacted—no surge of mana, no retaliatory pressure—he finally lowered Revenant Fang, the weapon’s faint vibration fading to a quiet hum.

If the Second Pillar noticed this…

Then the window to undo it had already closed.

The old man coughed violently, body shuddering as he sucked in air like someone relearning how to breathe. His hands shook, fingers curling weakly as if they weren’t convinced they were free yet.

He didn’t try to stand.

He just lay there, chest heaving, eyes wide and unfocused, staring at the broken chains scattered across the floor.

Noel stepped closer, careful, measured.

“You’re free,” he said simply.

The words seemed to take a moment to reach the man. When they did, something in his expression cracked. Disbelief, raw and fragile, like glass under strain.

Noel glanced once at the chains.

Thick. Dense. Etched with patterns meant to endure time, not combat.

And now, useless.

Revenant Fang rested at his side.

The lighthouse stood unchanged—stone walls, narrow windows, the faint creak of height—but something fundamental had shifted. For the first time, there was no figure bound to its heart.