Chapter 22. The Truth of the Magical Beastification Experiment (1)
Dark clouds flowed across the night sky.
The Leopold Administrator's Mansion.
The silver moonlight that had been cast upon it was swallowed by the clouds.
The only remaining light was the indoor lights turned on in a few of the mansion's windows. Apart from that, complete darkness was cast over the garden.
Click.
I checked the pocket watch again in the darkness.
'There's some time left until midnight.'
The Wise family's mansion annex, filled only with the sound of insects. In the middle of the maze garden plaza in its front yard.
I waited for the time, leaning against the wall of the thicket.
'It starts here.'
Vendetta's ambush that would be waiting for me.
But even before that, I took action first.
'I'll ambush them in reverse.'
Since all the information about the time and place was in my hands, the hunted had already changed.
As expected.
Just in time, small footsteps were heard beyond the walls of the thicket made of garden wood.
I loosened the knot on the scabbard and slightly drew my sword.
Swish.
The scenery behind the wall, reflected on the clear silver-white blade, came into view.
Thud, thud.
Six or so mages who appeared from the darkness were approaching the sculpture in the middle of the garden maze.
It seemed they had patrolled in advance.
They were chatting among themselves in low voices as they approached.
"…The direct descendant found out about the location of the laboratory."
"I heard he didn't call for reinforcements. And since he doesn't have any Follower Families, killing him will be easy."
They chuckled, exchanging stories in low voices.
"I don't know how he found out. Isn't he that guy called Elsyde's Incompetence?"
"Yeah. The status of the Main House is not good either. How could a non-mage be born from a direct descendant?"
"The Empire's status isn't good either. It's really doomed."
"Anyway, aren't we going to take care of it soon?"
One of the female mages let out a sneering remark.
"This, Elsyde might be grateful to us instead. Isn't he a waste product who has been confined in the Fortress since he was a child because he was an eyesore?"
Clack.
When they reached the middle of the plaza, they stopped chatting and surrounded the central statue.
And then they drew up their mana.
Whoosh.
Along with a small activation sound, their mana flowed into the statue and unfolded.
Instantly, dazzling circuit-like patterns floated across the entire statue, and a low mechanical sound was heard.
Clatter!
And the next moment, the central part of the plaza silently opened in an instant.
Clang.
From the entrance opened directly below the statue, an underground area connected by a spiral staircase was revealed.
The dim light of the mana stone lamps leaking from below cast shadows on the mages' faces.
It was the laboratory in the basement of the orphanage.
"Go in and make the regular report, and prepare to welcome the guest who will come soon. He'll be here a little later."
They slowly went down the stairs one by one.
And the moment the last female mage was about to go down to the basement—
-Whoosh!
Piercing through the darkness of the night, dark blue mana left a straight trajectory on her and explosively charged forward.
“…!”
It was a beat later that the female mage, who was about to close the underground door below the statue, realized that her neck had been severed.
Slash!
"What…"
The mages who had gone down to the basement first, widened their eyes in surprise at the sudden situation and looked up.
The moon in the night sky, which had been obscured by dark rain clouds, revealed itself for a moment.
In that darkness, Enoch, silhouetted against the silver moonlight, looked at them with eyes dyed in a clear dark blue light, and scattered his sword to the side once.
Swoosh
The dark blue light mana that subtly stained the sword, left its trajectory and spat out blood in the air.
Seeing that, one of the men quickly unfolded a magic circle and shouted in a loud voice.
"Attack…! Keuheoeok!"
But unlike their intention, their voices only came out as twisted sounds.
Ping
The threads faintly reflected in the dim moonlight in the darkness shone faintly.
The silver-white wires ejected into the air revealed their appearance.
The silver threads spread out in all directions were wrapped around the necks of all the remaining mages.
Lien walked out from behind the statue where the entrance to the basement was opened, and pulled the wires.
Their necks were tightened deeply in one stroke.
The eyeballs of those who could not breathe bulged out as if they would burst, and their blood vessels protruded.
"Keu, keuheok…."
Shriek
But no matter how much they scratched their necks, they could not unravel the thoroughly wrapped silver threads.
Rather, the more they struggled, the more their fingernails and flesh were torn off.
"……."
Lien indifferently looked down at their appearance for a moment, hung the wires on the body of the statue, and jumped into the basement.
The skirt of the maid's uniform tailored in white and black and her silver hair waved greatly in the wind all at once.
Squeak
In an instant, her position and the mages' positions were reversed based on the statue that served as a pulley.
When Lien lightly landed on the underground stairs, the mages were hanging in the air like strangled corpses, their breaths cut off.
Thud
A few drops of blood fell on the white apron of the maid's uniform.
Without caring that a few bright red drops of blood were falling on her pure white cheeks, Lien confirmed their death and retrieved the wires with a simple motion.
"Y-You guys are…! If you, touch, touch our Vendetta…!"
One last remaining mage, terrified by the death of his comrades, stepped back from Lien.
But his surprised eyes were flipped over in an instant with a dull blow.
Thwack!
From behind the guy who was collapsing helplessly, Enoch retracted the handle of his sword.
Indeed, amnesia magic (physical).
The performance is sure.
"Shall we do some farming now?"
Enoch confirmed that the guy who had collapsed foaming at the mouth was alive, and began to search his pockets.
Eventually, a familiar-looking document and a key with a recognition chain attached were revealed from his pocket.
-
「Experimental Subject Storage Key」
-
Enoch stowed the key away in his pocket.
With this, the preparations for going into full-scale action were complete.
'By the way, «Vendetta» here too.'
Recalling the name the mage had shouted just before, Enoch suddenly raised his head.
It was a familiar name that I had heard several times even in the game I had played hundreds of times, but seeing it here, it felt a bit new.
'In the game, it was a villainous group with a damn lot of troublesome high-ranking mages gathered.'
The guys I just knocked down were just ordinary members of Vendetta. Nevertheless, judging from the flow of mana, they had at least reached rank 15.
Furthermore, the skills of the executive-level mages who appeared in the original story were beyond imagination.
'But compared to that, their story wasn't covered in much detail in the game.'
Only the things they were doing and solving them were mostly focused on.
So, there were more than one or two times when I felt that the rice cakes that were scattered so much while playing the game were not properly collected.
'Well, the story was originally like that.'
Atlas of the Magic Empire was not originally a game with a friendly story.
Perhaps it was because the world was so vast. There were more than one or two elements that users had no choice but to find out through speculation.
Of course, there was also the fun of speculating about this and that, but there were many things lacking to call it a game with user-friendly storytelling.
'It doesn't matter anyway now.'
Still, there's no problem anyway.
At least about how this thing is going on.
And I know well what Vendetta is doing in this small city called Leopold right now.
That was enough for now.
He put the key he had taken into his waist and moved his steps.
His body was creaking quite a bit everywhere as he took a step.
'…It hurts like hell.'
The backlash from using swordsmanship.
I've felt it since before, but the risk of actually using swordsmanship in reality was more extreme than I thought.
The pain in my body was already creeping up.
It seemed that it would take some time to get better if I got used to it, but it would take some time to get used to it.
'I can't spend a lot of time on this mission.'
As expected, it was too much of a burden to use swordsmanship directly in reality.
I had only just begun to understand the swordsmanship that dealt with mana, but it was still difficult to control its power.
'Especially 「The Empire’s Last Sword Saint」's swordsmanship is based on a technique that uses the recoil of detonating mana.'
Since I had to bear the intense recoil directly with my body, the risk was considerable in proportion to the explosive power and speed.
Thud
Enoch dragged the man who was under amnesia magic (physical) in his hand and threw him in front of Lien, saying.
"Keep that guy here. Maybe there won't be any, but additional support might come."
Enoch continued without stopping and headed into the basement.
"……."
Lien, who had been quietly watching his back, suddenly shifted her gaze to the silver moon that had risen in the night sky.
The night before leaving for the mission.
That kind of moon had risen last night too.
The things in the middle of the night sent from the Elsyde Fortress flashed through her vision, where the white moonlight had melted.
***
"…What on earth are you thinking?"
In the silver moonlight.
Lien's cold voice echoed in Enoch's dark room.
"It seems you've already heard."
"Rumors are circulating that Enoch-nim volunteered to take on the mission. It's strange not to know."
At her words, Enoch nodded.
Lien's eyes narrowed slightly.
"Do you know what it means to take on a mission?"
"To some extent."
A clear hostility was already emanating from Lien's gaze staring at Enoch.
Exemption Mission.
An impossible mission with a 0% success rate, most of which end in death.
A system that is practically close to executing those who disobey the family's orders. The danger is needless to say.
To suddenly take on something like that.
This was a clear breach of contract.
"I made it a condition that you would not harm Young Master's body in exchange for cooperating with you."
She opened her mouth coldly.
In fact, Lien did not understand from the first solo mission.
Since it was already over, she didn't say anything else, but since she saw that Enoch was injured, she guessed that it was also a very dangerous mission.
"But why do you volunteer for such dangerous missions?"
Lien asked coldly.
Logically, when someone assumes someone else's body, the reason why they have to do such extreme actions was not conceivable.
"I thought you understood that if Young Master's body dies, you who are possessing that body will also die."
It was precisely in that respect that she thought she had found a reason to cooperate with him. Because valuing one's own life is extremely rational.
Yet he was volunteering for dangerous missions.
There was also the option of quietly secluding himself in the room as the original Enoch had done until now and safely surviving until the disownment. He was acting in the completely opposite way.
"Don't you understand the danger of the Exemption Mission?"
Enoch met her with calm eyes and answered.
"No. I just chose it because there is a way."
"Do you have something else to trust?"
"Of course. If I was going to jump into a place to die, I wouldn't need to go far, would I?"
Lien stared at him without a word.
It was hard to think it was purely a lie.
It hasn't been long since he took over Young Master's body and acted like him, but she had already noticed that he wasn't stupid enough to bluff in this situation.
But of course, that didn't mean that it was easy to believe.
It was a dangerous mission where a family mage who had been dispatched earlier had already gone missing.
Unless she understood what he was thinking, it was far from enough to trust him completely.
'I want to make him tell me everything he's thinking right now, but…'
Lien's fingers inadvertently brushed over the skirt of the maid's uniform, then returned to their original position.
'It sounds good to say we have a cooperative relationship.'
She already understood that in this state, she was in a position where she could not act against his will.
And that's probably the same for that man too.
But if he had to embark on a perilous Exemption Mission, then what Lien herself had to do was decided.
If she wanted to protect the safety of Enoch's body, there would be only one way right now.
"Now that you've already taken on the mission, there's no point in saying anything now."
The Exemption Mission cannot be abandoned midway.
Then there was only one thing to do.
She looked at Enoch and opened her mouth with an emotionless expression.
"So, I'll go with you."
Blink.
The blue-silver eyes containing the moonlight closed, stopping the recollection.
That's how it came to this.
Lien, who had breathed out the cold night air once, quietly raised the skirt of her maid's uniform to her thigh and pulled out the silver-white wire.
Ping.
Reacting to the mana deployed on her fingers.
The wire that was ejected in an instant bound the fainted man.
Lien stared at Enoch, who was disappearing into the basement, with cold eyes for a moment.
'I don't know what he's trying to do.'
But that wasn't her concern.
Lien quietly stroked her pure white neck.
The magic that she had cast when she made a ‘contract’ with the man who had taken over Young Master’s body before.
With that, she can know for sure if he is in danger.
Lien's blue-silver eyes emotionlessly repeated.
No matter what anyone says, what is most important to her right now….
'Only to protect that person's body.'