Chapter 107: Words I’d Never Heard (6)

[107] 16. Words I’d Never Heard (6)

When Mallis was young, before leaving for the Magic Tower, his father had told him.

[High places are precarious. Do not get too close to them.]

Back then, Mallis ignored those words. He dismissed them as the ramblings of an old man.

Because back then, all he could see were the stars in the sky.

But now, Mallis was looking down at the ground.

The earth was dry, not a single blade of grass in sight. Only his cold sweat left unpleasant marks.

And there, amidst it all, lay a dead ant.

Its head neatly severed.

Was it simply his anxiety that made him see his own reflection in the ant?

A sharp voice cut through the air, landing on Mallis’s neck.

“I swear on my name, you will not die peacefully.”

“Even street thugs are more creative with their threats, Your Highness. Don’t you have anything else?”

“You… You wretch…!!”

Mallis barely managed to raise his head.

The man named Rem, completely unfazed despite the dozens of swords and spears pointed at him.

And Prince Adolf, whose face had turned from red to purple with rage.

Five years. That’s how long Mallis had been serving Adolf. But even he had never seen Adolf this furious before.

But at the same time, Mallis knew.

Adolf’s rage always left behind a trail of blood in its wake.

Mallis, all the knights present here, and even that idiotic lord of Essier.

Everyone here would meet their death by the end of this. And that death would certainly not be gentle.

“…”

*I want to live.*

That desperate thought flowed out along with his tears.

Mallis, more than ever, wanted to live. He desperately wished that everything he had built wouldn’t turn into a cold chunk of meat.

And there was only one path he knew that led to life.

“How about we stop with the clichéd threats and have a more productive conversation?”

“I have nothing to discuss with the likes of you.”

“How did you know that we were heading for Essier?”

“I said I have nothing to discuss with you!”

Mallis glared at the magic circles carved onto Rem’s body.

If he could just dispel them now. If he could just stop that explosion magic, the prince might spare his life. Maybe there was still a path that led to life.

Though trembling, Mallis desperately studied the magic circle.

But the more he examined them, the deeper his despair grew.

The level of skill was on a completely different level.

Mallis couldn’t even decipher a part of it, let alone the whole thing. It was like looking at an impenetrable fortress, surrounded by walls of formulas and geometry.

Mallis felt the blade inching closer to his neck.

It was then.

‘Huh…?’

Mallis, feeling a surge of hope and suspicion, looked at the magic circles again. And then he was certain.

A part of the magic circle looked familiar.

It was from before he had started working for Adolf. A friend who was working at the academy had sent him a magic circle one day, saying a new genius had appeared at the Academy.

Mallis, who happened to be free at the time, decided to try and decipher that magic circle, and after a week of struggling, he had finally managed to unravel it.

And a part of Rem’s magic circle was an exact match to that magic circle.

Of course, that alone wasn’t enough to understand the entire magic circle. After all, it was only a small part of the magic circles that covered Rem’s entire body.

But it was enough to give him hope.

Mallis quietly began deciphering the magic circle with his eyes.

***

[I probably won’t be able to buy much time. The mages working under the prince aren’t all idiots.]

[So you need to retrieve it as soon as possible.]

Rosalia, recalling Rem’s words, swung her sword.

“Captain…!”

A head soared through the air, then fell to the ground. It rolled across the floor, staining the carpet with blood, before finally stopping against the wall.

It was the head of a man who had once been her subordinate. A comrade she had fought alongside on the battlefield.

A stinging sensation rose in her chest.

But that feeling was quickly washed away.

They had come too far – both them and her – to be caught up in the past now.

Above all, they were the ones who had stood by and watched as Rem’s legs were cut off.

Rosalia coldly averted her gaze from the corpse. Then she looked at Dorn, who had just broken another knight’s neck.

“Are you done, brother-in-law?”

“More or less. Where’d our ‘friend’ go?”

As soon as Dorn spoke, Rem’s ‘left hand’ dashed out from behind.

It sprinted down the mansion hallway, beckoning them with a wiggle of its pinky finger.

Dorn and Rosalia rolled their eyes and then followed it.

After running and killing for who knows how long.

Dorn and Rosalia finally arrived at the mansion’s basement, before a giant vault.

*Thump- Thump-*

Rem’s ‘left hand’ hopped up and down as if saying, “Here”.

But Dorn and Rosalia couldn’t let their guard down. No, it would be more accurate to say that they *couldn’t*.

The woman standing alone in front of the vault spoke.

“It’s been a while, Captain.”

“…Sheila.”

Sheila was a mess.

Rosalia knew it was a vague expression, but that was the only way she could describe her.

Her bloodshot eyes looked as if they were about to rot, and her once reddish-brown hair was now a sickly color.

The once proud knight was gone. Only a broken human barely gripping a sword remained.

“The Prince did this to me.”

Sheila said while stroking her bruised face.

“He said that if I’m no longer useful as a knight, then I should at least be useful in other ways…”

“Draw your sword.”

Rosalia spoke in a ruthlessly emotionless tone.

“I don’t have time for your self-pity. Either step aside or draw your sword.”

Sheila’s eyes widened slightly before slowly closing. Her sword slowly turned towards Rosalia.

“If I let you go now, the prince will eventually have you torn to shreds.”

Tears welled up in Sheila’s eyes.

“But even if I stop you now, you will still die.”

*Clang-*, the sound of metal hitting the stone floor.

Sheila dropped her sword and collapsed to the ground. She curled up, clutching her head.

“How did it all end up like this?”

Her voice was choked with tears.

“I just didn’t want you to die, Captain…”

Her trembling hand pulls out a dagger from within her clothes. The dagger’s tip was pointed at her own throat.

Sheila looked at Rosalia with tears streaming down her face.

“I’m sorry, Captain. I guess I ruined everything.”

And then, she plunged the dagger into her neck.

“…!”

No, to be precise, she *tried* to.

Sheila’s trembling eyes looked at the delicate hand that had grabbed her arm. Then she raised her head to see the hand’s owner.

Rosalia, her one and only Captain.

Hope and joy filled Sheila’s eyes.

“Captain… I…!”

*WHAM-!*

And then, her vision spun.

When Sheila came to her senses, she felt her cheek pressed against the cold floor. The metallic taste of blood lingered in her mouth.

“You’re apologizing to the wrong person.”

*WHAM-!*

Another dull impact echoed through the basement. Sheila, unable to breathe, curled up into a ball.

“And you think you can just find peace that way after what you’ve done?”

*WHAM-!*

“Ca-Captain…!”

“Don’t you think that’s too cowardly?”

“I’m, I’m sorry…”

“If you’re truly sorry, then live.”

Dorn silently watched Rosalia.

“Live, even when you want to die, force yourself to live, and spend the rest of your life repenting for your sins, for the wrongs you’ve made.”

Rosalia’s violence wasn’t fueled by emotion. She administered violence coldly and calculatedly.

She targeted vital points and crushed the most sensitive areas.

Before long, Sheila could no longer speak. She simply whimpered lowly like an injured beast.

But even then, Rosalia didn’t stop. Rather, It seemed as if her violence intensified the more Sheila crumbled.

Dorn, seeing this, realized it was time to stop.

“Sister-in-law, that’s enough.”

“Don’t stop me, brother-in-law. I need to teach this bitch…!”

“We’ve already wasted too much time.”

Rosalia’s body stiffened. Dorn placed a hand on her shoulder and said softly.

“He’s waiting.”

“…”

Rosalia looked down at her blood-stained hands and the now truly broken Sheila.

“Haa…”

A deep sigh, then Rosalia picked up the dagger that had fallen to the floor.

“_____!!”

Sheila screamed loudly as the dagger pierced her thigh. Rosalia twisted the dagger and grabbed Sheila’s hair, lifting her up.

“Now you too will never walk again.”

And then, she threw Sheila to the ground.

Rosalia finally stood up and looked at Dorn.

“I’m sorry, brother-in-law, let’s go.”

“…Right.”

And so, Rosalia and Dorn walked toward the vault.

Leaving behind the fool who had been blinded by longing.

***

“That’s a fake!!”

That shout struck like lightning.

Puzzled eyes turned to Mallis.

Mallis, his face on the verge of tears, continued.

“I-I’ve deciphered the magic circle!! That magic circle, the amount of mana required to activate it is impossible!!”

The more he spoke, the more the atmosphere shifted. The suppressed air began to boil.

Mallis, smiling frantically, pointed at Rem.

“You’d need a mountain-sized magic stone to activate all those magic circles! It’s impossible!”

A heavy silence descended.

Who was it that said suppressed anger is the most violent.

Murderous gazes landed on Rem. And the sharpest one among them was, of course, Adolf’s.

Adolf glared at Rem as if believing he could kill with his eyes alone.

“You… tricked me?”

Rem shrugged his shoulders.

“That guy’s calculations could be wrong, couldn’t they? Would you be willing to bet your life on the word of just one person, Your Highness?”

But Mallis wasn’t the only mage desperate to live.

“I-I also deciphered it!! Mr. Mallis is right!”

Suddenly, one mage raised his hand and stepped forward.

“M-Me too! I calculated it too!!”

“I came to the same conclusion! That explosion magic is practically impossible to activate!”

“He has been deceiving Your Highness and us all along!!”

And other mages followed, screaming as if in desperation.

Maybe their calculations were wrong. Maybe they hadn’t actually deciphered the magic circles and were simply jumping on the bandwagon to save their own lives.

But, as always, the truth didn’t really matter.

The rage that came from the possibility of having been tricked. The sense of liberation as the fear that had been choking them disappeared.

“Knights.”

And the Empire’s crown prince, whose imperial dignity had been wounded.

The end of his patience had finally arrived.

Adolf smiled cruelly and raised his wine glass.

“Bring that bastard to his knees before me, now.”

But the problem was, that also applied to Rem.

Rem felt something solid being placed in his left hand.

The end of his waiting.

Rem grinned at the approaching knights.

“Well, isn’t the one who got tricked the idiot?”

[eleptort]

And with a flash of blue light, Rem vanished into thin air.

A terrifying silence descended.

Adolf stared at the empty space where Rem had been. And then…

“Aaaaaaargh!! Uwaaaaaaaaah!! Aaaaaaaaah!!”

He began screaming towards the sky while tearing at his clothes.