Ch.119Chapter 119. Selection and Focus (5)

“Still hanging in there?”

Arte muttered with a relaxed smile as she looked at the tightly bound hostage.

Erika, with her limbs tied, could only hang her body limply with her head bowed powerlessly.

Arte, who had been thinking alone in her room when she felt something strange, immediately headed to the underground prison.

Crescen Academy, the First Elder’s plan failed.

And the undead wyvern that appeared on the battlefield just in time.

Arte instinctively felt that to put this puzzle together, she needed to interrogate the captured hostage.

The rat who had infiltrated even into the military, where no spy had ever reached before.

“Why don’t you just talk now?”

“…Get lost.”

“Hmm. You’ll regret it.”

Arte still appeared completely at ease despite Erika’s resolute attitude.

As if making Erika talk would be as easy as eating cold rice.

In reality, Arte had more than enough means to extract information from Erika.

The easiest and fastest method would be to use magic.

Although Arte’s specialty was creature synthesis within black magic, she wasn’t completely incapable of using mental magic.

She usually avoided using it deliberately because of comparisons to the First Elder.

If Arte decided to use black magic, she could quickly extract information from the hostage.

However, Arte didn’t want to use such an easy method.

She wanted to see this arrogant woman suffer as much as possible and beg for her life.

‘I don’t like her.’

Though she couldn’t clearly explain why, Arte somehow really disliked Erika.

It felt like more than just hostility toward a spy who had infiltrated their side.

“For you especially.”

Arte pulled out a small bottle from inside her clothes.

The transparent glass bottle was filled with black gas.

“I’ll let you meet this fellow. Hehe.”

Pop-

Arte mumbled to herself as she opened the bottle’s cork.

As soon as the cork was removed, the black gas inside escaped as if it had a will of its own and immediately headed toward Erika.

The gas that flew like an arrow toward Erika soon entered her body through her nose and mouth.

“Hehehehe.”

Arte burst into a sinister laugh as she watched.

“Nightmare,” one of Arte’s favorite creatures.

Nightmare’s ability was intuitive, just like its name.

It enters the target’s body and continuously shows them what they fear most.

It was literally no different from making them experience a “nightmare.”

A nightmare that would never end until Arte said it was over.

Slap-

“…Ugh!”

After confirming that Nightmare had definitely entered Erika, Arte picked up a whip nearby and struck Erika’s body hard.

It was to prevent Erika from losing consciousness.

If she passed out, she could temporarily escape from Nightmare.

“Now then.”

“Ungh…!”

“If you want to say something, try begging? Then I’ll listen.”

Arte swung the whip once more with a cruel smile.

**

Clank- Clank-

With each step down the stairs, a strange tension rose.

The stairway to the underground prison was quite long, longer than expected.

It felt much longer than the floor I had descended so far.

‘Ugh, uncomfortable.’

I constantly felt the urge to throw off the cumbersome and heavy armor, but I held back.

According to the guard I had just switched with, there was a princess or something in the prison, so I had to pretend to be a guard until the princess left.

It was fine to deal with other soldiers, but I didn’t want to mess with a princess of a country.

Clank- Slap-

‘Must be close now.’

Besides the clanking armor sound, another sound reached my ears.

It wasn’t a pleasant sound, of course.

The sound echoing from below was clearly the sound of a whip being wielded.

And it was hitting something, or rather, someone, hard.

Clank- Clank-

My footsteps quickened due to the violent sounds.

The intermittent whip sounds grew closer, and finally, I reached the end of the stairs.

“Uh…”

Whoosh- Crack-

“Unnngh!!”

I was speechless at the scene before me.

The sight that greeted me upon arriving at the prison was truly shocking.

The good news was that I immediately found Erika in the prison.

If she hadn’t been here, I would have had to search elsewhere, but that wasn’t necessary.

Erika was definitely here.

“Damn it.”

“Hmm? Who’s there?”

However, Erika was not in good condition.

I had expected she wouldn’t be in great shape since she was captured when she sent the emergency signal, but this was worse than expected.

Erika was bound by all four limbs inside the prison.

She wasn’t just tied up.

Her clothes were torn in various places, exposing her skin, and blood was flowing from the visible flesh through the torn clothes.

Anyone could see these were marks from the whip held by the woman in front of Erika.

The woman holding the whip, probably the princess of Flora Kingdom, turned around when she noticed my voice.

“I told you not to disturb me. You’re really annoying.”

The princess seemed to think I was a guard.

She gestured for me to leave after looking at me standing there blankly, then turned back to face the bound Erika.

After finally grasping the situation, the emotion that followed was indescribable.

Rage.

My mind went blank, and I couldn’t think of anything else.

Clang-

“Ugh. So noisy. Hey, who are you?!”

Before I knew it, I had thrown off my helmet.

As the helmet hit the floor with a sound, the princess’s gaze turned back toward me, and I moved toward Erika.

Erika’s condition looked even worse up close.

Blood was flowing freely from various parts of Erika’s body as she trembled slightly.

Her clothes were stained almost completely red with blood.

“Erika.”

“…Ungh…”

Erika barely managed to move her head to look at me when I called her.

This was the first time I had seen Erika in such a terrible state.

Erika was suffering so much it was hard to look at her.

Shing- Slash-

I immediately drew my sword and cut the chains binding Erika.

I quickly caught Erika as she collapsed forward weakly after being freed from the chains.

The strong smell of blood emanated from Erika’s body as she put her arm around my shoulder.

“Who… are you?”

The princess was looking at me with a wary expression.

I was about to move Erika to a safe place.

“…She…”

“Huh?”

“She’s… black magic…”

Erika muttered in a trembling, low voice.

Though it was just one phrase, I immediately understood the situation.

I reflexively turned my head to look at the woman standing in front of me.

A woman with silver hair much closer to white than Erika’s, and crimson eyes full of hostility.

“Princess… Arte…”

“…Don’t tell me you came to rescue her?”

Arte muttered with a furrowed brow, as if she couldn’t believe it.

At the same time, I pointed my sword at Arte while supporting Erika with one hand.

I wasn’t going to let her go after what she did to Erika, princess or not, and now I had a good excuse.

I never imagined that a princess of a country would be behind black magic.

“I didn’t expect the Black Shadow Corps to infiltrate this far, even with their reputation. As expected of professional thieves?”

“I’m… sorry.”

Erika mumbled in response to Arte’s words.

Erika was trembling as she gripped my clothes tightly.

This is infuriating.

There was only one reason Erika would apologize to me at this moment.

She must have told Arte about me and the Black Shadow Corps.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Seeing that you got past No. 1, you must be more than just a thief?”

Whoosh-

As Arte finished speaking, I felt something spreading from all directions.

I thought it might be the fog-type magic the First Elder used yesterday, but it felt somewhat different.

‘I need to get Erika to a safe place first.’

I was trembling with anger but tried my best to stay calm.

Right now, the priority was to escape with the badly injured Erika.

Even though I desperately wanted to do to that woman exactly what she had done to Erika.

Woong-

Regardless of the gas spreading around, I teleported away while supporting Erika.

I arrived at what I thought was the safest place and where someone could treat Erika.

Yuria’s house.

“Hey. Don’t just come into the house, Commander…”

“Yuria.”

I didn’t have time to properly see Yuria’s eyes widening in surprise.

Yuria, startled, quickly approached and helped support Erika.

“Haaaa… damn it… of all people, you…”

Those were Erika’s last words before losing consciousness in Yuria’s arms.

Yuria covered the unconscious Erika with a blanket and examined her condition with a serious expression.

“Please help her.”

“What in the world happened…!”

Woong-

I didn’t have the luxury to listen to Yuria’s angry voice to the end.

I could no longer contain the rage boiling inside me.

I teleported back to the underground prison where Erika had been held captive.

“Oh, so your ability really can’t be blocked even by barriers?”

In the underground prison, Princess Arte was waiting for my return with her arms crossed, as if she had expected it.

Judging by how she spoke about my ability, she must have heard about teleportation from Erika.

“Haaaah.”

I took a deep breath and stared directly at Princess Arte.

Shing-

“You’re dead.”

Whoosh-

Black mana surged up my Black Shadow Sword.

For the first time since coming to the Arcaria Continent, rage filled me to the point of dizziness.