Ch.141The Declining Imperial Family (12)

The barren plateau was devoid of any remaining monsters. The snow had evaporated under the high-pressure laser, revealing the stark, bare ground.

‘That was clean.’

Ruide was quite pleased with this new magic. Irene gently stroked his head while smiling serenely.

“As always, your magic today was perfect. You killed them all without leaving a single one behind.”

“Where’s sister Amelia?”

After getting down from Irene’s embrace, Ruide looked around.

He had come to find Amelia, but the person in question was nowhere to be seen.

“I chased her away.”

“Huh?”

“How could I stand by when she dared to slap your cheek? She’s currently under disciplinary action.”

Irene was still smiling.

But Ruide could imagine Irene beating Amelia like a dog. It was a scene he had witnessed often.

“Hmm, that wasn’t really necessary…”

“It couldn’t be helped since stealing prey is a grave offense.”

“What?”

“She took all the prey you were carefully trying to kill.”

Irene has trouble remembering people’s names. So she often calls them by animal names like ‘doggy’ or ‘kitty.’

Referring to Shearer as ‘prey’ was probably for the same reason, but somehow it felt like she wasn’t even treating him as a human.

‘Well, he wasn’t really human anyway.’

Though he had no one to vent his anger on since Shearer was already dead, Ruide nodded, still furious about Colon’s death.

“You’re right. Sister Amelia was wrong. It was my prey to kill.”

“Oh my. Perhaps I should have beaten her more.”

“It’s fine. She’s a stranger to me now.”

A strange glint flashed in Irene’s eyes and then disappeared.

She spoke as if joking.

“Then I’m your only sister now.”

“That’s right. I only have sister Irene now.”

Ruide said without much thought. Irene felt as if an electric current was running through her entire body.

It was a pleasing resonance.

Of course, Ruide didn’t notice that Irene felt this way.

‘I want to see Amelia first.’

“So where is Amelia now?”

“By now, she’s probably crying in a corner of the training hall.”

“I see. Thanks, sister.”

“Are you going to meet Amelia?”

“Huh?”

She stopped Ruide as he was about to leave.

Irene gently wrapped her arms around Ruide’s waist.

“Um…”

Ruide responded somewhat reluctantly. Irene’s reaction was a bit strange.

“Forgiving her so soon is too easy.”

“I’m not trying to forgive her.”

“Just showing your face is forgiveness. More importantly, would you like to see something fun with your sister?”

Irene said as she tucked her hair behind her ear.

“Something fun?”

“Something fun.”

Honestly, Ruide was worried about Amelia. He wanted to go see her as soon as possible.

“Sorry. I want to go see sister Ame.”

“Hmm…”

Irene drew out her words for a moment. She was openly showing a disappointed expression.

“Even though I’ve forbidden even myself from entering, that’s too harsh, Ruide.”

Hearing those words, Ruide was momentarily flustered.

“No, that’s not what I meant…”

“I understand. Don’t worry about your sister and go to Ame.”

Her face was clearly saying she wanted him to worry about her.

‘Is she actually upset?’

Irene’s thoughts are difficult to understand. Even though they’re family, there are many times when he wonders, ‘What is she thinking?’ In other words, she’s not good at expressing her emotions.

But now she was showing disappointment. Ruide was confused about how to respond to this rare sight.

“Ah, okay. What’s the fun thing? I want to see it.”

‘It should be fine if it’s just for a moment.’

In the end, Ruide chose to go along with what Irene wanted.

Then Irene raised the corners of her mouth as if she had never been disappointed.

“Follow me.”

‘This feels like…’

Ruide couldn’t shake the feeling that he had been baited.

**

What Irene guided him to was a basement. There was a staircase leading underground in a corner, which Ruide didn’t even know existed.

“Where is this?”

“You’ll find out when we get there.”

The deeper they went down the stairs, the darker and colder it became. That was natural for a basement, but Ruide thought it was more than that.

The air felt heavy.

‘Come on, Irene wouldn’t take me somewhere strange.’

Since being pampered was his daily routine, Ruide dismissed this sense of foreboding. Instead, he took out his staff and lit a fire because it was dark.

“Watching Ruide use magic is always fascinating.”

Irene glanced at Ruide and said quietly.

“Huh? That’s sudden.”

Ruide thought she was talking about his silent casting. Typically, mages would recite incantations. However, he didn’t need incantations for simple spells.

“Usually magic is ‘manifested’ through a medium, but you suddenly create it out of thin air.”

Irene pointed to the fire that had formed slightly away from the staff.

‘She’s right.’

Normally, fire should appear at the tip of the staff, but the fire was separated from it.

This was also evidence that the structure of how Ruide used magic was different from others.

In reality, Ruide had simply thought, ‘I wish there was fire.’

‘Come to think of it, how do other people use magic?’

Suddenly, a fundamental question occurred to Ruide.

Usually, to use magic, one changes a single ‘element.’

For instance, fire is the principle of a hot substance combining with oxygen and emitting energy.

Magic can substitute this ‘hot substance’ through mana as an energy source.

But without air, fire magic cannot be used. In other words, magic isn’t creation but a fake—substituting one component with the all-purpose energy called mana.

However, when Ruide uses magic, he can even substitute that ‘air.’ It might seem like a small difference, but it’s enormous. It means he can bypass all the structures needed for casting magic.

‘…Then, do I even need to use this world’s magic?’

The magic in this world begins with the ‘hierarchical magic’ created by Dellin.

If nothing else, Dellin was definitely a mage who couldn’t use magic like him. She couldn’t create something from nothing.

If that’s the case, then the way of using magic is fundamentally different, so is it right to follow the concept created by Dellin?

“Oh.”

Ruide stopped walking.

“What’s wrong?”

“…I think I just realized something incredible.”

Great discoveries often start from seemingly insignificant things.

The same was true for Ruide. But what he discovered was far from insignificant.

Perhaps something that could shake the very foundation of this world…

‘Maybe that’s going too far. Anyway, it seems worth experimenting.’

Redefining and creating a new magical concept.

Creating something is difficult, but as if foreseeing this situation, Ruide had a reliable existence.

That would be his slave… no, the proper Academy professor’s assistant, Ella.

He had assigned her the research of the 5th dimension magic, but even Ruide thought it was too harsh.

It was no different from asking a graduate student to discover the 4th element.

‘I’ll research the 5th dimension myself, and assign Ella to organize the new magic concept.’

“How admirable.”

Ruide was startled to see Irene staring down at him from right in front.

“You scared me.”

“Even without any help, you keep getting stronger.”

Irene ran her tongue over her lips.

“As expected of my brother.”

Ruide felt somehow embarrassed. He awkwardly moved past the situation.

“L-let’s go quickly, sister. So what did you want to show me?”

“Ah, I was forgetting something important. We’ve arrived. Come this way.”

They started walking again. As Irene said, there weren’t many stairs left.

It had been dark all the way here, but from this point on, it was bright enough to identify people. There were quite a few torches nearby.

Ruide waved his staff to extinguish the fire and looked around.

He immediately realized where they were.

“…This is.”

Iron bars, various torture devices.

Stains scattered across the walls and floor.

Ruide wasn’t naive enough not to realize these stains were blood.

This was a prison. Or rather, a torture chamber.

“This is where we open the mouths of disobedient cats.”

The correct answer seemed to be the latter. This was Ruide’s first time in such a secluded place. Not only had he been raised gently, but it wasn’t a place for a duke’s son to visit.

“Why are we…”

That was what Ruide was most curious about. Irene smiled brightly and took his hand.

“You’ll know soon.”

Feeling tense, he walked with Irene.

As they turned a corner, a knight guarding the place quickly stood up and saluted.

“You’ve worked hard. You may go take a break.”

Irene said kindly. The perceptive knight immediately bowed and disappeared.

For some reason, Ruide’s heart was pounding. The air here was somehow frightening.

“I was sad to hear the news. Just when Ruide was trying to do something, that Amelia thoughtlessly got in the way.”

Irene shook her head.

“How long will she treat you like a child? You’re already a grown Windsor.”

Irene gently stroked Ruide.

However, Ruide couldn’t respond.

The scene before him was that shocking.

“Urgh—”

A familiar person. Impossible not to recognize.

Galahad, the imperial knight who had sided with Shearer when he killed Colon.

“So I prepared this.”

He was chained to the wall with iron shackles binding both his hands and feet—

His body was covered in blood, without a single part unscathed.

His right leg and right arm were twisted in the opposite direction, and while his face was relatively intact, his mouth was full of blood.

“Kill me, please kill me.”

He opened his mouth with difficulty. Irene approached right in front of him and put her hands behind her back.

“This criminal killed Colon. Amelia naively thinks only Shearer was the culprit, but after Rosalie cut his soul a few times, he confessed. He participated in killing Colon.”

Ruide was too shocked to speak. He could only stare at Galahad’s figure with his rapidly beating heart.

“It’s fortunate that one survived. Thanks to him, we could learn that the Empire was preparing for war against us.”

“…War?”

“Yes. Perhaps they noticed Damon’s plan. It’s the worst period of relations between the Windsors and the Empire, and Damon, who was second in line to the imperial throne, is here.”

Irene continued talking with a smile to the shocked Ruide.

“Your judgment deserves praise, Ruide. He killed the people of the North, so naturally you would want to kill him yourself.”

“Kill me, kill me please…”

Galahad muttered with a breathless voice. The corners of Irene’s mouth deepened.

“We’ve extracted all the information we needed. Will you grant his request? Ruide.”

Irene drew her sword. She held the blade part with her hand to make it easier for Ruide to grasp, then handed it to him.

Ruide stared at the sword with blank eyes. This seemed like an instruction to kill ‘directly’ with his own hands, not with magic.

And that guess was undoubtedly correct.

“Ah, Ruide.”

As Ruide hesitated, Irene forcibly placed the sword in his hand and said kindly.

“The most painful way to cut someone is to stab them in the abdomen.”

Then she stood up and stepped back four paces.

Ruide still stared blankly at the sword, then looked at Galahad. He repeated this several times.

His heart was beating fast, and he felt dizzy.

Seeing her little brother still hesitating, Irene thought of something to ease his concern.

“By the way—”

Ruide recalled the battered image of Colon.

He was a Windsor knight, but an old knight past his prime.

Not someone who could match the Imperial Knights.

“This criminal mocked Colon as he fought back and toyed with him. Ignoring Shearer’s opinion to kill him cleanly—”

At that moment, something snapped in Ruide’s mind.

“Kill him as cruelly as possible. That’s the best revenge for Colon.”

Irene didn’t say anything more to provoke him.

Because already, Ruide was standing in front of Galahad with his sword raised high.