Ch.5Business Trip to Partner Company (2)

“…wake up.”

“Wake up!”

“Everyone, wake up!”

My head hurts. People who woke up clutching their temples realized they were in a facility they had never seen before.

Among them, the more perceptive ones recalled their last memories before collapsing and their expressions hardened.

Being captured by unknown assailants, then waking up in an unfamiliar space.

It was all too common in this world. Especially for those who lived in slums with poor security, this was a familiar occurrence.

They had either been captured as test subjects for some mad magician or would be modified and sold as slaves.

Just as sobs were about to break out among those who sensed their fate…

“It’s too early for despair!”

The voice of the young man who had awakened them rang out.

“The ones who captured us seem to have been careless. They didn’t confiscate the magic sigil drive I was carrying. We can escape.”

The young man, who revealed he was originally a dealer of illegal cracked magic sigil drives, began distributing the drives to everyone as he gathered them together.

As he persuaded people to escape together, someone cautiously asked him.

“B-but…”

“Won’t we all just die at the hands of magicians once we get out?”

It was a self-deprecating lament from people who had lived their lives being trampled upon. The young man readily acknowledged that possibility.

“That may well be true. The trivial magic we can use with these magic sigil drives might be nothing but a joke to real magicians.”

“But everyone, what difference is there between dying now as we rise up, and slowly withering away in the clutches of mad magicians?”

Is it truly living to pray each day that someone else dies in your place just so you can survive another day?

The young man expounded on the magicians’ horrific experiments and their depraved personalities, declaring that he would rather die standing than live on his knees.

After distributing all his spare magic sigil drives to the others, the young man slowly looked around.

“I understand it’s difficult for you to trust me easily. I might be using you all as bait to escape alone. So I’ll go out first and draw their attention.”

Leaving behind instructions for everyone to flee when the commotion outside began, the young man stepped out the door.

In the solemn atmosphere, those who remained waited for the signal to revolt.

Of course, none of them knew that this young man had already visited three slave storage facilities, making similar incitements.

***

Weeeeeeeeee─!

A warning sound that felt like it was scraping their eardrums. Flashing red lights. All signs of a slave escape alert.

Tachnia, the branch manager, irritably flipped through the screens. It seemed slaves were escaping en masse from Storage Facility No. 3.

He recalled the supplier responsible for Facility No. 3. Etna or something, a mid-sized organization from an unremarkable city.

Vowing to make the person in charge pay the next time they met, he summoned his subordinates.

“End this quickly. I don’t care if you blow off an arm or leg, but keep their heads intact. They’re merchandise for the main tower, so just keep them alive.”

His subordinates were skilled human-targeting magicians, masters of manipulating human bioelectricity to knock people unconscious.

They could subdue vagrants who couldn’t even use proper magic in less than five minutes.

Occasionally, some would appear who resisted neuro-manipulation magic through sheer willpower, but striking their bodies directly to break their will of resistance would eventually make them submit to the magic.

This level of disturbance could be handled at his level. Tachnia suppressed his slight irritation and sat down.

‘I can’t rot away in this dead-end position. Someday I’ll return to the main tower and…’

Weeeeeeeeee!!

The noise sounded again.

Tachnia’s expression twisted as he waited for a report on the situation’s resolution. Alarms began to sound continuously, suggesting escapes had begun at other storage facilities as well.

“There must be a cunning one among them…”

Those with some intelligence knew that the more people attempting to escape, the easier it became to get away.

The sight of someone not only escaping from their own isolation facility but also rallying slaves from other storage facilities to join the escape.

Though this was merely a temporary collection point, not a magic tower, and thus not heavily invested in security, the ease with which they were breaking through barriers and attempting escape suggested a wild magician might be involved.

Wild magicians, those who instinctively wielded magical power despite never having been properly trained, were certainly high-value merchandise for the Torres Magic Tower.

“Incompetent fools. I told them to use stronger anesthetics on wild magicians or just cut off their limbs.”

Tachnia gritted his teeth. In large-scale escapes, especially ones involving wild magicians, one or two successful escapees were inevitable.

He envisioned the scolding he would receive from the old ones at the main tower. Tachnia’s entire body began to fill with rage.

‘Kriton, was it? I’ll make sure to report this to the main tower and make you taste humiliation.’

First, he needed to report the situation to the main tower. The reprimand for losing a valuable wild magician would be on a completely different level than for a few escaped slaves.

He pressed the emergency signal transmitter.

And nothing happened.

In his bewilderment, an unfamiliar voice drifted in.

“May I ask you something?”

“Who are you…!”

He circulated magical power. His dormant cyborg parts activated. His enhanced optic nerves searched for the intruder in his reddened field of vision.

In fact, the intruder wasn’t even hiding.

“Is this the office of Tachnia, the Torres branch manager?”

He was simply standing in front of the door, asking calmly.

Tachnia felt something was off. The person was clearly “there,” but he couldn’t precisely capture what they looked like.

Despite looking directly at them, there was a haziness that wouldn’t come into focus. A camouflage spell?

The camouflage magic that bends visible light was a concealment spell mainly used by light attribute schools.

‘Did they destroy the communication relay device with the main tower, hiding their appearance during the slave escape…’

Tachnia gauged the intruder’s level.

High-level practitioners of camouflage could perfectly blend with the surrounding scenery to hide the caster.

But the intruder was merely blurry in form, their presence clearly felt. Therefore, the intruder’s proficiency in camouflage magic seemed to be that of a second-rate amateur.

That should certainly be the case, and yet.

An inexplicable sense of foreboding arose.

While the intruder’s entire body was blurry, only the black plate-like object they held was clear.

“Tachnia. Is that correct?”

Though he had risen to a fairly high position and rarely participated in direct combat anymore, Tachnia was still a battle-hardened magician who had risen from the bottom.

He recognized the weapon the intruder was holding. A high-frequency blade.

An invention from some school that manipulated sound. A weapon that utilized the principle that cutting power increases when sound is elevated to levels beyond what normal living beings can hear.

‘High-frequency blades are mass-produced, but they’re not cheap enough for someone with nothing to possess. Has another magic tower caught wind of this?’

But the intruder was foolish. If they had sneaked in secretly, they should have launched a surprise attack.

Tachnia activated the magic sigil drive embedded in his right hand. One for each finger.

The stored electric shock spell was released at once. Five layers of electric chains surged toward the intruder.

Simultaneously, he input the next spell into the calculation chip installed in his brain. Tachnia alerted his closely connected subordinates about the intruder’s appearance.

While communication with the main tower might have been preemptively blocked by destroying the relay equipment, short-range communication between brain chips awarded only to Torres school’s refiners couldn’t be blocked.

Yet no response came back.

“Are you looking for these?”

Thud. The intruder threw something.

Five chips with still-wet blood dripping from them.

It meant everyone had been killed by a precise strike targeting their brain chips before they could even send a communication.

Tachnia’s next action was a desperate reflex built from battlefield experience. He threw himself sideways with all his might.

A black straight line extended from the intruder past where Tachnia had been standing just moments ago. The high-frequency blade thrown while Tachnia’s attention was diverted by the brain chips.

The black blade shattered the control panel of the facility monitoring device installed on the office wall.

Tachnia shouted convulsively.

“Which magic tower sent you? Plauros? Tiphoen? Directly from Hwangroe?”

His outcry was also an attempt to buy time. He tried to somehow revive the circuit connected to the microphone inside the control panel using electricity manipulation magic to alert others of the situation here.

Tachnia calculated that if the magicians deployed to suppress the slaves heard the sound of battle from the office and assessed the situation, they would move to rescue him.

“Which would you prefer?”

An absurd question came back.

“If you have a preference, please tell me. I’ll match it for you.”

“You bastard─!!”

A provocation asking him to choose how he would die. Tachnia began unleashing his prepared magic.

First magic: Neural Disruption.

The intruder showed no reaction, as if this was expected. If it had worked properly, they should have collapsed on the spot from neural overload.

The second magic was also manipulation of the nervous system, but the target was Tachnia himself. He sharpened his senses to the point where he could read even the flow of air by enhancing his tactile sense, and maximized his reflexes.

The third magic was applying an electric attribute limited to his cyborg parts. Yellow electricity crackled ominously.

All this in one breath. Tachnia leaped.

A gambling move used because the intruder had thrown their weapon. Close-quarters combat empowered by his modified body and enhanced reflexes.

‘If they get grazed by electricity even once, they’ll be paralyzed. Then victory is mine!’

It took less than a second to close the distance with the intruder. Tachnia, sensing victory, faced the intruder.

Close enough to see each other’s irises. The previously blurry figure came into view.

‘Is he smiling?’

The intruder’s magic sigil drive activated. It wasn’t a threatening spell. Flow Water Bullet. A basic water attribute magic that compresses and fires water.

Unless used by a skilled magician, it was a weak spell that, at best, could only push someone back and leave a bruise when used as a low-output temporary magic stored in a drive.

However.

Electricity was flowing throughout Tachnia’s body. He tried to withdraw his magical power urgently, but it was too late. The sphere of water that hit his body scattered and soaked him.

Yellow electricity penetrated even the parts that weren’t cyborg. Tachnia’s scream rang out.

At that very moment, the intruder, Ortes, finally moved his feet.

He instantly retrieved the blade embedded in the wall. Before Tachnia, pushed back by the water bullet, could touch the ground, he swung his blade and severed his right arm.

The high-frequency blade continued its black trajectory without ever being sheathed. After removing the right arm with its embedded magic sigil drive—the most dangerous weapon—came the two legs. He carved away mobility.

Thud──

By the time Tachnia crashed on his back, he had only one limb remaining.

“What… What are you?”

Tachnia asked, trembling with fear. Though the confrontation was brief, he could tell for certain.

This person was not a magician.

If the blurry form was the effect of a camouflage spell, the spell should have been broken during intense combat, or at least the flow of magical power should have been felt.

But no flow of magical power could be felt from this person.

A magician capable of perfectly controlling the flow of magical power wouldn’t need to subdue him in such a cumbersome way.

That level would be something only an elder of the Torres school or a tower master could demonstrate, and he would have died without even noticing.

That must also be why the magic they pulled out using a magic sigil drive was only at the most basic level.

Most commercial magic sigil drives can accommodate very little magical power.

Therefore, magic above a certain level cannot be used with just the magical power embedded in the drive; the user must directly infuse magical power.

Ortes approached Tachnia’s head as he desperately tried to discern the intruder’s identity.

A smile.

The intruder’s smile as he looked down at him, backlit by a red glow. Tachnia closed his eyes.

“Now it seems you’re ready to talk.”