Chapter 20: The Tomb Is a Bit Too Luxurious (2)

A few hours earlier.

Around the time Balte had just turned himself in and been arrested by the guards.

“Chloe hasn’t come home?”

Groomlock and Yaltarian were in a panic.

Chloe had said she’d return after finishing her last commission.

But even late into the night, she hadn’t come back.

“Yes! She should’ve been back long ago… Didn’t Your Excellency hear anything?!”

“She hasn’t come here! I haven’t seen her in days!”

“Oh no. Could she have been kidnapped?!”

“Yaltessans’ security isn’t that bad! And who would even target that girl in the first place?!”

Yaltarian remained calm and logical.

The art guild master kidnapping Chloe?

Ridiculous!

‘That guy had no interest in Chloe!’

Yaltarian remembered clearly.

The disdain the guild master had shown toward Chloe’s artwork.

Then could it be Pezio, the one who stirred trouble in the last contest?

Absolutely not.

‘That guy wouldn’t dare kidnap someone dear to Lord Yaltarian unless he had a blade to his throat!’

Groomlock remembered just as clearly.

How Pezio had cowered, terrified of falling out of Yaltarian’s favor—he didn’t even dare escalate things.

The guild master’s desperate moves.

All the tricks he pulled to target Chloe.

None of it had caused even the slightest ripple, so neither of them could even imagine he was the culprit.

Once again, it seemed Chloe had just acted recklessly.

Still, Yaltarian was a grand mage of the realm.

Not a title he particularly liked, but it did come in handy.

Especially when minor overreach was necessary in an emergency.

Thus—

“It really was the guild master?!”

“Yes? Ah, yes. No doubt about it.”

That day, Balte surrendered to the second-ranked mage, and sold out his client.

The price? 

A 30% reduction in his sentence.

“So that’s how it went.”

“Damn it!”

Yaltarian returned just a few hours later.

When Groomlock heard the update, he slammed his fist on the desk—very unlike him.

“I was careless. I never thought they’d stoop this low!”

“Don’t blame yourself. I hear the bastard was pretty cornered.”

Groomlock reluctantly nodded.

The guild master had gone as far as to commit such a crude crime.

Chances were high he’d been blackmailed by some powerful people.

And at that moment, both Groomlock and Yaltarian drastically reassessed the guild master’s threat level.

And for good reason.

“Who would’ve thought? A man being blackmailed for his life just wasting over two months doing nothing!”

About two months.

Time the guild master had utterly wasted.

He frittered away that long period without producing a single result— even when his life was on the line!

Even after uncovering the truth, they still had doubts.

Had he really been targeting Chloe? He’d done so little, it was hard to believe.

Even Chloe herself hadn’t realized she was being targeted!

Who could possibly have suspected it?

That the guild master was so desperate, he’d resort to kidnapping like a man on the brink of death?

That’s why the two men trembled.

“The audacity… to disguise yourself as a complete idiot…!”

What had seemed like incompetence from the guild master had in fact been a calculated ploy.

A vile scheme to lure the target into a false sense of security.

“All he did for two months was stir up some childish rivalries…!”

“Meticulously intelligent idiocy…!”

What patience.

They could only admit they’d been outplayed.

The two were on edge.

He was a villain wrapped in wicked cleverness.

The very idea of what horrors Chloe might be suffering was terrifying.

Perhaps that’s why—

The painters hadn’t noticed.

The commotion that had started at dawn.

Nor the presence of a third party who woke up a little earlier because of it.

“…Grandpa. What did you just say?”

“Gasp!”

“E-Emil!”

The girl who had come downstairs, holding her latest painting, hoping the artists would review it.

Noemilica murmured with a pale face.

“What happened… to Chloe?”

Thud.

The painting fell from Emil’s hands.

A caricature of a beautiful silver-haired girl.

A gift she had painted to apologize to Chloe.

Chloe had been kidnapped.

When she overheard that in passing conversation, the first thought that came to Emil’s mind was—

‘…It’s my fault.’

If only I hadn’t pushed Chloe away.

If only I hadn’t gotten angry when she said she was quitting painting.

No—

Even if I just hadn’t commissioned that painting from her—

‘If I’d just done that, the art guild master wouldn’t have been able to take her.’

Therefore— If you flip that conclusion around—

The reason Chloe got kidnapped was Emil.

‘Ah.’

It felt like the ground beneath her had collapsed.

A human heart doesn’t beat on its own.

It only keeps going because of the will to live.

That’s the only way Emil could understand it.

Otherwise, there was no way to explain this pain in her chest, this dizzying feeling like her blood had stopped flowing.

Breathless, Emil clenched her teeth.

“…Not yet.”

It wasn’t too late.

She had no choice but to believe that.

Even though she knew that the wounds Chloe suffered wouldn’t simply vanish even if she were saved—still,

Emil had to believe.

She had neither the right nor the desire to give up on Chloe.

Fwoosh—!

Suddenly, a radiant burst of magical light brighter than the dawn itself.

Yaltarian and Groomlock froze in shock.

‘This is…!’

‘A rise in magical rank?!’

As much as she had restrained her emotions, that much magical energy overflowed.

Emil instinctively controlled the surge.

She scattered it.

Dissolving her emotions into water—

So they wouldn’t vanish.

So they wouldn’t disappear.

Preserving them until they were needed.

When she boiled those emotions in fire again, she’d be able to draw them out and wield them, just as they were now.

“…Emil?”
“I’m fine.”

This time, she didn’t even need Yaltarian to urge her on.

Emil sublimated even her emotional turmoil into fuel.

Fuel not just to surpass her current rank as a novice, but to ascend to the rank of Sunlight Mage—the youngest ever.

And that made sense.

Her name was Noemilica.

Noemilica Altzenova.

The future’s greatest archmage, destined to surpass even Yaltarian himself.

“Banquet.”

“What?”

“When’s the nearest banquet?”

The painters were taken aback by Emil’s question—
not just because of the content, but the utterly unfiltered tone.

“A banquet…? Oh! Of course!”

But for those who knew that her curt tone came from her genius-level intellect,

Yaltarian quickly grasped the meaning behind her question.

“Your Excellency? Did Emil figure something out?”

“Think about it! Naturally, he’ll want to announce his relationship and position with Chloe as soon as possible!”

“Ah!”

He would present Chloe to the aristocrats— and gain recognition of her as his apprentice.

Whether he was being threatened or just afraid of Yaltarian chasing him down, the guild master would almost certainly do it.

If only to save his own life.

In other words—

“The guild master will try to bring Chloe to a banquet where the aristocrats gather!”

“Exactly. Tricks like this won’t last him long.”

Chloe currently had no formal teacher.

She had been working under the alias “Cynthia.”

That’s why the guild master was trying to publicly declare their master-apprentice relationship before anyone else could.

There’d be no use pointing out who came first.

It would just make them look like sore losers crying over a lost talent.

‘It’s hard to imagine the lords or merchants the guild master courted would give up on that girl so easily.’

Chloe.

She was a genius worth that much.

Impressed by Emil’s deduction, Groomlock quickly asked:

“Do you know when the nearest banquet is?”

“The day after tomorrow.”

“The day after tomorrow?!”

“Three days from now is the Holy Empire’s Empress’s birthday.”

The day before the birthday.

The birthday itself.

And the day after.

A total of three days for the ruler’s birthday celebration—

A common form of royal festivity in many countries.

“Considering the time and distance, they’ve probably already arrived near the banquet site.”

“Damn it. That means they’ve already passed the checkpoint.”

Of course, there was still one option: to attend the banquet themselves.

But that was also the most disadvantageous approach.

‘If we cause a commotion at the Empress’s birthday…’

Yaltarian and Emil would be fine.

Their titles and reputations as archmages were weighty enough to shield them.

But Groomlock?

And Chloe?

There was no guarantee they’d escape unscathed.

It was likely that the guild master had planned this from the beginning—

targeting the Empress’s birthday.

Yaltarian clicked his tongue silently.

‘If I’d known this would happen, I should’ve declared Cynthia as my student back when she dueled Emil.’

But there was no time to indulge in regret.

Naturally so—

Because Emil looked worse than Yaltarian did.

His granddaughter hung her head low.

However—

The truth was slightly different from what Yaltarian thought.

Though Emil’s head was bowed, her eyes were burning coldly.

‘Chloe…’

Where are you now?

What kind of torment are you going through?

It’s okay.

Just hold on a little longer.

‘I’m coming to get you—soon.’

Apologies for her mistakes—those would come after she brought her friend back.

A dark storm clouded the eyes of the genius.

A storm called fury.

And then—

At that same moment—

In the guild master’s hidden villa—

“Guild Master!! This steak is so delicious!!”

“Wolclclclcl…! You sure eat ravenously for someone who looks so delicate. How unseemly.”

With her mouth stuffed full of steak, beaming from ear to ear—

Chloe was, at that moment, genuinely happy.