I Became the Dark Wizard Who Rules Over the Heroines - Chapter 26

26 – Tournament-5

Sometimes, people think of non-human beings as personifications.

That’s instinct.

I am afraid of what I cannot understand. Things without a reason are scary.

Rather than thinking that the river flooded ‘for no reason’ and countless people died from flood damage, it was easier to think that someone’s actions made the river god angry and caused the river to flood.

It was easy to understand and acceptable.

Rather than panicking and trembling in fear, it was better to appease the gods’ anger, offer sacrifices, and pray that such a disaster would not happen again.

That wasn’t just an illusion limited to God.

Spirits are like that. Although they spoke and sometimes appeared in strikingly beautiful human forms, they were not fundamentally human.

Selene is closer to water than to humans. Undines are closer to the wind than to people. Even if they speak and act according to someone’s requests, the fundamentals do not disappear.

Even if you make a human shape by attaching eyes, nose, mouth, and limbs to cloth, no matter how much you treat the doll like a human, it will never become a human.

And, so did the devil.

“No, Claire? It was a lot of hard work, but… I don’t have that much money, right?”

It was an ordinary bar. If you weren’t a poor student, it was a place you wouldn’t even bother to visit.

‘I’ve been to a place like this a few times, but…’

As for Kelin, it was a place she didn’t necessarily visit unless it was a special mission.

“Well, is that much? But… I was hungry! You can eat this much!”

“Yes, but…”

Wade took out his wallet and counted the money, contemplating how fatal this spending would be for him.

Kelin was blankly staring at the scene.

It’s so ordinary. It’s so insignificant.

It is acting as if the being shares the human mind and human concerns.

That can’t be possible. That shouldn’t be the case.

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A demon capable of drawing power from fragments of the void, a being fundamentally different from humans, should not make such an expression.

‘…’

If that was acting, it would have been an excellent act. The princess and Catherine. You wouldn’t have been able to suspect his identity by looking at that absurd smile.

That day, seeing him swallow the ‘Fragment of Void’ was Kellin’s luck that no one else had.

‘No, that’s… I wonder if it’s luck.’

Knowledge is a curse. It might have been better if I hadn’t seen that scene, if I had lived without knowing anything.

If that were the case, she wouldn’t have had to live in such fear.

“No, I’m not the only one who ate it! Lilian, you ate a lot of meat too! Even though you’re an elf!”

“What do elves have to do with meat?”

“No, if you are an elf…”

Lilian ate warm meat stew with a wooden spoon and shouted at Claire.

“No, I’m a hunter. Who are we going to shoot with a bow in the forest? Should we at least hit an apple?”

“Is that so?”

Claire scratched his head sheepishly.

“But in the old tales, elves don’t eat meat…”

“High elves are usually like that. They say it helps with elemental magic… To be honest, in my view, they’re just being so extravagant because they have so much food to eat.”

As if she wasn’t that kind of person, Lilian emptied her meat stew in a timid manner.

Wade was looking at the scene happily. But then he looked at his wallet and fell into deep silence again.

‘Do I need help…?’

Kelin had enough money. She was basically a knight who served Katharine, and she received quite a bit of money for her activities or as a personal salary.

She has so much money that it seems like it is too much for four men and women to eat and have fun.

‘If this is…’

You may not need to help him first. Wade is not someone Kellin should be loyal to.

But just in case, if he considered ‘the fact that Kellin had enough money but did not give it to him’ as a betrayal, then her life could be in danger.

“Wade… Can’t I just order one more serving?”

“Make it happen, make it happen…”

The drooping appearance is too humane.

She has such a simple expression on her face that it makes Kellin wonder if everything he saw that day was an illusion.

‘…’

However, you must not let down your guard.

Katharine, her current owner, can make numerous facial expressions at different times.

A merciful saint, a skilled female knight. No matter what her face, she had the ability to be seen as whoever she wanted to be.

Wade too, there’s no way he couldn’t do that. There is no way all of this is smoke.

“Could you please give me a moment?”

“Huh? Yes.”

She and Kellin left her bar and made their way to the back of the building, where the darkness would obscure them.

“Why?”

“I know it’s useless to worry, but I prepared it in case it was needed.”

Kelin handed Wade a small pouch.

A pocket full of heavy coins, containing her emergency fund.

“…Why is this? It’s your money. You use it.”

“But, just now…”

“No, I come from an aristocratic family, too. There’s no way I’d really be in trouble just because the kids eat some meat. It’s just that the unexpected expenses have increased a bit.”

I don’t understand. She cannot bear to accept that the Wade she saw ‘sucking up the fragments of the void’ and the man in front of her are the same person.

What an unexpected expense. These were not words that should have flowed from the mouth of someone with that much power.

It was as unrealistic a statement as a dragon worrying about land ownership or an angel worrying about tax bombs.

“Put it away. I’m not doing this to take your money.”

Unknown.

Wade is fundamentally different from an ordinary human being.

To put it at least, he is a warlock who will go down in history as ‘discovering a way to extract power from the fragments of the void.’

If you think about it normally, he was the incarnation of the demon archduke who made a direct contract with the demon god, and the hypothesis that he was the incarnation of the demon god itself was not without basis.

I couldn’t bear it without asking.

“Wade…”

“Why, Kellin?”

Relaxed. He was smiling at her, comfortable enough to suppress even her fear of the unknown.

He was smiling as if he was honestly revealing his emotions, not ridicule, disgust, or calculation.

“What do you… want?”

The image he is showing now cannot be the real him.

It is normal for a young child from a farm family to bow to the village chief, but it is unusual for an emperor to bow to the village chief.

It means that there is a great desire that is worth enduring the humiliation, the pain, and the pain.

“Well, what I’m hoping for isn’t that big.”

There is no way he had a human heart.

Then, all the actions he shows are mimicry. It is a mimicry filled with lustrous desire that has suppressed humiliation and pain.

Kelin couldn’t help but ask how great a desire he was enduring.

“Let’s just live happily together?”

“…”

It’s terribly simple, and it’s ridiculously reckless.

But that was not a wish that someone who wielded magical energy like him could have.

“That’s about it. Anyway, even if I don’t get the money, I’ll still be grateful.”

Wade left with those last words.

Kelin looked helplessly at the place he had left. Hoping for something to jump out of the darkness, at least something that she could see with her eyes.

/////

Won.

Olivia, standing alone in the sparring hall, fell into a faint sense of superiority as she looked at the fallen knight in front of her.

“Rain, you despicable b*tch! I knew you were this kind of bastard!”

She couldn’t win, she thought. The knight before her was stronger than her, trained longer, and had a better teacher.

Every time she gets stronger, he gets stronger. Even if she makes up her mind, he also makes up his mind.

All her life, she thought that would be the case.

“I used demonic energy! Didn’t I fawn over Katharine and share that power with her?”

“You’re sharp.”

It was true.

Very little, very little. She borrowed the power of darkness.

She didn’t have to sacrifice much, and she didn’t have to participate in Katharine’s evil deeds.

With that alone, she easily surpassed several years worth of accomplishments.

“But, now…”

Her sword was aimed at the fallen knight’s neck.

“I think I’m stronger.”

There may be more people criticizing her. There may be more people venting anger and hatred.

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But she had power.

She has an incredibly powerful power that could never have been obtained through ordinary means.

‘Ah…’

The people who despised her, who thought she would be forgotten because she was abandoned by the princess, are now looking at her with different eyes.

Beyond disgust, fear was mixed in the gaze of Olivia.

I don’t think I will lose. If her opponent is a cadet, it is unlikely that any knight will be able to fight her and win.

-I’m sorry, but when it comes to how to become stronger… I don’t know anything other than this.

Katharine’s words pass by softly through her head.

Only once. If you gain this much power through a one-time transaction, it can never be said to be a loss.

The daughter of the Erst family trusted Olivia and generously gave her great power.

She was recognized.