The Sword Genius of the Magic Empire - Chapter 19
Only Noblemtl
Enoch looked closely at the doll in his hand again.
The doll’s long ears. Short tail and legs. Even its face with a stupid expression.
Anyone who looks at it will see that it looks like a rabbit… .
“It’s a fox!”
She, who was making such absurd claims, was looking up at me with a puzzled expression, despite the difference in height between us.
Looking at that expression, it seems like the doll was made with a lot of confidence.
“…Wow, I really did my best to make this.”
Chloe’s face is getting sadder and sadder.
But Enoch looked at the doll again with a more serious expression than hers.
I tried hard to find the fox, but it was really impossible.
But there is still a way to change that little boy’s mind.
“Chloe never received proper praise from a young age. That’s why she is very weak when it comes to praise for herself.”
Enoch quickly held out the doll to her and spoke in a gentle voice.
“Of course! It means a fox that is cute like a rabbit.”
Chloe replied in a sullen voice.
“Huh, I think I’ll fall for that excuse….”
“Ah. I never thought I would meet a wizard as talented as you, who can create such a complete doll with magic. And you’re so pretty, too.”
“Talented…? Pretty…?”
Chloe stuttered, slightly flustered by the sudden barrage of compliments.
Enoch took advantage of the gap and showered her with even more praise.
“It couldn’t have been easy to make this many dolls. They’re amazing. Have you been making them with magic for a long time? They’re all so unique and cute.”
“Well, I just started using magic recently. Before that, I didn’t even know I was a wizard.”
For a moment, Enoch’s eyes narrowed slightly.
‘In other words, he was a wizard from the beginning, but his magic was developed late.’
It’s rare, but it does happen often, even within the Empire. Usually, people develop their magic before the age of ten, but there are some cases where it happens this late.
If you have talent for magic, it should be manifested at least until you are thirteen.
“I can’t believe it’s only been a while since you used magic. You really did a great job.”
Of course, rabbits and foxes are different species, but it is not a completely meaningless compliment.
It would be even stranger for a child who has only recently begun to use magic to be more sophisticated in his use of magic.
“Really…?”
Chloe was obviously embarrassed by the sudden compliment, her ears turning red and she didn’t know what to do.
Enoch chuckled to himself as he watched the reaction.
‘It’s easier than I thought.’
In the original, Chloe was five years later than she is now, but even then, she was still criticized for being weak to compliments.
Then I was correct in thinking that it would have been much more so in childhood.
“Thank you for the compliment.”
Chloe fiddled with her doll, her ears red.
After all, he was from an orphanage where only non-magicians who were despised even within the empire gathered. Perhaps it was natural for him to grow up in an environment where he was not praised.
‘I think I know why Chloe was said to be weak to compliments in the original.’
She suddenly relaxed her frozen expression and looked down at the doll in her hand as she spoke.
“…Actually, I was practicing elemental magic.”
“practice?”
“Yes. I heard that if you practice making shapes with concentration, your mana handling skills will improve. The wizard who came here last time happened to see me using magic and said that.”
Chloe looked down at the doll she claimed was a fox with a slightly sullen expression.
“I know. I still have a long way to go. But I hate that other kids got kidnapped and I can’t do anything even though I have the talent of a wizard…”
Her bright amber eyes deepened.
I wonder why she feels guilty even at such a young age.
“I will be leaving the orphanage soon. And someday, I want to become a great high-ranking wizard and have the power to save my missing friends. But… .”
Chloe cried a little with sad eyes.
“The wizard who came before said that. He said that the level of magic increases with enlightenment. That’s too difficult for me. I want to become strong enough to save my friends quickly, but enlightenment is…”
Enoch silently looked at her profile.
It was a very pitiful sight for the viewer as well.
In the end, in the original, she ends up staying at rank 14. It is said that she did not gain any significant ‘enlightenment’ after that.
These stories are also detailed in the original work.
“The rank of a wizard is ultimately directly connected to enlightenment.”
However, the enlightenment that wizards gain is not something that can be achieved through talent and effort alone.
Even if you just look at the characters in the original work, each person has a different way of attaining enlightenment.
“Someone from the countless stars that seem to be pouring down in the night sky.”
“Someone died in the midst of a battlefield where blood and flesh splattered.”
“Some people hear the melody of a lullaby that their mother used to sing affectionately.”
“Some people find enlightenment in the life contained in the flower buds of weeds blooming in the front yard.”
In addition, the way in which the magicians of each field attain enlightenment and the training they take to attain such enlightenment are all different.
So, until you actually attain enlightenment, you will continue to wander without knowing that this is the way to attain enlightenment.
It is not for nothing that modernized functional robes and wide-brimmed wizard hats form a major part of the fashion of imperial wizards.
There were many practitioners who dressed like travelers and wandered around here and there in hopes of attaining enlightenment.
Enoch looked down at Chloe, who was lying dead beside him, and asked her in a suggestive tone.
“If it’s the wizard who taught you, is it from Elseid?”
“Yes, that’s right. But, how do you know that…?”
Chloe answered like that, then seemed to realize something and raised her head sharply and asked.
“Ah! Are you a wizard from Elseid? You gave me something last time and asked me to give it to you!”
“that’s right.”
At that answer, the tearful expression on Chloe’s face disappeared, and was replaced by a sparkling surprise.
“Wow… I really didn’t know that a magician would come from the stock market!”
She rummaged through the small bag she was carrying and took something out of it.
Enoch, who checked the item Chloe had handed him, smiled faintly without realizing it.
‘It was worth it to please him.’
An artifact with a familiar shape, seen in the original.
It was a rectangular terminal with a display.
Perhaps if I hadn’t come here, I might have had a hard time with this mission.
Chloe tilted her head as she looked at the object in Enoch’s hand.
“But you said it was important… What the heck is this? No matter how much I look at it, I really don’t get it…”
“well.”
“Eh… I was wondering what it was.”
Enoch gave a short answer to Chloe, who slumped her shoulders as if she was losing energy.
“You probably wouldn’t know even if I told you.”
“Huh.”
Chloe felt a little bit ignored and puffed out her cheeks again, feeling offended.
But since you already received the item, there is no obligation to please it.
‘Now, do whatever you want, whether you want to or not.’
Besides, even if I told her honestly, Chloe wouldn’t know what this is.
This is the headquarters of magic engineering. It is one of the tactical artifacts that is manufactured in extremely small quantities by a company under the ‘Artigen’ stock law.
“Ultra-small surveillance camera: terminal”
A portable reconnaissance artifact that stores the user’s mana and uses it as power.
It is like a modern closed-circuit camera, installed somewhere to monitor that place.
And this terminal is a kind of portable transmission device that can check the images recorded on the surveillance camera.
Enoch looked at it for a moment.
The missing wizard left something like this behind.
It didn’t even appear in the original.
But where on earth is this surveillance artifact installed, and what is it monitoring?
Enoch carefully put it in his bosom.
‘I guess I’ll just have to check.’
***
Enoch went straight back to his assigned quarters in the mansion.
Enoch, who had locked the door and checked for any signs of movement outside, then took out the artifact he had received from Chloe from his bosom.
‘Fortunately, it’s still working.’
Artifacts usually produced in modern times are ultimately for the use of magicians, as they are part of the Magic Empire.
Of course, most of these things require you to know how to use magic to operate.
Since Enoch cannot use magic, he would not be able to operate an artifact like this on his own.
Fortunately, however, this surveillance magic tool was already in operation.
Perhaps the missing wizard, the owner of this artifact, had already charged a sufficient amount of mana into the terminal.
‘Is this how it works?’
Enoch manipulated the terminal’s display.
It was clearly an artifact I was seeing for the first time, but strangely enough, it displayed quite a familiar behavior.
‘It’s a bit strange. How do you know how to operate an artifact I’ve never seen before?’
Clearly, in the game, you only had to press one control key and the character would use it automatically.
Still, for some reason, the method of operating the terminal remains vivid in my memory.
Maybe I’ve seen it in the game’s motion? I don’t think it was depicted that clearly.
That moment when he slightly questioned his own artifact knowledge-
Woof-
A faint operating sound came from the terminal.
Pot!
Finally, beyond the terminal screen.
A scene from another place unfolded.
“Installed Surveillance Lens Access Success: Leopolis Administrative Office Mansion Study”
A message appears on a screen with a little bit of noise.
Were you watching the administrator’s study?
The administrator’s study where he had robbed the safe earlier.
But unlike now, when it was still evening, it was dark outside the study window.
“Unconfirmed record: Video playback from 2 weeks ago”
Judging from the message that appeared on the display, it was a video of the missing wizard just before he disappeared.
[Administrator. Our experiment is perfectly prepared.]
A voice recorded on video flowed out.
[But now, the wizard from Elseid who was dispatched has accessed the secret of our experiment, of all people…]
A strange man was sitting in front of the administrator.
[In the end, the absentee ordered that the children’s experiments be put on hold. It was not known that Oscar, once renowned as Elseid’s battle wizard, had such skills.]
Enoch recognized the strange man’s identity immediately by looking at the ticking pattern on his pocket watch.
“Vendetta Ten”
A leader of ten regular members of the secret society Vendetta.
[Your speech is extremely rude, Ten-man. Your opponent is a 13th-rank wizard. With that level of skill, you must have noticed something fishy.]
Oscar’s mouth corners wrinkled.
[Those Elseid bastards. Those bastards who don’t even care about non-magicians, but they rush at you like a stray dog when they see you as someone who can show off your skills. It’s so disgusting.]
[Haha. I never thought you, who was once Elseid’s loyal battle mage, would say something like that.]
[Don’t be upset. I didn’t know anything back then.]
Administrator Oscar added, spitting out:
[Tell the Vendetta agents in the underground facility here. I will lure the dispatched wizard into the underground. Then attack and subdue him. It would be nice to give him some experimental materials as a gift.]
But the ten leaders laughed as if it was ridiculous.
[There is no need to use the agents.]
[What?]
[He is a 13th-grade wizard from Elseid, but he is barely alone. It would be enough to leave it to the ‘Demonic Beast Test Subjects’ for security. In the first place, we also need the actual combat data of the demonic beasts that ‘that person’ had previously created.]
[Don’t underestimate him too much. His opponent is a magician who is a direct descendant of the 3rd level of Elseid.]
[No problem. Because it is a creature made by ‘him’.]
The tens spoke in a confident tone.
[Don’t worry. These are the demons that ‘that person’ had been creating as a joke before he set up his laboratory in this orphanage, but they will be enough to subdue the wizards of Elseid.]
Enoch had been guessing who they were talking about for some time.
‘[That person]. He’s probably the guy who appeared in the original work.’
The person referred to as ‘him’ by Vendetta does not appear directly in Leopolis in the original work.
But I know who it is.
The mastermind who gives orders to conduct experiments on this side. Five years later, he is a mid-boss level figure who leads all kinds of test subjects.
I never thought I’d hear him mentioned here.
Meanwhile, Administrator Oscar asked him back with a slightly puzzled expression.
[I’ve been curious for a while. What is he ultimately trying to achieve through human experiments?]
[Haha. You’ve been working with us for a while now, are you just curious now?]
[He has always done what I asked him to do without question, so I didn’t really ask him… but sometimes I wonder. What is it that such a genius is ultimately trying to achieve through his experiments?]
Oscar added, glancing out the window at the labyrinthine garden where the underground laboratory was located.
[I heard that before he made a contract with me and established a laboratory in the orphanage, he had been conducting human experiments in other areas?]
[That’s right. As I said earlier, the demons currently placed in the basement are byproducts of that time.]
[If they are that obsessed with human experiments, there must be something they want to do to continue the experiments.]
The ten-man leader answered with a sly smile.
[Well, you’ve been researching the dark magic and human experiments that used to exist in the empire lately, and you seem very interested in it.]
[Black magic. Well, if it was a human experiment, would it be classified that way? I guess the purpose of the experiment is a secret after all.]
[Well, you just told me that the purpose of the experiment was related to the ‘world outside the world’. I honestly have no idea what that means… but I guess I’ll never understand it anyway.]
Enoch, who was concentrating on the story, flinched for a moment.
‘A world outside the world?’
Words like that didn’t even appear in the original work.
Besides, this story overlaps somewhat with the one that possessed Enoch’s body. It’s probably not just my imagination that makes me feel so strongly.
It was a conversation between two people that seemed like just simple small talk, but it seemed like something that needed to be remembered.
[Huh. A world outside of the world… Well, how could I, a mere 13th-rank battle wizard, understand such a genius? When I hear that, even the most vague of thoughts are not so vague.]
[Well, isn’t that why he passed the 10th level barrier so early on? Because his way of thinking is different from that of criminals.]
He added, muttering:
[Even these days, he suddenly shows interest in the direct descendants of the stock family. Even if you work under him, you should be able to understand his meaning at all.]
Anyway, the ten-man leader changed the subject.
[Back to the main topic, the individual abilities of the demons I’ve seen are on par with those of 14th-grade battle wizards. There are many of them underground, and if you lure them and make a surprise attack, there’s no problem.]
Enoch frowned as he listened to the story.
There are many demons underground.
‘This is unexpected.’
If it was five years ago from the original, it would have been at the time when experiments had just begun in earnest in Leopolis. It was judged that it was not yet time to move on to mass production.
So I thought I would only have to deal with one or two demons at most.
But that guess is meaningless, as there are currently many demons in the underground laboratory.
This happened because we didn’t know that the experiment had been going on even before the daycare was established.
[If you say so, I will believe you.]
The administrator said with a sly smile.
The ten-man leader also nodded as if he had been waiting.
[Let’s have the demons wait in the lab. But how are we going to lure them?]
[If they belong to Elseid, you won’t be able to lure them out with just anything.]
Oscar spoke softly, looking out the window at the lights of the orphanage.
[Each and every one of the wizards rolling around in that huge castle is quite skilled. They have surpassed the barrier of at least level 15. However, regardless of their level, each of them who has been given a mission has a ‘clear weakness’.]
[What is that?]
[reputation.]
Oscar smiled coldly as he watched the children moving around in the daycare center.
[When you are given a mission by the main clan, it is ultimately a process to solve the case and raise the family’s status. But what if the situation gets worse during the mission you are sent on?]
Direct.
The video cut off there.
“Charged Mana: Exhaustion”
A message flashing over the video on the screen.
And at that moment, suddenly there was a commotion outside the door and someone was knocking urgently on the door.
Squeak
Enoch put the terminal away and opened the door halfway.
In front of him stood a butler with an anxious expression.
“Enoch, a child just disappeared from the daycare! And a letter was left for Enoch at the scene…!”
He hurriedly took out a note.
There was a concise threatening message written on it.
“If the kidnapped child wants to survive this time, don’t tell anyone and wait alone in the backyard of the mansion at midnight. If you disobey my orders, I will kill the child and return the body to you.”
‘Send it back?’
It’s not just killing.
He said he was going to send the body back.
In Enoch’s mind, the words of the administrator he had just heard in the video came to mind.
[… What if the situation on your mission gets worse and worse?]
Threatening to kill the kidnapped child and return his body if he does not come to rescue him.
At first glance, it sounds like an excessive threat for a criminal who is committing a hostage crisis.
The intention was obvious.
The direct descendants of the Elseid family were unable to solve the case, let alone rescue the hostage. They must be trying to frame it that way.
It was a particularly fatal blow to Enoch, who was about to be excommunicated.
‘So this is how you lead people.’
You can’t call in reinforcements as you threatened.
If we asked the Elseid family for support, the administrator, who is the owner of this mansion, would not have noticed it.
That is, it is pressure to follow one’s instructions on one’s own.
‘First of all, from their perspective, they wouldn’t have hastily killed a child they took hostage.’
They are the ones who are holding the children kidnapped for human experimentation. They are probably safe for now.
Enoch turned his head out the window and checked the time.
Outside, the evening glow was still burning.
There’s still plenty of time until midnight.
“Here is a picture of a kidnapped child. I must report this to the master immediately, so please excuse me!”
The butler hurried down the hallway.
Perhaps, seeing such behavior, he is not aware of what the administrator is up to behind the scenes.
Enoch looked at the photograph he had received.
And at that moment his eyes narrowed slightly.
‘… Chloe?’
A young girl with flowing beige hair and a neat face. She was the child I had just met.
I never thought that the administrator would kidnap Chloe and use her as bait.
Enoch looked at the photo with a troubled expression.
There’s now one more reason to save him.
‘If we leave him to die like this, it might affect the original starting point.’
Chloe is definitely one of the characters that appeared in the original work.
Although he is said to have no significant role, he is a character who is somewhat related to the events that occur in the original work.
In order to block the possibility of the official history being changed, it is to our advantage to keep them alive if possible.
Besides, I can’t just let him die, even if it means the mission is successful.
but….
‘If the information I just heard from the enemies is correct, then it’s a dead end if I go in my current state.’
Although we have an assistant named Lien for this mission, we can never rely on her.
No matter how strong she is, there’s no guarantee that she’ll be able to completely protect us in all emergencies during our mission.
‘Above all, I know well the abilities of the demonic test subjects shown in the original work.’
The demonic test subjects that emerged from Leopolis were those with hard shells and boasted great durability.
Moreover, there are not just one but many such monsters.
So the probability that they will come in a swarm is very high.
‘The first type that has been inherited now, the Explosive Sword, accelerates the body, increasing mobility and the power of sword strikes.’
So that was the problem.
Because the Explosive Sword alone had clear limitations.
In fact, when Lien limited the range of action on this side with wires at the banquet hall, combat that emphasized mobility, including the Type 1 Explosive Sword, was meaningless.
Even this battlefield is a much more cramped basement.
Therefore, if a large number of demons attack in a narrow space, it is very likely that there will be limitations in avoiding attacks and fighting.
So, there is only one conclusion.
‘I need a sword form that can cover a large number of people.’
In order to deal with multiple enemies at once in a narrow space, a technique that could ‘respond to group warfare’ was needed.
There was no guarantee that he would be able to evade all attacks from the numerous test subjects in the confined battlefield.
In that case, it would be best if you could learn a defensive style that can block or deflect the enemy’s attacks that pour in randomly in group battles.
Anyway.
There was only one answer to solve the problem.
‘In the inner world, I must move on to the next stage of succession.’
There was still plenty of time left until midnight.
Enoch sat on the bed and concentrated.
Swoop.
To enter the inner world, I close my eyes and take a deep breath. A darker darkness falls over my closed eyelids.
A sense of revealing everything about yourself.
Again, the feeling of settling into my inner image engulfed my whole body.
‘Even in a game, you must always steadily upgrade your specs right before the main story battle.’
It was no different in the real world.