The Sword Genius of the Magic Empire - Chapter 22
Only Noblemtl
Dark clouds drifted across the night sky.
The mansion of the Leopolis magistrate.
The silver moonlight shining above was swallowed up by the clouds.
The only remaining light was the indoor lights in a few windows of the mansion. Aside from that, complete darkness fell over the garden.
Click.
Enoch checked his pocket watch again in the darkness.
‘There’s still some time left until midnight.’
The annex of the Wise family mansion, filled with only the sound of insects. The square in the middle of the maze garden in the front yard.
He leaned his back against the wall of grass and waited for his moment.
‘It starts here.’
Vendetta’s ambush awaits Enoch.
But even before that, this side took action.
‘A surprise attack from this side.’
Now that all the information about time and place was in their hands, the hunted had already changed.
As expected.
Just then, beyond the wall of grass made up of garden trees, a small noise was heard.
Enoch untied the knot on his scabbard and drew the sword out gently.
Sling.
The scenery behind the wall came into view, reflected in the clear silver-white blade.
Thud, thud.
Five or six wizards emerged from the darkness and approached the sculpture in the middle of the garden maze.
It looks like they’ve already patrolled beforehand.
They were approaching, chatting among themselves in low voices.
“… The direct line found out about the location of the laboratory.”
“They said they didn’t call for reinforcements. And since they don’t have any followers, killing them will be easy.”
They chatted and clucked in low voices.
“I don’t know how you noticed it. It was that guy called Elseid’s incompetence, right?”
“Yes. The status of the Zhu family is also ridiculous. How could a non-magician be born in the direct lineage?”
“The status of the empire is ridiculous. I’m really delusional.”
“We’ll sort it out on our own soon anyway.”
One of the sorceresses let out a mocking remark.
“This, Elseid might be grateful to us. Isn’t that the waste that has been locked up in the castle since childhood because it was a thorn in her side?”
widely.
As they reached the center of the square, they quickly stopped chatting and surrounded the central statue.
And then they raised their mana.
Wheein.
With a small clicking sound, their mana flowed into the statue and was released.
In an instant, a dazzling circuit-like pattern appeared across the statue, and a low mechanical sound was heard.
Charrrrrr!
And then, in the next moment, the central part of the square opened up silently.
The clang of a bell
From the opening just below the statue, a spiral staircase leads to a basement.
The eerie light from the magic stone lanterns leaking out from underneath cast shadows on the magicians’ faces.
It was a laboratory in the basement of the orphanage.
“Go in and do your regular report, and prepare to greet the guest who will be arriving soon. He will be here in a little while.”
They slowly went down the stairs one by one.
And the moment the last sorceress was about to descend into the underground –
-Whoaaah!
Breaking through the darkness of the night, a jet-black mana surged towards her, leaving a straight trajectory.
“…!”
It was only a beat later that the sorceress, who was about to close the underground door beneath the statue, realized that her head had been blown off.
Crunch!
“what….”
The wizards who had gone down to the basement first looked up with their eyes wide open at the sudden situation.
The moon in the night sky, which had been hidden behind dark clouds, suddenly appeared.
In the darkness, Enoch, with his back to the silver moonlight, looked at them with his eyes dyed in a vivid blue light and waved his sword to the side once.
Choaaaak
The dark blue mana that faintly colored the sword left a trail and spat blood into the air.
A man who saw this quickly deployed a magic circle and shouted in a loud voice.
“Raid…! Keuheugh!”
But contrary to their intention, their voices came out as distorted sounds at best.
Peeing
The threads shone faintly in the soft moonlight in the darkness.
Silver-white wires shot into the air revealed themselves.
The silver threads spread out in all directions were wrapped around the necks of the remaining wizards.
Lien walked out from behind the statue where the entrance to the basement was open, pulling the wire.
Their throats were immediately tightened.
The blood vessels in the eyes of those who could not breathe bulged as if they were going to burst.
“Ugh, ugh…”
Jiik
But no matter how much he scratched his neck, he couldn’t untangle the silver thread that had wrapped around him so thoroughly.
Rather, the more they struggle, the more their fingernails and flesh are torn off.
“… … .”
Lien looked down at them with an emotionless face for a moment, then hung the wire on the statue’s body and jumped down into the basement.
The skirt of the maid’s uniform, cut in white and black, and her silver hair swayed wildly in the wind.
Jiiiiiiiiik
In an instant, the positions of her and the wizards were reversed, starting from the statue that served as the pulley.
When Lien landed lightly on the stairs, the wizards were hanging in the air like strangled corpses, their lives cut off.
Thump
A few drops of blood fell onto the white apron of the maid’s uniform.
Lien, who had confirmed their fate without even noticing the bright red drops of blood dripping down her own white cheeks, retrieved the wires with a simple movement.
“Yes, you guys…! If you touch, touch our vendetta…!”
The last remaining wizard backs away from Lien, terrified at the sight of his comrades’ deaths.
But his startled eyes were instantly turned inside out with a dull blow.
Phew!
Behind the man who fell helplessly, Enoch took up the hilt of his sword.
As expected, it’s the magic of amnesia (physics).
Performance is certain.
“Now let’s do some farming.”
Enoch checked to see if the foaming man was still alive and began to search through his arms.
Soon, a familiar-looking document and a key with a recognition chain were revealed in his arms.
–
“Key to the Experimental Specimen Storage Room”
–
Enoch took the keys and put them in his bosom.
With this, we are ready to get into full action.
‘By the way, here too it’s called “Vendetta.”‘
Enoch suddenly raised his head as he remembered the name the wizard had just shouted.
It’s a familiar name that I’ve heard many times in games I’ve played a hundred times, but coming here gives me a new feeling.
‘In-game, it was a group of villains with a lot of dirty, difficult high-ranking wizards.’
The guys I just defeated were just regular members of Vendetta. Still, judging by the flow of mana, they were at least level 15.
Moreover, the skills of the executive-level magicians that appeared in the original work are beyond imagination.
‘But compared to that, the story about them wasn’t covered in that much detail in the game.’
Most of the focus is just on what they do and how to fix it.
So, there were more than a few times when I felt that the bait that was thrown out while playing the game was not properly recovered.
‘Well, that’s how the original story was.’
was originally not a game with a friendly story.
Perhaps because the world view is so vast, there were more than a few elements that users could only figure out through guesswork.
Of course, there was some fun to be had guessing here and there, but it was lacking in many ways as a game with user-friendly storytelling.
‘It doesn’t really matter now anyway.’
But there’s no problem anyway.
At least that’s how things are going this time.
And I know very well what Vendetta is doing in this small town called Leopolis right now.
That was enough for now.
He put the key he had taken earlier into his belt and started walking.
Every part of his body creaked considerably as he took each step.
‘… It hurts so bad.’
Recoil using swordsmanship.
I’ve felt this way before, but the risk of actually using swordsmanship in real life is greater than I thought.
The pain in my body was already creeping up.
It seemed like it would get better once I got used to it, but it seemed like it would take some time for that to happen.
‘I can’t afford to delay too much on this mission.’
As expected, it was too burdensome to use swordsmanship directly in reality.
Although I have finally come to understand a little bit about the swordsmanship that manipulates mana, I still have difficulty controlling its power.
‘In particular, the swordsmanship of the ‘Last Sword Saint of the Empire’ is based on techniques that use the recoil of activating mana.’
Since you have to directly endure that violent recoil with your body, the risk is also considerable in proportion to the explosive power and speed.
Toouk
Enoch said as he dragged the man in his hand who was under the spell of amnesia (physical) and threw him in front of Lien.
“Stay here and guard him. It probably won’t happen, but additional support might come.”
Enoch continued on into the basement without stopping.
“… … .”
Lien, who had been quietly watching his back, suddenly turned her gaze to the silver moon rising in the night sky.
The day before leaving on a mission.
A moon like that rose just last night.
In her vision, bathed in white moonlight, memories of the night she spent in Elseid’s castle flashed before her eyes.
***
“…What on earth are you thinking?”
In the silvery moonlight.
Lien’s cool voice echoed throughout Enoch’s dark room.
“I see you’ve already heard.”
“There’s a rumor going around that Lord Enoch has volunteered to take on the mission. It’s strange not to know.”
Enoch nodded at her words.
Lien’s eyes slightly dimmed.
“Do you know what it means to take on a mission?”
“To some extent.”
Lien’s gaze, glaring at Enoch, was suddenly filled with transparent hostility.
Exemption from duty.
It’s an impossible mission with a 0% success rate, and most of them end in death.
In fact, it is a system that is close to executing those who disobey the orders of the family. The danger of this goes without saying.
To suddenly be in charge of something like that?
This was a clear breach of contract.
“In exchange for your cooperation, I made it a condition that you not harm the Master’s body.”
She opened her mouth coldly.
In fact, it was from the first solo mission that Lien was incomprehensible.
Since it was over, I didn’t say anything else, but seeing that Enoch was injured, I guessed that it was a very dangerous mission.
“But why do you volunteer for such dangerous missions?”
Lien asked coldly.
Common sense would tell me that if someone were possessed by another person’s body, it would be hard to fathom why they would do such extreme things.
“I thought you understood that when the master’s body dies, you inhabiting that body will also die.”
It was at this point that he and he found a reason to cooperate. It was perfectly reasonable to cherish one’s own life.
And yet, he volunteered for the dangerous mission.
Until now, there would have been an option for the original Enoch to quietly stay in his room and survive until his expulsion, but he was doing the complete opposite.
“Don’t you understand the dangers of an exemption mission?”
Enoch answered, looking at her with calm eyes.
“No. I just chose it because there was a way.”
“Is there anything else you believe in?”
“Of course. If you really want to jump into a place where you’re going to die, you don’t have to go far, right?”
Lien glared at him silently.
It was hard to believe that it was all a lie.
It hadn’t been long since he had taken possession of the master’s body and acted like him, but he had already figured out that he wasn’t stupid enough to brag in a situation like this.
But of course, that doesn’t mean it’s something you can easily believe.
It is a dangerous mission involving a wizard from a family who was previously dispatched and then disappeared.
It was far from credible to me to trust him completely, unless I could figure out what the hell he was thinking.
‘I wish I could tell you everything I’m thinking right now, but…’
Lien’s fingers absentmindedly brushed the skirt of the maid’s uniform, then quickly returned to their original position.
‘It’s a cooperative relationship because it sounds good.’
I already understand that in this situation, we are in a position where we cannot act against the will of the other side.
And that’s probably the same for that guy.
But once he set out on a dangerous immunity mission, Lien had a set job to do.
If we want to keep Enoch’s body safe, there is only one way right now.
“Since I’ve already been given the mission, there’s no point in saying anything now.”
The exemption mission cannot be abandoned midway.
Then there was only one thing to do.
She opened her mouth with an emotionless expression, looking at Enoch.
“So I’ll go with you.”
Blink.
The moonlight-filled, blue-green eyes closed and stopped reminiscing.
That’s how it got to this point.
Lien took a deep breath of the cold night air, then quietly pulled up her maid uniform skirt to her thighs and pulled out the silver wire.
Phew.
Reacting to the mana spread on her fingers.
A wire was ejected in an instant and tied up the unconscious man.
Lien looked at Enoch with cold eyes for a moment as he disappeared into the basement.
‘I don’t know what you’re trying to do.’
But that wasn’t her concern.
Lien gently stroked the back of her own white neck.
The magic that was cast while making a ‘contract’ with the man who previously took over the master’s body.
With that, she can know for sure if he is dangerous.
Lien’s silver-blue eyes repeated emotionlessly.
No matter what anyone says, the most important thing to her right now is… .
‘Only to protect his body.’