Chapter 257: Intervention (3)

The surrounding air grew heavy.

Lennok’s expression hardened, realizing Agneta wasn’t simply delivering a message.

‘This is… almost like perfectly recreating the memories and sensations of that time.’

Was she recording the sensations she saw and felt, then manipulating the surrounding environment to manifest them exactly as remembered?

It was a sophisticated manipulation spell, so precise it was hard to believe he wasn’t witnessing it firsthand.

The reason she was chosen as Pandemonium’s messenger.

The air slowly trembled, then gave rise to a blurred voice.

[I heard you refused Myeong’s offer.]

“……”

[I think even discussing this is a waste of time, but… I’ll tell you because I believe you’re worth it.]

The voice was both male and female, elderly and childlike. Nothing could be discerned from its timbre but a conviction bordering on madness.

[It’s an unreasonable world, isn’t it?]

The voice continued.

[But that’s no reason for this world to disappear. Living and breathing is the most precious and valuable thing. It’s like a journey crossing the vast river of fate itself.]

The voice of one of the world’s leading international criminal organizations was surprisingly gentle.

[At the end of the journey, I could be sure. A person’s journey must have an end, but the world’s time must continue…]

“……”

[Even if this world doesn’t want it to.]

A chilling silence fell.

The words spoken were from such an immense height, looking at such a distant point in time, that Lennok himself couldn’t fully grasp their meaning.

Though he had many questions, Lennok ultimately remained silent.

In this moment, Agneta was merely playing back the exact words of Pandemonium’s leader, recorded.

[I heard you’re looking for a way to manipulate space-time. If someone of your talent seeks it, there must be a reason.]

While he pondered, the voice continued.

[You’ll find a good answer in the cult’s hidden sanctuary.]

“……!”

[I don’t know if you’ll truly agree with our will… but perhaps it doesn’t matter.]

As if perfectly seeing through Lennok’s emotions, a hint of laughter mixed into the voice.

[Consider it a gift given in advance, awaiting the coming day.]

Hwoooooong!!

At that moment, a fierce wind swept through, and the oppressive pressure that had weighed down everything vanished instantly.

When Lennok looked up, Agneta was already a considerable distance away, touching her eye patch.

“Whew…”

The cigarette he had in his mouth had burned all the way to the filter.

As Lennok exhaled the cigarette with a wry smile, he heard a presence behind him.

Thump!!

Evelyn, who had demonstratively tossed Turan’s massive corpse aside, stood behind them.

“Done?”

Agneta said nothing, simply pulling a long string from her large body and wrapping it around Turan’s corpse.

Agneta effortlessly lifted his corpse with her ten legs, then flicked a finger, and dozens of cocoons hanging from the trees simultaneously fell to the ground.

At the same time, Agneta gently placed Mauser on the ground and said.

“Don’t trust the Vulcan City Council too much. I’m telling you this because I like you, Evelyn.”

“……”

“Those doddering old men over there are, in some ways, even dirtier and more unsightly than us.”

Evelyn remained silent, her face rigid.

She, too, must have been all too familiar with such facts.

And the fact that the order and security of the megacity, for which she had dedicated herself, might be nothing more than a fleeting illusion that could disappear at any moment.

Yet, despite this, the trajectory of her life, believing in her inner goodness and striving to walk the right path, was the very proof of Evelyn Marcia.

Agneta, perhaps thinking there was no need to speak further, smiled faintly beneath her eye patch.

“I hope that when I meet you again, you won’t be a puppet of those old men.”

With those words, she shouldered Turan’s corpse and vanished from the spot, her presence fading away.

“……”

Evelyn silently gazed at the spot where she had disappeared for a long time.

Lennok, too, merely replayed the words she had left behind, a complex expression on his face.

Silence pervaded the dead forest until the wizards, belatedly regaining consciousness inside the cocoons, began to struggle.

The man was walking on clouds.

Whoooooosh!!

The endless wind whipped at his cheeks, but the sky was nothing but refreshing.

No matter how bad the weather, once he rose above the clouds, the world felt incredibly peaceful.

It was the same.

No matter the hardships and adversities, beyond a certain point, they could no longer affect his mind and body.

A strange voice echoed from within his arms, as he stood with his hands behind his back, whistling.

[Doctor.]

The voice felt somewhat dazed, yet the emotions within its timbre were unreadable.

[The Forge retrieval failed. Gionis and Turan are dead.]

“Hmm.”

[We recovered Turan’s corpse as you said… but you’ll tell me the results of your research once you’re done, as promised, right?]

“Of course, Agneta.”

The man replied with a joyful expression.

“Turan was an exceptionally excellent warrior, enough to respect your taste for human flesh. Don’t you realize that his twisted appetite actually diminished his potential? If his direction had been just slightly different, he would have reached a much higher place than now.”

[What are you going to do?]

“I’m going to give him a head again.”

The doctor laughed.

“If his head was merely severed, it’s easy to interpret the biological information contained in the muscle tissue and create a clone. But a clone wouldn’t match the original body’s performance, so I’ll cut off the clone’s head and attach it to the original body.”

[…….]

“Of course, during that process, I’ll need to manipulate his brain to my liking. We wouldn’t want him to crave human flesh again after bringing him back to life, would we? Aren’t you curious too?”

Thwack!

Stopping at a point above the clouds, he lightly tapped his foot, causing a massive ripple to spread, splitting the clouds and revealing the scenery of the ground below.

It was a medium-sized city where rain was pouring down.

The expressions of people in the streets looking up at the sky were all laid bare before the man’s eyes.

“Whether the talent contained within a body can truly be interpreted with theories and principles that humans can understand.”

[Not really.]

Agneta said indifferently.

[Even if Turan died and came back to life fifty times, I don’t think he’d beat the old alligator.]

“Indeed. It is precisely to catch up to that man that such troublesome research is necessary.”

The man rummaged inside his pocket and pulled out a small flask.

“Even under one great goal, the paths to reach it can always differ. I am merely preparing, awaiting the day I face those crossroads.”

[Do you want to kill the old alligator?]

“Hahahaha!!”

The man burst into hearty laughter.

He didn’t expect her to empathize.

As a descendant of an ancient race that traversed the imaginary dimensions, her sensibility, aware of spatial discontinuity from birth, was very different from others.

Rather, it was precisely because she could view everything from a different perspective that she hadn’t lost her innate, precious talent until now.

While he felt a slight pity for her circumstances, the man, instead of sharing such trivial sentiments with Agneta, casually changed the subject.

“Well, this isn’t the time for that. I have work to do, too.”

The man, who was gazing contentedly at something endlessly swirling inside the flask, glanced down at his feet.

Unlike megacities with populations reaching tens of millions, in cities with populations of several hundred thousand to several million, it’s not uncommon for governance to be entrusted to a tiny minority of superhumans.

The bargain of entrusting one’s safety to monsters who have transcended their limits, and having them protect the city as their asset, surprisingly has a long history.

And in the middle of that heavily raining city, the middle-aged man glaring up at him with his arms crossed was just another part of that history.

“The old tyrant who rules Humbelt…”

The man chuckled, looking down at the middle-aged man.

“Just a mad old man holed up in his own castle. Today’s quota will be finished quickly.”

After handing over Turan’s corpse and rescuing Mauser and the wizards from Blaiver Magic Tower, it didn’t take long to resolve the situation.

More precisely, it didn’t take long for the Magic Tower to understand the situation and dispatch a responsible party.

This was because Evelyn’s formidable reputation, her Divine Bow, and the active testimony of her godfather, Aintz, who had vaguely sensed the situation, were effective.

The remaining wizards of the Magic Tower were half-doubtful, but upon seeing the corpses of the Elder Council members recovered from the hidden sanctuary and the surviving members, they quickly understood.

The fact that Lennok and Evelyn were the ones who prevented a Forge explosion that nearly annihilated the entire Magic Tower must have also played a significant role.

Crucially, the person dispatched from Blaiver Magic Tower headquarters to handle this incident was someone Evelyn knew.

“I’m truly sorry for this incident.”

Mauser said weakly, rubbing his eyes.

What kind of shock must it have been for him to learn that all the other envoys from Machine City had died, and that he himself was held hostage at the end, forced to trade Turan’s corpse?

His complexion, visible beneath his thick beard, was haggard, as if he had aged ten years.

“It’s shameful that I, who should personally confirm if the Magic Tower’s Western Continent Branch is functioning properly, ended up receiving help and barely managing to resolve the situation…”

“It’s not your fault, Master Mauser.”

Evelyn replied in a gentle tone.

“It’s hard to imagine that the Tower Master’s direct disciple would not only collude with Pandemonium but also offer others as fodder to that murderer. Even I suspected the circumstances, but I never thought he would be so audacious.”

In this incident alone, the number of victims sacrificed to Turan, the man-eating lion, exceeded fifty.

Members of the Elder Council who became prey while unconscious, the rapidly increasing number of missing persons within the Magic Tower, and even the Machine City envoys who disappeared near the volcanic zone.

According to the investigation, the cave where the Machine City envoys disappeared was the result of Gionis manipulating the heat to steal the Forge’s embers, which caused an outlet to break and extend near the volcanic zone.

Heat beyond limits had melted and burned the underground bedrock, forming new minerals.

“That’s true. But that doesn’t excuse my being a burden in this incident. I should have clearly seen through the fact that Gionis had touched the Forge…”

Behind him, his body trembling, were heavy packages twice Mauser’s height.

This was due to Mauser’s stubborn insistence on personally carrying his fallen comrades’ belongings back to the city, even if he couldn’t transport their bodies immediately.

As the two were about to bid farewell to Mauser and turn away.

“Ah, I forgot to hand these over.”

Rummaging inside his beard, Mauser pulled out two long objects.

“……”

As Lennok’s mouth slightly opened at the unrealistic spatial storage ability, Mauser handed one object each to Lennok and Evelyn.

“These are some of the items our envoys brought as trade goods for our visit to the Magic Tower.”

Two shotguns with striking blue mana-swirling cylinders.

“Their basic power is no different from other shotguns, but these are special custom-made products that can temporarily amplify their power and range by charging them with mana. They are the result of a project encouraged by the workshop to promote firearm use among mana users.”

“I don’t use guns, however…”

Evelyn said with a wry smile, trying to return it, but Mauser firmly refused.

“For now, please just accept this.”

“……”

“Though I have little to give and cannot offer great reward, should you ever visit Machine City, I will surely repay you. This is proof of that.”

With those words, Mauser silently shouldered his burdens and departed for Machine City.

His steps seemed infinitely heavy, as if atoning for his failure to ensure the safety of his comrades and, at the Magic Tower, for focusing only on maintaining the Forge, unable even to ascertain their fates.

As the two silently watched his retreating back, a bored voice suddenly spoke from behind them.

“Did that old man already leave? I heard the Forge inspection wasn’t finished yet.”

“……Basic power source stabilization is complete, and he said that’s as far as his expertise goes. He told us to contact Machine City if we need more.”

“Damn it, I don’t know many people in this area either…”

The voice yawned wide, then mumbled in a dull tone.

“If you say so, it’s probably right, I guess.”

“Can you really talk like that?”

“I don’t know. What do you expect?”

A woman with impressive rich red hair and sharp eyes scratched her head vigorously as she spoke.

A cigar, much thicker than Lennok’s cigarettes, was clenched between her lips.

She was one of the five Flame Pillars protecting Blaiver Magic Tower and a wizard widely known as the most flamboyant and violent artillery mage.

Tatiana Chiglet, the Witch of Conflagration.

She was a celebrity whose name Lennok had heard in newspapers, and one of the wizards currently active on the central front.

As she ruffled her messy hair, her eyes met Lennok’s.

Tatiana grinned and said.

“I heard from the kids. You’re the wizard who utterly shamed the dead priest, aren’t you?”

“I never shamed him.”

Despite Lennok’s words, she ignored him, picking at her ear, and said.

“Anyway, I keep telling those idiots not to underestimate people just because they’re not from the Magic Tower, but they never listen. They only pretend to realize it after someone dies, you know?”

Her manner of speaking was not just rough, but downright savage.

Tatiana’s red eyes glinted sharply at Lennok.

“That book Gionis had. You took it, didn’t you?”

“……”

“Actually, that belongs to my master. I’ll pretend I didn’t see it, so just grant me one favor.”

“What is it?”

“That cigarette you’re smoking. It’s not off-the-shelf, is it?”

She gestured with the cigar in her mouth and raised her hand.

“It looks incredibly delicious. Tell me the recipe.”

“……”

Faced with such a bold and utterly shameless request, both Lennok and Evelyn fell silent.

Blaiver Magic Tower. One of the five Flame Pillars guarding its ancient traditions and rules.

The Witch of Conflagration was undoubtedly an eccentric beyond imagination.