Chapter 961: The Prohibition (16)
“Wrong. There’s no artifact that looks like a glove.”
The search ended only after completely turning over the wardrobes and storerooms of the three-story mansion. Only then did Peshia grumble, realizing there was no particular yield.
“Everything here is just flashy on the outside and worthless. Typical house of a vain noble.”
The accessories displayed on the second-floor shelves were also just valuable items without magic imbued in them. It was natural to be annoyed, having searched meticulously for items that weren’t even artifacts, let alone proper magical items.
But Lennok, aware that they had consistently come up empty, calmly turned his steps.
“We’ve checked everywhere else, so let’s go down to the first floor.”
“Hey, if you knew something, you should’ve said so earlier.”
“It’s possible Armas von Anathema hid records or logs in the mansion. I just left it alone just in case.”
“You mean you knew it was a waste of time from the start!!”
Ignoring Peshia, who was shouting noisily, Lennok immediately used Flicker towards the first floor. As Felix and Peshia followed Lennok, who had disregarded the stairs and crossed the floors, Lennok pointed to the chairs in the drawing-room.
“Sit down. There’s something I need to explain before we start.”
“I’m not so weak that my legs hurt from just rummaging through a mansion for a bit.”
Peshia sat down opposite him with a sarcastic remark, while Felix sat right next to her, arms crossed.
“As I just told Felix, there are many unusually exquisitely crafted items among the mansion’s accessories and furniture.”
Lennok looked at the two and picked up a music box from the drawing-room table.
“This music box is also like that. It looks ordinary, but it can play sixteen different songs by overlapping six springs.”
“So what?”
Ignoring Peshia’s indifferent response, Lennok said,
“I think all the furniture and props in this mansion might have been made directly by Armas von Anathema himself.”
“Armas von Anathema made the furniture and props himself?”
Felix asked with a bewildered expression, and Lennok nodded.
“The same goes for the accessories displayed on the shelves. They must be items Armas von Anathema himself touched.”
“That Armas von Anathema guy didn’t seem like the type to have a hobby in handicrafts.”
“It’s not a hobby.”
Lennok set down the music box and nodded at Peshia’s unenthusiastic remark.
“It’s practice.”
“Practice…?”
“Magic Scribe extraction. Furniture and ornament manufacturing. These two actions seem unrelated, but they are clearly tied together under one definite intention.”
Lennok said that and swept his hand across the table.
“It’s repetitive learning to practice and train extremely precise Manipulation Spellcraft.”
“…”
“Armas von Anathema was practicing Manipulation Spellcraft alone in this residence.”
“That’s absurd.”
Peshia snorted and leaned back in her chair.
“Are you saying that scaled bastard really dreamed of changing his path to a Manipulation Spellcaster at that age?”
“Idiosyncratic Spellcraft isn’t a talent that’s easily acquired.”
Felix muttered with a complicated expression.
“Isn’t it a magical art that requires not only innate talent but also the right environment to learn?”
“That’s right. But it’s also a system that can be forcibly awakened through special postnatal experiences or trials.”
Lennok nodded.
“The reason Armas von Anathema tried to learn Manipulation Spellcraft was because he believed he satisfied that very case.”
“…”
“If one learns spellcraft through postnatal experience, then, as expected…”
Lennok said, rapidly tapping the table with one hand, “The Forbidden Armament that Armas von Anathema supposedly took with him when he was exiled from Ars Nova.”
“He believed that with the power of the Forbidden Armament, presumed to be specialized in Manipulation Spellcraft, he could awaken that talent postnatally.”
“Are you saying that Forbidden Armament can unlock the talent for Manipulation Spellcraft in someone who has already matured?”
“That’s something we’ll only know by checking it directly.”
Lennok stood up and chuckled.
“But it’s undeniable that the Forbidden Armament is a powerful artifact, powerful enough for Armas von Anathema to believe and act on it.”
“…”
“At least for Manipulation Spellcasters, it’s definitely an item that can elevate their power to a whole different level.”
With that thought, Lennok firmly decided to retrieve the Forbidden Armament immediately. Having long wielded Manipulation Spellcraft in his identity as Victor, there might be some progress if he investigates the Forbidden Armament. Knowing that the Forbidden Armament Armas von Anathema kept was no ordinary item, there was no reason to hesitate.
“The reason I’m explaining this to you now is that after this, there might not be time for explanations.”
Lennok said that and stood in front of the fireplace in a corner of the drawing-room.
“I’ll open the door now. Time is short to prepare, so hold your mana.”
“…Van. You’ve been talking as if you know where to go all along.”
Felix asked, as if something suddenly occurred to him.
“This mansion has no entrance other than the main gate, so where can we find the Forbidden Armament?”
“The answer comes if you think about it from outside the mansion, not inside.”
Lennok replied and gathered his mana. He knelt slightly in front of the fireplace, placing one hand on the dust-covered carpet.
“It’s been decades since this mansion was buried beneath the sewers, but neither Armas von Anathema himself nor any related party even tried to move it. Why do you think that is?”
“…There was a reason the mansion couldn’t be moved?”
“Exactly. There was a reason why this downward coordinate had to be maintained, no matter what. And that reason isn’t above the mansion, but…”
Crack!
Lennok said, gripping the floor as if scraping it away, “It must exist even further below the mansion.”
At that moment, dozens of transparent Magic Scribe threads stretched out from between Lennok’s fingers, intricately weaving themselves throughout the mansion.
Chwa-ra-ra-ra-rak!!!
Magic Scribes clung to the ceiling, floor, walls, and pillars, filling the drawing-room. Lennok’s threads, thinner than hair, instantly burrowed into the walls and floor, touching the intangible components within.
Click, click, click!!
The sound of gears turning and buttons being pressed. The entire mansion seemed to become a single machine, rotating complexly. It was as if one were inside a massive clock, hearing every gear turn.
At the sudden, intense sense of incongruity that Felix hadn’t felt until now, his expression hardened, and he gripped his hammer.
“We’re going to the mansion’s basement.”
With Lennok’s words, the drawing-room floor beneath them vanished. The three people standing in the now-floorless drawing-room plummeted into a bottomless pit.
Whoosh-wooosh!!!
“You gotta be kidding me!!!”
Peshia, who had been lying on the chair, ignoring Lennok’s words, looked around in surprise. Leaping off the falling chair and table like an animal, she immediately grabbed the shaft of her spear, which was spinning above her head.
“Hey, wizard!! You didn’t say the floor would collapse!!”
“Sixty rounds of rechargeable mana artillery in four seconds.”
Lennok glanced up at her, boosting his mana sensing, and said,
“Divided into three segments, with 1.5-second interval time-delayed sniping.”
“What?”
Kiiiiing!!
Simultaneously with Lennok’s words, a crimson magical light flashed from the darkness below. Security devices unleashed dozens of superheated laser beams upon detecting intruders. Felix gripped his hammer with both hands, watching the lasers surge upwards at invisible speeds.
“I’ll handle it!!”
He channeled mana to the hammer’s surface, twisted his shoulders, and rotated his body in mid-air. He dodged nearly half of the lasers that were outside his hit radius, then positioned himself in front of Lennok, striking the lasers directly to deflect them.
Ku-kwa-kwa-kwang!!!
Following the trajectory of Felix’s hammer, swung at incredible speed, the continuously surging lasers were all bent and twisted away. The diagonally deflected crimson lasers crashed into the hollow underground wall, erupting in a flamboyant explosion of flames.
Hwoong!!
Without even looking back at the mass of flames that brushed past his head, Lennok said again,
“Three hundred material-unknown cutting devices. They’ll deploy in six seconds and completely seal off the passage.”
“Damn it, seriously…!!”
Peshia cursed, reversed her grip on her spear, and plunged its blade into the wall. Slowing her descent dramatically, sparks flying, Peshia kicked off the wall and flipped herself upside down.
Swaa-aek!!
Plummeting headfirst in the opposite direction from Lennok, Peshia accelerated by spinning the spear with her wrist. At the same time, hundreds of saw blades exploded from the wall, appearing along her direction of descent.
Deu-reu-reu-reuk!!!
She thrust her spear between the saw blades that could slice a body apart on contact, twisting it to shatter them. A fierce shower of sparks, bright enough to illuminate the utterly dark cavern, rained down. While Felix deflected the lasers flashing between the saw blades, Peshia, in turn, shattered the saw blades through the laser rain, clearing a path.
Eu-ji-ji-jik!!!
Flicking her wrist up and down to vibrate the spear shaft at sub-sonic speeds, Peshia shouted,
“Wizard, I can’t see the bottom!!”
“Wait. I’m finding the direction.”
Lennok, who had been plummeting without doing anything, protected by Felix and Peshia, opened his eyes. In the darkness, his violet Mystic Eye glowed, sharply rotating.
“That way.”
A crack appeared between the cavern’s fissures, and the three figures fell straight through.
Kwa-ang!!
“Cough!!”
“Urgh…”
Felix and Peshia, covered in dust, tried to stand up but immediately crashed their heads into the ground.
Thud!!
A peculiar sight, as if an invisible force was forcibly pulling them down.
“What the hell is this?”
Peshia cursed and scraped at the ground with one hand, revealing a massive, shimmering violet stone embedded within. Identifying the rock, Peshia frowned intensely.
“A Gravity Stone? Why is something like this here?”
Gravity Stones are not only extremely heavy themselves, but their mere presence can arbitrarily alter gravity in the surrounding area. They are rare and valuable, but their use is limited without processing, so they are not often seen even in the central cities. Such stones were embedded and glowing not only beneath their feet but almost everywhere visible within the cavern.
“Armas von Anathema placed them here.”
Lennok answered, walking out from behind Peshia.
“That’s why we’ve been falling for an excessively long time compared to the basement’s actual depth. He used these stones to prolong our descent.”
“Is that possible with just Gravity Stones?”
“Look around.”
“…”
Whoosh-wooosh!!!
The enormous circular cavern beneath Armas von Anathema’s mansion. Smooth floors and stone pillars carved from Gravity Stones. It was literally filled with magnificent statues and decorations, shaped like a temple. The sheer scale, so vast it resembled a grand temple rather than a basement, silenced the two for a moment.
“A noble from the central city wouldn’t have lacked wealth, but this is beyond what I imagined.”
Felix, who had struggled to stand on the Gravity Stone, asked,
“Did he carve the entire basement out of Gravity Stones to make a massive temple?”
“And not just that. He even adjusted the position and direction of the Gravity Stones so they wouldn’t affect the mansion above.”
“…”
“It’s designed to channel the Gravity Stone’s power towards the center of the temple while preventing it from leaking outside.”
Lennok said that, casting his gaze towards the center of the temple, hundreds of meters away.
“And all those measures were taken to bind that item within this temple.”
“…”
A dazzling, beautiful violet crystal. Floating within that crystal was a single, glass-like Hand Gauntlet. It emitted an ethereal, nearly azure luminescence, the shape of a glove shimmering within the crystal as if time had stopped. Its appearance, covering not just the wrist but halfway up the forearm, made it seem more like a thin gauntlet than a mere glove. Around the Hand Gauntlet, thin threads swirled like a helix, coiling around the artifact as if protecting it.
“That’s…”
“The Forbidden Armament that Armas von Anathema took with him from Ars Nova.”
Lennok’s eyes gleamed sharply.
“It might be the relic of a very powerful Manipulation Spellcaster.”
Manipulation Spellcraft from the central city. And a Forbidden Armament created using high-level superhumans as material. Moreover, if it was an item that Armas von Anathema himself sought to obtain, even going as far as to learn Manipulation Spellcraft—
“Hey, wizard. I don’t really care about all that.”
Peshia, sprawling with her limbs outstretched amidst the debris, looked up and asked,
“Should I just kill this bastard?”
“What the…?”
Hwa-ak!!
As if answering Felix’s words, a man materialized from the deep darkness, scattering like shadows.
“Oh, have I been discovered?”
A tall man with a chilling smile stood on Peshia’s back. His face was ashen, like a corpse. He looked down at Peshia with snake-like eyes, holding a dagger to her throat.
“…!!”
Felix’s expression hardened, and Lennok gazed at the man with an impassive face.
“Ah~ I really didn’t want to meet like this again.”
The man glanced at Lennok and spoke casually.
“But what can I do when things have turned out this way? I have to do my best to make a living too.”
“…”
“So, everyone, please step back slowly.”
The man pressed the dagger harder against Peshia’s throat and said in a low voice.
“Unless you want to see this woman die.”
“That man is…”
Given that Peshia was completely caught off guard, it was undeniable that the opponent was quite skilled. As Felix grunted and quickly scanned his surroundings, Lennok smiled and said,
“You’re still as out of touch with news as ever, then and now.”
“Huh?”
“Don’t you know who the woman you’re holding hostage is?”
“…Oh dear.”
He thought he had found an opening for once, but the reaction was not what he expected at all. As the man broke into a cold sweat, realizing something was wrong, Peshia slowly raised her head.
“Hey. You son of a bitch.”
Ji-ji-jik…!!
As Peshia slowly turned her gaze, the dagger dug deeper into her neck, blood trickling down.
“Are you calling this a hostage situation?”
The man’s expression changed as Peshia, unconcerned about her neck muscles being cut, toughly twisted her body. Creating enough space to lift her arm, Peshia swung down violently, striking the ground.
Kwa-ang!!
With a simple punch to the ground, a shockwave erupted, sending her body flying upwards. At the same time, the man who had been on Peshia’s back was also tossed into the air.
“Wait…!!”
“Die.”
Without time to react, Peshia flipped her body once and ruthlessly kicked the man in the stomach.
Kwa-a-a-ang!!!
The man’s figure shot away like an arrow and crashed into a corner of the vast temple corridor.
“Cough!! Urgh.”
The man’s limp figure, bleeding and letting out a weak scream. Only then did Lennok move, standing before the fallen man.
“Trying to take a Deadrise general hostage… there’s a limit to how foolish one can be.”
“This can’t be…”
Only then did the man’s shoulders slump in dejection, realizing that Peshia, whom he had taken hostage, was an impossibly strong individual.
“I… I’m out of luck… Why does this always happen when I meet such unlucky wizards?”
“Long time no see, black wizard.”
Lennok looked down at the man and sneered.
“What were you doing here?”
The black wizard of Pandemonium. Myeong’s ancestor, an ancient wraith who had taken possession of the gem sorcerer Jawoon Audis’s body. Ermont had arrived at Armas von Anathema’s temple even before Lennok.