Chapter 309: Despair

“Damn, damn, damn!”

Ariel bolted flat-out, swearing despite herself.

What kind of rotten luck was this?

Losing her bet earlier was one thing—that was on her. But why was it that she stepped out to hunt a magic beast, and when she came back everyone had vanished, and—just her luck—she ran straight into a Brilliant-Tier mage?

This was the Brilliant Tier—someone who could one-shot the overlord-class beast she’d just busted her ass to bring down!

Even if Master said her combat power already far outstripped her peers, you didn’t throw an old hag of this level at her right off the bat!

Cross-tier fights still had basic rules, damn it!

“Oh? You do run fast.”

The woman’s weightless voice drifted around Ariel’s ears, now distant, now close, source unknown.

“Why be so scared? Big sis isn’t fierce. Stay and chat with me. I’m very interested in the little secrets between girls.”

“...”

Pah.

Girls, huh.

Do you never look in a mirror? Can’t you see those crows’ feet your thick powder can’t cover?

Ariel bared her teeth, silently slandering her in her heart, but said nothing, only secretly picking up speed.

Then the fog around her thickened.

The mist curled with a faint, illusory breeze, like the delicate latte art on those awful and stupidly expensive coffees at fancy restaurants.

“Careful!”

Master’s bark exploded in Ariel’s mind. Without a shred of hesitation, Ariel whipped her body and changed direction.

But a burning sting still lanced across her lower abdomen.

As if a sharp edge had drawn by, cloth and pale skin were peeled apart. Blood welled and quickly soaked the front of her.

“This is...”

Ariel clutched the wound, slapped on the most basic healing spell to staunch the bleeding, her expression grave.

The injury wasn’t too bad—it hadn’t touched any organs. The problem was...

She hadn’t noticed the opponent launch any attack.

“This isn’t an attack, it’s...”

Master’s tone held equal gravity as he said:

“Space magic.”

“Hiss—”

Ariel sucked in a breath and looked toward the direction Master indicated.

Sure enough, right where she’d just passed, shrouded in cloud and fog, a faint mark lay drawn across the air.

Like a steel wire stretched out waiting for prey to run into it—if not for that sharp turn just now, she’d probably have been sliced clean in two by that spatial fissure.

“She can actually use space magic—that’s perverse.”

“For the Brilliant Tier, space magic isn’t difficult.”

Crack, crack.

A clear shattering rang out. That faint spatial fissure widened, and a figure floated out from within.

The woman toyed idly with her wand, her expression like a cat teasing a mouse—mocking and regretful.

“Oh my, you dodged it? What a pity. I thought if you were cut in half, you’d certainly be willing to have a friendly chat with me.”

“...Master,” Ariel asked in her heart.

“?”

“I forgot to ask just now... can I get away?”

“...If her brain isn’t damaged—no.”

“...”

Ariel fell silent a beat, then sighed helplessly.

“Alright, I get it too.”

She suddenly stopped running.

“Oh? Not running anymore?”

The woman arched a brow, a little bored.

“I thought we could play a little longer.”

But the next instant, she saw Ariel whirl and charge straight at her.

Again?

That made the third time.

Never learns, does she.

The woman’s lips curved. A pale-gold barrier bloomed again, a violent gale surging up. This time, she wanted a clearer look at her prey’s eyes when they went hopeless.

Yet in Ariel’s eyes at this moment, there was no despair.

Only a strange light, and a strange dark.

Her eyes were like the farthest two poles of the world, bursting with completely different gleams.

And her hands—this time they didn’t hold that bizarre greatsword. In her palms, two utterly opposite, terrifying powers were brewing.

“Who said I was running, Auntie!”

Ariel’s expression went manic, her grin feral. She slammed her two hands together in front of the barrier.

“I was charging up a big move, you brainless old auntie!”

The woman’s eyes flew wide. A fierce sense of danger surged up in her heart, but because of her own arrogance, she no longer had the chance to flee.

All she could do was, on reflex, reinforce the barrier before her.

But when those two forces clapped together, intertwining, then detonating—when they wound into a terrifying vortex that seemed to be able to tear anything apart—her best specialty, a barrier spell even same-tier mages struggled to breach...

Split like paper.

Ha... torn again? What kind of joke—this was the second time today!

The woman felt the world turn farcical and absurd. Getting her barrier sliced by that duke’s son with some weird little knife earlier—fine; given his identity, it was normal he could pull out something nasty.

But you? On what basis?

A mere Third Rank little brat, malnourished by the look of you, can’t possibly pull out anything serious, and your chest is that small... on what basis!!!

No time to ponder life’s great questions. After ripping the barrier, that terrifying vortex didn’t lose momentum—it came straight for her.

Ding.

Ding.

Ding.

One precious magic device after another, one precious magic scroll after another, dropped from the woman as she layered barrier after barrier in front of herself.

And those barriers were still shredded with ease—until the sixth heartbreaking clatter sounded, the terrifying vortex finally lost steam and slowly dissipated.

But before the woman could recover, a pair of hands lunged out and clamped hard around her throat.

Then...

They crazily sucked her mana away.

“What—”

The woman stared blankly as Ariel’s eyes turned pitch-black like an abyss. Right now she was like a long-starved beast, greedily devouring mouthful after mouthful of the woman’s mana.

“You—”

The woman finally snapped awake. “Get off me!”

Mana surged like a tide around her, blasting outward. Ariel, who had no defensive force raised, was flung far away by the shock—but the woman slumped to her knees, suddenly coughing up a great mouthful of blood.

“What a goddamn joke...”

She looked down at the blood staining her palm, muttering, dazed.

She—

A Brilliant-Tier archmage.

Respected by outsiders as Florel of the Hundred Arts, ranked near the top of the Empire’s wanted list, a great sorceress who had once single-handedly annihilated several Imperial elite squads—

Had actually—

Been grievously wounded by a Third Rank brat?

Not only that—she’d had at least half of her mana drained away in an instant?

What a joke?

What a joke?

What a goddamn joke!!

Even if you’re cheating, this isn’t how you cheat!

At least respect the basic rules, damn it!

“Cough, cough... pfft—”

But just then, the woman heard labored coughing, and the wet sound of blood.

She raised her head and saw Ariel collapsed weakly on the ground, like a fish stranded ashore and dying, hacking up blood in great mouthfuls, her body twisting.

The massive influx of mana had turned her bright red all over like a boiled shrimp, yet swallowing so much purified, refined mana that wasn’t hers only made her convulse in more painful spasms.

It looked like she couldn’t even stand.

The woman blinked—then exulted.

Right.

So what if my barrier got broken.

So what if I got injured.

So what if she devoured a huge chunk of my mana.

She was still, in the end, just a Third Rank brat.

If she—dignified Fifth Rank, a Brilliant-Tier archmage—really got killed by a brat two full great tiers below, she might as well find a brick wall and bash her head in now.

That’d be cleaner. Otherwise her name would end up in textbooks as the first famous mage in history to lose up front to someone two whole tiers lower—sung about generation after generation by mages, flogged daily in stories—every magic teacher would earnestly recount her glorious achievement to their students...

Fortunately, none of that happened.

“No more follow-ups?”

Propping herself up on her wand, the woman slowly stood, baring a feral grin.

“Then next... it’s my turn. Dying by my hand—by Florel of the Hundred Arts—is an honor you can take to the grave!”

Her wand swept; torrential mana surged round her once more.

This time, she would hold nothing back, and give not a single more chance.

Her chant rose, ever longer, like a symphony. If one listened closely, one could hear several different lines of incantation, harmonized together.

Multiple-spell chanting!

The earth-veins trembled, heavenly fire roared forth, gales attacked, explosions thundered!

Several Brilliant-Tier, overwhelming spells—absurd overkill in anyone else’s eyes—smashed down upon the girl who seemed to have no strength left to resist.

The chaotic torrent of magic drowned everything.

“Whew. It’s over.”

The wind lifted the woman’s wavy long hair. Watching the swelling dust cloud, she finally let out a long, turbid breath.

Truly wicked. Just to kill a Third Rank brat had felt far harder than when she and two Crowned experts ambushed that duke’s son.

“What a pity. I wanted to take your corpse to my employer for a little extra, but now... there’s probably not even scum left.”

“However...”

Her eyes shifted, a glint of greed surfacing.

“That brat was that strong—no way it was her own power.”

“She has something on her...”

“The fragile flesh is easy to destroy, but those things... not necessarily.”

She suddenly regretted that she’d let herself get spooked and hit too hard.

If she’d kept the brat alive, she might have pried more valuable things out of her mouth.

But... what’s done is done. No point regretting too much.

Wanting everything—greedy assumptions—was a taboo in her line of work.

“Better hurry. With a ruckus this big, if that ridiculous mascot bear turns back, it’ll be trouble.”

She flicked her wand and blew the dust away.

At the same time, she stepped toward the blasted, ravaged center.

But after only a few steps, she froze.

“Hm?”

As if sensing something, even her heavy makeup couldn’t hide the pallor as a look of disbelief surfaced.

“How... is that possible?”

Stiffly, she turned to look in a certain direction, her pupils quaking.

Because at the very center where the smoke was thinning, a slim figure was... standing.

“Wh... why?”

Struck as if by lightning again, she murmured, dazed.

This was her full-power strike without reserve—enough firepower to erase a small city.

But the other side was just a Third Rank brat—why was she still alive?

More than that...

Her gaze swept Ariel and saw that, though blood still leaked at the girl’s lips—that had already been there from before—and aside from those prior marks on her body, there was no further change.

In other words, under her final powerful bombardment, Ariel... was unscathed?

And the brat’s eyes right now—why were they so calm, so distant, as if tempered by countless years—so... ancient?

Something’s wrong.

Something’s wrong.

Absolutely wrong.

Those were not the eyes a Third Rank brat should have.

“You’re not that brat!”

Alarm ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) blared in the woman’s heart. Her eyes went red and she screamed, half-mad:

“Who are you! Who the hell are you!”

“...”

After a brief, unsettling silence, the girl seemed to return from a meditation on the philosophy of life. She finally looked at the woman, who seemed possessed, and spoke evenly:

“You... aren’t bad. You’ve just studied too many things—wide but not deep. Still, your level of power and your cautious attitude are both decent.”

Her first words weren’t a greeting, nor a self-introduction, nor an answer.

Just a light, airy assessment—an assessment from on high.

And yet the woman felt no dissonance at all—like the girl had every right to say it.

Goddamn... like seeing a ghost!

Grinding her teeth, the woman whipped her wand up on instinct. Mana surged, space rippled, and her figure began to fade.

She chose to flee.

Whoever wanted to fight this monster could have at it—it wasn’t going to be her!

But the girl moved.

She extended a single finger, pointed at the woman, and tapped the air.

【Chaos-Weave】

A melodious murmur sounded, in a language the woman had never heard.

In an instant—

Her body seized, as if forcibly squeezed out of space. A flush rose beneath the pallor of her face, and—pfft—she spat a mouthful of blood.

“This is... interference magic?”

The woman felt like her worldview had been refreshed back and forth several times today.

Of course she knew interference magic—no, any mage would.

It’s right there in the lower-grade textbooks, a required spell.

And learning how to cast under all kinds of interference was a compulsory course to become an excellent mage.

But in all her decades of study, she had never heard of...

Anyone directly manipulating the flow of mana inside someone else’s body!

Naturally so—if you could control another’s internal mana, what would mages even do? One snap of the fingers and they’d pop on the spot!

“You—”

She trembled, trying to speak, but before words could form, her vision blurred.

The girl with the ancient eyes was already in front of her.

What she’d meant to say turned into a hopeless, self-mocking laugh:

“No-chant space magic... Truth Tier?”

“Not quite.”

The girl shook her head. “At least not right now.”

“Is that so?”

The woman gave up. Lying flat, she said:

“Seems nothing I say matters. Go on and kill me.”

“...”

But the girl only looked at her calmly. She flicked a finger and knocked aside a dagger that suddenly shot in from the void.

The woman fell into utter despair.

“I won’t kill you.”

The girl extended her hand. As terror and curses rose on the woman’s face, realizing something, the girl gently pressed her palm to her forehead.

“But the pain you inflicted on my beloved disciple must be repaid to you—fully, to the last drop. Isn’t that right?”

Darkness fell. Agony raked the woman’s soul.

...

...

A few minutes later.

“Ow, ow, ow!”

Ariel pushed herself off the ground. It felt like she’d fallen from several hundred meters up—every bone and every muscle was howling. She bared her teeth.

“Master, what did you do with my body—this hurts like hell!”

“I lightened it as much as I could.”

Master sighed, his voice sounding a bit weak.

“But you’re still too weak. If you hadn’t desperately swallowed half that woman’s mana, I wouldn’t have been able to act at all.”

“...Sorry. I’ll work even harder from now on,” Ariel said, head lowered.

“No need to apologize. You did very well this time.”

“So, Master, did you get anything out of her?”

Ariel looked toward the woman not far off—the Brilliant-Tier powerhouse who’d almost closed off every road for her. Now her eyes were vacant and her expression deranged. She looked utterly broken.

“Forcing out memories doesn’t yield complete information.”

Master said:

“What we can know for now is that this incident was an assassination targeting Muen Campbell.”

“Muen Campbell?”

Ariel’s eyes widened. She ground her teeth.

“That hateful bastard dragged Liya into this?”

“So at the moment, there’s good news and bad news.”

“Spit it out, Master—don’t string me along.”

“The good news: the assassination failed. We suffered no casualties.”

“Nice!”

Ariel practically bounced.

“So Liya’s fine? That’s great... Wait—what’s the bad news?”

“The bad news is that their Plan B was to use space magic to transfer Muen Campbell into that Forest of Deathbane, then exploit the forest’s property that strong rescuers cannot enter, separate Muen from the Pink Bear, and encircle and kill him inside.

—Plan B succeeded.”

“I see...”

Ariel rubbed her chin, thinking.

“So Muen Campbell is in danger this time? But what’s that got to do with me—you think I’d risk myself to save him, Master?”

“...The bad news isn’t because of him.”

“Hm?”

“It’s because Liya got caught up in it. She was teleported in, too.”

“...”

Ariel turned to look at the not-far-off forest of towering trees, a deep gloom wafting from it. Her mouth slowly fell open; she stared blankly for a moment.

Then she suddenly dropped to her knees, as if replaying an old scene, and cried in anguish:

“No—Liya!”

“Damn you, Muen Campbell!”

Ariel pounded the ground in grief and fury.

“You bastard—die if you want, but why drag Liya down with you!”

This time, though, Ariel pulled herself together quickly. She didn’t even stop to treat her own wounds—she headed straight for the Forest of Deathbane.

“Are you sure you’re going?”

“Of course. How could I possibly abandon Liya?”

Worry flooded Ariel’s face.

“Liya isn’t good at fighting. Getting dragged into this is definitely dangerous!”

“But without a locator, it’s a needle in the ocean.”

“...”

Ariel fell silent for a beat. Then her eyes firmed to steel.

“Don’t worry. I believe the bond between Liya and me will bring us together!”

Yes—when Liya, harmed by that hateful Muen Campbell, fell into desperate straits, Ariel would descend like a hero from the heavens. Then she could take that last step and steal Liya’s heart completely!

What beauty doesn’t love a hero?

“Alright.”

Master said nothing more, sinking into silence.

Ariel walked on—then suddenly stopped.

“Almost forgot.”

She strode back in two quick steps, kicked over the already deranged woman, snatched the wand from her hand that practically screamed expensive, then stripped every item off her body, not even sparing the hair ornaments. Only then did she clap her hands, satisfied.

“Hmph. It’s all you bastards’ fault. Taking a little compensation isn’t too much to ask!”

Hoisting the wand, Ariel gritted through the pain and continued toward the forest that gaped like the maw of some giant beast.

“Damn... it hurts. No one to heal me... uuu... Liya, I miss you already.”

“Wait for me. I’m definitely coming to save you!”

“Wait for me!”

...

A few minutes later, a figure suddenly appeared.

It was... the Pink Bear, who had finally noticed he was one person short.

“Huh? Weird. I clearly felt that little girl here.”

The Pink Bear scratched his head and peered around, perplexed.

He didn’t see Ariel—but he did see...

“Flat! The ground is flat! So scary, so scary...”

“Uuu, this rock is flat too—so scary...”

A woman in a deranged state crawled back and forth on the ground. The moment she saw anything even a little flat, she went white with terror and screamed.

“Flat things... are all so scary... uuu... scary...”

“Eh? A bear. Bears aren’t flat. I like bears!”

“...The hell?”

The Pink Bear punted the woman away as she crawled over to touch his belly. Rubbing his chin, he frowned in confusion.

“This woman—isn’t she the one who was casting space magic? She went insane?”

“...That little girl’s doing? Looks like that girl really isn’t simple.”

“Wait—did she get information off this woman and follow into that forest, too!”

A rush of blood-sound sluiced. The Pink Bear closed his eyes to sense.

“As expected—the locator’s gone. The little girl entered the forest!”

Confirming that, his maw slowly sagged open, panic filling his ursine face.

If the little girl had entered the forest, that meant...

He’d lost another one?

There were only seven in total—he’d lost nearly half?

If Prang, that old bastard, found out, he would... tear him up!

No hesitation—he would rip him up!

“No—”

Shuddering, the Pink Bear slumped to his knees and lifted his head to let out a wail of despair.

“My pin-ups—”

“My gold collectors’ edition Saintess pin-ups—”