Water Knows the Answer
Sophia von Glorious, Countess of the capital Oz, maintained two disguises.
By day, she was Linda Kent, a freelance newspaper reporter.
By night, she became the enigmatic phantom thief Papillon Noir, who raided the warehouses of nobles and demons who had amassed their fortunes through illicit means.
Yet her true identity was that of the hero Sophia, discovered by Prince Tifetarius after a long journey following the oracle of the Goddess of Courage.
Ever since receiving the full estate and authority of the Glorious Count family from her adoptive father, Prince Tifetarius, she had devoted herself to relentless training.
Magic of every kind, hand-to-hand combat, weapon arts, and physical conditioning—she absorbed every school and technique that money could buy in the capital with her prodigious insight and talent.
The result was something unprecedented: a double master.
Hero Sophia was both an Aura Master and a 6th-rank Great Mage.
Unlike the previous hero Artorius, who had only reached Sword Expert by the time he arrived at the Demon Lord’s castle due to his lax training, she never wasted a single moment granted to her.
She simply remained shut away in the mansion’s basement, locked in an endless battle against herself.
Having attained such heights, Sophia never moved carelessly.
No matter how much of a hero she was, she had only just come of age.
Having spent nearly eighteen years living in the mountains, she knew nothing of the wider world.
That was why she had chosen the profession of newspaper reporter.
With the high noble status inherited from her adoptive father Tip, she could never approach the shadows gnawing at the capital Oz.
So by day she worked as a reporter, and by night she became a phantom thief, gathering information from every corner.
While she had been holed up in the basement for roughly a year and a half, the political landscape of Oz had shifted dramatically.
Ordinary citizens who once resisted demon rule had begun to welcome their policies, while those calling for a return to monarchy now appeared as nothing more than hollow rebels.
Among the lessons she had learned from Prince Tifetarius, the most valuable was that every matter must be viewed from multiple angles.
On the surface, the royal restoration faction seemed morally righteous and worthy of a hero’s aid, yet beneath the surface lay something foul.
They spoke of restoring absolute monarchy, but Prince Tifetarius, the direct royal bloodline, was nowhere in their plans.
It was merely a scramble among those with even a drop of royal blood to claim the throne for themselves.
Once Sophia understood this, she felt nothing but disillusionment toward the nobility.
She had believed that even if not all rulers were wise, at least some would possess a shred of conscience.
Yet the nobles, thoroughly corrupted during King Oscar’s reign, appeared utterly repulsive to her noble heart.
So she changed her mind and decided to observe the governance of the Ozma Governor-General’s office instead.
There was no need for her, as the so-called hero, to forcibly topple a country that was already functioning well.
She possessed a truly rational way of thinking.
And that was precisely why the current masked beauty—no, Papillon Noir—had become a righteous phantom thief who only punished the corrupt officials sucking the people dry.
Because Oz no longer needed a hero.
***
“Windstorm!”
It had originally been a pseudo-weather control spell synthesized from the 6th-rank magics Majestic Wind and Thunderbolt, but now that she had long since surpassed the 7th rank, it could be invoked instantly without any flashy display.
The basic method remained the same: positive mana in the left hand, negative mana in the right, the spell formula simplified to the extreme.
A localized army of storms erupted from the ground and swallowed the masked beauty whole.
This attack was little more than a greeting meant to test her level, so the amount of damage inflicted hardly mattered.
Crackle!
Sparks suddenly danced in the air, and the masked beauty emerged from the vortex completely unscathed.
More precisely, a blue aura now enveloped both of her hands.
If my eyes were not deceiving me, that meant the masked beauty was an Aura Master.
An existence that had already reached the double master state, which had existed only as a theoretical pinnacle.
Ozma needed to see this.
That guy was currently stuck against a wall, unable to advance any further.
When the masked beauty met my gaze, she laughed as though the sight amused her.
Irritated, I unleashed a barrage of Gale Palm.
Countless compressed air fists hurtled toward her.
“Huuu…”
With a single breath, the masked beauty shattered every wind fist surrounding her.
Then, with a casual flick of her fingers, a dragon formed from the water prison encircling the mansion came to life and surged toward me.
Normally I would have dodged, but a strange sense of pride made me stand my ground.
I educated the dragon with its jaws wide open using Majestic Wind, then severed the second one with the hand blade of Gale Slash.
Seemingly intrigued by my display, the masked beauty approached with water armor wrapped around both arms.
It was unmistakably Spell Armament.
“One exchange, if you please.”
After I spoke and assumed my stance, the masked beauty silently drew a whip from her waist.
The water stream that had climbed her arm now coiled around the whip as well.
It looked as though the weapon itself had been enchanted.
I had rarely seen Spell Armament used in such a manner, so it piqued my interest.
In the end, we each found the other fascinating.
Crack!
I took the initiative.
Compared to her whip, my reach with the Orihalcon gauntlets was shorter, so I launched a surprise attack to compensate.
Yet the masked beauty received my punch with effortless grace, deflecting the force backward as though she had mastered jujutsu.
My center of gravity wavered for an instant, and in that opening—
The masked beauty, who had been waiting for exactly this moment, drove a crushing fist into my exposed abdomen.
“Khak!”
I widened my eyes at the sudden destructive impact.
Without pause, she followed up with a pursuit strike, aiming to stamp her heel into my forehead.
Still reeling from pain I had not felt in a long time, I rolled desperately to evade.
Springing back to my feet with my core, I spun and delivered a back kick to the masked beauty, who had momentarily lowered her guard.
However, a wall of water formed between us, rendering the counter meaningless, so I immediately switched the magic I was using.
“Wind Bomb!”
Unlike other spells, Wind Bomb was essentially a compact time bomb—an air-pressure explosive that compressed the energy of an entire storm.
The moment it struck, the trapped energy erupted in violent streams, devouring the surroundings.
Realizing that even an Aura Master touching it would be suicide, she instantly canceled her attack.
Instead, the masked beauty threw herself backward to gain distance, deployed a complex double-layered magic circle on the ground, and pressed both hands against it.
Creatures of every shape and size, all formed from water, began pouring out of the circle.
The most striking among them was the unicorn.
Snorting once, the unicorn lowered its head and charged at me with ferocious momentum, as if nothing else existed.
“Kuk!”
I barely caught the horn to halt its charge, realized my body was being lifted into the air, and hurriedly wrapped mana around my legs to sever its head.
It was not a living creature, merely water, so there was no hesitation.
Yet apparently one unicorn was not enough; beasts of every form continued to assault me in waves.
I had already experienced this pattern when fighting Baron Betendorf, but the simple truth that numbers overwhelmed skill remained unchanged.
After barely shaking off the beasts’ onslaught, I hurled an invisible blade toward the masked beauty, who had been watching leisurely.
Instead of dodging, she casually swatted it aside with her aura-wrapped hand.
Boom!!
The ground flipped over, sending clouds of dust into the air.
I stared at the masked beauty with a dumbfounded expression.
This woman was, without a doubt, the same type of martial artist as me.
Only that could explain such reflexes.