Chapter 59: Detoxification
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 59: Detoxification
“So, the last person who visited was the Administrative Minister.”
“…”
“Are you exercising your right to remain silent?”
“…”
When Aiden asked calmly, the pale-faced civil servant frantically shook his head.
“Then is your silence implying consent?”
“…”
The man nodded frantically.
Aiden decided to accept his response without much suspicion.
After all, it wasn’t easy to lie while dangling out of a high-rise window, held up by nothing but the scruff of your neck.
Besides, the Imperial Prince and the Administrative Minister…
…They never get tired of crawling out of the woodwork, do they?
He had expected as much.
He had rushed here as fast as possible to dig up who was involved in this mess, and sure enough, it was those two again.
Since they couldn’t operate openly anymore, it seemed they had resorted to scurrying around in the shadows and holding secret meetings like this.
I ought to teach them a lesson.
He hadn’t mobilized heavy hitters like Noel and Katya to lay the groundwork in advance for nothing. He had plenty of preparations ready on his end as well.
Aiden let out a deep sigh and casually tossed the secretary back through the window.
The man flew into the room with a thin, reedy scream, landing in a heap among the groaning soldiers and knights strewn across the floor.
I really have gotten a lot stronger.
He had suspected as much ever since he spun Damian’s jaw—a fairly renowned warrior in the Empire—with a single punch. But now, the gap between him and these nameless grunts was like night and day. They fell like autumn leaves in a gale.
He had been feeling a bit self-deprecating lately since he still couldn’t so much as graze Mayer during their nightly spars, but…
My martial paths are steadily building up too…
“Skills” that handled supernatural abilities could be copied immediately as long as his Affinity was raised.
In that sense, it was a cause for celebration. With every single battle, his proficiency in Katya’s Blazing Flame Art—which utilized Divine Power—and Noel’s sword technique, One Sword, One Strike, steadily increased.
With each fight, Aiden could feel himself becoming more adept at tracing the trajectory of a blade and deploying his Divine Power.
His short-term goal?
Land a single punch on Senior’s face.
Even though he was growing stronger at a monstrous pace, Mayer toyed with him every night without fail. Aiden just wanted to land one solid hit on him…
As he pondered this, one of the downed men stared at Aiden and muttered in a half-dazed voice.
“…M-Monster…”
“That’s only because you haven’t seen a real monster.”
“…”
“You should actually be grateful you were beaten by me. Seriously.”
If the two women currently waiting outside the estate had stormed in instead of him, no one knew what might have happened.
Knowing Katya’s personality, if things went south, she might have ruthlessly burned everyone to ash. That was exactly why he had taken the lead.
And lately, Noel had been loosening her restraint when it came to dealing with scum like this, too.
More importantly, the real problem was…
…The most important person isn’t here either?
Aiden frowned as he noticed the missing Grand Duke’s Daughter.
The Administrative Minister meeting her was one thing, but what on earth had those two done that the lady of the house couldn’t even be found inside her own castle…?
\---!!!
Aiden flinched and looked outside the main castle.
A monstrous roar shattered the silence.
It was a screech terrifying enough to make a faint-hearted person’s knees buckle on the spot—a sound that could never come from a human or a wild animal.
—A demonic beast?
Instinctively arriving at the conclusion, Aiden immediately bolted outside the building.
He found the source of the noise right away.
“Mr. Aiden! Stand back!”
In a spacious open courtyard near the main castle, Noel and Katya were locked in combat with a demonic beast that resembled a giant arthropod.
Flashes of sword light gleamed, and flames blazed into the sky.
Good lord.
The demonic beast’s movements were ferocious enough that Aiden involuntarily muttered under his breath.
The blade-like claws jutting from its multiple legs tore through the air, exuding a terrifying, oppressive force.
While it didn’t quite reach the level of the clashes between top-tier supernatural ability users he had witnessed recently, it was formidable enough to make him realize that if he jumped in unprepared, he wouldn’t even have his bones left intact.
In other words, with two top-tier ability users like Katya and Noel, they would win eventually, but…
…It looks a bit dangerous.
Unfortunately, per Aiden’s earlier request, both women had deployed a significant portion of their supernatural energy to establish a perimeter around the area. It was clear that while they weren’t being pushed back, they weren’t able to completely overwhelm the creature either.
“I’ll provide support!”
Aiden shouted, drawing the revolver from his coat, but Noel urgently stopped him.
“Wait, Mr. Aiden! No! You must not kill it!”
“Pardon?”
There was no need to ask what she meant. The moment he pulled out his gun and aimed at the beast, a translucent window popped up before his eyes.
— System Message
▶ Demonic beast detected.
▶ ‘Skill: Demonic Beast Hunter’ activates automatically.
▶ Analyzing target.
⊙ Liza Aslan [Demonic Beast Transformation]
Injected with the serum of the demonic beast ‘Black Widow’. Currently undergoing continuous real-time mutation, absorbing all bodily vitality as nourishment to grow stronger until death. Upon the death of the injected subject, the target reverts to human form.
Weapon: 8 Blade-legs
Strengths: Physical Durability, Agility
Weaknesses: Heart, Head
“…?”
The window itself was the effect of the skill he had copied from Grand Duke Aslan earlier. The real issue was its contents.
Aiden paused, staring at the text glowing in crimson.
Without even needing to look deeply, the very first line posed a massive problem.
That thing is the Grand Duke’s Daughter?
No matter how he looked at it, it was a demonic beast. But since the system wouldn’t lie, he had no choice but to believe it.
Looking closer at the beast, he spotted a small human torso embedded within the giant creature’s body—as if the monstrous form had sprouted and multiplied outward from her very flesh.
“…”
Aiden exhaled a deep sigh.
Anger began to squirm and surge inside his chest.
The Grand Duke’s Daughter had been meeting the Administrative Minister until recently, and according to the skill’s analysis, she ended up like this after being injected with some sort of ‘serum.’
There was no need to guess the cause and effect of the incident. It was obvious without even looking. The Administrative Minister had clearly done something to her.
Which meant, in other words…
Those bastards, who should have been laying low, had committed the insane atrocity of openly injecting a member of the Grand Ducal House with an unidentified demonic beast serum.
If they took such a drastic measure, they likely had even more traps set up.
In the first place, the note saying ‘reverts to human form upon death’ gave him a very… bad feeling.
Just how insidious are they going to be?
Wasn’t this the perfect setup to fabricate an incident and frame someone for the ‘arbitrary murder of a noble’?
His thoughts on the matter were simple.
Now I’m pissed off.
Even though Aiden himself had intended to teach the Grand Duke’s Daughter—who was obsessed with the succession struggle—a lesson, he couldn’t help feeling disgusted when seeing scum who treated human life like trash.
The Administrative Minister was probably gloating right now, thinking he could finally inflict significant damage this time.
Bullshit.
And knowing what he knew now…
There was no reason whatsoever to play right into the enemy’s hands.
First off, step one was ‘not killing’ the Grand Duke’s Daughter in front of him.
There was a step two as well, but he had to deal with what was right in front of him first.
Aiden scoffed and dismissed the window displaying her information.
“Dame Noel, Princess. Please follow my lead.”
* * *
The man named Rad Ilja Barphon cracked his neck backward.
“Oops.”
Rad whistled as he adjusted his head, which had nearly snapped completely off his torso from overturning.
The alignment often went awry. To look like an ordinary human, he needed to be less grotesque than this.
Ever since the Imperial Prince had torn this ‘puppet’ to shreds a while back, ‘errors’ like this occurred frequently, even after repairs.
Still, running this junk has proven to be quite worth the effort.
He muttered to himself while watching Aiden’s group fight the transformed Grand Duke’s Daughter right before his eyes.
Enveloped in black Demonic Energy, his presence was completely imperceptible to anyone around. Those engaged in intense combat would find it even harder to spot him.
Honestly, this is a golden opportunity to dispose of them…
If it were up to him, he would collect everything there right now.
Lionheart, Deathwish.
Humans with that level of potential were exceedingly rare. If he put them through the same process he used on this human named Rad and turned them into his most useful ‘puppets’…
…No, no.
Rad wiped his face, suppressing the laugh that threatened to spill out.
That was mere self-interest.
They were expendable assets meant for a far grander ‘purpose.’ He shouldn’t meddle with them recklessly.
He hadn’t joined hands with that prince for nothing.
Everything has its stages.
Rather than ambushing her now, binding Lionheart to the Imperial Prince’s side as a ‘wife’ would make her far easier to utilize.
A marriage to the prince who would inherit the nation meant Lionheart would soon become Empress. If Lionheart, who held the absolute support of the populace, became Empress, the Empire’s support for the future Emperor would become unbreakable.
—And when his ‘clan,’ which had formed a covenant with the prince’s faction, swallowed the Empire whole, she would be one of the most useful cards in their hands.
“…”
And…
The first step was separating Noel from that cursed man, even by force.
Aiden Kellermain.
Rad’s usually smirking face hardened briefly as his eyes rested on Aiden, who was manifesting his supernatural ability.
…That guy is a wild card.
If he had just stayed out of the way, there were countless schemes to place Noel right by the Imperial Prince’s side.
But then that man appeared.
Every time Rad set the stage, that guy popped up like a ghost to sabotage his plans. A complete eyesore.
However, escaping the trap set this time wouldn’t be so easy.
The demonic beast, Black Widow—a man-eating spider. He had injected her with a serum derived from a beast whose raw combat power rivaled a high-ranking knight, meticulously engineered with the added effect of ‘continuously growing stronger until death.’
No matter what supernatural ability user you brought from across the world, reverting a human whose Demonic Beast Transformation had progressed this far was impossible.
Especially since that was a special serum crafted with tremendous effort. There was no cure anywhere. It was a masterpiece that staked his pride.
So, whether she died in battle or died as time passed—no matter how things played out, the Grand Duke’s Daughter was destined to die.
Then all he had to do was remain hidden, record the event, and use it for incitement and manipulation.
A key position like Administrative Minister was useful at times like this. Sowing chaos and turning lies into truth was his specialty.
And above all…
Grand Duke Aslan will be here soon too.
Timing it perfectly with Aiden’s departure, he had leaked enough information to Grand Duke Aslan for the man to realize something suspicious was happening in this territory.
Thanks to that, the Grand Duke was likely rushing here at top speed as well.
If he witnessed the scene of his daughter being ‘killed’ at just the right moment, it would forge a beautiful grudge between him and Aiden. A gift, so to speak.
Now, take a massive fall this time, Aiden Kellermain—
Smiling, he gloated to himself.
Devices to ‘record’ the events happening in this place were already scattered all around.
Just thinking about making that eyesore suffer made it impossible to suppress his laughter—
“…?”
However.
The moment he saw the scene unfolding before his eyes…
…What?
Rad’s expression crumpled instantly.
Things were unfolding completely differently from what he had envisioned.
First off, instead of preparing for a lethal battle, Lionheart and Deathwish flung their swords far away, getting ready to charge in with their bare hands.
Naturally, charging unarmed at a demonic beast with the combat power of a high-ranking knight wasn’t something they welcomed. Lionheart was screaming, her face as pale as a sheet.
“M-Mr. Aiden! Is this really a good idea?!”
“Yes. Because we absolutely cannot kill her, even by accident.”
Aiden’s eyes scanned the surrounding area.
“Why do somebody else a favor?”
At that pointed remark—one that made it glaringly obvious Aiden knew someone was hiding nearby—Rad’s brow furrowed even deeper.
…This bastard.
He was mocking him.
Knowing Rad was nearby, taking a stance that he would absolutely not fall for his trick.
“—Then how do you plan to handle this without killing it?”
Katya asked, tilting her head. The answer that followed was dripping with spite.
“In the way that makes the bastard who injected her with this garbage feel as miserable as possible.”
Aiden let out a chuckle as supernatural energy erupted from his body.
“—He probably thinks she can never be cured because he put so much effort into making this.”
The First Vow blending into Savior’s Oath.
Its name was ‘Purifier.’
“We ought to teach him that the world is a much bigger place than he thinks.”