I Became the Mastermind (2)
"Luke Richter, you are invited to the headquarters council."
"..."
I was left speechless in the face of the sheer absurdity of it all.
The man in the black robe had just casually invited me to their headquarters council.
Has he lost his mind?
He wasn’t sane.
People who had made enemies of the imperial family were inviting me, a man under imperial jurisdiction, to their headquarters?
That sort of thing only happened if you were completely deranged.
...Is this because of that ridiculous rumor?
Did they seriously believe I had assassinated the Shadow Council Lord?
If so, they were off by a mile.
The council lord’s death had nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with me.
...But even if I declared my innocence, would they bend?
I didn’t even know how I was supposed to persuade them, and I certainly had no evidence to back myself up.
If I were them, I wouldn’t believe me either.
Hadn’t they said I’d muttered his name right before he exploded to death?
Not just the Shadow Council Lord, but several of his senior officers, all at once.
If I tried to play dumb and say, “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I might only end up provoking them further for no reason.
Besides, they had gone so far as to invite me to their headquarters council.
If revenge had been their goal, they wouldn’t have bothered inviting me at all; they would have sent assassins.
The fact that they’d sent a senior officer and were inviting me as a guest meant they had no immediate intention of harming me.
Fine. Let’s just stay calm.
I kept my expression under control as best I could and watched for any change in the man’s face.
Unfortunately, he was watching me just as carefully, and our eyes met.
It was awkward to look away first, so I simply stared back while letting my mind wander.
Then—
"Luke."
Rudine stepped forward.
Then, as always, she asked,
"Is he an enemy?"
A chill silence settled over the room.
The corners of the man who had introduced himself as Cheong’s mouth slowly lifted.
He’d taken interest in Rudine’s blatantly murderous aura.
"He’s a guest."
"Really?"
"Yes, so calm down."
Let’s not make this bigger than it has to be.
I barely swallowed the rest of the sentence before it could burst out of me.
"Why are you inviting me?"
"Because my lord desires it."
"That’s all?"
"That is all."
The headquarters council.
He wanted me to crawl straight into that dreadful den of monsters?
"And if I refuse?"
At my question, Cheong’s expression stiffened ever so slightly.
But then he quickly recovered his easy smile.
"Of course, the choice is yours, but..."
He trailed off and looked around.
His gaze brushed over Rudine.
I didn’t need him to spell out what that meant.
It was a clear threat.
"Is that a threat?"
"It is."
How dare some extra threaten me?
If I’d felt like it, I would have loved to give him twice as much back.
But I can’t clean up after that.
Even if I could somehow take this one guy down, there was no way I could handle the backlash.
And it wasn’t like I was in any position to leave Blackmore, so in truth, I had no real choice.
No helping it.
The urgent fire had to be put out first.
If they wanted to invite me, I’d just go along with it.
But there was no reason to look like a helpless idiot while doing it.
The Monarch Assembly worshiped nothing but strength; they were all lunatics in that regard.
I needed to put on a decent show here.
They believed only in the logic of force, after all.
"That’s interesting."
I gave a faint laugh and tossed out a single line.
Cheong’s hand drifted toward his scabbard, evidently sensing something strange.
He was probably about to draw his weapon.
"Acceleration."
The instant I spoke the designated activation word, the qi gathered at my fingertips unraveled.
The delicate, scattered grains of qi surged outward like a wave and swept through Cheong.
"Reverse."
And stopped.
No—more precisely, Cheong’s time stopped.
His fingers, which had been reaching for the scabbard, froze in midair.
In that place where everything had come to a halt, only his eyes were still permitted to move.
Cheong’s wildly trembling gaze swept up and down as it searched me out.
His lips, which had opened to answer, quivered faintly.
I looked back at him and lifted the corners of my mouth.
Stopping Cheong’s movements didn’t give me any actual power over him.
But for such a brief moment, it was more than enough to leave a strong impression.
"..."
Step by step, I began walking forward.
One step.
Two steps.
As I passed by Cheong, who was being crushed beneath the pressure of time, I tapped the back of his neck twice with the spine of my dagger.
It was a perfectly ordinary touch, devoid of any killing intent, but Cheong’s face still wasn’t looking very good.
So I leaned close to his ear and whispered, doing my best to imitate a merciful voice.
"I’ll put this on your tab."
It was, quite frankly, nonsense.
****
Cheong was puzzled.
And no wonder—he couldn’t feel the slightest trace of power coming from the man in front of him.
Did I come to the wrong place?
No, that couldn’t be.
The man before him was unmistakably Luke Richter.
The dangerous figure who had assassinated the Shadow Council’s senior officers all at once.
The illegitimate son of the Richter family.
His appearance, his position, everything matched.
Above all, it was impossible that the organization’s intelligence was wrong.
He had definitely found the right person.
What is this?
Cheong, the direct inheritor of the Great Lord Arkan, perceived the world in colors.
Since he saw everything in color, it was only natural that he could also identify the mana innate to human beings with his own eyes.
That was why this was so strange.
The man before him didn’t merely have little mana—he had none at all.
...How can a person have this little mana?
It was strange.
What kind of impossible technique had a mana-less human used to wipe out the Shadow Council?
Well, that’s not the important part.
But that was all it was.
He had come here to invite him, and all he needed to do was carry out that purpose.
And yet.
"And if I refuse?"
Persuading him did not seem easy.
So he decided to lightly provoke the man’s temper.
If possible, he wanted him to cross a line too soon.
It would be easier for Cheong to subdue him by force than to talk him down.
But then—
"That’s interesting."
To Cheong, whose vision was all color, it was visible.
Centered around the man whose mouth had curved into something almost split wide open, an unfathomable presence was beginning to seep into the air.
The color of that terrible, ominous force was...
Black...?
It was darker than anything else, deeper, and cold.
That was absolutely not the color of ordinary mana.
The instant he realized that, cold sweat trickled down his forehead.
His hand had moved toward his scabbard before he even knew it, and then—
"——"
The man spoke.
He muttered something, and in that instant the black qi crashed over Cheong like a wave.
He couldn’t react fast enough.
And then—
His eyes widened in shock at what came next.
"!!!"
He couldn’t move a single finger.
He had simply frozen in place.
It was as though he had been pinned to the world like an insect in a display case.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
His heart was still beating.
He could still breathe.
But that was all.
Cheong desperately rolled his eyes around, still unable to make sense of what was happening.
...What?
A true word?
An incantation? A curse?
How could such absurd powers exist in this world?
The hairs on his skin stood on end.
Before he knew it, the man had begun walking toward him.
Cheong could only watch in silence as he approached.
His mind had become too disordered for rational judgment.
"..."
By now, the man was standing right in front of him, a finely honed dagger in his right hand.
He idly brushed the blade against the back of Cheong’s neck a few times.
The cold, chilling touch made every nerve in his body snap taut.
It was the kind of moment where everything could go wrong in an instant.
His life now depended entirely on the man’s whims.
In the face of that vivid terror, his reason shattered into pieces.
Regret was already taking root—regret for having provoked him so recklessly.
"I’ll put this on your tab."
With those words, the black qi that had been pressing down on him scattered and dispersed.
It was unmistakable mercy.
...I’m alive.
Relief loosened the tension in his body.
But he couldn’t go back like this.
He had been ordered to bring Luke Richter with him, and he absolutely had to fulfill that command.
But how?
What could he possibly use to restrain that monster?
He had to avoid dying pointlessly, at the very least.
So just as he was about to withdraw in disappointment—
"Lead the way."
"...Pardon?"
"Didn’t you say you were inviting me?"
Gulp.
"...Are you accepting the invitation?"
"You wouldn’t give up just because I said no, would you?"
That was true.
His lord never gave up on anything once he had taken an interest in it.
Reading Cheong’s hesitation, the man clicked his tongue and spoke again.
"You brought the scroll, didn’t you?"
"...How did you know that?"
"I just did."
He even knew about the scroll.
As expected, he was anything but ordinary.
Cheong let out a quiet breath and unfolded the scroll.
"Please place your hand over the spell."
"Rudine, put your hand here."
"...Okay."
Space warped.
No, more precisely, the scroll’s mana began tearing at the fabric of space.
Then a cascade of light opened a passage.
The corridor of light seemed almost alive as it drew near and swallowed them whole.
Flash.
The passage vanished.
And after a few minutes had passed—
Into the empty office came a lone figure.
The person approaching was Adina, dragging a tree branch behind her by a rope.
"Luke? Rudine?"
She called out anxiously for the others.
But of course, there was no answer.
"Where did everyone go...?"
She had only gone into the forest to rough-trim some wood at Luke’s request.
And now, when she returned to the office, not a single person was left.
"W-what is this...! Don’t mess with me...!"
She was alone.
Adina felt like crying.