Chapter 113
Chapter 113
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 113
Chapter Title: Dollhouse Trap
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Chapter 113
6
“I wondered what was so urgent that you called me out of the blue…”
Somewhere in the capital, Eset.
Louis, who had grumbled all the way while changing into the clothes I’d prepared for him, glared at me with narrowed eyes.
“You’re saying we’re raiding Wifera’s headquarters with just this crew?”
“Well, it should be fine.”
I shrugged, but I could understand his concern.
Excluding me, I’d only brought three people to assault Wifera’s main base.
Kyriakos, who had to join for revenge; Page, whom I’d brought along since this was official business rather than personal sanction; and Louis, who’d been dragged here in the middle of his job hunt.
Kyriakos was reliable, having been raised as a hunting dog. Page was on track to become the world’s strongest soon enough. And Louis, trained as a federation spy, wasn’t half bad either.
As for me, I was a magic sword user, dimensional mage, and rune magic expert (sort of).
In terms of raw power, we had more than enough to take down Wifera.
If we all went all out, we could probably conquer a whole city.
Well, my power got cut in half during the daytime, but still.
“Anyway, it’s too late to worry now, senpai.”
“What are you talking about?”
“That building right in front of us is their headquarters.”
Only then did Louis turn his head to look up at the five-story structure.
It was a modern-looking building with nothing particularly noteworthy on the outside.
The giant clock hanging on the outer wall pointed to midnight.
The perfect time for an attack.
“As you can see, it’s a five-story building with Wifera operatives stationed on each floor. They manage various businesses, including loan sharking, and keep large amounts of cash on hand, so security is tight. Oh, and their boss is holed up on the top floor as a bonus.”
“What the hell? It’s like a dungeon or something.”
“Pretty much.”
In fact, Wifera’s headquarters was treated as a dungeon.
“That’s the briefing. Is everyone ready?”
I stretched my body this way and that as I asked.
Louis let out a sigh with a sullen expression before nodding.
Page, dressed in light armor for stealthy movement tonight, nodded as well.
“I’m prepared to handle however many foes there are.”
Kyriakos, his purple hair tied back tightly, was already good to go.
The calm air around him bristled like a hunting dog ready to charge at any moment.
“Then follow me closely.”
Using the darkness as cover, I headed to the back of the building.
Page, hurrying after me, asked in confusion.
“The entrance is on the other side.”
“Walking in the front door is basically begging them to kill us.”
With our current lineup, a frontal assault wasn’t impossible.
But there was no need to take the hard route.
“Is there a back door, by any chance?”
“As expected of an elite knight. Quick on the uptake. Well, it’s not exactly a grand back entrance.”
Page tilted his head, not understanding.
No need for a long explanation—we’d reached the rear of Wifera’s headquarters.
I quietly placed my hand on the wall and scanned it with dimensional magic.
Then, pointing to the empty space I sensed, I said to Kyriakos,
“Just give it a light tap.”
Without a word, Kyriakos struck the spot I indicated with his sword hilt.
Bricks crumbled away, creating a hole big enough for a person to pass through.
“This is…”
“Shoddy construction is always the problem.”
I brushed it off to the astonished Page.
In truth, there were about six routes to infiltrate Wifera’s headquarters.
I’d just chosen the easiest and most convenient one.
The hardest and most annoying would be parachuting in from the air.
You could go straight to the boss fight that way, but… skydiving was a no-go for me.
Now our tasks were set.
We exchanged glances and slipped through the collapsed hole.
The moment we all infiltrated Wifera’s headquarters.
Click!
With a sound like a switch being flipped, the scenery around me changed without any warning.
My surroundings turned into a featureless gray room.
Not a stick of furniture, not a sign of human presence.
Page, who’d been right behind me, Louis, and Kyriakos—gone.
Even the hole that should’ve been at my back was nowhere to be seen.
Reflexively, I drew my magic sword.
I’d fully expected Wifera to have defenses against intruders.
I figured they’d have some kind of countermeasures, but… this was a new one.
*The ambient mana is thick. Hmm, they’ve transformed the room itself with magic? Not bad effort from folks who can’t use dimensional magic.*
It was impressive enough to earn a compliment from my sword.
With my dimensional magic, swapping an object’s coordinates wasn’t hard if I had enough mana.
But dimensional magic was a once-in-a-millennium talent. Aside from a few commonplace spells like teleporting packages, not just anyone could use it.
“They collided a barrier with magic to amplify the effect and shifted the entire room.”
I quickly spread dimensional magic to analyze the occupying spell.
Intentionally clashing multiple spell formulas to create synergy.
They came up with quite the setup.
“Ahaha~! Right~!”
A lively voice echoed from inside the blank room.
Bouncy footsteps approached, and light flooded the space from all sides.
Under the brilliant illumination appeared a petite woman.
“Hi! Illegal intruder! I’m Mei! I’m here to stop you!”
The woman with curly emerald bobbed hair laughed merrily as she introduced herself as Mei.
Her highly saturated blue eyes stood out starkly in the gray room.
A villain that eye-catching was hard to forget.
But since she wasn’t in my memory, she must be an original villain not in the main story.
No info was a problem, but… judging by her face, if I played along a bit, she’d spill everything.
“Did you cast this magic?”
“Yup! My amazing magic! This one right here!”
Mei pulled a small dollhouse from behind her back.
Seeing the five-story dollhouse, I got the gist.
“You link it to a room prepped with a magic circle! Then overlay a barrier to fully assimilate it! Move the dollhouse, and you magically reconstruct the building!”
“Ooh, impressive. Amazing. How’d you even think of that?”
“Right? It’s amazing, huh!? It uses a ton of mana, but you can create a disadvantageous environment for the enemy! I’ve already separated you from your friends!”
Mei puffed out her chest proudly.
I scanned her beaming expression while spreading more mana around.
“With a few tweaks, you could adapt it for offense too?”
“Already did! Limit the spell range to one room, expand it to block approaches! Or lower the ceiling to crush them… Ahh!?”
Only then did Mei dramatically cover her mouth.
“You tricked me…!?”
“Nah, you got excited and explained it all yourself.”
I just nodded along.
Anyone would think I’d scammed a total stranger.
“I won’t forgive you…! Absolutely not! You’re getting flattened!”
“What’s that supposed to mean…”
Crushed flat, huh?
She tossed out threats so casually.
“Our matchup’s the worst.”
Misinterpreting it as me being at a disadvantage, Mei grinned widely.
Of course, the one at a disadvantage was Mei, not me. I steadied my breath and activated the pre-prepared dimensional magic.
7
Meanwhile, somewhere in Wifera’s headquarters.
Walking side by side down a dimly lit corridor, Louis Lefersha grumbled.
“Suddenly thrown into some unknown place… then a wall drops and leaves me alone with you… What the hell is going on?”
“Enemy trap.”
“I can see that.”
Louis sighed at Kyriakos’s impassive response.
Louis and Kyriakos just didn’t mesh well.
This was a prime example.
“Should we keep moving?”
“What, you got a better idea?”
“When lost, it’s best not to move and call for help.”
“This isn’t being lost.”
“It’s a metaphor. I can handle solo ops, but who knows what traps lie ahead. Sticking with allies minimizes damage.”
“That’s why we need to move now. How long are we gonna wait for that guy and the knight to find us when we don’t even know where we are?”
“We can’t overlook the risk of missing each other.”
See what I mean?
They didn’t agree on a damn thing.
Louis shot Kyriakos a side-eye.
Haa, the sighs just kept coming.
“To think you’d run into Lord Kirolro. Tough luck for you two.”
Around then, a high-pitched, sharp male voice rang out from deeper in the dark corridor.
The man who appeared was round all over.
Round glasses, round face, round body, even round curly hair—like a snowman with limbs slapped on.
“Fear me! For Lord Kirolro shall now…….”
Kirolro shouted, clutching handfuls of pocket-ball-sized iron beads in both hands.
But Louis and Kyriakos didn’t spare him a glance.
“So we wait, fine. What if the enemy shifts our position again while we do?”
“We wait till we link up.”
“Yeah, like the enemy’s gonna let us regroup. If it were me, I’d keep shuffling our locations to prevent it.”
“If it were you, huh. Are you a spy, Louis Lefersha?”
“Argh, seriously!”
Louis irritably ruffled his hair.
Pushed aside by their skit, Kirolro shook off his daze.
“Hey? You two? Don’t you get what’s happening…?”
“It’s just a metaphor, like what you did!”
“I’m no spy.”
“Aaagh! That’s not the point! Damn it, forget the ‘I’ crap for now!”
Their one-sided banter was getting nowhere.
Finally, Kirolro’s face flushed beet red with rage.
“You bastards… Ignore me and die!”
Kirolro swung his arms wide.
Iron beads poured from his hands, ricocheting off the corridor walls, ceiling, and floor in chaotic paths.
The swirling beads accelerated, defying physics.
The moment they reached speeds that could pierce skin and shatter bone, bearing down on Louis and Kyriakos.
Shing!
A sharp sound sliced through, cleaving most of the incoming beads in half.
Kyriakos, who’d casually bisected them, stood beside Louis as the latter sighed and opened his grimoire.
“I ignored you ’cause you were yapping from the sidelines… Hey, let’s take care of this guy first, then talk.”
“I agree.”
“Now you look at me! See who I am, you punks!”
More beads scattered wildly.
The two dodged and deflected the complex trajectories but couldn’t close in on Kirolro.
“Can’t you magic him down?”
“A bit far, but… doable.”
The beads flying everywhere were all iron.
Dodging nonstop, Louis finished his chant swiftly.
One short verse—concise, omitting many elements—a green current surged from his book.
Crackle!
The bolt struck the nearby wall harmlessly.
As Kirolro started to grin.
Crackle—the current leaped from one bead to another.
Jumping bead to bead, the green current slammed into Kirolro before he could react.
“Gaaah!?”
“Tch, weakened a lot hopping around.”
“Can’t you do a longer chant?”
“Three syllables could ignore ’em and zap him flat. But you—don’t lightning bolts kill you?”
“Even I’d die normally from a lightning strike.”
“Then you can’t handle a long chant.”
Beads filled the air.
Amp it up, and who knew where it’d arc.
Louis alone might be fine, but no guarantee Kyriakos would be safe from the current.
“Grr…! Even now, whispering among yourselves……!”
Smoke rising from his head, Kirolro hurled more beads.
Lights shattered with sharp cracks, plunging everything into darkness.
Only the ping of bouncing beads echoed, but it was no issue.
Kyriakos, survivor of back alleys; Louis, spy with every training under the sun.
Darkness was like home to them.
“I’ll clear the path. Go.”
“Thanks.”
Crackle—a faint current sparked in the dark.
It ran alongside Kyriakos, almost protectively.
Dozens of beads closed in on him.
But the green current wouldn’t allow it.
The magnetic field it generated couldn’t fully control the beads, but bending their paths was no problem.
“Wh-what…!”
By the time Kirolro gaped in shock, Kyriakos was already upon him.
Thud! A clear thwack—Kyriakos’s sword hilt sank deep into Kirolro’s solar plexus.
Kirolro flew back, rolling on the floor without resistance.
The beads clattering everywhere dropped to the ground in unison.
“You’re fine this time.”
“I won’t show such disgrace again.”
Louis approached the composed Kyriakos and shrugged.
“So, what now?”
“I planned to hold this spot, but no need.”
Eyes closed briefly, Kyriakos nodded at the sprawled Kirolro.
Who, recovering in the meantime, was crawling away to escape—until he froze, turning to stare at the two.
“Looks like he knows the way.”
“Finally, we’re on the same page.”
Louis flashed a refreshed smile now that they agreed.
“St-stay back! Please, stay back!!”
Kirolro screamed as the two closed in shoulder to shoulder.
But even that soon vanished into the darkness….