A Plot Before the Party
An abandoned factory steeped in a gloomy, oppressive atmosphere. The windows shattered every which way only made it feel darker.
At its center stood a small group of three.
A woman with blue hair. A man with eyes red as blood. And a man wrapped in layer upon layer of black cloth.
"Here's the plan in broad strokes. Anyone got a problem with it?"
"...Interesting. I never liked that bastard anyway."
"You? Someone as vile-tempered as you actually liking a person? Now that's a laugh."
"Shut your mouth, harlot. You reek of rot."
The blue-haired woman spoke, completely ignoring what the red-eyed man had said.
"...So the Red Tower Lord gets taken by the Vice-Captain and that guy?"
"That's right."
"Works for me. The Red Tower Lord's throwing a modest little party this time, and there's hardly a single guest worth a second look. Oh, right—word is some fairly promising student from Korea Hero Academy will be there as a guest. That one's mine."
"A woman gone mad for men."
The man clicked his tongue—tch.
The Wicheon Brigade. A collective of Villains banded together for their own profit, an organization that prided itself on quality over quantity.
They belonged to the same group, yet they squabbled among themselves constantly—Villains, after all, were mostly creatures who answered to nothing but their own moods.
"Then Harun and I take on the Red Tower Lord."
"And I spread the chaos?"
"That's right."
"Fine. So what about the spoils?"
"The Heart of the Red Ogre that the Tower Lord carries—tempting as it is."
"I want his grimoire."
"Then I'll take his ring."
"You mean the one made of bloodgold? That's nothing but a trinket."
"Tch, tch. This is exactly why men are hopeless. Sneering at such a magnificent piece as a 'mere jewel.'"
"Enough. It's time we moved on to the operation."
The man shrouded in black cloth mediated between the arguing pair.
"Ah, by the way—what are we doing about the commission the Captain took recently?"
"You mean the one ordering us to grab that boy at the school?"
"And what are we supposed to use the boy for once we have him? Not that it matters. He must be special, I suppose."
The man pulled a single sheet of paper from his coat.
On it was a boy's name and photograph. A strikingly beautiful young man, as if carved into being by God himself.
"...Oh my? You want me to capture someone this handsome? I'd rather keep him for myself."
"Don't covet him. I know you're a free spirit, woman, but I trust you know your place. The Seven Evils made this request personally."
"...The Seven Evils themselves?"
"Yes."
The cloth-wrapped man stared at the boy with shadowed eyes.
Honestly, he had no desire to capture this boy. Not with the news that the Emperor, Seo Yebin, had her eye on him.
'The Seven Evils are a nuisance, but Seo Yebin is dangerous.'
The woman who had ascended from Puppeteer to Emperor.
Her Stars were genuinely troublesome. The Stars held no Transcendents among them, yet every one of them had seen the very end of the highest tier. Even two or three of them could hold off a Transcendent.
The Wicheon Brigade was a truly formidable gathering of Villains, but the Emperor, Seo Yebin, was a person capable of erasing the entire brigade on her own.
The Seven Evils, by contrast, had far too much weighing on them. Not long ago, they had assaulted Korea Hero Academy, provoked Seo Yebin, and been driven back into the Boundary for it.
If they were forced to emerge from the Boundary one more time, the consequences would be nothing short of fatal.
The pact forged by the great, the magnificent Grand Hero would tighten around their necks like a noose.
'I don't know why the Captain took a job like this.'
But if that boy might one day grow into something beyond even Seo Yebin's caliber, then striking him down now was the correct call.
"How about we aim to take the boy alive, if at all possible?"
"I agree with this harlot, for once."
"Hey! Why am I a harlot?!"
"A woman mad for men—what else would I call you? Hmm, but Korea Hero Academy's defenses are airtight right now. How exactly are we supposed to pull that off?"
"That's a problem for the us of tomorrow."
At the Vice-Captain's words, the man with blood-red eyes let out a short laugh.
"True. Can't argue with that. Kill the Red Tower Lord first, and we can hammer out the details after—it wouldn't hurt anything."
The Vice-Captain said it with a bright smile.
The party was magnificent.
They said the Red Tower Lord was a man of simple tastes, but when someone of his stature—the master of a magic tower—decided to hold even a modest celebration, "modest" was a relative term.
I sipped grape juice in a corner of the party, Erciel beside me.
"Are you feeling better now?"
"...Was it that obvious?"
"The moment Hong Yuhwa provoked you, your expression was something else entirely. If this hadn't been the Red Tower Lord's birthday party, I got the distinct feeling you'd have filed a duel request on the spot."
Erciel's eyes curved into crescent moons.
"It's rather fascinating, seeing that side of you, Seoha."
"...Is that so."
"It is. Refreshing, I'd say. It feels like I've discovered a whole new facet of you."
With that, Erciel elegantly raised her wine glass of juice and took a sip.
"You seem quite interested in me, no?"
"Well, we are rivals, after all."
Erciel flushed faintly for a moment. Maybe she was drunk on the atmosphere.
I turned my thoughts to Erciel herself.
Upstanding at heart, and the type whose quick wits carried her far.
By nature, she was no grinder. Her cleverness meant she relied on fortune rather than effort to get things done.
But upon meeting a person named Melanie—after witnessing the 'false world' that had shattered the boundary between her reality and her fantasies—she had become a woman who strove to build that world with her own hands.
And she was a person of goodwill, even if on certain other routes she fell from grace and became the Apostle of Despair.
'Well, Erciel had every reason to fall that far.'
I drank my grape juice.
'So what am I going to do about the Wicheon Brigade?'
I thought about the Wicheon Brigade.
This band of Villains was famous for its elite few.
A bandit collective made up entirely of Upper Tier threats—if they wanted something, they would steal it by any means necessary, no matter how dirty.
That was what made them Villains.
Scum among men, declared irredeemable even by the White-Wax War.
And today, they would kill the Red Tower Lord and steal every treasure he possessed.
'Their lineup: Blue, Harun, and the Vice-Captain.'
The three of them made a well-balanced team. Harun, with overwhelming raw force. The Vice-Captain, a specialist in assassination. And Blue, an illusionist perfectly suited to throwing the whole venue into chaos.
The Vice-Captain in particular was the kind of opponent mages dreaded most.
Because he was an assassin. A being who commanded shadows and had refined his entire existence for the kill.
Harun was a straightforward, brainless berserker. Blue was an illusionist devoted to disruption.
If I left Blue to Erciel, she'd manage somehow. Erciel was clearly a step below her in raw terms—but Erciel had Melanie on her side.
'Which means what I need to do is—'
Hold back the Vice-Captain while keeping Harun in check.
'If it's the Vice-Captain, he's more than capable of killing the Red Tower Lord.'
The Red Tower Lord, solidly in the highest tier yet eyeing its middle ranks, and the Vice-Captain, who had only just crossed into that tier—the gap in raw power between them was enormous. What had made this ambush possible at all was simply how badly their matchups favored the attackers.
Above all, the Winter Sword the Vice-Captain carried was exceptionally dangerous.
'I'd like to get my hands on the Winter Sword myself.'
It was one of the blades I needed to become the Twin Blade Fanatic.
Gather the Sword of Spring, the Sword of Summer, the Sword of Autumn, and the Sword of Winter, and the Four Seasons Swords would be complete—and that set boasted output worthy of the term "final boss" in this world.
The problem was my realm. If all the conditions were met, I could kill even an Upper Tier threat—but the highest tier was another matter entirely.
With the conceptual stat of Defying Heaven, I could slay the Upper Tier. Against the highest tier, the question marks piled up fast.
'Even having reached Mid Tier, I've only just gotten there.'
As I sat there wrestling with the problem, I felt a gaze on me. Someone was watching.
I turned my head sharply—and there stood a handsome man with red hair and crimson eyes.
A handsome man in his mid-thirties, perhaps. He was looking at me through a monocle.
I knew this man.
One of the giants who led the Magic Tower.
The Red Tower Lord.
"First time meeting you, I believe."
The Red Tower Lord looked at me.
"Yes. It's an honor to meet you."
"Mm."
He said it while looking me over. And in his eyes, there was unmistakable bewilderment mixed in.
"Hm. You're the young man my granddaughter fancies, so... I knew you'd have something to you. I didn't expect it to be this much."
"...So Hong Yuhwa really does like Seoha, after all."
"...She what?"
Erciel bit her lip softly, and I tilted my head, puzzled.
I had never sensed that kind of feeling from Hong Yuhwa. Her bond entry even described what she felt toward me as "rivalry."
"...? Was my granddaughter not in love with you?"
The Red Tower Lord then murmured, very quietly.
"I thought she wasn't the type to collect photographs of the person she liked?"
A whisper so faint that only the razor-sharp senses granted by my Sword Demon talent would have caught it.
"My apologies. It seems I was mistaken."
"Not at all."
"Even so, your bearing is impeccable. The sort of talent the Emperor, Seo Yebin, would pin her hopes on, I'd say."
"The Headmistress said that about me?"
Erciel looked startled at the Red Tower Lord's words.
"She did. Lately, every acquaintance I meet talks about you. That's why I was curious—just who is this person she cherishes and cultivates so devotedly?"
Saying that, the Red Tower Lord leaned in and spoke in a voice that reached my ears alone.
Through magic.
—Still, be careful. Her essence is, at its root, the Puppeteer. Should it strike her fancy, she may well try to turn you into one of her Stars.
With that final warning, the Red Tower Lord walked away.
'Strange.'
The Red Tower Lord recalled the boy he had just met.
The boy revealed nothing. Nothing at all—not even to the Eye of the Sage.
And yet, some things could be seen.
His bearing, his presence, the level of his conditioned body.
The quality of his physique alone showed through his clothes. He was like a magnificently honed famous blade.
And yet.
'I can't say he's worth the praise Seo Yebin gives him.'
This was not to say Lee Seoha lacked talent.
Anyone who reached Mid Tier at that age would rank among the world's greatest prodigies, hands down.
He might well be a talent she coveted.
But the Emperor, Seo Yebin, had never before proclaimed anyone so lavishly as her own. He was the first.
Which meant the boy's talent must have contributed enormously to it.
Some gift that could charm even Seo Yebin, whose discerning eyes surpassed her own.
"..."
The moment he thought that far, the Red Tower Lord's face hardened.
A faint surge of mana rippled through the air—a ripple that touched the very core of his being.
Flame mana.
And in the same instant—
KRA-KOOOOM!
An explosion tore through the hall, accompanied by the brittle sound of shattering glass.
"KYAAAAAH!"
"A-are they insane?! A bombing, in the middle of South Korea?!"
It was a raid.