A New Phase in the Pursuit of Endermit (1)
A New Phase in the Pursuit of Endermit (1)
Iden looked down at Belgorden Rivan's corpse for a moment, remaining silent.
No particular emotion showed on his face, but his gaze lingered for a short while.
A desiccated face.
Eyes sunken as if all moisture had been sucked out, and cracked lips.
The final appearance of the man who once reigned as the head of the Rivan Count family was nothing more than a dry husk.
Iden had never truly known him, and even in Edom's memories, he was less a father and more the leader of a group he never wanted to belong to, so he had nothing special to say.
Perhaps it was a fitting end.
This was simply the conclusion for a father who had treated his children as tools to sustain the family.
Iden withdrew his gaze and slowly raised his head.
The air inside the mansion felt even stickier now.
It wasn't just the lingering scent of Black Magic; it was almost a condensed aura.
"It's upstairs."
He spoke in a low voice.
Vivienne checked the device she held in her hand.
The device had already turned completely black.
Iden walked toward the stairs first.
Naturally, the interior of the mansion was silent.
Only the sound of their footsteps, walking on the balls of their feet, echoed through the wide hallway.
The air changed as they climbed the stairs.
The aura of Black Magic grew increasingly thick.
It felt as if a sticky fog was tightening around his lungs.
Iden's hand naturally lowered toward his waist.
His body entered a full combat-ready state.
Vivienne followed behind him with a tense expression.
They passed the second floor and climbed the stairs again.
It was when they reached the top floor of the mansion.
Iden's footsteps stopped.
"...."
From somewhere, a very faint sobbing could be heard.
It was a woman's cry.
And at that sobbing, he let out a long breath.
A breath like a sigh escaped the tip of his nose.
Even without identifying the voice, he felt he knew.
Who the owner of that sobbing, the owner of this situation, was.
'Erica...'
Iden's gaze turned toward the end of the hallway.
A single door was halfway open.
The sound of crying was leaking out from inside.
Iden looked back at Vivienne.
"Wait here."
He spoke briefly.
Vivienne hesitated for a moment.
But she soon nodded her head.
Iden walked quietly toward the door.
He muffled his footsteps as much as possible.
He stopped in front of the door.
Then, he slowly pushed it open.
Kkiiik—
Even though it was broad daylight, the room was dark. Despite the dazzling light clearly streaming in through the window, the space was dark.
In the center of that space, a person was crouched on the floor.
Their shoulders were heaving.
The sobbing was coming from there.
Iden's eyes slowly narrowed.
"......Erica."
The image of the radiant noble lady he had seen at the exhibition had completely vanished, yet Iden identified her instantly.
Her hair was greasy and tangled, and her skin had turned a pale, sickly color.
Her eyes were losing their natural hue.
A dark energy had seeped deep into her irises.
Veins were spreading black across the whites of her eyes.
As if darkness were blooming from the inside out.
Subtle black lines were wriggling beneath her skin as well.
They were traces of contamination by Black Magic.
Her fingertips were trembling, and dried blood was stuck under her fingernails.
The surrounding air was distorted around her.
Black Magic was continuously flowing out of Erica's body.
Iden's footsteps stopped.
At that moment, Erica's crying ceased.
Her head slowly rose.
Eyes stained black looked at Iden.
Deep within her pupils, emotions were boiling.
Blind hatred and primal rage.
Black Magic forcibly amplifies the user's emotions.
Memories were swirling in Erica's head.
The secret room.
Imprisonment.
Humiliation.
Upheaval.
And.
The face of Edom Rivan looking down at her.
—Kill him.
It felt as if something was whispering.
—Kill him. He disgraced you.
The Black Magic continued to burrow into her mind.
—Kill him. He played with you.
Erica had grown up in the Rivan Count family.
That family was a place where one learned survival before affection.
Hatred and rage came after that.
Proving one's usefulness and flaunting one's purpose to survive every moment came first.
Perhaps that was why.
Unlike her mind, which was amplifying hatred and rage, different words came out of her mouth.
"Save me..."
However, her eyes turned even blacker.
The vibrations of her body gradually became more violent.
As if to prove that the host it had broken and claimed belonged to it, the Black Magic exploded.
The deepening Black Magic began to swallow the space in pitch black.
And at some point, the balance collapsed.
Erica's body suddenly lunged forward.
"Die—!!"
As the Black Magic exploded, the room shook as if an earthquake had hit.
Iden grit his teeth.
If they fought here, the mansion would collapse.
Any potential survivors and Vivienne would be in danger.
Iden immediately threw himself toward the window to lure Erica outside.
Kwaang—!!
The moment Iden jumped through the window and landed in the garden, another explosive sound erupted behind him.
Black energy poured out like an explosion through the shattered window frame and glass shards, and from the center of it, Erica's body shot out into the air.
She landed with her body low, almost like a four-legged beast.
Her knees and hands hit the ground simultaneously, and in the next instant, she was already springing forward again.
Her eyes were completely consumed by black, and a subtly distorted smile hung on her lips.
Her will to resist the Black Magic had been completely broken; she had become a perfect host for it.
"Kill."
The command of the Black Magic echoing in her head leaked out along with a raspy breath, and simultaneously, her body moved like lightning.
Iden was already lowering his stance. The speed at which Erica charged was not human.
With every step, Black Magic surged like an explosion, propelling her forward with enough force to crack the ground.
Iden raised his hand and immediately activated magic.
The air compressed in an instant, blocking the path ahead like an invisible wall.
Kwang—!!
Erica's body slammed into that wall, and the air exploded.
The shockwave spread across the garden, sending the dust from the stone floor flying all at once.
But Erica didn't stop.
She twisted her body against the wall to regain her balance, then kicked off the ground again to pounce on Iden.
This time, it was her hands.
Black energy extended from her fingertips like talons, tearing through the air.
Iden twisted his body to dodge the attack. Where those talons passed, the stone floor was shredded like paper.
'...She's strong.'
Iden's eyes narrowed.
She had no swordsmanship, no magic, and no combat experience.
Her actions, moving instinctively without calculation, were defying his expectations, forcing Iden to focus more on defense than offense.
Iden increased the distance and raised his hand again.
Magic power condensed, and the extremely concentrated mana erupted in succession.
Tang—!
Tang—!
Compressed mana bullets tore through the air.
The first bullet hit Erica's shoulder and exploded, and the second grazed her waist, shaking the ripples of her Black Magic.
When the third impact exploded head-on, her body was pushed back significantly.
But Erica did not fall.
No.
To be precise, it felt as if something invisible was puppeteering her.
Panting, she forced herself up, her black-stained eyes glaring at Iden.
The corners of her mouth curled up strangely.
And then she charged again.
This time, she was even faster.
Iden gathered mana once more.
Without dispersing the condensed energy, he gathered it into a single point to fire a powerful shockwave.
Kwang—!!
Erica's body was sent tumbling sideways.
However, her body, which had been rolling on the ground, immediately rotated and stood back up. She moved as if the sensation of pain didn't exist in the first place.
Iden's eyes wavered for a moment.
It wouldn't end like this.
It would be difficult to clearly suppress her with just this level of magic.
His hand lowered toward the ground.
His mana sank deep, and then a mana of a different texture surged back up.
A blue light spread across the stone floor of the garden.
From the center of it, the form of armor slowly emerged.
Black iron plate.
A heavy sword.
It was the Black Knight that had driven away Belgorden Rivan.
However, Erica's momentum did not subside even a fraction.
Erica charged once more.
The Black Knight raised its sword.
The massive steel cut through the air as it came down, its weight directed at Erica as if to crush rather than cut.
But Erica did not dodge.
Instead, she collided with it head-on.
Kwang—!!
The moment the sword came down, her hands grabbed it.
Black energy was enveloping her hands.
The sound of metal grinding erupted.
Erica grit her teeth and twisted the sword to the side, pushing it away.
Then, she kicked the Black Knight square in the chest.
Kwang—!!
The heavy armor was pushed back.
Iden's eyes captured Erica's opening.
The advantage of summoning.
The law of victory in every fight.
He decided to attack her using numerical superiority.
The moment the Black Knight regained its stance, Iden moved as well.
He lowered his body and dug into her flank.
As Erica pounced toward the Black Knight, Iden's hand flashed.
A powerful impact struck her jaw.
Kwang—!!
Erica's body shook violently, and the Black Knight swung its sword simultaneously.
A blow that struck her side.
It was a strike that could have cut her waist in half in an instant, but the Black Knight, following the summoner's will, turned the blade and struck Erica's side with the flat of the sword.
Heavy impacts overlapped.
Erica's body was sent flying, rolling across the garden floor.
A cloud of dust rose, and a brief silence followed.
And then.
She tried to stand up again from within the dust cloud.
But this time, her legs couldn't hold her up properly.
Ulk, she vomited blood onto the ground. Something that was more like pitch-black contaminated water than dark red blood splattered out.
The Black Magic was wavering.
Iden approached her quickly.
Finally, he compressed mana into the edge of his hand.
And then, immediately.
Peo-eok—!!
He struck the back of her neck.
The strength left Erica's body, and she collapsed onto the ground.
The black aura that had been rising around her flesh vanished, and her beast-like fingertips went limp.
Iden looked down at her for a moment.
"...."
Still.
Exhaling a complicated breath.
Even after Erica's body fell limply onto the garden floor, the lingering scent of Black Magic floated in the air for a while.
While the fragments of mana scattered on the ground slowly settled, Iden stood there, catching his breath.
After a moment, he slowly raised his hand.
Mana quietly spread across the ground.
The light wasn't large, but it followed a steady trajectory, connecting thinly to complete a magic circle.
A barrier to suppress Black Magic.
The moment the mana was completed, a transparent film rose in all directions, forming a circle around Erica's body. Inside, the residual traces of Black Magic wavered subtly before being gradually suppressed.
Only then did Iden relax his tension slightly.
It was then.
"Iden!"
Fast footsteps were heard from behind.
Vivienne, who had been waiting at the edge of the garden, was running toward him.
Stopping in front of Iden, Vivienne looked at Erica first.
The blue-haired woman lying inside the barrier.
It was the woman she had seen at the exhibition.
"Are you okay?"
Iden didn't say anything for a moment.
He just nodded his head.
"I'm fine."
It was a short answer.
Vivienne didn't ask further. Instead, she looked inside the barrier once more and let out a quiet breath.
After organizing his thoughts for a moment, Iden spoke.
"Go to Erwin and tell her to have the standby troops clean up the mansion. Tell her to request the necessary personnel since we'll need to recover the bodies as well."
Vivienne raised her head.
"Okay. I understand."
Iden's gaze turned toward the mansion.
There were still numerous corpses left inside. Servants and attendants strewn across the floors, stairs, and rooms, all dried up.
"And."
Iden's voice lowered slightly.
"Don't say a word about Erica Riban."
Vivienne's eyes narrowed for a second.
But she didn't ask why.
Since she had decided to act as a member of the Special Task Force, it was right to simply follow his orders, so she just nodded.
"Don't worry."
Vivienne turned and quickly left the garden.
Iden looked down into the barrier again.
Erica Riban.
She was in a state where she had committed numerous killings while contaminated by Black Magic.
Legally speaking, there would be no problem even if she were summarily executed.
In fact, handling it that way might have been cleaner.
But Iden didn't do that.
—Save me.
That one phrase.
That one desperate phrase, enough to ask for help even from the person she so despised and loathed.
And the struggle she put up against the Black Magic.
That was why Iden had struck her with the flat of the Black Knight's sword during the final blow.
Iden looked down at her in silence for a long time.
The Erica Riban in his memories was a wicked and venomous woman.
She could be impulsive, and she could let her emotions get the better of her.
However.
She was someone who knew exactly where the line was.
Above all.
She wasn't stupid enough to touch something she couldn't handle.
And she was someone who even chose her methods of releasing stress and anger calculatively.
Like the way she poured all those emotions onto her youngest brother, Edom Rivan, who was treated like the family's trash.
That was why this incident was strange.
She wasn't a woman with such poor judgment that she would voluntarily touch Black Magic and throw her life away.
There was only one answer.
A third party, someone's intention, must have brought her to this state, and knowing that she harbored a 'hatred' fierce enough to manifest Black Magic, they had infected her with it.
Perhaps knowing that he and Erica were blood relatives.
Iden's eyes slowly narrowed.
And a piece of information surfaced in his mind.
According to the information he had pried out of Redric, infecting another person with Black Magic was something even high-ranking officials couldn't do.
It was said that only the Leader of Endermit was capable of it.
If so, this meant the Leader of Endermit had moved personally.
Why Erica Riban, of all people?
Why choose a shell that had zero combat ability and nothing but hatred?
As Iden continued his thoughts, he derived one answer.
A warning directed at him.
Knowing that the target of Erica's hatred was himself, they had chosen her and sent a warning through her.
No.
Beyond a warning, it was a 'provocation.'
By branding him as the man who killed his own kin with his own hands.
Iden's gaze slowly drifted away.
In the distance, he could see the spires of Wintel Main Castle rising high.
The spires were dyed red by the light of the slowly setting sun.
"...."
Iden looked down at Erica again.
Then he raised his hand.
Mana spread once more.
Another layer of the transparent barrier formed, completely hiding her body.
So that nothing could be seen from the outside.
If a provocation was issued, it was only natural to respond in kind. While pretending to have fallen for that provocation.
Thus, before the troops arrived, he left the mansion with the fallen Erica.
And the following day.
A piece of news began to spread among the nobles.
It was a half-lie that the head of the Rivan Count family, Belgorden Rivan, and his eldest daughter, Erica Riban, had both died at the mansion.