Chapter 189: The Border (3)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 189: The Border (3)
The civil war in the Orsia Duchy had thrown the southern continent into turmoil.
The prices of all sorts of weapons, armor, and food had skyrocketed, and some people even began to cross borders, fearing the aftershocks of the war would spread.
An exodus was particularly underway within the Nivia Kingdom, fueled by rumors that a conscription order had been issued in the east.
With no other choice, those who didn't want to be dragged to the battlefield reluctantly abandoned the homes they'd grown up in and fled to other countries.
Of course, it wasn't only those who feared the war that were crossing the border.
“Zenis-nim!”
A woman, unlike any ordinary person with horns and ears sprouting from her head, cried out urgently.
She was a deer beast-kin.
Her gaze was fixed on a man with an androgynous appearance, who wore an indifferent expression.
“Just hurry up and come.”
“It's because you're too fast, Zenis-nim!”
At the man's words, the woman puffed out her cheeks and glared at him.
“What.”
But the man responded with a cold gaze, as if this were a familiar occurrence.
Faced with his cynical reaction, the deer-kin woman swallowed a sigh and forced a smile.
As frustrating and unfair as it was, their relationship was that of master and slave.
“It doesn't make sense for a beast-kin to be physically weaker than a mage in the first place. Are those horns and ears of yours fake?”
But even a slave's patience has its limits.
“...Master, you're an idiot!!”
Her magic-infused voice echoed thunderously throughout the mountains.
Startled wild animals fled, and the trees shook as if in an earthquake.
Amidst the chaos, the man stood with his arms crossed, completely unfazed.
“Fake horns and ears! How could you say such a thing?! You're the absolute worst! A man with a rotten personality! Not even human...”
“I hear the horns of deer beast-kin sell for a high price these days.”
“...”
The woman's outburst was cut short as the man, with practiced ease, quelled her defiance in an instant.
“Anything else to say?”
“Heh, hehe... You're so cool, Master.”
“Nonsense.”
Of course, her horns would grow back even if they were cut off, but she couldn't help the instinctive revulsion she felt.
As the deer-kin woman added another mark to her tally of resentment against her master, the man exhaled a white puff of breath into the cold wind blowing down from the mountain range.
'An emergency summons, is it...'
The continent was currently being engulfed by the clouds of war.
Not only was there the war between the hegemon of the north, the Eustaff Empire, and the Peledeia Kingdom of the Great Forest, but the entire south was in an uproar due to the civil war in the Orsia Duchy.
In such a situation, the Continental Magic Association had declared a summons for all its affiliated mages.
For him, who had been conducting magic research in southern Orsia, it was like a bolt from the blue, but he couldn't simply ignore the summons.
'Haa... Just thinking about the trouble I'll have to go through with all those incompetent old geezers is giving me a headache.'
Zenis Cal Hurensia.
He was one of the mages representing the next generation, a prodigy the Magic Association prided itself on, who had reached the 5th Circle at a young age.
Having fallen into a rut for the past few years with no significant progress in his research, he had left the Magic Association and headed for the Orsia Duchy, where remnants of the Mythical Era were occasionally unearthed.
'Well, I was planning on heading back soon anyway.'
He had spent his personal fortune exploring dungeons and buying artifacts from the Mythical Era to continue his research, but there had been no noteworthy results.
Unless he wanted to go back to eating stale bread and watery soup, it was about time he returned to the Association.
In a way, the timing was perfect.
“By the way, where on earth is the checkpoint...”
The moment he drew on his magic power to ask a potential passerby for directions.
Vwoooom!
A chill ran down his spine.
A powerful wave of magic power reverberating through the Gallian Mountains washed over him.
It went without saying that mages were more sensitive to magic power than knights.
The magic was mixed with a killing intent so thick it made his skin crawl. Zenis immediately dashed toward its source.
No, he flew.
“...Ah, seriously!!”
The deer-kin woman, who had been staring blankly at his retreating back as he grew smaller in the sky, burst out in frustration.
*
He was born into a baron's family in a humble, rural territory of the Nivia Kingdom.
As the third of four sons, his future was all but set in stone.
He was to leave the family and stand on his own.
He could neither inherit the title nor receive any property.
Thus, he left his family early on to join the military, where he committed various acts of corruption to save money.
But as they say, his luck was bound to run out.
He was eventually court-martialed and demoted to the dead-end post of director at a border checkpoint.
Though all his accumulated wealth was confiscated, it didn't matter.
He could always make more money.
Besides, the position of checkpoint director was a surprisingly good spot for taking bribes.
Especially in times like these, when foolish commoners were desperate to cross the border by any means necessary.
The sums weren't large, but he had been able to build up a tidy fortune. At this rate, he could apply for discharge in a few years, move to a decent province, and live in luxury.
Until today, he had believed that with unwavering certainty.
“What did you just say?”
No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't focus his eyes.
His hands and feet were colder than ice, and his teeth chattered as if his jaw was dislocated.
The sensation that his body was no longer his own.
Amidst the anxiety that his heart might burst at any moment, he realized something.
His casual decision to extort money from a commoner—one who brazenly traveled with beautiful women on each arm—had just sealed his fate.
“Hah, hah, heok...!”
For an ordinary person, such raw, unrefined killing intent and magic power were no different from poison.
The director's face, exposed to extreme terror, turned deathly pale.
“What's going on?!”
Bang!
The deputy director, sensing something was wrong, burst through the door.
Unlike the director, who was from a low-ranking noble family, the commoner deputy director was a mid-level Aura user. He immediately sensed the thick killing intent and magic power filling the room.
“Wh-what is this...”
He instinctively tried to draw on his magic power to resist, but it was impossible.
Like a fish caught in a wave created by a whale, he was helpless.
“Keuk...!”
Thud!
The deputy director fell to his knees under the pressure that seemed to crush the very space around him. Soon, even lifting his head became a struggle.
The absolute presence reminded him of a certain knight he had once seen from a distance.
“D-don't tell me, a mage...?”
But he instinctively knew that the essence of this person was somehow different from a knight's.
“A-a mage?!”
The director, who had been like a living corpse just moments before, managed to speak, his voice filled with horror.
Even if one had never met a mage, everyone knew how arrogant and shameless they were.
It was also common knowledge that their eccentric personalities were proportional to their skill.
Even for those with no knowledge of magic, it was impossible not to realize that this was no ordinary mage.
Clutching his heart, which felt like it would stop at any moment, the director cried out.
“I-I have committed a grave discourtesy, failing to recognize a great mage!! If you would please forgive me just this once, my descendants for generations to come will be grateful for your grace—”
“Too late.”
A hand, stained black, grabbed the director's face.
Sizzzle—
“Gyaaaaaaaah!!!”
It was a curse.
“You will die slowly, trapped in a terrible hallucination.”
The Curse of Delusion.
That was the name of the curse I had cast on the director.
The victim of this curse is forced to dream. In that dream, all of the victim's fears are visualized and manifested, and the body, affected by the breaking mind, will gradually cease to function.
It sounded like an absurdly overpowered curse, but it had several strict prerequisites.
The target had to be an ordinary person incapable of resisting magic, and they had to feel fear toward the caster.
Moreover, it was a curse that could be easily purified by a priest, so it had many known counters.
I looked around the chaotic reception room.
The director seemed to have passed out from the overwhelming pain. Even if he hadn't, the curse's effects would have made him lose consciousness soon enough.
Unless a priest happened to pass by, he would likely never wake up again.
“You're the deputy director, was it?”
“Y-yes, sir...!”
I called out to the man who was bowing his head at my feet.
He was an odd one. Why was he acting like this when he hadn't done anything wrong?
“I just killed a soldier of the Nivia Kingdom. Shouldn't you arrest me according to the laws of the land?”
“H-how could that be! That man was nothing more than a criminal who routinely took bribes and profited unjustly! You should be thanked for doing our job for us, Mage-nim!”
“...Is that so?”
“Yes!”
The deputy director's words, delivered with the rigid discipline of a private, eased my worries.
I'd acted in the heat of the moment and killed the director without thinking, so I thought I'd end up a wanted man in the kingdom.
But thankfully, the deputy director was quite sharp.
'Looks like I won't have to take care of all the witnesses.'
Of course, I wasn't so mentally unstable as to kill someone who had done nothing wrong.
I was just planning to slip him a few gold coins and use a curse to keep him quiet.
“Then, what about the passes?”
“R-right away! I'll issue them right away!”
“Wait.”
I stopped the deputy director as he was about to rush out of the room.
“I-is there a problem...?”
I slipped a few gold coins into the pocket of the man, who was sweating profusely.
It was best to give him a little something to avoid any trouble later, just in case he changed his story.
“For your trouble.”
“...Thank you.”
After receiving the bribe, the deputy director hoisted the director over his shoulder and left the reception room.
Silence fell over the room.
Amelia, who had been fidgeting with her teacup and watching me, was the first to speak.
“Hyun-woo-nim, are you really a mage?”
“I told you, that's my main profession.”
“But this is the first time I've seen a mage use curse-type magic.”
“...Is that so?”
“Yes, it's a type of magic that's all but died out because its users are often treated like black mages.”
“Well... I guess that's true.”
That's why I planned to avoid using it on Earth as much as possible.
I was only using curse magic because this was another world. If I had done this in front of other mages, it would have been like setting them off.
I could even end up being disciplined by the Magic Tower if things went wrong.
While I was lost in thought for a moment.
Flump—
I felt a familiar, heavy sensation as someone hugged my arm.
“Iris?”
Iris, a faint blush on her cheeks, was clinging to me.
“To get so furiously angry for my sake...”
Iris buried her head in my chest and muttered something.
When I listened closely, she was repeating embarrassing things like "I love you, I like you," like a parrot.
It was a little overwhelming, but it felt good.
'Hm?'
Then my eyes met Sylvia's. Surprisingly, she seemed unfazed.
Normally, she would have been staring at me with a displeased expression or interrogating me for using curse magic.
In fact, if I hadn't lunged forward, the director's head would have been sliced in two by Sylvia's sword.
I had felt a powerful killing intent from Sylvia that rivaled my own.
'If Sylvia hadn't hesitated for that one moment, I wouldn't have had a chance to step in.'
In any case, as we spent some time in the unsettled atmosphere, the deputy director soon returned.
“H-here are your passes!”
Having received our passes in exactly ten minutes, we were able to leave the checkpoint smoothly.
There had been a small problem, but I doubted the kingdom's army would come after me for killing one corrupt official who took bribes.
I thought all we had to do now was proceed to our next destination without any further trouble.
“...Found you.”
That was, until I saw the purple-haired man smiling at me from beyond the checkpoint.
“What is that.”
The smile spreading across the man's lips was unsettling beyond compare.