Olivia's Great Humiliation!
After leaving Jerato behind and exiting the dungeon, someone was waiting there to greet me.
“Noah. No, I mean, Lady Olivia!”
“Hmm? Seria? You were still here? What about the others?”
Something was off. Seria was present, but I couldn’t see anyone else.
“Just in case, I explained the situation with Jerato and sent the rest back first. I stayed behind. That Jerato—”
“Looked like he was going to die at my hands, so he fled all the way to the seventh floor.”
The bastard was quick to run, at least.
“He even expanded the dungeon in that short time? And you didn’t go after him?”
“I saw that he left the core on the fifth floor, so it seems he couldn’t set up any traps or monsters.”
Seria looked visibly disappointed at my words.
“Then… you couldn’t catch him?”
“He probably made the paths look like complete shit, but as a noble lady, I can’t go wandering around such an undignified place, now can I?”
Even if I look like this, I’m still a young lady of noble birth.
“But if we leave it like this, it’ll be hard to catch him even when people arrive later, won’t it?”
“That’s why we have to kill him, obviously?”
What kind of nonsense was she spouting?
“How are you going to do that if you’re not pursuing him?”
“There’s a water current flowing near this dungeon. They built it in a place like this, of all spots. What do you think would happen if we messed with it? In other words, for example—”
Boom! I stomped the ground with every ounce of strength I had.
In that instant, water exploded out from the dungeon walls. Location-wise, this had to be the river flowing outside the imperial capital. The area already had a river running through it and the dungeon itself was shoddy, so when I forced it open like this, it was only natural for water to come pouring in.
At the same time, the dungeon began to collapse.
Rumble… rumble…
The entire terrain containing the dungeon started sinking as if it were being buried alive. It was artificially made anyway. It would take Jerato quite a while to recover his mana. Dying would probably be faster at this rate.
Soon, the dungeon that had already exhausted its power from within began to crumble, and water started flooding down into the lower levels.
“This looks exactly like shit flushing down a toilet.”
“It’s what you’d call a toilet-style execution.”
In truth, I had wanted to bury it in a cooler way, but this wasn’t bad either. At this rate, he’d have no choice but to come out on his own.
“Wow. That’s a mental image I really didn’t need.”
Rumble… rumble… crash!
The water poured down like a waterfall. Damn, that was a satisfying sound. He might actually die from this. The dungeon was collapsing faster than I expected because of the water. In that case, I’d have to fish him out.
“And if I infuse the water current with a bit of mana, it’s possible to pull up any living creatures.”
“That’s really possible? Jerato’s on the seventh floor, though?”
There was no need to be that surprised.
“That’s why I used the water current. It won’t last long, but retrieving trash from the seventh floor isn’t difficult.”
Jerato on the seventh floor wouldn’t want to die, so he’d be clinging to something somewhere. He’d struggle to hold on any way he could. He probably never expected to be swallowed by water in the first place. If I channeled mana into the water at that moment, I could pull him up. It would only be for a brief instant, but controlling the flow of water wasn’t impossible. And since it wasn’t water I was personally drawing out but rather a cascading flood, adjusting it was easy enough.
And just like that, I finally reeled him in.
Rumble—crash!
The dungeon completely collapsed. That was cutting it incredibly close.
“Kek… cough, cough.”
“Well, well. Long time no see.”
The traitor was now a mud-covered mess. It had been dangerous right at the end. If I had been even a little slower, he would have died inside the cave. No one would have known about his death. Not that it mattered, since he was going to die soon anyway.
“Fucking bitch… you… went so far as to use… water… to catch… me… kek!”
“Why are you struggling so pathetically? Just die already.”
Crunch!
I destroyed the crudely reconstructed mana circuits inside Jerato’s writhing body once again. He let out a scream of agony before passing out on the spot. It was surprising he had even survived this long.
“You… fucking… bitch…”
“You’re pretty impressive yourself. Most people would die after taking that kind of beating. It’s amazing you’re still alive, clinging on like a damn cockroach.”
His mana circuits were completely shattered, the core was destroyed, and I had consumed the fragments. There shouldn’t be any more variables. Clanice wasn’t an idiot; she wouldn’t go out of her way to rescue him. From the beginning, I had only ever seen her put Jerato at the front lines. I had never once witnessed her personally trying to save him.
Jerato couldn’t say anything more before losing consciousness. He wasn’t dead, though. There was no way I would let him die.
“What are you going to do with him now? Can I dissect him?”
I thought for a moment at Seria’s question. Would there be anything worth gaining from dissecting him? Probably not. He would have prepared for his own death. The knowledge Jerato possessed was all black magic anyway—nothing that would help me or Seria, and we already knew it all. He only had old, outdated spells.
“The knowledge this guy has isn’t particularly meaningful. The magic of Kart isn’t that impressive. The Empire actually developed it further through the kingdom era.”
The Kart Kingdom had often been called a magic kingdom. It meant the nation had once flourished. But that contained a contradiction. That was the past, not the present. It meant that the old spells could no longer be considered efficient. There were rumors that other forms of magic had existed in the very distant past, but at least not for Jerato. He only knew Kart’s magic.
“That’s a shame. Then as a puppet—”
“I can’t do that. This bastard is a descendant of the Kart royal family.”
The noble and oh-so-noble Kart royal family. Armen—no, the Armeria family that had betrayed the Holy King of Kart, married into the anti-royal Pon family, and founded the Empire together—had apparently felt guilty enough to wipe out the entire royal line. The term “whore family” probably wasn’t something only Jerato used. The captured Kart royals of that time must have called Armen that as well.
“Really?”
“They insulted the Armeria imperial family as coming from a whore’s household and dragged their name through the mud.”
If someone said that openly in the capital, their head would roll immediately. Of course, the Empire was the kind of place where you could curse the emperor if he was trash. Just going to a tavern was enough to hear people call him the idiot emperor. But if the person doing the cursing was a descendant of the Kart royal family, that was a different story. The imperial army would kill Jerato to completely erase the legacy of the past.
“Uh… then…”
“He must be executed without fail.”
I understood the circumstances, but fifteen hundred years was still too long, no matter how you looked at it. Besides, this body had inherited that blood as well. Every citizen of the Empire carried both the blood of the anti-royal faction and Kart in equal measure. For Jerato to deny the Empire was to deny the imperial citizens who carried even a trace of Kart’s blood.
“He should have just gone to Pastia. I don’t understand why he went so far as to become a demon to do something like this. Tsk.”
Pastia, founded by the surviving minority of Kart’s people, had desperately searched for Kart’s royal bloodline in order to rebuild the kingdom. Of course, they had failed, and now it remained mostly as a noble federation. The Pastia royal family was supposedly a branch of the Kart royal line, though that bloodline might have been fabricated for the sake of founding a nation. In any case, Jerato had to die. Considering what he had done to the Empire, he wasn’t at a level where pity would spare him. And he was Clanice’s subordinate. How could I just watch?
“Ugh, what a shame. By the way, Noah. Is living as Lady Ashtar fun?”
“It’s… tolerable? Wait, what the hell did you just say?”
For a moment, I doubted my own ears. What was she suddenly saying?
“Your voice cracked, Noah.”
Fuck.
No wonder she had been strangely gentle with me earlier. Had she known everything from the start and been smirking the whole time? Look at that face. How annoying. Truly annoying. She had known everything and had been toying with me. Depending on the situation, I might need to cast a curse that would seal that mouth of hers.
“How did you figure it out?”
When I asked sharply without meaning to, Seria smiled brightly and spoke carefully.
“Let’s be honest here. I told you before, didn’t I? Psychokinesis isn’t something just anyone can use. In my entire life, the only person I’ve seen use psychokinesis is you, Noah. Psychokinesis magic isn’t in the category of simple spells at all—it’s an area that deals with gravity itself.”
“No, that’s ridiculous.”
In the Land of Destruction, it was something you learned as a child. Of course, I had been unusually strong, but everyone tried to learn psychokinesis. These days, only Noel and I remained, but still.
“You’re always so thorough, yet you’re surprisingly dull in these areas. That’s how you got caught by me. Still, isn’t it fortunate that it was me who noticed?”
“You little…”
Of all people, it had to be Seria who caught me.
“Actually, I was planning to just keep watching. But then I thought about it—there will probably be quite a few other people who could figure out you’re Noah because of the psychokinesis later, right? Like the Seven Stars, for example. So I had no choice but to tell you in advance, didn’t I?”
She was right. I was quite close with the Seven Stars as well. If what Seria said was true, this psychokinesis was dangerous if discovered. If it hadn’t been her, I might have been exposed to someone else at some point.
“Fuck. I made a mistake like this. You—”
“I won’t tell anyone, so instead, please explain what happened.”
Her eyes sparkled. There was no helping it. This was all my own fault. It was because I had been too ignorant about this world. Noah’s life had known nothing about the Empire. It was actually for the best. Having at least one person who knew and could cover for me wasn’t a bad thing.
“Fine. Let’s do that.”
This was Olivia’s great humiliation.
“Kids! Are you okay?”
A little while later, Adran arrived with the other professors. I kicked Jerato’s head lightly with my foot.
“Professor, you’re way too late. This bastard completely destroyed the dungeon.”
“This is the guy from back then?”
He seemed to remember. It wasn’t just one or two people in the Empire who had suffered because of Jerato.
“Your students nearly all died because of him.”
Thud!
Upon hearing my words, Adran kicked the already unconscious Jerato with all his strength. It was quite a sight to see him get hit again while passed out.
“You worked hard. The two of you managed to handle him well.”
“No. Our Saint of Magic handled it all by herself.”
“Sigh.”
A sigh escaped me. If he knew my circumstances, he should at least call me a mage.
“But it looks like it was tough. Your face is all scrunched up.”
“Ah, women have those sensitive days, you know. So, can we leave now?”
Seria linked her arm with mine and spoke to Adran. Who gave her permission to treat me like someone on their period?
“Uh… yeah. Go ahead. There’s been a lot of talk among the dean and the professors about the dungeon issue anyway. Class is canceled for today.”
With Adran’s permission, Seria dragged me by the arm all the way to a teahouse near the academy. After sitting me down, she grinned.
“Alright, then. Please explain.”
“Ugh… Aaaaaargh.”
And so I had to spend a long time explaining the relationship between Olivia and Noah.