Chapter 43
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 43
Chapter Title: Witch's Forest (5)
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Wayrn.
His real name: Hershan R. Wernaine.
The current head of the Hershan family, a baronial house with a legacy spanning over a century.
But the Hershan family was fading away, unable to adapt to the changing times.
No, it wasn't just fading—it was sinking.
Before ascending to the role of family head, Wernaine had never doubted that he would one day revive the house.
And why not? He had youth, hope, and talent on his side.
But it was only after taking the seat of head that he realized how naive those thoughts had been.
Unlike the old days, when people exalted him as a noble and preserved his dignity,
the world he inherited was brutally harsh.
Even nobles needed money, fame, and greater talent.
The weight of responsibility as the master of a house was immense.
Time slipped by unnoticed, and even in his thirties, all he could do was hold onto the position his father had secured.
That drove him mad.
In his youth, Wernaine had looked down on his father with pity.
But now, grown older, all he was doing was guarding the fields his father had tilled.
If not for the adventurer band his father had sponsored—Azure Cloud—he wouldn't even have a voice as a baron.
Yet even that was precarious, always on the verge of vanishing.
"If only I hadn't made that mistake back then. If only I hadn't acted that way...!"
The funding to sponsor Azure Cloud was drying up from a string of past failures.
Clouds of despair had long since filled the heart that once harbored grand ambitions.
It was then that they approached him.
"Uphold the new heavens. Shatter this stagnant world, and in the era to come, only prophets like you shall bask in glory."
At first, he thought it was just some fringe cult.
But by then, Wernaine had no other way to keep Azure Cloud afloat.
In the end, he joined hands with them, and the inescapable mire began to consume him bit by bit.
"Are you saying there's truly an ancient ruin there?"
"Indeed, O prophet. Within lies the seed that will tear open this closed world."
The hidden piece inside the Beast Temple, which Azure Cloud had occupied for years.
Centuries had passed since the Beast Temple was revealed to the world.
Yet the Open Heaven Church revealed this undiscovered secret as if it were the most natural thing.
Under Wernaine's orders, Azure Cloud ventured into the Beast Temple and cleared the hidden piece, returning with a single tome.
As Wernaine read its translation, a shiver ran through his entire body.
A hidden stage in the first-floor conquest battle, unsolved for centuries!
"If I can conquer this... I'll surpass my father! It'll be the foundation to trample those central politics hounds underfoot!"
Wernaine mobilized every resource of his house to claim the first-floor conquest, and with the Open Heaven Church's aid, everything fell into place.
The future he'd only dreamed of was now within reach.
But.
"Failure... failure...?"
The dream crumbled like foam with a single failure.
And at the hands of a mere three-circle mercenary mage, no less.
It was the fate of one who had staked everything on an opportunity handed to him, not his own judgment.
"No, no...! There has to be some way, there must be!"
Azure Cloud—the last hope his father had built, the pillar of the family—disbanded into thin air.
His remaining influence in Blackout vanished entirely.
When even the Open Heaven Church, which had offered him hope, cut off contact,
he mustered his final resources to reconnect with them.
"I'll do anything. What do you need? All I have left is my body."
"Alas... lost prophet. You've been blinded by this closed world after all."
The cultist spoke in their usual cryptic manner.
"There is one way... for you to open your eyes."
That way was to kill the hated mercenary mage who had thwarted him
and retrieve something from the dungeon he was targeting.
Wernaine nodded, accepting their proposal.
As always. The inescapable mire consumed his body once more.
"Hershan R. Wernaine."
"...!"
His true name, hidden behind an alias, rang out into the world.
But more shocking than that was the mage blocking his aura-infused strike.
Ziiing—
His aura, sharp enough to cleave through any mage's spell, was halted by a vividly blue barrier.
Blocked by something as paltry as [Shield].
"H-how...!"
In response to his stunned question, the mage Jun pointed to his own head.
"Just use your head a little."
Aura.
The ultimate technique that cleaved through mage spells, curse-weaver curses, and shield-warrior barriers alike.
But it wasn't omnipotent.
If it were, <Blackout> wouldn't have gained its popularity—though maybe it was always a warrior trash game?
Many players did prefer the versatile warrior class.
In any case, a warrior's aura didn't rule every situation.
Sometimes curse-weavers dodged it, shield-warriors blocked it, and mages' spells resisted being sliced.
Those who understood and prepared for aura's properties produced such outcomes.
"Well... knowing the method doesn't mean you can always execute it."
Like how not everyone could build a nuke just from blueprints—it required preparation and timing.
Fortunately, this Witch's Forest met all of Jun's conditions.
"Mana stone...?"
In Jun's hand was a fragment of top-grade mana stone—plentiful here—and a tome.
The book was filled with a magic circle made from top-grade mana stone powder.
"Aura's power comes from mana compressed to its limit."
Like diamonds from compressed carbon, aura was mana pushed to the extreme.
"So it has immense cutting power, but is it absolute? No."
Just as there's a limit to what you can swallow in one bite.
Match aura's compressed mana with equal or greater volume, and you could block it.
"I-impossible. Condense that much mana into a mere [Shield]?"
Wernaine, who had attended the Imperial Academy, stared at his blocked sword in disbelief. He knew the basics.
"Ah, that's the flaw of rote education."
Low-circle spells can't handle poured mana?
Rubbish.
They were just shelved for inefficiency.
But not for Jun.
He had mana to spare.
Dumping raw mana into spells was his signature move, so crafting [Shield] with a top-grade mana stone circle was simple.
'Of course, useless outside this place.'
Top-grade mana stones lost purity the moment they were mined.
Even with money, they were nearly impossible to acquire intact.
Thus, only viable here in the Witch's Forest.
An unforeseen variable.
Wernaine used the sword's rebound to create distance and reset his stance.
"Fine... I never even imagined such a thing was possible. But blocking once doesn't mean you can kill me!"
"Not wrong."
These cumbersome methods were ultimately one-use.
That was his last top-grade stone. No more circles prepared.
In this cramped cabin, a mage facing an aura user was at an extreme disadvantage.
"I don't know how you learned my identity... but it'll mean nothing when you're dead. Just like how one mistake turned everything to bubbles!"
"... ."
In truth, Jun's realization of Wernaine's identity was nearly coincidental.
More precisely, the bond he'd built with Cloi paid off.
A single letter from Cloi at the Gray Wasteland checkpoint.
[The noble sponsoring 'Azure Cloud', Hershan R. Wernaine, has vanished.]
[Last traces: contact with Black Guard hunters. Seem to be old comrades from his Black Guard days.]
[Direction suggests Gray Wasteland. Considering his grudge against you, stay cautious.]
Without it, Jun might have overlooked him like Colton or Aiden.
Jun recalled the Korean dish he'd made for Cloi once.
'I'll cook for you next time we meet.'
She'd begged for more, but he'd ignored her.
Homesickness.
But this decisive aid? He owed her a meal.
'First, I need to survive this.'
This range was hellish for a mage versus warrior standoff.
Wernaine looked convinced of victory.
But no mage would yield this distance knowingly.
Unless they had a counter.
"Die!"
Like a cornered beast's roar, Wernaine thrust his sword.
A slash before, but an aura thrust wouldn't fall to the same [Shield].
Large motion, full of openings—but certain death if it landed.
Just as his blade neared Jun's heart, something seized his ankle.
His sword halted inches from Jun's chest.
"Wha...?"
"I saw it. The curse that curse-weaver left in this cabin."
Jun sighed in relief, eyeing the sword stopped before him.
Then pointed to the blood-red vines now devouring Wernaine's lower body.
"[Blood Bind]. A real pain in multiple ways."
Before entering the Witch's Forest,
right after seeing the curse-weaver's ritual outside, Jun felt his past life's memories stir for the first time in ages.
Until then, it was just a flicker, and the urgency overshadowed it.
But inside the witch's cabin, things changed.
"The corpse left here. That was the curse's catalyst."
That's when his past life memories fully awoke.
Like with the Goblin Lord, the curse ritual decoded itself. He'd struggled to keep a straight face.
The curse on the corpse: [Blood Bind].
A trap-type curse.
One he'd encountered multiple times in-game.
'Tricky to handle. Hard to detect as a trap, and it spreads "contagion" to the party.'
Infuriating if you couldn't resolve the victim quickly.
Wernaine must have neutralized his comrades with it upon arrival.
They probably didn't know his true goal—just baited into hunting the Open Heaven Church.
But as a trap curse, [Blood Bind] didn't discriminate targets.
It had been tough, but like twisting the Goblin Lord's ritual, Jun influenced this one.
Altering the trigger to snag Wernaine's ankle.
"H-how did you...?! You bastard! What are you?!"
By now, Wernaine feared Jun's existence.
He seemed like someone from the future.
"Honestly, I didn't expect the pieces to fit this well."
Logic said his plan was half-gambling.
Interfering with the curse-weaver's ritual was uncertain.
He'd twisted a direct manifestation via backlash before, so an unattended ritual should be easier.
And it worked perfectly.
'Failure meant my death.'
But spreading mana during the [Shield] block revealed it:
His mana could warp the ritual's trigger.
"Grrraaah! Don't mock me! A filthy mercenary like you... making me... like this...!"
Jun began chanting a spell.
To end this grudge from the Black Forest conquest.
Visualizing.
Blue lightning formed.
"What can you do? The world's unfair like that."
He didn't know exactly why Wernaine came here.
But the hatred and injustice in his eyes? Jun knew them well.
They once mirrored his own reflection.
"Farewell."
[Lightning Whip]