Episode 1058
Episode 1058
'This is strange.'
Although his disciple had a temperament that enjoyed dangerous battles against strong opponents, his relentless pursuit of the Evil God Cult—which had nothing to do with them—certainly felt out of place.
"It's done! Professor! Come in and give them a good scolding!"
"!"
Professor Voladi, who had been deep in thought, raised his head at Gainando's shout.
Then, he made a faintly surprised expression.
Unbeknownst to him, Gainando had already dug a side path leading down to the underground fortress.
Looking to the side, Gainando's pride and most frequently used summon, the Thorn Revenant, was clearing away dirt with its shovel-like arms, which had transformed from bones.
There was no way it originally had that form, so it was clear that Gainando had modified the undead's shape on the spot.
"You managed to break through."
"Huh? What do you mean?"
Gainando tilted his head, not understanding Professor Voladi's meaning.
"This passage."
This underground fortress was by no means easy to breach.
The bandits had clearly invested a considerable amount of money, as the defenses of the passages and hideouts were quite sturdy and thick. Yet Gainando had broken through them in such a short time.
Simply modifying the undead's form wouldn't have been enough...
"Ah. I used corrosive poison. It's actually the poison I use when disposing of trash... Gasp. Please don't tell Lee Han about this!"
Gainando, who had been explaining, belatedly realized his mistake and hastily backtracked.
When disposing of trash from the tower, one was supposed to take it far away and dispose of it properly. If you lazily melted it with poison instead, you'd get a severe beating on your back.
"I really do it properly most of the time! Professor? Professor?"
Gainando tried to defend himself, but Professor Voladi had already entered the passage.
"It might not be a good idea to summon a high-ranking spirit in an underground fortress like this."
Lee Han walked along the now eerily quiet passageway and spoke.
In truth, describing the fortress passage as simply 'quiet' now would be an insult to the bandits.
The fortress passage had been completely devastated.
Perkuntra, summoned for the first time in a while in perfect condition, had joyfully unleashed its violent power in all directions.
It shattered the passage's mechanisms, swallowed traps whole, and occasionally tore down walls to stuff fleeing bandits into sealed rooms.
The lightning-made apocalypse had utterly ravaged the underground fortress that had been carefully maintained for so long, but the bandits could do nothing.
The scrolls, potions, and magic items they had stockpiled in preparation for fighting mages couldn't even be taken out. Perkuntra didn't give them the time, collapsing the passages before they could react.
They couldn't even scatter to their designated positions to buy time or wage a stubborn guerrilla war. Whenever Perkuntra vaguely sensed souls hiding, it trapped them without giving them a chance to emerge.
"......"
Giselle didn't respond, focusing all her efforts on maintaining her concentration.
If she exchanged words with Wardanaz, her focus would shatter in an instant. 'Don't let your guard down. Don't let your guard down. Don't let your guard down...'
Looking at the traces left behind by the Spirit King's lightning-like strikes, a whisper rose in her heart—'Isn't it already over?'—but Giselle ignored it.
"Y-you crazy mages... What the hell are you attacking us like this for?!"
"!"
And surprisingly, her focus was rewarded. At the end of the passage, a lone bandit revealed himself.
His appearance was disheveled, as if he had swum through a tunnel. His hair was a tangled mess, and his once-expensive clothes were now covered in mud and holes.
Only his eyes shone vividly with shock, terror, and resentment.
"Look! Wardanaz! There's a bandit left!"
"...Moradi. I don't think this is something to be that happy about..."
Lee Han was slightly taken aback.
If a bandit had appeared after Perkuntra had swept through, wasn't that something to be alarmed about?
Giselle, who had been excited, belatedly lowered her voice and coughed awkwardly.
"I only pointed it out because I thought you might let your guard down." 'That doesn't seem to be the case.' "But at least we don't have to leave everything to it."
Giselle raised her sword, the blades clashing sharply as an icy aura spread.
After going through all this trouble to break in, leaving everything to the Spirit King would hurt her pride. No matter how much she was helping Wardanaz's goal, she couldn't just stand around like a fool, watching like the Crown Prince.
"What's your name?"
"Ibinta."
"Ibinta? ...Ibinta? Iron Cloak Ibinta?!"
Giselle was startled.
"Who's that?"
"About ten years ago... he was a notorious wanted criminal. I thought he was dead for sure."
"He's been hiding here. Without a trace."
Ibinta ground his teeth as he answered. The current situation still felt like an unrealistic nightmare.
1 second after the ruined village floor collapsed.
-Intruders! Intruders!
-Is it those suspicious ones from earlier? Eliminate them!
As the intruder alarm sounded, Ibinta gave orders indifferently.
5 seconds after the ruined village floor collapsed.
-The intruders seem stronger than expected! They're like combat mages!
-Block the passages and activate the traps.
Ibinta paid little attention to the subsequent reports. This wasn't a place that could be breached by just one or two combat mages.
10 seconds after the ruined village floor collapsed.
-All passages sealed and walls opened! We'll trap the newcomers and drain their strength!
-Good. Let's see what these newcomers can do.
Ibinta chuckled at the report that the expensive passageways commissioned from the dwarves were proving their worth. The trapped combat mages would have to deal with bandits swarming from all directions...
15 seconds after the ruined village floor collapsed.
-The fortress is collapsing!!!
-What? What? WHAT?!
Rumbleeeee!
Ibinta, who had been tilting his wine glass in the luxurious room at the lowest level of the fortress, called for his subordinates, but no answer came.
Instead, the sound that returned was the terrifying noise of the entire fortress shaking and tearing apart.
Still refusing to give up, he shouted orders through the Voice Transmission Tubes connected throughout the fortress, but only eerie silence answered.
Feeling the alcohol's effects vanish instantly, Ibinta made a snap decision. Abandoning everything, he activated the magic woven into his cloak and burrowed into the earth.
"Was it thanks to that cloak? Moradi. That looks like an Ancient Artifact. Its magic is quite unique."
Lee Han whispered.
He had wondered how Ibinta avoided Perkuntra and made it up here—clearly, he had swum through the earth using the cloak's power.
Moreover, the magic he sensed was of a type no longer seen in the Empire. If given the chance, he wanted to analyze it himself.
"What are you whispering about? Ambushes won't work on me!"
Ibinta growled.
He assumed the two combat mages were plotting a sneak attack.
But as long as he had this cloak, ambushes were useless. Ibinta glared at the mages murderously.
'...'
Better not mention that Wardanaz was analyzing magic in the middle of all this.'
Giselle considered provoking him but decided against it.
Overdoing it might backfire.
Besides, the opponent was already provoked enough. He was the leader of a bandit group whose fortress had been destroyed in less than a minute.
"So it was because of that bastard? Kitarenanum? I shouldn't have taken him in..."
"What!? Kitarenanum was here?!"
This time, Lee Han was startled.
He had assumed the magic criminal from the Void Monster incident had died alongside it—how had he survived?
'How on earth did he escape death?'
"...You didn't come because of Kitarenanum?"
Ibinta grew slightly more confused.
He had naturally assumed Kitarenanum was the reason for all this chaos.
"I did sense high-level magic outside and thought it was strange... Was it Kitarenanum's doing?"
"Then why the hell are you here?"
"We came to confirm an Evil God Worshipper."
"...?"
Ibinta doubted his ears.
Many criminals guilty of all sorts of crimes had fled to this underground fortress, but not a single one had been an Evil God Worshipper.
"There's no such person here! Who are you talking about? No—which sect?"
"Really? None? That's a relief then."
"......"
At the mage's reply, Ibinta felt a chilling realization, as if an icy dagger had been driven into his spine.
"So......"
"You mean you caused all this chaos just to check if there were any Evil God Worshippers here, without even knowing for sure if there were any???"
Ibinta's face turned a kaleidoscope of red and blue, shifting through all the colors of the rainbow. He would have found it more believable if they had come because of his past infamy or to exterminate his bandit group.
"And you dare say that to my face!?"
"I didn't realize this was such a large bandit group either. They attacked first, so I had no choice."
Lee Han was unapologetic.
Originally, he had only intended to check if there were any Evil God Worshippers while Professor Voladi was momentarily distracted, but it was the bandits here who escalated the situation.
Blood trickled from Ibinta's mouth. Giselle wondered if he might just collapse right then and there.
"...Then answer me this. Why do you think I was wasting precious time talking to you here when I should have been running for my life?"
A sly glint flashed in the bandit leader's voice. Sensing this, Giselle flinched slightly. 'No... surely not...? It'll be fine, right?' In Giselle's eyes, Wardanaz wasn't the type to be outsmarted by anyone when it came to cunning.
And her expectation was immediately proven right.
Lee Han answered without much surprise.
"Obviously, you were waiting for your cloak's power to return."
He had already sensed the cloak's magic type from a distance—there was no way he wouldn't have noticed it recharging.
Ibinta was taken aback by his response.
"You knew?"
"Of course."
"...And you still think you can subdue me even after my power returns? You arrogant brat. You'll pay for that arrogance—"
"No. Not that."
Before Ibinta could finish his sentence, Perkuntra burst through the ground beneath him, surging upward with a crackling roar.
KWAZIZIZIZIK!
As the lightning spirit's corporeal form pierced through his body, Ibinta collapsed on the spot.
As he fell, the mage's faint voice reached his ears.
"I was also waiting to summon my spirit back."
My apologies. I got too excited and wandered too far away.
"And what exactly were you planning to do if you went that far away?"
'The spirit... was still summoned... this whole time...?'
Ibinta's fading vision flickered toward the combat mage.
Earlier, he hadn't noticed due to the shock of the fortress being destroyed, but strangely, the mage's features seemed familiar.
Why did he feel like he'd seen him somewhere before?
-To summarize the problem: food shortages due to plague and famine. A threatening alliance of rebels and bandits. A horde of monsters descending from the mountains due to mana surges. Since I can only stay in this plane for two days, I'll have to deal with them one by one. Send letters to each noble family demanding food contributions. I'll handle the threatening forces and the monster horde myself.-
?!
'I remember...!'
The incident that had made Ibinta leave The Shadows of Kangla.
Back then, Ibinta had taken advantage of the chaos caused by the southern volcanic eruption to infiltrate the imperial camp as a spy for the rebels.
And that was when he had witnessed a Grand Mage for the first time in his life.
It was astonishing enough how the mage had tamed the notoriously stubborn southern noble families into submission, but what truly shocked him was...
How, in just half a day, the Grand Mage had wiped out the rebel-bandit alliance and exterminated the monster horde.
-Distribute the remaining spoils to the noble families as recorded in the ledger. Families like Marcio and Vicale will likely complain, so initially give them only half and provide the full amount only if they voice dissatisfaction. The Laren family is desperate for Duke Gonadaltes's recognition, so deliver a forged commendation letter in his name. They won't notice it's fake...
The chilling sight of the Grand Mage casually returning and ordering the imperial bureaucrats to handle the aftermath had made Ibinta swear an oath.
He would never stay in an organization that might one day clash with a Grand Mage!
Though the adventurers of The Shadows of Kangla had scoffed, saying, 'What's so great about a Grand Mage?', Ibinta had been utterly crushed in spirit.
As the memory of his frantic escape resurfaced, so did the identity of that Grand Mage.
The eldest son and heir of one of the Empire's most powerful noble families...
'The Wardanaz Family...!!'
With that final realization, Ibinta lost consciousness.
And as he did, he muttered weakly,
"If it was the Wardanaz Family... you should've said so from the start...!"
??!