Chapter 6
Chapter 6
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 6
Chapter Title: Olivia von Leonhardt (2)
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"I'm not really the type who fusses over noble duties or status or any of that. Young lady etiquette and stuffy formalities like that? I absolutely hate them. Ah—if you'd like, feel free to talk casually to me. How about calling me 'sister' once?"
There's an achievement I need to clear, and she looks so pitiful fumbling around like this, so I was trying to help.
"...Lady Olivia."
If I left her like this, she'd probably chatter all day, so I spoke up first.
If there was a chance, I'd try to get a little closer, but with her, that seems impossible.
True to being the hero's adjutant, her personality is a dead ringer for his.
Of course, Olivia would probably bristle at that, but from my third-party perspective, they were two peas in a pod.
"So... what brings you—er, what brings you looking for Sion...?"
Opportunities will come again, so for today, I'll just wrap this up by hearing her out.
To get home someday, I'll need to befriend her eventually...
But honestly, right now, that feels impossible.
"Ah, right, that's it."
What do you mean 'ah, right'?
Aren't you here for this exact reason?
Whether it's the hero or his adjutant Olivia, these two definitely have a skill for scrambling people's brains during conversations.
Otherwise, this throbbing headache I have now makes no sense.
"Well... um... you see, lately, the magical beasts in the Vastia Mountains have been rampaging."
Olivia started rummaging through her backpack with a rustling sound.
Speaking of the Vastia Mountains, isn't that a total low-level zone?
"Ah, is this it? Oh, no... ahem... anyway, when we investigated the rampaging beasts, we found strange patterns on their bodies."
Even after quite some time, she still hadn't found it, so she's not the organized type like me, apparently.
"It looks exactly like some kind of magical pattern, but even the imperial mages couldn't identify it... so in the end, we came to the Magic Tower for help."
Ah, found it. Muttering that, Olivia thrust a glass reagent bottle toward me.
"This is a piece of skin we peeled off from one of those patterned beasts and preserved. Could you take a look and see if you know what it is?"
It looked ordinary on the surface, but judging by the lingering traces of mana leaking out, it wasn't a normal bottle.
Probably a specially made one enchanted for preservation.
Olivia seemed to expect I could identify the pattern, but unfortunately, looking at this bottle told me nothing.
"Um... Lady Olivia?"
"Yes?"
Well...
"...This... it's... empty...?"
The bottle she handed me was completely empty, with nothing inside.
…
The empty bottle fiasco ended surprisingly easily.
"Probably... the magic's... duration... ran out... and it vanished..."
"I-is that so?"
Olivia wasn't so incompetent that she couldn't tell her own reagent bottle apart.
"It happens... sometimes. When the use ends... the medium disintegrates... as the cost, and the required mana... decreases. Ah, think of it like a return stone."
"Ah..."
Thanks to Sion's vast magical knowledge, which was among the best on the continent.
Olivia noticed the sudden change in Sion's demeanor and felt a moment of bewilderment.
'She's a bit different from just now.'
Olivia often heard she was oblivious to others, but that didn't mean she was unaware of her surroundings.
She had risen to vice captain of the knights through her exceptional intuition alone. Contrary to appearances, she was adept at reading others' emotions.
To Olivia, the girl named Rion was clearly showing aversion toward her.
'Why? Because I'm a noble? Or because I'm from the Empire?'
Of course, the real reason for the aversion was 'she talks way too much,' but Olivia had no way of knowing that.
Mages tended to be reclusive, so Olivia just assumed Rion felt wary of her as an outsider.
What intrigued her more was how Sion's attitude shifted the moment magic came up.
"Um... that..."
While Olivia was lost in thought, Rion extended her hand toward her.
A small, pale hand stretched out, as if demanding something back.
Wondering what, Olivia soon realized she was still holding the empty reagent bottle.
"S-sorry. I thought I'd messed up and..."
No matter how she thought about it, her reaction just now had been a bit over the top.
She had been wary of the suspicious girl claiming to be the grand archmage's disciple, and anxiety over possibly committing a major blunder had led to an unsightly outburst.
"Ah, it's... fine... I just wanted... to look."
Of course, Rion wasn't particularly bothered.
She just wanted to end this quickly and rest.
Sion always set a daily quota for conversations with others, but today she had already far exceeded it.
'I'm tired... I wanna go home and pet Lily soon...'
All because of Olivia, who never knew when to stop once she started talking, but unfortunately, Olivia's intuition wasn't sharp enough to read Sion's thoughts.
"Hmm... wait... a moment..."
The bottle's durability was tougher than expected.
Confirming that, Sion unhesitatingly drew up her mana.
She then cast different spells on her left hand holding the bottle and her right hand.
Protect on the left, Time Rewind on the right.
Sion's hands shimmered with two different colors of light, which soon enveloped the reagent bottle.
If other mages had witnessed this, they would have been dumbfounded.
Normal mages could only cast one spell at a time—even the Magic Tower masters in the super-elite realm were the same.
This was a feat possible only for Sion, born with two mana cores.
'Wh-what kind of magic is that?'
Of course, the magic-illiterate Olivia couldn't comprehend Sion's near-miraculous skill.
Magic interfering with time inevitably caused overload.
Even on objects, its power halved, but a mere reinforced reagent bottle couldn't withstand it.
Yet the protection magic shielded it, and the bottle teetered on the brink of shattering.
"...Done."
After prolonged exposure to the time-reversal overload, the bottle was cracked in places, but fortunately, the contents were intact.
What looked like a magical beast's skin tissue—Sion examined the reagent bottle this way and that, suppressing her nausea.
"...Ah, this..."
"Did you figure something out?!"
She identified it easily.
"...This is... black magic... right?"
And fairly advanced at that.
…
[Olivia! I have a mission only you can handle!]
As usual, a mission assigned by the hero, laced with that 'only you can do it' gaslighting.
The mission: identify the patterns on the bodies of the recently rampaging magical beasts.
[Go see my old friend at the Magic Tower. She'll definitely know what's up.]
[I'm... her disciple... Sion's...]
But upon arriving at the Magic Tower, the Sion she sought was nowhere to be found—only a girl claiming to be her disciple.
'...Is this girl really Sion's disciple?'
This fragile-looking child who seemed like she'd shatter if grabbed?
Karl Leonhardt, the Empire's hero and leader of the Demon King Subjugation Party.
As his adjutant, Olivia had crossed paths with Sion occasionally.
'The vibe is totally different...'
Olivia still couldn't forget her first impression of Sion.
Bloodstained robes, face hidden by a mask, asking 'who goes there?' in a eerie voice.
Trained rigorously from childhood, Olivia avoided fainting on the battlefield.
But among the many powerhouses she'd met following the hero, it was quite a shocking first encounter.
In contrast, her disciple Rion?
'She's too ordinary.'
No, more precisely, she seemed frail rather than ordinary.
A girl twisting a strand of snow-white hair like a harsh winter field with her finger, rolling dark blue eyes like the night sky, looking somehow anxious.
Stammering in conversation was baseline, and she couldn't even make eye contact—by any measure, her social skills didn't seem great.
A completely ordinary girl, with no special qualities visible that would make her the grand archmage's disciple.
'No, not just ordinary.'
She was beautiful. No, exceptionally so.
Her white hair, which could look dry and aged, overflowed with luster, and her skin was pale and flawless, befitting her age.
She didn't seem to put much effort into her appearance, yet it would steal any man's gaze at least once, and draw envy and admiration from women.
It almost made one wonder if Sion had taken her as a disciple purely for her looks—it was outstanding enough to cast doubt on the grand archmage's dignity.
'But instead... I want to protect her.'
Yet what Olivia felt toward Rion wasn't ugly jealousy, but warm sympathy.
Despite such striking beauty, Rion undoubtedly had rock-bottom self-esteem.
Some might say it was possible only because Olivia herself was a beauty, but the closer one was to beauty, the greater the jealousy toward someone even more beautiful.
'Will I see her again?'
She instinctively stirred a protective instinct in anyone who saw her—perhaps Rion was using some kind of magic to provoke it.
As the grand archmage's disciple, she could probably manage that much.
Olivia quietly gazed at the diagnosis report and reagent bottle Rion had handed her.
'I hope so.'
Imagining Rion, who was resolute at times and endearingly cute at others, Olivia organized her report for her superiors.
'Report items: two total... Of course, I won't mention the hero. Sigh...'
One: the investigation results indicating a high likelihood that a black mage was behind the beasts' ferocity.
The other: a new figure, Rion, disciple of the grand archmage.