Chapter 237
Chapter 237
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 237
>Chapter Title: The One Who Led the Tower Lord Here
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Aster, having rescued the children from the carriage, dashed straight up the mountainside.
The lush green mountain had been stripped bare, exposing its skeletal frame, with withered leaves scattered pitifully at its base.
The leaves scattered with the wind and dust at every step, but it wasn't long before Aster reached the summit.
“…….”
Aster stared blankly at the scene below his feet.
Down there gathered the Black-White Slums urchins he had just freed. And the group herding them together.
They were Henji's underlings. And...
Aster extended his senses widely.
The subtle presences encircling the mountain were the Shadow Knights dispatched by Lortel's patriarch.
Only about ten in number, but the encirclement they had formed was no laughing matter.
Their roles were simple.
Aster would strike the Troubleshooter nursery, Henji's underlings would manage the rescued urchins and other personnel. And the Shadow Knights' mission was to detect any potential external attacks or escapees.
Then what about Shine and Mysern?
Shine and Mysern would strike the Troubleshooter nurseries alongside Aster.
But at different locations.
The spot where Aster now stood was the No. 2 nursery. Meanwhile, Shine and Mysern were handling the No. 3 and No. 4 nurseries.
The Shadow Knights and Henji's underlings dispatched to each nursery were fully prepared, awaiting only Aster's signal.
[You vile thing, are you still far?]
“Not yet.”
Aster gave a curt reply to Shine's urging from the communication orb, then shifted his gaze slightly.
At the end of that gaze, hidden between mountain valleys, was a mountain stronghold that could rightly be called a fortress.
The distance was too great for his senses to reach properly, but focusing his mana made its structure easy to discern. Aster took in the sight quietly for a moment.
How much time passed like that?
“It's starting. Senior Mysern, we're beginning.”
Aster signaled Shine and Mysern respectively.
The moment his foot touched the air for the first step.
Fizz—
The mana in the atmosphere turned to wind, swirling around his body.
His form glided down the mountainside like a bird, accompanied by a small wyvern-shaped spirit flapping at his side—
Growl—
The unleashed transcendence tangled the mana in the air chaotically. The turbulent flow crippled all communications.
Immediately after, azure lightning rose from the sky only to crash down onto the ground.
Krrrack!
A basic lightning spell devoid of any imagery, but to some, it was divine retribution.
* * *
Upon receiving Aster's signal, Shine hopped up from where he had been leaning against a large boulder, straightening his posture.
“I was getting antsy anyway.”
Shine rolled his shoulders as he began walking down the mountainside.
His steps started light, but soon the scenery around him slid backward as his figure surged forward.
The moment his body melted into the ground as a single shadow came right after.
“I don't care for this method, but it's not bad.”
In line with Aster's plan requiring stealth, Shine had decided to become one of the night folk today, not a mere knight.
A bright sunny day.
A death god steeped in blood seeped into the shadows beneath the hooded villains.
They wouldn't even notice their own deaths.
* * *
Meanwhile, Mysern, seated atop a high peak, slowly raised his lowered eyelids.
At his side stood Fury, Eiki, and Madrin keeping watch, though Fury's face was full of displeasure.
Her small cheeks puffed out hugely as Mysern smiled faintly.
“Heh heh, don't be like that. Sure, that rascal's making this old body work, but isn't it meaningful?”
Fury whipped her head away at Mysern's words, clearly sulking.
Mysern watched her quietly before stroking Eiki, who was curled up on his knee.
“Eiki, do you feel the same as Fury?”
Eiki glanced indifferently at Mysern at the question, then slyly turned away and let out a massive yawn. A gesture of utter disinterest.
Mysern turned to Madrin next.
The land tortoise blinked its half-closed eyes, equally uninterested.
Observing his three spirits' reactions, Mysern curled his lips higher.
But that lasted only a moment.
“Time to begin. Fury, lend me a hand. I'm getting old; I need your help more these days.”
Did his earnest plea work?
The sulking Fury slyly turned back and plopped squarely atop Mysern's head.
“Heh heh.”
Mysern chuckled awkwardly at her bold attitude, but the smile soon faded.
Mysern took in the Troubleshooter nursery below the mountainside.
“Reminds me of old times.”
Mysern had grown sick of guerrilla warfare like this during the old war days.
“First, cripple their communications, right?”
Mysern extended his arm, pointing a finger into the air. Soon, spirit power from wind, earth, and water swirled fiercely at his fingertip.
Spiritists lacked a mage's convenient way to jam communications, but Mysern was extreme.
Crunch, crunch!
He enveloped the entire nursery in a dome of immense-density spirit power.
“Whew... Even this is tough now. My time's coming.”
Having jammed communications in the area, Mysern sighed as if drained of all energy. But the moment his eyes blinked once.
Whoooosh—
A savage wind whipped toward the camp.
Rumble.
Clouds swallowed the sky.
Thud, thud, thud.
The earth trembled.
“Let's get started.”
No longer was there a frail old man in that spot.
The spiritist of the north wind.
The monster from the old war era, dragged out by the Tower Lord, had awakened from long slumber and stretched.
* * *
Troubleshooter trainee No. 7.
He was from the gang leader of the No. 3 Black-White Slums alley, and like most urchins, he didn't know his own age.
He wasn't much different from the other trainees.
Being a gang leader meant he'd eaten well enough to stand out physically, but how many alleys were there in the Black-White Slums?
Being a Black-White Slums gang leader wasn't special in the nursery, and No. 7 didn't think much of it either.
However...
- P-Please, spare...
Whenever he saw trainees dying daily from the brutal training, he just thought himself lucky to have eaten well.
Whether his size came from eating well or eating well came from being boss was unclear, but anyway.
Thanks to his natural physique, No. 7 endured the harsh training. While others slept exhausted, he lay awake pondering deep into the night.
‘Where is this place?’
Only mountains visible, and even stargazing yielded no clue to their location.
Well, he didn't know how to read stars anyway.
Still, to escape, he needed to know where they were, but he had no idea.
His next question was this.
‘Who are these guys?’
Definitely not ordinary folk.
Recalling the cartel thug who groveled before being sold here, they seemed like nobles or famed houses from the outside world...
‘What are they planning?’
What did they intend by grinding them like this?
No. 7 was quite curious.
Unlike other urchins lured by promises of money, he'd been tricked by a cartel thug's talk of ‘sending you to school.’
Of course, life in the nursery wasn't easy enough for constant pondering.
When magic training began soon after, No. 7 had no choice but to focus, barely keeping up at first with no room for other thoughts.
Fortunately, his talent wasn't just physical; he picked up magic quickly. Around then, he grew curious again.
‘Why do I have to go through this?’
Treatment below human... he got that. He'd never known humane treatment anyway.
This doubt wasn't mere complaint about the present but touched something more fundamental.
- As I said, your lives are mine to decide.
How could instructors treat trainees like flies and hold such positions?
- This batch?
- Th-They're... nothing special... Gah!
How could the occasional high-status visitor make even instructors cower?
And.
‘...Why me?’
A worry ordinary urchins never had.
The bottom was too natural for them.
But No. 7 agonized endlessly.
Frankly, it hurt.
‘Life's only once...’
He wanted to eat well, dress well, live well.
Not fancy clothes or food, but three square meals a day and clean attire.
But his reality?
Gurgle.
Starving and sad.
Shiver.
Freezing without proper clothes.
His daily ration was just nutrient slop to barely sustain life, his garb a tattered straw mat.
But what could he do?
He had no power.
No. 7 swallowed his resentment, honing his body and learning magic per the Troubleshooter nursery curriculum.
He mastered stealth skills and crammed miscellaneous knowledge.
In time, a thought struck him.
‘Maybe...’
The real pain wasn't the hunger or rags.
He suffered for lack of power, but precisely, it might not be power.
Then what?
No. 7 agonized.
Kept agonizing.
...That agony continued even as the No. 2 nursery was attacked—or more precisely, he was dazed.
Rumble—
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Lightning crashing from the sky.
Instructors and mages guarding the nursery tightly, struck down by bolts.
No. 7 sensed death but clung to his thoughts.
As if it were his life's final purpose, the one treasure to carry to death.
When all thunder ceased.
Suddenly, the sky cleared.
‘Did I... survive?’
No. 7 patted himself everywhere to confirm. He looked up for no special reason.
Just... the cloudless sky was strikingly clear.
As No. 7 gazed up idly.
“…….”
He spotted a strange figure atop the spire.
Somehow, without being told, he intuited.
The one who struck the demon-like instructors and mages with lightning was that masked intruder.
Not just No. 7 stared; the intruder gazed down at the trainees and moved his lips.
One phrase.
“You're free now.”
No. 7 blinked blankly at the intruder.
‘...Free?’
But why?
It felt like the intruder stared right through him... then the intruder turned away abruptly.
...No. 7 didn't know.
- No. 1, we're Black-White Slums urchins with nothing. No food, no clothes, no learning. What do you think hurts most?
- No food.
- If it was just hunger, we wouldn't be here. Same for clothes. What do you think plunged our lives into this sewer?
- I'm fine with it.
- ...The reason our lives are in the sewer...
- I'm fine, I said.
- You fucker.
A future already vanished.
A future remark from No. 7, who became No. 2.
- Not learning was the greatest pain. If we'd learned, we wouldn't be caught by those famed house bastards living like this.
That remark led the Tower Lord here.
No. 7 would probably never know.
...And perhaps ignorance was better for him.
‘No. 2... was here?’
Aster's eyes sparkled.
The Magic Tower always hungered for slaves... no, talent.