Chapter 218
Chapter 218
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 218
Chapter Title: Annoying Mosquito Swarm (3)
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-Prffrrk.
At the desolate edge of the village, the horse snorted and backed away, as if refusing to go any further. The evening glow had fully faded, draping the sky in long shadows of deep blue. Fernandez clicked his tongue and dismounted.
“Benefactor. This place…….”
Even she, sharper than a horse in the realm of instinct, furrowed her brow and growled. The moment they fully dismounted, the warhorses snorted and bolted back the way they had come.
“Ah!”
“Let them go. They’re warhorses; they’ll find their own stables.”
There were no bandits left in this area to speak of. The beastkin tiger tribe warriors had combed through every inch on the great chieftain’s orders. A few remnants might have survived by disguising themselves as tenant farmers, but such timid small-time thieves wouldn’t dare steal warhorses stamped with a duke’s seal.
No time to worry about the mounts, then. Fernandez gazed at this nameless little settlement at the edge of the barony. It had looked barren in the daytime, but at night, it was eerie.
“There’s a smell.”
“That’s interesting.”
For Kirhas, no priest of Beitasser, to detect the scent of black magic was remarkable. Fernandez gave a slight smile and stepped toward the village entrance. His sensitive ears began picking up noises.
The wasteland night was noisier than the day. Humans were diurnal creatures, but most wasteland beasts were nocturnal. The wasteland days were excessively hot and dry. That hadn’t changed even after the wasteland transformed into lush plains in an instant.
Thus, at this moment when night began, Fernandez stood amid the white noise of countless creatures stirring to life. Rustling sounds, chirping cries, occasional bursts and death rattles. The noises of life teeming.
And.
“They say ghosts and skeletons wander at night.”
The dry clatter of bare bones knocking together. Fernandez smiled as he walked into the village center.
* * *
Kirhas’s longsword gleamed, reflecting the moonlight. She whispered in a low voice, somehow cheerful.
“This takes me back.”
“Back?”
“It was like this the first time we hunted vampires in Franzrit. Desolate village, dozens of ghouls, a vampire hiding somewhere. Good times.”
“……Good?”
“Good because it was just us two.”
Kirhas grinned and thrust her sword, slashing into a corner of the wall. *Thk!* Blood coated the blade’s tip. She clicked her tongue and wiped it on her sleeve.
“Just a rat. Its presence was suspicious; I thought it was a monster.”
“Don’t try to listen for it, Kirhas. A black mage who digs traps inside a workshop doesn’t leave such sloppy clues.”
“Then how should I find it?”
“With magic.”
-Sruk.
Fernandez crouched and touched the ground. Slowly, tracing a circle with his fingertips. *Fwoosh.* Soon, tiny silver sparks flowed from his fingers across the floor.
The three principles of modern magic were incantations, rituals, and mana. Strictly speaking, there was room for more complexity, but incantations and rituals could be adjusted to some degree depending on the situation.
Combat mages substituted rituals with hand signs. For sufficiently skilled mages, simple spells didn’t even require incantations.
When there was no need to rush and handle things hastily. And when tracking another mage. More carefully—
-Fwoosh!
A silver magic circle spread out from him. Fernandez crossed and intertwined his fingers briefly, bowed his head, then pointed toward the middle of the road.
“Reveal yourself.”
-Fsssh……
With those words, the silver-white flames died down. Then, *fwoosh, fwoosh.* Tiny points began glowing along the path. More and more. Densely……
“Benefactor, this is……?”
“A spell that reveals traces matching specific conditions.”
Fernandez smiled and advanced. Specific conditions. An incantation requiring precise formulas like blood, undead, and the caster’s mana circuit traits.
-Manderson of the Corpse Tower……
The bastard was a black mage from the academy like Feizashi. A necromancer infamous—or soon to be—in the empire’s eastern regions. As former head of the Kalmburg Magic Academy, Feizashi knew exactly how Manderson’s mana circuits were structured.
Thus, finding traces of his magic was simple. The silver points lined up like a compass, pointing in one direction. Fernandez walked the road, maintaining the hand sign twisted with his left hand.
-Fwoosh!
Soon, at the village edge. The sparks stopped in one direction. A cat tilted its head, staring at him.
It seemed oblivious to the silver flames clinging around itself.
“Manderson. Are preparations going well?”
-Shaaaah!!
“That’s no good. Didn’t I personally tell you to prepare for me? Time’s running out.”
Fernandez snapped his fingers in front of the cat. It let out a shrill scream, stiffened, then slumped limply. The silver sparks stamped on its body shot off like arrows, tracing a long arc.
“That’s…… um. Like a black mage’s familiar?”
“A familiar. One of the lower servant spells. My magic rode the trace of his mana. Follow that path, and he’ll appear.”
“Benefactor. Looks like we have guests.”
“Good. That’s more like it.”
-Clank.
Fernandez smiled and gripped his sword hilt. Soon, skeletons crawled out from village edges and corners, atop walls and in gaps, on roofs and under eaves.
Their blue soulfire flickered as their jaws clacked, *clack, clack.* Fernandez drew his sword, spun it once, and stepped forward.
“Where’d he get so many corpses…….”
Sparks flew from Kirhas’s eyes. Missing villagers, undead summoned by spells. An abandoned village. He’d said there were countless such small settlements in the barony. The frontier war’s pioneer villages hadn’t even been fully tallied by the duke’s administration.
Thus, the mage’s victims were beyond counting. How many innocents had fallen to his hands? Kirhas ground her teeth and charged. Fernandez slashed at the occasional lunging skeletons, smiling.
‘This isn’t enough.’
-He’s stalling.
‘Even if he stalls, does he have any other moves?’
-Hard to say. Manderson wasn’t a complete idiot. He might have another plan.
‘Might have had. Everyone has one good plan, after all.’
Until they meet an inquisitor. Fernandez and Kirhas crushed the charging skeletons and corpses as they left the village.
* * *
What was once barren dirt wasteland now spread with blue grass, sparkling under moonlight and night dew. A quiet wind blew. Fernandez and Kirhas ran, following the silver sparks dotted at their feet.
This direction…… Fernandez frowned. Too far from the barony. A small settlement on the outskirts of Rubye, then several kilometers further into the wasteland.
-Odd for Manderson’s work.
‘But the mana signature matched his.’
-Exactly. That’s why it’s stranger.
Manderson was the type to burrow into city centers or villages, setting up workshops. Mainly near crypts or cemeteries, hunkering down for sticky experiments and training. A sewer rat, corpse fly sort. Those types couldn’t linger in remote areas. But this direction led far out, to only a few nomadic tribes.
‘Doesn’t add up.’
Most nomads were beastkin. Their closed tribal societies made it nearly impossible for a human like Manderson to infiltrate and scheme.
Moreover, it was too far from Rubye Barony now. Both Kirhas and Fernandez had bodies transcending human limits, allowing them to cover this distance on foot; an ordinary person couldn’t dream of it.
If the nearest human settlement was the last one they passed, this was excessive. Too far. Almost like luring them……
‘He prepared a countermeasure?’
The daytime warning to Manderson had been to “prepare with all your might.” If he fled outright, fine, but leaving loose ends meant uprooting them completely.
Hence the warning to give his best. Catch him sloppily, and his hideout, tools, hordes of undead wouldn’t be crushed at once—they’d linger as future threats, abandoned somewhere in the barony.
Residual thoughts in abandoned undead inevitably birthed stronger undead, demons, or black mages drawn to them. Like cockroaches: destroy the nest all at once, or they’d always hide in the sewers and multiply.
But Feizashi shook his head at the doubt.
-His specialty is constructs from human corpses. There’s nothing in an empty field he could prepare. If he’d truly prepared a trap with all his might, it’d be a hostage crisis in the city center.
Recalling Fairn’s Walker incident, Fernandez nodded. A Walker outbreak in a city heart, or this kind of undead or plague, would prioritize containment over catching the mastermind in most cases.
Thus, cornered black mages rampaged in cities. Like the Bronze Scales had. So this……
“Benefactor!”
“Yeah, we’re here.”
The silver-white sparks trailed off, then stopped. Moonlight draped a low hill. A chill night wind fluttered the flag atop it.
“Uh…… um……. Is that really the place?”
“Let’s check.”
“Better to call for military support. A day further, and there are beastkin tribes. I give the order, they’ll send warriors!”
“A day’s too late. By noon tomorrow, Brother Pascal starts the heresy trials.”
A grand, official heresy trial would commence. As flashy as the extra day of rest they’d been granted. Less a complaint against Fernandez, more the priests’ diligent nature: rested a day, so work harder now.
And inquisitorial diligence inevitably bred victims. If victims’ screams went public, the imperial envoy would surely raise issues.
That would be too late. Linkage with Partak was already on the brink. No more delays. Any uncontrollable variable was a threat.
“We approach alone.”
Thus, Fernandez took the lead toward the camp on the low hill. Silver-white sparks dotted toward the flickering torchlights.
A frontier noble’s army. Fernandez recognized the crest. He’d investigated Rubye thoroughly.
The lord near Rubye: Count Bramdong Alberda. A powerful military noble, vassal to Duke Rubye, one who’d led troops and withdrawn after the last conference.
‘It makes sense, sort of.’
A count hoping for the duke’s downfall teams with a capable black mage scouting test subjects, uses baronial authority to preemptively request heresy trials against the imperial envoy—who bolsters the duke’s growth—then times a black mage’s scheme to trap the duke?
‘It makes sense, but…….’
-Impossible.
An astonishingly elaborate trap, but impossible. For it to work, the duke, the lady, Fernandez, or Kirhas—one must be in league with them. It required knowing the great chieftain-duke deal.
Exclude Kirhas and Fernandez, the duke wouldn’t sabotage himself, the lady……
‘No way.’
The lady wanted the duke’s success more than anyone. Fernandez narrowed his eyes.
‘Whoever, whatever. We settle it tonight.’
-Annoying pests.