Assaulting the Mage -2
And so, the operation began.
Everything that needed to be done now was up to Sila.
For starters, she had to somehow sneak this thing into Bellisa's house right away.
Of course, as a somewhat elite assistant who'd been putting up with Bellisa for years,
even if she was perfect as a mage, Sila could spot all sorts of gaps if she looked.
She already had several scenarios ready for sneaking in a monster like this.
'Bellisa-nim is recruiting monsters for her experiments today, right?'
"Bellisa-nim?"
"What."
"A carriage loaded with monsters has arrived."
"Ah, yeah~"
As befitting a renowned mage, the large mansion had several buildings.
The basement in one of them was the destination for the cargo carrying those monsters.
It was a space where she could immediately conduct experiments with various monsters right at home.
That's why stuff loaded with monsters came and went pretty often.
"You'll handle it yourself?"
"Pardon?"
"You've been doing it all this time, and now I have to tell you again? This is why working with idiots is..."
That damn arrogant attitude—she just couldn't drop it, could she?
Still, thinking about how she'd get her revenge soon made the stress that felt ready to explode feel a bit better.
"You handle disabling the monster-blocking protective barrier on the building yourself. Then bring them in, sort the list, and leave it organized."
"Yesss..."
"Yawn~ You're not telling me you can't even handle this properly, right?"
Kkwak.
She hid her tightly clenched fist and replied.
"Of course."
She'd handle it very thoroughly, after all.
And so, she handed over the mansion's management rights to her assistant, brimming with resentment.
And that assistant, Sila, was now ready to put the plan into action.
"Yes, these are all the items you ordered!"
"Alright, then I'll disable the protective magic now."
She opened the door to the management room with its large magic circles.
But some of them were designed to be relatively easy to manipulate.
Of course, "easy" was still pretty complex, but her skills—gleaned over-the-shoulder amid Bellisa's scorn and ridicule—were rock-solid.
'Normally, I'd just disable the basement here, but...'
She disabled the security against monsters for the entire mansion.
"The magic's disabled now, so just slowly place the monsters inside!"
"Got it."
And so, the merchants and their underlings began moving the cargo.
'Good...'
And in the meantime, the assistant slowly got ready too.
The luggage she'd prepared in the corner of the already-open door.
It was designed to look like a bag storing documents—something that wouldn't seem odd even if seen—but inside was that monster.
The assistant picked up the box, thinking of it as some cockroach-like monster.
Of course, what was actually inside was the utterly terrifying, intelligent tentacle monster Main Body.
'Good, good...'
For the assistant, and for the tentacles, things were going smoothly for now.
Of course, she didn't just grab the contents and head straight to the target spot, thinking she could install it there now.
'That would look suspicious.'
"Oh, by the way, do you have the list of monsters each merchant brought?"
"It's right here. Take a look."
"Yes, one moment."
And so, she compiled the lists of monsters prepared by the various merchants.
Of course, it wasn't as simple as it sounded.
Unifying and combining the quantities of monsters that each merchant had classified differently or named differently was tricky.
'Normally, I'd be cursing while sorting this, but...'
Today, thinking about the other item in the bag had her feeling almost excited.
"Anyway, I'll just leave these documents on Bellisa-nim's desk and head out."
"Yes, then we'll be going first."
And with that, even the merchants were gone.
"Good......"
Then, naturally, she headed to Bellisa's private study.
The desk in the center of the personal study.
She placed the documents on it.
And...
'This should do.'
A box with books that hadn't fit into the bookshelf yet.
She placed it right next to that.
'Let's see you eat shit properly for once.'
And so, she naturally hid the box next to the one with books and leisurely slipped out.
She reactivated the monster barrier.
But that barrier blocked monsters from entering from outside.
It couldn't do anything about monsters already inside.
'Finally...'
She even felt anticipation at the thought of Bellisa's face soon being a sight to behold.
Of course, the revenge would be even harsher than Sila imagined—it would handle itself.
The preparations for the assistant's revenge were complete.
Kkumeul......
Now, it was all up to the tentacles.
"Haa... So, this should be good enough, right?"
Bellisa was researching a surefire way to eliminate the tentacle monster based on a request from the Holy Kingdom.
But since she figured soul separation magic would hit the tentacles dead-on, she was planning to note down the usage and send it off.
In her private study, she was puzzling over how to explain the usage so even idiots could understand.
That's when an uninvited guest showed up.
No, more precisely, it started moving.
Kkumeul.
"Hm?"
Bellisa immediately sensed something off and deployed her magic protective barrier.
Then she cast detection magic.
"Who's there?"
"Ah, hi?"
And the tentacles came out boldly, without hiding.
"The tentacles can speak human language...?"
Bellisa showed a slight look of surprise, but her expression quickly spread into a grin.
"Ah~ So you're the tentacles that broke our Hero, huh?"
She seemed to realize which tentacles these were, given that they were speaking—high-intelligence tentacles.
The same species as the ones that crushed the Hero.
"In a way, yeah, but I kinda wanna say no."
"Hmm~ So, what did you come here to do?"
"What else?"
"You know... Sorry, but I'm not like the Hero or anything..."
And then the magic flashed right away.
The chilling sensation was the hallmark of soul-type magic.
"But I won't go down that easy!"
Paaaat!
And just like that, the magic came flying.
'Now!'
And the tentacles deployed the soul attack reflection magic they'd researched in advance.
Hwiiik.
"Huh?"
But for some reason, there was a problem with the formula, and part of it pierced right through, hitting the tentacles.
"Wha, huh...?"
"Tsk, you were pretty smart, but bad matchup for you."
The great mage Bellisa smirked, certain of her victory.
And as the tentacles' soul? tried to separate from its body,
'Move quick!'
Jjiik.
It immediately split its own body.
Then reassembled and bound the escaping soul, devouring it again.
"Wow... You blocked a magic even humans can't stop, and you're just some tentacles?"
"Man, this formula's more messed up than I thought..."
The tentacles, quickly regaining its original consciousness, hid behind the bookshelf.
"That won't help."
Kwaang!
As the mage cast her spell, the entire hiding bookshelf vaporized.
"Damn, good at hiding."
'This is bad...!'
She was even stronger than expected.
'But it's fine. Research it... Research fast!'
It researched the soul magic it'd just taken directly to its body.
It quickly split internal tentacles, creating something like a conference of multiple entities.
And rapidly researched modifications to the existing reflection magic.
"Hiding won't save you."
The tentacles had launched the assault, but now it looked like the mage was hunting the tentacles.
Kwaang!
Three desks vaporized at once like that.
The tentacles quickly threw itself to the next one.
"Yawn, this is fun and all, but could you just die already?"
Kwaaaaa!!!
-!!!
All the remaining bookshelves vaporized in one go.
Thanks to that, the tentacles was visible.
"Yeah, since you can split, to kill you, it's gotta be this magic-"
Soul magic flew at it again.
"again!"
Piyong~!
The magic launched.
"Now's the timeeeee!!!"
And the tentacles put all its power into bouncing it back as the goal.
The magic circle deployed perfectly.
The magic it'd learned by taking a hit—it rapidly constructed a reflection formula for it.
Twiiiing~!!!
"Wha, huh!?"
And finally, the soul separation magic flew back at Bellisa.
"Th, this fuuuuuck!!!"
Bellisa panicked and swung her magic to block it, but she couldn't fully.
Paat!
"Kuaaaaaah!!!"
'Not a full hit?'
Part of it canceled out, and the twisted magic hit her.
Now, no one knew what would happen next.
Paaaat!
Light flared, and something from Bellisa flew off to one side.
"Wha, huh?"
And it splattered into what looked like a slime-like liquid prepared for experiments.
Tooung.
It hit that bottle dead-on and vanished inside.
The half-solid white liquid turned pink.
"...No way."
She glared at Bellisa, still unsure if the magic had succeeded-
Plop.
Bellisa's body collapsed limply.
The magic had succeeded. The reflection had worked, at least.
It was a bit different from expected, but anyway, success.
Somehow it had half-reflected, so even the tentacles didn't know exactly what happened.
"......"
The pink jelly in the bottle on one side.
She could definitely sense some kind of consciousness from it.
"Is this it...?"
Unintentionally, it seemed they'd succeeded in separating the mage's personality from her body.