Chapter 224: The Tin Knight and The Tower of Greed (4)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 224: The Tin Knight and The Tower of Greed (4)
Mombi decided to drop the act.
I don’t know the exact method, but it seems my identity has already been discovered.
If the opponent was still uncertain, continuing the act to sow confusion would have been an option, but Mombi thought that possibility was nonexistent.
What kind of madman in this world would threaten and attack the Great Teacher of the Magic State without any basis or conviction? If they did and things went wrong, how would they handle the aftermath?
Logically speaking, she had to assume the enemies ‘of course’ already knew about her.
The witch Mombi was a rational person, and she didn't even consider the possibility that the Tin Knight had just attacked on a whim, just to see what would happen. That was closer to delusion than inference.
She was cunning and knew that information was the most important thing before toying with an opponent.
Therefore, she tried to provoke her enemies to find out how they knew.
“Answer me. Was there a flaw in my actions or speech? Or perhaps— Tsk!”
However, Mombi was forced to change her plan immediately.
The Tin Knight's blade flew straight for her head without any hesitation.
Mombi quickly twisted her body to evade the attack, but the blade cleverly altered its trajectory and pursued her to the end.
Screeeech!
No blood flowed, but as if in its place, the defensive magic enveloping her body was chipped away.
Mombi frowned.
The damaged defensive magic was only a minuscule fraction of the whole, but the fact that she had taken even a small amount of damage was what mattered.
It meant that if she continued to take attacks, her defense would eventually break.
“Ha! Foolish knight! Do you know what you are doing?! This body belongs to Orin! If I die, that fool dies with me!”
Swish! Shaaak! Swish!
“Harming me is the same as pointing a sword at your Great Teacher!”
Swish! Kaddddk! Thwack!
“—Just listen to me!!”
Booooom!
In the end, the evil witch's patience exploded.
The Tin Knight's companions heard his boastful cry, "The boss talks too much!"
Mombi was fed up with the Tin Knight, who ignored any attempt at assessing the situation and just kept attacking.
What infuriated her even more was that it wasn't just the Tin Knight anymore; the others were also starting to wear expressions that said, Shouldn't we just hit it first and think about the complicated stuff later?
Seriously, if an ally's body has been taken over by the enemy, shouldn't they show a bit more thought, hesitation, or anguish? Why were these lunatics trying to slash first, to hell with conversation? Were they barbarians?
To turn the tables, she used her transformed body and defensive magic to take the Tin Knight's attack head-on, then charged straight at the other enemies.
The tips of Mombi's fingers, now like blades, tore through the green-haired woman's clothes and lightly, ever so lightly, touched her bare skin.
That was all it took.
Booooom!
The green-haired woman's body exploded in an instant.
Mombi was a master of transformation magic.
Although she was restricted by the inability to affect inanimate objects and the need to touch her opponent's bare skin, she could freely change the form of any living creature.
It was a virtual instant-kill move.
Mombi reached for her next target, Dorothea—
Kwaaaaaang!
—and in the next moment, she was sent flying backward as if she'd been swatted away.
A tremendous impact, as if she'd been struck by a giant's hammer.
Faced with a brutally savage attack that would have turned her body to pulp instead of just knocking her back had it not been for her defensive magic, Mombi stared straight ahead.
A girl with brilliant golden hair was glaring at her with terrifying eyes, emitting golden flames and violet lightning from her entire body.
Not only that, but the Tin Knight's sword and the White Knight's spear, having approached unnoticed, pierced Mombi once again.
Taking the attacks again with her transformed body, Mombi acknowledged her disadvantage.
The two who seemed strongest among her enemies were opponents against whom her specialty was ineffective, and even if she forced the fight to continue, dragging it out here would only put her at a greater disadvantage.
She simultaneously drew everyone's attention with a massive attack and released the spell she had placed on the gray old man.
“──!”
The old man who dreamed of being king was meticulous and thorough.
As if he knew Mombi would do this, he returned to his human form and simultaneously unleashed indiscriminate wide-area magic all around.
In the blink of an eye, the entire area was engulfed in an extreme blizzard.
It was an attack insufficient to reverse the unfavorable tide of battle, but it created enough of an opening for Mombi to activate the move she had prepared.
More precisely, it was enough to issue a command to ‘Orin's barrier,’ which belonged to this body's original owner.
Clank, clank.
A mandala-like magic circle shifted, its parts interlocking and changing shape.
Inside out, and outside in.
Space and space mixed, trapping the Tin Knight's party and allowing Mombi and the gray old man to escape to a safe zone.
But they had underestimated their opponent.
[The 'Tin Knight' argues that scenes where the enemy is forced to escape for plot reasons are the worst!]
The Tin Knight's mana surged.
Its force was like a flooding river, yet not a single drop leaked or was wasted, perfectly aligning with the Tin Knight's sword strike.
What should not have been cut was cut.
What could not be reached was reached.
In the instant after something flashed.
The Tin Knight's slash transcended space and precisely bisected the waists of the escaping mage and witch.
“Keoheok!”
Mombi, who still had her defensive magic, endured even that slash, but the gray old man did not.
The old mage's upper and lower body split in two, and things that should not have spilled out, spilled out from between them.
Mombi clicked her tongue and used her transformation magic on the old man's remaining upper body.
The wound sealed in an instant, the severed surface covered with smooth flesh as if nothing had ever been there.
Just before the severed space closed again.
Through the gap, Mombi's and the Tin Knight's eyes met.
“…It would be best not to think next time will be like this.”
The rift in space closed.
Large wings sprouted from Mombi's back.
Holding the gray old man's body in one hand, Mombi flew high into the sky and spoke to him.
“I'll need to prepare a workshop. Modifying the one Orin used to my tastes would take too long, so your side will have to lend a hand.”
A mage is, by nature, one who prepares.
Mombi could slaughter most knights and mages with her bare hands, but that wouldn't be enough for the fight to come.
To face the Tin Knight's party, she too needed to display her true abilities.
“…As you wish. I will do my utmost to assist you.”
Despite the immense pain and shock of having his body severed in half, leaving only his upper torso, the old man maintained his reason and replied as such.
It was truly a terrifying greed, an obsession for the throne.
And so, the evil witch and the mage flew toward the Tower of Control, and a short while later, the Magic State was thrown into an uproar.
*
「The Tower of Control hereby proclaims to the mages and people of the Magic State Aeolia.」
「The recent turmoil in the Magic State was a scheme orchestrated by the Tower of Protection, with the intent of tarnishing the honor and power of the other towers and seizing control of the entire Magic State for themselves.」
「Furthermore, they despicably used poison and traps against the Guardian Witch, our Great Teacher Orin, in an attempt to rob her of her senses, and sought to manipulate the Great Teacher like a puppet to fabricate events to their liking.」
「However, our Tower received the Great Teacher's call for help and successfully rescued her, and we have also succeeded in uncovering all the schemes the Tower of Protection attempted to carry out.」
「Mages of the Tower of Protection! Our Tower believes this incident was the arbitrary decision of the upper echelons, blinded by power and greed, not the will of the Tower of Protection as a whole. Moreover, our great Teacher has requested that all be forgiven, save for the high-ranking members directly involved in this affair. Therefore, you must all leave that wicked tower at once and gather by the Great Teacher's side.」
「And to the upper echelons of the Tower of Protection who orchestrated this, and to Gale Elilaz, who despicably betrayed her teacher and tried to poison her. If you have any pride as a mage or shame as a human being left, come before the Great Teacher at once, beg for forgiveness, and receive your due punishment.」
As if to pay back Dorothea's party for their singing bone flute tactic, the Tower of Control used every means at its disposal—sound amplification magic, letters, familiars—to spread this message throughout the Magic State.
The reaction was explosive.
Voices cursing the Tower of Protection and Gale grew louder all across the Magic State, and even within the Tower of Protection itself, an air of suspicion and anxiety began to circulate, though no one spoke of it openly.
The Tower of Protection retorted that everything the Tower of Control said was a lie, but public opinion was not in their favor.
This was because none other than the Witch of the North was openly siding with and defending the Tower of Control.
The one fortunate thing for the Tower of Protection was that the Towers of Foresight and Annihilation did not follow the Tower of Control's claims, instead taking a wait-and-see approach.
This was entirely the result of the Tin Knight's party having quickly seen through Mombi's identity.
According to the Tower of Control's original plan, Orin was supposed to pretend to follow the Tower of Protection's intentions from within, only to backstab them at the decisive moment. If things had gone that way, the Tower of Protection would have suffered a fatal blow without being able to properly respond.
However, Mombi's identity was discovered much earlier than planned, and the Tower of Control had to make the first move before this fact became widely known.
As they had rushed things, it was only natural that the finer details of their operation became sloppy.
The upper echelons of the other towers did not overlook these ‘sloppy parts,’ and the Tower of Control failed to bring them to its side.
The situation was increasingly heading toward a direct confrontation between Control and Protection. In terms of the towers' raw power alone, the Control side had a slight edge, but what was more important was the battlefield.
A mage's combat power increases dramatically in their workshop, and a magic tower was essentially a giant workshop in itself.
If one side was sieging and the other defending, the defenders' victory was all but guaranteed.
Therefore, the battle was bound to remain a stalemate, but this was a route that led to the Tower of Protection's certain defeat.
For now, Annihilation and Foresight weren't moving, but as long as the Witch of the North was on Control's side, they would inevitably be drawn in as well.
Thus, the Tower of Protection needed to launch an offensive before the other towers could intervene.
They had to do so while accepting the disadvantage of an ‘away game,’ against an opponent they were already at a disadvantage against in a straight-up fight.
Ordinarily, it was a situation they could not possibly win.
Wait, and the other towers intervene. Game over.
Launch an offensive, and lose due to inferior strength. Game over.
Therefore, they had to flip the board.
“Hey, Golden Skull.”
“Hoh, what business do you have with me? You damn witch.”
Dorothea, lounging with a defiant slouch, spoke to Cap'n Bill.
“—Let's make a deal.”