Rescue
The Gray Forest, the first floor of the Demon Palace. I let out a long sigh, never having expected to return to this place so soon. Before me stood an Apostle. Behind me, Nia was collapsed on the ground.
My timing couldn't have been more perfect. If I had been even a second later, Nia would have drawn his last breath.
"Why are you..." Nia's bewildered voice drifted from behind me. Having successfully cast his youth-restoring magic, he had stubbornly forced his way into the Demon Palace. However, the spell was clearly incomplete.
The irregularity elimination unit has appeared. Before my eyes, the four-eyed Apostle rolled its pupils in a sickening circle. This creature was the Demon Palace's cleanup crew—the Apostle of Irregularity. It manifested whenever the rules of the Demon Palace were violated, appearing anywhere within the labyrinth to swiftly eliminate the offender.
Nia's youth-restoring magic was flawed. That imperfection was precisely what had summoned this Apostle of Irregularity.
Clang! In that instant, the Apostle of Irregularity deflected my hand blade. From the very beginning, the creature hadn't spared me a single glance. It existed solely to purge irregularities. In other words, its only goal was Nia's death.
Slipping past me, the Apostle of Irregularity swung the blade fused to its arm, aiming directly for Nia.
"Not on my watch." I stepped forward, blocking its path. My raised hand blade clashed against the Apostle's sword in a split second. I had already faced enough swordplay to last a lifetime thanks to that lazy genius, Van. Reading the trajectory of the Apostle's blade perfectly, I parried every single strike.
Seizing an opening, I lashed out with a kick straight into the Apostle's abdomen. The heavy blow forced the creature to stumble backward a step.
But the Apostle had no intention of going down easily. Its jaw split wide, and beams of light began to coalesce inside its maw. Was it planning to fire some kind of energy beam? I was sorry to disappoint it, but I hadn't come here alone.
Boom! Before the Apostle of Irregularity could gather its light, a blinding flash of magic struck first. Moving faster than the eye could follow, the brilliant bolt blasted the Apostle off its feet, sending it hurtling into the distance.
Standing a short distance away was Sharin, her staff leveled forward. When our eyes met, she offered me a lazy, whimsical smile. The top student of the Magic Engineering department, Sharin Sazaris. She was wildly unpredictable, but as a rear-guard ally, she was practically peerless.
Seizing the moment, I quickly grabbed Nia's arm and hauled him to his feet.
"I'll explain later. That staff of yours—it has some kind of Mystery bound to it, doesn't it?"
"How did you..."
"Just a bit of deduction. And looking at it now..." My eyes narrowed. "A Unicorn's Horn. How utterly malicious."
Someone had clearly known Nia was researching youth-restoring magic and designed the trap with deliberate intent. Activating magic while under the effects of a youth-restoring spell meant he was highly likely to face a critical crisis.
That bastard Robliaju. He really stops at nothing.
Duke Robliaju would have undoubtedly known about the Apostle of Irregularity. He must have calculated all of this to orchestrate the perfect trap. His ability to set a stage was formidable. In essence, he had assassinated Nia without getting a single drop of blood on his own hands.
But there was just one thing Robliaju had failed to account for. He didn't expect a real irregularity to show up. He couldn't possibly have factored in the wild card of my existence—someone who had played through the Flame Butterfly Chapter countless times.
"Just who are you..." Even as he ran on his own two feet, Nia stared at me with utter incomprehension. No matter how much he racked his brain, he couldn't seem to understand how or why I had appeared at this exact moment.
Crack! Crackle! At that moment, the Apostle of Irregularity, which had taken the brunt of Sharin's magic, slowly began to rise. Its body contorted and snapped as if its joints were dislocating, standing up in a grotesque, unnatural fashion.
"I put quite a bit of power into that, but it looks perfectly fineee?" Sharin murmured, drawing her staff back as her brow furrowed.
"Sharin, that thing is immortal. It doesn't matter what you throw at it."
The Apostle of Irregularity could not be killed. It would continuously regenerate, fueled by the infinite energy supplied by the Demon Palace. Furthermore, as time passed... Crack! It would keep evolving.
Sure enough, the Apostle of Irregularity mutated into its second form. Wings sprouted from its back, and an extra arm burst from its torso. The Apostle tore its maw open and let out a deafening roar, radiating a pure, murderous intent to eliminate the irregularity.
Kaboom! In an instant, dozens of fireballs streaked through the air, obliterating the Apostle of Irregularity once more. The source of the flames was, of course, Sharin.
"Immortal, huh?" Sharin brushed away the ashes of her disintegrated staff and pulled out a fresh one. Magic of various attributes swirled around her like a turbulent tide. While ordinary mages were born with an affinity for a single element, Sharin was entirely free from such limitations.
"I wonder... how many times can it come back to life?" A dangerous glint flickered in Sharin's eyes. It seemed her pure curiosity as a mage had been thoroughly piqued. Well, she would be fine left to her own devices.
I turned back to Nia. "Associate Professor Nia Cynthia, I'm sure you have a lot of questions, but you must realize by now that someone deliberately targeted your life."
Nia's expression hardened. Just as I said, this situation was dripping with a blatant intent to murder him. Nia was far from ignorant of this fact.
"And they will undoubtedly try again. In ways you'll never expect, just like today."
"..." The acquaintance who had gifted Nia the staff was surely someone he trusted deeply. That was why he had accepted it without a second thought. If things like this continued to happen, Nia would never be able to live a normal life.
Now I see why Robliaju was so desperate to kill Nia. Although the youth-restoring magic was incomplete, Nia had still achieved tangible results. He was a genius who might very well spark a revolution in the field of magic. Duke Robliaju had become a minion of the Evil Zone. To the Evil Zone, someone like Nia was an incredibly unwelcome threat.
"So, how about this? Why don't you fake your death here in the Demon Palace and focus entirely on finding the culprit?"
Nia immediately caught on to my meaning. Adults were forbidden from entering the Demon Palace. As long as Sharin and I—the only ones who had entered today—coordinated our stories, we could easily fake Nia's death. Ultimately, unless Nia walked out of here alive, the adults on the outside would have no way of knowing the truth.
Faking his death offered Nia a massive advantage. Not only would it secure his immediate safety, but it would also allow him to trace the shadow of the one who had targeted his life. Most importantly, if a similar incident occurred in the future, Nia could step forward as a living witness to seize control of the situation.
"Under the protection of the First Prince, hiding your identity should be well within your grasp."
Nia's eyes widened in shock. It seemed his alliance with the First Prince was still a closely guarded secret. But that only lent more weight to my words. He couldn't easily dismiss the counsel of someone who possessed secrets no one else knew.
"If you're curious about me, feel free to investigate. But give it two years." That was the time remaining until I graduated from Jerion Academy. With that much time, I could drag Duke Robliaju out into the light. "Operating from the shadows for about two years wouldn't be a bad idea."
I casually threw out a timeframe. I didn't know how Nia would interpret it, but I had played the best hand I possibly could.
"Oh, and since I did just save your life, you'll have to do me a favor later."
"Sigh... You certainly speak as you please." Nia let out a weary breath, clearly dumbfounded. He seemed thoroughly baffled by how casually I was throwing around such monumental proposals. Seeing his reaction, I grinned.
"Don't worry, the favor is related to your sister." I had already resolved to secure a happy ending. To save Nikita, I would need Nia's help just once.
At those words, Nia's expression completely warped. As if his ultimate taboo had been violated, a murderous intent thicker than anything before rolled off him. "I will never hand my sister over to you."
What on earth was this guy misunderstanding in a situation like this? "Whoa, let's not be like that."
"I knew it! You approached me with designs on my sister! My sister grew up looking at me, so she only likes tall men. She wouldn't even consider a short punk like you as a man!"
Wow, what a sister complex. He had the face of a refined nobleman, but his personality was a bit exhausting.
"It's nothing like that, so stop misunderstanding. I'm just going to prevent anything bad from happening to Nikita-sunbae in the wake of your faked death."
At the mention of potential danger to Nikita, Nia's explosive anger slowly began to recede. "...Nikita does care for me deeply, so I suppose that is possible."
As long as he accepted it, the details didn't matter. I stepped closer to Nia and held out my hand. "Give me the hand holding the staff."
"This is a Unicorn's Horn. If you touch it, your mana will be drained as well."
"It's fine. I have a Mystery of my own."
Nia narrowed his eyes. "Just what kind of monster are you, really?"
From my inexplicable knowledge to my possession of a Mystery, Nia found absolutely nothing about me that made sense.
I pried Nia's fingers open one by one. My hand, reinforced by Steel Skin, was completely impervious to the effects of a Unicorn's Horn. "You can investigate that later, too."
The more he investigated, the deeper he would sink into the labyrinth of my secrets, but for now, this deflection was more than enough.
After wrenching the Unicorn's Horn from Nia's grasp, I casually twirled it in my hand. "We can use this as proof of your death."
For a mage, losing their staff inside the Demon Palace was synonymous with death. Furthermore, the Unicorn's Horn embedded in the staff would certainly draw attention. Of course, any loose ends regarding the horn would have already been severed. Everyone involved would deny any knowledge, and the only one to take the fall would be the craftsman who made the staff.
In the original timeline, even the First Prince didn't raise a major fuss over Nia's death. Although Nia was a valuable asset, his death was shrouded in too much uncertainty. While all circumstantial evidence pointed to the Third Princess's faction, the use of a Mystery left no physical proof, making it impossible to corner them. The factions of the First Prince and the Third Princess were evenly matched. A reckless move could easily trigger a devastating backlash, so Nia's death was ultimately swept under the rug.
Only one person—Nikita—doggedly pursued the truth of Nia's death, eventually becoming certain that the Third Princess's faction was behind it.
But this time, things are different. Nia was alive. He was the ultimate physical evidence. The First Prince's faction would now pour everything they had into tearing down the Third Princess's faction.
Duke Robliaju, you must feel like the world is in the palm of your hand right now. I had prepared a massive, steaming pile of shit for him. I hoped he enjoyed the meal.
"Take this as well." Just then, Nia unclasped a necklace from around his neck and handed it to me. It was engraved with the crest of the Cynthia family.
"This necklace is bestowed upon the heir of the Cynthia family. Having this will make my death even more convincing." Nia sighed as he spoke. He clearly didn't enjoy playing into my hands, but he had at least recognized that I harbored no ill intent toward him.
"If you try anything funny with Nikita while I'm gone, I'll kill you." He left me with a chilling warning. It seemed that in Nia's eyes, I was nothing more than a scoundrel trying to make a move on his sister.
"How is a dead man going to kill me?" I, of course, was never one to let a provocation go unanswered.
"Excuse meee..." While Nia and I were locked in a glaring contest, Sharin's voice cut through the tension. She pointed toward a spot with a troubled look on her face.
There stood the Apostle of Irregularity, now mutated into a form so grotesque it defied description. Just how much magic had she bombarded it with? It had already undergone ten successive evolutions. In the brief span of our conversation, Sharin had inflicted enough damage to kill the Apostle ten times over. I had wondered what all those loud explosions in the background were; she had simply been having her way with it.
Sharin gestured to her empty waist. It appeared she had completely exhausted all the staves she carried. "It won't die to magic anymoreee."
If the Apostle of Irregularity died for the tenth time, it would enter a state of absolute immunity to either magic or physical attacks, depending on what had dealt the killing blow. I shuddered. Just how many times had she slaughtered the damn thing?
"Grrrrr..." Thoroughly enraged by the absurd magical bombardment, the Apostle of Irregularity let out a sickening growl. Seeing this, I came to a very clean, simple conclusion.
"Let's run!" And we ran like hell.