Chapter 664: Inheritance
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 664: Inheritance
"Everything alright on your end?"
"Just saving a few commoners. No trouble at all."
With a casual wave of the Indra King’s hand, Abel and the others, who had been severely wounded in the tent earlier, came drifting through the air toward them. Even Guri, who had gone out to act as bait, was among them.
"Fair point."
Muen nodded, feeling he had asked a bit of a silly question, and walked over to the group.
"Wait..."
Muen paused, a look of confusion crossing his face. He realized that their injuries hadn't been healed in the slightest. Their clothes were soaked with blood, and their state was wretched; he could even see several gruesome, exposed wounds. They were only alive because a powerful surge of fighting spirit was sustaining their life force, keeping them from the brink of death.
"Why haven't you treated them?" Muen asked with a strange expression, wondering when the Indra King had become so stingy.
"Because I don't know magic."
"?"
"I follow the path of the ascetic. I have tempered my physical body since childhood; I am a martial artist in the purest sense. Naturally, I cannot use magic. In fact, forget spells—I don't have a lick of talent for manipulating mana at all," the Indra King explained, his hands pressed together in a prayer-like gesture as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"...What about your avatar from before?"
"Just a tool I borrowed from the Inner Council."
"..."
"..."
Muen, whose magic talent was merely subpar, and the Indra King, whose talent was non-existent, stared at each other in a long, awkward silence.
"Fine, I miscalculated," Muen said, his cheek twitching.
He had assumed that as the Indra King—a man renowned across the continent who had once dominantly held his own against three opponents in Belland—he would at least know a few basic spells. He hadn't expected the man to be even more of a "pure" martial artist than himself.
At the very least, Muen could still cast an Illumination Spell. Looking at the Indra King... the man was probably less magically capable than Professor Prang’s cat.
"I should have brought a couple of staff members who specialize in magic."
Muen sighed and pulled out several healing magic scrolls, spreading their effects over the group. Normally, healing scrolls weren't particularly precious to Muen; he could toss them around without a second thought. But after seeing the state of things on his way to the Abyss, he knew that even ordinary healing scrolls had become incredibly valuable items.
"If we had brought others, we wouldn't have arrived this quickly," the Indra King noted.
"True enough."
To reach the Abyss as fast as possible, Muen had even abandoned the idea of stopping by the Campbell territory to see his mother. By the end of the journey, even their dragon-blood horses had collapsed from exhaustion. It was only because the Indra King had physically carried him through the air that they managed to cross more than half the Empire in such a short time.
Bringing two extra people just for the sake of a few healing spells would have been putting the cart before the horse. Besides, on a battlefield like the Abyss, one or two mages wouldn't change a thing. Even the stockpile of scrolls he carried was likely just a drop in the bucket. He could only save those directly in front of him.
"What about the things in the tents?"
"Confirmed to be magic materials. Half of the hundred-plus wagons were hiding them. The quantity is significant, and the quality is high."
The Indra King spoke with authority. Though he couldn't use magic, he still possessed the vision of a Crowned. He could distinguish the details of those materials far more clearly than Abel could.
"As I thought." Muen’s expression turned grim. "Items smuggled in by the Kingdom?"
"..."
The Indra King fell silent for a moment. He hesitated, then looked Muen in the eye. "I think it’s better if you see for yourself."
*
"Bastards!"
Inside a tent that had been torn to shreds by the previous explosion, Muen suddenly slammed his fist against the side of a wagon.
The magic materials hidden within the carriage had already been removed by the Indra King and piled into a shimmering mountain of metal. It was a staggering sight. But compared to the shock of seeing so many magic materials being smuggled to the demons, Muen was more incensed by something else.
"This... this is Imperial property?"
Muen’s palm brushed over the cold, metallic surfaces of the magic materials. He didn't have a profound understanding of magical components; although he hadn't given up on his studies, magic smelting required a massive amount of practical experience. Even with the Black Book Space, he currently lacked the free time to master that field.
However, as the son of Duke Campbell—a titan of the Empire’s military industry—he could tell at a single glance from the specifications and serial numbers that these materials definitely came from the Empire, not the Kingdom as he had first suspected.
After all, he had personally "borrowed" quite a few magic cannons from his own home; he knew how to recognize the markings. It was precisely because he recognized them that he was so furious.
"In your opinion, what are the odds that these were simply intercepted by the demons?" Muen asked, his voice turning cold as his anger reached a boiling point.
"Low," the Indra King replied. "No one transports unrefined magic materials to a battlefield. Soldiers can't use raw ore to kill enemies."
"...Right. Our soldiers can't use these to kill, but if they reach the demons' rear lines, they’ll be turned into weapons to kill our soldiers. By the way, do the demons even have the means to process magic devices?" Muen turned, looking puzzled.
"Presumably, yes." The Indra King glanced at the dismembered remains of Sorin.
"The demons are a strange race. They are clearly divided into low demons and high demons. Low demons mostly possess obvious physical aberrations—tusks, claws, or blue and red skin are the most common. The more severe the mutation, the lower the intelligence, and the more savage they become."
"High demons, however, are the exact opposite. The higher their status, the more they resemble humans. The royalty of the demon race, aside from their blood-red eyes and horns, are virtually indistinguishable from ordinary humans in appearance."
The Indra King paused. "But the bizarre thing is, once those high demons break through to the Crowned boundary, they become incredibly deformed—even more so than the low demons. They can hardly maintain a basic human shape and turn entirely into monsters. It’s almost as if... the world itself refuses to recognize them."
"I know all that, but does it have anything to do with whether they can manufacture magic devices?" Muen recalled the information Pink Bear had given him; it matched the Indra King’s description perfectly.
However, while Pink Bear’s intel was detailed, it hadn't mentioned anything about the demons' magical smelting capabilities. In previous wars, the demons had rarely used magic devices at all.
"The connection lies with the so-called 'Royalty.'"
At this point, the Indra King’s expression became equally solemn. "Though the demons are trapped in the Abyss, it is said they managed to avoid the cataclysm of the Great Chaos a thousand years ago because of it. There are rumors that the demon royalty may still possess the inheritance of ancient magic... and the methods to craft ancient artifacts."