Chapter 30
The Mage of the Abandoned Warehouse (3)
“Hmm?”
Raleid’s eyes flew open when she sensed the terrifying force emanating from the whip-shaped energy attack extending from Kaspar’s hand.
Its power surged instantaneously, seemingly doubling compared to just before he attacked, leaving Raleid aghast.
The whip came crashing down vertically.
“Whoa!”
She twisted her body as far to the side as possible, narrowly slipping out of its trajectory.
It missed her by the breadth of a sheet of paper. A large lock of hair that failed to follow her movement was sliced away.
“Aren’t you an adorable little thing?”
She extended her hand, and poisonous plants bloomed at a terrifying speed. A massive pillar formed from dozens—perhaps hundreds—of intertwined vines and surged upward.
The recoil from the sap they expelled sent the Force Whip soaring back into the air.
With a harsh scraping sound, it carved a long scar across the ceiling above them.
Patter.
Grotesque flowers bloomed across the pillar.
Before Kaspar’s next attack could reach her, Raleid took shelter behind the vines and used them as a shield.
Crack!
The vines struck by the whip split apart, spraying sap everywhere.
Sizzle.
The ceiling cracked. Despite having borne the weight of time for so many years, it broke apart and collapsed with startling ease.
Sandlike dust and discarded materials strewn across the second floor came pouring down, raising a dense cloud of dust across the ground floor.
The floor produced acrid smoke wherever the sap touched it, suggesting that the liquid was acidic.
Kaspar’s throat and eyes stung.
He covered his mouth with his sleeve, suppressing the cough threatening to burst out, and brought the whip down upon Raleid once more.
It was an unrelenting offensive.
However, the attacks that followed were somewhat less formidable than the initial blow.
A whip was a weapon with which anyone other than an expert would struggle to land consecutive strikes.
Indeed, Raleid was gradually discerning the trajectories of Kaspar’s attacks and blocking them.
Sometimes she dodged with her body; other times she hid behind the continuously sprouting vines.
“Hmm, you really are remarkable. You’ve refined a spell favored only by slave traders for flogging their slaves into something this devastating. You’re no ordinary mage, are you?”
She had regained enough composure to smile and praise her opponent’s attacks.
Of course, Kaspar was already aware of this limitation.
“Whips really are rather difficult. It’s also hard to grow accustomed to one in only a few days.”
“Hmm? A few days?”
Raleid repeated incredulously.
Could he truly be unleashing this much power with a spell he had learned only a few days ago?
Instead of answering her question, Kaspar formed another magic pattern.
It was time to supplement his attack with a different spell.
Barrier.
Force Missile.
Force Burst.
Shock Pulse.
The spells taught to him by the gang leader rapidly passed through his mind.
Kaspar quickly narrowed down the spells he could cast immediately, then activated the second one.
Force Missile.
Masses of white magical light churned at his fingertips. They were honed into sharp wedges resembling shards of glass.
“Wow… You can cast two spells simultaneously? At your age? Impressive.”
Raleid praised him in genuine admiration.
This time, however, she did not remain idle.
Abandoning her entirely defensive posture, Raleid switched to the offensive and pointed at Kaspar.
Poisonous flowers throughout the warehouse blossomed in unison, following the direction of her fingertip. The thorns concealed within them shot forward with terrifying force.
The Force Missiles also launched from Kaspar’s hand without delay.
The two waves—Force Missiles and poisonous thorns—collided.
“How remarkable.”
Kaspar gazed at the long thorns trembling directly before his eyes.
Had he not erected another Barrier inside his Shield as a precaution, all those thorns would now have been embedded in his body.
Just before Raleid fired the thorns, he had recalled how easily she had penetrated his Shield and entered the abandoned warehouse. The precaution he had taken just in case had proven worthwhile.
Bang, bang, bang!
A gale of dust filled the warehouse.
Fragments of magic burst in every direction.
“Even Lady Sael had difficulty penetrating my Shield.”
Of course, Raleid’s thorns operated by concentrating their offensive power into a single point.
Therefore, it was difficult to conclude that their total power was greater than Sael’s attacks.
There was simply a difference in compatibility with a Shield, which used magical power to protect a broad area.
Conversely, her thorns were poorly matched against a Barrier that densely protected a limited area, allowing Kaspar to block her attack.
“Well, I’m superior in plenty of ways to that ill-tempered bitch.”
Raleid swept her disheveled hair behind her ears.
Her reaction appeared relaxed, but she felt nothing of the sort inside.
‘What in the world is this boy?’
Even after Sael returned defeated from the meeting, Raleid had assumed that her personality had caused her to lower her guard or that several unfortunate circumstances had coincided.
Her hatred of humans aside, Raleid rated Sael’s abilities highly.
But she had been mistaken.
Grievously mistaken.
As their names suggested, Force Whip and Force Missile were spells that utilized force fields.
They consisted of pure energy extracted from mana, making them easy to control. Their versatility was so great that there was nothing strange about learning them alongside magic from other schools.
Yet despite their tremendous versatility, there was no proper Magic Tower dedicated to them.
Mages did not study them in earnest. They merely employed them as supplementary tools for whichever school they specialized in.
The only people who treated such spells as their primary weapons were beginners who had just taken their first steps along the path of magic.
‘Yet those pathetic low-level spells neutralized my thorns?’
It was absurd.
Moreover, Kaspar did not appear even slightly exhausted.
That meant even the power he had displayed thus far was not the full extent of his abilities.
“Ha…”
Raleid disliked fighting opponents whose depths she could not discern.
She brushed the dust from above her eyebrows.
“I’ll ask you again. Can’t you simply let me leave? This seems to be your home, and you’ll be sad if it gets completely ruined.”
“As I said before, no.”
“What an obsession you have with your big sister, little boy.”
Raleid smiled at Kaspar as he prepared his next attack.
Despite the turmoil raging within her, she continued to cloak herself in outward composure and provocation.
“There’s something I want to know. I doubt you’ll answer unless I capture you.”
“Really? Something about me?”
“No, about the Black Druids.”
“Hmm? Ahaha. What? How dull… You could have simply asked me.”
“Would you have answered?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“In that case…”
Kaspar temporarily dismissed his whip. Raleid also gathered the poisonous vines filling the warehouse into one place.
The battle abruptly entered a lull. Only the bewildered dust, having nowhere else to go, slowly settled around them.
“Ask away. What do you want to know about us?”
“Why now?”
“Hmm?”
Kaspar continued.
“As I understand it, the Black Druid Society is an organization with a fairly long history. I’ve heard that you are a branch of the ancient druids and that your original territory of activity wasn’t the Eternal Forest, but the more heavily forested regions scattered throughout the Empire.”
Kaspar recited what he had read in books and heard from others.
“You’re well informed.”
“Then I’ll ask again. Why have the Black Druids, who should be scattered throughout the Empire, gathered in the Eternal Forest now?”
“……”
Raleid fell silent. Kaspar’s question had taken her by surprise.
‘I expected him to ask about our organization or objectives at most.’
The Black Druid Society had operated from the shadows since ancient times, but its activities had diminished in recent years.
It still occasionally demonstrated its presence by causing scattered calamities in small and medium-sized territories throughout the Empire, but those incidents had remained local and limited in scale.
So why had they now gathered in one place within the Eternal Forest?
“At first, I assumed you merely intended to awaken the kin and their masters. But when I calmly think it through, it doesn’t make sense.”
They must have had countless opportunities to do that in the past.
So why now?
“…What? You weren’t curious about how many beautiful women belong to the Black Druids or what position would be waiting for you if you joined us? How disappointing.”
“You’re avoiding the question.”
Kaspar instinctively realized that Raleid found this particular question extremely uncomfortable.
“Lady Sael said that you needed to gather sacrifices.”
“She even told you that? Honestly, that girl talks far too much.”
At that moment, Raleid noticed Kaspar staring intently at her.
“Hehe, Kaspar. Just so you know, the gathering of the Beast Walkers and their alliance with us… the upper echelons of this gateway fortress already know all about it. They simply haven’t released the information to the rest of you yet. In other words, it isn’t such an enormous secret.”
White Eagle Fortress did not rely solely on mercenaries to monitor the forest.
It also received constant information about the forest through Long Rangers, sharp-eared elves, and druids who cooperated with civilization.
While obtaining every detail might be difficult, grasping the forest’s overall movements was not.
“You seem to have believed that the fortress’s senior officials would tell you everything. I can see it on your face.”
“Perhaps. In any case, after putting together everything I know, I reached one conclusion: you discovered something in the forest.”
“Discovered something?”
“Yes. A discovery.”
Raleid had intended to unsettle Kaspar by pointing out how the upper ranks monopolized information, but she fell silent.
The single word “discovery” instead made her anxious.
Kaspar continued.
“I don’t know what it is. But I can infer that it must be extraordinary enough to gather all of you here and convince you to join forces with the Beast Walkers to attack this place. Something so valuable that you’re willing to disregard the consequences.”
Why had such powerful druids gathered in one place?
The question had first occurred to Kaspar in passing while he listened to the story of Mark’s merchant company during their carriage ride. After considering it from several angles, he had reached a single conclusion.
They had discovered something worthy of all this.
Something extraordinary enough to make the Black Druids attack White Eagle Fortress, one of the gateways of the north.
Something they could obtain only by attacking it.
It might be an artifact or something else entirely, but Kaspar secretly hoped it was magic.
“……”
Perhaps it was.
Kaspar’s eyes gleamed.
“Is it an artifact? Or perhaps… magic?”
It had begun as nothing more than a question.
Raleid, meanwhile, no longer looked pleased. Her relaxed, seductive expression—the mask she had maintained until now—had vanished, revealing a stiff and hardened face.
“…Kaspar.”
Her voice was considerably colder than before.
“Yes?”
“Congratulations. You were almost entirely correct.”
“Oh, that’s good news. I’m pleased to hear I nearly got it right.”
“…You were wrong about only one thing. It isn’t magic.”
“Is that so? What a shame.”
Kaspar looked genuinely disappointed.
Why did that have to be the one part he got wrong?
“It’s all right. You don’t have to be disappointed.”
“…Pardon?”
“Because you’re going to die here.”
Raleid simultaneously snapped the fingers of both hands.
At the sharp sound, poisonous plants erupted throughout the warehouse like geysers.
Rumble!
The discarded materials covering the floor were suddenly hurled into the air. The force she now unleashed was on an entirely different level from before.
“Amazing. How did you figure out that much? And what a shame that I can’t leave you alive. If I let you go now, they’ll suspect that I revealed our secrets to you.”
When Raleid finished speaking, the look in her eyes changed.
Bloodlust surged from her.
The vines dominating the warehouse extended into every corner.
A forest formed inside the abandoned warehouse.
Then every plant composing that forest bloomed simultaneously.
Poisonous thorns concealed within them aimed at Kaspar from every direction, converging upon a single point.
Kaspar knew instinctively that there was nowhere to evade.
‘In that case…’
Fwoosh!
Shock Pulse.
The thorns launched from their vines. Immediately afterward, Kaspar completed the magic pattern.
Then he released it.
Whoooooosh!
The air inside the warehouse compressed violently around Kaspar. Even the poison thorns flying toward him were dragged by the suction force and knocked off course.
Crash! Crash! Crash!
The windows shattered.
The shards of glass that poured inward—along with dust, discarded materials, and even the stones scattered across the floor—were all pulled toward Kaspar.
“W-What is that?!”
Raleid muttered in astonishment.
The air and mana compressed around Kaspar reached their limit, humming with instability.
Booooom!
The compressed air exploded outward in every direction.
A spherical shock wave expanded, repelling everything in its path.
The poison thorns were hurled backward and embedded themselves in the poisonous vines surrounding the warehouse.
The vines were shredded by the very thorns they had fired.
Sap sprayed everywhere. The warehouse walls rippled like waves beneath the force of the shock wave.
Before Raleid could react, the shock wave swept her entire body away.
She flew backward at terrifying speed and crashed into the warehouse wall.
Crack!
Fractures spread like a spiderweb behind her.
Kaspar did not stop. His other hand had already drawn another magic pattern.
Force Burst.
Before the explosion of Shock Pulse had even subsided, Kaspar thrust both hands forward.
Whooom!
A force field shaped like a solid wall shot straight ahead.
It tore through the forest of poisonous plants already devastated by Shock Pulse. Vines were uprooted and sent flying backward.
Boom!
Raleid’s body had been mangled so badly that it would not have been surprising if she had died instantly.
Yet she rose again.
“As I thought, this is another clone.”
Raleid did not answer.
The sap covering the surroundings flowed back into her body, restoring it to its original state.
“How troublesome.”
Kaspar’s brow furrowed slightly.
He had not seen a magic pattern.
Then was that recovery a divine power? Or was it a supernatural ability that existed beyond the realm of magic?
This time, Force Burst struck her directly.
Raleid’s body was smashed apart by the tremendous energy that hit her head-on.
Splosh.
“I owe you an apology, Kaspar.”
Amazingly, Raleid rose again, blood and bodily fluids dripping from her.
Once her body had recovered, she did not become angry. Instead, she regarded Kaspar with a somewhat calmer gaze.
“…?”
“I apologize for my foolishness in trying to face you with only a clone. You drove Sael back, after all. I was far too arrogant.”
Raleid’s voice had grown much quieter.
That only made her seem even more unsettling.
“But I can’t withdraw like this. I have a reputation to uphold, you know. As the Sixth Branch, I should show you something worthy of my rank.”
“Oh? If you’re the Sixth Branch, then you outrank Lady Sael, who is the Seventh?”
“…What?”
Raleid’s body trembled.
“Well, you truly do live and learn. I never imagined that I, Raleid, would one day be treated like this.”
At that moment—
Splosh.
Her voice suddenly rose.
“My apologies. I assumed you ranked below Lady Sael.”
Kaspar bowed his head apologetically.
But his apology came far too late.
Raleid’s trembling body instantly transformed into a mass of liquid and spilled across the floor.
“…?”
Her eyes had already rolled back from the shock of being mistaken for Sael’s subordinate.
“Hehehehehehehe.”
At the same time, the vines scattered across the warehouse floor withered and collapsed.
Then, just like Raleid, they melted as though someone had poured a corrosive solution over them. Blackish-green sap flowed out and covered the floor.
The viscous liquid soon spread into a shallow pool and flowed out of the abandoned warehouse.
Then—
Rrrrrumble.
The entire warehouse shook.
No—it was not merely shaking.
The ground outside the warehouse was rising.
Enormous petals broke through the surface from all around the abandoned warehouse.
“…What is this?”
There was more than one petal.
After extending in every direction, the petals formed a massive flower bud that enclosed the warehouse.
The entire building now stood inside a single gigantic flower.
“What do you think, Kaspar? Is my true form beautiful?”
The voice of Raleid—who had melted away, or rather, revealed her true form—drifted through the entire warehouse like the wind.
“So you weren’t human, Lady Raleid. Are you a flower?”
Instead of answering, the petals rustled and began to move.
Slowly but unmistakably, they started closing inward.
The space inside the warehouse steadily narrowed.
The walls collapsed and pressed toward Kaspar. Countless thorns and tentacle-like appendages, each as large as his palm, squirmed grotesquely across the petals’ inner surfaces.
“You see, I enjoy digesting my prey slowly.”
Maniacal delight filled Raleid’s voice.
Rumble!
The petals constricted even faster. The space around Kaspar grew smaller and smaller.
The entire abandoned warehouse was being chewed and swallowed by her enormous, grotesque poisonous flower.
Even Kaspar’s Shield began bubbling wherever the viscous fluid dripping from the petals touched it.
“…?”
If he remained there, he would undoubtedly be digested just as she had promised.
Kaspar wanted to experiment further with the spells he had learned from the gang leader, but none of them seemed particularly useful in the current situation.
‘In that case…’
It was time to bring out the magic he normally used.
“I can hardly wait to watch you slowly dissolve inside me. And then… Hmm?”
Raleid’s relaxed voice suddenly stopped, as though she had noticed something.
Why had she stopped?
Well, it probably did not matter.
Kaspar began forming the spell he had prepared.
Ignite.
At that exact moment, an enormous wave of heat came from outside.
But he had not cast Ignite yet.
“WILL OF FIIIIIIRE!”
It was Rude’s voice.