I lifted my eyelids.
A blurry orange hue spread across my vision like paint.
Hair. Soone’s hair.
“Wow, wow, wow!”
A middle-aged woman crouched in front of , chattering excitedly.
Qudil, one of the Nine Elders.
The mont I recognized her, my mind sharpened.
“Look at these eyes! They’re like gemstones! I could sell them for a fortune!”
“You’re making such a fuss over sothing so trivial.”
Oops. I had ant to keep that thought to myself.
Still, I wasn’t lying.
Siora’s appearance was decent, but my original body was far more impressive!
“My, my, you’re humble too.”
“Mmgh.”
“What a sha. Killing such a beauty…”
Qudil clicked her tongue, tapping a dagger idly against the floor.
I didn’t respond, instead scanning my surroundings.
This wasn’t the sa carriage I had been in before losing consciousness.
This one was larger and bulkier, though the windows were also covered with thick black curtains.
A transport carriage, most likely.
But other than that, nothing seed different.
I wasn’t bound. My vision wasn’t obstructed.
Ah, but my fingers did feel a little… empty.
The ring Cruello had given was missing.
And that ant—
“Looking for this?”
Qudil held up her hand, the ring glinting on her finger.
As long as it wasn’t lost, that was fine.
“I can feel the mana in it. Is it a magic tool?”
“More or less.”
“Is it expensive?”
“Probably.”
A ring linked to a permanent gate? It had to be worth a fortune.
I answered lazily, growing a bit bolder.
—Second Spell, Sensory Expansion.
The carriage was moving through an isolated area.
A mountain path, perhaps?
Aside from Qudil and the driver, no one else was nearby.
And the driver—just an ordinary human.
Had she chosen to work alone to minimize traces?
“…Hey.”
Qudil spoke up awkwardly.
“Do you… have trouble feeling emotions? Aren’t you scared right now?”
Had she sensed my divine energy?
No, that wasn’t it.
She wasn’t that skilled of a dark magician.
Just as clerics were highly sensitive to dark magic, the reverse was also true.
Even though Pebula’s divine power was subtle and natural, a proper dark magician should have noticed it.
Pathetic.
“Why?”
“What do you an, why? You’ve been kidnapped.”
“But I’m not tied up or threatened.”
“That’s because it’d be a hassle if there were any marks on your corpse… wait, why are you speaking informally?”
“And you’re not?”
“Ugh, I knew sothing was off. No wonder you were so insistent on marrying that brat.”
She had hoped to see frightened.
What a waste.
Qudil stood up, stretching her back. She was taller than I had expected.
Looking unimpressed, she knocked against the driver’s seat.
“Just drive us off the cliff, Aster!”
The carriage sped up.
Just as she said, a cliff was approaching fast.
I had less than three minutes.
I spoke to Qudil, who looked rather disappointed.
“Aren’t you going to explain things to ? This is usually where villains ramble about how they’ve ‘crossed a line’ and all that. Isn’t that a cliché?”
“What’s the point? Would your insane brain even comprehend it?”
“Ah, how disappointing.”
“Huh?”
“In that case, let explain, and you can correct if I’m wrong.”
Qudil let out a scoffing laugh, crossing her arms.
She jerked her chin, signaling to go ahead.
I started rambling.
“Siora Bonetti was transferred from a White Desert carriage to a different one. The goal was to make it look like she ran away from the engagent ceremony.”
The White Desert driver would likely say:
‘Lady Siora stepped out for a mont and then ran off sowhere.’
At the last mont, she panicked and fled, borrowing a transport carriage.
“This carriage will be found at the bottom of a cliff.”
A tragic accident.
“What, even a three-year-old could figure that out. I thought you had sothing insightful to say.”
“The one who ordered this is the Elder Council.”
“Alright, I’ll upgrade you to a twelve-year-old.”
“The only Elder currently present is Qudil White Desert.”
At the ntion of her na, Qudil’s expression finally shifted.
Thanks for humoring with your obvious reactions.
It gave more than enough ti to gather divine energy.
And I still had a few seconds to spare.
“Well then, thanks for the al.”
I condensed the divine energy I had been collecting into a single point—then released it all at once.
—Sixth Spell. Brilliance.
Fwoosh!
A burst of firefly-sized light erupted before , expanding outward like an explosion.
Everything turned blindingly white.
Since this spell only targeted dark mana—dark magicians, monsters, and the like—the carriage itself remained intact.
Qudil, however, was another story—
“Or at least, that’s what I thought—what the hell?!”
The carriage lurched violently.
The horses whinnied in panic.
The entire carriage rattled as if it were about to fall apart.
This wasn’t ant to happen—transport carriages weren’t designed to absorb impact, and every hit sent painful shocks through my body.
I clung desperately to the torn curtains, barely managing to hold on.
By the ti the carriage finally stopped, my hair was a complete ss.
Gasping for breath, I tried to make sense of what had happened.
What?
The driver wasn’t a dark magician.
A regular human should have only been montarily blinded…
“…Oh.”
I see.
Of course.
How was a blinded driver supposed to keep the carriage on the road?
Feeling a bit foolish, I cleared my throat.
“Ahem. Well, it’s my first ti being kidnapped. It can’t be helped.”
I’ll get it right next ti.
Clenching my fist, I steeled my resolve.
At that mont, the driver’s seat was ripped clean off.
“AAAHHH!”
A scream faded into the distance.
I slowly shifted toward the gaping hole.
Just as Qudil had said, we had been seconds away from plunging off a cliff. The view was dizzying, and one of the carriage’s wheels was already sticking out past the edge.
“If we had gone any farther, we’d be dead for sure.”
Fortunately, the two horses, though injured, were still alive.
I could fix them.
The driver… well, judging by the silence, he had fallen straight down.
I pressed my palms together, gazing at the abyss below.
Pebula, one soul incoming.
“Cough!”
The sound of soone hacking up blood snapped back to the present.
Qudil lay crumpled on the ground, utterly wrecked.
Not dead, but close to it.
I retrieved my ring, which had rolled near her, and asked,
“Are you really an Elder? Why are you so weak?”
I had caught her off guard, sure, but a Sixth-Order spell was equivalent to what a high priest could cast.
Soone overseeing an entire parish—excluding the Imperial capital—at best.
Yet, this woman was supposedly among the top five Elders?
Ares, the Elder I had t at the Harvest Festival, had been on a completely different level.
“Khkk… heh… heh… heheh…”
Was that a groan of pain or laughter?
“Don’t tell this is your dying monologue—”
A blob of inky black liquid shot toward my face.
Poison.
A familiar one, at that. I had seen it during the Recanon incident.
I squinted but made no effort to dodge.
“Purification.”
The toxin evaporated instantly.
Qudil was already on her feet.
“That’s right. I am weak. I have no stamina, no refined senses. I let my guard down at every opportunity, and my focus is terrible.”
“……”
“And yet, I beca an Elder, kid.”
Her lips curled into a near-maniacal grin.
“Because I can control animals.”
Thud.
Sothing slamd into the carriage.
Through my heightened senses, I picked up the scene outside.
One of the injured horses had smashed its head against the carriage.
Once.
Twice.
Three tis.
The wheels groaned, inching toward the cliff’s edge.
Qudil’s eyes glead with a slick, oily sheen.
“You’re just as careless as I am, aren’t you?”
Hah.
I let out an incredulous laugh.
“You’re going to push the carriage off the cliff? Be my guest.”
“Hah! Trying to bluff—”
“I said do it.”
Her expression stiffened.
The horses, too, stopped moving.
“What? Can’t do it? Should I do it for you?”
I gathered divine power into my hands once more.
The condensed white light swirled, forming the shape of a hamr.
A faint blue current crackled across its surface.
—Seventh-Order spell. Judgnt.
I had made it smaller, but unlike my previous spell, this one would deal physical damage as well.
It had enough force to shatter the precarious cliff supporting the carriage.
The mont I lifted the hamr—
“W-Wait! Just a second!”
“I’m busy. Talk fast.”
“No, seriously—are you insane?! What the hell are you relying on?!”
Her frantic eyes darted toward my hand.
Where my ring, now back in its rightful place, shimred.
“…That ring—it’s a teleportation spell, isn’t it? A gate?”
“Oh, now you get it? You really thought I was bluffing? Bold. Stupid, but bold.”
Qudil let out a hollow laugh.
Seeing as our conversation was done, I raised the hamr again.
“Wait, wait, please, wait!”
“You already got your answer. Why do you keep calling for ?”
“Let’s think rationally, okay? If this carriage falls, it won’t benefit either of us. Right? I know a lot of things. If I die here, you’ll lose valuable intel!”
“That’s all you’ve got?”
“Spare !”
Qudil imdiately dropped to her knees, flashing a pitiful smile.
She looked so pathetic that I actually laughed.
Well, at least I had broken her spirit.
Just as I was about to speak—
Beep-beep! Beep-beep!
A sharp, repetitive noise rang out.
The sound ca from inside Qudil’s pocket.
She hesitated, then pulled out a small, glowing blue orb.
A communication sphere.
“Put it through.”
Let’s see who was calling.
I tightened my grip on the hamr as she channeled her mana into the orb.
The sphere pulsed red.
A deep, rigid male voice ca through imdiately.
[What happened?]
A voice I had heard before—at the Harvest Festival.
The Tenth Elder, Ares.
“What do you an?”
[The engagent ceremony is proceeding as planned. Siora Bonetti is here.]
“…What kind of nonsense is that? How could she be there—”
Qudil’s voice trailed off, her eyes narrowing.
Then she let out a bitter chuckle, muttering to herself,
“So it was a trap from the start. How humiliating.”
Obviously.
The mont I crawled under that fountain, the trap had already been set.
Reviews
All reviews (0)