Chapter 60
Bord shook Vistavern’s body in place of the pale-faced Elisha and Mary.
“Don’t deceive my comrades with your vile words, Marquis!”
“Urk, cough, cough! Youngsik! I’ll show my… Youngsik one of the most intriguing among my refined hobbies!”
The marquis raised his hand, revealing a ring. As he infused mana, the ring sparked and dimd.
The protagonist party instinctively knew they’d crossed an irreversible river.
Martin’s advice resurfaced, as did their failure to follow it.
Bord, still gripping the marquis’ collar, asked dumbly.
“What did you do, Marquis…?”
“House Vistavern.”
“What?”
“The black market slave storage.”
“What…”
“Twenty-five dium-grade Fla Burst magic circles, etched across Vistavern’s populous areas, the capital square, and various slums.”
The protagonist party’s faces turned ashen.
“Fully charged with mana stones. The firepower covers 100 ters forward from each circle. It won’t kill instantly, but it’s enough to turn the area into a sea of flas. Oh… isn’t that more thrilling than killing? Aren’t you curious how those uneducated livestock will behave in there?! Observing lowly humans to lead with greater authority! That’s nobility! That’s my refined hobby! So, ducal heirs! Five minutes until activation! What will you do?!”
Bang!
A gunshot rang out. A bullet cleanly pierced the head of the aristocratic supremacist Marquis Vistavern, silencing his madness.
“…Looks like I’m late.”
The protagonist party looked from the marquis to , just arriving. The pampered ducal heirs were in a panic.
Their expressions told instantly. I was late. My fears had beco reality.
“Gilbert, Lina, you seem sowhat composed. I’ll ask. Did the marquis activate the magic circles?”
“…Yeah, he did.”
I shouldn’t have lingered watching the princess. I didn’t expect the protagonist party to reach him so fast. I underestimated the Four Great Ducal Families’ intelligence network.
And their stupidity! I underestimated that too!
“So, Cadet Gilbert.”
“…Huh?”
“Stop spacing out and tell . What now?”
***
Elisha, Bord, and Mary frantically shouted into communication crystals.
“Marquis Vistavern has rebelled! Don’t you get it?! He hid Fla Buster magic circles across the capital and activated them!”
“They’ll explode in five minutes! Find a way! Isn’t that what the Humanity Preservation Agency is for?!”
“Please! Please believe !”
Watching my friends, just erging from panic, move desperately… they might’ve realized deep down there was no solution.
Gilbert, unable to steady his trembling eyes, muttered.
“…I’ll save everyone.”
Twenty-five magic circles hidden across the capital, the heart of the Imperium Empire. Find and stop them all in five minutes?
I barely held back a hollow laugh.
“You can’t save everyone.”
“I have to. Sohow…!”
Even in the worst situations, heroes win and save all. A cliché of heroic tales gripped Gilbert like an obsession.
“Is there a way?”
“A way… a way… a way…!”
As if struck by a sudden idea, Gilbert’s expression flipped.
“There’s a core. Like the ring that activated 25 dium-grade spells at once, there’s a magical core…”
“How will you find it?”
“It’s… probably at the marquisate, right?”
“Five minutes won’t get you there in ti.”
“Y-Yeah… damn it, think! Five minutes! Five minutes!”
Gilbert clutched his head, racking his brain. With his ridiculously overpowered skill, he might pull it off.
“I… I…!”
Protagonist Plot Armor Lv Max. Within the story, it’s near invincible.
But one thing to rember: plot armor is completed by the author’s hand. Every miracle turning impossibility to possibility, defeat to victory, stems from the author’s ‘favor.’
Gilbert was Recola’s most favored protagonist.
But Recola wasn’t an easy person.
Coldly, Recola was harsh on the story’s characters.
They gave trials, made them grow through failure, imposed loss, and forced overcoming.
In other words, within the author’s favor, the protagonist sotis headed toward ‘inevitable failure.’
‘This is that mont.’
In the original, the 25 magic circles activated just like this. The protagonist party stood there, devising plans, and shockingly saved no one.
Bianca died in the Helaine incident, Nerjin committed suicide, and Marquis Vistavern caused a catastrophe in the capital. They stopped nothing.
Among the string of failures, Marquis Vistavern was the pinnacle. It fully awakened the protagonist party. A brilliant narrative device.
‘I don’t have a solution either.’
How could I know a boss ant for next year would appear now?
Of course, it was my fault. I warned them to be careful, but the protagonist party encountering Vistavern was entirely my doing. Still, I’d make the sa choice if ti rewound.
The retrieval of the Sword Demon and the protagonist party’s growth outweighed the tens of thousands of citizens who’d die in this incident.
“Martin!”
Gilbert called .
“You… you have a way, don’t you?!”
What was he talking about?
“…What way would I have?”
“Because… because you…!”
Gilbert started to say sothing but clamped his mouth shut. What was he trying to say?
Instead of pressing , he rallied the party.
“Guys, get up! Run! To the marquisate! The first to arrive disarms the bomb! Report to national agencies too!”
It made sense. Ti was ticking. While the protagonist party ran toward the ‘best’ outco… I ran toward the ‘next best.’
Because I knew the best would fail.
I scanned the chaotic black market, grabbed a riderless horse, and mounted it. My riding skill shone.
I headed straight for the Imperium Empire’s pride, the Grand Square—a hotspot with thousands passing through at any ti.
I climbed a six-story building near the square, overlooking it all.
‘How much ti left?’
One minute. Less than one minute.
I focused all my mana to heighten my senses. My perception enveloped the entire square. My ears caught hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of sounds. My vision scanned every brick, every leaf. My head ached. Overload fever set in.
Wild Instinct (Lv 3) expands perception range, searching for threats!
Know-It-All (Lv 3) sharply boosts focus! Identifies weaknesses in Vistavern’s magic!
About 40 seconds passed. 20 seconds remained. But at the edge of this tightrope, I found it.
‘There!’
The clock tower at the square’s center—its spire held the bomb!
If it exploded, a firestorm would cascade from the spire, engulfing the square and its people.
I had to stop it.
‘It’s far.’
Climbing the clock tower would take too long. Even if I reached it, I couldn’t disarm the spell or move it elsewhere.
Then—
I pulled a magic bullet from my ammo pouch, one Nerjin made. A single mana-freezing bullet crafted from opal.
Click. Loading it, the barrel humd with mana’s turbulence.
‘Aim.’
I sat on the rooftop, taking a precise aiming stance. The target: a stone slab with the Fla Buster magic circle, etched on the clock tower’s top floor!
Firearm Proficiency (Lv 1) blesses you.
Movent (Lv 3) aids your motion.
Wild Instinct (Lv 3) tis the perfect mont.
Know-It-All (Lv 3) analyzes and assists all conditions.
15 seconds.
10 seconds.
5 seconds.
I pulled the trigger.
The mana-stone hamr struck the magic bullet. An explosion in the casing propelled the projectile.
The radiant opal bullet flew toward the clock tower’s spire. It dodged the moving hour, minute, and second hands, weaving through countless gears, and lodged dead center in the slab.
The opal glowed, freezing the magic circle.
‘I did it!’
Even as ti ran out, no explosion rocked the Grand Square. People chatted, shopped, and read, oblivious to what nearly happened.
But then, loud explosions and flas erupted across the capital.
***
‘As expected.’
I stood before the Vistavern marquisate. It was hot. The entire building blazed with red flas. The once-beautiful garden burned like a scene from hell.
It burned so fiercely that the fire brigade, arriving earlier, gave up on suppression after seeing the state of it.
‘Ti to move.’
Turning from the towering flas, I finally heard the cries of escaped survivors. Fewer than a handful were unscathed. Most had burns, so severe, and there were dead too.
“….”
I’m sorry I couldn’t stop it. That’s all. I wasn’t sure if I needed to cry for them. They were just naless extras in a novel, weren’t they? Rather than waste emotions, conserving strength was the rational choice.
Look now. The marquisate, turning to ash, still crackled with defensive and interception spells. Even if I’d co, piercing all obstacles to hit the core from such a distance would’ve required Firearm Mastery, not just Proficiency, and at its peak.
It was impossible from the start. So let’s not cling to regrets.
Entering an alley, it was as quiet as another world.
“….”
Back to Martin’s Maid Café. Bury today’s events in my heart. Grow to handle any situation with composure.
Tap. Tap. Looking up, light rain began to fall.
“Martin.”
In a deserted alley—
“…Cadet Gilbert?”
The protagonist was waiting for . A re trash extra villain like , waited for by the protagonist himself.
“What’s this about?”
“Why… why couldn’t you save them?”
Gilbert’s face was dark, steeped in defeat.
I knew that face. That expression. …It was . The who failed repeatedly with my tiny, dust-like talent among countless writers.
“I stopped the magic in the Grand Square, at least.”
“Couldn’t you have saved everyone?”
“How would I know that?”
“You might’ve been able to!”
Gilbert shouted and lunged at . Before I could react, he grabbed my collar.
“Why! Why didn’t you even try! Why only the Grand Square’s magic!”
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