Chapter 100
‘I never imagined I would see her here…’
It felt strange.
Lezarua Sharten.
This was my first ti eting her, but I knew a certain amount about her.
She was the commander of a large-class airship, one of the few mages whose na Reysia rembered, and a Nad hero that the Alliance prided itself on.
The fact that she, who should be on the front lines, appeared here could be seen as the Alliance judging the zombie situation facing Monora—and by extension, the rgan Kingdom—as a very urgent matter.
At the sa ti, it was also proof that Odin’s influence on the front lines had diminished.
Lezarua moved very busily.
The first thing she did was to seize the lord’s command authority. She then reorganized the remaining forces in Monora, stationed them on the city walls, and placed her own soldiers in between them.
This was because although the imdiate fire had been put out, the zombie situation that had befallen Monora had not been completely resolved.
After finishing the deploynt of her troops, Lezarua ca to find Celina.
“Celina Verdin.”
“It has been a long ti.”
“Indeed. There is much I wish to discuss with you, but given the circumstances, let us postpone the idle chat for later. First, I would like a situation report.”
“Understood.”
Given who her opponent was, Celina was more disciplined than usual.
Celina, standing at attention, reported the events I had experienced in Haram, Monora, and Sursa Village.
She summarized as much as possible for the listener’s sake, but did not leave out any important details, and she continued her story fluently without stuttering or getting stuck.
Lezarua, who was listening to the report calmly, whispered sothing to her subordinate.
And a mont later, the lord of Monora was captured and brought over.
It would have been great if he had died without a trace when the zombies sward the city walls, but damn it, he was a tenacious man when it ca to his own life.
As soon as their eyes t, Lezarua frowned and pressed the lord.
“Lezarua Sharten…”
“Lord. You will need to explain.”
Lezarua’s gaze towards the lord was different.
When she was dealing with the soldiers who had fought hard on the walls and with Celina, she had shown a warm and gentle smile.
But now, she was so murderous that her gaze alone could have snuffed out a person’s life.
I was worried that the utterly incompetent lord of Monora might not be able to handle her gaze and faint, but perhaps because he was a mage after all, the lord calmly received her murderous gaze.
“I was planning to report after I had a perfect grasp of the monster’s strength. I could not submit a false report to the royal family. It is just that an unforeseen problem occurred.”
“An unforeseen problem?”
“It seems there is a traitor within the city.”
As he said that, the lord of Monora placed sothing on the table.
It was the handle of the torch with its head cut off, which I had discovered the previous night.
“All the torches on the city walls are in this state. As you can see from the cross-section, soone intentionally cut them, and I believe it is the result of magic. Because the light suddenly disappeared, the soldiers of Monora, despite being in proper formation, were unilaterally defeated.”
“A traitor…”
Lezarua did not hide her displeasure.
The lord submitted a list of mages.
The number of mages currently staying in Monora, excluding minors who could not yet perfectly handle magic, was a total of twenty-one.
Celina was also included in that list.
“Are you certain that the traitor is among these people? What about the possibility of a hidden mage?”
“I cast a detection spell over all of Monora just a mont ago. No new mana was detected other than the mages listed. Except for Celina Verdin here, all of them are at their respective posts defending Monora, but if you wish, I will summon all the mages.”
“No. There is no need for that.”
She said flatly.
I thought it was a display of confidence that they would not lose even if a traitor existed, but that did not seem to be the case.
Lezarua’s eyes shone, and at the tip of her finger, a small butterfly made of mana spread its wings.
The butterfly, which flew up gracefully, hovered around the cut surface of the torch before starting to fly off sowhere.
“Let us follow it.”
“That butterfly is…”
“It is a tracking spell to which I have added so modifications through my own thods. It analyzes the properties from the traces of mana and, based on the results, is made to follow the trail of the source of the trace.”
“……”
Lezarua spoke as if it were nothing, but Celina looked extrely shocked.
To be honest, as soone who is not a mage, I do not know how amazing this magic is.
However, from Celina’s expression, as if she had encountered an insurmountable wall, and the lord’s face, as if he had bitten into a bug, I could indirectly tell what a great mage Lezarua was.
Ignoring the ntal shock the two mages had received, Lezarua took the lead and followed the butterfly.
The butterfly continued to fly in a straight line with a clear objective, maintaining a speed of a slightly fast walk at about eye level.
It passed through the streets that had been turned into a ss by the zombie outbreak the previous night and headed for the quiet outskirts.
“Lord.”
“Speak.”
“Are all the mages currently on the list deployed on the city walls?”
“In the case of mages who have developed their magic more for daily life than for combat, I have deployed them to restore the damaged city, but… there are no mages deployed in such a remote place.”
“…I see.”
Lezarua, who had closed her mouth, continued to follow the butterfly.
The butterfly led us to a small house on the outskirts of the city.
The butterfly, perhaps having this old house as its destination, circled the area once and then entered the building through a wide-open window.
Lezarua gave the lord a look.
The lord shook his head.
It ant that there were no mages deployed here.
“Soldier. Please open the door, just in case. I will prepare support magic.”
Lezarua requested that I enter first.
I had no reason or authority to refuse her instruction, and it was reasonable to place the three mages at the back.
Above all, Lezarua had deployed all her soldiers, including her own escort, on the city walls to protect Monora.
So, it was right for , who had been standing idly next to Celina and was suddenly dragged along, to also act as her escort.
It was right, but…
‘…I have a bad feeling about this.’
I hope it was just my imagination, but I felt a very unpleasant sensation from inside this mansion.
To be precise, should I say I sensed a trap?
But what could I do?
I had no choice but to trust Lezarua, Celina, and the lord of Monora and go in.
I grabbed the doorknob.
I could feel the dust on my palm, as if it had not been touched by human hands for a very long ti.
The door was locked.
However, its condition was so poor that the lock would break with just a slight application of force.
I held my shield in front of and kicked the door hard.
WHOOSH!
As if it had been waiting, a large amount of fla flew out like an explosion.
As expected, a trap was set inside the mansion.
I tried to quickly exit the mansion, but before I could, a blue shield unfolded in front of and swallowed all the pouring flas.
It was Celina’s magic.
The problem was that the trap set inside the mansion did not end there.
At the sa ti as a flash of light from the front, flashes of various colors flew towards .
‘A curse…!’
A chill ran down my spine.
It was an unexpected threat.
In fact, curses were not a type of magic frequently used as traps.
This was probably because curses, which are specialized in weakening the opponent’s power, cannot imdiately incapacitate the opponent, and it is not that difficult to dispel them with ti.
The problem was that curses were my weakness, as I possessed the auto-regeneration Authority.
For an ordinary person, it would be a trap that they would suffer through lightly like a cold and be done with, but for , it would be a fatal attack that could make lose most of my mana.
The shield created by Celina’s magic was sturdy, but it could only block elents and physical impacts; it could not block curses.
Since the curse spells were flying in from so many different angles, it was impossible to dodge them all.
‘I’ll have to dodge only the curses of attributes that are threatening to , and take the rest with my body…’
I could not just stand there and take it, so I ca up with the best possible plan.
However, a golden flash that flew in from behind made my resolve useless.
“Why are you so tense? I’m sure I told you I had prepared support magic for you.”
As Lezarua’s voice was heard, the golden flash blocked all the curses flying towards .
Its form was slightly different from what I knew, but it was clearly a dispel magic.
‘Isn’t dispel magic supposed to take quite a long ti?’
There was no way Lezarua could have known that curse magic was laid as a trap inside the mansion.
To have identified the magic with her eyes and used dispel magic at the sa ti…
She was a monster.
I glanced at Celina’s face, and sure enough.
Celina, who had a certain pride in her own magic skills, had an expression as if she had been greatly crushed.
I wanted to say a word of comfort, but since Lezarua had already entered the mansion, I could not afford the ti.
“It seems there are no more traps, so I’ll take the lead. The target is on the second floor.”
She was confident in her own skills, and she was sure of her own judgnt that there were no more traps, so I could not feel a hint of hesitation from Lezarua as she headed for the second floor.
We arrived on the second floor.
Perhaps due to the influence of the fire from a mont ago, most of the walls and doors on the second floor were blackened.
And in a corner, there was a skeleton, and the blue butterfly was flying around it.
When Lezarua flicked her finger, the blue butterfly landed on the top of the skeleton’s head.
Imdiately after, a blue line connected the butterfly and Lezarua.
“Her na is Dorothy Lerius. She belongs to Purity… That’s a relief.”
She was genuinely relieved.
Well, it was true.
It was more reassuring to think that an enemy spy had infiltrated the allied camp and been active, rather than a trusted Alliance mage had betrayed them.
“It seems the appearance of the zombies is Purity’s doing. There are probably several other Purity soldiers hidden in Monora besides this one. Lord! And Celina Verdin!”
“Yes!”
“Speak.”
“Gather all the soldiers who have received the benefits of the nurturing system in one place. From now on, we will execute all the spies hidden in Monora.”
* * *
Among the soldiers currently gathered in Monora, very few had received the benefits of the nurturing system.
Only the soldiers of our Unit 917 and Lezarua’s 1st Unit.
All of them were gathered in an open space in the center of the city according to Lezarua’s order.
There, Lezarua prepared a grand spell.
She used a large amount of materials to draw a magic circle the size of the entire plaza and also requested help from the mages of Monora.
Celina also responded to Lezarua’s request for support and was actively helping to complete the spell.
“…I think I’m going to die.”
“……”
Perhaps preparing the magic was no small task, as Celina looked gaunt, like soone who had not eaten for days.
The intensity of the physical labor did not seem high.
It was probably an internal factor… that is, a phenonon that appeared as a large amount of mana was consud in an instant.
A long ti passed like that.
Lezarua’s magic was completed only when the sun reached the top of the eastern mountain.
“Then let us begin.”
Lezarua, who also looked exhausted, activated the magic, and a large amount of light shot up into the sky of Monora, where darkness was slowly setting in.
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