Chapter 24. The Truth of the Magical Beastification Experiment (3)
You should always have a trump card prepared until the very end.
[-It's a kind of detection magic.]
Previously, when I formed a cooperative relationship with Lien.
She had cast a spell on Enoch, presenting one condition.
I briefly recalled that memory.
[If you feel that your life is threatened, I can know too.]
‘I didn’t easily understand what it meant at the time.’
I gazed at Lien’s slender neck, hidden by her coldly shining silver hair.
Whoosh.
On her white neck, silver-white mana was faintly glowing like a choker.
I remember that at the time of the contract at the banquet hall, magic was cast on both sides in the form of winding around their necks like that.
She probably came here as soon as she sensed the threat with that magic.
“…Who are you?”
Tantalus asked, glaring at her who had suddenly appeared. He didn’t even seem to have felt any presence until just now.
“You’re the best of the Elsyde guys I’ve seen so far.”
Tantalus glared at Lien, spat out the cut-off cigar, and asked.
“What the hell are you two? What are you doing?”
Swish.
But Lien silently retrieved the wire and stood in front of the collapsed Enoch, blocking him.
Tantalus’ dark green eyes and Lien’s blue-silver eyes met each other.
“Interesting.”
It was Tantalus who broke the silence first.
He said with a bitter smile mixed with ridicule.
“Now even someone’s maid is causing a disturbance in my laboratory.”
He took out a metal cigar case from his pocket.
When he pressed down on the switch on the side of the case with his thumb, the lid opened and the spring device activated.
One new cigar popped up into the air.
Whirly
“It’s really interesting.”
At the same time as Tantalus caught the cigar, which was rotating in the air and falling, on his finger and caught it, Lien extended her arm and fired the wire at him.
Ping
But as if he had already expected it.
Tantalus’ body was swept away by green mana smoke once, and his form teleported to the back in an instant.
“You can’t!”
Tantalus shouted as if mocking, and immediately began to arrange magic in the air for a counterattack.
However, Lien’s wire, which had already been extended, wrapped around one of the pillars in the room instead of the guy who had teleported.
Whoosh
Lien immediately deployed a magic circle.
Beyond the white magic circle, she pulled the wire hanging on the pillar and chased after him at high speed.
It was a smooth and agile movement that made Enoch doubt his eyes for a moment.
‘As expected, when she faced me at the banquet hall last time, she wasn’t even using her full power.’
Meanwhile, Tantalus’ green cigar smoke rose up to counter Lien and was arranged in geometric patterns.
A translucent barrier was formed to block Lien’s wire from attacking.
Whirly.
But Lien’s wire instantly wrapped around the barrier itself.
Lien didn’t miss that moment, lightly rotated her body, and kicked the wall once.
Clack
Then, she pulled the wire as it was, using the tied barrier as a support and charged forward.
Lien, who had deployed silver-white wires shining even in the darkness in all directions, rushed towards Tantalus, who was enveloped in thick green smoke.
Snatch
As soon as the distance narrowed, Lien instantly reversed the wire that she had fired first and swung it at Tantalus.
In a fleeting moment. The wire that tore through the air was dyed with clear silver-white mana.
Crack!
The equipment in the room that the metal wire had swept past was neatly cut off.
All the pipes and test tubes in the path were shattered and scattered.
And the trajectory of the following wires was accurately aimed at Tantalus’ head.
“……!”
He stared at Lien’s blue-silver eyes, which had rushed to right before his eyes, with his dark green eyes, and calmly exhaled cigar smoke and deployed magic.
The next moment, Tantalus’ body, enveloped in smoke, disappeared and reappeared after transferring several meters back again.
Lien didn’t bother to chase him further there.
Beyond the space of the wires that were installed across the air due to the battle.
Lien, glaring at Tantalus with a cold gaze, moved one step forward in front of Enoch, who was still collapsed, and stood as if protecting him.
The maid's uniform rippled and bloomed like black and white flowers in the darkness, following her movements.
At that action of prioritizing the life of the collapsed boy rather than cutting off the breath of the enemy in front of her, Tantalus slowly opened his mouth as if he was dumbfounded.
“…This is really something.”
Looking at the silver threads that were intricately embroidered in the air, cutting across the darkness of the laboratory, he asked Lien with an interested tone.
“That hooded swordsman from before too. Did Elsyde have a mage like you? With that much skill, you didn’t even have a rumor. Have I been stuck in the laboratory for too long?”
Lien examined the retrieved wire without any answer, then carefully wiped it with the apron of her maid’s uniform as if wiping off dirt.
On the white cloth that wiped the wire, a drop of blood spread out.
“…?”
Tantalus felt a slight pain on his cheek for a moment, and touched his face with his hand.
Squish.
On his cheek, a slender wound had appeared and blood was seeping out.
Tantalus bit his lip in a moment of eeriness and took the cigar out of his mouth and put it on his finger.
If the teleportation had been even slightly delayed, his head would have flown off as it was.
“…That silver thread.”
But even in that eerie fact, he laughed as if his wound was just interesting.
Then, he pointed to Lien's silver wires deployed in all directions with his chin.
"Oh, now I remember."
Looking at Lien, who was blocking Enoch, Tantalus said very interestingly.
“I thought you were already wiped out, but there were survivors.”
He said that with a tone mixed with laughter and put the cigar in his mouth again.
“…To think that the young lady of ‘that family’ is now working as a maid. You never know what will happen in life.”
‘Wiped out?’
Enoch, who was listening to Tantalus' sneering words, narrowed his eyes for a moment.
‘Does he know something about Lien?’
His mind, dulled by the shock, was dizzy.
He concentrated on checking his body condition and slowly tried to move his hands.
His limbs moved as if he had recovered from the shock to some extent.
‘This is enough.’
He placed his sword on the ground and rose from his seat.
The sword that he had never let go of, even while receiving the shock of his body being rammed against the wall.
Its sharp end aimed at Tantalus again.
Swish
“You’re tougher than I thought.”
He turned to look at Enoch and slightly closed one eye, as if he couldn’t win.
“…It’s a shame, but I’ll say goodbye here today. I’m just a researcher, not a combat mage. It would be one thing if it was one person. It’s too tiring to face two people without proper preparation.”
Tantalus said that and blew the cigar smoke out again.
The green cigarette smoke that he had deeply inhaled flowed out of his mouth and nose thickly.
“We’ll meet again soon. At that time, I’ll definitely make you pay the price for ruining my experiment.”
Darkly shining green eyes flickered through the cigarette smoke that filled his surroundings.
“I promise.”
Fiiiiik!
As soon as Lien noticed the sign, she immediately swung her hand and fired the wire.
But the silver-white wire that tore through the air only cut through the empty air filled with green cigarette smoke.
Eventually, when his mana slowly subsided.
Tantalus’ figure had already disappeared.
‘I survived.’
Enoch, confirming the guy’s escape, slightly released the strength in his hand holding the sword.
As soon as he felt a sense of relief, the pain in his body began to be felt slowly.
Thud
At that pain, Enoch knelt down on one knee again and sat down.
But what I felt was the joy of survival rather than the pain of suffering.
‘I took a breath.’
The 13th-ranked Annihilation Officer who suddenly appeared.
Compared to the beginning, I had grown considerably with my traits, but I wasn’t at the level to face him yet.
I should have died without being able to do anything, but….
Ping.
Enoch looked at the silver-haired maid, Lien, who simply collected the wires and glanced at this side, and repeated in his heart.
‘I’m glad I had insurance.’
Lien, who did not appear in the original story.
If I hadn’t made a contract with her as a collaborator beforehand, I didn’t even want to imagine what would have happened by now.
Enoch once again expressed his overwhelming gratitude to the instructions of the inner world.
‘Certainly, the inner world is not only about the growth of swordsmanship. The instructions themselves are also a huge help.’
The more I thought about it, the more the contents that the inner world specifically instructed him were becoming a lifeline in unexpected places.
In particular, making Lien an assistant was quite a great piece of advice.
‘Lien’s wire could be a lifeline that is more certain than anything else to me right now.’
Shuk.
Lien just happened to come over and offer him her hand.
Her long silver hair cast a faint shadow on her white cheeks as she looked down at this side.
“Get up.”
For a moment, Lien’s expression, which had been consistent with indifference, slightly wavered after discovering the wound on Enoch’s waist.
“…You’re injured.”
At her words, Enoch shook his head and said.
“It’s not deep.”
But Lien didn’t seem convinced and soon said in a cold voice.
“What would have happened if I wasn’t here? Did you forget the condition that I agreed to cooperate with you?”
“It’s a meaningless assumption.”
"What?"
Enoch tilted his head slightly and retorted.
“You were going to come to protect me anyway, right?”
Lien looked at Enoch for a moment, then closed her eyes without saying anything.
Then, she bent her knees and tore off the hem of her maid’s uniform.
Tear.
Her white thighs, hidden by the black skirt, were deeply exposed to an almost precarious degree.
But Lien didn’t care about that fact and extended her arm to stop the bleeding on Enoch’s waist.
‘As expected, she’s not denying it.’
Lien, who was hugging his waist in a posture of raising Enoch’s shirt and starting to stop the bleeding on the wound with the same expressionless expression as usual.
Enoch calmly looked down at her back with his sunken black eyes.
‘Come to think of it, why does she try to protect Enoch so much?’
As soon as he was in real danger, she came to protect this side right away.
At this point, I’m a little curious about what their relationship was like before.
No matter how I look at it, it didn’t seem like a simple relationship between a servant and an employer.
‘…I’ll know someday.’
Anyway, there’s plenty of time to live as Enoch.
If I continue to be active with this body in the future, I’ll slowly learn about their relationship as well.
Enoch opened his mouth to Lien, who had just finished stopping the bleeding on his waist.
“The mission is not over yet.”
Enoch said that and took out the key from his pocket. The key that he had acquired from the Vendetta general member at the entrance earlier.
Clang.
He threw it to Lien, gestured with his eyes, and pointed inside.
“There’s a warehouse inside. The children will be locked up there.”
Lien looked at Enoch for a moment after receiving the key.
A look that asked what you were going to do.
“I have something else to do.”
Enoch said that and turned his back.
And then he smiled slightly without Lien seeing.
Anyway, since I survived, it was clear what I had to do now.
‘If I’ve rolled hard, shall I start doing something called farming?’
I already felt refreshed just imagining it.
Farming is the driving force behind spec-up.
And I clearly remember the rewards that I could get after clearing this stage in the original story.
‘It should still exist now, even though it’s 5 years ago according to the setting.’
Enoch recalled his memories and approached one side of the laboratory.
‘I found it.’
Clatter.
Enoch picked up one of the flasks placed on one side of the laboratory. It contained a transparent liquid with a pale green tinge.
A reagent with no labels or instructions. But Enoch knew its identity very well.
-
「Growth-Type Magic Resistance Reagent」
A magic resistance reagent created by Vendetta’s Tantalus.
The more you are exposed to magical attacks, the more you can gradually build resistance.
A reagent that was tentatively manufactured in very small quantities to allow the subjects to withstand the burden placed on them during human experimentation.
There are no side effects, but the enormous material costs that cannot be afforded are consumed, so mass production was not achieved.
It has been fermented for 10 years and has a unique aroma and taste.
Effect: The more you are hit by magic, the stronger you get resistance.
-
A hidden reward item that can only be obtained in this map in the original story.
A potion that is virtually indispensable for the growth of a character, and the faster you acquire it, the better the efficiency.
If I’m going to face a mage in the future, I’ll naturally be hit by their magic.
Every time that happens, it means that magic resistance will increase step by step on its own.
Therefore, the sooner I get it, the faster the growth timing will be.
Even for Enoch, who was a non-mage, that was no exception.
Shuk.
Enoch didn't hesitate and poured the liquid with a greenish tint into his mouth.
‘Where, the taste of spec-up….’
As he was about to savor the taste of the spec-up, Enoch’s eyes widened as he felt the taste of the liquid filling his mouth.
‘…Mint chocolate flavor?’
Ugh!
Enoch managed to resist what he was about to spit out.
To think of giving this kind of reagent a mint chocolate flavor. I wonder whose head that idea came from.
‘What’s more, it’s lukewarm, this!’
It would be bearable if it was cold, but the only time you can attach the word ‘taste’ after mint chocolate is when it’s below freezing.
Melted mint chocolate is no different from liquid toothpaste.
Gulp
When he somehow blocked his nose and swallowed it all.
Lien was coming out of the laboratory’s warehouse with a few children.
Judging from the looks of it, they were the children who had been kidnapped here, their faces were quite haggard with tear marks on their cheeks.
A dozen or so children, tightly clutching Lien's maid’s uniform skirts as if they were frightened.
And among them, I could see a familiar face.
“Th, there…”
Enoch smiled slightly at the sobbing Chloe.
She seemed relieved to see that smile and-
"Wo… Woooo!"
Chloe burst into tears of relief and ran to Enoch and hugged him tightly.
Seeing that, a few other children ran to Lien and Enoch and cried loudly.
"H-Hiccup. Th-Thank you for, saving us! Thank you so much!"
Enoch stroked Chloe’s head, who was clutching his robe and crying to her heart’s content, and glanced at Lien.
She was surprisingly sitting quietly and patting the other children to calm them down.
“…It’s okay.”
I had the illusion that a warm emotion was vaguely showing in those indifferent blue-silver eyes.
Enoch looked at that side for a moment, turned his head, and slowly got up.
It wasn’t over yet.
There was something left to finish.
Enoch looked at the Administrator's mansion, which was beyond the basement, with his darkly sunken eyes.