Chapter 31. Second Exemption Mission (5)
In front of the building.
Lien was leaning against the wall in the darkness of the alleyway.
Sensing his presence, she glanced this way, her expression as emotionless as usual.
However, the apron of her maid uniform and her white cheeks were distinctly stained with small spatters of red blood.
‘As expected.’
Enoch, realizing there were no longer any presences felt around the building, clicked his tongue inwardly.
The guard deployment points specified on the city map Omen had given him during the day numbered twelve in total.
Even though he had dealt with the Guard Captain, it seemed Lien had finished off all the rest by herself in the time it took him to subdue just four points.
It truly hit home again that she was a Rank 10 mage.
Enoch walked past Lien and remarked casually.
“If you finished first, you could have helped.”
“I didn’t sense any threat to your life.”
Lien followed behind, pointing a finger at her slender nape.
Enoch nodded.
‘So the location tracking only activates when the magic is triggered by a life-threatening situation.’
Indeed, unlike when he was in danger back in Leopold, it seemed the magic she had cast on him this time showed no reaction.
“It wasn’t exactly that kind of fight.”
“It better have been.”
Lien replied coolly, saying so.
“If you allow the Young Master’s body to be harmed any further, I will make you pay the price, one way or another.”
Her silver-blue eyes, speaking in a colder voice than usual, stared straight at him.
Enoch replied nonchalantly.
“…I’ll try.”
In fact, Enoch’s body was covered in minor wounds sustained during the missions so far.
On top of that, he had been thrown straight into missions immediately after days of training to adapt to the sword.
Naturally, Enoch’s current physical condition couldn't be called optimal. That must have been what Lien was pointing out.
Indeed, he did need to pay attention to such things.
‘In fact, because of this accumulated fatigue, I still haven't been able to inherit the Last Sword Saint's next swordsmanship technique.’
Understandably so, entering the inner world, while simple in process, required significant concentration.
Even after returning from missions, he had attempted to enter the inner world several times, but failed repeatedly due to poor condition.
So, it bothered him slightly.
Of course, inheriting swordsmanship was necessary for leveling up.
But right now, what bothered him more than not inheriting the swordsmanship itself was something else.
‘According to the Last Sword Saint’s memories from last time… it seemed the Last Sword Saint also had some connection to 「Magical Beasts」.’
Instantly, Omen’s words from the daytime flashed through his memory.
[As you know, Persona is a dark mage known to be directly under Tantalus. A mage who nonchalantly condones human experiments forbidden by the Empire.]
[Although the purpose isn’t well known yet, the 「Magical Beastification Experiment」 is also a type of such human experimentation.]
The human experiments of Tantalus, the Vendetta-affiliated dark mage who also appeared in the original work.
It seemed his subordinate, Persona, was also conducting similar experiments or was related to them.
‘But how could the Empire’s Last Sword Saint, who lived long before the present, have mentioned the same term?’
The more he thought about it, the more questions arose.
He didn’t yet know what connection there was between the Magical Beastification experiment the past Sword Saint knew of and the one Tantalus was currently conducting, but….
‘I’ll find out soon enough.’
Enoch took a card key-shaped key from within his robe and inserted it into the building entrance.
Beep.
Inside the building's massive door, which recognized the card key.
With the mechanical noise of the internal locking mechanism disengaging, the main entrance of the abandoned casino slowly opened.
Before his eyes, a dark interior was revealed.
[Persona is on the top floor of the temporary base building.]
Omen’s words from the daytime flashed through Enoch’s mind once again.
Anyway, the objective of this mission was to eliminate Persona, Tantalus’s subordinate.
Of course, annihilating the regular Vendetta members she led was also important. However, if he couldn’t capture their leader, Persona, the Exemption Mission likely wouldn’t be recognized as a success.
After all, killing Persona—Tantalus's trusted underling and a notorious dark mage—was likely the main objective of the Exemption Mission, which required him to prove himself.
Step, step….
Behind the black-haired boy, the maid with flowing white hair followed.
Inside the empty building.
The sound of their two sets of footsteps echoed rhythmically through the night's darkness.
‘Strange.’
Enoch thought to himself as he climbed the stairs.
Scattered playing cards and gambling chips lay strewn about the dim interior.
Furthermore, broken slot machines and roulette wheels clearly revealed that this place had once been a prosperous casino.
However….
‘How can there be no sign of anyone in such a large building?’
By now, Vendetta should have noticed they were under attack, so why was it so quiet?
[Let me tell you something that might be a hint about Persona.]
Amidst the extremely unnatural silence of the interior.
Enoch suddenly recalled what Omen had said about Persona during the day.
[As you know, the Unique Magic of Rank 10 or higher mages is said to be completed with ‘emotion’ reflected in it.]
As if telling him to listen closely, Omen in his memory leaned his upper body forward and held up one finger.
[Intense emotions. So-called desires for something, guilt, anger, obsession, fear…. All those emotions become the trigger for manifesting Unique Magic and also the motivation that elevates mages to the realm of Rank 10 or higher.]
Enoch gave a short nod in front of him.
Naturally, it was all information he already knew.
[I don’t know the principle that makes it possible, but ultimately, Unique Magic manifested according to emotions varies widely. Therefore, the Unique Magic used by mages of Rank 10 or higher is utterly unpredictable.]
[What are you trying to say?]
In the end, Omen had rambled on at length, but viewed coolly, it was merely a listing of facts.
However, Omen spoke lowly, as if urging him to take heed.
[As long as you don’t know the type of Persona’s Unique Magic, you cannot predict the course of the battle.]
He added with a slight smile.
[Let me give you one piece of advice. Once you succeed in entering the casino where Persona is, you’d better be prepared for any unforeseen situation.]
Tap.
When they finally reached the top floor of the building.
The interior at the very top was so dark that nothing could be seen except for a faint light.
Enoch paused briefly and took something out from within his robe.
The small fox doll gifted by Chloe.
A self-made artifact she had personally made for him at the orphanage in Leopold not long ago.
An item usable even by non-mages, merely a doll that glows in the dark.
But right now, nothing was more useful.
Fwoosh.
A bright white light spread from the fox doll. And the panorama of the interior, illuminated as the cluster of light spread, came into view.
The moment he looked around, Enoch’s eyes narrowed slightly.
-A laboratory.
There was no other way to describe it.
The traces of the building once being a casino, seen up until now, were nowhere to be found here.
Metal pipes, branching out everywhere like blood vessels, filled the surroundings.
And test tubes connected to all those pipes.
The forms trapped inside them were none other than….
“Experimental Magical Beasts.”
Enoch muttered quietly.
Monsters, unconscious and asleep inside the test tubes, were staring straight this way with empty eyes.
Dozens of Magical Beasts, crafted into forms far more intricate and threatening than those seen in Leopold.
Their forms resembled humans even more than before.
However, one difference stood out.
The people trapped in the test tubes, unlike before, were individuals possessing ‘beast ears and tails’.
Although other parts were no different from ordinary humans, the only difference was the perked animal ears or tails sprouting from their heads.
Seeing this, Enoch guessed that they hadn't used ordinary humans as materials.
‘They’re different from the experimental Magical Beasts I saw last time.’
Judging by their appearance—animal ears or tails not found on ordinary humans—it was highly likely that ‘Demi-humans’ had been used as sacrifices for the experiment.
And he could roughly guess which kind.
‘Based on appearance, the experiment materials are Demi-humans… Among them, are they 「Beast-kin」?’
Numerous metal pipes were connected to their hideously mutated bodies inside the test tubes.
It was a far more earnestly gruesome scene than the laboratory seen in Leopold.
Just then.
Suddenly, a flow of mana unlike anything he had ever experienced before raged around him like a fierce wind.
Immediately after. A low cry suddenly brushed past his ears.
-Grrrrrrrk!
Enoch hastily checked his surroundings.
The Magical Beasts in the test tubes instantly lit up their eyes, began shattering the tubes, and contorting their bodies.
“The Magical Beasts….”
The moment Enoch and Lien turned their gazes simultaneously.
Instantly, an intense metallic screeching sound, Kkiiiiiik, accompanied by a chilling friction noise, came from above.
From above in the dark interior, something plummeted between the two at tremendous speed.
A thick partition wall dropped by the building’s machinery.
Suddenly separating him from Lien who was beside him, the barrier wall dropped from the ceiling and slammed down in front of Enoch with a heavy roar.
Kwaaaaang!
It happened so suddenly that he couldn't even react.
Enoch instantly assessed the situation.
‘Was separating us deliberate?’
To be precise, Lien was trapped alone inside the room where the Magical Beasts lurked.
Enoch, now completely isolated from Lien, took a step forward first to check the partition wall.
─Tap.
And when he took that one step onto the floor.
Instantly, a strange sensation enveloped his entire body.
“……?”
Enoch immediately looked around.
The surrounding environment had changed before he knew it.
The laboratory where the Magical Beasts were, the partition wall that had just fallen before his eyes, and even the building's interior scenery and sounds had all completely vanished.
‘No, they didn't vanish. I’ve been pulled into a different space.’
Enoch concluded at once.
Thanks to his experience entering the inner world countless times, he was able to grasp that much.
But naturally, this was not the world of his psyche that he had always seen.
It was too different from the start.
It was vastly different from Enoch’s inner world, which was clean, infinitely vast, and even mystical.
‘This space, why on earth is it so crude?’
Lifting his head and looking around, this place was enveloped in a hazy darkness that seemed pieced together fragment by fragment.
It felt as if someone had forcibly tried to imitate a space like Enoch’s inner world.
Even at a glance, he could feel its level of completion was extremely inadequate compared to his own inner world.
And just as Enoch thought that.
Right beside his ear, a sweet voice was heard.
“Hello?”
A chill ran down his spine instantly. The moment he heard that voice, Enoch knew instinctively.
「Persona」
Direct subordinate of Annihilation Officer Tantalus, and the deputy leader guiding the regular Vendetta members belonging to him.
And the one he had been ordered to eliminate as the final stage of the Exemption Mission…….
A Rank 10, dark mage.