Chapter 72

Chapter 72. False Master (2)

He put the prepared tea powder into a water pitcher placed on one side of the room, then asked Piar and Mirisa,

“You are both wearing your necklaces properly, are you not?”

“Of course. We always wear them, even when we wash.”

“Yes. Me too.”

The two placed their hands on their chests.

They were faithfully keeping the promise their master had always urged them to follow: never show those necklaces to anyone else.

Satisfied, he handed the prepared tea to Piar and Mirisa.

“It is a tea that helps with sleep. You will have to go back early tomorrow, so drink a cup each and sleep. As I said earlier, it is all right for you not to return tonight, correct?”

“Yes!”

“Still, it is a pity. I wanted to talk all night.”

“It cannot be helped. I only stopped by briefly while passing through. I will make time again next time.”

The two nodded at his words as they drank the tea.

“This tea is truly delicious.”

“But this does more than help with sleep. Haahm……. I am already sleepy.”

“You are right. Goodness…… I feel so drows…….”

As soon as the two set down their cups, they began nodding off.

THUD.

The next moment, the two rolled off their chairs and lay sprawled on the floor.

“Oh dear, how can you sleep on the floor like that?”

Master Louis sat in his seat and spoke to the two disciples lying on the floor.

The two disciples, already deeply asleep, did not answer him.

He did not move the sleeping disciples to the bed.

“Dealing with children is tiring after all.”

He let out a sigh and laid Piar and Mirisa straight on the floor.

Then he slipped his hands behind their napes and pulled out their necklaces.

They were neat necklaces set with sparkling gemstones.

The gemstones were not large, and the craftsmanship was not complex. They were ordinary necklaces.

They looked like necklaces that even commoners could wear as keepsakes.

However, Master Louis examined the two necklaces with a serious expression.

“It does not seem as though there is a problem with the necklaces……. What in the world happened at the entrance ceremony?”

He put down the necklaces he had been examining and frowned.

“If I had known this would happen, I would have planted a few more people at the entrance ceremony. Tsk. I thought planting people in a place where they would die was too much, so I pulled them out, and now it has caused this problem.”

He let out another sigh and shook his head.

“Things have been going wrong since a short while ago, and now even I have become part of the problem. Well, the matter went wrong from the moment I tried to use test subjects I had prepared with such effort as bombs.”

Muttering to himself, he looked at the sleeping boy and girl with a slightly apologetic expression.

“I suppose I should apologize to you again. I dragged you into something like this and made you die at a young age.”

“I will consider myself forgiven for giving commoners like you abilities and letting you enroll in the Royal Academy.”

After saying things that would have left Piar speechless if he had been awake, he gripped the necklaces with both hands.

WOOOONG.

His eyes began to glow, and the necklaces began to ripple with a low sound.

“If it is the morning class, should I leave about ten hours……?”

As he muttered that—

BANG!

The sound of the back door being smashed apart came from the first floor.

---

I was startled by the energy pouring out from the second floor of the shop.

“Mana?”

Had I been too careful?

The moment I sensed mana rising from the second floor, I immediately kicked down the back door and rushed into the building.

“Who are you?”

People rushed out into the hallway connected to the back door.

There were three in total. As expected, no one was sleeping.

On top of that, they were properly armed.

This was definitely no ordinary shop.

“Would someone who intended to tell you who he was break down the door and rush in?”

I answered the opponent’s question and swung my sword.

I swung the short dagger in front of the eyes of the person blocking me at the very front.

The bearded man looked bewildered when he saw the sword swing through empty air, but his face was immediately split in half, spraying blood.

I shoved aside the collapsing opponent and kept running forward.

“Was that sword aura?”

“Damn it! Stop him!”

They definitely were not ordinary men. Even though the first one had fallen to a single strike, they still properly moved to block my path.

Their actual skill seemed to be at the level of apprentice knights or mid-level mercenaries, but their movements and actions made it clear that they had been trained by a proper organization.

Damn it. I did not know whether I had followed the tail only to run into a tiger.

Those thoughts filled my head, but my body moved toward the enemies according to the experience and training I had accumulated so far.

I lowered my body beneath the sword swung at me, then thrust the mana-filled dagger into the enemy’s chest.

The opponent was wearing leather armor with a metal plate added over the chest, but he could not stop the dagger that stabbed in while leaving a red afterimage.

The dagger, with sword aura rising along its blade, pierced through the iron plate and leather before impaling the enemy’s chest.

The final man was holding a crossbow. He had clearly intended to shoot the crossbow while I was fighting the men in front of him.

Just from this, it was clear that they had been prepared. If my skill had been lacking, it might have felt as though I had fallen into a trap.

The crossbow moved toward me and the man pierced by my sword.

I did not pull the sword out of the enemy’s chest.

Instead, I let go of the sword as it was, kicked off the wall to the side, and launched myself upward.

THUNK!

At the same time, the crossbow fired. Toward the comrade in front whose body had my sword embedded in it.

As expected, they had been properly trained. The crossbow bolt pierced through his comrade’s chest.

If I had spent time pulling out my sword, I might have been hit by that bolt as well.

However, I was already passing above the enemy’s head. And my knee was pressed against his face.

CRUNCH!

From around my knee came the sound of his skull caving in.

I immediately moved back, pulled out my sword, and ran toward the stairs leading to the second floor.

Then I opened the door to the room where the mana had leaked out.

Piar and Mirisa were lying on the floor, and a man was standing beside their heads.

Even now, mana was moving inside the room.

It was the reason I had rushed in immediately.

Mana similar to the scent I had felt in the entrance ceremony hall was flowing from the chests of the two people lying down, centered around the necklaces protruding over their clothes.

His hands were spread toward the two children lying on the floor.

And the mana filling the room, rippling as though it would burst at any moment, was the very same mana that had destroyed the entrance ceremony hall.

That was why I could not move immediately after entering the room.

“Who are you?”

The man standing beside the two students’ heads asked me.

Should I call him middle-aged, or still a young man?

The sharp-looking man was frowning as he looked at me.

His expression suggested something displeased him, and his face showed that he had made some kind of decision. Yet even amid that, he did not look anxious.

Instead of answering his question, I asked him in return.

“Who are you, then?”

It was already too late to charge in.

Judging from the man’s expression, he seemed to have already finished his preparations.

And judging from the rippling mana, there was no guarantee that killing that man immediately would stop the two students lying on the floor from exploding.

‘So it is Plan B in the end. I can only hope my mental strength has recovered a little…….’

“The people waiting on the first floor were not ordinary either, yet they could not stop you for even a moment, and you broke through all the way here. At minimum, you are knight-class or higher.”

He did not answer my question and muttered to himself.

“But no matter how I look at you, you do not seem like an adult.”

I simply let him mutter. In any case, it did not seem he would answer my question right now.

Instead, I examined the two people lying down.

Judging by their normal breathing, they did not seem dead or unconscious. They appeared to be asleep.

Looking at the cups placed on the nearby table, it was highly likely they had been drugged with a sleeping agent.

However, there were no signs of resistance and no traces of having been tied up. They had not been kidnapped. The two of them had clearly come here on their own.

Then that meant they were close to this man…….

He had brought people he was close with here, put them to sleep, and was doing something with mana.

In the end, did that mean Piar and Mirisa had been deceived, just as I had expected?

But what kind of relationship did they have? I had not heard about such a person last night.

Well, it would not have made sense to uncover a story like that in a single night anyway.

And then there were the necklaces around the two people’s necks.

Judging by how mana was gathering around those necklaces, there was definitely some secret hidden in them.

Were they catalysts or mediums?

I could not see anything else.

Then it seemed best to develop the conversation around those necklaces.

“Were those necklaces the key to the entrance ceremony terror attack?”

It was a question based on a rough guess, but fortunately, it seemed to fit quite well.

“Not the knight order or soldiers, and you seem to have stormed in alone. Does that even make sense? Such a……. What, necklaces?”

That was because the man, who had been muttering and continuing his thoughts, reacted to my words.

“Do not tell me you are the one who ruined things at the entrance ceremony?”

“Not me. Us.”

I was alone, but there was no reason to let him think that.

“Hmm. The fact that you bothered to correct me by saying you are not alone makes it seem like you are alone…….”

Tsk. I should not have said that. He was much smarter than I had expected.

“But how did you know these necklaces were the key?”

How did I know?

Because I could plainly see mana gathering in those necklaces and flowing into Piar and Mirisa’s necks.

However, this was something only I, with my abnormally developed sensitivity to mana, could know.

“Well, I suppose it is a meaningless question, since hearing the answer would be useless anyway. To think you would storm in at such perfect timing. If these children were not here, I would face you properly.”

He clicked his tongue while looking at the children lying down.

I had wondered why he was not attacking. Was it because of the children?

“There is no point dragging out time for no reason, is there? Should I take comfort in the fact that I caught the person who ruined the matter along with them?”

He muttered to himself and began spreading his hands toward the children.

At that moment—

I kicked off the ground.

His face drew closer in an instant.

At the same time, I pushed mana fully into the dagger.

SWISH!

Red mana extended long from the dagger.

I swung the sword and cut off both of his arms.

SLICE.

Blood sprayed in every direction.

I took another step forward between the two arms spraying blood and drove the sword into his chest.

STAB.

Red mana burst out from his back.

Without pulling out the sword, I turned and ripped off the necklaces around the children’s necks.

Mana surged in every direction.

However, the mana connected between him and the children remained intact.

“Cough. It is no use. When you entered the building, I changed it so that it would activate the moment the connection was severed. In other words, the moment I severed the connection myself, or the moment I died.”

At his mocking words, spoken while he coughed up blood, I clicked my tongue quietly.

“I thought so.”

As expected, I was too late. It was exactly as I had feared.

“Heh heh……. On top of that, you failed to stab my heart accurately. It would have been the same either way, but it is still a pity. I left mana behind so it would explode tomorrow morning when everyone gathered…….”

The sword was still embedded in his chest. Slightly lower than his heart.