Chapter 185

Chapter 185

Studying the Quest Map closely, Leon nodded and muttered, “Knew it...” with the look of someone who’d seen what was coming.

Dead center in the imperial border stronghold facing toward Jugend, a single blue marker pulsed over the structure named “Alger Fortress”. Being one tier below the yellow “risk present” marker meant that it was a quest their party could handle without much trouble.

Sensing Elahan’s gaze, he put his hand over it. The icon flashed once and spilled its details.

Stop the Human Sacrifice

Difficulty: Normal

Scale: 1

Threat: Black Mage Nigel

Overseer: None

Nigel, a court mage of the Clyde Empire, is one of the black magi in league with the Evil Order. He intends to offer the residents of Alger as sacrifices to bestow the Curse of Berserk upon the Kingdom of Jugend’s army. Foil this plot and eliminate the black mage, Nigel.

It was bad news. Black magi were not quite as far gone as exolaw wielders who sold this very world for power, but they were functionally similar in that they borrowed strength from beyond. They rarely wallowed in raving madness like the Evil Order, but ironically, that made them more dangerous.

Where the Evil Order rampaged wherever whim led, black magi committed their evils coolly, meticulously, and by design.

Andrei, the black mage who secretly farmed vampires back in Rubena, was exactly like that.

Had it not been for Leon, even the Holy Church’s response would have lagged by several beats. Unlike the mania-driven Evil, a black mage moved rationally and efficiently.

To reach their ends, they ignored means, and they were adept at diverting attention or deceiving the eye. Worst of all, their methods were vicious.

Reading alongside him, Elahan widened her eyes and raised her voice. She’d instantly grasped what this vile scheme was aiming for.

𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

“Hero Leon, this is saying...!”

Leon had as well. There could only be one purpose in using a key border fortress, like Alger, as the sacrificial medium to lay the Curse of Berserk on Jugend’s army, a hex that could make a dying invalid rampage like a rabid hound.

“Yeah. Exactly what you’re thinking.” Nodding to her alarm, Leon continued, “Someone is deliberately escalating this war. If this goes off, Alger is neutralized, and Jugend’s troops will go blood-mad and trample into imperial soil.”

“The Holy Church will be marching alongside them—would we not be able to block some curse?”

“We can’t say for sure, but I can’t say that I’m confident.”

In black magic, the potency swung wildly with the quantity and quality of the sacrifice. Even if every Holy Iron Inquisitor assembled, even with a cardinal and a full priestly cohort, there was no guarantee they could stop a curse fueled by tens of thousands of lives burned at once.

And the moment that curse was completed, every single townsfolk of Alger would be as good as dead.

“And remember. Jugend and the Holy Church are ultimately separate powers. Even if His Eminence holds the title of Grand Meister, if the king or his circle orders an advance, he can’t just force them to halt.”

Elahan sucked in a breath as the implication hit and muttered, “And if you could take a key fortress like Alger without losing any manpower themselves, it’d be hard for them to do nothing about it...”

“Exactly.”

“They don’t call this emperor a madman for nothing. To use his own subjects as offerings to widen the war—he’s a devil in human skin!”

Leon patted Elahan’s back; she looked about ready to storm out the door.

“It’s okay. Looks like we got here in time.”

To use the Curse of Berserk as planned, Jugend’s army would have to approach within its effective range. By Irexana’s estimate, that was in about a fortnight.

All they had to do was eliminate the black mage and smash the sacrificial array before then. Barring a Master-level foe or a variable like a Nine Hell bishop, there wasn’t a force in their way that Leon’s party couldn’t handle.

Just then, Karen popped her head out of a shadow, then pulled herself free. Like a flying fish breaking the surface, she slipped out of the darkness and touched down lightly, reporting in.

“I’m back!” she exclaimed cheerfully. “Alger’s in wartime footing. Even in broad daylight, there are barely any people in the streets. If outsiders like us stroll down the main road, we’ll get burned in minutes.”

“Any threat-worthy presence?”

“Nope. I did spot a few expert-level knights and a single sixth-tier mage, though... He gave me a bad feeling.”

Leon and Elahan traded looks.

“It’s that bastard.”

“Yep. It’s him.”

“Huh? Who?”

When Karen blinked in confusion, they relayed what they’d just discussed. Karen summed it up in one line.

“Piece of trash who deserves to be ripped apart.”

The motive and mechanism were different, but quite alot were similar to Blaine’s City Swallowing. Having witnessed that horror firsthand, Karen shivered. With the objective clear, it was time to decide on a method.

“Think the Margrave of Alger knows about this stunt?” Leon said.

“No chance,” Karen replied.

However loyal to the emperor, no lord would collude in destroying his own fief and folk. To a lord, a fief was his kingdom and his property. It was most likely that Nigel, the black mage, was moving about the city while hiding his true purpose.

“What about telling the margrave the truth?” Karen suggested.

“He won’t believe it. Even if we bring proof, he can claim it’s forged, and then what?”

“Ugh, nobles do have thick skulls.”

When Karen stepped back, Elahan offered an alternative.

“What if we locate and subdue the black mage himself? If he’s running this abomination, once he’s gone, the whole operation should stall or be canceled.”

“Not a bad plan. Karen?”

“Mm?”

“Where did you see that sixth-tier mage?”

Karen sifted her memory and said, “The lord’s manor. Being treated like an honored guest.”

“That does make it a bit tricky...” Elahan muttered.

Leon agreed with her and added, “If it were just about killing him, it’d be easy. But if we assassinate him and Jugend gets fingered as the hand behind it, the aftermath gets ugly.”

Even with a massive rebellion in the heartland, not one of the border margraves had stirred. No—“couldn’t stir” was more accurate. Ferma with its sharpened grudge, Hispania, the Meril Union, and even the Kingdom of Jugend—there were plenty who’d rejoice at the Empire’s peril, and none to mourn it.

Let a single margrave turn his back, and hyenas would tear at the opening. What would happen if a court mage were to be murdered inside Alger, and the blame was pinned on Jugend, was obvious.

“They’d fight to the death regardless of the difference in strength.”

A combined Jugend–Holy Church host could take Alger without much trouble, but if the defenders refused to yield, the blood price would multiply. So, Leon produced a third option.

“Let’s flip it around,” he said.

Elahan and Karen seemed a bit confused.

“Huh? Flip it how?”

“In what way?”

He turned his palm over, drawing both sets of eyes.

“Instead of us breaking in, we create a situation that forces them to come charging out.”

They’d seen it once in Blaine. A large-scale rite demanded preparation, both time and space, in quantity. To offer an entire city as a sacrifice, they would have laid foundations somewhere in Alger. Leon’s target was precisely those.

***

That night, the three of them hid themselves all day in a ruin before slipping into the city center the moment the sun fell to avoid any unwanted attention. They didn’t even need Karen-level stealth. Simply erasing their presence and moving fast was enough, since there were few people alive who could track a Master’s trail.

Landing without a sound on a rooftop, Leon leaped high to take in a full view of Alger Fortress.

Not much of a tourist spot.

Built purely for military purposes, there was no beauty to admire. There was functional elegance, sure, but nothing that would please the human eye. Perhaps, the dwarves may find something to admire in it.

He scanned the city in one glance, found his target, and shot toward it.

He had become alone at some point, but it was deliberate. The party had decided that each of the three would move separately.

As Leon was traveling toward his target, El-Cid chimed in, sounding unimpressed as he instantly spotted the magic formation spread across five points of Alger.

—A Reverse Pentagram, huh. Old-fashioned circle.

Ordinarily, the pentagram represented “order.” Flipped upside down, the Reverse Pentagram symbolized “corruption.” It was the foundation and the endpoint of black magic—a seal used as a gate to summon demons into the world and bind them to flesh.

“So, when you say old-fashioned, you mean it’s nothing to worry about?”

At Leon’s question, El-Cid gave a dry laugh.

—That’s not exactly the case. Old-fashioned means it’s been around forever. And if a method that old is still in use, it means it still works.

“That makes sense.”

—It may bore me because I’ve seen it too many times, but don’t you let your guard down.

Leon heeded the warning and reached for his hilt. Within his sensing field, four guards approached from the flank. There was no trace of malice or foul power.

“Ugh, why are we guarding this decrepit warehouse again?”

“Beats me. If we were patrolling, we might at least catch a glimpse of the girls working nights, but stuck here, we’re just wasting the whole shift.”

“And with those knights from the capital watching us, I can’t even breathe. Yawn at the wrong time and we’re dead.”

“Eh, they can’t be that uptight, can they?”

Clearly, they had no idea why this place mattered or why they were assigned here. Leon moved before their chatter ended.

He stepped out of the shadows, lifting the scabbard without drawing the blade, all in just under a third of a second. Just as one guard turned to identify the figure, a series of cracks sounded as the scabbard blurred four times, each strike dropping a man instantly. They wouldn’t wake until midday.

Dragging their limp bodies into a corner, Leon stepped up to the decrepit warehouse. It was a shabby, miserable building, and yet the energy bleeding from beyond it confirmed there was an enemy inside.

“Come out,” Leon’s voice rang calm and flat.

The door banged open in response, and a knight in full plate stepped out slowly. The visor was down, face hidden.

Leon could gauge his strength well enough.

An Expert.

The knight was a veteran, the kind who could easily claim A-rank as an adventurer, skilled and seasoned. Guessing at his identity, Leon spoke.

“A royal guard?”

“...”

The knight gave no answer, only shifted his grip on the longsword. That was the signal.

Despite the heavy armor, he was sharp. One step closed ten meters, his blade flashing down like a thunderbolt, feinting and twisting toward Leon’s vitals.

The knight wielded a secret swordsmanship known as the “Wandering Lightning.” Perhaps realizing the gap in their skill, he had skipped all probing and gone straight for a killing strike.

Leon, however, didn’t even bother to move a single step. With one blow, he deflected the strike.

He didn’t stop there. The recoil froze the knight, and Leon’s follow-up slash carved across him. Not enough to kill, but enough to split the plate and draw blood. Three inches deeper and the lungs and heart would have been minced.

“Ghhk!”

Leon watched him sink to his knees, his own face expressionless, and asked, “You knew, didn’t you?”

“...”

“What you were guarding. And what was about to happen.”

“...”

The knight’s silence only stoked Leon’s anger. He pressed his blade to the man’s neck and shouted:

“You call it loyalty, is that it? Using an entire city as a sacrifice to fuel a war?! Is an order from that crazy emperor so important?!”

“It... is... sacrifice... for His Majesty.”

“What?”

The knight’s eyes gleamed feverishly as he shouted, heedless of the steel at his throat.

“For His Highness Nex! The lives of rabble are worth less than firewood! We must give thanks that our deaths serve his grand design!”

“Crazy bastard.”

“Eternal glory to His Highness the Emp—!”

Before he could finish his sentence, his head flew. Leon had cut him down rather than hear another word. The headless body toppled, blood spilling across the ground.

The madness he’d just witnessed weighed on his spirit and left a sour taste in his mouth. Then, El-Cid got his attention.

—Leon. Look closely.

“Huh?”

—That head.

Unwilling but obeying, Leon looked. The severed head still had its eyes bulging, whites showing. Thanks to the helm, he couldn’t see the features well, but he didn’t look that old. However, that wasn’t the point.

“What the hell...”

Something sticky was oozing out of the severed cross-section of the knight’s neck.