Chapter 208 - Chasing Tails (9)

“What? Balak was here?”

“Yes. I’ve moved them to the Chorun Mountain Range in the south for now, but I don’t know when they’ll be back here.”

“Chorun Mountain Range...”

When Henry returned to the Snow Spire after being summoned by the vice school heads, he was shocked by the news waiting for him. Henry found out that Balak had come to Salgaera and that he knew wizards were here.

‘Just... how?’

It was supposed to be a top secret that the Snow Spire had been built here and that all the wizards had relocated here. Thus, Henry couldn’t hide his surprise when he learned from the vice school heads that Balak knew all of that.

‘Is there an informer with us?’

He had to consider every single possibility, given that all of his plans were supposed to be carried out in secrecy.

“I understand for now.”

“Please let us know if there’s anything else you need us to do, Archmage.”

“Thank you. Thanks to your hard work, we’ve managed to avoid trouble for now, and good job on setting up the magic boundary. I’ll go to the Chorun Mountain Range and track down Balak, but in the meantime, you guys reinforce the magic boundary and focus on training the younger wizards.”

“Yes, Archmage.”

“Teleport.”

After finishing his business, Henry got the coordinates that Igni used and teleported to the Chorun Mountain Range.

Zngg!

There was a cluster of bright lights, which blurred his vision for a slight second. Soon, Henry arrived at the southern mountain range, which was abundant with verdure.

‘It’s here.’

Upon seeing the traces of the magic bombardment, Henry was convinced that the coordinates were precise.

He scanned his surroundings. Since the magic bombardment had turned this area into a wasteland, there weren't many signs of life besides some animals here and there.

Henry bent down and touched the ground.

“Memory of the Earth.”

Ping!

It was said that birds heard the sound of the day, and mice heard the sound of the night.

Henry had created this spell with the thought that no secrets could be kept hidden forever. Henry used the Memory of the Earth to determine Balak’s whereabouts after he had arrived in the mountain range.

As he cast the spell, Henry’s mana started scanning the earth’s memories. Given that it had only been one day since the bombardments, the memories engraved into the earth were still clear.

Henry carefully watched the earth’s memories as if the events were unfolding right before his eyes. After a while, he opened his eyes.

‘I didn’t expect Hector to be teleported as well.’

It seemed that the vice school heads had made the mistake of teleporting Hector along with Balak. Otherwise, there was no way Hector would’ve let himself get teleported.

Upon using Memory of the Earth, Henry saw Balak in his tattered armor.

‘As expected, he’s just fine.’

Balak’s cape was tattered and his armor was damaged, but physically speaking, he seemed perfectly fine. In other words, aside from the damage to his armor, Balak hadn’t really been affected by the magic bombardment.

Henry let out a sigh.

The magic bombardment had been cast by wizards who had almost reached the 6th Circle. Nevertheless, the fact that Balak didn’t have a single scratch on his body proved just how strong he was.

‘Is it that way?’

Henry turned his head and looked in the direction in which Balak had gone.

According to the Memory of the Earth, it seemed that Balak’s goal was to get down from the mountain range first. Henry also learned that Hector had tailed him.

He was getting worried.

‘I hope Hector doesn’t do anything stupid.’

Hector following Balak wasn’t a problem. However, if Hector angered Balak by doing something unexpected, things could take a turn for the worse.

“Step Image.”

Henry proceeded to cast Step Image. The spell allowed its caster to see tracks on the ground, and Henry clearly planned to use it to track down Balak. After casting the spell, he could see a long line of blue footprints in front of him.

‘Let’s follow it for now.’

It was unfortunate that he couldn't use Teleportation to find Balak. Nonetheless, Henry thought that he could catch up with him relatively easily because one or two days of traveling wasn’t that long of a distance.

Henry bolted forward, then cast a magic armor that gently enveloped his body and greatly increased his speed.

Whoosh!

Henry’s tracking of Balak had begun.

* * *

Balak continued walking.

Whenever he came across warlords, he reformed them, and if he saw any refugees, he ordered for them to be protected. Moreover, he managed to get more precise directions to Enkelmann every time he crossed paths with warlords.

Everything was going smoothly.

If everything continued like this, he could get a teleportation scroll from Enkelmann after he arrived there and head straight to the capital.

However, even though everything was going well, Balak couldn't shake this unpleasant feeling from the back of his mind.

‘The emperor... using black magic...?’

Black Magic.

It was said that all forms of black magic did more harm than good because of its horrific effects and because it specialized in harming people.

In fact, Balak had punished a few warlocks during his time at Killive, and all of them had been lunatics on the verge of completely losing their minds.

Those warlocks worshiped evil gods and felt no remorse about performing horrific experiments on living people. They were willing to commit any inhumane act in order to reach their goal. Among those Balak had punished, there was a warlock who had used a full-term pregnant woman as a test subject to experiment with conceiving demonic children in humans.

Because of such individuals, Balak considered warlocks subhuman.

‘It can’t be, I’m sure it’s not true.’

Balak shook his head as these thoughts filled his mind. Once doubts took root, they would never go away.

It would’ve been better if he had never found out about this, but since he had already heard Hector’s accusations, he knew he couldn’t really shake off his doubts until he found out the truth for himself.

Of course, he wouldn’t raise any of these questions in front of the emperor. There was nothing more stupid than compromising an alliance by accusing the other party without any evidence.

‘Just a little further until I reach Enkelmann.’

The sun set again.

It looked like he was only a day’s walk away from reaching Enkelmann, the place the warlords had told him about.

Balak set up camp like he had done the day before. He camped out in a cave once again, and after building his campfire, Balak finished his meal and went to sleep.

* * *

‘Damn it...!’

Having left Balak, Hector used the freedom of his spirit form to quickly get to Enkelmann.

Nothing blocked his way. Hector’s spirit body could go through all physical objects, so even if he happened to run into a bird, he could just pass through it.

This allowed Hector to travel significantly faster, even compared to a warhorse, reaching Enkelmann in just half a day, a journey that would have normally taken several days.

However, the problem started after he arrived at Enkelmann.

‘No... Let’s try again.’

Hector swallowed nervously as he extended his hand.

Ptzzz!

“Arghhh!”

Smoke was coming off his hand, and a stinging pain coursed through his entire body.

Hector watched the smoke rising from his fingertips. It was absurd for something like this to happen, given that he was a spirit to begin with, but unfortunately, his eyes did not deceive him.

‘Why is this happening?’

He had circled around Enkelmann countless times already.

The explanation for this strange phenomenon was quite simple actually. Every time Hector tried to enter Enkelmann, he felt a sudden spark, followed by intense pain. This was because Henry’s wizards had set up a massive magic boundary around the entire city in case of a foreign invasion.

Of course, Hector was unaware of this, and he could no longer move forward due to being afraid of the agonizing pain.

“Damn it! Damn it!”

Although Enklemann was right in front of him, he couldn’t get inside. It was just out of arm’s reach.

Hector threw his arms in a fit of rage.

‘...’

Even so, there was nothing he could do, so there was no point in throwing a fit. He had no choice but to give up in frustration.

‘Do I really only have that option left?’

He didn’t know why he couldn’t enter Enkelmann, but at this point, he could only take one course of action.

He had to go to a different city.

For example, he could go to Herarion in Shahatra, or to the wizards in Salgaera. However, Hector was currently in the southernmost part of the continent. Salgaera was in the far north, and Shahatra in the east was also too far from here.

Hector had no way of telling how long it would take him to reach either of those areas.

‘Ugh.’

Nevertheless, he had no choice but to make the long journey. As a silver lining to his unfortunate situation, he was a spirit, so at least he wouldn’t get tired.

Hector sat down for a moment, trying to subdue his frustration, and soon stood back up.

“I better get going. Guess it’s my fault for being resurrected.”

Hector’s journey began anew.

Two hours after his departure...

“Shall we remove the magic boundary?”

“I think this much testing is enough. After running the magic boundary for about three days, we haven’t found any issues with it.”

Such was the conversation between the wizards Henry had sent to Enkelmann.

At Henry’s command, the wizards had assisted the Monsieur craftsmen in each city in building walls and setting up miscellaneous boundary magic. They had also cast a simple magic boundary to protect the entire city.

“Then let’s stop supplying mana to the magic boundary.”

The wizards stopped supplying the mana required to maintain the magic boundary. They disabled it, the test having been a success.

“Even though it's a simple magic boundary, it sure does use up a lot of mana as it covers the entire city.”

“Well, it’s only going to be used during the war, so... I’m sure the Archmage will be pleased with this.”

“It seems like we’re pretty much done here, so why don’t we go out for dinner today?”

“Sounds great! We’ve done all this work, so shouldn't we relax a bit?”

The wizards all looked satisfied as they had finished up their work.

* * *

“Found it.”

The night was dark.

𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

After a long time traveling like the wind through the darkness, Henry finally reached the end of the blue footprints.

Henry had arrived at a cave, about a day’s walk away from Enkelmann.

Crackle, crackle.

He could hear the sound of the campfire.

‘He must be camping out.’

Balak was camping out with a single campfire.

To a wizard, Balak’s camping arrangement looked pitiful, but that didn’t matter because the important thing was meeting him.

Henry hid himself in the darkness and then floated into the air and moved toward the cave.

‘Iron Curtain.’

As he cast the spell, he exuded emerald-colored mana. The Iron Curtain was a spell that created a thick iron wall to trap the opponent.

His opponent was Balak, of all people. After creating a powerful wall that not even a Sword Master could shatter, Henry intended to have a conversation with him.

Rumble!

Having absorbed Henry’s mana, a special kind of iron bars, much stronger than the regular ones, emerged from the ground, resulting in what looked like a prison cell.

The moment the ground vibrated...

Boom!

The Black Punisher slammed into Henry’s Iron Curtain.