By Zephyria Count Serbia locked the doors of the castle, covered himself with a blanket, and trembled. He had already heard the news that the entire territory had been surrounded by the Council.
The thought that it was only a matter of time before he was caught suffocated him, and the Count felt like this place was a prison even though he was clearly in his mansion.
“Where the hell is the head of the merchant guild doing!”
“L, Lord…. The guards who were sent to find the head of Delberg are all under control and cannot move.”
“I…! Then what about the magic user? What is Leonardo Blaine doing now?”
“I heard the news that the Council had surrounded the territory and immediately looked for him, but all traces of him had disappeared.”
“What!?”
The Count was on the verge of collapsing with blood rushing to his head.
When Chief Hugo Agrizendro and his adjutant from the Council suddenly rushed into the mansion, he thought he had managed to get them out by making up excuses, and he was relieved. He immediately looked for the head of the merchant guild to discuss this matter.
However, he couldn’t find her no matter where he looked, and he released the guards to search the entire territory, but there was no news about her.
To make matters worse, when he heard that even the magic user, who he thought would protect him in times of crisis, had disappeared, the Count felt like he was about to go crazy with anxiety and impatience.
“Where did they all go!”
“Lord! The Council is outside the mansion!”
One of the mansion’s servants rushed in and announced terrible news to the Count, who was very angry. The Count, whose heart seemed to drop for a moment at the sound, immediately jumped up and approached the window to look outside.
In front of the mansion’s gate, which was faintly visible through the curtains, there were many people wearing Council uniforms. And in the middle of them, Hugo Agrizendro, who was exuding an overwhelming presence more than anyone else, was standing there, exuding a cold energy and staring directly at the window where he was.
“Gasp―”
The Count gasped as if he had made eye contact with him and immediately fell away from the window. Then, he leaned against the wall so that his figure would not be visible, but his legs gave way and he collapsed.
Cornered, he made a futile face, then closed his eyes tightly, grabbed his hair, and said.
“Where the hell did those damn guys go….”
* * *
Meanwhile, the magic user who was impersonating Leonardo Blaine had now escaped from the Count’s family and was secretly hiding in a deserted place.
When he carefully looked outside, there were only guys wearing Council uniforms all around, so he was very confused about what was going on.
“What, why are there so many Council guys all of a sudden?”
Around noon, he knew that someone had visited the mansion. And he immediately realized that they were the ones who had put out the fire caused by the arson he had committed the night before, and that they were outsiders looking for Leonardo Blaine.
When he saw the man from last night, who had an overwhelming physique and a cold and sharp impression, standing in front of the gate, he immediately hid inside the mansion.
He wondered why they had come here, and whether they had found out that he was here.
In the meantime, even though he had clearly hidden deep inside the mansion, the man’s coldness rose along the floor and walls, suffocating him as if he was right next to him.
But what he feared most was that he had seen the man using powerful magic with his own eyes last night, and even though he felt this cold energy rising right under his nose, he couldn’t grasp the depth of his magic at all.
Usually, when you meet someone with magic, you can roughly figure out how strong the other person is and how much magic they have. But he couldn’t feel the end of that man at all.
Rather, until he saw him using magic in the early morning, he hadn’t even realized that he had magic. That meant that he was an amazing controller.
If he stayed still like this, he didn’t know what would happen to him if he was caught without anyone knowing. As soon as the magic user thought so, he felt a threat to his life and carried out his escape plan more quickly than expected.
He immediately packed his meager luggage and money, and then waited for them to go outside the mansion. If he just went outside, he might be spotted by the Count’s guards or the Delberg merchants, so he intended to teleport to the border area of the frost territory at once.
However, teleportation was a high-level magic that consumed a lot of magic power, so it was somewhat difficult to cast it with his own magic power alone. In addition, the frost territory itself was quite large, so he wasn’t sure if he could move at once.
Also, just because he used teleportation didn’t mean he could move to another area right away. In order to go outside, he had to go through the teleport zone at the gate of the territory’s border area, so he had to save as much magic power as possible to completely escape from here.
Suddenly, he remembered that Ardel Rinter, the water magic user of the Count’s family who he used to work with, had a teleportation tool.
He hadn’t seen him lately, but he thought it was a good thing and went into Ardel’s room and started searching here and there for the teleportation tool. He soon found what he was looking for, but the tool had only half of its magic power left, as if it had already been used once.
Reluctantly, he added his own magic power and tried to teleport with difficulty, but he couldn’t even get near the border area and fell into a strange place, so he was hiding in a warehouse to recover his exhausted magic power.
How much time had passed? Suddenly, the surroundings became noisy, and a lot of Council guys were rummaging through the territory and clearly revealed that demon beasts were buried in this area with a huge megaphone.
When he heard that sound, he felt chills down his spine and sensed that everything he, the head of the merchant guild, and the Count had been doing had been exposed.
“…Did the Count tell everything? Anyway, that indecisive old man. What was he going to do without any guts?”
He was cursing the Count, who he had disliked from before, and grinding his teeth when he suddenly heard a footstep approaching the warehouse where he was hiding.
Startled, he reflexively covered his mouth, held his breath, stared at the warehouse door, and hoped that the footsteps would pass by.
However, contrary to his wishes, the footsteps got closer and closer, and eventually stopped right in front of the door and began to shake the tightly closed iron door roughly as if trying to open it.
Clang, clang―
The fire magic user, who had been very nervous, stared at the shadow between the shaking door with a pale face and put his hands together. He was thinking of blowing away the guy outside with magic if necessary. He had almost no magic power left, but it was easy to blow away one civilian.
As he thought so, took a deep breath, and tried to draw out his magic power, the guy in front of the door took a step back and the shaking sound stopped. Just when he was about to feel relieved that he was going to stop and leave.
A man’s voice was heard from beyond the iron door.
“Mr. Blaine, are you there? I came to help Mr. Blaine under the order of the head of the merchant guild.”
The one who was impersonating Blaine was listening to the voice from outside, and his face, which had been stiff, brightened as if he had heard a voice of salvation. But that was only for a moment, and he hesitated for a moment while holding his breath and opened his mouth.
“The head of Delberg? Who are you?”
“I’m a low-ranking merchant guild member of Delberg. I was ordered to avoid the eyes of the Council and bring Mr. Blaine. She is currently waiting at the path leading to the mountain path.”
“…Are you kidding me? The Council is all over the place, how can I get out! You should have come sooner if you were going to come!”
He was overjoyed that the man had come to save him from this situation, but he was also furious that he had only come to find him now, and shouted. The person speaking outside the door fell silent.
As the man outside quieted down, he who had shouted loudly immediately regretted his actions. He realized that this was not the time for him to be picky.
If he didn’t figure out a way to escape right away, it was only a matter of time before he was discovered, so he changed his mind, thinking that it was good enough that someone had come to get him.
The magician hurriedly continued.
“W-Well, what I mean is…”
“It may be uncomfortable, but if you hide in the bottom of the wagon used to carry goods, you can leave without being detected. I’ve brought a regular cargo wagon without the guild’s mark.”
The low-ranking guild member had even thought of a way to escape without being detected, and he felt as if a lifeline of hope had been lowered to him, as if he were grasping at straws. However, he tried to hide his joy out of pride, and continued speaking in a haughty manner.
“Hmm, it’s a bit undignified, but I don’t want to cause a commotion, so I have no choice. I will get into that wagon you brought.”
“Yes, thank you. Please open the door quickly, we don’t have much time! The Council might storm in here.”
As the guild member urged him in a hurried tone, he became flustered as well, and he unlocked all the latches that had been placed on the door and moved the piled-up luggage to the side.
He cautiously opened the door with half a suspicion, and he saw a wagon with horses tied to it. Relieved, he opened the door a little more, and next to it stood a young man with brown hair and brown eyes, freckles on his face, smiling and looking at him.
Sunlight poured in through the slightly opened door, illuminating the young man from behind. The magician had the illusion that this ordinary low-ranking guild member was like a savior who had come to rescue him.
He immediately opened the door wide and said to the guild member who had come to pick him up.
“Let’s go quickly. You didn’t see any Council guys nearby when you came here, did you?”
“No, I didn’t. But before that, just a moment—”
The smiling young man suddenly stopped him from coming out.
The magician looked at him with a puzzled expression, and the man grabbed his shoulder and pushed him back slightly. It seemed like a light touch, but he was pushed back by an unexpected amount of force and almost fell backward.
“W-What?”
‘This guy, he seems to have pushed me lightly, but why is he so strong?’
Barely managing to regain his balance, he stepped back and looked at him with a bewildered expression. The young man took a step into the warehouse and closed the door as soon as he was completely inside. The magician had a dumbfounded expression when he saw him even putting the latch on.
Aside from the fact that a seemingly weak guy had easily pushed him, he was acting strangely, locking the door instead of leaving when he had been urging him to hurry. A chill ran down his spine.
“What, what are you doing?”
As he spoke with great caution, the young man who had entered the warehouse cracked his knuckles, making a popping sound.
“I was originally just going to quietly let you get caught by the Council, but I suffered a lot.”
“What?”
“I can’t just let you go.”
The man said with a smirk. The magician felt a chill run down his spine at that smile. A suffocating tension filled the air inside, which had changed in an instant.
The Fire Magician, judging that he had to get out of this situation as soon as possible, put his hands together again and assumed a fighting stance as if he were about to cast a spell and attack. Then, he glared at the man with a fierce expression and said.
“You came here under the guild leader’s orders… that’s a lie, isn’t it.”
The young man only shrugged his shoulders and did not answer. The Fire Magician, convinced that his words were a lie, gritted his teeth. Judging from the guy’s actions, it seemed that the purpose of coming to find him in the first place was to mess with him.
He decided that he could no longer be swayed by such an unknown guy in a place like this, so he put his hands together and stretched them out towards the man, chanting a spell.
It was the moment he was trying to squeeze out the little magic power he had left and cast a spell.
“Clench your teeth.”
He saw the young man arrive in front of him in the blink of an eye.
The man’s posture was as if he was about to throw a punch at him, with one arm bent and raised high, and a clear smile was on his lips.
Every scene felt slow, like a slow-motion scene before death, but in reality, it was so fast that he couldn’t move or even recognize it.
The Fire Magician felt his jawbone shatter and took the punch that flew into his face without even having time to close his eyes.
Thwack—!
Hit by the man’s fist, his whole body flew up and was thrown backward. He broke through the planks of the warehouse’s partition wall behind him, flew through the back space of the warehouse, breaking the wall, and lay sprawled like a corpse on the debris.
As a result, the dust that had been accumulated in the warehouse for a long time rose up and made the air inside turbid.
The brown-haired man, covering his nose with his sleeve, coughed and approached the fallen man. Then, he looked down at him, who seemed to be unconscious, and said.
“Cough, oh, I guess I had a lot built up. I couldn’t control my strength.”