162 – Fog-9
“…it’s okay?”
Nerwen looked at Celia with an anxious face, then at Enerel, who was far away.
“Because he felt me first. There was no way to avoid it.”
“I noticed that too… but it’s an illusion or something. Are you okay?”
From Nerwen’s point of view, Celia’s condition was unstable. It was noticeably better than before, when not even mental remnants remained, but it was dangerous, as if it would burst if touched.
Nerwen thought that meeting Enerel was more than just touching Celia. I thought it wouldn’t be strange if she, who seemed fine, returned to her previous state in an instant or became even worse.
“Really, there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s a fantasy, I still see it sometimes, but it’s up to you.”
“…”
Nerwen’s expression darkened. Celia would say hello, bow her head, and apologize, staring into the air.
“But, right now, I’ve done everything I can. When I see Enerel, I always feel apologetic and regretful… but I have no intention of being afraid.”
Nerwen looked at Celia with a sad expression, then shook his head.
“It will be over soon.”
Still, even now, Celia, who clearly decided what to do, might be better than Nerwen now.
Imperceptibly, Nerwen sniffed the scents he had passed.
It’s sad, but it was unavoidable.
/////
As if nothing had happened, I walked around the magic tower.
“…”
My meeting with Celia was short-lived. Just knowing that she was moving normally was a good enough harvest.
I shook my head reluctantly. I don’t know what another goal she set, another will to live, but it wasn’t my concern.
If she was going to start a new life in a place that had nothing to do with me, I could admit it, at least for now.
“There are no people.”
-The Mage Tower has always been that shape. It hasn’t changed even after hundreds or thousands of years.
It was a place I visited in case I could get information, but there was no clear plan.
If I did meet someone passing by, I didn’t know how to start talking to them.
After catching the mages, if I asked them, ‘What is the Mage Tower up to, what are you trying to do with the corpse?’
I also went into the safe house I had raided once before, but there was no further information to be gleaned from it.
I also went into the warehouse where the body was supposed to be kept. However, there was once again a procedure to move the body somewhere, and no meaningful evidence came out.
Even though there were traces of the corpse entering and exiting, there was no huge magic circle that could use the corpse.
As long as the guards were in, there was no point in further monitoring the safe house. If the warlocks in the tower had been pushed this far, they might have counterattacked, but they didn’t do anything.
“I can’t see any clues…”
He even interrogated a captive wizard. However, he ran away saying that there was a ban on him and said nothing.
With the saying that if you want the truth, finding out for yourself would be the wisest choice.
– Aren’t you bored?
“It is, but…”
If the Mage Tower needs more corpses, the Mage Tower, which once lost its supply, might try to receive the corpse directly.
That’s why I was monitoring this area, but there didn’t seem to be any harvest.
The muddy smell from magic wafted around, but rather irregularly, too many traces of magic were intertwined in a mess, making it impossible to find meaningful information.
“Should I do this…”
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Just as I was about to go back thinking it was the last time, I felt a clear sign of black magic.
Still, I didn’t want to expect too much. There were many times when I felt something in front of the magic tower, but most of it was just my overreaction.
The owner of the presence was slowly moving away from the magic tower. I’m not sure, but it was about the speed of a human walking.
– Where are you going? did you find something
“Shh.”
Holding my breath, I followed the owner of the presence.
I’m not sure, but I’ve felt this presence before. In the middle ground, when an unknown black magician cast it, it smelled similar to magic stolen by a farseer.
went into the alley As the distance narrowed, you could hear the person’s footsteps if you listened closely.
Not many, but people with experience using black magic. It doesn’t seem that his skills are extremely outstanding, and it’s clumsy to hide his presence.
“Did you find it…”
step is light It could be a woman, very thin or young.
It didn’t seem like it was moving with a hideous artifact. The smell of this demon seemed certain to flow from that person.
“Shall we go soon?”
Because of the sound of footsteps and signs of magic, there was no way to miss that person. I crossed the building, landed effortlessly where he would arrive next, and waited for me to meet him.
After waiting for a few seconds, the wizard was running with uneasy steps.
“Excuse me.”
I stood in my way and quietly greeted her.
“Hee, hee!”
It was a woman. She wasn’t a child at all, but she looked moderately young, and she didn’t look particularly pretty.
In her face, there was no arrogance or passion for learning that was typical of a magician.
To be a warlock, he seemed a bit lacking in wide eyes or wickedness, but to be seen as a commoner, he looked seriously skinny.
“There’s something I’d like to ask you, are you okay?”
“Yo yo yo yo, hero?”
This was a surprise. I never thought you would recognize my face.
Of course, wizards are the intellectual class if you insist. It was unlikely that the knowledge they possessed was political knowledge, but it was inevitable that they would have more knowledge than commoners or soldiers.
It was a person I didn’t remember, but there was still a possibility that any magician related to the Mage Tower would know my face from portraits or video footage.
“Do you know me?”
However, a more likely hypothesis was that she was deeply involved in the case. That I’m tracking them down would have spread throughout the gang when I apprehended one of them at the latest.
It never occurred to me that this mage had concocted the whole thing. However, the smell of black magic was clearly wafting from inside her.
He may not have been the one who planned everything, but at least he seemed to be involved in this.
“Yes Yes!”
The warlock hurriedly nodded. She felt anxious, as if she were about to be caught committing a crime.
“Have we ever met?”
Perhaps, they recognized my face through the warlock organization inside the Mage Tower. If nothing else, it’s harder not to remember the smell of black magic.
The black magician’s body trembled like an aspen tree. Most likely, she won’t be able to answer this.
“Yes, yes! That, the hero may not know, but I, I… have seen it once.”
It was unexpected. Or maybe it’s a lie.
Shaking hands and shaking pupils. No matter how much you think about it, stuttering was the attitude you would show when trying to fool someone.
“Really? I don’t remember… when?”
However, just allowing the conversation was half the success. Even if it’s a lie, a conversation is a conversation.
If I analyze what she is hiding from me and what she is trying to stop me from doing, I will eventually be able to find the culprit behind this incident.
“Last time, in the middle ground, the hero…”
“yes?”
Let’s think about it.
The fact that I defeated the warlock in the middle ground should have already been known.
It’s only that it didn’t become a big topic because it happened in a relatively rural area, but it’s information that’s not difficult to find, at least for those who are determined to investigate me.
There were many eyewitnesses, and it was an incident that would have been fully told through the mouths of the soldiers who participated in the battle in that region.
This warlock is connected to the warlock organization within the Mage Tower, and it was nothing I couldn’t say to confuse me.
“Well…”
Reasonably so, but intuition was sending me a different signal.
The heightened senses after gaining the hero’s power were telling me that the black magician’s energy was very similar to the one he felt in the middle ground.
To say that it was an aura unique to warlocks, it was an aura that was not felt by the group of warlocks who dealt with it in Leodrin’s territory.
If she was really the same person as the warlock she met then, it wasn’t strange at all to feel a similar aura.
“…I see. I didn’t expect you to survive.”
Still, nothing changed. If she is also involved in killing people using black magic here, she has no choice but to stop forcibly this time.
“Oh, I was just looking for it! I had something to tell you.”
But she said something beyond my expectations.