Chapter 126 – Temptation

000

“Lyla Flamewatch. It has arrived.”

A pure white space on all sides, the coffin of Monad.

The silhouettes of the elders could be seen beyond the wall over which the tent hung.

They were talking to each other and whispering until Layla arrived, but when the girl arrived who responded to their call, they all stopped talking and turned their eyes to Layla.

The gaze of her, as if being judged, crawled from the top of her head to her toes of her, but Lila just stood there with her mechanical demeanor, her expression unchanged.

“Lyla Flame Watch. The granddaughter of Agni Flame Watch, and the head of the Department of Magic. And, she has disappointed us once.”

The voice of a man who could be said to be the representative of the elders echoed.

Everyone else kept their mouths shut as if they were his assistants her, but Layla could sense that their gazes her were mixed with a mocking attitude towards her.

Ah. I felt the same way when I came here a year ago.

To them, Lyla is not a genius wizard or a gifted youngster.

Elder – A crimson wizard who diverged from them and went into hiding in the countryside, so to speak, a ‘traitor’ to them. She was the spoiled granddaughter of the Agni Flame Watch.

When Lila first knocked on her academy’s door, how they laughed at Agni.

See At our academy, where you pointed your finger at me for forgetting your duty, your granddaughter came and bowed her head.

“…”

She doesn’t give much of an answer, and Lyla looks at her figure beyond the tent.

Now, a year later, nothing has changed. No, on the contrary, it could be said that it was worse.

Due to an incident the other day, one of the darkness that existed in the depths of the academy, the Black Battle, was completely expelled.

Now, the reality has arrived that even if you don’t notice them, you can solidify your control over the academy.

“I heard that you played a significant role in resolving the disaster caused by the Black War. Let’s borrow this position to congratulate you. If you wish, we can prepare a position as a candidate for the next elder once again.”

That is the reason Layla came to the academy fundamentally.

He was so obsessed with research that it was difficult to use human time every day.

In the process, flame magic produced results that were unmatched by others.

That she tried to seduce a foolish human named Albein and bring her back to her academy.

All, to become part of the 12 elders and make them recognize themselves and their grandfathers.

And, to use the power gained from him to build the academy his grandfather wanted.

“However, there are conditions.”

The elders beyond the tent talk to Layla, who does not answer.

“Magic Swordsman Cleon… Do whatever it takes to keep him in this academy. I won’t ask about the means or methods. He has something different from other magic swordsmen and warriors.”

Cleon, the person who prevented the rampage of black battles together with Layla, and the greatest contributor to the incident.

If it had not been for him, the brainwashing of the ancients would have invaded even the coffin of Monad by now, and the elders might have become puppets of the Black Battle and Rail.

“If he becomes one to work for us. Layla, I will accept you as one of the 12 elders.”

Thinking about it, the elders’ request was an expression of ungrateful and selfish desire.

The eyes of the elders were still focused on Layla, who stood still without opening her mouth.

In the center of a building full of evil that reflects the pure white light falling from the sky and disturbs the mind.

Whatever Lila is thinking, she suddenly pulls something out of her pocket and holds it up.

It was a small, brass-colored circular plate with the main face of a person.

“…Imperial currency.”

The head of the elder recognizes it and opens his mouth.

It is now obsolete, the currency of the empire.

In the past, when the power of the empire was strong, it was an item that had a value similar to the silver coin of the kingdom, or maybe even a gold coin.

The empire perishes at the end of the war, and now even the remnants live in hiding where the sunlight cannot reach.

It was not historically meaningful because there were so many of them, but it was just an object that had been reduced to the value of a souvenir.

“Thank you for the favor. To me, your offer is like this imperial currency.”

“…What?”

The elders gossip about Lila’s remarks about her.

Those who think that there is a hidden meaning, those who take things at face value.

And, there were those who found out about that intention and got angry.

“For me in the past, it must have been an attractive offer. I might have accepted it on the spot. With a confident face. Like I did someday.”

But Layla has changed. Faced with her deepest self her, who had fallen, failed, and been cut off in despair.

I was just thinking that I had become a little better human being by realizing the value of things that were infinitely more precious.

“The elders’ proposal has no value to me. The elder’s position? Cleon with that much offer?”

Lila’s face her frowned as she stared at them expressionlessly.

“The unit price is not right. Aren’t you stupid?”

And he showed his anger by throwing away even the minimum courtesy he had been preparing.

“I think I understand now why my grandfather left you and went to hide in Helis. If I analyzed it a little coldly, I would have been able to understand it. I was a fool myself too.”

“Bitch… Be careful what you say. All rights within the academy that you are enjoying right now can be taken away at once by our orders.”

Looking at Layla, who does not hide her hostility towards the elders, the representative of the elders also fires back.

“Your friend I have n’t seen in a while… Are n’t you worried about Beatrix’s life her?”

“…”

And as expected, what followed was intimidation. That, too, touches Laila’s weakest part of her.

These were the ugliest intellectuals who knew the most vulnerable parts of the human mind.

For the sake of knowledge and power, those who can cross the line of ethics and set boundaries without hesitation.

All of the guys here are beings no different from Beatrix’s older sister – the magician from the Enforcement Division who visited Elessia at that time.

When Lila shut her mouth at that thought, she thought that she was frightened by their threats to her.

A mocking laugh was heard among the elders.

“Incompetent. Cowardly. No pride as an intellectual. Cowardly. Greedy elders… There’s no way Beatrix, who has the courage to live for someone else even if she loses everything.”

Layla’s answer cut the laughter of the elders.

“Even though it bears the grandiose name of Monad’s Coffin. In the end, it is frightened by the black battle and hides in this dimensional isolation space out of reach of them. . There’s no way I’ll get down on my knees again.”

Layla’s voice mingled with obvious ridicule.

The next moment, the representative of the elders opens his mouth and shouts a name full of rage.

“Sephar!”

Then, something appears from the teleportation magic circle engraved on the ceiling of Monad and falls into the space where Layla is.

It was something similar to the ‘Guardian Golem’ that blocks people who try to enter Monad’s coffin from the outside.

Its output and hugeness were powerful enough to be incomparable to them.

“…Hold me accountable for your words. Lyla Flamewatch.”

Lyla looks at her golem, several times her own size, and waves her hand.

Then, several spheres of flame appeared at the same time and flew towards the golem at high speed.

As soon as the magic touched the surface of Sephar, it could be seen that the magic did not maintain its shape and dissipated.

“Sefar is a golem that specializes in magic resistance developed based on Enkidu you defeated… I prepared it for guys like you who don’t know the subject.”

“Huh…”

Despite the words of the elder who proudly boasted of such a fact, Laila looked at her golem without showing much reaction.

The next moment, her golem’s fist she slammed the ground on which Layla stood, with such an impact that it cracked her floor.

Layla didn’t even do her proper evasion, and she stood there, then she disappeared as she got caught between the golem’s fist and the floor.

“… Heh… Stupid. She’s a little bitch who mistook herself for something…”

The elder looked at him and seemed still angry, but she seemed to think Layla was dead, and she gave off a fishy laugh.

However.

The flames that rose from the tips of Sephar’s fists. It was right after that that it spread all over the golem’s body and started to burn the surface.

“What…!? Sephar’s magic defense…!”

“I don’t know if it’s a flame caused by magic, but it seems helpless against a flame that’s close to natural phenomena.”

Lila’s voice came next. At some point, the girl who changed into the form of an incarnation of flame was sitting on Sephar’s shoulder his.

“That, that magic. Agni Flamewatch’s…! How can you use that level of magic!”

“… Even if I explain it to you, you won’t understand.”

As Lyla moves her arm her, Sephar, bound by burning flames, swings her fist in the presence of her elders in accordance with the movement.

The shock that hit Layla just now is swung at them this time.

A roar that seemed to accompany an explosion resounded inside Monad’s coffin, the curtain burned and the Elders were seen frightened, turning their backs to flee Sephar.

“You barely showed your face. As expected, it’s ugly.”

The representative of the elders, who revealed the real figure, not the silhouette of the curtain, was a skinny old man.

He must be over 80 as he is a person of the same generation as Laila’s grandfather who died.

Even so, the state of aging was not normal.

“…Is that a side effect of a failed secret technique to increase lifespan? That’s it.”

“Kuh…”

“Well. It’s human nature to be afraid of dying. If you valued the lives of others as much as your own, this wouldn’t have happened.”

Once again Sephar’s arm is lifted. The old man tries to prepare magic, but the opponent is a decisive weapon for the use of great magic made using all their knowledge of his.

“Wait, wait! Are you trying to kill us!?”

“The academy doesn’t need your presence. The students and teachers who are not under your control will go forward in their own way. New wine must be put in new wineskins, right?”

“Ooh, we are beings who have made a pact with the guardian of knowledge, ‘Stillness Cold’! No one can break our rights!”

At that cry, Laila sighs. In the next moment, another figure appeared from behind Lila.

With pink hair- with wings, horns, and a tail-

“No way-“

The next moment Sephar’s fist struck the old man.

The old man, who closed his eyes while emitting a sound like a scream, feels strange that the expected pain does not overtake his body.

And when he looked around, he could see that the surroundings had moved into the interior of a cave surrounded by frost and cold.

“Did you send it away with teleportation magic on your fist…? Damn bitch…! But thanks to that, I got a chance to fight back-“

In the next moment, the old man’s whole body freezes and he is trapped inside the thick ice wall.

The old man doesn’t even notice what happened, he just freezes. His consciousness also stopped, as if time had stopped.

“Rutios has been calling me for the first time in a while, so I asked what was going on…”

Walking out of the darkness of the cave is another Dragonian (Yongin), different from Luti and Letty, with sapphire hair.

It was ‘Anatis’, a dragon called the guardian of knowledge and the cold air of silence.

She looks at the old man for the first time in decades with pity for a moment, then turns away.

‘I will create a place for those who pursue knowledge in the purest way.’

The contract her with her, made under her promise her to be her her, had already been broken long ago.

Spending business hours in this prison of crystal ice was her punishment her for the being who arbitrarily broke her contract her.

001

Cleon and Aruru, like any other students, were enjoying the third day of the academy’s festival, unaware of the fact that something was going on in the Monad hall that would shake the academy.

Yesterday and the day before yesterday, Cleon had already toured here and there at the festival, but the fact that there were still places he hadn’t been to yet, he couldn’t help but stick his tongue out at the scale of the academy .

And above all –

“Cleon! It seems that the divination department over there is giving free divinations to visitors today!”

It was quite enjoyable to watch Aruru walking happily a few steps ahead of Cleon.

As the preparations for the academy festival began in earnest, was it a reaction to the fact that I had been busy for about a week until yesterday with no time to spend private time?

Her her today, being a little honest with herself, follows her into the giant tent of her divination department, showing her her side her as her tomboy and a noble lady.

“Welcome! Oh, Aruru-sama, Cleon-sama!”

At the entrance to the tent, a female student wearing a robe and a mask covering her eyes recognizes Aruru and Cleon and speaks to her in a friendly manner.

Her Cleon her did n’t know who she was, but because she became famous because of an incident a few days ago, there were students who greeted her even while walking down the street normally.

“The two of you are here… Is it a date!? Did you come to see your luck today!?”

The female student is wildly excited by the visit of the two, and she screams like ‘Kyaaak!’

“I’m still worried-“

“Yes. That’s right. Can you guide me?”

As Cleon tries to say something of hers but blocks it, Aruru smiles at the two girls and asks for her guidance her.

“Wait… Is that okay?”

If rumors spread that a duke’s daughter came to see an adventurer-turned-instructor for love, it could become a problem in many ways.

“What? Whoa. It’s okay, as far as love luck is concerned. I want to get closer with Cleon too.”

As if Aruru didn’t care about that, she followed her female students into another small tent inside a huge one.

Cleon tries to follow him, but-

“Instructor Cleon is over here!”

The female student who was guiding Aruru, who entered first, leads Cleon to the tent right next to her.

“…Wouldn’t that be entering the same tent?”

“Originally, the rule is for men and women to see each other separately.”

In the first place, Cleon, who is almost ignorant of such things, thinks it is a little strange, but she follows the girls’ guidance to another tent.

Aruru, slightly nervous in the dark tent, turned her head to the outside where Cleon, who had not entered from behind her, was standing.

“Your partner guided me to the tent next to you, so don’t worry.”

She looks in that direction at the sound of her voice that stops her.

There, a female student wearing a robe and mask was sitting there, just like the one who guided them outside.

Her red hair swayed through the slit of her robe, and her brown skin her gave off a mysterious aura.

“Now, please sit over here.”

While talking like that, the female student and Aruru sat face to face with the desk in the middle.

“From basic love luck to counseling on how to develop a relationship with the other person. Ask anything you want.”

When her hand her moved, the cards on her desk spread out. In an instant, she could see them come together again as a bunch.

“However, the most important thing in fortune telling is to be sincere. If you show a false heart to yourself or others, the result will also be false.”

A red-haired woman explaining with a relaxed smile. Aruru had a little confidence in her words and actions of her, but she seemed to be contemplating what to ask first.

“The other person is a man who has relationships with many women… Are you worried that such a man might leave?”

“Ugh… Ahaha… It’s as you say, but I’m not worried that much…”

At the words of her female student, who seemed to see through her thoughts of her, Aruru spoke with a wry smile as if she was in pain.

“Then. How can I seduce someone… How about something like that?”

“…Can you tell me that by divination?”

As if to answer Aruru’s question coolly, the woman gently holds her hand while talking.

“Of course. You just have to trust me completely.”

Then, as she lifted the corners of her mouth, the eyes beneath her glistened.