17 – Ang Nyang Nyang

“They’ve made a base on the lake… it’s all so terribly sinister.”

Lorraine shuddered, making a disgusted ‘ugh’ sound, clearly hating anything to do with black mages.

I looked at Lorraine, seeking her opinion.

“How do you think we should get under there?”

Lorraine stared down thoughtfully, then, after a moment, offered a method both simple and direct.

“Why not just break through?”

“Break through?”

“Yes. In my experience, when something is obviously there but invisible, it’s likely they’ve magically concealed the entrance. So…”

Lorraine, with a speed that defied the eye, unsheathed her sword and unleashed a strike across the entire lake surface.

As I stood there, inwardly marveling at the sight of countless things being cleaved apart in an instant, Lorraine added tersely,

“Found it.”

She’d found the entrance that led beneath.

*

It seemed they’d cast illusion magic, followed by a perceptual dampening.

Now, a small cabin, previously unseen, sat cleaved in half, stark and out of place.

The sight of its obvious strangeness made me place the spirit on my shoulder to investigate.

“Myang! Myang!”

Seeing her anger, we had clearly found the right place.

Hearing her confirmation, I stepped inside to find a black mage, bisected, slumped to the floor.

‘Lorraine’s strike finished him, it seems.’

His face revealed that he hadn’t even realized he was dead, his eyes still wide open.

I stared at the corpse for a moment, then kicked it down the stairs leading into the earth.

The sound of a heavy splash echoed up, reassuring me that there were no obvious traps.

I gave Lorraine the signal to descend, and stepped down into the darkness.

What greeted us below was a bizarre laboratory, resembling a colossal aquarium.

Wrinkling my nose at the grotesque creatures twisting within the water,

I stumbled upon something truly shocking.

[A Method for Efficiently Extracting Negativity]

It seemed to be an extension of the experiment I’d discovered in the tail section not long ago.

Documents detailed a method for extracting the maximum amount of negative emotion from people, for as long as possible, and the research results.

The content was far too abhorrent to dwell on, so I’d deliberately avoided internalizing it.

Yet, that initial sentence – forcing families to kill each other – kept replaying in my mind, unfurling waves of nausea.

“…Madmen.”

Calmly documenting deeds that should never be committed, under the guise of efficiency, performing them time and time again, was intolerable. It was at that moment I noticed something rather peculiar at the very center of the lab.

“…A black bead?”

A single, small black bead, bound by countless crimson threads.

Surrounded by things like grotesque mutated creatures, or the corpses of humans, the sudden appearance of this bead sparked my curiosity.

Watching it, I realized that this must be the key item in this whole affair, and I started to approach it.

“It seems we have our first uninvited guests. Welcome.”

A man with an appearance that was… well, rather likeable, even, stepped forward and greeted us.

“Lord Karsaril and Sir Lorraine, is it not? Though uninvited, you are rather valuable guests. As the master of this place, I should offer you proper hospitality. I only wonder if I can provide you with satisfactory treatment.”

He spoke to us in an excessively oily and nonchalant voice.

Ignoring him wouldn’t have mattered, but we were here because of the ‘Lilia assassination incident.’

Just as I was about to open my mouth, to extract as much information as possible…

“Lord, behind me.”

Lorraine drew his sword, pushing me behind him.

Judging by his tone, he must have deemed this foe one I could never defeat. I nodded, retreating.

‘Better than interfering and getting in the way.’

Help is only helpful if you’re on the same level.

With such a vast difference in skill, I’d only be a hindrance, so I unhesitatingly stepped back and said,

“I’m counting on you.”

“Yes.”

Contrary to our expectations, the dark mage waved his hand and said,

“It seems you misunderstand. I have no intention of fighting you. A fight would be pointless, and only result in losses for me.”

Hearing that, I added a single sentence to Lorraine.

“He’s stalling for time.”

“I thought so too.”

Even so, having spent so much time together, our minds aligned.

Trusting that things would be handled well on their own, I subtly shifted my gaze.

‘From the outset, I came here to unearth information pertaining to assassinations.’

Reminding myself that information gathering came first, I rummaged through every corner.

All manner of documents and traces of countless experiments.

I tried to quickly scan and grasp any relevant content, but nothing readily appeared.

With a furrowed brow, a thought took root – *could this be the wrong place?* – and as doubt settled in, the spirit nudged me, pointing towards a black orb.

‘Come to think of it, that was there.’

The way that dark mage seemed intent on guarding it… the most crucial item in this laboratory was likely that orb.

Calming the spirit, which was *myaeng-myaeng*-ing and barking at my side, I started to approach it.

Only to feel a powerful mana barrier blocking my path.

‘So that’s why they left me to my own devices.’

Certain that I couldn’t break through it – unlike Lorraine – they didn’t even bother to spare me a glance.

Such behavior stirred a stubbornness within me, and I resolved to shatter the barrier and take that orb. I gripped my mace, preparing to smash it when…

“Go kill him, now!”

“Move, move! Do you want to die?”

“Surround him!”

A flood of figures poured out from behind.

Realizing that was why they were stalling for time, I gave a hollow laugh and called upon the spirit.

“Myaaak!”

The sun spirit, overwhelmed by the sheer number of dark mages, or things connected to them, was visibly agitated. More discomfort than usual emanated from it, and its fur stood on end.

I asked the spirit to lend me its strength, and gestured with my mace.

‘The sun spirit is, by its very nature, a spirit suited for battle.’

Normally, to infuse warmth into the north, it spreads itself in a very thin, wide form. However, when concentrated, its power becomes unbelievably strong.

‘Usually, the power is so great that the damage caused by using it even once is too extensive, so it’s rarely employed.’

Now, with absolutely no need to worry about collateral damage, I was free to unleash it to my heart’s content.

I asked the sun spirit to lend me its strength and scattered flames in every direction.

The sun’s fire, which never dies out.

Comparable to something like white phosphorus, this power continued to burn those who touched it.

“Kkyaaack!”

“S-Save, save me.”

“Kkeueup, hkkeup!”

Everything around me screams in agony as it bursts into flame.

It was not exactly a pleasant sight, being so excessively cruel.

Though perhaps because of the experiments I had witnessed earlier, I felt little guilt.

“F-Fight back! If we stay like this, we’re all dead anyway!”

It seemed there was still one among them capable of rational thought, as he rallied the remaining ones to fire magic at me.

Sharp mana, reminiscent of piercing spears, flew in countless volleys, causing a faint sense of crisis to flicker within me.

Whirrrl.

But the immense wall of fire conjured by the spirit turned it all to white ash in an instant.

The sense of crisis evaporated quickly, rendering everything a futile attack.

“Y-You monster.”

I chuckled at the voice coming from the front.

The real monsters were Lorraine and that unknown figure fighting over there, so to be called a monster myself was somewhat amusing.

I was about to dispose of these terrified fools and retrieve the black orb when a woman with a rather haggard face walked out from among the black mages and spoke.

“Presumptuous… presumptuous, presumptuous, presumptuous.”

A gloomy-looking woman, tearing at her own skin with her nails to create scars on herself, glared at me, expressing her fury.

Looking at the intense dark magic radiating from her, I intuitively knew she would not be an easy opponent, and I took a light, calming breath.

The woman who had been clawing at herself suddenly stopped and began to laugh strangely as she spoke to me.

“C-Can you… can you even break it? Someone…someone like you?”

Her voice cracked as if her vocal cords were torn, the pitch changing rapidly.

I frowned at her, feeling an instinctive aversion to this individual.

She laughed and told me.

“If you break it… I’ll, I’ll acknowledge you. Hkeuheup, not that you could ever, ever break it.”

The taunt was so clumsy that I felt not anger, but only amusement.

So, I ignored her and was about to conjure the flames of the sun when.

A rather interesting thought suddenly bloomed in my mind.

‘If I really broke this glass barrier and took the black orb, things might become interesting.’

Of course, in addition to the original black mage probably abandoning me, it wouldn’t be easy, as she said.

Still, a flicker of ambition unfurled within me, a desire to see this through.

So I gripped the mace tightly, pouring the mana from my core into it.

Barely a year had passed since I first held a blade, making the act of imbuing mana into a weapon clumsy and unrefined, to say the least.

But perhaps it was the memory of sacrificing myself for a year, breathing warmth into the frozen North.

The instant the Sun Sprite’s solar mana flowed into the mace, I was able to conjure sword energy more expertly than with my own mana.

“Uh, uh?”

A startled voice reached me from the front.

Judging by the reaction, it seemed I was conjuring a level of sword energy beyond their expectations.

I tore my gaze from the black mage, who had even forgotten to scratch his own skin, and with all my strength, I slashed at the glass containing the black orb.

The area erupted in a torrent of flame.

The instant the searing fire, capable of melting anything, and the sword energy that could cleave through common sense, met the glass wall, everything began to distort.

Then, with an immense crash, shards of glass exploded outward in all directions.

“…You…madman!”

A horrified cry pierced the air.

Ignoring the sound, I moved swiftly to preempt their attack, reaching out to seize the black orb when…

“Anyaang-nyang.”

The Sun Sprite, perched on my shoulder, darted forward and swallowed the black orb whole.

“…?”

I stared at the sprite, a question in my eyes.

It just beamed back at me, its eyes even rounder and cuter than before, and spoke with evident pride.

“Myang!”

As if to say, “Did I do good?”, leaving me to blink dumbly in response.