Chapter 142

Duke Sererassie was an outstanding magician, but not an exceptional fighter.

During her time as a student in the Ivory Tower, she had participated in duels, and through her recent confrontation with the fire magician Parnesia, she had rekindled her sense of one-on-one battles. However, the fight between magicians and the fight between a magician and a warrior were different.

Moreover, her opponents were not creatures of this world but chimeras.

“Shiiik!”

They sprayed acid liquid and shot bone stingers like arrows, applying pressure from a distance.

“Keyeeek!”

One was crawling on the ceiling with six legs, preparing to pounce on her.

“Uooooo!”

Another charged straight ahead with a body like armor.

If she were an ordinary magician, she would have panicked regardless of her skill and collapsed in an instant.

But Duke Sererassie was Duke Sererassie.

She was a genius magician with powerful firepower, who had observed the chaos over Lord Valenciaunos’s shoulder and had a compelling reason to win this fight.

“Chain Lightning!”

Zzzt!

The blue drake’s horn cracked slightly, and electricity sprang like branches.

“Uaaaaaah!”

“Dodge!”

“Keyeeek!”

Of course, the merchants were just as desperate as she was, but unlike her, they weren’t fighting directly.

Zing!

Electric magic manifested in an incredibly short amount of time.

‘If you’re using it for several seconds, it means you don’t have much mana but rather poor skill.’

Duke Sererassie accepted her master’s advice as it related to her experience, feeling and realizing the extremes of it.

‘Faster.’

Zing!

‘Faster!’

Zing!

‘You can do it!’

Zzzt!

“Shiiik!”

The scorpion chimera and the centipede chimera, who had been spraying acid and shooting bone stingers from a distance, trembled and collapsed to the ground.

“Keyeeek!”

The spider chimeras that had been crawling on the ceiling with six legs leapt toward her but were swept away by the blue mire and rolled across the floor.

“Uooooo!”

The stag beetle chimera that charged forward with its armored body trembled and fell with a crash.

Duke Sererassie stepped firmly on the head of the fallen chimera in front of her.

‘Why are you monsters roaming this world?’

Though they looked like monsters on the outside, she saw something different.

In an attempt to enhance their strength forcefully, their joints were strained, and in the process of converting from six-legged to two-legged locomotion, they lacked space to retract their wings, causing them to bend their necks forward awkwardly.

‘It’s obvious.’

The deadline for submitting their tasks was drawing near, and they needed to produce something impactful to score well, so they had burned the midnight oil to make the chimera appear plausible.

If a situation is rushed and reckless, problems are bound to arise in the end.

“Duke Sererassie! Why are you doing this to us?”

“You’re no longer affiliated with the Ivory Tower, are you?”

The merchants, trembling under the table, shouted.

“Shut your mouths.”

Duke Sererassie snapped back while raising her staff.

“You all are foolish and greedy. Is there even a merchant here who has never been to the Ivory Tower’s incinerator?”

“…….”

No response came.

The room was filled with the smell of burning and smoke.

The merchants thought as they watched the chimeras explode.

If they messed up, they might really all die.

“You brought in failed experiments and couldn’t control them from the start, and when problems arose later, you wailed that the Ivory Tower didn’t manage the incinerator properly.”

“That’s a misunderstanding!”

“Do you think my eyes are made of glass beads?”

Zzzt! Zzzt! Zzzt!

A wolf chimera that had jumped up from under the table swung its scorpion tail and shot poisoned darts.

At the same time, it extended its long tongue to try to bind Duke Sererassie.

Duke Sererassie was not a fighter and could not keep up with that speed with her eyes.

Zing!

But she didn’t have to see and block it.

When she slammed her staff onto the ground, once more, lightning crackled.

The wolf chimera, with its tongue extended, rolled across the floor.

She confirmed the chimera’s death, struggled to pull out the stinger lodged in her thigh, and used a detoxification spell while forming a hand seal with her right hand.

Thud!

Then, a sound echoed as a stinger pierced into her calf.

“Uh?”

Duke Sererassie, momentarily startled, checked to see if there was another chimera behind her.

Thud!

Again, this time, a stinger dug into her foot.

“Ah.”

A light of panic appeared on her previously composed face.

The ones stabbing her with the stingers were the merchants hiding under the table.

* * *

As Duke Sererassie staggered back, hands reached out toward her.

“Catch her! Catch her!”

“Stab her!”

“She’s not in armor! We can take her down!”

“First, grab her staff!”

“Cover her mouth and restrain her! Don’t let her form hand seals!”

“Whether I die this way or that way!”

“If this gets known to the imperial court and the Ivory Tower, we’re all done for.”

The merchants hiding under the table started bursting out one after another.

Dozens of hands rushed toward Duke Sererassie.

In the darkness, that sight resembled a chimera with dozens of tentacles.

The panicked magician’s body swayed significantly.

The blue and yellow scales trembled and her lips quivered.

Even a mouse will bite a cat when cornered, and those who have nothing to lose are the most fearsome.

The merchants, desperate just before collapse, had smuggled chimeras from the incinerator and couldn’t control them, turning the northern refugee village into a wasteland.

In this urgent situation, the merchants were not the only ones who felt desperation.

…If a situation is rushed and reckless, problems are bound to arise in the end.

‘Ah.’

In the darkness, the glimmering blade was clearly visible.

Duke Sererassie closed her two differently colored eyes tightly.

‘Somehow,’ ‘surely,’ ‘by all means,’ if one goes all out, there would be a return for it.

Just as the merchants welcomed Duke Sererassie as a price, Duke Sererassie welcomed the merchants as a price.

“We are just the same as you!”

“We wanted to protect the world where we have lived!”

“But what do you mean you’re trying to kill us all?”

“Please accept the price for the lives of my goods!”

Price.

The price of blood, the price of lineage.

It was like her reverse scale.

As a member of the royal family, she had to leave the Ivory Tower, and at that moment, she fell to the ground like an angel plummeting from heaven.

Zing, Duke Sererassie opened her eyes wide.

“Who dares to discuss a price with me?”

Her differently colored eyes sparkled like lightning.

“Flash Spear.”

Zzzt!

With the incantation, Duke Sererassie’s body turned into a streak of light.

“Uh, uh!”

“We’re done for…!”

The merchants gazed at each other’s faces in horror illuminated by that light.

The dozens of hands that were poised to bury Duke Sererassie, the darkness that was rushing together, split apart with the flash.

The beams of light pierced through the mud slime.

This magic was not meant to be used in a narrow room.

It could have easily buried her in the wall or had only the effect of crashing against the wall with full force.

Regardless, Duke Sererassie succeeded, and the merchants tumbled to the ground.

Duke Sererassie, propped against the wall, exhaled roughly as she glanced back.

“Price. One could say that, indeed. But it’s absurd to question the owner of a stolen sword about why his sword was stolen, isn’t it?”

Yet this world was one where divine miracles occurred, where knights of legendary strength competed, and where magicians who had lived for centuries sought the truth.

Absurdities happened quite often.

“And yet that absurdity has occurred. Then I must use an absurd solution.”

Charging in and knocking them all out, for instance.

“Oh no. I seem to be turning into my little brother.”

Realizing that, Duke Sererassie smiled with a mix of smugness and resignation.

She couldn’t resemble Valenciaunos.

If a situation is rushed and reckless, problems are bound to arise in the end.

She foresaw that one day her half-brother would face a major problem.

“Shiiik!”

At that moment, a surviving chimera rose behind her.

“……What’s going on?”

Duke Sererassie tried to turn her body, but her right hand was buried inside the wall.

“We’re in trouble.”

Zzzt! Zzzt! Zzzt!

Three stingers pierced into her thigh.

The chimera stepped closer, one step at a time.

“……Krrrr.”

Its triple-layered teeth gleamed menacingly.

Bang!

And then the door broke, and Tenitia burst in.

“Duke Sererassie!”

“Tenitia?”

* * *

The knight in full plate armor tore through the chimera like paper, pulled the bricks apart, and carefully extracted Duke Sererassie’s right hand.

“How did you get here?”

“Lord Valenciaunos headed toward the Ivory Tower, but he couldn’t find you there. Learning of the situation, your junior magician Niar pointed out a few places, and I went searching alongside Lord Valenciaunos.”

Duke Sererassie nodded silently.

“…….”

“…….”

An awkward silence fell between them for a moment.

The last memory they shared was that argument in the trash heap.

“I’m sorry, my lord.”

It was Tenitia who bowed her head first.

She had received orders from Valenciaunos and could no longer prioritize her own thoughts.

“I was momentarily blinded and could not discern what was important. I should have drawn my sword for you, but I failed to do so, and this is my flaw.”

Thus, Duke Sererassie, too, could calmly bow her head.

“No, you were right. I couldn’t check on another person who was already burning from the fire that fell on my feet. While all magicians are like that, as a duke, I should have been more careful.”

Duke Sererassie responded, feeling like she understood something.

She wouldn’t see the world only through a magician’s eyes… it wasn’t as if she wouldn’t.

In the future, she would continue looking at the sky and would fall into wells.

Stumbling forward like this wasn’t necessarily bad.

The problem lay in the fact that the people around her were the ones to pull her out of the well.

That was a burden.

Yet this time, she could say she managed to get through, somehow.

At least she caught them all.

However, Duke Sererassie was a genius in magic, not in mischief.

She knew how to win, but she didn’t know how to capitalize on that victory.

‘What should I do now? I need to meet the emperor. But what about the merchants during that time? The staff might come rushing in. It’s impossible to take them all.’

It was her first time making this kind of ‘deal.’

In fact, she didn’t want to do it at all.

She was inherently a magician, and unlike Valenciaunos, she didn’t enjoy relationships with people, and Jeilliris was a terrifying being she didn’t want to face.

“Big sister.”

“Just in time!”

Thus, she decided to respond in the manner she excelled at.

“Gobble these up as much as you want, and save the Ivory Tower for me.”

She boldly admitted what she couldn’t do and outsourced it.

Valenciaunos smiled, as if he expected this from her.

* * *

“……So first, we apprehended the unqualified person on charges of distributing magic tools and potions, seized all their assets, and imposed hefty fines,”

In the bright office illuminated by spring sunlight, Jeilliris smiled like a well-fed carnivorous reptile as she listened to Valenciaunos’s report.

“Seizing assets and imposing fines, you truly are ruthless.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty.”

“But isn’t the Ivory Tower pushing things a bit too far?”

She narrowed her yellow eyes slightly.

“There will be poor harvests, and accidents can happen in the mines. To catch the merchants like that…”

Valenciaunos replied, displaying a confident expression.

“I intend to continue trading with merchants who have a good reputation and have not exploited students. What I am suggesting is pruning, not killing the tree.”

Jeilliris nodded as if she understood.

Her yellow eyes sparkled with sadistic delight.

“In the end, it means they will group among themselves. Got it. If you have gathered this much, for now, I shall be satisfied. Since I did not acquire the expected grimoire, tell Duke Sererassie to put in even more effort and bring new discoveries.”

She was saying she wouldn’t peel the Ivory Tower for the negligence in managing the chimeras.

Valenciaunos deeply bowed his head and rose.

* * *

Valenciaunos immediately headed to Duke Sererassie’s shop.

“Big sister. The emperor said she would turn a blind eye.”

“I’m so relieved…!”

“Now let’s go and feast on them!”