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[Translator - Prøks]
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Chapter 163: Call the Magic Tower Head (1)
I asked the 5th Deputy Commander one last time,
"Is there any way I can meet the Inspector General?"
"He's not someone you can just meet."
"I guess my reputation hasn't spread this far yet. At least tell him that I want to see him. Before he regrets it."
The 5th Deputy Commander changed his tone.
"Get out before I throw you out."
"Well, then there's nothing I can do. See you again."
I stepped out of the office and paused for a moment, looking at Haengsu. There was no response.
"..."
Even as we passed through the magic circle and returned to the headquarters, and then walked out the main gate, he just kept walking without saying a word.
As soon as we came down to the ground, I heard rapid footsteps behind us.
"Hey."
Vaph, who had followed us out of the Alliance building, was calling out to us.
"You two, stop right there."
"Were you following us?"
"I said stop."
Vaph approached, looked at Haengsu with a dumbfounded expression, and then tapped his chin.
"Haengsu. Why are you rebelling? Did I do something wrong?"
"..."
"This is disappointing. After how well I treated you, this is unacceptable. I took good care of your family, didn't I?"
Haengsu suddenly lifted his head and glared at Vaph with resentment.
"Look at that glare. You've completely lost it. Should I tear your left lip too?"
Vaph let out a hollow laugh and whispered in a low voice,
"Haengsu. Did you think anything would change because of this? You were even more clueless than I thought. I'll show you what happens to a dog that bites its master, soon. This won't end with just you."
Seeing Haengsu's contorted expression, Vaph finally gave a satisfied smile.
I clapped my hands and looked at Vaph.
"Wow. That's some impressive threatening, even for a third-rate gangster. Are all Blue Magic Tower guys like this? No. If they were, the organization should have been destroyed long ago. Were you just not raised properly? That's more plausible. Who's your father?"
Vaph's expression hardened, and he looked at me.
"You insolent bastard."
Vaph's lips curled into a sneer as he brushed past me.
"You can look forward to it too. Let's see if you can still say those things in front of me."
I watched Vaph disappear in a trail of light with a dumbfounded feeling.
"He just heard me say it to his face. What is he talking about? What do you think?"
"..."
"Who am I talking to?"
I changed my mind.
I turned around and headed back to the Alliance headquarters.
Originally, I was planning to have some moonshine before making my move, but the plan had changed.
I entered the first floor of the headquarters and looked around, but Vaph was already gone.
I sat down on a makeshift chair in a corner and watched the people coming and going.
Perhaps because it was around lunchtime, the crowd gradually grew.
Alliance mages, knights dispatched from all over the continent, guards, and other mercenaries or outsiders with business to attend to were all moving busily.
"Hmm."
Suddenly, I turned my gaze towards the entrance.
Haengsu was walking towards me with a determined gait.
"Why are you following me? You don't have to come. Go. I'll decide what to do with you after this is over."
Haengsu stopped in front of me and looked at me directly.
"I have a favor to ask."
"Have you suddenly developed a lingering attachment to life?"
Haengsu shook his head.
"There's a small village called Tesit in the northern Hail region. There's a small group called the Gart Gate there. There should be a blind old man there. Tell him that the Tesit's scoundrel has become a famous mercenary."
"You want a lot."
"If I fail, you can forget about it. Please."
Only then did I look straight into Haengsu's eyes.
Could a person's eyes change so much in just a few hours?
As I tilted my head in wonder, Haengsu disappeared.
"That guy is quite the drama queen."
I closed my eyes and began to meditate. I felt strange gazes, but it was fine. I was a man who could maintain meditation anytime, anywhere.
"Excuse me."
I lifted my eyelids and looked straight ahead. A guard in high-grade armor was glaring at me.
"Vagrants are not allowed here. Get out."
"..."
What did I look like, that he would say such a thing?
I couldn't let this guy who dared to ignore the great Crazy Mage Squad Commander of Samael get away with it, so I said,
"Listen carefully. I am not a vagrant. I am the... White Horse Knight Commander of Samael."
"If you don't leave immediately, I'll drag you out."
"I'll leave."
I was about to get up anyway.
I purposely mingled with the crowd and gradually moved to the right.
Walking casually, I glared at one person.
Vaph, who had just come down the stairs, was heading out of the headquarters with the patrol unit.
I blended into the crowd and waited for the optimal moment.
As the distance closed and I could see Vaph's profile at close range...
...a sharp sound of a blade suddenly rang out from the opposite direction.
Swish—
Before Vaph could even notice, a blade suddenly appeared and was about to pierce his chest...
...when sword energies emitted from all directions simultaneously pierced through the blade in Haengsu's hand.
Bang—!
A look of dismay appeared on Haengsu's face as he charged.
Although his movements were stealthy, there were bound to be skilled individuals among the defense forces stationed at the headquarters.
"Who the hell?!"
Vaph, startled, took a step back.
He had never dreamed that he would be threatened with assassination in the middle of the Alliance headquarters, so all the patrol members momentarily froze.
Wiiiiing—
Only then did the defensive magic circle surrounding the first floor activate, and as guards rushed in from all directions to subdue Haengsu...
...I, who had been hiding stealthily, stepped forward.
Hidden within the magic wavelength of the magic circle, I opened all the circles of my heart and rotated them.
I had already identified the positions of all those I needed to be wary of.
What I needed now was a single, decisive move.
While everyone's attention was focused on Haengsu, I gathered wind pressure at my feet and leaped towards Vaph like a spring.
Fwoosh—
In that instant, sword energy surged towards my waist, but I had already completed the incantation.
'Rupture, Fire Burst.'
I struck down the sword energy and simultaneously reached for Vaph's neck.
The waves of the defensive magic circle, which interfered with the flow of mana in the body's core, tightened around my lower abdomen, but...
...my mana circles were unaffected.
"What?"
The moment Vaph, sensing something amiss, immediately opened his mana core and tried to soar into the sky...
...he felt a searing pain as his neck was snapped, and he collapsed to the floor.
Crack—
"Gah!"
All eyes were on us.
Holding Vaph's neck and lifting him up, I looked at the guards who were subduing Haengsu.
"Release him."
The captain of the guards, who had quickly surrounded me, asked with a puzzled expression,
"Who are you, and why are you causing such reckless trouble in the Alliance?"
The knight who had threatened me with sword energy.
The captain's stern eyebrows showed his determination not to tolerate anything out of line.
"This is a personal matter, so the Alliance has no need to worry. First, release him."
Every time Vaph struggled and tried to activate his mana core, I wrapped and released flames around the hand gripping his neck.
"Ugh, you trash..."
The crowd grew larger.
Mid-level Alliance members began to appear from the upper floors. Among them, those who seemed to belong to the Blue Magic Tower, upon seeing Vaph's face, were startled and disappeared somewhere.
A moment later, a middle-aged woman, escorted by them, shouted,
"Vaph!"
Judging that the time was right, I deeply stabbed Vaph's waist with the Red Dagger and threw him towards the guards.
"Aaaargh!"
As Vaph writhed in pain with a hole in his waist, the medical team quickly approached, stopping the bleeding and pouring medicine on him.
The defense forces gradually surrounded me.
With the circles of my heart open, I said,
"Don't interfere, Alliance. This is a personal matter."
The captain of the guards momentarily halted his troops.
He couldn't understand why I had suddenly released Vaph after attacking him.
Moreover, the captain, who was well aware of Vaph's usual behavior, hesitated on purpose.
"I have a personal grudge against him. Again, I have no hostility towards the Alliance."
"Why did you do this?"
"As I said, it's a personal grudge. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. I wouldn't be satisfied until I stabbed his waist at least once."
At that moment, the middle-aged woman who had been checking on Vaph stepped forward.
"You bastard!"
The captain of the guards blocked the woman, who seemed about to lose her temper, from approaching.
"Please wait a moment, Madam McClaine."
"Are you kidding me, Powell!"
"This is under the jurisdiction of the guards."
"You haven't even properly secured the area, and now you're talking about jurisdiction?!"
"...Sigh."
The captain of the guards, called Powell, let out a sigh and looked at me.
"Regardless of the reason, this happened within the Alliance. I'm going to arrest you. You can explain the specific details to the Inspectorate during the investigation."
I shook my head.
"I already did."
"What?"
"The Inspectorate already deemed this a personal matter."
The captain, who had been staring intently at me, suddenly turned his head.
At the end of his gaze stood the Inspectorate mages.
"Is what he's saying true?"
"..."
The eyes of the Inspectorate mages all turned in one direction. The 5th Deputy Commander, meeting the captain's gaze, looked away with a flustered expression. That's when it happened.
"It's fine."
Vaph, who had received treatment from the medical team, struggled to his feet and looked around.
The wound on his waist was already slowly healing.
"Sigh, he's right. You don't have to worry about it. The Alliance has nothing to do with this."
Vaph looked at me with murderous eyes and then smirked.
"We'll handle the Blue Magic Tower's affairs within the Blue Magic Tower."
I certainly had a good eye for people.
As expected, his answer was within my anticipated range.
Simultaneously, the guards who had been subduing Haengsu let go and stepped back. As I helped Haengsu up, he raised his head with a self-deprecating look.
"Since I failed, you can forget about my request."
"Stop being so dramatic."
I suddenly looked ahead.
The crowd that had gathered parted like the tide to the left and right, and several men in white robes walked out from between them.
"..."
The middle-aged woman who had been shouting vehemently, Vaph, and the captain of the guards all stopped what they were doing.
'White Magic Tower, Administration Bureau.'
The actual governing body of the Magic Tower Alliance.
I couldn't feel any magical energy from the men in white robes, but everyone here was watching them cautiously.
"This is strange. The magic circle definitely activated."
The man in white at the front tilted his head.
"It activated, but it didn't bind him?"
Muttering something I couldn't understand, the man in white looked around.
"What happened here?"
"I'll explain."
While the captain of the guards explained the situation, I closely observed the man in white.
I couldn't feel the typical energy of a mage, but I sensed a subtle flow of mana.
"Assassination? That's fine. You can stop there. It doesn't seem relevant. We left the magic circle unattended for too long. It's time for maintenance."
The man in white turned away as if he had lost interest.
Only after the Administration Bureau had left did Vaph look at me.
"Let's settle this personally, as you wished."
"Good idea."
The crowd wasn't stupid.
Members of other Magic Towers who knew of Vaphh's usual behavior were looking at him with disgust.
The middle-aged woman, noticing the negative gazes around her, pointed at me and shouted,
"How dare you slander the Blue Magic Tower?!"
"You're quite the schemer. A personal grudge turns into slander against the Blue Magic Tower?"
"Shut up, you bastard!"
"Are you his mother by any chance? If so, then I understand."
"What?!"
The captain of the guards, pointing at the middle-aged woman, said,
"Madam McClaine, please refrain from further disturbances. There are many eyes watching."
McClaine, forcing herself to compose her expression, looked at me.
"Let's settle this at our main tower. If you're so confident, follow me."
"That's a good idea too."
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HELHEIM SCANS
[Translator - Prøks]
[Proofreader - Prøks]
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