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Chapter 246: Lloyd Schultz (4)

Crack!

Space split apart, and Oscar and Sasha appeared atop the city’s highest watchtower.

“W-what? Wh-who are—!”

“An intruder! Intruders!”

The two guards who were about to raise the alarm collapsed on the spot.

Sasha had instantly cast Sleep on them, and now wore an apologetic look.

“Ahh, I’m sorry, so sorry.”

She bowed over and over to the unconscious men before letting out a deep sigh as she turned to Oscar.

“For a Tower Master to use magic on civilians… if people found out, they’d curse me.”

“It’s fine. No one will ever know.”

“……”

‘Was Master always this reckless?’

As she seriously pondered that question, Sasha’s expression suddenly hardened.

“This presence… we’ve found the right one.”

Through eyes strengthened with mana, she caught sight of a staggering figure fleeing through the streets.

The man tried his best to hide his presence, but he couldn’t deceive the senses of an 8th-circle mage.

It was Lloyd Schultz, fleeing from the Red Tower’s mages.

“What will you do now?”

“Hm.”

“Just so you know, the moment we step in openly, the situation will become irreversible.”

She was right.

The Red Tower had already placed Lloyd Schultz on its Special Wanted list.

‘Of course, an individual Tower putting out a special wanted order is overstepping its authority.’

Declaring someone an official criminal was a power reserved solely for the Imperial Family.

Naturally, the Red Tower knew this.

And yet they’d still rushed to announce a special wanted order.

‘It was nothing more than a warning—“Don’t you dare interfere.”’

The Red Tower was furious, and this was their way of telling outsiders to stay away.

If that warning was ignored, their retaliation was all but guaranteed.

‘We’d have to be prepared for war between Towers.’

And war wasn’t just about stealing each other’s business or fighting over market share.

It meant a clash of sheer force against force.

“……The White Tower can’t handle that right now.”

“Exactly. What we need most at the moment is time.”

As Oscar fell into deep thought about what to do, his brows suddenly twitched.

Lloyd’s condition looked far worse than he’d expected.

“……That guy’s mana circuits are badly damaged.”

“You’re right. Escaping the encirclement with that body will be impossible.”

Even so, Lloyd stubbornly kept running.

He blew apart alleys, threw up smoke to block the mages’ sight—anything to get away.

‘The plan’s good, but…’

The opponent was bad.

The old man rising into the air was a face Oscar recognized.

“Dane Rebanov. So that old geezer’s still alive.”

“Huh? You know him?”

“Somewhat.”

Oscar replied with a displeased look.

“He’s a notorious pure-blood supremacist. In my previous life, he always looked down on me, a mere orphan.”

“What? That’s ridiculous. You weren’t even in the same Tower, so why?”

“Something about me tarnishing the nobility of a Tower Master.”

“……I’ll just go and take care of him right now.”

“Wait! Hold it!”

He barely managed to grab Sasha before she rushed out, calming her down with effort.

“Like you said, if we act openly, it’ll mean we’re ignoring the Red Tower’s warning. To them, that’s nothing short of a declaration of war.”

“True.”

“So for now, we watch.”

“Just watch?”

“Of course not. We watch, and if the right moment comes…”

Oscar rubbed his hands together like a magician preparing a card trick—swish, swish!

Sasha copied his gesture clumsily and asked,

“What does that mean?”

“It means we snatch him away—like a magician’s trick.”

“Ohhh…”

The plan sounded convincing enough that, for the first time, Sasha responded positively.

“That’s a good idea. As long as we don’t leave any evidence we were involved.”

Having reached an understanding, they turned their eyes back to Lloyd.

He was about two kilometers away, but seeing and hearing the situation was no problem.

—For a celebration in honor of the Ashen Mage, surely this many people should gather, don’t you think?

The mocking words directed at Lloyd made Sasha mutter,

“……I really don’t like him. We wouldn’t get along at all.”

“You’re probably right.”

Until then, Oscar had been observing with relative calm.

He believed the Red Tower’s Master wasn’t insane enough to kill Lloyd outright.

‘Lloyd is an 8th-circle mage. Unless Kudel’s lost his mind, there’s no way he’d destroy such a valuable piece with his own hands.’

He’d try to coax him, bribe him, perhaps even force him into submission—but killing him was unlikely.

Yet when a small glass vial appeared in Dane’s hands, Oscar’s gaze turned cold.

“Hm? A bug? What’s that?”

Sasha squinted at the vial.

She saw a crawling insect inside but couldn’t identify it.

“Do you know what it is, Master?”

“……It’s Gu poison.”

Sasha flinched at the name.

She’d never seen them, but she knew the stories.

“Gu poison… the paired insects they forcefeed to traitors in Yan?”

“Exactly. If my eyes aren’t deceiving me.”

In Yan, traitors were fed Gu poison.

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The worms were used to extract information from co-conspirators, and they served as a constant death sentence at the authorities’ discretion.

Oscar bit his lip slightly.

“……Kudel Redmane.”

So the method chosen wasn’t persuasion or force, but blackmail.

To think he’d actually feed such things to Lloyd.

“I—isn’t using that illegal?”

“To be precise, using Gu poison itself isn’t illegal.”

But if the opponent is an 8th-circle mage, then things change.

Especially now, when the demons are once again stirring.

—No way…?

—Should I call this pure, or should I call it foolish? Did you truly think someone who had reached the 8th circle—even with damaged mana circuits—would fight you fairly?

Meanwhile, Lloyd’s situation was racing toward its end.

—Bind his limbs tightly, and bring the Gu poison.

The enemy tower’s mages forced Lloyd’s mouth open.

When he saw the Gu poison being pushed toward him, he heard a sharp snap inside his head.

By the time he came to his senses, he had already pulled on the threads of space.

“……”

Thud, thud.

Two fingers and a single insect dropped to the floor.

The severed edges were as clean as though cut by a master smith’s forged blade.

“…What?”

Dane stared blankly at what had fallen.

Only after the pain hit a beat later did he finally grasp what had happened.

“Gaaahhhh!”

While Dane staggered from the sudden strike, a fierce wind surged, flinging away the mages who had been holding Lloyd down.

“……”

The enemy tower’s mages swallowed hard as they looked at the man who had appeared in the center of their formation.

The man in a white robe stood upright, back and chest straight.

It was as if he had been standing there all along, blending naturally into the background.

“……”

Through his fading consciousness, Lloyd looked at the man who had caught him.

Because of the backlight pouring down from the sky, his face was hidden.

But before he lost consciousness, Lloyd heard the man’s gentle voice.

“When you wake up, it’ll all be over.”

It was the same thing Dane Rebanov had once said, but the feeling was entirely different.

It was like listening to the warmest, softest lullaby in the world.

Who…

Unable to voice that question, Lloyd’s consciousness sank beneath the surface of sleep.

* * *

“…id, Lloyd!”

At the sound of his name being called, Lloyd hurriedly came to.

He turned to the mage staring straight at his face and apologized.

“Sorry. What did you say just now?”

“The mana readings keep spiking. We might have to consider that there’s an error in the formula itself.”

“Which means…”

The leader of this research, Schwein Koch, nodded weakly.

“For today, that’s the end of our 14th attempt at restoring the high magic ‘Sword That Splits the Heavens’. I’ll call you again once the next project is set. Until then, rest well.”

At his words, a dozen or so mages filed out of the lab in a rush.

None of their faces held regret, nor even frustration.

They looked as if they had expected this outcome from the beginning.

Left alone in the lab with only two people remaining, Lloyd spoke.

“Elder, is there really a need to terminate the project at this timing? We could at least check which part of the formula has the error before stopping.”

“……”

At that, Elder Schwein, who was organizing the research records, gave a bitter smile.

“I wanted to. But four people came to me and said the same thing: that they’ll soon be leaving the White Tower.”

“…I see.”

It would indeed be strange to conduct high-magic research with those who were about to become outsiders.

Lloyd glanced around the quiet lab and murmured.

“There used to be so many mages packed into this lab, and now not even ten remain.”

“You brat, how many years ago are you talking about?”

Schwein chuckled faintly, also recalling those times.

It had already been five years since humanity’s hero, Oscar Sage, slew the Great Emperor.

Back then, the White Tower truly brimmed with mages.

‘Why don’t we try restoring the lost magic ourselves?’

‘There are still so many mages left here.’

‘If we put our heads together and combine our strength, it must be possible.’

Even though the Tower Master who had led them was gone, the White Tower was still filled with dreams, hope, and passion.

But it hadn’t taken long for them to realize that restoring high magic was close to impossible.

Year after year, the Tower’s atmosphere sank heavier, and more and more mages departed.

“…You can’t blame them. Everyone just left to find their own way to survive.”

Though Schwein himself, as head of the restoration department, must have felt the greatest regret, he comforted Lloyd instead.

“With those of us who remain, we’ll just have to do what we can. Don’t grieve too much.”

“Yes. Then, I’ll take my leave first.”

After bowing lightly, Lloyd left the lab.

As he walked down the corridor, he thought:

‘Restoring high magic is realistically impossible.’

There was no way Elder Schwein didn’t already know this fact that even Lloyd himself understood.

So why cling to such a futile task?

Lloyd thought he could guess the answer.

‘Because of hope.’

Without even that, they would not have the strength to endure this grim reality.

Lloyd halted his steps and looked out through the window at the training grounds below.

Once, that place had swarmed with people, but now not even an ant could be seen.

“……”

The White Tower was enduring the harshest season in its history.

It was winter.

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