Chapter 26
"Cough! Kgh."
Heros merely continued coughing dryly in response to my words.
Looking at Heros, I glanced around the area for a moment.
Smoke.
Smoke maintained solely by my ability enveloped the entire space.
The walls, the ceiling, and even every object were all covered in it.
It was a sight that could easily make someone mistake it for being inside a cloud.
Of course, most of this smoke wasn't cloud smoke, but cigar smoke.
"The cigar smoke burns, doesn't it?"
As I said that, I pulled another cigar from inside my coat and calmly began carefully cutting off its tip with a cigar cutter.
Cigar smoke was, from the very beginning, smoke produced by burning tobacco leaves.
Hot and acrid smoke.
Unless I needed a large amount of smoke to use a major technique, even I primarily used the so-called mouth-smoking method, simply holding the smoke in my mouth.
"Cough! Kgh! Cough."
That sort of smoke had filled the space in every direction.
"Hmm. Good."
Once the end of the cigar had been cut, I took a lighter from inside my coat and slowly began lighting it.
What I had done wasn't particularly difficult.
I had simply dispersed extremely compressed smoke in an instant, forcing the mana in the air away and creating a kind of mana dead zone.
"I thought about it in simple terms."
I said that while savoring the citrusy, refreshing aroma of this unusual cigar.
What was the most essential energy when using magic?
Mana.
Then why not erase it? Mana itself?
This space was the technique born from that exceedingly simple idea.
"Well, then."
As I finished speaking, I looked down at Heros, who was desperately stirring up his internal mana and using it to block my smoke from invading his respiratory system.
"The conversation's over."
The principle of his immortality? Its true nature? I no longer cared.
Whatever principle it operated on, or even if his innate immortality truly could be maintained without mana.
If I simply kept killing him, either his mind would collapse or he would truly die from having no mana. One of the two would happen eventually.
"Shall we enjoy some quality time together... No, saying something like that to another man gives me the creeps."
Abel frowned at his own words and slowly began manipulating the smoke.
***
Heros had originally been an ordinary mage, one of countless others.
A Red Mage.
He had only just received the title of High Mage, after awakening mana at the age of ten and training for forty-two years.
If he hadn't encountered something extraordinary, he would have remained an ordinary mage and alchemist who never left even his name in history.
That had been the life of the man named Heros.
But.
An awakening whose purpose was unknown—whether a prank or mockery by fate.
Once he became an irregular existence, both a mage and an ability user, Heros became intoxicated by his sense of omnipotence.
Moreover, there was a problem with the ability he had awakened.
[Modification]
It was an ability that seemed to reproduce his curiosity exactly as it was.
It was like giving wings to a tiger.
'Hahahahahaha!!!'
The first thing Heros did after obtaining this ability was modify his own body.
A body like the legendary slime's, one whose immortality would also be maintained as long as its mana continued to be sustained.
To obtain such a body, Heros repeatedly modified, experimented on, and dissected himself.
'What incredible madness...'
How much time had passed like that?
An organization came to Heros, who was continuing his horrific self-experiments in his hideout.
He didn't know the organization's name.
They had merely promised him enormous sums of money and support, claiming they were rooting for him.
'We'll support you. Go wild to your heart's content.'
It was an obviously suspicious proposal that an ordinary person would probably have rejected or found unsettling.
But Heros didn't care about such things.
By then, Heros no longer possessed enough reason to bother with matters like that.
No, an ordinary person would never have done something as insane as modifying their own body in the first place.
'Excellent!'
And that was the background behind the birth of [Mirage].
"Ah..."
"Oh, what? You're awake?"
'Did I pass out...?'
As soon as his consciousness returned, Heros assessed his situation.
Chains made of smoke were tightly binding his limbs.
'This...?'
"You woke up pretty quickly this time."
Abel was sitting calmly on a chair at a table made of smoke, smoking a cigar.
'Ah, right...'
Staring blankly at that relaxed figure, Heros slowly retraced his fight with Abel through his dazed mind, which had lost a great deal of blood.
'I lost...'
No, he hadn't lost.
He had been crushed so overwhelmingly that the fight itself had failed to qualify as a fight.
None of his attacks had worked against Abel, while Abel had merely wiggled his fingers to bring death upon him.
It was an utterly insurmountable difference in strength.
"Heh heh heh. Figures."
Heros lamented his situation, bound tightly by chains of smoke.
"Did they support me so much just to use me as a shield...? Heh heh."
"Hm. They?"
"...Yeah."
"What kind of people were they?"
"Ha... Why should I tell you?"
Abel answered Heros's question in a calm voice.
"Because if you don't tell me, you'll never get out of here."
"...What?"
"This mana-less space... Ugh, I'm not good at naming things, so I couldn't really give it a proper name. Anyway, it can last for at least a week as long as no one interferes from outside. If I rest or recover my mana, I can maintain it semi-permanently."
As he said that, Abel took a sip of his cocktail and savored its flavor.
But in contrast to Abel's peaceful appearance, Heros's eyes began shaking violently.
He had to remain in this horrific space for another week?
No, it might not be a week. He might have to stay here for the rest of his life.
"If you want to stay here for a long time, you don't have to tell me anything."
As though he truly didn't care, Abel poured himself a drink into a glass made of smoke and took a sip.
...
It might not have mattered if he hadn't known what mana was.
But to a mage who knew mana and had indulged in it more than anyone, this space was no different from hell.
Simply breathing air devoid of mana felt like breathing air filled with sand.
"...I'll tell you..."
Heros surrendered to Abel's threat, lowered his head, and slowly began telling his story.
He told me everything: his ability, the organization that had sought him out, and even the support he had received from them.
"It was an organization, but I don't know its name either."
Heros hadn't been in any state to concern himself with such things back then.
He had been modifying himself and repeatedly experimenting on others, driven by an impulse bordering on madness.
"Hmm..."
"The information I... know ends here."
Saying that, Heros lowered his head.
***
I silently watched Heros with his head bowed.
Judging by how stable the pulse and breathing I sensed through the smoke were, he must have told nothing but the truth.
'The cross-checking is complete, so it must be the truth.'
Five times.
The number of times Heros had passed out and regained consciousness before finally divulging the information he knew under my pressure.
Testimony obtained through torture or extreme pressure was very often false.
That was why cross-checking was necessary.
The information he had given me before and the information he had just uttered.
If the two didn't match, there was a very high chance it was a lie.
'An organization...'
The story I confirmed through cross-checking was quite interesting.
The scale was far too large for a single mage to have managed it alone.
The accomplice Ariel had mentioned was almost certainly the organization that bastard had described.
'The problem is that there's too little information...'
There were three pieces of information I could draw from it.
One. The organization had enough intelligence-gathering capability to track down Heros while he was in hiding.
Two. Considering the cost of the drug [Mirage] they had created this time, they also possessed considerable financial resources.
Finally. According to Heros, they had already gathered information about me, meaning they were an organization highly wary of me.
'There are too many candidates.'
How many families had I dealt with while growing up in the capital's back alleys?
The number of families eliminated by my hand alone was nearly three digits.
In fact, I had swept up so many of them that the slums' security, which had been maintained by the families' fear, had actually grown worse.
And there was a strong possibility that some families hostile to me had survived.
"Well, fine."
Thinking about it any longer wasn't going to produce anything.
If so, there was no reason for me to stay here any longer either.
With that thought, I released the chair made of smoke and slowly began walking out of this space.
"@%!^@!"
I could hear a voice calling for me, but there was no reason to listen to someone who had used people as test subjects.
"!!#^@@^!"
Leaving behind cries that had nearly become screams, I leisurely walked out beyond the barrier I had created.
.
.
.
When I stepped outside the barrier, evening had passed and complete darkness had descended. It was the middle of the night.
"So it was that side after all."
"Huh? What? Breck?"
Looking toward the place where the voice had come from, I saw Breck watching me with a slightly tired expression.
"This was the jackpot?"
"Hmm... So where's the culprit?"
At Breck's question, I pointed toward the smoke enveloping the entire building and spoke.
"This way."
"He's in there?"
"Yeah. Wait a moment. I'll compress it so it can be moved."
As I said that, I slowly began compressing the smoke.
It seemed as though I could hear Heros screaming through the smoke, but I ignored it.
"There. This should do, right? Can you move it?"
"Yeah, this shouldn't be a problem. The contract was a success."
The Nostras Family's contract.
Investigating the drug [Mirage], and detaining the culprit.
"Honestly, I hadn't expected to capture him alive."
"It's a freebie."
I smiled faintly and responded to Breck's words.
As Breck had said, the conditions he had set never included capturing the culprit alive in the first place.
It was nothing more than a condition where it would be nice if I handed him over alive, but it wouldn't particularly matter if I didn't.
"Well, since you captured him alive, it's not a bad deal for us either. Anyway, good work, Abel. I've definitely noted your reward."
"Ah, then can I use one of those three right away?"
"Hm? I don't mind."
In response to Breck, I immediately told him the information I had obtained while interrogating Heros.
"...Hmm, the organization that supported Heros... And judging from the circumstances, the undead on the Saint's side were probably their doing too."
"Well, the timing is too coincidental, isn't it?"
"Good. Then let's investigate that organization. We don't have enough clues to get its trail right away, but..."
"I didn't expect us to get a clear picture right away either. No matter."
I shrugged at Breck's words and looked at Mist, who was standing behind me before I knew it.
"So? How was Mist's ability?"
I had already told Mist beforehand that, before sending her to Breck, I had separately asked him to assess her abilities.
"...Sigh. Sorry, but I couldn't gauge it."
"Hmm... Really?"
Unable to gauge it?
At Breck's words, I looked at him as I involuntarily sighed.
The head of the Nostras Family's capital branch.
The head of an organization that dealt in information couldn't even gauge her abilities?
"Yeah."
At my gaze, Breck looked at Mist behind me with slightly uneasy eyes.