Chapter 78
Clearly, unlike the outside, a suspicious odor was thick in the air.
[The system detected a high concentration of demonic energy!]
[Authority erosion is in progress! Activate dragon mana to resist! Erosion rate 0.0001%...]
[Your race is immune to erosion!]
[Judgment: Overwhelming]
[The effects of the erosion vanish!]
...?
Something else popped up.
The system's been noisy lately.
I guess I'd better stop by the tower.
If I clear the tower, I should be able to figure something out.
“Good. Let’s go.”
So there was a facility like this in Reinhardt.
Quite interesting.
The best thing about Oz Caster is that it leaves almost no trace of mana.
I don't know whether that's a trait limited to the inventory or to the Silver Shoes.
But thanks to that trait, I was able to sneak in without being detected.
I slipped in just like that.
There were basic traps along the way, though.
‘I’m not the kind to fall for this.’
I jumped over the pressure-plate traps and crawled along the ceiling to avoid the ones that made noise when a thread was touched.
There were many traps designed to be hard to see by using light and shadow, but in front of the Dragon Eyes, they were meaningless.
Because my field of vision itself was different.
After quietly tailing him for a few minutes, I could see the back of Professor Georgia's head.
For reference, I was up at his upper right.
I was plastered to the corner of the ceiling's blind spot.
Ahead of him, countless lasers were arrayed in disorder.
Professor Georgia was holding that black crystal from earlier.
[User detected. Confirmed]
‘Oh, a laser trap.’
The laser trap turned off for a moment.
Professor Georgia leisurely passed through that corridor and went into the door ahead.
Once the door closed, I came down from the ceiling.
“Hmm.”
Looking closer, it was a trap that made use of quite complex magical devices.
A grown man couldn't have passed through it; only someone as thin as me could barely squeeze by.
For now, I pulled my stealth robe all the way over my head.
Don’t ask why this exists. It’s a wizard’s essential outfit.
“All right. Let’s try it.”
I hopped over the first laser, then flattened myself to dodge the second one coming at me.
Then came the dozens of lasers arriving along random curved trajectories.
I activated the Dragon Eyes and dodged every single one by a hair.
“Cleared!”
I changed the stealth robe back into normal clothes.
The inventory really is convenient in situations like this.
My freed white hair fluttered back into place.
‘...But couldn’t I have just used teleportation?’
Even if activation took a bit, the lasers weren't going to catch me.
I could have just teleported past the lasers.
I ended up doing it out of habit.
‘Well, if it works, it works.’
“Oz Caster, Silver Shoes.”
With that, the magic activated, and when I went inside,
I saw Professor Georgia speaking about something while holding the crystal.
“What about contact with the Third Facility? Is the work proceeding properly?”
“This matter must not fail. If it does, our family. No, you lot won't be safe either!”
Hmm.
What kind of evil are you plotting?
I decided to eavesdrop a little more on the call.
“It’s fine. This place was built yesterday, but it’s a work made using ancient magical devices. The security is airtight. As long as it isn’t discovered by anyone at archmage level or above, that is.”
Mm-hmm.
But you’ve already been found.
I’m hearing everything.
“Even so, there’s no harm in being careful about security. Adventurers? Hah. The only thing to watch out for is the thief class. But this is a magic school.”
Ehehe.
You got caught by a magician.
“If that’s the case, once the magic circle activates, I’ll destroy this facility.”
Then he gathered mana and poured it into the magic circle.
“Hoo!”
Sure enough, he has quite a lot of mana for a professor.
At least S-rank.
But compared to Karnarof, both the quantity and quality are lower, and it's cruder.
Did I see the peak too early?
That too is definitely more than mine, but somehow it doesn't impress me.
As I stood there with my arms folded and watched, the black magic circle began to glow red.
Right in the center lay an egg that looked ominous at a glance.
“The magic circle has activated. Now no one can stop me! On midterm exam day, this school will turn into hell!”
Georgia shouted in excitement.
It seemed he still hadn't noticed my presence.
For some reason, the higher my agility and finesse get, the worse people seem to be at finding me.
“Hahaha, hahahahaha!!”
Professor Georgia laughed heartily and walked out through the exit.
I came out of my hiding place.
For now, I decided to handle the thing right in front of me first.
As I spun my staff once with a flick, dragon mana surged up.
“Casting Bullet, Penny.”
Just as the dark red mana was about to pass through the device forming the magic circle.
[The Blessing of Language has activated!]
[Detected! Detected! Authority erosion detected!!]
[Safety mechanism activated!!]
A voice rang out in an unknown language.
And then.
—Kyaaaaaaaaa!!!
A black thing fell from the ceiling.
A shape similar to the tentacled monster I'd seen before.
But this time, its tentacles took on the shape of tree roots.
And the ominous mana it gave off was immense enough to swallow space itself.
‘This is stronger than Leokan.’
“Hmph. You’re not letting me off easy, are you.”
When I first met Leokan, he hadn't been wary of me.
But even so, he was wary of me.
The reason is simple.
I'd gotten stronger than Leokan now.
“Casting, Shield, Bullet, Triple!”
The thing lashed out at me with five or six tentacles in a fearsome attack, but.
Three of them lost their momentum to the mana bullets, and the rest were blocked by the shield.
“This’ll do.”
—Kyaaaaaaaaa!!
Apparently deciding I was manageable, it thrust out more than a dozen tentacles to try to turn me into mincemeat, but.
“That was just reconnaissance for me too, you punk.”
My eyes narrowed into long slits.
Dark red mana streamed hotly down my shoulder blades.
A sword was suddenly in my hand.
A deep blue aura burst forth.
‘A little shot won’t kill it.’
Even dragon mana needed some warming up if you wanted to fire it quickly.
“Let’s do something interesting.”
A maneuver impossible without eyesight honed to the limit by dragon mana and high agility stats.
I plunged between the charging tentacles.
—Crunch.
At the same time, I tore through the long, outstretched tentacles sideways.
As expected, the aura's cutting power is outstanding.
The only downside is that it's not my main skill, so I can't keep it up for long.
“Well, I’ll solve that with training. Leokan!”
[Yes!]
“Buy me some time!”
I can summon Leokan without any strain now.
A house-sized man materialized at close range and dropped onto the monster’s head.
In endurance and defense, he outclasses me by a mile.
He won't go down easily.
Leokan is dodging the tentacles and holding out pretty well.
‘The preparations... are finished now.’
After unsummoning Leokan with the Great Warrior's Token, I pointed my staff at the thing coming toward me.
“Casting Bullet.”
The staff sucked in the dark red mana in one long gulp.
The thing flinched, but it was already too late.
A mana bullet burst out from the staff, and that was the end of it.
* * *
—Kiee...
“What, you didn't die?”
I blasted it with dragon mana at full power, and it didn't die.
Of course, there was another piece of good news.
The staff didn't break!
“Wow, this is really good.”
The activation speed is fast, and it can even handle dragon mana—it's basically cheating.
Now all that's left is to deal with this thing.
I muttered as I looked at the tentacle monster crawling on the floor.
“Sigh, guess I should send you on your way quickly.”
It's a little sad how it's crawling around desperately just to survive, but what can you do.
[Trait, ‘Nature Affinity (SSR+)’ is trying to tame the corrupted World Tree! Will you tame it?]
...Huh?
Come to think of it, there was something like that too.
Last time I went to the tower, I had strengthened Nature Affinity.
What I got from that was a taming ability with a 30-day cooldown.
But what am I supposed to use this thing for?
“I don’t know, I’ll just do it for now.”
If I do it first, maybe I’ll find a use for it.
[Hooray! The corrupted World Tree has become your pet!]
Taming was complete, accompanied by a strangely worded message.
But then.
“Hey. Go on, get out of here now.”
The moment I tamed it, it sucked in my mana at a frightening speed and recovered.
[Your mana is being eroded by demonic mana! Most of the contamination has been removed!]
Oh.
That’s probably a good thing.
The thing rubbed itself against me.
It smelled faintly of wood.
—Kiiing.
No, if you're going to give me a pet like this, shouldn't auto-storage be a basic feature?
My inventory space isn't that generous, you know.
“You want me to carry this?”
If I kept it in the dorm, it was as clear as day that Aris would toss me out the window.
“How do I deal with this thing?”
I needed to find somewhere to abandon it.
Ah.
“Come to think of it, I can probably make pretty good use of this thing.”
—Kkyu?
The tentacle monster looked at me, not understanding a thing.
A good place came to mind.
* * *
“For now, should we wrap up keeping the noble faction in check with this?”
Hwacheonru. The Karnarof family's magic tower.
It was the day he received his regular report from the errand runner there.
Right now, there was no clear breakthrough in sight.
They needed to quickly deal with the noble faction, and then go after whatever was behind it, but...
“Yes. The resistance is more severe than expected. They're either people who gnaw away at the empire, or ones who were once its backbone.”
“Then I’ll keep applying pressure as usual and watch for an opening.”
“Do that. Good work.”
Things were proceeding smoothly, but the enemy's schemes surely were the same.
Just as Karnarof had finished his work.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
A low vibration echoed through the hallway.
‘...What is it.’
And not long after, someone knocked on Karnarof's office door.
—Bang bang bang!!
Karnarof picked up his staff.
And just as he was about to use magic to find out who it was.
“Cash on delivery.”
A stilted Imperial accent rang out.
When he opened the door and stepped outside, a house-sized cardboard box had been delivered.
The deliveryman was nowhere to be seen.
Inside was one crumpled monster, along with a note roughly scrawled with a writing spell.
It was obvious whose handiwork it was without even looking.
[Done. I'm too sleepy, going to sleep~]
A monster and an egg reeking of demonic scent.
He had casually handled a massive incident like that, and then gone off to sleep with a clear conscience.
Karnarof hurriedly called for his attendant.
“Hey.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Bring me Yumia. Quickly!”
What the hell kind of lunatic was this?