Chapter 18
"Making a base by the lakeside... it really seems gloomy."
Loraine, seemingly disliking being involved with black mages, made an "ugh" sound and shuddered.
I looked at Loraine and asked for her opinion, "How do you think we should get in down there?"
At those words, Loraine looked down intently, pondered for a moment, then suggested a very simple but intuitive method.
"Couldn't we just break in?"
"Break in?"
"Yes. In my experience, things that clearly exist but can't be seen are likely to have their entrances hidden by magic. So..."
Loraine swung her sword at an invisible speed, sending a slash across the entire large lakeside.
As I was inwardly admiring the sight of countless things being cut at once, Loraine briefly added, "I found it."
She said she found the entrance leading down.
It seemed they had cast an illusion spell and then a perception reduction spell.
A hut that wasn't there originally was now visible, cut in half and sitting conspicuously.
Looking at this suspicious form that anyone would find odd, I put the spirit on my shoulder and checked it out.
"Myeong myeong!"
Seeing it angry, it seemed we had come to the right place.
Hearing that, I went inside and saw a black mage with a severed body lying on the floor.
Seems he died from Loraine's sword strike.
Judging by his expression, he didn't even seem to know he had died, as his eyes were open.
I looked at the corpse and then kicked it down the stairs leading to the underground.
Judging by the thudding sound, there didn't seem to be any traps.
I signaled to Loraine to enter and went down.
What I saw when I went down was a bizarre laboratory reminiscent of a giant aquarium.
As I was frowning at the strange creatures moving oddly inside the water, I discovered something quite shocking.
[Methods to efficiently extract negativity]
It seems to be an extension of the experiment we found at the tail recently.
I discovered documents detailing methods to extract as much negative emotion as possible for as long as possible from people, and the results of that research.
The content was too disgusting to deliberately take in, so I left it alone.
But the first sentence I saw, about making family members kill each other, kept coming to mind, spreading disgust.
...Crazy bastards.
Just as I thought that it was unbearable how they calmly wrote down things humans shouldn't do under the pretext of efficiency and repeatedly carried them out, I discovered something quite peculiar in the center of the laboratory.
...A black orb?
A small black orb bound by numerous dark red threads.
While the surrounding things were strange life forms or human corpses, this orb suddenly appearing piqued my interest.
Looking at this, I realized it was the core item of this incident and was about to approach it when,
"It seems this is the first time we've had uninvited guests. Welcome."
A man with an appearance that wasn't particularly special... no, rather close to likable, walked forward and greeted us.
"Isn't it the young master of the Carsaril family and Sir Loraine? Although uninvited, you are quite precious guests, so as the owner of this place, I should provide proper hospitality. I wonder if I can provide hospitality that will satisfy you," he spoke to us in an extremely slick and nonchalant voice.
It wouldn't matter much to ignore him, but the reason we came here was because of “Sister Lilia's assassination incident”.
Just as I was about to open my mouth to extract as much information as possible…
"Young Master, get behind me."
Loraine grabbed her sword and sent me to the back.
Seeing her speak like that, it seemed she judged this was an enemy I could never defeat at my level, so I nodded and stepped back.
This is better than getting in the way by lingering around.
Help was only helpful when one had the ability to help.
When the gap in levels was this wide, I wouldn’t be of help, I’d just be a nuisance, so I stepped back without hesitation and said, "I'm counting on you."
"Yes."
Contrary to our thoughts, the black mage waved his hand and said, "I think you're misunderstanding something. I have no intention of fighting you. Fighting would be worthless and only result in losses."
Hearing those words, I added one more thing to Loraine, "Seems like he's trying to buy time."
"I thought so too."
After spending a long time together, our opinions aligned.
Thinking I could just leave it to her, I slightly turned my gaze.
We originally came here to find information related to the assassination anyway.
Reminding myself that information gathering came first, I searched around everywhere.
All sorts of documents and traces of numerous experiments.
I tried to quickly skim through and grasp the related content, but nothing particularly stood out.
Just as I was frowning and wondering if this wasn't the right place, the spirit shook my body and pointed at the black orb.
Come to think of it, that was there.
Judging by how the black mage was subtly showing movements to protect it, that orb was likely the most important item in this laboratory.
I was about to approach it while calming the spirit that was barking, "Myeong myeong," beside me when…
I felt a powerful mana barrier blocking me.
So that's why he's leaving me alone.
He seemed confident that I could never break through it, unlike Loraine, so he wasn’t even glancing at me.
Such behavior made me feel competitive, and I decided to break it and take that orb, so I grabbed my mace and was about to smash it when…
"Go kill them right now!"
"Why aren't you moving faster? Do you want to die?"
"Surround them!"
Numerous people poured in from behind.
Realizing this was the reason he was buying time, I laughed hollowly and called the spirit.
"Myaaak!"
The Sun Spirit, seemingly thoroughly angered by the excessive number of black mages or related things, bristled its fur, showing displeasure even more strongly than usual.
I told the spirit to lend me its power and wiggled my mace.
The Sun Spirit is originally suitable for combat.
Usually, it was spread out in a very thin form to breathe warmth into the North, but if gathered together, its power became unbelievably strong.
Normally, the power is too strong, so it's not often used because the damage becomes excessive after one use.
Now that there was no need to worry about damage, it meant I could fully manifest and fight with it.
So I asked the Sun Spirit to lend me its power and scattered fire everywhere.
The sun's fire that never went out.
This power, comparable to white phosphorus, continued to burn those who touched the fire.
"Aaaaargh!"
"S-save me, save me."
"Ugh, guh!"
Everything around burst into flames and screamed in pain.
It wasn't a particularly pleasant scene to watch as it was too cruel.
But perhaps because of the experimental content I saw earlier, I didn't feel particularly guilty.
"C-counterattack! If we stay like this, we're all dead anyway!"
It seemed there was someone who could make normal judgments, as he rallied the remaining people and shot magic at me.
I felt a slight sense of crisis as countless solid mana reminiscent of sharp spears were shot at me.
Whoosh.
The huge wall of fire created by the spirit turned all of this into pure white ash.
The sense of crisis quickly dissipated, turning everything into meaningless attacks.
"You m-monster."
I laughed hollowly at the voice coming from the front.
It was somewhat funny that they called me a monster when the real monsters were Loraine and that unknown guy fighting over there.
Just as I was about to finish off all those who were struck with terror and take the black orb, a woman with a somewhat haggard face walked out from among the black mages and opened her mouth.
"How dare you... how dare you, how dare you, how dare you."
A gloomy-looking woman who was creating scars on herself by scratching her entire body with her nails glared at me, showing anger.
Seeing the intense black magic spreading, I intuitively felt she wouldn't be an easy opponent and took a light deep breath.
The woman who had been scratching her body suddenly stopped and spoke to me with a strange laugh, "Do, do you think you can break that? You... someone like you?"
Her voice cracked as if her vocal cords were torn, and the pitch of her voice changed rapidly.
As she was someone who instinctively repulsed me, I frowned and looked at her.
She laughed and said to me, "If you break it... I'll, I'll acknowledge you. Kheup, but there's no way you could break it."
It was such a crude provocation that it wasn't even angering, just ridiculous.
So I ignored it and was about to ignite the sun's flames when,
A fun thought suddenly bloomed in my mind.
It might be interesting if I really break this glass wall and take the black orb.
Of course, it probably wouldn't be easy, as the original black mage left me alone, and as that woman said.
But a desire to try it once spread.
So I gripped the mace tightly and pushed the mana inside my body into it.
It had only been a year since I started holding a weapon, so the act of infusing mana into a weapon was still crude and clumsy.
But perhaps because I had the experience of exhaling warmth in the North for a year while sacrificing my entire body, the moment the sun's mana provided by the Sun Spirit was infused into the mace, I was able to manifest sword energy more skillfully than the mana in my own body.
"W-what?"
I heard a surprised voice from the front.
Judging by the reaction, it seems they hadn't expected me to manifest this level of sword energy.
I turned my gaze away from the black mage who had forgotten even to scratch her own body and slashed at the glass containing the black orb with all my might.
The entire surroundings filled with flames.
As the intense flames that melted everything and the sword energy said to cut through common sense reached the glass wall, everything began to distort.
With an extremely loud impact sound, glass shards burst and began to scatter everywhere.
"You... you madman!"
I heard a terrified voice.
As I heard that sound, I tried to quickly make the first move before they could attack me from over there, and was about to grab the black orb when…
"Ang nyang nyang."
The Sun Spirit that was sitting on my shoulder quickly moved forward and ate the black orb whole.
"...?"
I looked at the spirit, wondering what it was doing.
The spirit, with its cute face now rounder than before, smiled proudly and said to me, "Myeong!"
As if saying, "I did well, didn't I?" I could only blink blankly at that sight.