Chapter 58 - Fear

I nodded reluctantly at the news that Elisia's training was complete.

Looking at the context of the words, there wasn't anything particularly wrong, but... the feeling given by the word choice was somewhat strange.

Anyway, it wasn't a big deal, so I patted Siren's head to show she did well and said, "You worked hard."

"Yeah."

Siren's body wiggled, seemingly happy to be praised by me.

As I was thinking she was somewhat like a cat while patting her head, Pigsy... no, Daisy, who was on Siren's shoulder, thrust out her chubby belly and demanded something from me.

"Myeong!"

It seemed Daisy also wanted her head patted, so I patted her head.

"Myaaang."

Daisy smiled happily, looking extremely pleased.

I smiled slightly seeing Daisy like that, then returned to the main topic.

"Then does this mean we can send her to the North right away without any problems?"

"Yeah, that's fine."

If that was the case, it would be good to hear Liana's opinion and send her right away.

With that thought, I immediately went to find Liana.

***

When I went to the guest room where Liana was staying, I saw Liana with somewhat disheveled hair.

It seemed troublesome matters had piled up due to the fact that the information guild's teleportation device was used in the Carsaril family terror incident.

Seeing Liana like this, I felt sorry for making her work so much usually, so I smiled awkwardly and made a suggestion.

"Shall I brew you a cup of tea?"

"Yes."

Judging by her immediate answer, it seemed she really wanted to drink some.

However, there were no tea ingredients here, so I was about to tell her to follow me to my room, but Liana pointed to a tea set as if she had been waiting for this and said, "I prepared this knowing this might happen."

"..."

No matter how I think about it, it seemed the tea didn’t have a calming effect but an addictive effect?

I laughed hollowly and started brewing tea in my usual way while opening the conversation with Liana.

"I hear Elisia's training is complete."

At the word “training”, Liana flinched and shuddered.

Thinking her reaction was interesting, I was watching when Liana looked at me blankly and said, "Then we need to prepare to send Elisia to the North. However... if we send her as is, there's a high possibility she'll be imprisoned without being able to do anything. It would be better to empower Elisia somehow."

"Is one artificial sun not enough?"

"Yes. It's a bit ambiguous to use right away, isn't it?"

Then what would be good…

As I was pondering for a moment, something interesting suddenly came to mind.

"Since Elisia dropped out of the family head competition, even if she goes with the artificial sun right away, there won't be anyone in the Wintreaven family to support her, right?"

"Far from supporting her, wouldn't they try to hand her over to the church?"

"Then rather than that faction... it would be better to go in the direction of being supported by the common people of the North."

"What?"

I glanced at Dasoon visible through the window and said, "So I thought of this. How about creating another rift?"

"What?"

"Just as Dale became a hero by stopping the rift, if Elisia achieves the feat of stopping a rift, wouldn't she gain strong support from the people of the North?"

"What?"

"And if we announce the fact that she can now bring warmth too, wouldn't it be difficult for even the Wintreaven family to take her down?"

"What?"

Liana looked at me, repeating "What?" like a broken machine.

I smiled slightly looking at Liana like that, when Liana spoke to me in a somewhat bitter voice, "There's... one problem. To carry out the strategy you mentioned, we need to artificially create a rift. How do you plan to solve this?"

At those words, I smiled slightly and told her what I had seen in the North's laboratory.

"Last time I saw, they said rifts were created as a side effect when making artificial suns."

So I thought if we asked Siren to investigate this, we might be able to artificially create a rift, and I told her about this.

Liana looked at me with an expression of enlightenment and said, "Alright. Let's give it a try..."

Deciding to do so, I decided to go to Siren right away.

***

When I returned to my room and told Siren about this plan,

Siren thought for a moment, then raised her finger and said, "Yeah, it's possible. But, we need something."

"What is it?"

"First, we need a massive amount of energy."

Liana, who was listening to this from the side, asked Siren in a voice that seemed to say "surely not", "Is that energy... life energy?"

"It doesn't necessarily have to be life energy. However, it's extremely difficult to fill that amount of energy through ordinary methods, so using life energy is the easiest."

A life energy source…

As I was pondering for a moment where to get this from, suddenly something interesting came to mind and I said to Liana,

"Liana, how many black mage strongholds do you know of?"

"I can tell you about 34 right away, but surely..."

"Isn't it killing two birds with one stone, disposing of trash and filling energy?"

I also needed a lot of practical experience, and I could also take revenge on the black mages who touched the Carsaril family, so there would be nothing to hold back.

Thinking I had something to do, I said to Liana, "Can you organize all the related information and give it to me?"

"That's fine, but... if we go around smashing strongholds like that, there's a high possibility that other black mages will hide even deeper, so we should probably smash them all within a short period, is that okay?"

"That's my specialty."

"Then I'll organize it and let you know."

Thinking I would be busy for a while, I massaged my shoulders.

***

Since this plan was quite dangerous, I decided to proceed with the battle accompanied by Loraine this time.

Of course, she would only accompany me.

As I planned to fight alone except for enemies that were too difficult to handle for my growth, I was planning to handle almost all the battles alone.

"Then I'll leave it to you."

"Okay."

Siren nodded while fiddling with a palm-sized orb she was holding.

I heard that if we put energy sources in there, we could put energy into the artificial sun that Daisy had spit out.

So in addition to killing as many Chimeras and black mages as possible,

Stealing all of their experimental results…

And putting them in here was the primary goal.

So I was about to leave right away, but I realized one critical problem…

It was the fact that I didn't have a weapon.

To be precise, I have a small hammer, but…

It was quite ambiguous to use this as a main weapon, so I decided to go to the family's weapon storage and pick up anything.

After heading to the weapon storage and looking through the weapons, I was able to find a mace.

Not bad.

As I was about to leave, grabbing the mace that had become more familiar than a sword by now, Loraine picked up the best-looking sword and handed it to me, making a suggestion, "Young Master. How about trying to use a sword now?"

The sword wasn't bad, but it lacked the feel, so I took it with a somewhat reluctant expression.

Seeing this, Loraine looked very satisfied and said to me, "Blunt weapons aren't bad, but they have limitations."

"Limitations?"

"Yes. It's too difficult to obtain good weapons."

A completely unexpected realistic reason flew in.

"Since the number of people who use blunt weapons is quite limited, there aren't many artisans who specialize in making them."

In contrast, she said that swords were universally used weapons, so it was relatively easier to obtain good items.

At those words, I laughed hollowly and subtly brought up something else.

"But wouldn't it be fine if we wrap it in mana to make it harder?"

Loraine shook her head and hit the nail on the head.

"It might be fine for now, but as you grow, the amount of mana you put into weapons will greatly increase. It's better to use good weapons if possible."

Otherwise, the weapon might burst as it had before, so considering this, she suggested it would be better to switch to a sword.

"...I'll think about it."

"And above all, the Carsaril family is famous for swordsmanship, and I mainly studied swordsmanship, so I can be of greater help in this area."

It seemed I needed to think about it more.

I decided to keep it in mind for now and nodded.

***

After choosing a weapon, I immediately moved to the location Liana had told me about.

The location was the largest bridge in the Carsaril family's territory.

It was an old stone bridge with a large river flowing underneath.

She said it was definitely under this.

She said if one entered through a gap in the bridge, one would come to a place leading to an “underground laboratory”.

Recalling that I was warned to be careful because its scale was quite large, I headed to the place Liana had told me about.

A strangely inconspicuous, shabby stone door caught my eye.

It seems they've put a perception reduction spell on it.

Seeing this, I thought they were doing quite an interesting thing and smiled slightly, then slowly approached the stone door.

Someone walked out from behind the door and said to me with a kind smile, "Ho ho. What brings you here?"

On the surface, he looked like a kind old man, but the black magic energy constantly spreading around the man and the bloodstains on the hem of his robe indicated that he was not an ordinary person.

How many people must he have killed insensitively to not even notice the bloodstains on his clothes?

As this thought occurred to me, I silently struck the man's head with my mace, then stomped on the body of the man collapsed on the ground and said, "I know you're watching from in there, so come out while I'm asking nicely."

Even after saying that, there was no answer.

I smiled slightly as if I had expected this, then gripped my mace tightly and started striking the stone door.

Bang! Bang!

The sound of impact echoed loudly.

As stone fragments and dust flew everywhere and the stone door crumbled miserably, I entered inside.

I saw many black mages gathered, gripped with fear.