Chapter 151
***
The Nihirit siblings were sent to the holding cell on suspicion of having cast dark magic on a patient with demon disease.
While the two were leaving the intensive care unit, the treatment center was already buzzing with talk of them.
Every time they passed through the emergency ward, priests stopped and whispered to one another, while communication orbs flashed without pause.
It was obvious that before the sun rose the next morning, the entire Academy territory would be seething with this rumor.
But that fact was not important to Freyja in the slightest right now.
"Hehehe……"
Inside the aristocrat-only holding cell.
With half her face buried in a soft pillow, Freyja let out a foolish giggle.
Her two feet, sticking out from beneath the blanket, tapped out a cheerful rhythm.
The detention facilities for nobles were holding cells in name only.
There was a thick carpet deep enough to swallow one's ankles, and luxurious wardrobes lining the walls.
Mana-crystal lamps cast a gentle amber glow from the ceiling.
Iron bars were set into the window, but the heavy velvet curtains draped over them made even those look like decoration.
If not for the iron bars, it would have been easy to mistake the scene for a room in a state guesthouse.
The reason the holding cell had been furnished so lavishly was none other than Yulian.
In the past, Yulian had been framed by the dark mages' schemes and dragged into this very holding cell.
Remembering that past, the warden had deliberately assigned the Nihirit siblings to a room like this.
Though their guilt seemed certain, he couldn't lock them on the same floor as heinous criminals like dark mages.
If it turned out that they had been framed, as he had been back then, he had no confidence he could withstand the aftermath.
And so, thanks to the warden's consideration, the siblings enjoyed a luxurious stay in detention.
On the bed, Freyja rolled over and lay on her back, staring at the ceiling.
“Older Brother.”
“What.”
“Could you tell me that again?”
“What?”
“Why…… That thing. That my righteous nature was the final clue.”
“Your righteous nature was the final clue.”
“Hehehe…….”
The pillow swallowed about half of her laughter.
Thump, thump, thump!
But the vigorous thuds of her kicking the blanket noisily expressed exactly how she felt.
There was only one reason she was acting like this.
It was because her own conviction had ultimately become the foundational idea behind the magic for treating demon disease.
‘I wasn't wrong!’
One of magic's important elements was ideology.
Ideology itself did not constitute magic, but philosophy formed part of its underlying framework.
In ancient times, when barter formed the basis of the economy, sorcery was performed in the form of human sacrifice and ritual offerings.
Once the concept of currency emerged, magic began to be activated using mana and symbols as currency.
After the philosophy of empiricism appeared in the world, a method emerged for converting abstract concepts that could not be formalized as spells into spell formulas through experience,
and the death of the first saint brought about a great revolution in holy magic as a whole.
That was why philosophers who proposed the ideas that became the starting points for certain kinds of magic were often ranked alongside great archmages.
That was why Freyja was grinning so foolishly.
‘Who am I? Someone who contributed to the philosophy of demon disease treatment magic!’
Of course, she was not the philosopher who had created this ideology.
She knew that herself.
But the fact that she had become a part of it was enough.
Some knights were so moved by becoming a glorious part of something that they willingly gave their lives for their order.
Some mages were willing to devote their entire lives if it meant proving a single formula and having their name appear in the corner of a paper.
Freyja felt the same way.
The fact that she had claimed a corner of history alone made her feel as though she might ascend to heaven.
‘Just as Older Brother said.’
She hadn't been wrong. She had simply been different.
Her concern over justice had disappeared long ago.
Her conviction had become the cornerstone of a historical discovery, so what did anything else matter?
If someone called her ideals foolish, all she had to do now was thrust this magic in their face.
“Hehehe…….”
That was why she was happy instead of frustrated despite being locked in a holding cell.
Yulian watched his little sister as though he couldn't rein her in.
‘Blood really can't lie.’
Yulian saw himself reflected in her.
The Yulian he saw was an elegant and mild-mannered professor on the outside,
but inside, he was a man who liked showing off and being praised by others.
Freyja, too, was a humble noble lady in public.
But where no one could see her, she was a girl who enjoyed boasting, just as befitted her age.
‘At this age, this is how it should be.’
Yulian's gaze softened with warmth as he watched his smug little sister.
The fact that the two of them were not related by blood was not important to him in the slightest.
On the bed, Freyja rolled over and lay on her back, staring at the ceiling.
The edge of a canopy that had no place in a holding cell swayed lightly with her breathing.
“Older Brother, then could you explain the principle behind this magic?”
“Dark magic isn't your specialty, so you probably wouldn't understand it even if you heard it.”
“I'm not going to use it. I just need to know enough to brag about it somewhere.”
Yulian gave a wry smile and sat on the edge of Freyja's bed.
There was no reason to refuse his little sister's cute request.
In the first place, there was nothing else to do in here.
Besides, Yulian wanted to brag about his achievement too.
And so, as their interests aligned, Yulian explained the detailed principles to her.
“Among the curse magic branches of dark magic, there's an intermediate spell called ‘Wither.’ You know it too, don't you?”
“The spell that weakens the body so it's easier for plagues or poisons to spread.”
“That's right.”
Intermediate curse magic, Wither.
It was a spell that greatly weakened the target, making it easier to cast other curses on them.
“With that spell, the hyperactivated…… inside a patient with demon disease.”
Yulian paused for a moment.
The words immune system came to mind, but it was difficult to explain them.
There was still too little that had been discovered about it.
In the end, Yulian twisted the truth slightly.
“……I greatly lowered the patient's magic resistance.”
“Magic resistance?”
“Yes.”
The theory of magic resistance was developed in this other world to explain the immune system.
The principle was as follows.
Everyone possessed a small amount of mana and, through repeated exposure to poisons, diseases, or curses, became more resistant to them.
The theory had been created decades ago, but it had only begun attracting attention relatively recently.
That was because it was a new theory that only began receiving serious support after Shun Isa developed a vaccine.
‘Proving the immune system must be troublesome in all sorts of ways too.’
As Yulian explained it to Freyja, he barely managed to hold back a sigh.
There was still such a long road ahead.
The magic for treating demon disease was complete.
But mass-producing the steroids that served as its catalyst was still under research, and he still had to prove the immune system that formed the principle behind this dark magic.
From his perspective, commercializing this treatment was still a distant prospect.
But at least for now, he simply wanted to celebrate the fact that the treatment had been completed.
‘You found a treatment for demon disease. Have a drink.’
Though his parents had claimed the title of being first.
The world would probably be more likely to remember Yulian Schnabel than the Schnabel couple.
That was only natural, since autoimmune diseases had a greater impact than parasites.
‘Hehehe…….’
Unlike Freyja, Yulian explained the magic for treating demon disease without making his delight obvious.
Some time passed.
Click.
The door opened with the sound of a lock being undone, and a soldier entered carrying a tray.
“A late-night meal for you both.”
On the tray were warmed bread and cheese, along with a bottle of dark-colored wine and two glasses.
As befitted an aristocrat-only holding cell, even their late-night meal was far from shabby.
“Wow, there's wine too!”
Freyja sat up, delighted.
Yulian smiled lightly and picked up the bottle.
There was no harm in raising a glass in celebration.
Glug, glug.
Yulian filled both glasses, then touched his to his lips first.
It was an ingrained part of wine-tasting etiquette.
That was when it happened.
At the subtle sweetness that touched the tip of his tongue, Yulian pulled the glass away from his mouth.
The kind of sweetness was different.
It was not the tart grape flavor and earthy aroma one should have tasted in wine.
Instead, what he tasted was sweetness with the fishy tang of metal.
Yulian knew this taste.
How could he not?
It was the sweetness produced by the substance that had made him a professor.
‘Lead acetate……?’
Lead sugar. Lead acetate.
A poison people in olden days would secretly mix into cheap wine to make it seem sweeter, slowly driving countless people mad and killing them in the process.
It was also the sweetener that had been strictly prohibited by the imperial family after Yulian presented the dark mages' large-scale mind-control scenario.
Of course, there were still people who secretly added it, but at least such wine was not something that could easily circulate openly.
Yulian looked at the label on the wine bottle.
‘This wine…….’
It was wine sold by the Great Merchant Guild.
Wine that Yulian often enjoyed with cheese.
At least a merchant guild like this would never add lead to it.
Having rapidly completed a chain of deductions, Yulian covered the glass Freyja was just about to pick up with his palm.
“It would be best not to drink this wine.”
“……What?”
Without explaining, Yulian moved the glass to the corner of the table.
Then he turned toward the soldier who had brought the late-night meal.
“Excuse me, but who sent this wine in?”
A gentle smile still hung at the corners of Yulian's mouth as he looked at the soldier.
But his eyes were not smiling.
The soldier's complexion paled under that gaze.
It was because of the rumors circulating in the military about Yulian.
— “I heard that dark mage became an imbecile after being unable to withstand Professor Yulian's interrogation?”
— “They say those dark mage kids who went to the Level 2 prison vomit whenever they see meat or blood.”
Only a few people knew Yulian's method of interrogation.
For the sake of Professor Yulian's reputation, the major who had participated in the interrogation had written the report as politely as possible.
Besides, everyone knew that Professor Yulian was favored by the prince who served as chief of personnel.
If he wrote anything strange in the report, he might even lose his head—literally.
And considering that a considerable number of people who had opposed Yulian had been listed as missing……
“Yes? Um…….”
The soldier who had been questioned by Yulian panicked and darted his eyes around.
His complexion grew even paler.
He had to confess his innocence somehow.
That was the only thought occupying his mind.
“A person in priestly robes gave it to me…… I thought they were acquaintances of yours, so I just—.”
“Priestly robes?”
“Yes. They clearly said they knew you both, so I—.”
He had not even finished speaking.
Crack.
The soldier's waist bent at an angle no human body could possibly take.
As though an invisible hand had seized his spine and bent it backward, the back of his head arched toward his heels like a bow.
His arm twisted once at an angle it should never have reached, while his legs convulsed violently.
Pop, pop. The sound of joints shifting out of place rang clearly through the quiet holding cell.
After writhing violently for a while, the soldier rose again without caring that his limbs had been twisted.
The amber mana-crystal lamp cast his warped shadow across the entire wall.
“O-Older Brother!”
Freyja rolled off the bed and pressed herself against Yulian's back.
A voice that did not belong to the soldier issued from his twisted mouth.
“……I'm sorry an uninvited guest has intruded upon your pleasant evening.”
It was a slow, polite, somehow hollow voice.
“My introduction is late. I am Varheit Jaeger, chairman of the Round Table, around which thirteen sit.”
“……What?”
Freyja was stunned.
Varheit Jaeger.
It was a name no mage could possibly fail to know.
The worst of the Eldritch, dead yet not dead.
The master of an eternal paradise that could never be reached.
The abandoned disciple who had taken the Great Sage's right eye.
But there was one deed that had made him most famous.
“The father of the Transcendents……!”
He was the dark mage who had created beings known as demonfolk by combining magical beasts and humans.
Freyja was not the only one horrified by Varheit's appearance.
The elven guard Pericia, who had been hiding in the wall by applying camouflage magic, was just as shocked.
But instead of making a sound, she quietly drew out a silver thread and approached the soldier from behind.
By the time she was only five steps away, an ominous voice came from between the soldier's teeth.
“Sicut egon, sic illai. Sicut illai, sic egon. Quia egon sum, mundra est. Quia egon sum, illai sunt. Me ipsum in exemplum pono. Doleum meum doleum illorum fiat, doleum illorum doleum meum fiat.”
Crack!
Along with it, the soldier's waist bent once more.
Varheit's posture collapsed as though he had no spine, then he straightened again.
At that moment, Pericia wrapped her silver thread around her own arm and twisted it until it broke.
She staggered, her face contorted with pain.
The soldier possessed by Varheit spoke to her.
“Impressive. I was planning to break your neck, but you escaped the condition of being a healthy sacrifice by breaking one arm. It seems you've faced this curse before?”
“…….”
Pericia silently bound her broken arm with the thread.
Her hateful gaze fixed on the space between Varheit's brows.
Varheit let out a deep sigh as he watched her.
“Had I known you had a guard like this, I would have made more preparations. Things aren't going as smoothly as I'd hoped.”
As he said that, Varheit plucked out one of the soldier's eyes.
He crushed the eyeball in his palm and flung it at her.
“Go rest somewhere else for a while.”
“Wait—!”
Before Pericia could shout, she vanished from the corridor.
Beyond the bars, Freyja cried out.
“Ms. Pericia!”
“I had no intention of causing a commotion, Miss Freyja.”
“Older Brother, Ms. Pericia…….”
“It's all right. It's merely dimensional movement.”
Though it was different from ordinary dimensional movement.
Just as a dark mage in the past had applied fairy rings when kidnapping students, Yulian guessed that Varheit had applied some kind of dark magic as well.
‘I could analyze it if I wanted to.’
But that was not what mattered right now.
What mattered was why an existence one would normally only see in endgame content had suddenly appeared here.
And how to survive this person.
Having thought it through, Yulian spoke to Varheit while pretending to remain at ease.
“What happened to that soldier all of a sudden? Was he perhaps your collaborator?”
“No. He is someone I am seeing for the first time today.”
Varheit opened and closed the hand of the soldier he controlled as he spoke.
Then he clicked his tongue as he looked at that hand.
“Tsk. This fellow secretly stole a sip of the wine meant to be presented to my guests on the way here. This is why one should never entrust precious things to a servant without proper breeding. Rudeness such as touching one's lips to the master's glass first naturally carries an appropriate price.”
“……Was the lead in that wine meant to control our minds?”
“If you were mages who had yet to awaken your mana, perhaps. But you know as well as I do. With this amount of lead and such insufficient symbolism, the most it could do would be to guide you into a dream.”
“A dream……?”
“Originally, I intended to visit you politely through a dream once you had emptied those glasses. But since neither of you would put your lips to them, I had no choice but to borrow the body of the one who drank first.”
Varheit glanced briefly at the space where Pericia had been.
Then he clicked his tongue once more.
“There was an uninvited guest, but do not worry. That guest will not harm you.”
“I suppose not.”
Yulian was certain of that as well.
His gaze lingered briefly on the iron bars.
The bars of the cell were covered in deeply engraved Old Testament-style holy symbols.
The symbols carved into these bars obscure the symbols required to activate magic, just like the armor and swords of the inquisitors.
Moreover, Old Testament-style holy magic held an overwhelming advantage over dark magic.
No matter how powerful Varheit was, it would be difficult for him to interfere through the bars while borrowing the soldier's body.
“That was why it would have been ideal for you to drink the wine. Will you not drink it now?”
“Would you drink it if you were me?”
“I was joking…… Don't look at me like that. Even when I was human, people often told me I wasn't funny.”
The twisted face mimicked a smile.
“There is no time, so let us get to the point. I have been watching you all this time.”
Varheit spread both arms dramatically as he spoke.
“In the center of that white corridor packed with hypocrites, I watched you alone make truth bloom, and those eyes of yours that showed not the slightest shame even after thrusting a taboo upon someone who was dying!”
Crack.
Another joint rang out.
“The sight was so beautiful. Even at the risk of letting my master discover my location, I wanted to exchange words with you like this.”
As he said that, the soldier's hand slowly reached toward Yulian.
For some reason, a strange intimacy seemed to seep from those empty eyes.
“Yulian. No, Sir Yulian. Join me.”
Yulian silently stared at that twisted smile.
The situation seemed familiar somehow,
‘It's just like with Belgian. Déjà vu?’
His feelings were complicated in many ways.
He had intended people to obsess over him, but he had not intended for someone like this to become obsessed with him.
Yulian remained silent.
Taking that silence as hesitation, Varheit tried to persuade him.
“I intend to tear down the stronghold of those hypocritical healers with this dark magic. And I intend to elevate humanity into beings one step higher than they are now. On that long and glorious journey…… where could there be anyone more suited to it than you?”
“…….”
“If you join the Round Table, there will be no reason for us to continue living in the shadows.”
The corners of his twisted mouth stretched all the way to his ears.
Not as a metaphor, but literally.
It was because controlling another person's body made the muscles move inhumanly.
“We could replace that Sun Cult filled with hypocrisy with our own hands and establish an entirely new ideology atop it.”
“……It sounds as though I could become your cult leader.”
“If you want to, there is nothing you couldn't do. You could even replace that hypocrite—the one called the Black Saint.”
Upon hearing that, Yulian nodded with conviction.
“I've heard enough. I refuse.”
“……Why?”
“Because…….”
Then, with an expression as though he had spotted a cockroach, Yulian looked at Varheit with disgust.
“I need holy power.”
Yulian had lived in a world without magic and built everything he had through the miracles of holy magic,
so he could not imagine a world without the miracles of holy magic.