Chapter 132
Looking back and forth between the two girls, Franz felt something bizarre.
One side definitely gave off an evil aura. It was like the dark, sticky tar he usually felt from cultist bastards.
However, the other side was a bit ambiguous.
Should he say it seemed evil but also didn’t? It was a confusing feeling, as if various things were tangled together.
“Where have I felt this a lot before?”
He carefully retraced his memories, but nothing in particular came to mind.
Well, he could just figure it out from now on.
So there seemed to be no need to pay it much mind.
The work he had to do was the same anyway.
It was the moment Franz organized his thoughts like that.
Zeni-ah, the one with the evil mana, started to move first.
A dark-colored magic circle was drawn from her fingertips, and it soon shone, completing the preparations to activate the magic.
“Is it a magic curse…?”
Curse magic played a major role among the dark attributes.
These effects include obscuring the opponent’s vision, dulling their movements, causing wounds to fester, and so on.
Most of them served to debilitate their opponents.
But as expected, perhaps…
‘It’s unique magic again…?’
Even Franz, who knew every officially registered dark magic inside and out, could not tell what magic she used.
It was a truly ironic thing.
Unique magic was definitely not something that any random riffraff could use.
It was at a level that a mage could barely complete only by dedicating an entire life to it.
Yet how on earth were the Cultists he met unique magic users every single time?
Well, that’s why they are the Seven Great… wait.
Snap-.
Franz erased his magic by snapping his fingers and spoke.
“Are you two perhaps the Seven Great Evils?”
First of all, it was certain that they were Cultists. He could clearly distinguish the wavelength of the mana they possessed.
However, he could not distinguish between the Seven Great Evils and ordinary Cultists among them.
Because he had no way of knowing how strong one had to be to be considered one of the Seven Great Evils.
Of course, even if she was an ordinary cultist, what he had to do wouldn’t change…
He had to find out their identities for sure, if only to prevent confusion later on.
It would be depressing if he searched the entire Continent because he couldn’t find one of them, only to realize it was someone he had already killed.
“Zeni-ah, is there any reason we have to tell him that?”
“Seri-ah, there is no reason we have to tell him that.”
They didn’t seem to want to reveal their identities, but in truth, it was no different from already being caught.
If they had been ordinary Cultists, they wouldn’t have answered ambiguously to the mention of the Seven Great Evils.
That was something only the higher-ups could do; the common cultists couldn’t even dream of it.
To put it simply, a noble might feign the manners of a commoner, but a commoner could not convincingly imitate a noble.
“Is that so…?”
The corners of Franz’s mouth rose subtly.
The plague was a problem he had to solve anyway, and now the Seven Great Evils presented themselves.
It was truly a situation of killing two birds with one stone, so he couldn’t help but be pleased.
“You talk a lot.”
“That’s right. He talks a lot.”
No, it seemed like they were the ones talking a lot…
At that moment, Zeni-ah used magic.
What was initially a small dot drew a line, and then was completed into a single circle.
The magic circle was completed as numerous shapes and letters filled that circle.
The structure and formula were different from the roman methods, but if one looked solely at the amount of gathered mana, it looked to be easily 7th circle.
“It seems like analyzing it will be impossible…”
The magic she had used earlier was around the 4th circle.
So he was able to cancel the magic by flowing mana into the magic circle.
But this one was incomparably more complex in both structure and formula.
Furthermore, since it was unique magic, analyzing it roughly by eye was close to impossible.
So what else could he do?
‘Let’s just get hit by it first.’
Of course, it was a somewhat ignorant method.
But at the same time, it was also the most certain method of all.
To be honest, as a mage, he also had the thought of wanting to study that unique magic.
After all, wasn’t it the crystallization of a mage dedicating their entire life?
If there were a mage who could resist that, such a mage would definitely be a mage in name only.
Snap-.
As Franz snapped his fingers, a round shield wrapped around his body.
It was transparent and thin, looking as if it would break at any moment, but the reality was different.
Thanks to the staff gifted by the World Tree, it was sturdy enough not to budge against most 8th circle magic.
Soon, purple smoke spewed out in a straight line from Zeni-ah’s magic circle.
There was a difference in color, but it felt similar to the Ice Dragon’s breath he had seen once before.
The smoke that touched the shield split to the left and right, just like a river stream meeting a large rock.
The smoke melted everything it touched: grass, trees, rocks, without exception.
Disaster. Yes, it was magic that suited the word disaster well.
“Anyway, Cultists always make only this kind of magic…”
How great would it be if they used this kind of talent for good.
The world would have definitely advanced several times over, so it was truly a shame.
After organizing his thoughts, Franz stuck his fingertips out of the shield.
Sizzle-.
As soon as he touched the smoke, his skin slowly began to melt away.
Naturally, he felt considerable pain, to the point where an ordinary person would have grabbed their hand and rolled around on the floor.
But Franz didn’t even flinch and began to analyze the magic.
This much was something he had experienced countless times on his journey to subjugate the Demon Lord.
“This is another fascinating structure.”
The corpse-handling mage he had met once was Belphegor.
It was the same when he analyzed his magic, but as expected, interpreting unique magic was enjoyable.
Should he say it offered a glimpse into the mage’s life?
It was enough to make him temporarily forget the pain he felt in his fingers.
Not long after that, Franz finished his analysis.
Snap-.
After he healed his hand with an elixir and snapped his fingers, Zeni-ah’s magic circle shattered to pieces like shattered glass.
“As expected, is this so impossible? Zeni-ah.”
“It seems this much is impossible, Seri-ah.”
It would be normal to be a little surprised, but the two didn’t change their expressions at all even though their magic had been broken, as if they weren’t even human.
That came across as strangely unpleasant.
By the way…
‘Why isn’t Seri-ah doing anything?’
Only the woman named Zeni-ah attacked. The woman named Seri-ah was just watching it.
If possible, he wanted to make his move after confirming both of their abilities.
Because if it were an ability that erased mana itself, like the cultist bastard’s fingernail he received from Yusti-ah a while ago, things would get a bit troublesome.
One might say he was being overly cautious, but…
A mage was that kind of existence in the first place.
They were tasked not only with using magic but also with analyzing the battle situation and guiding their allies toward the path with the highest probability of winning.
Whatever the case, if they weren’t going to come at him, he had no choice but to go to them.
Snap-.
As Franz snapped his fingers, dozens of magic Circles were drawn in the air.
Snap-.
As he snapped his fingers again, beams of light fired simultaneously from the magic Circles.
It wasn’t a very high-tier magic, but because it contained a vast amount of mana, its power was stronger than that of most 7th Circle Magic.
“This will probably be the end of it.”
However, did that act as some ill omen?
The beams of light that were advancing in a straight line toward them disappeared midway. To be exact, the woman who hadn’t been attacking absorbed them.
It was such an absurd situation that a hollow laugh burst out on its own.
They erased mana itself not long ago, and now they’re even absorbing it?
Wasn’t this world too harsh on Mages?
Well, it still wasn’t to the point where he couldn’t win.
Thinking that, Franz snapped his fingers again.
A red magic circle was drawn, and the magic activated.
8th circle fire-attribute magic, Inferno Flame.
A wave of hellish flames that would swallow everything surged toward them.
“Will she absorb this too?”
It was a whopping 8th circle magic, a level of magic that not only ordinary Mages but even Mages who had made a name for themselves couldn’t use.
Honestly, he also thought it was a bit excessive.
It wasn’t a monster subjugation battle, and the opponents were ultimately human, weren’t they?
It was a little ambiguous whether they were human or not, but their outward appearance was human anyway.
If they died, that was fine too, so it didn’t really matter.
However, contrary to Franz’s concerns, she effortlessly devoured the 8th circle magic.
The flames that seemed as if they would burn everything away disappeared into her mouth.
Burp-.
She even burped.
With this, one thing became certain.
“First of all, the odds were stacked against him.”
Because no matter how incredible the magic he attacked with was, it would be useless if she devoured it.
It was safe to say that, as a mage, she was truly the worst opponent.
It wasn’t like he had deep knowledge of swordsmanship or martial arts either, so within the bounds of common sense, it was safe to say there was no way to win.
“Now, then, how do I break through this situation…”
Retreating like this and asking for help was also a decent method.
If he remembered their mana, finding them within the Continent would be a simple matter.
Just bringing someone like Yuna would be enough to kill them.
However
‘It’s not like there’s absolutely no way to win either.’
Thinking that, Franz used Mana Sight.
Looking at her through Mana Sight…
It seemed her stomach was somewhat full.