“Hermis.”
“Oh, Judas!”
Judas, having eliminated all enemies on the cliff, came down.
He smiled at Hermis as he stepped down from Yuel.
“I’ve never been as happy to see you as today.”
“Oh dear, are you saying I’m usually not welcomed?”
“Of course not.”
Judas lightly laughed at Hermis’s joke and asked,
“So, how did you end up here?”
“Ah. We entered the map area from the southwest through a different route.”
Judas and the 13th Room had entered from the southeast and were now in this gorge.
“We planned to scout from the south and head north. The southwest was a barren plain, so we moved quickly and found this gorge. At first, we intended to take a break, but then we noticed a suspicious group.”
They hadn’t intended to fight right away. It was better to observe first.
After all, they needed to know who the enemies were and how strong they might be.
The suspicious group was taking up position on the cliffs, seemingly waiting for someone to emerge.
Right then,
“Well, isn’t this cute? They’re coming to me.”
Hermis reached out to Yuel with a laugh, as if trying to touch her.
Yuel quickly slipped back.
Hermis, though disappointed, smiled as if that was adorable.
“I figured it out when I saw this child. Judas must be here. So, they are likely after you, Judas.”
Just then, the enemies all unleashed their crossbows in unison.
A hurried shout rang out in Judas’s voice,
“Everyone, get down!”
“So we finished our preparations and jumped in.”
“You were lucky.”
“Haha. But wouldn’t Judas have somehow survived anyway? Besides, Miss Eliya…”
Hermis suddenly froze mid-sentence, standing stiff as a statue with wide eyes.
Judas, who was conversing with her, mirrored her posture, not daring to move a muscle.
An intense and fiery atmosphere pressed down on them, created by none other than Eliya, who had suddenly appeared beside them.
In her hand was the collar of an unconscious wizard.
She dropped him with a thud and said,
“What are you two doing?”
“…….”
“Is there time for chit-chat?”
“S-s-sorry…!”
Both apologized simultaneously.
They had done nothing wrong, yet saying anything else felt like inviting disaster.
Those golden irises,
that flickering gaze.
It was merely a trace of magic usage, yet it evoked the instinctive fear found in prey.
“I didn’t mean to make you apologize.”
“No, no, everything is… all tidied up! We were just taking a moment to greet each other!”
“Yes, that’s right!”
“Hmm.”
Eliya moved her head slowly.
Looking back and forth between Hermis and Judas.
Finally, she shrugged.
“Alright.”
Then, casually taking Judas’s hand, she urged him
“We’re moving now. Let everyone know to gather. Tie up this wizard well.”
Hermis saluted in response.
“Yes!”
Still tense, Judas followed, cautiously asking,
“Is there something I did wrong?”
He feared that a tragedy might occur whenever she looked at him with anger.
Eliya stopped and looked up at him intently.
Her red eyes were back to normal.
She studied Judas’s face closely.
His somewhat tense expression was different from the relaxed one he had while joking with Hermis earlier.
“…No. Nothing.”
After a long pause, Eliya replied.
It couldn’t be wrong to smile at someone else.
Yet, the discomfort she felt about it had to be her own issue.
Eliya hesitated and casually asked,
“…Are you two close?”
“Me and Lady Hermis?”
“Yeah.”
“Well… I guess you could say we are? She’s been looking out for me since I was a child.”
A self-inflicted wound.
Judas couldn’t determine why that phrase suddenly popped into his mind.
“Why do you ask?”
“…Just curious.”
She often made him laugh and felt comfortable.
Unlike with him,
she seemed to enjoy laughing more in front of others.
The idea of another woman seeing that smile, of showing that smile to someone else….
Swallowing the long, trailing words,
What good would come from saying them?
What answer was he even expecting?
Eliya’s own thoughts became tangled.
Soon, everyone gathered around Eliya.
She was simply preparing for a large teleportation.
*
In the large courtyard of Eliya’s Mansion,
25 people appeared simultaneously in an empty space.
It was Eliya’s large teleportation.
Upon arriving, Eliya stumbled, touching her head.
The sudden drop in magic power had taken a toll.
“Are you alright?”
Ria rushed out from the mansion.
“Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere?”
“No, I just felt a bit dizzy.”
Regaining her composure, she immediately began issuing commands.
All the materials brought from the wizard’s residence were to be taken to the lab.
The wizard’s corpse and the kidnapped wizard were to be sent to the underground prison.
Bolse was responsible for taking care of the wizard.
It was the wizard who had tried to assassinate Judas at Gaston’s behest five years ago.
Now, he was a loyal defense for Eliya’s Mansion.
After the orders were given, Eliya looked around
at the 11 members of the 13th Room.
Judas’s friends, comrades.
They were all watching her, their expectations clear.
Judas, standing beside Eliya, smiled warmly at them.
Eliya personally fulfilled their wishes,
“You all have worked hard. I am here to announce the end of the test to select the elite guard. You shall become the swords and shields that fight for me from now on.”
The 11 kneeled in unison, raising their heads to look at Eliya.
“As you know, I am a person with many enemies. Are you ready?”
“Yes!”
“Are you prepared to die without hesitation?”
“Yes-!”
Eliya nodded solemnly yet casually.
“I accept your loyalty.”
All 13th Room members felt an itch in their bodies.
They wanted to shout, embrace each other, and jump with joy.
However, they held themselves back in front of Eliya.
Now that they were knights, they couldn’t show such frivolous behavior.
“We will not need a separate installation ceremony.”
“That’s okay!”
It was sincere.
They were happier that they had achieved it through cooperation rather than gaining recognition from others.
In the past, they would have boasted about it, but
Eliya considered their camaraderie not to be a bad thing.
Unlike the knights who gathered individually, they knew how to move as one.
They would become excellent swords and shields.
Indeed, Judas’s judgment was not incorrect.
Eliya had important work to do in the magic lab.
She would casually skim through the recovered diary or materials and plan to interrogate the wizard.
Before leaving, Eliya gestured to Judas.
He naturally lowered his head.
Without needing to say anything, he understood that it was a hint to lean down for a whisper.
They silently began to understand each other.
Eliya also naturally placed her hand on his shoulder and stood on tiptoe.
She leaned in close to his ear and whispered,
“You did well.”
“Thank you for hearing me out.”
Judas responded with a light smile.
“I know. I’ll be in the magic lab. I’ll give you some time to catch up with them.”
“Uh… is that alright?”
“Yes. I can summon you if need be.”
“In that case… thank you.”
“Don’t take too long. Wrap it up quickly, clean up, and come see me.”
Judas thought it was due to the smell coming from him.
It certainly was terrible.
“I will.”
Eliya left.
Judas glanced back at her retreating figure for a moment.
The swaying black curls and the red scarf.
Her occasionally confusing gestures made him wonder if she might…
His daze was interrupted by a whistle.
It was Jerry.
Richard was beside him, grinning mischievously.
“Wow, hot to trot, huh? Enjoying yourself?”
“…….”
“Is the escort knight allowed to look at the master like that?”
“W-what do you mean by that look!”
“Who knows? What do you think?”
As usual, they began their playful banter, and the comrades laughed together.
It quickly turned into a celebration where they congratulated and praised each other.
They overcame adversities together and finally reached their desired positions.
Dillon spoke to Judas in a mock-serious tone, extending a handshake.
“Thank you, Judas.”
The opportunity came thanks to Judas’s request.
Judas smiled and shook his hand.
“Just doing my part. We’re family.”
Family tied not by blood but by sweat.
No one disagreed with that statement.
*
Eliya spread the wizard’s journals and research materials all over her desk.
This was not the lab she used five years ago.
It had burned down and held too many unpleasant memories to continue using.
So she moved to a larger space.
It was her secret that this new place overlooked Judas’s room.
She wasn’t sure why she chose this spot.
It was impulsive — just like that.
Eliya first skimmed through the material on ‘dark magic.’
Currently, she was searching for a type of magic that interferes with the mind/memory,
referred to as ‘the prohibition.’
There might be materials capable of implementing that within the dark magic.
‘There are quite a few books. How long has this wizard been researching?’
As she pondered while selecting materials,
the royal capital wizards had been killed,
and the royal knights too.
There had been no evidence viable for investigation, but she was sure.
‘How will the royal family respond? What is the Emperor planning to do with dark magic…?’
Eliya randomly picked up a book and opened it.
‘Is this… a cipher?’
The contents of the book were all written in code.
The other books were similar.
‘Is this an irregular character substitution type?’
A cipher system that uses irregular substitutions for each character.
Fortunately, there was a reference table for decoding those ciphers among the materials.
Eliya referred to the table while decoding.
As she read through the pages, she paused on one.
The text on the left looked like a schematic for something.
Perhaps a magic circle.
The right side contained text descriptions.
Although the content was long and detailed, summarizing it was simple.
‘Enhancement of suggestion?’
A magic circle inscribed with offerings.
It enhances suggestions cast upon a subject.
‘This is definitely…’
She racked her memory.
Where had she seen this before?
The familiarity emanating from the design of this magic circle was very faint yet distinct.
‘…….’
Eliya used teleportation.
In the study room,
she opened the lower drawer.
This was something she had stored five years ago.
The paper she received from Miguel.
It belonged to the person who had come to assassinate her.
The directive that she had surmised to be from Tredito Hayes.
That directive had traces of magic inscribed on it.
And the dark magic called enhancement of suggestion she had just seen.
The magical energy felt the same.
Eliya returned to the magic lab.
Studying the enhancement of suggestion dark magic, she started to draw on a blank piece of paper with a pen.
Black ink flowed steadily,
as though there had been a path there from the start.
Finally, when she completed it, Eliya felt certain.
‘…It’s the same.’
The enhancement of suggestion and the pattern written on the paper matched.
Still remaining letters from before,
a cipher that had been restored by a technician five years ago but never deciphered.
When compared to the substitution cipher in the dark wizard’s book, it could finally be decoded.
After five years, the ultimate result of her uncovering is:
‘…Kill Eliya.’
An assassination order demanding her death.
All clues connected.
The assassin from five years ago, Tredito Hayes,
the suspicious paper he dropped,
the royal capital wizards and dark magic.
The enhancement magic she tracked down and identified,
matching the diagram inscribed on the paper.
And that malicious content:
“Kill Eliya.”
He was from Judeca. He was connected to Angra.
‘It wasn’t just the royal family and dark magic…’
The Molsin Church and Angra were involved in this as well.
And that Angra had connections with Balak…
‘Wait a minute.’
Eliya recalled the letter she had seen this time.
It seemed to have been written in haste by the dark wizard.
While the ink had spilled, obscuring the entire content, Eliya had managed to piece it together from the surrounding context.
‘Thorned crown. Golden. Target. Directive. …The dark wizard who came looking for Judas. And again mentions suggestion and brainwashing, as if it were something that had already been attempted before…’
After rapidly organizing her thoughts,
‘Judas….’
She reached one conclusion.
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