CH 169

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“I don’t know how you escaped from that underground dungeon……!?”

I had no intention of listening to the Crown Prince, who I had no interest in. First of all, I need to get my wand and ring back.

I used ivy to restrain the knights who were pointing their swords at us and the magicians who were preparing to chant and at the same time, I transferred in front of Veritas. Percival quickly grabs Veritas’ right hand as he tries to back away, frightened by us appearing in front of him without warning.

“Le-let go!”

“I’ll take this back.”

I take the wand back from Veritas, who is fighting in vain to shake Percival’s hand off, and I couldn’t help but kiss my wand partner, whom I haven’t seen for a long time, with joy.

I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to let you get taken away. From now on, we will never be apart!

“This is not something you should have either.”

Percival said coldly, and tore off the ring that was hanging from Veritas’ neck, including the chain. It was unusual for Percival to have such a violent attitude.

I’m fine as long as I get my ring and wand back, so I wave my wand before Veritas can do anything else. Ivy sprang up from the ground and wrapped around Weritas, rolling him to the ground like a caterpillar.

Yes yes, this is it! This perfect feeling! And the refreshing feeling as if the wind was blowing through my body. The golden light is still erupting from the tip of the wand, but isn’t it glowing more than usual?

“Ho……I didn’t think you were a chantless magician. This is getting more and more intriguing. Looks like you’ll be a lot more useful than your brother who’s lying around.”

“Your Highness Adrian! He is a useless guy without magical powers! I am a far better magician than he is!”

Veritas, who has turned into a caterpillar, calls out.

Haa? Are you still saying that? When in the world was that talk of having no magical powers from?

Here, look. Percival is looking down at you with extremely cold eyes because the topic is so old.

Veritas, like the Earl, is a man of great self-esteem, so he can’t accept that he lost to me, who was treated as a disgrace and someone who doesn’t belong in the mansion.

However, if you were always thinking about getting ahead of someone else, it would be difficult to survive.

“However, it seems that the useless guy has gotten the better of you, isn’t it? Besides, I like beautiful things. If you are a rare magician who is as beautiful as a spirit and does not chant, then even more so, won’t you be a magician worthy of being my attendant?”

Gotten the better of you1手も足も出ない: cannot do a thing; feeling handcuffed; being at the end of one’s tether; being at one’s wit’s end.  It sort of literally translates to having your hands and feet tied, which is funny because Veritas is literally tied up. is a strange way of putting it. I somehow managed to hold back bursting out in laughter.

Veritas, who was implicitly told that he is more useless than I am, is red-faced and shaking slightly.

Perhaps Veritas had no scruples saying that he was a good magician. He is certainly a descendant of Perfectio, the magician who saved the country. In fact, he’s a fraud magician, but I’m the only one who knows about it, so I guess he had some credibility.

That said, Veritas has a track record of earning stars at the academy, so he must have some level of ability. I haven’t actually seen him, so I don’t know for sure.

More than that. I’ve been curious about the entrance to the ruins behind the Crown Prince, which is covered in moss and tangled with ivy. The ruins themselves seem to be underground, so I don’t know how big they are, but I can feel a very unpleasant feeling in the air. It was the same feeling of magic essence that was floating in the basement of Sternkurst Castle, making my whole body tingle.

“Rare wizard, come with me, I will take you to a world you have never seen before. Besides, I am a tolerant man, and I will let you keep the third2I think author made a mistake, the raws said 2nd son but Percival is the 3rd so I changed it. son of Vanderwall there as your bodyguard……wouldn’t it be fun to dote on you right in front of that man?”

When Percival let out a hint of anger, the Crown Prince pulled up the corners of his mouth and smiled lightly.

That Crown Prince, it wasn’t just his taste in clothes that were bad. There are all sorts of things wrong with him.

Maybe the Crown Prince left his dignity behind somewhere. I won’t say anything bad about it, so he better go back and find it soon. As a member of the royal family, his lack of dignity is fatal.

“I’m sorry, but I respectfully decline. I’m not interested in a world I’ve never seen.”

“Well, all right. You can sit back and watch me rule the continent. Then you will realise how great I am and you will naturally kneel before me.”

After declaring this, the Crown Prince disappeared with his escort knights and magicians. It seems that the magicians behind him were transfer magicians. He probably transferred to the inside of the ruins. There is no doubt that there is something in there.

“……You’ve been left behind, haven’t you?”

When I looked at Veritas, who was lying at my feet, his face was distorted in frustration.

“Why are you in my way? A disgrace like you……! Damn it! Damn it!”

Veritas, writhing like a caterpillar tied with ivy, must have forgotten that he is a magician.

All you have to do is cut that ivy with magic. I just tied him up to get him to be a bit more docile, it’s not a special kind of ivy or anything, it’s just that I tied it up a bit excessively, but even so……

“……Maybe you’re out of magic? What exactly did you do to get to that point?”

When I looked closely, I could see that he is pale.

“I gave my magical power to the great dragon! That’s right……the dragon egg that I raised with my magical power will hatch soon……that way, I’m sure His Highness Adrian will recognise me……such a thing, such a thing, such a thing without magical power can’t be better than me……. Yes, it must be so…….!”

A great dragon? Raising an egg with magic?

“Percival, I have a bad feeling about this. Let’s go after them.”

“Yeah.”

Leaving the caterpillar Veritas behind, Percival and I head for the interior of the ruins.

Although the ruins differ in scale, the interior structure is generally similar. Besides, if I follow this unpleasant demonic energy, I should be able to reach the destination.

We descend the stairs while illuminating the surroundings with light. We need to be careful because we don’t know where the traps are. Flying objects can be blocked by barriers, but there are also pitfalls, living dead, and other traps that can be quite troublesome.

Anyway, in normal ruins, there would be several rooms and divided paths, but this ruin only had stairs leading underground. And the deeper you go, the thicker the magical essence becomes.

“The magical essence is thick……Sapphiras, do you feel bad?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Are you all right, Percival?”

“Yeah. I have a certain level of resistance to magical essence because of the subjugation in the Forest of Magical Beasts.”

Percival has been participating in the subjugation of magical beasts since he was young.

Because there is a large abyss in the Forest of Magical Beasts, a thin layer of magical essence is always floating in the forest. Even if you don’t normally feel the magic, your body gets used to it by going in and out of the forest frequently.

“Huh, it’s a dead end……”

The staircase, which seemed to go down forever and ever, suddenly became a dead end and it was impossible to go any further. I searched the walls to see if there was a mechanism somewhere, but I couldn’t find anything that looked like one. I tapped on it, but it didn’t feel hollow on the other side of the wall.

“I see. That’s why the transfer magicians were with him…….”

I didn’t realise that the system is such that you can’t get to your destination without transferring.

“Shall I try destroying the wall?”

“Better not. If we’re not careful, the whole ruin could collapse.”

“Hmm…… Ah! That’s right! Come here, Cait Sith!”

“Nya—n! Did you call nya!”

When I drew a pale, glowing summoning circle, a black cat jumped out with great vigour.

Cait Sith finds dimensional gaps and comes to our world on his own. Let him use his unique special skills to find a way forward.

“Do me a favour and use your amazing Cait Sith skills to find a way to go underground.”

“Nya? Such a thing, it’s right here nya.”

Cait Sith then taps the stone floor with his little paw. At that moment, the floor gaped and pitch blackness spread around my feet.

“Sapphiras!”

“Haaah!? You gotta be kidding me!”

I grabbed Cait Sith by the scruff of his neck and pulled him into my arms. And I was further hugged by Percival.

If we fall like this, we’ll die. I covered us with barrier magic, created a gust of wind, and climbed on top of it. The wind slowed down our fall, so we were able to avoid hitting the ground. I never thought that what I had tried before at Vanderwall would be useful in a place like this. One should try everything.

As we slowly descended down the deep hole, we eventually reached a large space. It’s great to have solid footing.

“Sapphiras, are you hurt?”

“Yes, I’m fine.”“Myaah!”

Cait Sith suddenly cried out and jumped out of my arms and onto my shoulder, all his fur standing up and shouting menacingly.

“Ouch, ouch! Cait Sith! Claws! Your claws are digging in!…..or rather, what is that……?”

On top of the strangely ominous altar was a gigantic pitch-black mass that almost touched the ceiling, writhing eerily.

Moreover, if you look closely, you can see many dried corpses stuck together, as if half assimilated with the black mass. In one of them, I found a corpse wearing familiar clothes. I feel like I’ve seen that outfit somewhere recently.

Where on earth?

“Fargerson-kyou……”

Percival mutters.

“Eh? Fargerson-kyou?”

I remember now. The man who came to taunt me in the dungeons, Fargerson, was indeed dressed like that. But still, he’s changed a lot, hasn’t he?

“……I was thinking who it was, isn’t this the magician. Good job following me all the way here. Have you come to serve me?”

“No, I have no such inclination at all. Rather than that, I just have to ask, what on earth is that?”

I think it can’t be, but I’ll ask anyway.

“This? This is my little servant. It was once called the Black Flame Dragon of Calamity, and was even said to be capable of destroying the world. How do you like it, isn’t it a beautiful and sinister sight?”

“Ha?”

…… No, really, you’ve got to be joking.

melon: Can’t wait to see Sapphiras destroying that black mass in one hit.