47

“…The students of the magic tower are quite studious, aren’t they.”

“Wouldn’t it be nice if they were like this all the time.”

When Ono said it sourly, Agnes gave a stiff smile.

From the dais, the Tower Master chuckled as if he had heard a funny joke and stroked his beard.

“That would probably be difficult, Professor Agnes.”

“You are…”

Agnes looked at him with a stiffened expression.

She was still confused.

She couldn’t believe that the old man before her was not the Tower Master she knew.

Agnes bit her lip hard.

Meanwhile, Hamel quietly watched the Tower Master standing at the lectern.

The white beard and hair.

His kind expression was as usual.

But the one controlling the students in the lobby like a puppet must be the monster hiding behind that Tower Master’s mask.

Its true identity was clearly a creature pretending to be human.

As Hamel confirmed his suspicion, the Tower Master smiled and spoke.

“You returned sooner than I expected. What happened to the children who were there?”

“Children?”

“Well, of course…”

Trailing off, the Tower Master grinned and said.

“My adorable little insects.”

“…”

At that answer, Agnes’s face went deathly pale.

She had steeled herself, yet a faint hope remained in her heart.

And that hope was now brutally crushed.

Seeing it, Hamel stepped forward in her stead.

“If you mean those insects, I killed them all.”

“Oh my… What a shame, those children I gathered with such effort.”

The Tower Master shook his head with a look of regret.

“If they’d stayed for only another month, they could have multiplied enough to cover the magic tower and then some.”

“That was your plan?”

“One of the plans, you could say. I prepared many ways to bring down the magic tower. I thought getting rid of the biggest obstacle, the Tower Master, would be easy…”

The Tower Master stopped speaking and looked at Hamel.

He sighed lightly and shrugged his shoulders in a somewhat delicate gesture.

A surprisingly feminine gesture for an old man.

His tone carried a hint of coquettishness.

The sight was extremely incongruous.

“I never imagined you would come. Life is unpredictable, isn’t it?”

“So you know me, then.”

Hamel asked evenly.

The Tower Master snorted and answered.

“Of course. Exorcist priests are always a thorn in our side.”

“…”

Hamel fell silent.

‘Our side’?

Did that mean he wasn’t acting alone?

Surprised by the revelation, Hamel simply stared at the Tower Master.

The Tower Master met Hamel’s eyes and said.

“Well, I still like you.”

“Why is that?”

“Because you taught that fool David some manners, didn’t you?”

“…!”

Hamel’s eyes widened.

He never imagined he’d hear that name here.

“…You know David.”

“Of course. We’re rivals with that idiot, yet we sail in the same ship as comrades.”

“Comrades?”

Hamel found himself murmuring the word.

At Hamel’s reaction, the Tower Master laughed as if amused.

“You… really know nothing. And yet you ruined David’s plans twice. Then you come here and ruin my plan as well. If this isn’t fate, I don’t know what is.”

“…”

Hamel did not reply.

There was such a gap in information that he couldn’t even probe further.

As if he had no more to say, the Tower Master snapped his fingers lightly.

At once, the students drew mana to the tips of their staves.

“Never mind. Even if the plan faltered a bit, once I deal with you the magic tower will be practically in my hands.”

Only then did Hamel notice something odd.

The area was unnaturally quiet.

The core forces of the magic tower, including the professors, were nowhere to be seen.

With such a disturbance in the tower, there was no way they hadn’t noticed.

Seeing Hamel look around, the Tower Master shook his head.

“Don’t expect reinforcements. If it is the professors, they’ll be rushing to the mandragora fields right about now. They’ll come back empty-handed, of course.”

“…You deceived them.”

Only then did Hamel realize what had happened.

The Tower Master had spread false news of an attack, knowing Hamel and the others were returning from the Old Tree forest.

The Tower Master smiled proudly and tapped his face.

“Isn’t that why I took the Tower Master’s face? Now then.”

Then, wearing a benevolent expression, he commanded the students.

“Kill all the intruders.”

The students did not reply.

They only silently swung their staff.

Mana concentrated at the tips of over a hundred students’ staves.

Flames bloomed in the air.

Moisture condensed into sharp icicles, fine sand clumped into hard stones.

Each was not exceptional on its own, but there were hundreds of them.

A few hundred small flames gathered would become a wildfire.

Hundreds of streams would form a river.

Hundreds of thrown stones could become a landslide.

It was not an attack to be taken lightly.

“…”

Hamel’s hand gripping his sword twitched.

The first rule for fighting mages is to never let them complete their incantations.

Cut the fingers that form seals, tear out the tongues that chant, those are the priorities.

But these opponents were students.

Hamel could not bring himself to swing his sword and froze.

And that momentary hesitation was enough to decide the battle.

Whoosh

Hundreds of spells rained down from above.

“Idiot. Move!”

It was when Ono rushed to plant his hand on the ground to raise a barrier of plants.

Suddenly someone stepped forward with measured footsteps.

A low voice echoed through the magic tower’s lobby as if swallowing it.

“Bind. Disappear. Erase. Become a fiction.”

Agnes.

She stepped in front of Hamel and swung her staff.

The hundreds of spells flying in vanished like a mirage in the air.

She didn’t even draw her signature magic blade.

She had instantaneously reverse-calculated and dispelled the hundreds of students’ spells.

An overwhelming difference in power.

“…”

No one could immediately find words; they all stared at her.

Her face, chilled to the bone, was something no one had seen before.

Her usual expression was gone; her icy gaze made even Hamel swallow dryly.

The Tower Master’s face twitched into an awkward, trembling smile as he looked at Agnes.

With a bewildered look, the Tower Master asked.

“You… weren’t you of the high rank?”

“Yes. This is high rank.”

Agnes pointed her staff at the Tower Master and spoke.

“So you should be grateful for your luck. If the real Tower Master were here, you’d already be dust.”

Archmage.

The title was not something to be taken lightly.

If the poisoned Tower Master had sensed anything odd, the fake standing on the lectern would have died in an instant.

The face of the man impersonating the Tower Master flinched and trembled.

But only for a moment; as if an idea came to him, he smiled brightly and nodded.

“I see. I truly am lucky. I didn’t expect this to be so helpful.”

“…What are you talking about?”

Agnes frowned and asked, and the Tower Master waved his hand.

The students raised their staves in unison.

Seeing that, Agnes sighed.

“You don’t seem to grasp the situation. I alone could handle the students’ magic…”

“No.”

The Tower Master shook his head.

At the same time, the students’ staves shifted direction once more.

The tips of their staves now pointed at the students’ own heads.

“…!”

Agnes gasped in shock.

The Tower Master smiled viciously and continued.

“Even you couldn’t stop this, could you?”

Even Agnes couldn’t prevent hundreds of students from killing themselves.

To the rigid Agnes, the Tower Master spoke soothingly.

“Let’s make an exchange. If you submit to my spell ‘Marionette’, I’ll release all these students unharmed.”

“How am I supposed to believe that…”

“We’ll form a Mana Binding. I’m a mage too, after all.”

Mana Binding.

A pact that intertwines all of one’s mana with another’s.

If broken, it’s a powerful spell that can cost the violator their life according to the pact.

Agnes’s eyes trembled.

She hesitated, turned her head, and looked at Hamel.

Hamel easily read the emotion in her eyes.

It was guilt and remorse.

She had already made up her mind.

“That is shirking responsibility.”

Hamel said calmly.

She wasn’t choosing the option that led to the students’ deaths by her own hand.

But in the end, the fate of students deprived of any countermeasures would be the same.

Agnes avoided Hamel’s gaze and nodded.

“Yes, I know.”

“…”

With that, Hamel had nothing more to say.

Hamel, who could not bring himself to cut down the students, had no right to call her a hypocrite.

Hamel swallowed and said bluntly.

“Very well. Leave the rest to me.”

“…!”

She widened her eyes at the unexpected reply.

Then she bowed her head with an even more apologetic expression.

“I’m sorry. Please, I’m asking you.”

“Yes.”

Hamel answered shortly and let her go.

The Tower Master lowered his head and sneered as Agnes walked toward him.

“A wise decision.”

Agnes did not answer.

She simply opened her arms calmly, ready to accept the spell.

To her, the Tower Master extended his staff.

“Weaving art. Marionette.”

White threads extended from his staff and attached to various parts of Agnes’s body.

And in the next moment.

Snap

Agnes’s head dropped limply and her limbs went slack.

At the same time, hundreds of students collapsed listlessly.

They had been freed from the brainwashing spell as promised.

Hamel supported one of the students to check their condition.

They were breathing.

There were no apparent external injuries.

After a deep sleep, they’d likely not even remember what had happened.

Then Hamel’s task was simple.

He looked up at the limp Agnes.

Twitch

In the next moment, her frozen limbs twitched as if a current passed through them.

As if testing movement, she clenched and opened her five fingers, then slowly lifted her head.

Beneath the brim of her pointed hat.

Her hollow eyes glowed red.

---

“A familiar spell.”

When Hamel said it expressionlessly, the Tower Master snorted.

“If you’re referring to David’s conjuration technique, it’s merely an imitation of mine.”

Confidence overflowed from the Tower Master’s tone.

At his flick of a hand, Agnes’s staff wavered.

Three blue blades suddenly appeared behind her.

Seeing that, Hamel quietly clenched his teeth.

The worst-case scenario Hamel had feared was Agnes, controlled, using her full power.

In an instant, the strongest card became the worst card.

“What will you do?”

To Ono’s whisper, Hamel murmured his answer.

“I’ll handle Miss Agnes. Ono, you restrain the Tower Master in the meantime.”

“…Do you think you can manage that alone?”

At Ono’s worried question, Hamel simply took a flask from his waist.

Red liquid sloshed like burning blood.

He drained it in one gulp and answered.

“Yes.”

Blue flames sparked in Hamel’s eyes.

Scales covered the back of his hand and his footsteps became light and silent.

Screech

When Hamel drew his sword, a chilling resonance filled the silent space.

The Tower Master watching muttered with interest.

“Oh-ho. The one said to have smashed David, I see. They called you a Dragonian, didn’t they?”

“…”

Hamel did not answer.

He only stared at the Tower Master with a flat gaze.

That alone made the Tower Master involuntarily step back.

Cold sweat ran down his back.

Pressure.

It was akin to the aura emitted by born predators.

The Tower Master hurriedly forced Agnes to cast magic at Hamel.

“…Kill that author!”

Three blades hovering around Agnes shot out, leaving blue afterimages like streaks of light.

The trajectories were barely visible to the Tower Master.

A speed even knights with sharp reflexes couldn’t react to.

A faint smirk of presumed victory touched the Tower Master’s lips.

Clang

A sharp metallic sound rang out, and the Tower Master’s expression hardened.

Hamel narrowly dodged the flying blades and casually deflected the last one.

The blades struck the walls behind him, creating a harsh vibration, but that was all.

They caused Hamel no harm.

Hamel, sword in hand, lightly stamped the ground.

And in the next moment.

Crack

His figure vanished like the wind.