The Problematic Child of the Magic Tower
[Translator - Night]
[Proofreader - Gun]
Chapter 161: Saint Hill (4)
In an instant, three headless bodies collapsed to the ground.
Dark crimson blood gushed from the severed stumps, quickly dyeing the surroundings.
"......!"
"W-What ruthless hands our young brother has..."
As the startled priests hesitated without realizing it, Oscar's eyes quickly scanned the scene.
'One high-ranking priest left... and...'
Seven lackeys.
More than manageable between the two of them.
Sensing this confidence, the high-ranking priest grew anxious.
His once-calm face twisted into a demonic grimace as he barked out an order.
"What are you doing?! Finish them off, now!"
"Y-Yes!"
"Understood!"
The priests, who had responded boldly, no longer rushed in recklessly as before.
Instead, they carefully tightened their encirclement, closing the distance at a deliberate pace.
"Brother, if you surrender now, we’ll grant you a painless death."
"The pain will be brief, but the salvation that follows is eternal."
Oscar furrowed his brow and made up his mind.
'Swift and decisive.'
Normally, he would have assessed the situation a little longer.
But since they had confirmed their target’s location, there was no time to waste in a place like this.
"Wind Blade."
Once again, Oscar’s wind took the shape of a blade and surged toward the priests.
However, the high-ranking priest at the rear shouted upon seeing it.
"It won’t work a second time!"
Clang!
An intangible force rose from the ground, deflecting the blade.
"Oscar!"
Veronica muttered in a trembling voice as she observed.
"If I’m not mistaken, that energy feels just like what we encountered in Vince, doesn’t it?"
"......Yeah."
A priest using divine power was one thing, but the high-ranking priest had undoubtedly used demonic energy.
'The Salvation Church was connected to demons? Since when?'
His mind raced with questions, but now wasn’t the time for answers.
The priests, emboldened by the blocked attack, were now charging in.
"O Lord! Have mercy on this lost lamb!"
Whoosh!
With a heavy thud, a morning star came crashing down from above.
Oscar instinctively moved to summon a shield but hesitated for a brief moment.
He had sensed a familiar magical presence behind him.
'Veronica.'
Oscar’s eyes gleamed as he abandoned his initial spell and cast a different one.
At the same time, Veronica’s sharp voice rang out from behind.
"Wind Cushion!"
A soft layer of air formed beside the priest and suddenly enveloped him.
Thump!
With an almost comical sound, the priest was flung sideways and crashed into the wall.
This gave Oscar a fleeting moment to act, which he seized immediately.
『Wild Leaf』
Hundreds of razor-sharp leaves, formed of wind, scattered through the air.
Despite their delicate appearance, they were far from harmless.
Anything that came into contact with them was sliced cleanly apart.
"Aaagh!"
"M-My arm! My arm!"
"Ugh!"
The high-ranking priest gritted his teeth as he watched the carnage.
He had managed to block most of the attack with his demonic energy, but he couldn't stop every last leaf.
"Fuck."
"Should someone who claims to serve a god really use such foul language?"
Oscar dashed forward in an instant, leapt off a couch, and landed a brutal kick to the high-ranking priest’s face.
"Guh!"
As the priest spewed blood and staggered backward, he frantically gathered his demonic energy.
But—
Swish.
A sharp blade of wind was already pressed against his throat.
Oscar stared down at him coldly and asked,
"What did you do to Fran and Killian?"
"Kh... Khuhuh... Kheheheh."
The high-ranking priest suddenly burst into laughter.
Oscar’s gaze sharpened at the eerie reaction.
"What’s so funny?"
"Isn’t it obvious?"
The priest licked his lips with his tongue.
"Threats like this mean nothing to us."
"......!"
The moment he finished speaking, he jerked his neck forward, slicing open his own carotid artery against the blade.
Splurt!
Blood spurted out like a broken faucet.
"Khh... Khuhuhu... At last... Salvation... Ahh, my Lord..."
With a blissful smile, the high-ranking priest took his final breath.
"......."
Oscar silently stared down at the corpse.
Veronica, who had approached, muttered dryly,
"What a lunatic. What do they call this again? Fanaticism? That’s the word, right?"
"......Yeah."
Most people fear death.
They dread the unknown that comes after.
But those with unshakable faith or conviction do not.
'Because they believe death leads to salvation.'
Just like this man, who had welcomed his own demise with open arms.
"The highest-ranking one just killed himself. What now?"
"......."
Oscar turned his gaze to the wounded priests, writhing on the ground with severed limbs, then spoke.
"First, let’s hide Paul somewhere relatively safe, then find Fran and Killian."
After extracting Paul from the interrogation chamber, the two of them hid him in a secluded room.
It seemed unnecessary, but Paul insisted he could endure it and squeezed himself into a wardrobe.
"You're scrawny, so I guess you fit pretty well. Are you sure you can stay in there?"
"Yes, I can manage. Anything’s better than dying."
"Well, if you say so... We’ll come get you when this is over."
Responding indifferently, Veronica left the room with Oscar, who then said,
"Let’s check the bathroom first."
"Do you know where it is?"
"No. But when Fran asked for the location, the high-ranking priest told him to go straight left after exiting."
Whether it was a real bathroom or a trap, Fran had gone there.
When they arrived, Veronica blinked in surprise.
"Wait, it’s actually just a regular bathroom?"
"Looks like it."
But inside, the scene was anything but ordinary.
The mirrors above the sinks were shattered, floor tiles were wrecked, and several stall doors had been ripped off.
Oscar infused his eyes with magic and scanned the area.
"...There was a fight. A fierce one."
"You can tell?"
"Roughly."
Squatting down, Oscar examined the traces left behind.
"Killian was the first to sense something was wrong and made a move."
"Hm. If he got taken down, that means they were up against a decent number of enemies, huh?"
"...That’s what’s strange."
Oscar slowly shook his head.
No matter how he looked at it, the traces of battle indicated only three participants.
"There was only one opponent."
"One?!"
Hearing that Fran and Killian had been taken down by a single enemy, Veronica frowned.
"...Those two are dumb sometimes, but they aren’t weak."
"My thoughts exactly."
Moreover, the mana in this place felt particularly dense.
“If we consider what that guy we fought earlier said, their target must have been a special-type mage. That’s why they sent stronger forces here.”
Oscar, calmly analyzing the situation, continued reading the traces left behind.
“Killian stepped here first.”
Since there were no footprints around, he must have used that step to jump.
“And the next trace appeared over there.”
Oscar fixed his gaze on the shattered bathroom mirror.
“He was probably grabbed mid-air and thrown. In other words, the opponent had enough visual acuity to track Killian’s rapid movements and impressive reflexes.”
“What was Fran doing at the time?”
“Magic.”
Oscar closed his eyes, sensing the lingering traces of mana.
“......The spell used was probably an air explosion.”
“Not bad. That’s a pretty destructive spell. What happened to the target?”
“They didn’t get hit.”
For some unknown reason, the air explosion had been deflected downward.
As a result, the floor tiles were completely shattered and scattered.
“Killian, who had been knocked away first, must have rushed in and used 『Wolf’s Song』.”
But all of his attacks missed.
The shredded restroom stall doors were evidence of that.
“And that’s where the situation ended.”
The opponent had incapacitated Killian and Fran in an instant.
How they did it was unclear, but there were no more traces of the two afterward.
“Killian is one thing, but Fran has Wind Spirit. And he still got taken down?”
“Even with the Wind Spirit, he’s not invincible.”
Slowly rising to his feet, Oscar spoke.
“But it’s fine.”
His mana-infused, blue-glowing eyes hadn’t missed a single footprint.
“We’ve found the culprit’s tracks. We just need to follow them.”
Drip, drip.
Fran regained consciousness to the sound of water dripping.
As his vision cleared, he frowned.
The first reason was the sharp smell of disinfectant stinging his nose.
The second was the overly bright lights that hurt his eyes.
‘Ugh, where am I?’
At the same time, his head throbbed like it was about to split open.
‘No, wait. Did it actually split?’
His memories slowly returned.
He had been chatting with Killian in the restroom when some stranger suddenly appeared and cracked his skull open.
“Urgh.”
Instinctively trying to move, Fran froze in shock.
Clank, clank.
His arms and legs were completely restrained by thick iron shackles.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
He thrashed wildly, but of course, the shackles didn’t budge.
For a brief moment, he considered using magic to break free.
But as soon as he tried, he realized something was wrong—his mana wouldn’t move at all.
“You won’t be able to use magic. Those shackles are made entirely of Oblisium.”
“......Oblisium?”
A rare metal that suppresses all mana flow in anything it touches.
It was extremely expensive, making it hard to believe that they would use it to craft shackles.
Fran, his eyes shaking, glared at his captor.
“Who are you? Where’s Killian?”
The man standing before him wore a white lab coat—an odd outfit for what looked like a religious facility.
“Killian? Ah, you must mean the half-baked mage who was captured alongside you.”
The man smirked and pulled a lever, tilting the bed Fran was shackled to and forcing him into an upright position.
He watched Fran’s confusion with amusement and spoke.
“See for yourself. By now, he’s probably become one of them.”
One of them?
Fran’s wariness intensified as he turned his gaze toward the dozen holographic screens in front of him.
The screens showed numerous people.
But not a single one of them appeared normal.
—Grrr...
—Uuugh, aaah...
They staggered aimlessly, bumping into walls, only to turn and shuffle in another direction.
There were over a hundred of them, shambling like lifeless corpses.
“...What the...”
Perhaps it was some deep-seated human instinct—Fran felt an inexplicable sense of revulsion.
With a trembling voice, he asked,
“What are they?”
“Failures.”
The man replied cheerfully.
“We tried forcibly injecting humans with demonic corruption, but most of them lost their intelligence and were left with nothing but aggression. The funny thing is, anyone bitten by them develops the same symptoms. Isn’t that fascinating?”
“...What?”
Cold sweat ran down Fran’s back.
Demonic corruption?
Experiments?
His head spun from the sudden influx of information.
“You do realize that conducting human experimentation is a blatant violation of imperial law—”
“Ah, spare me the lectures. I’ve heard them so many times in my life that I’m sick of them.”
“......”
Fran bit his lip hard.
There was only one thing he knew for certain.
If these creatures were unleashed upon the world, it would lead to uncontrollable chaos.
“But you don’t have to worry about that.”
The man grinned.
“You’re a special-type mage, so the failure rate is almost zero. And your body is in excellent condition. I have a feeling you’ll be a masterpiece. The church will grant you a high-ranking position, too.”
“You bastards are insane... You really think I’ll just let you do whatever you want?”
“Oh, you’ll comply.”
The man’s smile turned eerie.
“We’ll overwrite any unnecessary memories and mold you into a completely new existence.”
“...What?”
Clank, clank.
The man rummaged through the dozens of syringes on a metal cart and picked one up.
“Now then, this will sting just a little. Just a little~”
As the needle inched toward Fran’s struggling body—
BOOM!
A thunderous explosion and violent tremors erupted from above, making the man frown.
“......How disruptive. Do they not realize how much concentration this process requires?”
He hesitated for a moment, but the explosions and tremors only intensified.
No—rather, it felt like they were growing stronger by the second.
“Hmm.”
Sensing something was off, the man quickly checked the underground facility’s surveillance feed.
BOOM!
The ceiling caved in with a deafening crash.
Covered in dust and debris, a man and woman dropped down through the wreckage.
[Translator - Night]
[Proofreader - Gun]

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