The Return of The Mythical Archmage [EN]: Chapter 199

“How are you going to do it?” Charles asked, curious about the specifics.

“Well, you’ll see.” It’s quicker to demonstrate than explain.

“Miho.”

I gently stroked Miho’s head one last time. As I stood up, Miho’s body began to transform.

The change was instantaneous.

“Wow,” Charles exclaimed, clearly impressed by Miho’s transformation.

Her body grew from the size of a kitten to that of a large dog. Her five tails became much fuller, and her eyes now held the sharp glint of an adult. It was Miho’s battle form from when she swallowed Tksh [a reference to a previous event] at the lowest level of the Hwaelian prison.

“It hasn’t been long, but I’m sorry to ask this of you again. Please help me out.”

Miho nodded, her eyes showing complete trust in me. At the same time, semi-transparent flames of the soul erupted from her four paws.

I climbed onto Miho’s back.

“Then, I’ll be back.”

“…Alright,” Commander Charles replied, waving his hand with a slightly dazed expression.

“Let’s go, Miho.”

The soul flames flickering on Miho’s paws intensified. The next moment, Miho was running through the air.

It was Miho’s unique movement technique, using the flames of the soul to traverse the spiritual realm.

“Hoo. It’s definitely much more intense here.”

All the energy of Mount Baekdu is concentrated here, at Cheonji [Heaven Lake, a crater lake on Mount Baekdu]. In other words, all the energy is focused upwards. It was natural that the mana above Cheonji was more distorted.

“Miho, are you okay?”

Miho nodded calmly, as if she was completely unaffected. It’s a relief that Miho is alright. Even if something happens to me, Miho will somehow manage.

‘I wonder if I can last about 10 minutes.’

The maximum time I can endure in this terrible mana is about 10 minutes. If it exceeds that, my skin will slowly start to rot. Maybe after 15 minutes, my flesh will become sticky like gum and flow down to the ground. That’s how severe the mana here was. Is this really mana? I would believe it if you said it was just poison.

I continued to breathe, minimizing the absorption of the poison. After about 30 seconds, I arrived at the place where Laplace was blooming.

“Miho, if something happens to me, please take care of it.”

I took one last breath in front of Laplace. Completely excluding external mana, only absorbing air. I circulated my breath through my internal mana. After about three deep breaths.

‘Let’s start.’

I reached out my hand.

Woong, woong!

The Laplace that touched my hand emitted a bright light.

* * *

‘…That guy is something else.’ Charles clicked his tongue inwardly, watching Shin Hayul, who was riding on the giant nine-tailed fox and focusing all his attention on harvesting Laplace.

‘To be able to move mana so calmly even in that terrible poison.’

The change in the nine-tailed fox was amazing, but what was even more impressive was Shin Hayul’s skill. To handle mana so perfectly in the center of Cheonji. I don’t know how that’s supposed to be 18 years old. I feel like I’m having cognitive dissonance with the word 18 years old.

‘I wonder what he’ll be like in 3, 5, or 10 years…’

Shin Hayul will probably continue to grow, breaking the youngest records. Maybe he’ll reach the 8th circle [a high level of magic mastery] in 10 years.

‘But still, reaching the 8th circle at 28 is a bit much, isn’t it?’

Charles, who was recognized as a genius by Sophia, reached the 8th circle the year before last. It was the year Charles turned 37. That was incredibly fast, but to reach the 8th circle 9 years faster than that? Honestly, it’s hard to imagine. The 8th circle in your 20s.

‘No, I think he might be able to do it…’

It’s logically impossible, but somehow it felt like Shin Hayul could do it. That’s what I thought.

‘Our Madam really has an eye for talent.’

I once again applaud Sophia’s insight for recognizing such a genius at a glance and deciding to support him. Choosing Shin Hayul as her successor was a stroke of genius. …Although, it’s not something Charles, who had asked if it was really necessary to bet everything on Shin Hayul at the time, should be saying.

“Should I buy all the shares of the Mado family’s affiliates?”

Charles isn’t very interested in money, but there’s no reason not to scratch a lottery ticket that’s guaranteed to win. As long as Shin Hayul is the next head of the Mado family, the Mado family’s stock will rise 100%. Maybe it will skyrocket 10 times, or even 100 times, within 10 years.

‘Even though I don’t know much about stocks… There’s no way the stock price won’t go up when such a person becomes the head of the family.’

Okay. Let’s put all the spare money in when I get back. Charles made up his mind.

Fwaaaaat-!

At that moment, light exploded around Shin Hayul. The light was so intense that I could feel it even through my eyelids. That intense light lasted for about 10 seconds. The light slowly faded. Charles slowly opened his eyes.

“Wow.”

At the same time, an exclamation came out of his mouth without him realizing it.

“That’s Laplace.”

The moment he confirmed the appearance of the herb, Laplace, which Shin Hayul was holding like a treasure, he couldn’t help but exclaim. “It doesn’t look ordinary from the outside.”

A dreamy herb that looked like the sky was gathered into the shape of a herb. The celestial flower, emitting a semi-transparent blue light, was asserting itself in a clear form.

* * *

On the coast east of Mount Baekdu. A giant turtle, Elysium Turtle, collapsed, unconscious.

“Hah. You damn bastard. You really held out a lot,” Parade said, putting one foot on the carapace of the Elysium Turtle and stomping on it. His expression and gestures showed that he was very displeased.

“If it wakes up, I won’t take responsibility,” Shadow said nonchalantly from behind Parade.

“It took your magic directly, there’s no way it’ll wake up.”

The Elysium Turtle was hit directly by Shadow’s shadow magic. There’s no way it’ll wake up no matter what it does.

Thump! Thump!

Parade slammed the carapace as if he was trying to release his pent-up resentment. The power was so strong that it sounded like a missile was exploding. Of course, the Elysium Turtle’s carapace was fine. It wasn’t a weak carapace that would be damaged by that level of power.

Twitch!

At that moment, the Elysium Turtle’s huge body moved.

“What the fuck!” Parade, surprised by it, fell backward. Did it really wake up? With just this much venting? Parade swallowed hard.

“…Damn. You’re scaring me.”

Fortunately, the Elysium Turtle’s twitch was only for a moment. It didn’t show any signs of waking up.

“That’s why I warned you. When a monster reaches this level, even my shadow magic can’t put it to sleep 100%.”

“…You should have said that sooner, you damn bastard.”

Parade got up from his spot with a frown.

“I’ve said it before. If you’re going to blame someone, blame your stupid brain with its terrible memory.”

“What did you say?” Parade glared at Shadow. His expression was so fierce that it looked like he was going to eat him alive.

“If you have time to glare at me, hurry up and tame it.”

Shadow also made a face as if he was the most unpleasant person in the world, as if he couldn’t lose.

“To call me for such a trivial task. Tsk.”

“…”

Parade’s expression softened at Shadow’s soliloquy, which wasn’t really a soliloquy. He wasn’t exactly sorry.

‘That’s right. I need to catch this guy quickly and lead Shadow to those two.’ At this rate, Shadow will go back. I need to finish everything before that. That way, I can take revenge on the two who dared to kill my precious pet, ‘Thunder Bird’.

“Then I’ll go first…”

“Hey, hey. Why are you doing this? You’ve come all this way, are you just going to leave?” Parade smiled and approached Shadow. “I can’t just send back a colleague who came all this way for me. There’s another amazing delicacy here. It’s one of the best delicacies you can only taste in Mount Baekdu. I’ll let you taste it specially. Eat and go.”

I’ve never seen anyone who doesn’t like delicious food. Moreover, it’s not just anything, it’s a delicacy and a delicacy that you can only taste in Mount Baekdu. There was no way he would refuse.

“…I really don’t need it.”

“…Huh?”

Of course, this was just Parade’s thought. Not everyone in the world is crazy about delicious food.

‘Eating is just a consumable act for nutritional supply.’ Moreover, Shadow has lost his sense of taste because of Umbra’s shadow. There’s no way such a proposal would work for Shadow.

“…I want to say that, but it’s quite intriguing.”

However, this is a proposal that he cannot refuse for the sake of the operation. It was so useless that he answered ‘I don’t need it’ without realizing it, but considering his promise with Shin Hayul, he had to follow Parade for now.

“Ah, right? That’s right. Hmm.” Parade swallowed his embarrassment and put on a proud expression. As expected, there’s no one who can refuse delicious food. He nodded while thinking that.

“Of course, I don’t plan to stay long. I have another mission.”

“Ah, of course. I’ll prepare it quickly and feed it to you quickly.” Parade smiled meaningfully.

“Let’s go.”

With that, Parade and Shadow headed towards Mount Baekdu.

* * *

After finishing the harvesting, we left Cheonji and headed to the eastern plains where we were supposed to meet Shadow. The harvested Laplace was put inside ‘Aeth’ [likely a storage artifact]. Now, all we have to do is go home, refine Laplace under Mimir’s supervision, and make it into Laplace’s Tears [a valuable elixir].

‘Now, all I have to do is wait for Mr. Seokhyun to get the remaining materials.’ He said that all the preparations would be finished by next Friday. We just have to wait until then. The completion of the elixir is not far away.

Chwaaaaaaaak-!

At that moment, the sound of a huge greatsword tearing through flesh echoed loudly. It was the sound of Charles tearing apart a monster with telekinesis.

“Ugh. Damage nullification is really the most difficult.” Looking in the direction of the sound, Charles was walking towards us. Behind him, the corpse of a giant gorilla could be seen. The upper and lower bodies were completely separated, rolling on the ground separately.

“Sorry. Did you wait long? It took a while because it was a damage nullification monster.”

“Wait long? It’s only been a minute. You’ve worked hard.”

A rank 1 tier A-rank monster with the special property of damage nullification, Metal Kong. Even though it was a monster that was despair for mages who mainly used telekinesis, it took less than a minute to deal with it.

“Was that cut just now… did you use telekinesis?”

“Yeah. Telekinesis is, after all, a magic that applies force from a distance. If you condense it as much as possible and sharpen it like a knife, you can do things like this.”

“…I see.”

Condensing telekinesis as thinly as possible and making it like a knife. It’s easy to say, but this is as difficult as inducing electrons. There’s really no one who can surpass Commander Charles when it comes to telekinesis.

“More than that, it’s almost time… Isn’t he coming?”

The current time is 5:57 PM. There are less than 3 minutes left until the time we promised with Shadow.

“It’s something that requires us to lead him in as naturally as possible. There’s bound to be a large margin of error. Let’s wait slowly…” While he was saying that.

Suddenly, a huge force was felt approaching us.

“Commander!”

“I know!” Commander Charles also seemed to have noticed something approaching and immediately took action.

Kwaaaaaaaang-!

He perfectly blocked the rushing giant with telekinesis. The giant was bounced back by the telekinesis and landed lightly on the ground.

“Velvet Tiger…” One of the unranked disaster species living in Mount Baekdu. Velvet Tiger. It was glaring at us, emitting killing intent.

Thump, thump!

At that moment, a loud noise was heard from behind. It was the sound of a giant running across the ground. The trees fell like straws, and a giant turtle, reminiscent of a jewel, appeared through them. Elysium Turtle. It was the last remaining unranked disaster species.

“Wow, it’s said that enemies meet on a narrow bridge. I’m meeting all the enemies of our Tksh here?” On top of the Elysium Turtle. A man looked at us and raised one corner of his mouth.

“One is a stranger, and one is an old acquaintance?” Parade, an executive of the Black Magic Tower. He greeted us with a ferocious smile.