What Happens When The Second Male Lead Powers Up [EN]: Chapter 451

The Sub-Male Lead Goes on Strike – #451

#451

The Unfamiliar Wind and the Black Magician’s Mansion (6)

Having heard the commotion, she emerged from the bedroom, drowsiness still clinging to her eyes.

“……”

“Why are you causing such a disturbance at this late hour? I am not unaware of the power you wield on the surface, but this is the black market. And this is my home.”

The woman spoke with a detached air.

Her attire, revealing too much of her shoulders and skin, left the servants prostrate on the floor, unsure of what to do.

However, Morghan and Werner remained unfazed.

One had never revealed his true self to anyone, so he felt no compunction [a feeling of guilt or moral scruple that prevents or follows the doing of something bad], while the other cared for nothing but himself, so he was indifferent.

Werner smoothed his disheveled hair with his left hand.

“Haa……”

Though his attire was shabby, his fair hands and well-groomed nails hinted at his noble origins.

A precious person who had never lifted a finger for chores or menial tasks.

The man did not even glance at the shattered teacup.

A somewhat calmer voice emerged.

“I heard a large quantity of high-grade magic stones arrived at the mansion.”

“Is that so? I fell asleep early and did not hear.”

“……Severing the claws of the devil is a great undertaking that cannot be delayed even for a moment, yet you fall asleep so easily?”

“I am sorry, but it takes time to verify the quality of the magic stones and melt them down. Furthermore, the black magicians in this mansion, including myself, must always perform at their best. No matter what, we do not work all night.”

Morghan retorted sharply. Werner inwardly ground his teeth.

If this were the royal palace, he would have long since ordered his underlings to torture her to get what he wanted (though he was merciful and would not resort to violence from the start).

But this was not his territory.

He was currently escaping from his daughter’s grasp, and he had no intention of relying on his sister until he had accurately grasped her intentions.

Even the lord of Yeriho, who occasionally presented him with gifts, had abandoned his castle and fled.

So he had to be careful.

“……”

He had to bide his time and, if he had nothing to offer immediately, consider the slow progress.

Morghan wanted his power.

Specifically, she wanted him to transfer ownership of the Yeriho Monastery to her by royal decree.

And the title of nobility was a bonus.

Compared to Werner’s beautiful and perfect limbs, it was a small price, but fulfilling her wish would take time.

Soon, a glint flashed in her chocolate-colored eyes.

“Then, as soon as it dawns,”

“Master! Master, oh dear! We’re in big trouble!”

-Thump, thump, crash!

At that moment, someone behind Morghan fell in a comical heap.

All eyes turned to the newly arrived servant.

Some quickly seized the opportunity to drape a blanket over the black magician’s shoulders.

The atmosphere instantly became chaotic. The fallen servant sprang up like a tumbler toy.

“I, I apologize for interrupting your conversation! But there’s a disaster, a disaster!”

“What is it? Calm down and speak.”

“T-there was an intruder in the first warehouse! The alarm went off for a moment, so at first, I thought it was nothing, but since high-grade magic stones had arrived, I thought we should be careful, so I went to check!”

“I am curious about the main point.”

“Ah……! The magic stone box was empty!”

‘I am truly sorry!’ The woman cried, bowing deeply.

Werner’s eyes widened. Morghan gently wrinkled her freckled nose.

The servants were now almost in hysterics.

“What are you saying! Our warehouse was robbed by an outsider? What have the mercenaries been doing?!”

“N-no! That’s not it, there was a hole this big in the magic stone box! The cut door was lying outside. I wrapped it tightly with iron chains, fearing someone would steal the precious magic stones, but even those were all cleanly cut off……!”

“Good heavens, that was the one Alica from the spice shop brought directly!”

“What? So Alica tricked us? She brought a robber hidden inside?!”

A roar of noise exploded in the room.

Servants in their pajamas rushed out from all over the hallway, and those guarding Werner exchanged uneasy glances.

Soon, murmurs and bewilderment filled the room.

Having grasped the situation, the royal secretary raised his voice in a frenzy.

“What a pathetic sight! I expected to see what kind of abilities you would show, boasting about your best skills in front of me, but is your lot to be robbed in your own house? What is this……!”

“That is not the case. Please, wait.”

Whirr! Morghan immediately pulled out her staff from her sleeve.

Her gaze, turning to the servants, was as sharp as a winter wind.

Her sensual voice was laced with sharp thorns.

“You, go to the spice shop immediately and capture Alica. No matter what, keep her alive. Also, close all the doors of the black market so that no one can go in or out. It is curfew now, so if anyone is wandering outside without suspicion, arrest them all. This is an order from the owner of the mansion.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

“Understood!”

“Are there any traces of anyone else entering or leaving?”

“I checked all the guards, but they said they didn’t see anyone suspicious. There were no footprints either!”

“So they are still in my house……”

Her eyes narrowed, a frightening glint in them.

Her gaze, which had been contemplating the distance for a moment, regained its focus.

“You five, search thoroughly from the second warehouse to the fourth warehouse. They must have hidden themselves to steal precious items. Be sure to bring at least two black magicians with you. And you.”

Whack, her dry neck turned like a machine. Her eyes were like empty beads.

The servants flinched and bowed their heads.

“……Go to the ‘mine’ with me.”

*

Cristel Rambouillet was quick to make decisions.

If you asked if her judgment was ‘good,’ she couldn’t confidently say yes.

But anyway, she was ‘fast.’

She was not one to think twice or thrice, and her hesitation was never long.

She felt that overthinking only complicated the situation.

When she felt that this was the right path and there was no other alternative, Gain stepped on the accelerator without fail. She knew nothing of reverse or neutral gear.

This was a very essential ability now.

-Clink!

The hand that put down the glass was resolute.

“Then go and have Noe stop him yourself.”

“……What?”

The informant raised his eyes in surprise. She was lying in the middle of the cluttered desk.

She was in much better condition than when she was spewing rotten ether, but she still had no strength in her limbs.

Gain continued, rustling through her bag.

“If Madam Morghan was like Noe’s younger sibling and his only family, then the only person who can stop him now is Noe. That person has not only been doing bad things in the black market all his life, but now he is helping other villains. I don’t know exactly what scheme he has devised, but if it succeeds, it will benefit the guy we are trying to catch. I can’t stand to see that.”

“……”

“Ah, here it is! This is a medicine that my drinking buddy participated in developing. They say that if you drink it, you will gain strength and fatigue will fly away.”

Sparkle! Gain took out something that looked like a perfume bottle from her luggage.

The Crown Prince, who had been silently watching, spoke up.

“Are you perhaps talking about Francois Duhem?”

“Yes. I named the medicine. The continent’s representative fatigue recovery drink, ‘Bacchus.’”

“……”

Ah, no fun. If it were the Palace Lord, he would have immediately understood what kind of joke it was!

She pouted and raised Noe.

She felt strange forcing a child to accompany her, but in fact, Noe had lived for hundreds of years.

So wouldn’t it be okay to ask this much of a distant adult?

Isn’t this an emergency?

“Empty this and cheer up and come down with me. Okay?”

“……I’ve tried everything, little one.”

Noe sighed as he accepted the medicine bottle. Demi tilted her head.

“That child is no longer the angel I knew.”

“Hey, don’t say that……”

“Don’t you still know what that stone is?”

The priest asked mournfully. Gain quickly exchanged glances with Cedrick.

The voice of Alica from the spice shop rang in her head.

‘Originally, there was some ugly stone embedded there, right? There was a legend that if you touched it, even the dead would come back to life, and the blind would see.’

‘It just so happened that the tree had a priest friend. They eventually seduced the priest to betray the tree.’

If it was a stone, it meant the stone that had been embedded in the burl [a rounded outgrowth on a tree trunk or branch] of the sacred object, ‘Devil’s Claw.’

She heard that Noe had been tricked by his sister’s scheme and had taken it out.

At that time, Morghan had said this to her.

‘I have teachers who teach me magic, sister. I’ll ask them to take it and analyze it. If it’s part of the tree, they’ll know what disease it has right away.’

‘……Is it really okay? What if the Claw gets more sick after taking it out? It’s still making crying noises, what if it dies…….’

‘Hey, it’s a huge tree. It’s supporting the entire black market, right? It’s okay.’

‘…….’

‘I won’t force you. I’ll leave all decisions to you. But if you make a promise as a priest, the Claw will probably trust you and give it to you. And you can trust me.’

‘But the Holy Knight of the monastery…….’

‘Only me.’

Around that time, the informant was traveling back and forth between the monastery on the surface and the black market underground to take care of the Claw.

Madam Morghan was at the point where she had grown up and become an adult.

She had caught the eye of a group of magicians staying in Yeriho and was receiving teachings, but at the time, Noe really didn’t know anything.

He was too naive to know such secrets, and too young. He was also too busy.

……His beloved sister was, by any chance, learning ‘black magic.’

That there was a group eating away at the tree behind that child.

“You promised the Claw that you would return the stone in three days, but you didn’t keep it, so you received the divine punishment of loss.”

“Yes.”

Noe answered weakly. Gain frowned and rummaged through her memories.

“Then…… Isn’t that it? What was it? A jewel embedded in every sacred object. For example, the Ark of Bireom has a morning glory-colored jewel embedded in it, and the Comet Sword of Mars has a ruby-like red jewel embedded in it. That stone must also be a jewel embedded in the sacred object ‘Spirit of Iran.’”

And Gain had the blessing of the Azure Sea itself.

At least in the field involving the jewels of sacred objects, she could be called an expert.

But Noe’s expression was strange.

“I thought so too.”

“Yes?”

“I also thought at first…… After learning that the Claw was a sacred object, I thought that stone might be phўsis [the essence or inherent nature of a thing].”

“That’s right, phўsis. Wow. But it wasn’t?”

A heart-like existence that condensed the power of the sacred object. Phўsis.

The Divine Bow of Trees, which was also a sacred object of the same earth attribute, also had an emerald jewel in its trunk.

Cedrick narrowed his brow slightly.

“……Could it be that it wasn’t a jewel but a fruit?”

“You have a good sense, handsome kid.”

The girl smiled bitterly. Her large eyes were once again filled with moistness.

“It was not the Claw’s heart, but divine art (神術) [Shinsu, a divine or mystical art].”

At that moment, her partner’s voice struck their ears.

‘It has the power to create vitality, purification, and madness. The past me wrote it down in detail.’

“……Then vitality, no. That was already at the point where the Claw had been deprived of it a lot. Then purification,”

“Madness.”

The priest quietly cut in. His blue-gray eyes widened.

“It was a nightmare with the power of madness. There was really no other way to explain it…….”

…….

“Those who dared to violate, covet, and crave that fruit all went mad. Most of them were black magicians in the black market.”

Noe’s story continued.

The black magician faction, which had been only one of the major forces in the black market up to that point, suffered from severe madness as a result of touching the fruit of ‘Iran (伊蘭).’

Thanks to their talents, which exploded like crazy, they quickly established themselves as the ruling force underground.

But it wasn’t just their skills that went out of control.

Blood-calling violence, a storm of fluctuating emotions. Loss or separation of personality. Numerous suicides.

Insomnia and seizures…….

“Oh my god. Then Morghan is…….”

“Of course, that child was included too.”

The young voice cracked.

‘Only once, I had the opportunity to face that child up close.’

“She didn’t recognize me.”

“…….”

“She knows my existence, remembers me, but can’t connect the younger me with the past me. Is the madness not getting better, but getting deeper…….”

“Ah…….”

Finally, a tear ran down her tired cheek.

“That child is forever trapped in time. Like me.”

For the crime of daring to desecrate the supreme divinity―

-Bang! Crash!

“Sorry to bother you at this late hour!”

-Squeak!

“Ah! Grandpa! You scared me!”

Gain jumped up from her seat. Demi also jumped off Cedrick’s shoulder.

‘Sreung!’ The man immediately drew the dagger from his boot and aimed it at the door.

The tavern owner, who had entered rudely again today, was puffing out steam with his red, flushed nose.

She was in the middle of immersing herself in the story, so she was suddenly angry at the sight.

He said he was sleeping, but how much more liquor did he drink!?

“Customers! Big trouble, there’s a big mess downstairs right now!”

“Yes?”

At those words, her heart sank.

‘Ssaeek!’ Cedrick, who had quickly approached the old man, glared at him as if to kill him.

“What’s going on?”

“Oh my, they say the black market is being completely closed down! It’s not just a simple access control! I heard that someone caused an accident in the Salt Pillar District, and even the vigilantes are being arrested one after another, so some of them won’t make it past this dawn. But didn’t your group go down there too?!”

Ugh, our Palace Lord has already done something! Gain slammed her front teeth together.

And before she could make her next decision―

-Flash!

“What is……!”

“Stay still.”

Cedrick, who had lifted Noe up like a piece of luggage, strode out of the confessional.

The water droplet briefly opened her mouth.

“Hey, let’s go together!”

Then she picked up the rolling Bacchus bottle and quickly followed.

Oh, I like that she has a good sense of judgment! I admit it!