Adopting the Male Protagonist Changed the Genre - Chapter 41
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————
Chapter 41
When Belinda’s attack stopped, Chaser leisurely stepped forward and crossed the boundary line.
Even then, Belinda remained seated in her armchair, unable to say a word.
Chaser approached Belinda and naturally placed both hands on the armrests, blocking her path.
As Chaser’s shadow fell across Belinda’s face, her eyes looking up at him darkened deeply.
Chaser looked down at her first display of agitation with somewhat pitying eyes.
He hadn’t wanted to corner her like this, as if threatening her.
If she had been the type to crumble helplessly at aesthetic stimulation, everything would have been as easy and simple as picking chocolate decorations off a cake.
Chaser’s fingertips carefully intertwined between Belinda’s fingers.
Then the traces of dark magic cast over Belinda like death’s scythe became even more clearly visible.
Chaser observed those traces greedily, just as he had when he first discovered her at the Magic Tower.
And he whispered sweetly and gently, as if proposing a secret rendezvous.
“Master, what I want in exchange for my silence is quite simple.”
He lowered his body to avoid intimidating his opponent, then looked up at Belinda with an elegant smile.
A cornered mouse will bite the cat.
He carefully drew her hand toward him, pressing his cheek against it like a cat nuzzling its owner’s face, being careful not to provoke her.
Even while doing so, his gaze never left Belinda.
“I won’t do anything bad to you, Master. Just like this every day…”
“…Lord.”
Then Belinda, who had remained silent all this time, opened her mouth.
Chaser straightened up and leaned toward her, asking.
“Hm? What did you say?”
“Lord Penandel! Terry!”
As Belinda shot up and shouted, Chaser stumbled back a few steps.
If it was revealed that she was connected to dark magic, it would mean immediate execution. Yet she was so rashly involving other people.
Chaser quickly looked toward the door.
He planned to first block others from entering, then calm Belinda down. To tell her he wasn’t her enemy.
However, just as gold flashed in Chaser’s eyes, he heard someone clicking their tongue behind him.
“Tsk tsk, I knew this would happen.”
“Where did you…!”
“Got you, you rascal!”
Having somehow infiltrated the room, Terry struck the back of Chaser’s neck lightly with his hand blade and shouted.
Terry caught Chaser’s collar as he collapsed silently and turned him around, then blinked as he checked the unconscious Chaser’s condition.
“Hey, guest? Huh, huh? Why are you such a weakling? Wake up. No, I just tapped you lightly! You can’t do this here!”
Chaser fluttered like a paper doll in Terry’s grip, but he couldn’t regain consciousness at all.
Terry, who had been shaking Chaser vigorously until his anger subsided, sighed and asked Belinda.
“What should we do, Master? Should I kill him?”
Belinda looked back and forth between Terry, who had popped out of a secret passage she didn’t even know existed as if he’d been waiting, and the unconscious Chaser.
“You called for me…”
Cesar, who had belatedly opened the door and was about to enter the room, hesitated.
Like an innocent citizen who had accidentally stumbled upon a crime scene, he carefully surveyed the situation in the room before slowly closing the door and saying.
“I’ll pretend I never came here today.”
Thud.
As if coming to her senses at the sound of the door closing, Belinda slumped into her armchair and said.
“Tie him up for now.”
* * *
When Chaser suspected me of being a dark mage, I was truly speechless.
It was so absurd.
What kind of misunderstanding made him say such ridiculous things? There’s no way I could be a dark mage…
‘…I can’t say that, can I?’
Suddenly, a hypothesis occurred to me.
Even if I wasn’t a dark mage, Belinda Blanche might be one.
My mind went completely blank for a moment, and I couldn’t hear anything Chaser was saying.
Only one fact filled my head.
Dark mages face immediate execution.
If Chaser was right and I—no, Belinda—had even the slightest connection to dark magic, my future would be like a runaway train heading toward a cliff.
‘Confirming the facts can come later.’
‘First, I need to eliminate the only witness, Chaser… no, what am I thinking!’
‘Right, first I need to capture him so he can’t go around talking.’
‘So what I need right now is…’
“Lord Penandel! Terry!”
I probably never had my mind work so quickly, even in my previous life.
I immediately summoned elite agents to tie Chaser up in this place.
“Got you, you rascal!”
The huge frame above the fireplace that dominated the center of the study room creaked open like a door, and Terry popped out like a clown from a jack-in-the-box.
I’d heard this old manor had many secret passages, and this seemed to be one of them.
After that, the kidnapping and confinement proceeded as naturally as flowing water, leading to this situation.
I held my head in my hands and let out a pained groan.
Belinda might be a dark mage.
All I knew about dark magic were the sinister rumors I’d heard.
For example, how some family’s child was reported as a dark mage and the Royal Knight Order was dispatched to escort them to the Temple, or how someone suspected of being a dark mage was dragged to the Temple and eventually executed at the Magic Tower.
While recalling these disturbing rumors that made my stomach churn, I suddenly discovered one common thread among them.
“Everyone suspected of being a dark mage was dragged to the Temple…”
Why?
Perhaps the priests could see the aura of dark mages or something like that.
‘But when I visited the Temple before to raise Leo’s divine power, no one suspected me.’
When my thoughts reached that point, one question arose.
How exactly was Chaser so certain that Belinda was a dark mage? He wasn’t even a priest.
Feeling like I might grasp some clue, I shot up from my seat and paced anxiously around the dark room.
First, let’s assume that only priests, or the Temple as a place, had some special power to identify dark mages.
Then who could identify dark mages without being a priest?
There was only one hypothesis I could think of.
Birds of a feather flock together. Perhaps Chaser himself was…
“Chaser, so you were a dark mage.”
Maybe because he was a dark mage, he could recognize that Belinda was also a dark mage.
I spoke this assumption as if it were a certainty.
“Ha, I thought something was strange…”
At the strangely returning answer, I turned around from where I stood by the window.
Chaser, who seemed to have fully regained consciousness, blinked several times and spoke in a slightly hoarse, self-deprecating voice.
“So you weren’t a dark mage, dear customer. You’re just a victim of dark magic.”
Chaser’s thick eyelashes fluttered several times like butterfly wings.
Only then did Chaser’s eyes regain their sharpness as he examined his own condition and frowned.
“This kind of thing is useless against a chantless mage. So, could you untie these restraints?”
“No.”
At my firm rejection, Chaser shrugged his shoulders and let his body slump down.
I slowly moved my steps and took a seat across from him.
The reason I brushed off Terry and Penandel’s attempts to stop me and met with him alone was because the topic we would discuss was that dangerous.
If things went wrong, even Penandel and Terry could suffer hardships for being associated with black magic.
“Chaser, this is the time you truly need to be honest. If you miss this opportunity, you’ll never be able to get what you want.”
I spoke calmly, hiding my tension.
Chaser’s face, without a trace of laughter, was still beautiful like an angel, but somehow it seemed to reveal glimpses of some gloomy secret.
“…There are several forbidden magics that should never be touched. One of them deals with souls. You have traces of black magic related to souls, which is the ultimate forbidden magic, performed on you. Don’t you have any idea what it might be?”
Forbidden magic that deals with souls.
Those words pressed down on my chest like lead.
Now I couldn’t even jokingly say it had nothing to do with me.
Because it might be the very cause of my possession of Belinda’s body.
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————