I Became A Thief Who Steals Overpowered Skills - Chapter 33

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 33. Mary’s Finished

Krash exited the Arena with Evelasc and examined his arm.

It felt swollen, but nothing was broken.

‘A potion and a few days of rest should do the trick.’

Before leaving, Krash decided he should stop by an alchemist’s shop, and glanced sideways.

There stood Evelasc, watching him with the intensity of a dog desperate for a walk.

Right—he’d almost forgotten.

Krash reached into his pocket and pulled out her Heart.

“Here. Take it.”

Without ceremony, he tossed the Heart to her.

“Huh?”

Bewilderment crossed Evelasc’s face as she caught it.

She clearly hadn’t expected him to hand it over so easily.

“…You’re sure about this?”

She was a World Erosion User.

A necromancer valuable enough for the Imperial Palace itself to exploit directly.

When she asked if he was truly comfortable letting her go, Krash simply shrugged.

“We made a deal.”

Krash knew Evelasc’s nature well.

She was the type who preferred hiding away in solitude to causing trouble for others.

Trying to control her through her Heart would only create another headache he didn’t need.

“Besides, you got what I asked for, right?”
“Oh, yeah—the Golden Dragon Herb.”

Evelasc rummaged through her pocket and produced the Golden Dragon Herb.

Krash took it at once.

He’d gone through enough trouble to obtain this single herb.

‘Now all that’s left is to get out of here.’

He had no desire to linger in this suffocating Empire any longer, so Krash turned to leave.

“I’m going then.”
“Wait, uh, hold on—?”

Evelasc’s face clouded with bewilderment.

She glanced around uncertainly, then began to follow in Krash’s wake.

“Why are you following me?”

A few minutes later, Krash turned to regard her with visible displeasure.

He’d assumed at first that their paths simply converged, but she had continued trailing him all the way to the outskirts of the Imperial Capital.

“W-well, I’m a fugitive now, aren’t I? I have to leave the Empire regardless. Doesn’t it make sense to at least go somewhere?”

That much was true enough.

The Imperial Palace would hardly let her slip away quietly.

‘Besides, if it’s Sigrin, she’d rather pin everything on Evelasc orchestrating it all than lose Mary. She’d frame Mary as the dupe.’

Public opinion wouldn’t shift so easily, but one way or another, Sigrin would spare her from execution.

Mary was foolish, but her body and skill were genuine enough.

In World Erosion, there was no one stronger than Mary—not now, not ever.

‘Stone for brains, stone for a body, after all.’

Sigrin wouldn’t want to lose her loyal meat shield.

That much, Krash couldn’t prevent.

‘But in exchange.’

Krash’s eyes glinted with sharp clarity.

In the process, Mary’s self-respect would be utterly shattered.

What came after hardly needed saying.

The outcome cradled in Krash’s hands would speak for itself.

“Fine, I understand that much. So you’re saying you’ll tag along until we clear the Empire’s borders?”
“And where exactly are you headed?”

She asked, already knowing he was no citizen of the Empire.

He saw no reason to hide it from her.

“Staron.”
“Staron? But House Balheim is there. That’s incredibly dangerous.”
“It will be for you.”
“Why? You’re a World Erosion User too.”

But at those words, Krash’s expression turned genuinely baffled.

“House Balheim can’t be underestimated. They’re terrifying. They might swallow our heads whole while we’re still alive and stuff us in their bellies.”

He had no idea what image of House Balheim lived in her head, but that wasn’t the problem right now.

“Wait—a World Erosion User? Me?”
“Hmm? You’re right. It seems like she’s using the essence of World Erosion Power, intentionally weakened at that. When I observed through Unit 12, I didn’t catch it, but seeing it directly, I know it all. Only someone who’s actually dealt with a World Erosion User or World Erosion Power directly would notice, I’d guess.”

Krash’s face hardened.

Could it be that the World Erosion Power he’d absorbed through Extreme Blood Poison made him appear as kindred to the World Erosion Users?

Having never imagined this aspect, Krash turned to look at Crimson Garden.

She was grooming her wings with her beak when she spoke.

“You didn’t know? I figured you would have.”
“Gasp—wait, the crow is talking?!”

Now that he thought about it, hadn’t Crimson Garden spoken before Evelasc?

‘This isn’t particularly good news.’

Krash stood in silence for a moment, arms crossed, lost in thought.

Feeling kindred to the World Erosion Users could be an advantage—allowing him to hide among them—but the drawbacks were equally clear.

Even if Krash concealed himself among people, he would register distinctly to their senses.

He could easily become a target.

World Erosion Users weren’t allies to one another—they were individuals.

‘Now I understand why Evelasc believed my words so readily.’

Because she was a World Erosion User like him.

She must have accepted immediately that he could recover her Heart with his special ability.

Among World Erosion Users, those with unusual powers were surprisingly common.

After a brief moment of deliberation, Krash set the worry aside.

‘I have to absorb World Erosion no matter what. The danger was always inherent anyway.’

At least there was one saving grace: ordinary people wouldn’t sense the World Erosion Power at all.

“Crimson Garden, how does Black Flame appear to others?”
“Like an ominous black fire, no doubt. Your Black Flame is purifying the World Erosion Power that leaks outward thanks to Ignis.”

That was welcome news.

It meant that using Black Flame would make him look ominous, but not be mistaken for a World Erosion User.

“Besides, there aren’t many beings in this world who can distinguish World Erosion Power itself, unless they’re a World Erosion User or of World Erosion origin—the way you perceive the star marks etched into my species.”

Krash acknowledged that.

Only Arthur or a few with unusual eyes and senses had been able to discern Crimson Garden’s species in the past.

Most hadn’t even noticed its existence.

“Moreover, Krash, your foundation is different from ours. We are World Erosion itself, while you’ve mixed World Erosion with Aura. Since the World Erosion Power itself is diluted, they’ll mostly think you’re cursed.”

True enough—curses fell into the same classification as World Erosion anyway.

To others’ eyes, even if Krash wielded Black Flame or the power of World Erosion, they would perceive it as a curse-like aura.

‘So to them, I’d look like I’m fighting while bearing a curse.’

Not much different from before, then.

Krash found some comfort in that.

He had no desire to be branded a World Erosion User and hunted down.

At that moment, Crimson Garden laughed.

“And that’s precisely what it means—you’re a half-baked World Erosion User.”

Krash looked at Crimson Garden with an expression of disbelief.

A normal World Erosion User was the last thing he wanted to be.

What it really meant was that he stood with one foot in each world—between World Erosion User and human.

“Then I can absorb more World Erosion without anyone noticing.”
“They’ll just think the curse has grown stronger or more numerous.”

Krash nodded in understanding.

After clashing with Mary today, he’d grasped it even more keenly.

No amount of training would ever place him on the same ground as her.

Everything—every last thing—had to be in his hands if he was to surpass her.

The risk had never daunted him from the start.

And now he had nothing left to fear.

“Not a World Erosion User? What? Why not?”

Evelasc, who had been listening silently to the exchange between Krash and Crimson Garden, wore a confused expression.

As her massive upper body swayed with the question, Crimson Garden fixed her with a look of contempt.

“What, does all the nutrition flow to your chest when your breasts get bigger, leaving nothing for your head? Tsk, tsk. For a World Erosion User to survive this stupid—”
“Cr-Crad, that’s too harsh. Why do you talk like that? You’re making me mad.”

Watching the bickering pair, Krash remembered something he hadn’t told Evelasc.

“Evelasc, my name is not Crad.”

Krash corrected his name and spoke.

“I’m Krash Balheim.”

And her face went slack with shock.

“The youngest of the direct line of House Balheim that you spoke of.”

And from a corner of the Imperial Capital, a woman’s piercing scream tore through the night.

＊ ＊ ＊

In the depths of the Imperial Capital’s dungeons.

Inside the Iron Prison, where only death-sentence inmates are locked away.

“How many times—how many times did I tell you to get that temperament of yours under control?”

A woman in a white uniform, her hair the color of summer sky, was screaming.

“As if losing both rabbits wasn’t bad enough—what’s this about regicide? Are you out of your mind? Are you? I’ve told you a hundred times! You don’t think. You don’t. You just follow my orders and Arthur’s orders, nothing more!”

Her identity was none other than the 3rd Princess, Sigrin.

She had a beautiful face that lived up to her nickname as the flower of the Empire, but that face was now flushed crimson, burning with rage.

“Why—why, why did you have to develop a mind at exactly this moment? Why did you have to ruin everything? When I said don’t think, I meant don’t do anything the moment a variable appears!”
……

Kneeling before her, listening in silence, was none other than Mary.

Thick, pitch-black shackles were fastened around her outstretched hands, and her clothes and body were in disarray.

It was the result of being tossed about during interrogation regarding the regicide charge.

No matter that she was the daughter of the Diana Clan, one of the Empire’s most prominent families—regicide was a grave crime.

Even she could not escape the harsh interrogation.

Her pale skin bore scars and welts in places, and her clothes were torn almost to shreds, exposing most of her body.

She was fortunate, at least, not to have been stripped bare.

The Iron Prison’s standard procedure was to strip inmates completely, but they had made an exception in her case, taking into account her age and station.

“I was trying to make the path easier for Arthur, even just a little, before we found him. And you’ve thrown it all away.”

Sigrin stamped her feet on the ground, unable to contain her fury.

Mary could say nothing in response.

“It was Arthur who asked me to take you in! Because your spear-work is exceptional! Even standing at the forefront of the Spear Generation, you never fell to the end—I acknowledged your resilience because of that!”

Mary’s alias was the Divine Spear, and her other epithet was the Unbreakable.

Never bending. Never breaking.

To Krash’s eyes, she was like a buffalo who recklessly charged headfirst into dangers she should have avoided.

Yet ironically, that very quality sometimes became the Unbreakable that kept the Spear Generation from collapsing and lifted their morale.

Never surrendering even in desperate circumstances, always charging toward World Erosion Users to the end—her courage was something everyone acknowledged.

That was why Mary always stood at the vanguard.

She always wielded her spear at the forefront, and even soaked in blood, she would rise again and drive her spear into her enemy’s throat.

The number of World Erosion Users she had single-handedly held back was beyond counting.

That achievement was something Sigrin herself acknowledged.

Even if one were to say a god had carved it, that body born with the Heavenly Martial Body was a form perfected so utterly that it transcended human limits altogether.

So much so that the wounds she’d suffered during the interrogation not long ago were already healing of their own accord.

As a natural gift, her body was unrivaled in the world.

That was why she was called the Divine Spear.

And yet that title held true only within the domain of World Erosion.

Now was a time when politics mattered more than the raw force World Erosion demanded.

Her limited mind was entirely unsuited to such work.

“Why did the gods give, yet grant only one thing…….”

Sigrin exhaled deeply, as if in lamentation.

Part of her wanted to dispose of Mary on the spot, but she wasn’t a talent to be squandered here.

That brutishly monstrous form had to serve as the most reliable meat shield against World Erosion Users.

Hadn’t Arthur said as much himself?

That she, who could handle Mary, possessed the greatest beauty.

Sigrin turned to look at Mary.

Seeing her brought a sharp twinge of pain and a swell of irritation, but Sigrin bore it.

Mary might be that foolish, but Sigrin was not.

She was no Sera—but Sigrin could read the shape of events well enough.

‘This plan had almost no variables to begin with.’

At most, Sera might stumble upon something Sigrin had overlooked, or notice something amiss. Those were the only variables.

Sera had been marked for death from the start.

Even she hadn’t foreseen that Sera would become a corpse and kill her for it.

Which is why she could entrust it to Mary.

She fulfilled whatever orders were given to her without fail.

“Mary, you said you killed Sera for certain.”
“……Yes, I killed her with my own hands. Certainly.”

Mary did not lie.

Or rather, she did not know how to lie.

Especially not before Sigrin—she could never dissemble in front of her.

If she said she’d killed, then she truly had.

Mary’s spear was beyond Sera’s capacity to block.

‘So she really is dead.’

Then why was she still alive?

According to Mary, Evelasc had betrayed her.

‘That idiot, betray her?’

Sigrin exhaled sharply through her nose.

Evelasc was not the type to be so bold.

The woman who trembled and hid under blankets whenever their eyes met was the kind who wept at the mere thought that squeezing her heart in plain sight would kill her.

Such a woman would betray someone?

Ridiculous.

‘Something’s off.’

Sigrin’s eyes narrowed to slits.

This incident.

An unknown variable had emerged that she hadn’t accounted for.

“You said the Heart that was in your pocket suddenly disappeared.”
“I was definitely holding it until just before. I gave orders concerning it, too.”

Sigrin stroked her sharp chin before turning her head away.

Then, as if she’d made a decision, she turned back.

“Fine. You stay where you are.”
“What? Sigrin, you’re saying I should remain in the prison?”
“Of course. You attempted Regicide. It’s frankly bizarre that you haven’t been executed on the spot! Do you have any idea how much I’ve had to move behind the scenes just to barely prevent your execution? You directly challenged Imperial authority before my eyes. If I hadn’t pushed everything on Evelasc as her independent action, and if you hadn’t been reframed as deceived by her scheme and threats along with the Black Dragon Order’s vice-captain, you’d be dead right now alongside him.”

Mary’s face drained of color.

“You challenged Imperial authority. I’ve been pulling strings, and Evelasc conveniently made this into her own rogue operation—that’s the only reason you’re still breathing. Lucky for you. Otherwise, you and the vice-captain would have been executed immediately for falling prey to the machinations and coercion of a World Erosion User.”

She clicked her tongue and shook her head.

“And I’ve been pushing Sipon into this too—making him out as an unfortunate young man deceived by a World Erosion User alongside an innocent young lady and the 2nd Prince. That’s the only reason we didn’t get summary execution for Regicide and challenging Imperial authority. Originally, you should have been dead already.”

The 2nd Prince himself wasn’t entirely free of suspicion in Sera’s murder.

He’d been caught holding the Night Raven and had openly spread rumors about it.

Thanks to that, he was actively claiming that he too was merely used by Evelasc, and that everything was her fault.

Sigrin was backing his claims while bundling Mary in alongside him.

That concession barely held off summary execution.

If she’d misstep even slightly, Mary wouldn’t be here now.

The Empire’s brilliant minds would notice the contradictions in these claims and the gaps in their logic, but they too would eventually turn a blind eye.

They all knew this wasn’t really a challenge to Imperial authority at all—it was fundamentally a struggle over Succession to Throne.

Unless the Emperor himself issued a direct command, she would let the situation unfold as it would.

Of course, Sigrin too would have to bear the cost of this affair.

The 1st Prince had long since known that Mary sided with Sigrin, and he would gnaw at her however he could.

‘Sigh… how many pieces will they tear from me, I wonder. I’ll barely escape execution, but what comes after is the real problem.’

The 1st Prince hadn’t been directly targeted, so he wouldn’t tear into her openly.

But in its place, he would be quite eagerly devouring the 2nd Prince’s faction.

For the 1st Prince, the present situation was essentially an opportunity to absorb the 2nd Prince’s forces without a fight—forces whose claim to succession had become meaningless through this affair.

For Sigrin, forced to watch and do nothing, the frustration was maddening.

And there was also the matter of Mary’s treatment.

The title of Strongest Spear was naturally lost, and all the benefits she would have received from the Empire were cut off.

The Diana Clan was even considering casting her out entirely—that said everything.

From the Diana Clan’s perspective, harboring an idiot who had challenged imperial authority would see three generations of their house destroyed.

So Sigrin was now deploying every means at her disposal to prevent that.

She was carefully reframing Mary’s actions as something less than a direct challenge to imperial authority.

As a result, Mary was now treated as an abandoned daughter by both the Empire and her own family.

If she carefully cultivated public sympathy, she might remain in the Empire, but a difficult life ahead was inevitable.

‘Still, at least she won’t be executed.’

Only because Sera held weak claims to the throne and weak imperial authority—a discarded line.

Had she targeted the 1st Prince or even the 2nd Prince directly, there would be no question—it would have been immediate execution.

She regarded Mary with a look of contempt.

Mary shrank her shoulders, her expression dejected.

“I’ll find some way to change things and get you out of lifelong confinement. Just wait there.”
“Sigrin, then… the Academy…?”

Mary’s voice grew thick with unshed tears as she asked.

If she could go to the Academy, she would be able to see Arthur.

That alone was what had kept her going until now.

So no matter what, she desperately wanted to get into Rahelan Academy.

She wanted to see Arthur soon, to feel his gentle smile directed at her and the warmth of his hand as it touched her head.

“Ha ha……”

I never once imagined that word—academy—would escape her lips.

“This year’s impossible. Next year, honestly, I have no idea. I don’t know how long the prison sentence will be. You and Arthur might not be released until one of you takes the throne.”
“Impossible? No, no—the academy, I have to go to the academy at least! Sigrin, I’m sorry! I was wrong about everything, please, just let me go to the academy!”
“Mary.”

When Sigrin spoke her name again, Mary pressed herself flat against the ground, tears streaming down her face.

Watching her, Sigrin’s expression hardened.

She wanted to kick that head in, to grind it into the dirt—but this was Arthur’s woman.

She couldn’t permit herself such crude behavior toward his chosen one.

She wanted to remain refined in Arthur’s eyes, at least.

“I’ll see about reclassifying her sentence as exile to the academy instead. She’s only sixteen, after all—just a girl swept along by a World Erosion User. It seems harsh, so instead, we’ll frame it as appreciating her talent and exiling her to benefit the Empire. If we shape public opinion that way, we can make it work somehow.”

Though she couldn’t honestly guarantee it.

Still, it might be better to let Mary cling to at least one sliver of hope rather than watch her collapse entirely.

“Oh, oh, thank you. Sigrin, thank you so much.”

Mary clung to the iron bars, her words spilling out between tears.

The bars of the Iron Prison—harder and heavier than steel itself—bent slightly under her grip, and the terrifying power behind it became viscerally real once more.

Yes. She endured it all for that one body.

“This year is out of the question. There’s no way you’ll be released in that timeframe. Next year is uncertain too, so until then, don’t do anything at all. Stay docile.”

Sigrin turned away from Mary, who answered through her tears that she understood.

Her mind kept circling back to one question: what variable had appeared this time?

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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