I Bought the Villains With Money - Chapter 51

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

Episode 51.
Magical Diagnosis—Gardian found Diana’s request absurd.
“You ought to see a physician for a diagnosis. Petrola has advanced considerably in medical science, so finding a good doctor shouldn’t take long.”
There was no one who dared make demands before Gardian so boldly.
Beyond the difficulty of even meeting him, his temperament fell into the category of notoriously difficult.
Those who had come to ask for favors and suffered greatly from some peculiar magic he’d cast were not one or two.
“I’d like the diagnosis from a mage, not a physician.”
Ordinarily, a single refusal would send someone away, but perhaps because she was a child, Diana pressed on stubbornly.
“If you need magical medicine, there’s no shortage of it. The Irenber family should be able to procure any medicine in existence.”
“The medicines available in shops don’t work.”
What Diana said was true. She’d obtained and administered every conceivable medicine to cure Cassion’s illness. Magical medicines were no exception.
Yet Cassion’s body rejected the magical medicines.
“Try the magical medicines of higher Circles.”
“I’ve already taken everything through the 7th Circle.”
Cassion, who had been listening quietly, interjected. Diana turned to him with a startled expression.
Diana had never mentioned the word “magical medicine” when giving them to Cassion.
Yet Cassion knew even the Circle of the magical medicines he’d consumed.
How?
As Diana’s eyes posed the question, Cassion shrugged and extended his hand toward Gardian.
“If even you, Mage, cannot discover the nature of my illness, then I will no longer rely on magic. I will acknowledge that there are no things in this world that magic cannot do.”
Gardian’s eyebrows lifted slightly, then fell. A child of barely ten years had subtly challenged a Great Mage to acknowledge the futility of magic.
Children who could scarcely be more than ten had flung down a gauntlet before Gardian.
‘Watching this is rather entertaining.’
The corners of Gardian’s mouth lifted faintly.
Taking a pulse was nothing difficult.
Magical Diagnosis was simple enough.
One pours one’s mana into the child’s body, traces the blood vessels throughout with magic, and then analyzes the mana that returns to make a diagnosis.
Because the blood vessels must be traced throughout, the younger the child, the less mana required and the shorter the diagnostic time.
For Gardian, it was no difficult task whatsoever.
If he entered the conference hall now, he would surely have to sit and endure tedious travel anecdotes from the mages who had arrived early.
Gardian decided to volunteer once for the children who had given him even a moment of amusement.
“Very well.”
Gardian assented readily and without hesitation grasped Cassion’s wrists in both hands.
He had meant to relax his grip on the thin wrists. But he could not.
The moment he poured mana in, instead his own was being pulled toward Cassion.
His mana was being drawn swiftly, steadily into Cassion.
Gardian’s expression grew grave, while color began to return to Cassion’s face.
To those nearby, it was invisible, but in this moment, Gardian and Cassion were engaged in a tug-of-war through their clasped hands.
Gardian struggled not to lose his strength; Cassion fought to steal it away.
The victor was inevitable. Gardian released Cassion’s wrists.
Cassion, belatedly struck by a sharp pain in his chest, gasped and clutched at his heart.
“Cassion!”
Diana steadied him as his body wavered under a pain he had not felt before with such intensity.
“You carry a vicious illness indeed.”
Gardian rendered his diagnosis. Diana lifted her head, still supporting Cassion.
Gardian made a low humming sound and looked down at the two children.
Though Cassion twisted his face in apparent agony, Gardian—knowing the pain would subside shortly—took no further action.
It was merely the sharp sensation of high-quality mana flooding suddenly into an empty space.
The candidate for Bruum Magic Division director, who had stubbornly insisted he could never assume the position, had encountered these charming little ones completely by chance.
‘Now that I think of it, there’s a rumor that Petrola was founded by a dragon’s descendant. The ones born in succession supposedly have no talent in magic whatsoever, so that rumor has generally been dismissed as false.’
Gardian felt the same intense curiosity he experienced when researching 8th Circle Magic.
Thinking he would likely remain in Petrola for some time, Gardian asked the two children.
“But how did you learn of this place and find your way here?”
Diana paused, considering how to answer. Even to herself, seeking out Gardian and appearing before him to demand a diagnosis outright seemed unlike a child.
The fact that Gardian would appear here had been highly classified.
‘I can’t claim I know because I’ve lived through it before.’
But to tell a complete lie to someone who looked that cunning—he wouldn’t let it pass so easily.
“We heard that many famous mages were coming, so we came looking. As you can see, Cassion’s condition is quite serious.”
In times like these, a fifty-fifty strategy was best. Half truth, half lie.
Gardian was certainly a famous mage in the broader sense, wasn’t he?
‘An exceptional mage would be the accurate way to put it.’
Gardian studied Diana with an unreadable gaze for a moment, then let out a soft laugh.
His manner suggested he would let the matter pass, and Diana felt relief wash over her.
“Whose idea was it to seek out a mage?”
The fact that they’d thought to find not just any mage, but her specifically, meant they’d recognized that Cassion’s affliction was connected to magic in some way.
Magical Pathology was an exceptionally advanced magical discipline—research in it was sparse, and relevant texts scarce.
If two children had come seeking her out, she could only conclude they’d thought of it themselves, and that was no simple feat.
‘If the adults knew, they wouldn’t have sent only the children. And especially not the prince. If the royal household had knowledge of this, King Karman would have contacted me directly.’
There was clearly something the children weren’t saying.
“It was me. I thought of it.”
“I’m curious how you arrived at such a notion. But there’s no help for it—it seems our time has run out.”
The Ring on Diana’s finger began to glimmer and flicker. The Barrier’s nullifying effect would soon fade.
“Your bodies will be expelled. Be careful not to lose your footing.”
“Your Highness, if you could just tell us the treatment for your condition, the cure—”
Diana’s words cut off abruptly as time grew short.
Diana and Cassion’s bodies were hurled back outside.
“I shall visit the palace shortly.”
Gardian replied, though too late for them to hear.
***
Three days had passed since we left the Mages’ Festival.
That day, Cassion and I met with Gardian and gained the certainty that his condition was no ordinary illness—it was connected to magic.
‘He didn’t explain exactly what the ailment was, but the fact that Gardian took interest and promised to visit tells me enough.’
If the illness stemmed from magic, only a mage could cure it.
The Magical Medicine we’d tried before had no effect, so clearly someone of considerable skill was needed.
‘And Gardian is the right person for it.’
The question was how to persuade him.
I was turning the problem over in my mind when Cassion spoke.
“Dayson sent a gift, didn’t he?”
Cassion asked while drinking an unidentifiable vegetable juice that Flac had brought him.
“A gift? Did I receive one? Oh, yes—I did.”
“You forget receiving a gift?”
Cassion’s tone was sharp.
It wasn’t even from him, so why was he being difficult about it.
I took out a handkerchief and wiped the vegetable juice from the corner of Cassion’s mouth. He snatched the handkerchief back and scrubbed his lips with it.
As if he hadn’t been free of fever for weeks now.
“I didn’t forget—I simply didn’t remember. It held no significance for me, so I never even opened it.”
When we met Gardian and then encountered Dayson and Bella at the festival grounds, their arms were full of purchases.
They’d been shopping without realizing we were gone, and when they finally found us, they demanded to know where we’d been.
We mumbled something about getting lost for a while.
Dayson and Bella were too fascinated by the exotic magics on display to ask further questions.
So the matter dropped without much inquiry into what we’d actually been doing.
The guards, conscious of their failure to keep watch over us, remained silent.
Our meeting with Gardian became a secret shared only by me, Cassion, and Gardian himself.
When we returned home, Dayson’s gift was waiting.
Among all the items he’d been holding in both hands, apparently there had been something for me.
I’d completely forgotten about the gift because it had no value worth remembering.
“But Your Highness, don’t we have things to tell each other?”
“What things?”
I handed Cassion’s empty juice glass to Flac.
Once Flac had taken the glass and left, I continued.
“You’re not even surprised. I brought you to a mage. And when Gardian examined you, you were in pain. Tell me in detail what it was like.”
Cassion seemed to be recalling that moment.
“First, you’ve surprised me before—more than once—so I’ve grown accustomed to it. I wasn’t unsurprised so much as I vaguely suspected you were taking me to a mage because of my condition. And when Gardian treated me, yes, it was uncomfortable, but my body felt as if it were gaining strength. Is that enough?”
“Not quite. Have you ever considered that Your Highness might be a mage?”
Cassion flinched at my question. The reaction confirmed it—he’d somehow known, perhaps without fully admitting it to himself, that he might be a mage.
He simply hadn’t told anyone. Not even me.
My eyes must have sharpened, because Cassion began watching my expression carefully.
“I wasn’t certain… so I didn’t say anything. Besides, even if I were a mage, this body of mine would struggle to manifest even 1st Circle Magic.”
Most people assumed mages would be frail from studying alone, but manifesting magic required tremendous physical stamina.
Which was why weak or sickly mages could neither achieve high-level magic nor live long lives.
Cassion understood her position well enough not to press further. Instead, he asked a different question.
“When did you first consider that you might become a mage?”
I Bought the Villains with Money (Serialized)
Author │ Lee In-hye
Publisher │ Kim Ju-hyung
Published by │ J Plus Media Co., Ltd. – Tiramisu
Marketing │ Han Jae-hyuk
Address │ Room 1101, 11 Digital-ro 33-gil, Guro-gu, Seoul. (Ace Techno Tower 8th Building, 11th Floor, Guro-dong)
Email │ [email protected]
Homepage │ http://blog.naver.com/jayplemedia1
© Lee In-hye 2021
※ This work is published by J Plus Media Co., Ltd. in accordance with a contract with the copyright holder,
and the content may not be used in any form or by any means without permission from the publisher and author.
Violation of this may result in criminal and civil legal liability.

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