Memoirs of a Wicked Magician - Chapter 115

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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 115
“If you’d told me sooner, I’d have put you down myself. Why choose such a tedious method of suicide?”
“Aaaaaah!”
A gust of Mana tore past Liriope and sent her flying.
It mercilessly bombarded the figure ahead.
In a blink, the subdued victim thrashed violently. But thick shadow nails driven through her limbs kept her body immobilized.
“Belkiers! You’ve chased me all the way here to kill me!”
A girl called Tiresha by Belkiers writhed in anguish and pleaded.
“I don’t want to be disposed of! Please, save me!”
But Belkiers’ response was cold.
“Stop spouting nonsense. Wasn’t it because you wanted to die that you did something so reckless?”
“No, no…. It’s not like I wanted this to happen to me…! Please, just look the other way this once, won’t you?”
The girl’s face, glistening with tears, was pitiful in a way that belied the savagery she’d shown moments before.
“If you let me go, I’ll stay quiet and live where I don’t catch the eye of you or the Magic Tower Master. I’d rather wander the Ruins and die alone! Look at me—I’m already like this, so I won’t live long anyway. There’s no need for you to dirty your hands by coming all this way to kill me. You bastard!”
At that very moment, Belkiers’ expression shifted slightly.
But it was not from pity or compassion toward his opponent.
Belkiers’ gaze was infinitely cold and pitiless whenever it turned to anyone but Liriope—a distinction that had only grown more pronounced with time.
Yet Belkiers had just realized there was a breakdown in communication between them.
“I thought you kept spouting nonsense for some reason, but you’ve been laboring under some bizarre misunderstanding. If you hadn’t caught my attention just now with your needless prattle, I wouldn’t have cared whether you died here alone or not.”
Cold golden eyes raked across the pitiable figure before him from head to toe.
“And you’re stupid. Your condition isn’t from dying. It’s from a different side effect.”
“A different side effect…? Does that mean I’m not broken?”
“Yes. That’s why I told you not to be greedy and to stop eating filthy things.”
Belkiers still softened his words somewhat out of consideration for Liriope beside him.
Tiresha looked momentarily stunned by this unexpected news. Then her face brightened.
“Oh, oh ha, aha…. So I’m not broken yet? Then I won’t die? I can live, right?!”
Optimistic, one might call it—as if she’d never been angry, sad, or in despair. Now she simply radiated endless joy.
“No. You die at my hands today regardless.”
But Belkiers doused Tiresha’s elation with cold water.
“Wh-what? Why? I’m not supposed to die yet!”
“There’s one thing I told you all never to do. You broke that rule.”
“Something you told me not to do? What are you talking about? What does that girl have to do with me now…?”
But Tiresha suddenly seemed to understand something, and her breath caught.
Her eyes trembled as she looked at Belkiers, then slid toward Liriope, whom he’d been protecting and sheltering all along.
“You, y-y-you-you! What are you doing here?”
Tiresha gasped as if she’d seen a ghost, horror coming far too late.
Until moments ago, she hadn’t been in her right mind and had no chance to see clearly who was present. If she’d recognized Liriope’s face sooner, she would never have attacked her.
Worse, Tiresha had even left wounds on Liriope’s body—though Belkiers had since repaired them, leaving only bloodstains behind.
Tiresha now realized, belatedly, that Belkiers’ arrival was indeed to kill her, but for a reason entirely different from what she’d suspected.
“N-no! I’m sorry! I really didn’t know…! I didn’t mean to hurt her, aaaaaah!”
Belkiers’ hand covered Liriope’s eyes.
At the same moment, Tiresha’s scream rang out, followed by the sound of something cracking and snapping, then a noise like a glass bottle clinking.
“Belkiers, what did you just do?”
Liriope frowned and pulled his hand away.
“I simply confined her to an Illusory Space.”
Just as Belkiers said, Tiresha’s form had vanished from sight. In her place, one of the glass bottles that had been rolling around inside the Ruins now lay on the ground.
“She went and caused trouble by acting as she pleased, so she needs time to cool her head. Besides, Tiresha ate something she shouldn’t have and broke out in a rash. If you kept seeing her unsightly face, it wouldn’t be good for your mental health either.”
[A rash? That…?]
Belkiers explained to Liriope in a tone so gentle that anyone who knew him would have been astonished.
Yet Cassel, who had witnessed what Belkiers had just done with remarkable clarity, wore an expression of shock.
“Did I see that wrong? Tiresha’s body looked like it was being crushed and sucked into the bottle….”
“Are your eyes just for show? There’s no way I’d do something like that. Would you please refrain from such gruesome talk in front of Liriope?”
“What? You said yourself you were going to kill Tiresha!”
“I only said it that way to frighten her into obedience. I thought you were just bad with your eyes, but do you not understand the context of words at all?”
Belkiers’ tone toward Cassel was starkly different from how he spoke to Liriope, dripping with cold mockery.
Naturally, Cassel’s expression toward Belkiers grew even more hostile.
Apparently worried he might cause a scene, Caliona quietly grabbed Cassel’s arm without Liriope noticing. Milena had been cowering in the corner, frightened, from the moment Belkiers appeared.
Belkiers used his Mana to draw one of the glass bottles rolling across the floor into his hand. Then he spoke to it, flatly.
“Tiresha, everyone seems worried about you, so let them know you’re safe.”
– Th-this place is really comfortable and cozy…! I’m fine, so don’t worry! Really!
From the glass bottle filled with something like black mist, Tiresha’s voice came through, laced with an awkward laugh.
Only then did Cassel and Milena seem somewhat relieved. But Caliona, who could guess what state Tiresha was actually in, simply shook her head.
[There he goes again with his false modesty in front of you. He’s getting more shameless by the day, truly.]
‘I suppose I understand—there’s no way he gentled Tiresha into that Illusory Space.’
Belkiers was crueler and more merciless than most could imagine. Yet he wanted to hide such aspects from Liriope.
‘Why does he even bother? We already know each other’s true natures well enough. Though I suppose that side of him is rather endearing….’
[Are you saying all the cute things in this world have frozen to death?]
Brushing aside Od’s disapproving voice, Liriope turned to Belkiers and Tiresha.
“But how did the two of you get in here? I understand Belkiers knew I was here…. But Tiresha? Did you enter the Ruins to escape Belkiers?”
Belkiers channeled Mana into the glass bottle to make Tiresha answer.
– Ow, hot…! Oh no, I mean… I made a really, really stupid and foolish mistake. Hehe…. It’s absolutely not like Belkiers scared me and I ran away out of fear!
Tiresha tried to make excuses, but since they weren’t sincere, the words came out stilted. So she changed the subject entirely.
– M-more importantly, Liriope? You’re really amazing! I found a Magical Artifact leading to this Ruins in the Contaminated Holy Ground’s 5th District. Then, the moment I entered here, I ran into you guys right away, so the artifact must still be there. Doesn’t that mean you all came for independent exploration of the Central Area? Wow, Belegot’s future is so bright! Truly, those the Magic Tower Master has her eye on…ow!
But Liriope and her group couldn’t help but wear confused expressions upon hearing her words.
“We never went as far as the Contaminated Holy Ground’s Central Area.”
“We found the Magical Artifact in the Outer 2nd District.”
– Huh? You didn’t move here by touching something that looked like scissors?
“That part is true.”
– Then what? There are two identical artifacts?
The answer came from Belkiers.
“No. The artifact in the Central Area was pushed out to the Outer District in a short span of time.”
Only Liriope and Tiresha understood the meaning of those words immediately.
– That means….
“Yes. The Flooding Period is about to begin.”
As soon as those words ended, a chill fell over the gathering.
The Flooding Period of the Contaminated Holy Ground, where countless casualties occurred each time it arrived.
That time had come around again.

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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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