Memoirs of a Wicked Magician - Chapter 124

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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 124
“She was definitely moving in regular intervals—one step every 0.6 seconds—but then her location suddenly jumped to a strange coordinate, and after that she moved to an unfamiliar place just as abruptly. I went through all the records from the past two years just to be sure, and it turns out they’re places Liriope has never visited before. I’m worried something might have happened to her.”
“What? What do you mean 0.6 seconds? What records are you talking about? And for the past two years no less—what exactly have you been—”
Cassel’s ears registered disbelief before sudden alarm seized him, and he pressed for clarification.
“You didn’t use Location Tracking Magic on Liriope every single day, did you?”
“W-well, something like that.”
“Either you did or you didn’t. What’s this ‘something like that’ nonsense?”
Cassel swept Milena with a weary gaze.
“Forget that for now. What do you mean her location suddenly changed? She could have just used Spatial Transfer Magic to return to her room.”
“Are you an idiot, Cassel? I just said the coordinates were unfamiliar—I mentioned it two or three times. I’m already on edge; please don’t make me repeat myself over nothing.”
In that rare display of sharpness from Milena, Cassel found himself momentarily robbed of words.
He’d definitely just heard her say something that sounded utterly unhinged, and part of him wanted to press further, but the atmosphere clearly wasn’t right for it.
“Where is this unfamiliar place? Show me.”
In the end, Cassel rose and followed Milena from their seats.
“G-good thing you’re here, Cassel. People scatter like we’re wild boars, and it’s convenient.”
“Is that a compliment or an insult?”
But Milena moved strangely as they left the Banquet Hall entirely.
She wound through corridors in circles, climbed and descended stairs for no apparent reason, and her destination remained utterly opaque.
“Hey, are you actually finding the right place?”
“Your Mana Sensitivity is inadequate. Can’t you just keep quiet and follow? You’re not helping, and you’re making it hard to concentrate.”
Once again, Cassel got nothing but complaints before being forced into silence.
Meanwhile, there was another person tracking Liriope—one step ahead of the pair.
It was Belkiers, who had somehow made his way back to the Magic Tower.
Inside a narrow Ventilation Shaft, he discovered Samuel trembling beneath Liriope’s Cloak.
“Ugh, cough……”
Samuel remained unconscious, his body twisted in continued agony, emitting strange, pained whimpers.
Belkiers looked down at him coldly, then suddenly felt a foul presence seeping in from behind.
He turned his head and saw a repugnant creature thrusting its head into the shaft as if catching the scent of prey.
The moment it saw Belkiers, it froze.
Belkiers offered a cold sneer and stretched out his hand forward.
* * *
“Um, sister… But is this really the best approach?”
Liriope asked Caliona again, her voice tinged with doubt.
But the other woman dispelled her concern without hesitation.
“It’s the fastest way. You’re small and light to begin with, and you’re using Lightening Magic on top of that.”
“Still… at my age, being carried on your back feels kind of embarrassing……”
The pursuit of the sorcerer who had trapped them in the Illusory Space.
Liriope was being carried on Caliona’s back as they crossed the Banquet Hall at speed.
She had been deeply uncomfortable with the arrangement since the beginning, but Caliona was resolute.
“Don’t worry about that. And Liriope… you find places like this scary, don’t you?”
The moment Caliona struck that particular nerve, Liriope found herself at a loss for words.
“You were acting strange at the ruin last time too. You flinched so visibly with every step that it was hard to pretend not to notice.”
– Hello? Hello there?
A doll with a goat’s head suddenly lurched into view and thrust its face forward.
– Would you like cake for dessert? Or ice cream?
It even offered a Tray as if recommending food to the sisters, laden with spoiled cake crawling with maggots and ice cream studded with fish eyes.
Liriope instinctively tightened her grip around Caliona’s neck.
Fortunately, Caliona promptly hurled the doll away, sparing them the full horror, but the psychological blow had already struck deep.
“Liriope? I’m getting a bit short of breath. Can you loosen your grip?”
“O-okay.”
“Just… close your eyes and keep using Mana Tracing. It’s better if we both focus on what we do best.”
Liriope couldn’t bring herself to refuse Caliona’s suggestion.
She cursed the unknown sorcerer in silence. Such revolting tastes—it had to be influence from the Hart Ruin, she thought.
Crackle!
[Stop wasting breath on useless sounds and defend from behind!]
Od discharged Mana with sharp displeasure, stinging Liriope to attention.
Liriope had indeed sensed the Attack Magic incoming from behind, but she needn’t act—Caliona blocked it first before counterattacking the one who’d launched it.
“Kyaaaah!”
A sharp scream pierced from atop the falling Chandelier.
Shortly after, amidst the shattered glass scattered across the floor, the Young Woman who had attacked the sisters revealed herself.
Even as she tumbled across the ground, she continued pelting attacks at both of them.
Sharp needle-rain poured down without pause like a lance, and there were several attempts to tear the sisters apart.
But the woman’s magic was hasty and lacked the precision and power to match Caliona.
“Ugh, argh! I have to get out! I have to escape this place! How many more do I have to kill! Please, just let me get outside……!”
The woman wept black tears and writhed in desperation. Clearly she had been corrupted by Shadow and was no longer in her right mind.
But at that very moment, Liriope felt the Mana she’d been pursuing suddenly draw far too close.
Whoooosh.
“Hh!”
The damp moisture from a shadowed Well descended upon them without warning.
A silent, desolate presence of a predator pressing close.
The woman’s body reflexively went rigid as she sensed the omen. Caliona’s breathing grew rough of its own accord.
Without realizing it, she tightened her arms around Liriope and stepped back.
Moments later, a hideous black creature—as though dredged up from the swamp of hell itself—appeared before them once more.
“Ah, aaah…… aaaaaahhhhh! Don’t come closer! Don’t come any closer aaaaah……!”
The woman, skewered by hundreds of gazes in an instant, shrieked like one possessed. The black liquid that gushed from her body began to bubble and roil.
Yet Liriope, trembling with primal fear, forced her eyes wide open and beheld the Shadow directly.
This was only the second time Liriope had seen Shadow in such a humanoid form up close.
The first had been before time reversed—when she had lost her Mana Core and was cast out of the Northern Magic Tower, abandoned in the Corrupted Sacred Ground.
She had been truly terrified then, but after all she had endured since, her fear now was not quite so consuming.
Rather… how was this even possible?
‘Od…… is there perhaps another person behind that Shadow?’
[No. There are two more humans hidden within this Banquet Hall, but nothing around that Shadow itself.]
‘Then why…… does the Reverse Tracing end right there?’
Liriope was utterly bewildered.
She had been tracking the master of this Illusory Space that had trapped them here……
Yet the trail of Magic terminated at the Shadow.
But Shadow cannot use Magic.
This was an axiom that had never changed in all the long ages.
And the impossible did not end there.
– Hehe.
The Shadow suddenly laughed.
– Have you all run away now? I won’t kill you right now, so run. Let’s play a little more with me.
The Shadow…… had spoken.
It was the moment when a fundamental truth Liriope had never doubted in all her years crumbled to dust.

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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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