Memoirs of a Wicked Magician - Chapter 129

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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 129
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Four days had passed since the banquet ended, and it was dawn.
Dark clouds crept across the overcast sky, and soon Black Snow—unseasonable for the height of summer—began falling in soft, steady flakes.
Midsummer frost.
It was an ill omen announcing the Flood Period.
Nearly every mage in Belegot immediately began preparing to be deployed to the Contaminated Sanctuary.
Among them, the atmosphere among the mages above the 50th floor was like walking on thin ice.
The lower-tier mages were equally busy, but their situation was somewhat less dire.
Unlike the upper-tier mages who had to venture into the heart of the Contaminated Sanctuary and face Shadow directly, the mages below the 50th floor could focus on Purification Work, dealing with Contaminated Creatures on the perimeter.
Of course, it wasn’t easy either, but comparatively speaking, at least they had breathing room.
“Liriope, I just found a potion I’d never seen before in my Illusory Space—is it that Mana-Enhancing Potion you said you received from Zakael at the banquet?”
Cassel caught Liriope in the empty plaza in front of the Magic Tower, where he was preparing a Large-Scale Spatial Transfer Magic.
The basic principle for defending the outer perimeter was five mages to one team, usually pairing those of similar floor levels.
But this Flood Period, Liriope and Caliona, along with Cassel and Milena, had all been assigned to different teams.
Even though the Supervisors claimed to form teams randomly, they usually tried to pair mages who already knew each other for efficiency’s sake. This time, for some reason, that pattern had broken down entirely.
Anyway, that’s how Cassel and Liriope crossed paths while seeking out their respective teams before heading to the Contaminated Sanctuary.
The moment Liriope saw what Cassel was holding, she caught her breath.
“Where did you get that?”
She stepped closer to him at once. A small glass vial filled with black liquid. It looked decidedly similar to what she’d seen at that secret gathering she’d followed Samuel to.
When Liriope came closer than expected and seized the hand holding the vial, Cassel flinched for a moment.
“I’m not sure. I think someone gave it to me, but I can’t quite remember who.”
He watched Liriope, whose gaze wouldn’t leave the vial, then cleared his throat awkwardly.
“Well, if you’re interested, you can have it. I don’t know if it actually works, though.”
Liriope accepted the potion he offered.
But looking closely, she noticed the contents of the vial were slightly depleted.
Liriope’s expression suddenly turned cold.
“Did you drink it?”
“I was trying to drink it when I spilled some.”
Liriope studied Cassel carefully from every angle, but at least on the surface, nothing seemed amiss.
Finally, unable to bear Liriope’s scrutiny any longer, Cassel fled the spot, and only then could she swallow her lingering doubt and rejoin her team members.
“My name is Gary, and I’m from the 47th floor.”
“Julian, 44th floor.”
“I’m Trisha, and I’m also stationed on the 44th floor.”
“Ah, my name is Peter. I’m from the 32nd floor.”
Liriope fidgeted with the glass vial in her pocket while the mages introduced themselves to one another.
“Wait—32nd floor? What’s the deal? Why is someone who hasn’t even made it past the 40th floor in our team?”
“I, I’m not sure either…. I just came as the Supervisor instructed.”
At that moment, Liriope looked quietly up at the darkening sky.
The dark clouds pushed down from the Contaminated Sanctuary continued to sprinkle black snow down upon the Magic Tower.
The barrier surrounding the entire Magic Tower blocked the snow from accumulating where they stood, but the temperature in the surrounding area had already dropped by nearly twenty degrees.
With the sun obscured, the world was as dark as night despite the hour being noon. Liriope’s already-low mood began sinking further.
“Since someone from the 30th-tier range is mixed in here, the team assignments seem to have gone wrong somehow. Let me go check on that quickly and come back.”
“Sure, go ahead. But hey, where’s your head been this whole time?”
Just then, the mage named Gary from the 47th floor spoke to Liriope with displeasure.
“Since everyone’s doing brief introductions, you tell us your floor too.”
Only then did Liriope lower her head and meet her team members’ eyes.
“Liriope, 41st floor.”
Gary twisted his mouth after hearing Liriope’s terse introduction.
But just as he was about to open his mouth to provoke her, Peter, who’d been hesitating until now, quietly approached Liriope and spoke to her first.
“Captain…, it’s been a while. You remember me, don’t you?”
Having barely paid attention to the team introductions, Liriope couldn’t immediately place him. But examining his face, she found something familiar in it.
“Peter? You’ve grown so much taller. Apart from that…. Hmm.”
Liriope’s words trailed off without her meaning to.
Peter was one of the children she’d met at the Outer Estate long ago, the ones who called her captain. But he hadn’t just grown taller—his entire frame had doubled in size.
Everyone ate the same food at the Magic Tower, so how could he alone have grown so much larger?
“Captain? You don’t even have a beard yet, so what kind of captain are you?”
At that moment, Gary, who’d been eyeing Liriope sideways this whole time, suddenly let out a bitter laugh and spat on the ground.
“Listen here, 41st-floor brat. How old are you anyway? You still look like you haven’t even lost that milk-baby scent.”
He was clearly a man of poor quality, and it seemed his intent from the start was to establish dominance. The fact that he deliberately bothered Liriope, despite them all knowing each other by sight already, made that plain.
Liriope replied without emotion.
“Even if I were starving to death, I wouldn’t ask you for milk, so lose interest.”
“What? You little—”
Gary looked at Liriope’s face again, as if knocked for a loop by her response.
“You’re barely green behind the ears and your words are short?”
“Your words came short first, didn’t they?”
Liriope had no interest in hierarchy games, but that didn’t mean she was willing to let herself be trampled on.
Gary spoke with a rotten smile.
“How many Flood Periods have you been through at the Magic Tower? For the record, this is my tenth.”
“T-ten?”
Peter’s eyes went wide with shock.
Gary’s words didn’t sound like bluster, mainly because his age was visibly apparent. Physically, he looked nearly fifty, though his actual age was only in his early forties.
Since ascending the Magic Tower had nothing to do with age, each floor housed mages of varying ages scattered throughout.
“Looks like your luck’s been filthy good so far. You haven’t had to replace even one part of your body with a Mana Stone yet?”
Gary ran his eyes over Liriope from head to foot with cold contempt.
Just as he said, Liriope hadn’t yet had any body part replaced with a Mana Stone.
“When I see young, promising types like you, my stomach hurts. It makes me want to take my shit and rub it all over you.”
When Gary turned his head away, a sinister crack echoed.
“Geez, did all the Supervisors get drunk together when they were forming teams this time?”
Just then, Julian, who had stepped away for a moment, returned. The chilled atmosphere eased naturally, and the team’s attention naturally shifted to him.
“Turns out there are more teams like ours with lower-floor people mixed in one by one. Since there’s no time for reassignment, they’re saying we just have to stay like this for now.”
“Damn, rotten luck.”
But the atmosphere soon frosted over again.
Mages from the 40th-tier range, though they didn’t venture into the heart of the Contaminated Sanctuary, were typically stationed in the more dangerous regions of the perimeter.
Because of this, they preferred avoiding team members lacking in skill over those lacking in character or cooperation.
‘Maybe… the disappearances at the banquet caused records to be altered, throwing off the team assignments?’
At the stray thought that crossed her mind, Liriope’s eyes darkened.
“32nd floor—there’s nobody here to clean up your mess, so you look after your own lifeline.”
“Y-yes!”
“And if you’re about to die anyway, don’t grab anyone’s ankle on your way down. Just die cleanly on your own.”
“Y-yes….”
The team members, all except Liriope, gave Peter the cold shoulder.
“And remember—anything can happen during the Flood Period, so everyone be careful.”
Gary issued the warning to the rest, but his gaze was fixed pointedly on Liriope.
The smirk on his face made the malice behind the warning easy to read.

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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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