Memoirs of a Wicked Magician - Chapter 140

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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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Episode 140
The Mana subtly threaded through Daphne’s voice wrapped around Liriope’s body like a snare.
As expected, Daphne’s demands were nothing extraordinary.
“First, there’s a question.”
Yet separate from that, what followed was more than enough to startle Liriope.
“How do you remember Samuel?”
The moment Daphne’s voice dropped lower, piercing through the tympanum, Liriope’s eyes flew open wide.
“His absence was replaced naturally by someone else, yet strangely, only you seem aware of it. How curious.”
Daphne was now gazing at her with laughter stripped from her face, her expression cold as frost.
“I’ve wondered if your resistance to magic is stronger than I thought, or if someone among those involved helped restore your memory… but there’s no real reason for it, so I doubted it.”
So she wanted to ask directly, Daphne said, tilting her head slightly.
“The second is a trivial request. Sign this document at once. Simple enough? And finally, the third thing—once this hour passes, you’ll remember our transaction as nothing but a dream. You were so exhausted, after all, that you sipped the calming tea I offered you and simply forgot everything. Understood?”
Daphne gestured, and a white sheet of paper flew down to rest before Liriope.
It was not her first time doing this; Daphne’s movements flowed as naturally as water.
She believed herself to understand the proper boundaries of Contract Magic well, and to be observing them scrupulously. Unaware, in that very moment, that her ignorance had led her to commit an enormous mistake.
[What baseness.]
A harsh laugh echoed in Liriope’s mind.
An emotion heated to its limit and then frozen to coldness beyond feeling—an extreme that washed over her.
And then, fury erupted outward like thunder.
Behind the violent wave of emotion, a tsunami of Mana surged forth.
Of course, Daphne sensed the disturbance in the room.
“What—wait. What is this? Where is all this Mana coming from…!”
She felt the ominous presence and straightened her spine, shooting to her feet.
Crackle!
Something small shattered, the sound reaching her ears.
Daphne’s wary gaze fixed upon Liriope.
“A contract promising to serve you as my Master-Disciple Bond, I see.”
Liriope’s voice, murmured softly as always, was gentle and tender—yet eerily devoid of warmth, carrying only a hollow dryness.
Expressionlessly, Liriope bit into a Magic Cookie infused with Concentration Enhancement Magic, her eyes scanning over the paper Daphne had given her.
“But Instructor, did you give proper consideration to the price you initially offered?”
“What?”
“You seem to have misunderstood the baseline. At this rate, the transaction cannot be concluded at all.”
Daphne appeared unable to grasp Liriope’s meaning.
Understandably so. On the surface, Liriope was merely a sixteen-year-old mage with no particular fame or achievement.
Daphne, by contrast, held the authority of an Instructor—one of only fourteen in the Northern Magic Tower—and was expected to ascend to the rank of 7th Rank Mage within the decade.
Which is why Daphne believed she had paid an adequate price for Liriope’s free will with nothing more than a single Magic Cookie.
In truth, from any ordinary perspective, taking Daphne as her Master would be no loss for Liriope.
Rather, it was something Liriope should be grateful for—something she ought to have pleaded and offered bribes to achieve.
“I have an Instructor. Unofficially, yes, but I’ve formally entered into a Master-Disciple Bond with someone.”
Truly—it was so absurd she nearly laughed.
“Can you offer instruction equal to theirs, Instructor?”
This time, a picture-perfect smile settled on Liriope’s lips.
For some reason, Daphne felt her entire being seized with dread. She still could not comprehend what Liriope meant. Yet her spine prickled with creeping horror.
[You dare stand beside Od as my equal?]
The overwhelming pressure emanating from Liriope in this moment was crushing.
[Do you truly believe yourself worthy of such presumption?]
Daphne had been unlucky. What she had demanded of Liriope was precisely her teacher’s seat.
[Very well. Arrogant mage, place yourself upon this scale. I shall personally show you that a teacher to this child does not come so cheap.]
What Daphne had placed upon the opposite pan of the balance was another soul dwelling within Liriope.
A great mage who had stood at the pinnacle of all mages during that distant Golden Age of brilliance.
To covet Liriope’s teacher’s seat, even if it was mere surface appearance, was tantamount to declaring that one was willing to compare one’s own worth against Od.
Liriope’s jealous teacher had fallen into rage.
A Magic Circle, forcibly activated, compared Od’s rank to Daphne’s.
The Magical Scale tipped sharply.
The balance shattered.
A weight of incomprehensible disparity.
The price to be paid fell overwhelmingly short on Daphne’s side.
Yet even if she emptied her entire being, the scale could not be balanced.
She grew ever smaller, while the opponent she had deemed contemptible swelled beyond measure, crushing her from all sides.
Crackle!
A contemptible Magic Cookie crumbled to dust in Liriope’s mouth.
Crash!
“Gack! Ugh…!”
Daphne toppled sideways with a terrible sound.
She collapsed to the floor and vomited a massive quantity of blood. In the same instant, the Magical Scale hanging in the void, which had glowed with harsh blue light, shattered into fragments.
Daphne’s eyes, bloodshot and wide, reflected disbelief.
She understood that she had barely survived death by the slimmest margin. Only because of some inexplicable mercy from her opponent.
The Contract Magic canceled the moment breath nearly left her body. Mana drained relentlessly by the scale until completely exhausted. And as if that were not enough, her Magic Core damaged so severely she could not act.
As though it were her very body that had shattered—not the Magical Scale or the cookie—pain radiated from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet.
“You should conduct transactions only within your capacity to bear, Instructor.”
Liriope stepped forward and came to a halt before her.
Her still-youthful face was as clear and innocent as Daphne had always known it to be. Yet her gaze, looking down upon Daphne, held a coldness unseemly for her age—not a tremor of disturbance—making the spine creep.
More terrifying still was the sensation that something unknowable emanated from Liriope.
Before Daphne’s eyes stood a small, slender girl, yet her shadow was strangely suffocating in its darkness and immensity.
What… exactly is this child?
How has she hidden something like this all this time?
Daphne could not believe what had befallen her.
Yet this was no dream. The brutally fractured Magic Core within her testified clearly that something impossible had occurred.
[Foolish girl. To wield Virto’s Magic to such a paltry degree.]
Od gazed down into Daphne’s eyes, now clouded with shock, confusion, and terror, and smiled thinly.
[Liriope, compel this ignorant mage to make a transaction.]
Mana moved against Liriope’s will, drawing an unfamiliar Magic Circle. It seemed Od’s temperament had been thoroughly twisted by today’s events.
Liriope observed the Magic Circle Od was drawing carefully and, following his intent, withdrew something seized from the Illusory Space.
‘If it works like it did for Daphne, any object imbued with Mana should suffice.’
Various Magic Artifacts that Liriope had used for her own experiments fell before Daphne’s eyes.
To Liriope, they were worthless antiquities; yet even partially restored Magic Artifacts possessed astronomical value in themselves.
“You like Magic Artifacts, don’t you, Instructor? And you do enjoy transactions. Here—take these.”
Dread engulfed Daphne’s face, draining it of all color.
Naturally, she could not grasp anything with her own hands. So Od used Mana to move her limbs for her.
Whoosh!
The moment Daphne’s hand touched Liriope’s objects, Contract Magic activated once more, compelled into being.
The Magical Scale that materialized before her eyes tilted sharply to the left.
[The magic persists until the scale reaches equilibrium. Question and command as you will. The debt will not escape you.]

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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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