Memoirs of a Wicked Magician - Chapter 56

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

Chapter 56
Yet despite the surface resemblance in their eyes, Velkius sensed something fundamentally different between the two of them.
Wondering what could account for it, he studied the boy before him slowly, methodically.
Evangellin felt the accumulated unease of experience wash over him—like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, he startled violently, releasing Velkius’s arm and scrambling backward in a rush.
“You, you—you’re thinking something strange again, aren’t you? I’m warning you nicely, so cut it out! If you pull one more insane stunt on me, I’m not letting it slide—not even once!”
The shrill, incessant chatter made it plain that Evangellin had thoroughly soured on this whole affair.
Yet Velkius harbored no shortage of displeasure himself toward the one standing before him.
His mother, the Tower Master of Northern Magic Tower—the one whom Evangellin had just abased himself before, docile as a whipped dog.
The boy before him seemed blessed with an easy disposition, but Velkius was not. And so Evangellin’s blind, unthinking deference toward her had twisted something in his chest.
“I offered you counsel you needed. Apparently you failed to grasp it.”
Velkius turned his gaze away from Evangellin, brushing dust from his rumpled sleeve with deliberate indifference.
“Wouldn’t it be wise to hurry to the Punishment Chamber now?”
At that moment, Evangellin recalled something he’d been trying to forget, and his face went white as chalk.
“There’s someone waiting for you there. You’d better bring her out soon and raise her to a standard that won’t bring shame to your name.”
A gaze sharp as a blade pierced through him once more.
“Weren’t you the one who swore never to disappoint the Tower Master?”
In that instant, it was only through years of accumulated intellect and refinement that Evangellin managed to contain the surge of murderous intent that threatened to explode from him.
‘Damn it, damn it, damn it……!’
He descended the stairs in a sprint, silently cursing—for how many times now today, he couldn’t count.
It grieved him that he could recognize Velkius’s brazen trap yet remain powerless to resist it.
His body had never been soiled by the touch of common rabble—and now he bore the title of Contractee……!
And worse, his charge was the sort of fool who deserved the Punishment Chamber the moment she entered the Inner Estate……!
The mere thought that he must now take responsibility for this pathetic wretch filled him with rage that threatened to spill blood.
The moment Evangellin reached the seventy-fifth floor—where magic was permitted only to the Tower Master’s adopted children—he unleashed his Spatial Transfer Magic.
A dazzling Magic Circle bloomed before him, and his form dissolved like shadow, vanishing into the spell.
Moments later, Evangellin arrived before the door to the stairs of the Brain Prison—the Punishment Chamber of the Magic Tower.
Clang, clang!
The mana he poured forth in violent haste shattered the seven Barriers that sealed the door in an instant.
Though the Brain Prison fell under the stewardship of Cameron, the lowest-level supervisor, a mage of inferior rank held no authority over Evangellin, who bore the name Belegoat.
He rushed inside at breakneck speed.
The Brain Prison was divided into multiple isolated spaces. Yet he had no need to waste time searching through each one.
Of the 999 chambers, only three registered under Detection Magic.
And of those, only one emanated a mana signature both familiar and intensely vivid.
“You there, garbage.”
“…….”
“Not hearing me, vermin?”
“…….”
“Get up before I have you discarded. You incurable idiot.”
Yet the girl buried in deep darkness remained motionless.
Evangellin approached her with a grimace.
Whether fortunate or unfortunate, the girl bore no visible wounds beyond the red welts left by chains around her bonds.
With her eyes closed peacefully, she showed no signs of enduring mental torture.
It seemed they had shown considerable mercy to this newcomer fresh from the Inner Estate.
‘But she’s a woman, isn’t she? Could that bastard Velkius have made her a Contractee for… ulterior motives?’
Evangellin examined the girl’s face with a suspicious, probing gaze, studying each feature in turn.
Though tangled black hair fell across her face, obscuring half of it, her visage still commanded attention.
Had her appearance not been so shabby and her frame so gaunt, she might have resembled a sleeping princess from a storybook.
The world overflowed with creatures of toad-like visage, so certainly Evangellin found her countenance worthy of a second glance—
Yet she fell far short of stirring anything within him, accustomed as he was to the flawless reflection that greeted him daily in the mirror.
Splash!
“Gasp!”
“I’ve told you three times now to wake up, you frog.”
Startled by the sudden cold water cascading from above, the black-haired girl—Caliona—opened her eyes.
The chains binding her body unraveled and dissolved the moment Evangellin’s mana swept across them.
“If you’re awake now, get up at once. I cannot bear another second in this suffocating place.”
Her violet eyes blinked rapidly, still struggling to focus, until finally the world crystallized before her.
“Silver hair…….”
Her colorless lips trembled once—then in the next instant, Caliona’s eyes flew wide open and she lunged at Evangellin with violent urgency.
“Silver hair!”
“Hack!”
“It’s you, isn’t it?! You’re the one!”
The delicate grip of a girl’s hands twisted into Evangellin’s collar with shockingly ferocious strength, choking him audibly.
“Silver hair, crimson eyes! It has to be you! My brother—what did you do with my brother……?!”
Is she mad right now?
How dare she lay filthy hands upon him?
“What—what kind of deranged woman—? As for your brother, how should I…… hack!”
“Don’t lie to me! You know my brother……!”
“Let go of me this instant! I was already seething at being forced to shoulder that stray mutt he picked up for no reason, and now you—hgh!”
“My mind was hazy that time, so I didn’t see clearly, but right before we escaped, I definitely saw someone like you standing beside my brother! So why is my brother nowhere? Tell me, please……! You know, don’t you? You have to! You know something, don’t you?”
Caliona’s grip and her eyes held the desperate intensity of a drowning person clutching at straw.
For the first time in his life, Evangellin found himself in a situation so senseless his mind reeled.
Shaken violently back and forth while his collar was gripped, he felt his breath cut off, his head swimming with vertigo.
Never had Evangellin encountered such crude, violent savagery—he was left not merely bewildered but genuinely shaken.
He had faced countless mages who would grind opponents to dust with magic, but this raw, bare-handed brutality was something entirely new.
He’d known it all along: those from the Outer Estate were little better than wild apes.
Unlike the children of the Northern Magic Tower, who had been reared since infancy under the finest instruction and care, those who had clawed their way up from the outside were ignorant and crude beyond measure.
And this woman—this alpha ape among them…….
He’d meant to probe her connection to Velkius, but now he realized she couldn’t even distinguish him from another.
“If your brother were alive, he’d have escaped long ago!”
Evangellin tore himself free from her grip with violent force, his frustration at its peak.
Seeing his shirt rumpled and buttons torn loose, he barely restrained a string of profanity.
“You said you saw your brother just before the escape route—didn’t you? So what do you suppose it means that he’s been silent all this time?”
Evangellin’s voice dripped with cold, calculated scorn.
“It’s obvious. He’s already dead.”
At that, the girl’s complexion shifted instantly.
“No…….”
Caliona’s already pallid face turned ashen—ghost-white, a specter’s visage.
“No. That can’t be. My brother couldn’t have…… he couldn’t be dead.”
Yet in the next instant, the girl—who moments before had seemed no more than a phantom ready to scatter at a gesture—transformed into a malevolent fury and hurled herself at Evangellin without hesitation.
“I’ll find him myself. So let me back in. Send me back in there……!”
Evangellin, seized by panic, bound her with magic. Yet even then she thrashed and struggled like one possessed by madness.
Now, finally, Evangellin understood why the girl had been consigned to the Brain Prison the moment she arrived at the Inner Estate.

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