The AI Archmage - Chapter 26
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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AI Archmage Episode 26
“Teacher!”
The child held out something to the middle-aged man with an innocent expression.
“Father told me to bring this to you! He said to thank you for the medicinal herbs you sent last time!”
“Ah, I see.”
He received what the child handed him with a bitter smile.
Inside the basket was food made with care.
Though it wasn’t anything luxurious, the middle-aged man expressed his gratitude as he could feel the sincerity of the maker.
“Please tell Hans I said thank you.”
“Yes! Oh, um, but…”
The boy bowed in greeting, then hesitated as if he had something to say, before carefully asking.
“…Do those bad men still keep coming around these days?”
“…”
At those words, an awkward smile hung on the middle-aged man’s lips.
“Don’t worry. There won’t be any problems.”
“B-but I heard what father said last time, that those bad men are going to do something to you, teacher…”
“It’s fine. Teacher is strong.”
The middle-aged man said this while ruffling the child’s hair and showing a smile.
“Th-then that’s a relief!”
Just as the child smiled with relief, the middle-aged man flinched upon spotting something behind the child.
“Teacher…?”
“Louis, go home now.”
The child looked puzzled, but the middle-aged man gently patted the child’s head and said.
“Won’t Hans be waiting for you? So let’s see each other tomorrow.”
“Yes!”
The child nodded at the middle-aged man’s words and quickly disappeared.
And shortly after.
“Come out.”
“Hehe.”
As soon as the middle-aged man finished speaking, a man slowly approached.
He spoke with a fishy smile and rough manner of speech.
“Former mage, sir. Have you given some thought to our proposal?”
The middle-aged man glared at the man with sharp eyes and answered.
“I’m sure I refused.”
“Oh, how disappointing.”
He grinned and spoke to the middle-aged man with words full of threat.
“Our proposal wasn’t that bad, I thought. Don’t you need money for research?”
“…”
“Being a mage costs a lot of money. The materials needed for research are expensive too.”
The man continued with a smirk.
“You just need to compound and make the drugs we require. Then we won’t be stingy with…”
“I don’t make drugs that poison people.”
“…Ha.”
At those words, the corners of the man’s mouth rose. He looked at the middle-aged man as if finding him ridiculous and said.
“That child from earlier knew nothing. Tomorrow, this village might unluckily be trampled by a bandit group.”
“…You bastard!”
“A good teacher would naturally know what needs to be done, right?”
The man patted the middle-aged man’s shoulder and called his name.
“Barean Arbo.”
“…”
“You were once a promising talent of the Magic Tower. You should make a wise choice. Don’t you think?”
The middle-aged man, Barean, ultimately couldn’t answer those words.
He simply kept his head down and trembled with helplessness until the man disappeared from sight.
* * *
Alhaio Village.
It was a village built in the frontier territory of the Eastern Continental Border.
There wasn’t much difference from other villages.
However, frontier territories inevitably couldn’t receive proper management.
Therefore, Alhaio Village had to independently form a Vigilante Corps to maintain order and protect themselves.
“Who are you people?”
“Get lost. We don’t accept outsiders.”
In other words, their wariness toward outsiders was inevitably much higher than other villages.
Sure enough.
Sion and Lumia were blocked by village residents right from the entrance.
“W-we didn’t come here with strange intentions! We just have someone we’re looking for in this village…”
“Where do you get off causing trouble.”
The village resident growled and glared at Lumia.
Lumia whimpered like a small herbivore and let her shoulders droop.
“H-hiiing… but it’s true…”
“Get lost.”
The Vigilante Guard blocking their path issued an eviction order without relaxing the intensity in his eyes.
And then Sion stepped forward.
“Your wariness is particularly intense.”
“I told you, stop causing trouble…”
Along with those words, Sion simply extended his hand without saying anything else.
At that moment.
Whoosh!
A Flame Spear created by magic revealed its form.
“Ma, magic!”
“May I enter?”
The Vigilante Guard broke out in a cold sweat at the sight of Sion smiling while aiming the Flame Spear.
In the end, he had no choice but to grant Sion entry, despite his unease.
“Pl, please come in.”
“Thank you for the warm welcome.”
Sion lightly patted the Vigilante Guard’s shoulder and walked past him into the village.
Then he spoke to Lumia.
“Tower Master, did you see that? Pleading innocence one by one is tedious and pedantic, whereas powerful magic ends things quickly.”
“Is this right?”
“It is. This is the essence of negotiation.”
“I don’t think so…”
The two exchanged such words as they headed deeper into the village.
“But how did you know that this ‘senior’ would be in a place like this?”
“He sent me a letter once before. I confirmed it from there. …Who would have thought it would be a place like this.”
Lumia spoke in a dark voice and sighed.
“…You were right, Sion. This wasn’t the time for me to be focused on studying.”
“It’s fine that you realize it now. You just need to improve from here.”
Sion encouraged Lumia while looking around the village.
The atmosphere of the village was not good.
There was an overall tension that could snap at any moment.
“Recently, bandits in the area…”
“Mr. Kar went out hunting briefly and met with disaster…”
Sion focused on the conversations he heard while walking through the streets.
[Would you like to confirm the information derived from conversations observed within this village?]
‘Tell me.’
[Recently, a bandit group called the Edan Brotherhood has been running rampant in the vicinity. It appears there have already been several casualties.]
‘What a mess.’
In that case, the village’s safety couldn’t be guaranteed either.
As he had sensed from the level of the Vigilante Guard who had blocked them earlier, there seemed to be almost no proper fighting force.
The Vigilante Guards were mostly just people with hunting experience at best, with almost no experience dealing with bandits.
“Was the name of the senior here ‘Barean Arbo’?”
“Yes, that’s right. He was a very promising mage even in the Main Tower at the time. By the standards then, he was on the verge of reaching the 7th Circle.”
“Oh ho.”
Sion smiled with satisfaction.
It was just that Lumia’s growth was absurdly fast, but being on the verge of the 7th Circle represented tremendous magical talent.
[If used well, he could be tremendously helpful. Someone of that level is an incredible talent even if they can’t use magic.]
‘That’s right.’
That’s why he had come here first, wasn’t it.
How long had the two of them walked like that?
“We’ve arrived.”
The two finally arrived in front of Barean’s house.
His house was located in a rather secluded area of the village.
But even so, there were quite a few traces of people coming and going.
Considering the nature of this place, they were probably villagers.
“It doesn’t seem like he’s completely cut himself off from his surroundings.”
“It seems that way.”
Lumia nodded with a relieved smile.
“I was worried, but it’s a relief that he seems to be living well…”
“Hmm?”
At that moment, Sion frowned briefly, sensing something strange.
“Why, why? What’s wrong?”
“…Tsk.”
Without answering Lumia’s question, Sion clicked his tongue briefly and drew up his mana.
“S-Sion?”
Lumia tilted her head in confusion.
But without answering, Sion suddenly blasted the door open with magic.
Kwaang!
“S-Sion?! What on earth are you doing right now!”
“What am I doing?”
Sion strode inside with sharp eyes.
“I’m trying to save someone’s life.”
“…?!”
And the interior of the house that was thus revealed.
A middle-aged man was lying there weakly collapsed, along with glass bottles scattered carelessly around.
Lumia’s eyes shook at the sight.
“S-Senior…?”
Barean Arbo.
He was the ‘senior’ they had been looking for.
* * *
Sion immediately checked Barean’s condition.
Akasha quickly confirmed Sion’s intention and reported on Barean’s state.
[He’s in a poisoned state. It seems he drank an unverified potion.]
‘…An unverified potion?’
Sion immediately approached the desk.
On it were several bottles containing what appeared to be reagents.
“Hmm.”
He picked up each of those bottles one by one to examine them.
[A reagent made by refining Serium Leaf, and even an extract obtained by compressing Altaer Root… Human, all of these are…]
‘Materials related to mana recovery.’
After confirming that much, Sion spoke to Lumia.
“It seems he took an incomplete Mana Heart Remedy, but it failed.”
“A, a remedy? Treating a Mana Heart… is that even possible?”
“No, it’s impossible.”
Sion answered firmly.
A damaged Mana Heart was no different from an incurable disease.
Just as Altair couldn’t overcome his incurable disease and eventually died, there was no way to recover a damaged Mana Heart either.
“So this is what happened. It seems he deliberately used highly toxic herbs to try to recover his Mana Heart…”
“…Ah.”
“If we had been even a little later, we would be disposing of senior’s corpse right about now.”
At those words, Lumia staggered and blamed herself.
“It’s, it’s my fault. I should have paid more attention…”
“Attention or whatever, don’t engage in unnecessary self-blame. It’s completely meaningless.”
“But…”
“Was there anything the Tower Master could have done before this? It was a time when you had no leisure just maintaining the Tower.”
Naturally, there couldn’t have been any leisure.
They were barely maintaining their existence with Rostery’s support funds.
“Rather, we found senior quickly.”
“Is, is that so?”
“That’s right.”
Sion spoke firmly.
Nothing was more useless than self-blame in a situation like this.
“Anyway, his life isn’t in danger. We detoxified him immediately.”
“That’s a relief…”
“What’s important now isn’t the result of what happened to senior.”
Sion glanced at Barean for a moment before continuing.
“It’s exactly ‘why’ he took it.”
“Ah.”
“Unless he was thinking of suicide, there’s no way he would rashly take a defective product that wasn’t even properly completed.”
In other words.
“It means he might be in such a desperate situation that he would drink this incomplete work hoping for a thread-thin miracle.”
Sion crossed his arms and briefly thought about what could have caused Barean to become this desperate.
And what came to mind at that moment was.
‘…The Edan Brotherhood.’
The bandit group they had heard about on the way here.
Though he hadn’t confirmed Barean’s circumstances, he somehow felt it would be connected to them.
“Hmm?”
Something caught Sion’s senses as he surveyed the area around Barean.
It was moving.
He pretended not to notice, then in an instant reached his hand toward what his senses had detected.
Swoosh!
What he caught in his hand was none other than a bug.
On the surface, it looked like nothing more or less than a bug.
But Sion immediately recognized its true identity.
“Ha, a familiar.”
Sion sneered as he glared at it.
Someone had been using this to spy on Barean.
“How crude.”
He smiled coldly and crushed the bug to death.
‘Indeed, I’m looking forward to seeing what kind of bastards they are.’
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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