The AI Archmage - Chapter 27

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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 27

 

“Urgh!”

 

Inside the tent, a man buried in darkness staggered and covered his mouth.

 

After dry heaving several times, he soon spat out black blood.

 

“Kugh!”

 

“L-Leader!”

 

A subordinate who witnessed the sudden situation hurriedly approached the man.

 

But the man seemed to have no time to respond, vomiting blood several more times.

 

“What, bastard is it?”

 

Then he glared into the air with bulging eyes.

 

“Which bastard destroyed my familiar…!”

 

“F-familiar?”

 

The subordinate continued with a flustered expression.

 

“F-familiar, you mean that bug? B-boss… no, Leader said it would hardly ever be discovered…”

 

“That’s right.”

 

But that familiar had just been destroyed.

 

And in the brief moment when he had let his guard down, no less.

 

“It seems someone quite skilled has gotten involved in this matter.”

 

“Huh?”

 

Instead of answering his subordinate’s question, he asked about the situation.

 

“Kalto, when you went to that mage’s house today, was there anyone else there?”

 

“There wasn’t. I’m certain of that.”

 

“Then that means they arrived afterward.”

 

The man stroked his thick beard and fell into thought.

 

A mage who has lost their Mana Heart is nothing more than an ordinary person.

 

So he had planned to win him over with some threats mixed in and use him as a subordinate…

 

‘It seems an unexpected guest has interfered.’

 

The man frowned.

 

Edan Brotherhood Leader, Ethan Marker.

 

He was a 4th Circle mage who could freely control familiars.

 

In other words, he had the brains to predict his opponent’s strength to some degree.

 

‘Should I back down for now?’

 

He thought so rationally, but soon shook his head.

 

No, that wouldn’t do.

 

Wasn’t there a contract?

 

The contract Ethan had made with ‘them’ was not something that could be broken.

 

And to produce the results for that, he needed Barean’s alchemy.

 

Judging by how they discovered and eliminated his familiar, there was a possibility they were a mage of higher rank than himself, but…

 

“Even so, there’s no problem.”

 

Ethan wiped the blood from his lips and grinned wickedly.

 

Behind him, a certain orb was burning ominously.

 

As if affirming him, endlessly.

 

* * *

 

Time passed, and when night fell, Barean opened his eyes.

 

“Ugh, urgh… Wh-where is this…?”

 

Barean panted for a while, looking around his surroundings. In the process, he came face to face with someone.

 

A boy was sitting in a chair beside the bed where Barean lay, reading something.

 

“Y-you are…?”

 

“Ah, you’re awake.”

 

The boy, who didn’t even look twenty years old, lifted his eyes from the paper he had been reading and spoke to Barean.

 

“Moving around right away won’t be easy. As you know, you’ve just barely escaped death’s door.”

 

“…”

 

Barean stared at the boy for a moment.

 

And then, after a while…

 

“…Senior?”

 

“Ah, I’m late with introductions.”

 

The boy smiled playfully as he introduced himself.

 

“I’m Sion Rostery of the Blue Tower. Currently, I’m working as an instructor at the Blue Tower.”

 

“Blue Tower…!”

 

Barean was startled, then poured out a series of questions.

 

“Y-you… you’re a mage of the Blue Tower?! How is the Blue Tower now? The Council’s pressure must be continuing – is that child Lumia managing to hold on somehow!”

 

“That answer isn’t difficult.”

 

Sion pointed to one corner with his finger.

 

There, a girl was sleeping with her head down on a desk.

 

Recognizing her identity, Barean let out a sigh of relief.

 

“Lumia… Ah, thank goodness. She somehow managed to endure their pressure…!”

 

“She did endure it. Though the real hardships are just beginning.”

 

“The real hardships are just beginning?”

 

“You know well enough. That the Council won’t give up so easily. The Blue Tower could collapse at any moment.”

 

“…”

 

At those words, Barean’s head dropped and his hands clenched tightly.

 

Sion, who had been watching him for a moment, opened his mouth.

 

“We don’t have much time, so I’ll get straight to the point.”

 

Sion continued speaking to Barean, who raised his head.

 

“You made a reckless attempt. Taking an unverified invention was never a wise choice.”

 

“…”

 

“As an excellent mage who was just before reaching the 7th Circle, you couldn’t have been unaware of the dangers.”

 

“…You know.”

 

Barean nodded with difficulty.

 

Even so, his mind was in great confusion.

 

He had drunk what he thought was his last resort, realized it was a failure, and thought he would die helplessly.

 

But when he came to his senses, Lumia, who was like a younger sister to him, and a mage from the Blue Tower were there.

 

Moreover, the boy named Sion Rostery who was now conversing with him had a strange atmosphere about him.

 

‘It’s like looking at an elder who is much older than me.’

 

Though they hadn’t exchanged many words, he instinctively felt that way.

 

It was the intuition of someone who had once been a genius mage, even though he had now lost his Mana Heart.

 

And he had to be surprised once more.

 

“Are you being threatened?”

 

“…!”

 

“Seeing that reaction, I’m right.”

 

Sion continued his reasoning without hesitation.

 

“The one threatening you is probably some brotherhood or other that’s been running rampant in this area recently.”

 

“…Did you come here knowing that?”

 

“I wish that were the case, but unfortunately, this is information I obtained through self-sufficiency here. There’s some speculation too.”

 

At those words, Barean’s eyes wavered.

 

There was nothing that couldn’t be speculated.

 

But even while saying it was speculation, Sion had a confident attitude.

 

Such an attitude wasn’t easy to maintain.

 

It was only possible if one had confidence in all their thoughts.

 

He had seen a similar person long ago.

 

“…Lord Belusian.”

 

“Hmm?”

 

“In the past, before that person went missing, when we had conversations, he always spoke just like you.”

 

“Ah.”

 

At those words, Sion gave a meaningful smile and said.

 

“I suppose he did.”

 

It was the same this time too.

 

In that simple answer, he could feel a strange sense of years passed.

 

Surely what was before his eyes was just a boy much younger than himself.

 

“What exactly are you….”

 

“If I may say one thing.”

 

Sion waved the documents he was holding.

 

Those were the records of research that Barean had been doing with painstaking effort until now.

 

“There is no method to regenerate a Mana Heart.”

 

“…!”

 

“Even if you were determined to grind up a whole bunch of Dragon Bone and inhale it, it would be the same. That’s reality.”

 

“How could you know that…!”

 

“Well. How would I know.”

 

Sion let out a bitter smile.

 

It should have sounded like nonsense.

 

And it would have been right to refute Sion’s words and scold him as a ‘senior’ for his shallow knowledge.

 

“…Don’t tell me, you read all of my research materials? And even understood them?”

 

“Yes, that’s correct.”

 

Sion nodded his head, acknowledging that fact.

 

“Anyway, so the idea of you regaining your Mana Heart and burning down the Bandit Group as a 6th Circle mage… unfortunately, that’s an impossible dream.”

 

“…Then does that mean I have to live giving up like this? Being exploited by those bastards, unable to protect even one village.”

 

“That’s not it.”

 

Sion said with a strange smile.

 

“What’s the point of having fellow alumni? Isn’t this the kind of opportunity we should use it for?”

 

“Don’t tell me you have a way to subjugate the Brotherhood?”

 

“Rather than a specific method to subjugate them… let’s call it a ‘more positive’ alternative.”

 

“Hm?”

 

Barean looked at Sion with an expression that said he didn’t understand what he was talking about.

 

Sion grinned and asked.

 

“You want to use magic, don’t you?”

 

“I do want to use it, but didn’t you just say with your own mouth that I can’t?”

 

“Are you mocking me?”

 

Barean replied curtly, feeling displeased with Sion’s attitude.

 

“No, I said you couldn’t recover your Mana Heart. I never said you wouldn’t be able to use magic.”

 

“Isn’t that the same thing?”

 

“It’s different.”

 

Instead of explaining with words, Sion decided to immediately put it into action.

 

“Would you give me your hand?”

 

“…Fine.”

 

He extended his hand, thinking he’d at least see what Sion was thinking.

 

At that moment, Sion suddenly stuck his hand into thin air and pulled something out.

 

It was a sphere about the size of a palm.

 

An object that looked very intricately designed at first glance.

 

“This is…”

 

“Let’s call it a signpost that will present you with a new path.”

 

Sion said to him with conviction.

 

“You won’t regret it. Never.”

 

Along with those words.

 

Whirring!

 

The sphere emitted light.

 

* * *

 

The next day.

 

“Senior!”

 

As soon as Lumia woke up and confirmed that Barean was awake, she bolted upright.

 

“You’re awake!”

 

“It’s been a while, Lumia.”

 

Barean smiled bitterly as he exchanged greetings with her.

 

Lumia urgently looked Barean up and down as she asked.

 

“You don’t have any problems with your body or anything, right?”

 

“No. Thanks to the timely treatment, aside from some muscle pain, there are no major problems.”

 

Barean said this as he sat up.

 

It wasn’t empty words – he actually seemed to have no major problems moving his body.

 

“Th-thank goodness, really…”

 

The sensitive Lumia shed tears even over small things.

 

Barean looked at such Lumia and chuckled before continuing.

 

“I heard the general situation from Sion here. You’ve been through a lot.”

 

“Ah, r-right! Thanks to Sion’s help, we somehow found a way to survive!”

 

“I see.”

 

Through his conversation with Lumia, Barean confirmed that Sion’s words were true.

 

Then there was nothing to hesitate about now.

 

Barean immediately explained the current situation to Lumia.

 

“Lumia, right now this village is…”

 

And after hearing all of that situation, Lumia’s face was coldly hardened.

 

“…They’re holding the villagers hostage to make you create poison?”

 

“Yes, it’s likely they won’t stop at simply poisoning people.”

 

“That’s…”

 

Lumia’s face became serious.

 

At the same time, hostility toward the bandit group she hadn’t even seen yet began to bloom.

 

“Senior, please leave it to me. With my magic, I can definitely…”

 

But Lumia’s confidence couldn’t continue.

 

“Tower Master.”

 

“Yes?”

 

“Don’t you remember almost getting your ass kicked doing that last time? The Workshop Bandits… you remember them, don’t you.”

 

“…Ah.”

 

At Sion’s words, Lumia’s memory surfaced.

 

That memory of confidently stepping forward only to almost be turned around by the Magic Killer’s Artifact…

 

If Sion hadn’t been there, she surely could have suffered a terrible fate on the spot.

 

Thinking that far, she suddenly had nothing to say.

 

“Uh, th-that time was…”

 

“I understand you have considerable confidence as a 6th Circle mage, but if you charge in recklessly like that, you could end up dead.”

 

“Y-yes….”

 

She answered timidly and shrank back.

 

Well, theory and Real Combat are different.

 

She herself couldn’t be certain what variables might arise.

 

…The lack of Real Combat experience was an undeniable fact.

 

“It might be easy to let our guard down just because they’re a Bandit Group, but we don’t yet know their full strength perfectly.”

 

“That’s… right? Come to think of it, we need to be more cautious.”

 

“So first….”

 

Sion continued with a cold smile.

 

“Let’s throw out bait. Bait they’ll have no choice but to bite.”

 

“B-bait, you mean….”

 

Sion looked at Lumia with benevolent eyes.

 

Then he placed his hand on her shoulder and spoke.

 

“Tower Master, recall that recklessness you just mentioned—charging ahead driven purely by emotion.”

 

“…Huh?”

 

“From now on, Tower Master, you’ll be a berserker who’s so enraged by your senior’s tragic state that you can’t think straight and just charge in recklessly.”

 

“…?”

 

Lumia’s eyes trembled.

 

At those casually rude words, she shook with indignation and looked toward her respected senior.

 

As if asking him to say something.

 

But Barean, who had been quietly listening, nodded in agreement.

 

“It’s a perfect role for you. You’ll be able to pull it off well.”

 

“…Senior?”

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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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