The Knight Who Devours Magic - Chapter 101

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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 101. Thoughts at Cross Purposes
“Hmm.”
“Is something troubling you? Did your plans not unfold as you wished?”
“No, it’s not that.”
“Then why…?”
“I simply have something on my mind.”
Munno brushed off the inquiry from the steel-clad knight who guarded the Guest Palace and stepped into his chamber, his thoughts turning inward once more.
‘Clam, Chloe, and Rasmia, all of them…’
Count Enoch had dispatched two vice-commanders of the Trian Knights Order, along with a Spiritualist.
‘Surely the old man isn’t actually going to claim neutrality after pulling that?’
– Officially, they’re being sent to guard Princess Roanna, but honestly…
“…It’s excessive.”
4-Star knights weren’t common even within the royal household.
And not all 4-Star knights were equal—Trian’s knights, weathered by periodic Monster Waves, were often rated half a tier higher than knights of equivalent rank from other regions.
Clam’s constant complaints could be overlooked, but Chloe’s ability—which he’d witnessed when they’d hunted the Witch together—remained difficult to gauge even now.
And above all else.
‘That red-haired woman’s specialty has nothing to do with protecting people.’
Just from her disposition, it seemed she’d be far better at protecting animals than humans.
The back of his head still tingled a little from the blow she’d dealt him then.
Well, in any case.
“Ah, forget it! At least on the surface, they’re neutral!”
If that were true, Father wouldn’t involve himself in the Succession War.
That alone was enough for him.
So.
‘I’d better memorize this.’
Munno withdrew a small booklet from inside his robes—something the branch director of the Information Organization El had provided.
[Third Prince Faction Nobility.]
A remarkably straightforward title.
He’d obtained it to familiarize himself with members of the Third Prince’s faction beforehand, so he wouldn’t misstep or provoke anyone at the party.
And within its pages lay details that weren’t known to the public.
For instance.
[Philip Lionel]
Eldest son of Marquess Lionel. Known as a talented knight of handsome countenance, but a pathological miser.
There’s a rumor that during that incident he crossed the kingdom on foot rather than buy a horse to save a single gold coin, though this isn’t quite accurate. It was a silver coin.
A merchant who sought to curry favor offered him a high-quality horse at a steep discount, yet he ran back on foot because he refused to part with even a single silver coin. This is the accepted account.
Such trivial details were included.
Of course, there was no guarantee that everything written here was true, but it didn’t seem likely they’d bother deceiving him with this sort of thing.
‘They’re more capable than I thought.’
The Lied Trading Company.
He’d known they’d become Drazen’s primary merchant partner over the past few years, but to think they possessed such capability.
He found himself curious to see the face of that merchant lord.
‘How did Rian manage to get hold of this?’
Though really, what lay immediately before him took precedence.
“Right. I’ll make a brief appearance at the Third Prince’s party, then visit the other princes to clear up any misunderstandings, and then focus my efforts on catching those cultists.”
The information from El wasn’t limited to just the guest list for the party.
– A black-and-white mixed-race woman? And a 4-Star Enhanced Body Practitioner at that? The traits are far too distinctive. As far as I know, no assassin of that description exists.
– You say she’s connected to Aslan? Hmm. Very well, I’ll look into it.
– Ah, the fee? If you’re the one carrying that tag, there’s no need.
El’s overly obliging attitude aside, one piece of that information had proven useful.
– In the southern city of Erundel, there’s been a strange incident…
‘Ignore the Succession War as much as possible. Catch only the cultists.’
Now he could pierce even a double Veil up close.
And he was beginning to sense, bit by bit, the path toward 4-Star.
He held the conviction that by continuing to hunt his enemies, he would cross the fourth barrier.
‘And if I grow even stronger beyond that, then perhaps…’
Munno’s imagination began to spiral as he gazed down at the booklet.
‘I killed that Witch of the 6-Circle when I was weaker than I am now.’
His Trait, Demon Devourer, boasted at least extraordinary compatibility against mages.
Perhaps that true enemy—the shadow puppeteer behind it all.
The one suspected to be a Seven-Star mage—could he not be the one to bring him down with his own hands?
With that anticipation, his grip on the booklet tightened of its own accord.
Creak.
Crack.
The Foundation Day celebration was held on the first day of the new year.
That day also marked his seventeenth birthday—one he had chosen himself as an orphan.
Perhaps that was why.
— Baby, my baby……!
The distant cry of his biological parents, now so faded in his memory, suddenly brushed across his mind.
And with it came the unbearable anguish of the days that followed.
“I hope it was him…….”
A murderous smile began to play at Munno’s lips as he imagined a faceless enemy.
As a result, it took him some time to refocus on the contents written in the booklet.
* * *
“What’s on your mind?”
Laurel’s eyes fluttered open at the voice that came again.
Right before her was an unpleasant face.
“Mind your own business.”
“Mind my business? Shouldn’t you take to heart the words of someone experienced before tomorrow’s operation?”
A leering smile spread across that pallid visage.
Rondo—the Third Circle Hard Body Practitioner who had tried to curry favor beside the eldest prince before.
Whatever his skill, he was hardly suited for assassination work.
And beside him.
“That perverted bastard, showing off again.”
“Leave him be. He’s just obsessed with anything unusual…….”
Those dissolute companions who hung around the second and third princes respectively—Second Circle Hard Body Practitioners, Rondo’s friends—weren’t even worth remembering their names.
Still, for men of an age suitable to match Aslan’s princes, they were decent enough, or honestly, remarkably strong.
“Hey, you. Why not spar with us for once?”
“Yeah. Once you’ve had a taste of him, you won’t look back. You’ll never sleep with a man in your life anyway, right?”
“Shut it, you sick bastards! Don’t ruin the fun of seduction!”
“Hahahaha.”
Watching their cackling faces, she could only feel contempt.
To think the direct line of Aslan associated with such scum.
It was no illusion of hers alone that the family’s future seemed bleak.
‘Well, the first and second princes are said to be as cunning as their father, so they might have been raised as expendable pawns.’
The real problem was that she had to carry out an operation with these idiots right now.
‘This mission feels wrong somehow.’
And so…….
“Hey, enough showing off. Let’s have some real fun before the important work…….”
Just as she was about to sink into thought, Rondo finally crossed the line.
Sigh.
“Whatever drivel you dogs bark about, I don’t care—but…….”
“What? What are you saying? So you will spar? Hehehehe.”
“I told you not to touch my body.”
“What nonsense——”
Crack.
“———Aaaaaargh!”
A single arrowhead, casually flung, pierced clean through the palm of the fool who dared to touch her face and skewered him all the way through the groin.
And then.
“You bitch!”
“You crazy whore!”
Thud.
“Aaaaaargh!”
With just a casual toss of another arrow, she punctured the crotches of the other bastards as well.
Soon the fools who had been clamoring so loudly lost consciousness, foam at their mouths.
Of course, that didn’t mean she’d dealt with everything that grated on her nerves.
“Finally took care of them, huh? I was wondering how much longer you’d hold back.”
From the corner, a handsome man rose to his feet—the one who introduced himself as Ian—and approached with a quiet laugh.
“All right. Now that the idiots are cleared out, let’s plan this operation properly.”
She’d never seen him in an assassination operation before, yet there was a strange smell of blood about him.
‘This one too was known to be a dissolute wastrel…….’
Among those deployed in this operation, a few of them—this one included—had their identities never properly ascertained.
Of course, all of them had to be skilled given their standing as close associates of the direct family line, and they didn’t seem nearly as oblivious as the fools who’d just been eliminated.
The problem, though.
“Have you done assassination work before? You seem awfully practiced at it.”
“Ah… well, I’ve lived a pretty rough life, you know. There’s nothing I haven’t tried my hand at.”
Ian laughed lightly and answered with practiced ease.
But Laurel, who had ascended to 4-Star through her secondary Trait, the Piercer, caught all five of the simultaneous laughs that answered him—even without looking in his direction.
‘These men must’ve come from different places….’
Still, they were clearly part of the same group.
And that wasn’t the only thing that felt wrong.
“Does the Black Knight owe you some kind of grudge? You’ve been awfully aggressive about this from the start.”
“Ah, I received certain instructions from the young master. Got to make a name for myself to come back looking good.”
A lie.
He couldn’t have received any instructions.
All of them had been summoned out of nowhere.
And besides.
– Seems like I’m being caught onto?
– Can’t be certain yet. Though….
– Once we deal with him, we’ll have an excuse to leave. Then I’ll make sure….
She had overheard such a suspicious exchange between Ian and another man.
They couldn’t possibly imagine she possessed an absurd Trait that let her hear voices from three hundred meters away and grasp the situation at her target location.
‘There are too many things that don’t add up.’
An assignment thrust upon her out of nowhere.
No matter how completely her team was wiped out in the last operation, command had paired her with people who weren’t even members of the Assassins—strangers.
And there was an even larger problem: the target itself.
‘The Black Knight. That man is a monster….’
The armor that wrapped his entire body and the artifacts he carried were actually not the real threat.
The problem was his Metal Spirit Magic—it seemed he could perceive the existence of every weapon approaching him.
He possessed an overwhelming command of the elements, warping even her arrows with ease.
‘No matter how I think about it, it doesn’t make sense.’
Though not by choice, she had met several Spirit Users during her time in Aslan.
Among them, only “that one”—estimated to be at least 5-Circle or higher—could scatter a fireball rushing at point-blank range through will alone.
Yet the Black Knight was reportedly a knight who had only recently come of age.
‘His combat strength alone far exceeds what a typical 3-Star should be, and now Spirit Magic too…. That’s impossible.’
How could he and other humans be the same species?
From her experience, killing the Black Knight would require either two or more 4-Star Hard Body Practitioners specialized in assassination like herself.
Or multiple 5-Star combatants, or a 6-Star Hard Body Practitioner to crush him through sheer force.
But no matter how many times she reported this to command, it fell on deaf ears.
As if.
‘…the family had already decided to throw me away?’
The thought struck her suddenly, and she startled at her own reasoning.
– The Ghost Bow is confiscated for this operation. You’ll be infiltrating the Royal Palace—you weren’t planning to bring an Artifact along, were you?
‘Could it be….’
Her thoughts turned to her treasure left behind with the family.
“…Hey, hey. Are you listening to me?”
“Hm?”
“I’m saying, we’ve got the cover identities ready, but who’s going to administer the poison? Don’t you think having a maidservant would be better? What about you?”
…Right, the poison.
If brute force wouldn’t work, there were other methods.
Like that poison the family had granted her.
‘That’s right, it can’t be. The Assassins need me. There’s no one stronger than me yet.’
She was too valuable to be cast aside just because she’d shown her face once to the target.
At least, that’s what Laurel believed.
Trained as an assassin her entire life, she had never imagined any other existence.
But still.
Nevertheless.
“…I don’t want to.”
“What?”
Lost in thought, the true feelings she’d been holding back escaped with her breath.
“Hey, what are you saying? What don’t you want?”
For a moment, she almost flinched.
“……Look at my skin tone. The moment I approached, he’d sense the wariness. And my appearance, too…….”
The brown skin her dead father had left behind. Combined with her mother’s genes, which had blessed her with a frame that refused to gain weight, she’d cultivated through the Enhanced Body Arts into the lean, wiry silhouette of a born assassin.
“……Men would find it off-putting.”
It was a hasty excuse, but apparently convincing enough—Ian nodded along.
Then.
“Ah, but there’s an odd rumor going around, you know?”
“What?”
“That fellow—he only suits scrawny women. Like you. Ah, though your skin tone’s different, of course. Wouldn’t your chances of success be higher if you approached him?”
A comment that seemed to mock her appearance outright.
But such mockery was old hat for Laurel.
As long as nobody laid hands on her, it barely registered.
Besides, that wasn’t what mattered now.
“You want me to stake my life on hearsay? More than that—the Black Knight already knows my face.”
“That so? Well, doesn’t matter. We have an Artifact for disguise work. We can alter skin tone and features cleanly enough. And that rumor is real, too. We’ve already confirmed it.”
“An Artifact?”
The question carried a sharp edge—as if to say, how could someone like you possess such a thing? Ian laughed bitterly.
“Right. It does have usage limits, but we went through hell to acquire it.”
Ha…….
“So what exactly do you plan to do?”
“We need to secure an escape route.”
“Just the two of you?”
“We do have some noble acquaintances, at least. And you—do you have a way out?”
“…….”
“Are you frightened?”
Hmph.
“This bullshit…….”
“Perfect. Then we have a deal!”
A sigh escaped her inwardly.
She’d wanted to avoid entangling herself with him directly, if possible.
‘So it falls to me after all?’
It wasn’t simply that he was too formidable an opponent to face.
Laurel recalled the day she’d sought Ted out to deliver a warning.
She remembered the sight she’d witnessed that day.
Even though he was merely acting, donating vast sums to the Temple and entrusting children into its care.
The way he’d smiled with genuine delight while doing so.
That figure of his, different in grain and quality from the nobles who had died by her hand—so very different it troubled her.
‘He seemed like a genuine person, for once.’
Yet fate could only bind them in enmity.
A mission shrouded in unease—both the circumstances and the target, everything about it felt wrong.
‘What am I to do…….’
Laurel’s gaze wavered, lost in deep deliberation.

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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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