The Knight Who Devours Magic - Chapter 22

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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 22. Subjugation (1)
Word of the incident from two days prior reached the ears of every nobleman staying at the Guest Manor.
Naturally, commotion erupted.
A mage had appeared in the heart of Drasen!
There were far too many witnesses who had seen the deluge of fire and lightning to keep it hidden.
The Lord’s formal announcement that followed only deepened their shock.
Toyne Randel, the Konnel Marquis House’s representative, was a mage!
“What? That doesn’t make sense.”
“But there’s evidence, they say.”
“There are witnesses from Trian and Ashnam too…….”
“So then the Marquis Konnel was colluding with a mage…….”
“Hold on now, let’s not jump to conclusions. I’ve heard rumors that the mage used disguise…….”
Given the circumstances, a one-day postponement of the Hunt Festival was hardly cause for concern.
Some were even more surprised to hear that the Hunt Festival would begin the very next day.
“Wait, something like that happened and they’re just pushing it back one day before starting?”
“Well, it’s no loss to us.”
“Still, it involves a mage.”
“The report’s gone to Lord Enoch, I hear. We just have to wait for his orders.”
But these nobles gathered here were those who had endured thirty years under the dominion of Enoch, the Marquis of the Border, a 6-Rank Knight called the Bulwark defending the Kingdom’s North.
They found nothing odd about Drasen taking no further action after the report.
They simply trusted their lord and greeted the start of the festival he was hosting with smiles.
“Drasen will have an easier winter this year.”
“Well, it’s good for everyone.”
“That said…….”
The Hunt Festival—an event to hunt monsters in the Northern Mountain Range.
Of course, all the nobles knew its true purpose: to cull weaker monsters before the Monster Wave of winter began, thereby reducing its impact.
But this Hunt Festival had drawn a great many nobles in recent years due to Muno’s Coming of Age Ceremony, and with them came over a dozen additional Knights, making the danger of the subjugation relatively low.
In that case.
“We ought to bag something decent. Get a few hides of Maktho, that’d bring in some coin.”
“Best to avoid anything Grade 3 or higher though.”
“Obviously. Let’s pray something valuable shows up.”
“But they say Drasen awards prize money based on the grade of the monsters caught, right?”
“You fool. There’s the Devouring Knight. Whose hands do you think that prize goes into?”
“No, no—you’re the one who doesn’t know. The prizes go only to the guests. Drasen keeps nothing, even if they place in the rankings.”
“Ah, then maybe Grade 3 is worth a shot? If we dig some traps and pool our strength, even Grade 3 should…….”
“Right. Let’s hurry. At this time of year, the lower reaches of the Northern Mountain Range won’t have many Grade 3s.”
The Monster Waves that struck each winter could occasionally produce horrifying creatures like Grade 5 Trolls, but such cases were rare.
The true nature of the Monster Wave was, after all, a phenomenon where weak monsters unable to find food in the winter Northern Mountain Range descended southward to attack humans.
Yet casualties still occurred each year, so the Hunt Festival, in which twice Drasen’s full fighting strength in Knights was deployed, was essentially an opportunity to severely reduce such damage beforehand.
Naturally.
“Come on, let’s have some real fun tearing them apart!”
Muno, who had been granted permission for a Solo Expedition since early this year, was positively thrilled.
Part of it was the satisfaction of helping his house, but something else weighed more heavily.
“I’m going to dump every bit of stress on those monster bastards!”
He felt an intense compulsion toward the hunt itself.
‘Medieval nobles were obsessed with hunting for a reason.’
Having come to a world barren of entertainment compared to modern civilization, he’d finally understood it.
In such an environment, hunting was practically the only pleasure to be had.
And on top of that, it actually benefited his house—how could he not be excited?
Of course.
“Young Master, slower……!”
“We’re falling behind!”
He wasn’t venturing out alone, so he couldn’t afford to be entirely carried away.
Behind him followed twelve soldiers tasked with extracting and transporting the necessary parts from his kills.
A Solo Expedition meant hunting without the company of another Knight, not hunting alone and mournfully.
In this world where superhumans existed in number, soldiers without awakened abilities were effectively little more than laborers with minimal security capability, tasked with menial work.
Of the twelve soldiers pulling carts and following him, half bore blades better suited for butchering than combat.
Drasen did provision its soldiers with basic Body Strengthening Technique training and drills, but actual Awakening among them was exceedingly rare, so they remained support personnel regardless.
Even this was less than half the usual number.
As soldiers had to be assigned to other nobles participating in the Hunt Festival as well, the number of soldiers attached per Knight had been drastically reduced.
Naturally.
Crash, bang, tumble.
“M-master!”
The trouble started the moment they began hauling the cart up the mountain path.
“Ugh…….”
He couldn’t just abandon it either.
Muno, who had been dashing eagerly up the trail, turned back to the soldiers and hauled the cart up before it could roll down the slope.
Thud.
“Th-thank you.”
It was only when he saw Rom, the soldiers’ squad leader, with that exhausted face that Muno finally accepted the unavoidable reality.
Sigh.
“No, I was pushing too hard. Let’s take it slow.”
Just two days ago, he’d had that duel with the mage, and before that, a sparring match with Carina.
Going through those two battles had stirred something in him—a combative fire he hadn’t meant to kindle—and he was only now aware of it.
Bitter taste.
‘It’s been two days since I caught that mage. They won’t make a move again so soon. And yet I need to release this tension somehow.’
It was frustrating, but there was no point rushing and wearing out his soldiers.
They were part of the household he needed to protect, after all.
“There’s no hurry. That’s right—I’ll comb through my assigned route at a leisurely pace and clean out any monsters that might become a threat later. That’s enough.”
The words weren’t for the soldiers, but a promise he made to himself.
‘I seem to be getting a bit too eager…….’
Was it the nature of the Demon Devourer, or was it from squeezing out and swallowing Amerus’s Mana?
But the fact that he could recognize the problem himself suggested it was temporary. Still, he knew he couldn’t afford to be complacent just because he had the unique advantage of being able to divide his consciousness.
Yet capturing Amerus hadn’t only brought him side effects.
Crunch.
The strength flowing into his lightly clenched fist was unmistakably different from before.
He’d gained at least a twenty percent increase in power.
‘Not just strength, but every aspect of my capacity overall. Hm…….’
A smile spread across his face naturally.
Growing by more than twenty percent across strength, reflexes, and senses meant his actual combat effectiveness was probably nearly double what it had been before.
Other body-strengthening practitioners had to undergo grueling training to achieve such growth, yet he’d accomplished it simply by catching a single mage.
Of course, calling it ‘simply’ when a 1-Star Knight had devoured the entire Mana of a 2-Circle Mage was debatable, but for someone with the Demon Devourer ability, it hadn’t been difficult at all.
‘I wish they’d send more of them.’
He was fired up enough to think like that.
But then.
“M-master.”
“Hmm?”
“We, we must have displeased you. We’ll keep up with you as fast as we can. We’re so very sorry for falling behind.”
“S-so sorry.”
The soldiers suddenly began acting strange.
What?
‘What’s gotten into them?’
He could only stare in bewilderment at Rom, whose whole body was trembling, and at the ashen faces of the soldiers behind him.
“I’m not angry.”
“I-it’s all our fault. Please, we beg you.”
Especially Rom, standing closest to him, looked like he might collapse if Muno so much as raised his voice.
‘Why……?’
Bewildered though he was, Muno’s improved eyesight—a benefit of his heightened physical abilities—allowed him to catch his own reflection in Rom’s wide eyes.
A smile, cold and sinister, and fangs protruding from his lips, gleaming unnaturally bright.
He glanced down at his own body in alarm, and found dark red veins bulging prominently across his forearms and knuckles.
And most of all.
Whsh.
Even the grass around his feet, where his unconscious grip had drained them of color, was yellowing and wilting.
‘Ah, no…….’
He understood intuitively what was happening.
Amerus’s Mana, which he hadn’t yet fully digested, was beginning to leak out through his body.
The side effects were far more than just a hastier temperament.
He’d gained new understanding, but that wasn’t what mattered right now.
Thinking about how this appearance must look to the soldiers, he knew he had to do something about it immediately.
But then, at that very moment, a convenient excuse presented itself.
“It’s not you I’m angry with…”
“Please…”
“…It’s because of those things.”
“…Pardon?”
Crack-snap.
Thud.
The moment Rom lifted his head again, Muno launched himself upward like an arrow, sprinting toward the brush above the slope.
And then.
“Shriek!?”
“Good to see you, monsters. So…”
He came face to face with a band of goblins that had been waiting on the hillside, watching for their moment to ambush.
“…Die.”
Slice-crack.
The three goblins at the front of the pack were cloven clean in half by a single stroke of his Great Sword.
“Screech!”
“Shriek!”
As the rest of the goblins scattered in panic, Muno carved through their ranks.
‘Drain every last bit of mana.’
Crack-crunch-crack.
In truth, killing goblins yielded little beyond some of the paralytic venom from the Poison Barbs they carried.
Moreover, they weren’t truly monsters—any properly trained soldier with decent equipment could handle five or six of them.
Yet against this band of goblins, Muno wielded his Great Sword with such ferocity that he even pushed his Acceleration to its limits.
The poor goblins, driven by hunger to risk hunting humans, met a terrible calamity that day.
Crash-boom!
In moments, they were wiped out entirely.
“…B-but sir, the Poison Barbs are all destroyed. Everything’s been smashed to pieces…”
“Hmm. I suppose I got a bit carried away. My apologies.”
“Oh, no, sir. There’s no need to apologize…”
The soldiers, surveying the corpses of some fifty goblins, stepped back with awkward laughter.
‘They seem even more frightened now.’
A wry smile crossed his face—his control hadn’t quite worked out as planned—but it didn’t matter much.
If the fear the soldiers had felt upon witnessing his demonic form was dread of the unknown, it had now transformed into awe before an overwhelming force.
Better that gossip spread of “the wild young master slaughtering monsters” than some strange rumor that defied explanation.
‘And I’ve burned through all my mana.’
He had once clung stubbornly to mana reserves, intending to use it when he wielded the Drasen Great Sword Technique. Now he understood that had been foolish.
And he’d learned that monsters, regarded as byproducts of the demonic, didn’t actually grant significant mana in return.
‘I only consume mana at a level I can digest. Just grasping that truth is enough.’
Having recalibrated his approach, Muno turned his gaze toward the path that led deeper into the mountains.
“Since we got nothing from the goblins, shall we venture a bit deeper today?”
“…I beg your pardon?”
He saw the soldiers’ faces twist.
But inspiring their enthusiasm was no difficult feat.
“Whatever I hunt, I’ll split the spoils half with you.”
“Sir!?”
“So let’s push forward!”
“Yes, yes! Understood!”
“Long live the young master!”
“Hurrah!”
Fear of an overwhelming force transformed into morale the moment they recognized that force fought at their side.
At the entrance to the Northern Mountain Range—the barrier separating the world of mankind from all that lay beyond—Muno and his company began their ascent with renewed vigor.
And that day.
“Yaaaah!”
Slice-crack-boom.
“Shriek!”
Muno’s massive Great Sword split the great-horned boar, the Maktho, clean in two.
“Again, forward!”
Crash-boom!
“Shrieeeek!”
A pack of Nol not long after they’d struggled against similar creatures—torn to shreds in mere minutes.
Though Muno, swinging his Great Sword with mad abandon and tearing through everything in his path, slew more monsters than any other Knight at the Hunt Festival that day, he still ranked only sixth overall.
The primary reason was the corpses—shattered so violently that they were barely recognizable.
Because of this.
Drasen’s crown prince hunted monsters whose strength exceeded his own without hesitation.
He would slaughter them until he was on the verge of collapse, all to protect the safety of his domain.
He was already a Knight of remarkable skill, far beyond his years.
Drasen’s prodigy Knight.
Muno’s first nickname had begun to spread quietly among the people.

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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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