The Knight Who Devours Magic - Chapter 25

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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 25. That’s a bit……
“No! He’s mine!!”
Clatter-clatter-clang.
Channeling the raw fury of one-sided blows, I lash out with the Iron Chain, but——
Crack.
What the chain snags at the end is only the fragile corpse of a Mage, already drained of both life and Mana, nothing but an empty husk.
“Grrrr……”
Muno — or rather, the Demon Devourer — recognizing this hollow outcome, opens his mouth to roar at Karina for stealing the prey, when——
– That’s enough.
The main consciousness forces the jaws shut.
“Grrr.”
For a moment Muno continues to emit bestial sounds, but then his eyes roll back from white pupils, and——
The swollen muscles throughout his body crackle and snap back into place.
“Ugh.”
Muno, grimacing at the pain wracking his entire frame, bows politely toward Karina.
“Thank you for your assistance, Karina.”
– Tear it to shreds!
‘Be quiet.’
Suppressing by force the screams in his head that demand to obliterate even the corpse of the Mage, he recounts the situation from when he first permitted the Demon Devourer to use Intrusion.
‘Power and speed surge far beyond normal, but I lose technique as well……. There are more drawbacks than benefits. Damn.’
He wonders if there might be some other way to use it.
In the midst of that pondering, Karina’s voice breaks his train of thought.
“……Excessive combativeness becomes poison, master. Just now was dangerous. No matter what Artifact you possessed.”
Though she knows nothing of his true abilities, she has struck at the heart of the matter.
“I understand.”
Muno nods, gazing down at his own body, where his leather combat armor has been torn to tatters.
Muscles bulging, black veins laid bare across his skin.
From the strain of forcibly swallowing magic, his entire body feels as though it might creak apart.
‘As I thought…….’
He has come to understand that the Demon Devourer, powerful as the trait may be, cannot completely consume the Mana of a Mage who outranks him by three levels or more.
And he has also realized that consuming Mana already exhausted through casting provides only an immediate replenishment to his own reserves—not the fundamental growth in power he might have hoped for.
‘I think I need to absorb the root Mana that the Mage wields while still alive……. But what’s the difference from monsters……?’
Though regret nags at him, he decides he must be satisfied with learning just one more piece of information about his own ability.
Muno collects his thoughts and focuses for a moment.
‘Like this, then…….’
Whoooosh.
The calories burned from using Acceleration cannot be helped, but he begins to refill the expended Mana with what he has just absorbed, then carefully bleed off all the surplus.
Unlike when he had consumed Amerth’s Mana, this excess energy still writhing inside him would harm his body if left unprocessed—such is his instinct.
Has he grown even slightly from this fierce battle? Now, at last, he can clearly feel the newly absorbed Mana colliding with what he has already taken in.
Of course.
“Hmm…….”
Releasing exactly as much as is unnecessary proves difficult, but once the channel opens, grasping the technique is not so hard.
‘Still, during combat it will be harder.’
The fact that there remains an endless well of secrets about his own power fills him with a strange joy.
So absorbed in concentration, he only now notices the blue eyes drawn close enough to touch.
Start.
“W-what is it?”
Flustered, he takes a step back, and Karina too blushes slightly before retreating a pace.
“Master, no matter how I look at it, this Artifact you’re using…….”
As concern spurs her to say more——
Crash!
“Hyaaaah!”
Screeeech.
Thud.
A loud battle cry rings out, followed by the sound of something collapsing.
Both turn to look, and there they see——
“Well, well. Neither of you had any intention of lending me a hand, then? Fighting the enemy while making love on the battlefield doesn’t seem quite right, does it?”
Gunter, looking thoroughly exhausted, stands before them with a corpse of a Magician Knight split in two at his back, his expression wry and knowing.
“That’s not what——!”
“……I thought you would surely win, Gunter…….”
At that, Muno and Karina spoke the same words simultaneously as if they’d rehearsed it, then trailed off as their eyes met.
An awkward smile bloomed on both their faces.
“……Well, your timing is quite perfect, you two. You’ll have a fine life together, won’t you? Go on, enjoy yourselves. I have work to do.”
Gunter began gathering the bodies of the Magician Knight and the Mage, grinning as he worked.
The flushed man and woman, who had been staring awkwardly into empty space, startled at his words and hurried to help clear the battlefield.
And so their Hunt Festival came to an end.
* * *
Crunch, crunch.
“A fourth-Circle Mage, it would seem…….”
Gulp.
“……presumably?”
“Yes, sir. There were also three-star-ranked Mazos among them.”
“Mazos……?”
Crackle. Crackle.
Gulp, gulp.
“My lord, do eat slowly.”
“……Ah! Magician Knights?”
“They hardly qualify as knights. They’re nothing but slaves, are they? The term Mazo suffices.”
“Hmm. Well, that’s true enough.”
The lord, chewing meat while attended by Palmer, affirmed Gunter’s report.
Yet his appearance was far from ordinary.
“Young master. Is that……?”
“Yes. That is my father, the lord of Dracen.”
“That one? I can hear you perfectly well, boy. Karina.”
“I, I apologize! My lord, truly…….”
“It’s all right.”
Laughing good-naturedly, Muno’s father soothed the flustered Karina—yet his appearance had utterly transformed in mere days.
Whatever he’d been doing, he’d ballooned into an extraordinarily obese, middle-aged man, nearly three times his former width.
“This portion here is particularly fatty.”
“Ah. This work is truly arduous—can’t you give me a more tender cut?”
“Meat is eaten for its fat, after all.”
“Hm…….”
Even as they spoke, Palmer handed over meat dripping with fat and the lord received it, devouring it ravenously. Karina could only gape at the spectacle.
Yet Gunter, familiar with the sight, continued his report without pause.
“In any case, that third-star Mazo was quite skilled, so the Mage must certainly be fourth-Circle.”
At Gunter’s words, Raion’s brow deepened with creases.
“Fourth-Circle…….”
Mazos—or rather, Magician Knights.
They were warriors who’d transcended their limits by contracting with demons through the mediation of high-ranking Mages of the fourth-Circle or above.
Though the parties themselves justified it as a blessing from the outer realms, the truth was that once they crossed that threshold, they became permanently fixed at that height, and bound for life to the Mage who’d arranged the contract.
By Gunter’s reasoning, calling them slaves to demons or Mages was scarcely an exaggeration.
And since a Mage could ordinarily only mediate contracts with Mazos one tier below their own rank, securing but one servant was the limit of their power.
“Moreover, the spells hurled at young master Muno in rapid succession were almost entirely third-Circle level. I’m confident in saying…….”
Munch, munch.
“Right, I follow. That fourth-Circle Mage is certain, then.”
Smack.
Raion drew his coolly reasoned conclusion from Gunter’s report, yet even as he spoke, he clutched a bone between both hands and tore at the meat—a sight indistinguishable from a savage, or rather a savage pig.
For Karina, it remained shocking.
Only then did she seem to grasp something, and an exclamation burst forth.
“So that’s what the Gluttony Knight means…….”
“Yes. This is Dracen’s secret weapon—our final trump card. The appearance leaves much to be desired, but…….”
“I can hear you just fine, son.”
Muno lightly deflected a bone that came flying his way, then smiled and continued.
“The Gluttony Knight who, in a single instant, unleashes all his energy to slay even monsters of elevated rank. It is precisely because we have such a lord that the people of Dracen can face winter without worry.”
“There, there—talk a little and suddenly your character becomes clever too. When you were young, you were always fretting over how hard your father worked. Blasted…….”
Crunch, crunch.
“So it’s not entirely wrong to say that raising children is all for naught. Heh heh.”
“Indeed. My own son, just because he found some sweetheart, makes a complete mockery of his old man…….”
Smack, smack.
“No, no! It’s not like that at all!!!”
Muno shuddered after playing a harmless prank and getting scolded, then glanced sideways.
Karina’s flushed face bent in embarrassment somehow looked even lovelier, and his heart began to race.
‘No, stop it. Don’t be fooled by appearances. Get a grip, Han Mun-ho!’
He even summoned his past life’s name in his mind, straightened his head stubbornly, and forced his gaze away—
Only to lock eyes with his father, who was wearing a knowing smile.
“I-I just wanted to tell Lady Karina how hard you were working, Father. Explaining this situation seriously would’ve been even more awkward, wouldn’t it?”
“Hard work? I’m only struggling because I’m eating so well.”
Crunch, crunch.
Raion chuckled and went back to chewing his meat.
Gunter, watching the father and son, exhaled a brief sigh before continuing.
“In any case, we can no longer hide the fact that a high-ranking Mage commanding Mazo has openly come to Dracen.”
Munch, munch.
“It took about four days, didn’t it? Before the Mage who infiltrated Dracen was defeated.”
“Yes, sir.”
Slurp.
“Then we can at least confirm that their roots lie somewhere within our kingdom.”
“Shouldn’t we report this to the Count?”
“Yes… hmm. Not today, Palmer.”
“Understood, sir.”
Burrrp.
Raion announced the end of his energy storage with a resounding belch, followed by a small sigh.
“That’s right. The situation is more serious than expected. An organization capable of deploying a high-ranking Mage without delay in just four days is operating covertly within the kingdom. In the worst case, they could even be hidden within Trian itself.”
His face had swollen to twice its size in recent days, and resting his relatively small hand against his chin made for a somewhat comical sight—but no one present could bring themselves to laugh.
However.
“But my lord, could this not also be the Empire’s scheming?”
Palmer’s offhand remark froze everyone in place.
If the Demon Magic Empire—the ancient enemy of the Iron Kingdom and the current master of the continent—was directly involved, the matter took on an entirely different dimension.
But Raion shook his head with a firm expression.
“That’s not likely.”
The Demon Cult was a heretical organization that had caused great trouble even within the Empire.
The conclusion reached during the suppression campaign ten years ago was that those who fled the Empire had hidden themselves in the Iron Kingdom.
But for Palmer, who knew nothing of Amers’s true identity or that matter, he could only tilt his head in confusion.
“I beg your pardon? Why are you so certain?”
“I made a separate report to the Count regarding this matter, so there’s no need to consider such a worst-case scenario.”
“Ah, so it’s something I shouldn’t know about… Very well, my lord.”
“I’m sorry, Palmer.”
“Not at all. Excessive secrets are never good for an old man’s heart. Still, I’m relieved it’s not the worst-case scenario.”
Raion gave a wry smile at Palmer’s jest, then sighed and organized the situation.
“I’ll report this to the Count and await his orders.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Inform the nobles of the situation, but don’t discourage those who still wish to continue the Hunt Festival. It’s something we need. The reward will be paid as promised once it’s over.”
“Yes, understood.”
“And see that the families of the soldiers killed by the Mage are compensated as generously as possible.”
Thus the conversation came to an end.
As Muno and Karina left his father’s study,
“Young master, just a moment…”
At Karina’s hesitant words, Muno’s heart began to race again.
But then—
“If the situation becomes this dire, it may cause considerable difficulty.”
“Pardon?”
“It’s about our young lady.”
“Ah…”
Her whispered follow-up set his heart pounding for an entirely different reason.
“Surely there’s no great obstacle?”
He answered as such, but Muno himself knew better than to believe it.
And the very next day,
That dark premonition became reality.
“Muno, you’ve been summoned by the House of Count Trian.”
“Me?”
“Given the timing, it wouldn’t do for me or Gunter to move. Besides, you’re the one who has been clashing with Mages, and that fact is drawing attention once again.”
“Well…….”
“Don’t worry. His Excellency knows your origins too.”
“Ah…….”
At his father’s final words, whispered almost like a prayer, Muno could only nod, bewildered as he was.
But then.
“Join the honor guard of Princess Roanna and make your way to Trian.”
That following instruction was nothing but deeply troublesome.

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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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