The Knight Who Devours Magic - Chapter 45

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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 45. Karin? Karin?
[Collide had gone berserk, contrary to expectations?]
“My apologies. I failed to manage the slave properly…….”
[No, never mind. It was defective anyway, wasn’t it? The problem was making a slave out of him right before he crossed the threshold—the connection wavered, the mind remained incomplete…….]
“However…….”
By taking such a one as a slave, it had been easy to plant people in Aslan.
……but there was no way to argue against that.
[Fine. Thanks to him, we’ve manufactured a pretext for Aslan and Trian to clash—for defective goods, he performed well. More importantly, what about confirming that one’s abilities?]
More important than losing a 5-Star Mage was confirming the experimental subject’s capabilities?
The shadow bowing before the communication crystal could not grasp that meaning, yet the answer came at once.
“Yes, confirmed. I observed the slave perceiving the mana directly.”
[So he truly pierces through veils. Heh heh……. How remarkable…….]
The shadow remained bowed until the laughter flowing from within the communication crystal ceased.
Then, a moment later.
[This provides clearer motivation to secure him. Therefore, the plan changes.]
“Pardon? The plan changes, you say?”
[Circumstances have shifted—it is only natural. Step forward yourself.]
“Myself?!”
The shadow could not help but raise her head abruptly.
Red hair cascaded from beneath the hood of the robe, and a round face was revealed; the moment her eyes met those of the figure within the crystal sphere.
The shadow saw ‘that one’s’ brow furrow and found herself forced to bow her head again in haste.
“My apologies, Master.”
[……You cannot become my successor through behind-the-scenes work alone, Karin. And the work in Aslan—there was no need for you to meddle further, was there?]
“Ah, I understand.”
[That is why this is an opportunity for you. Because you are one who can deploy the Dual Veil, it is a task I can entrust only to you. And simultaneously, we shall test whether he can see through even a double veil.]
When she wondered if her master truly meant to throw her at him as a test.
[Surely you, of all people, can turn even that to your advantage? Am I mistaken?]
At her master’s provocation, Karin could only nod in agreement.
“Of course.”
[Recover the experimental subject, and simultaneously sow discord. But do not forget—recovering the experimental subject comes first.]
“Yes.”
My precious 5-Star slave, one so difficult to acquire again, takes second priority to some experimental subject?
And moreover, changing the organization’s plans just to issue this order was entirely incomprehensible.
[However, in the worst case, there is no need to recover him alive.]
With such a condition attached, the matter became different.
“……Understood.”
At the corner of the red-haired shadow’s mouth, bent in a bow, a smile was unmistakably playing.
* * *
“It must be taxing, Administrator Karin?”
A soft voice drifted in through the carriage window.
The pronunciation had always been similar enough, but now the alias had become more familiar than her true name, Karin.
At that, she smiled.
“Not at all, Commander. The affairs of my house take priority over easing my own fatigue.”
It was an answer given without even opening the window, yet he would not take it as discourteous.
After all, it was true that she was too exhausted to even muster the strength to open it.
‘This is the inescapable fate of a mage.’
No matter how far one pushes into the 6-Circle realm, no matter how one defies the natural order to maintain the appearance of someone in their twenties.
So long as a mage carried mana within them, physical frailty could not be avoided.
Not unless one climbed to the heights of SevenStar, the 7-Circle, and completely ‘transformed’ the body thereafter.
‘Someday, without fail…….’
In the moment she was sighing inwardly, the carriage curtain drew open with a soft rustle.
“Your voice does sound grave. It seems we’ve pushed the march too hard after all. We should rest here for today.”
“Ah, no, Commander. I’m fine…….”
“I’m not fine. If my financial administrator—the one who must extract reparations from Trian—loses her health, who will handle the accounts?”
Who would believe that this middle-aged man, whose expression was so stern, spoke in such a gentle manner? And that he was rumored to be the legendary Lightning Sword.
And how could one even explain that he had been ordered to enter Trian as swiftly as possible and restore his house’s honor?
‘As if reparations matter. It’s all just an excuse, after all.’
In truth, the ‘administrator’s’ accompaniment was merely for show; their true purpose was far from mere reparations.
The knights in the party could hardly fail to know the secret orders.
Yet among the knights pouring their gazes upon Karin through the parted curtain, not a single one showed any sign of disagreement with Evan Orgus’s words.
‘Men, all men are alike.’
She stifled a quiet laugh, then nodded smoothly.
“Then, without further pretense…….”
She wanted to reach Trian just as badly, but her body refused to cooperate.
This had been the only inconvenience since stepping into the great realm of Magic.
‘Once I complete the mission and become the successor, receive the secret teachings, then someday I too…….’
Recalling her master and lord’s command, Karin descended slowly from the carriage.
Instantly, she felt gazes converging from all sides.
“Such beauty…….”
“Even the Northern Rose couldn’t compare…….”
“Remarkable…….”
“So that’s why the Commander…….”
Murmurs from Aslan’s elite troops.
Not one among them was unmarried, yet their eyes gleamed with undisguised hunger.
‘Males, all the same.’
Suppressing the revulsion that surfaced anew, she painted on an exhausted expression—or rather, wore one with genuine weariness.
“Ah……. I feel alive again at last.”
“Quite so. A delicate thing like you must find even the carriage confining.”
The stern-faced middle-aged man who echoed her words made no move to dismount.
She understood perfectly.
The moment he stepped down, it would show that his height was no different from hers.
‘Lightning Sword, my foot. Just a complex-ridden shortstack.’
Scarcely 165 centimeters tall.
He’d become a 6-Star Knight through desperate effort to overcome that flaw—a truly remarkable ascent by any measure.
But to Karin, now walking the path of great Magic, he was simply a pathetic middle-aged man.
A pitiful wretch who’d barely learned crude Hard Body Technique and swordplay, unmarried well into his fifties, a failure.
Wielding a greatsword as tall as himself looked utterly graceless, and the soubriquet “Lightning Sword” that his powerful strikes supposedly earned was merely laughable.
‘Has he ever even witnessed true lightning conjured by genuine power—by Magic?’
But she could not let such contempt show.
Quite the opposite.
“Your kindness means much, but I worry my condition is delaying our schedule.”
“Oh, think nothing of it, Karin. If we are delayed, Trian will only grow more anxious.”
It was absurd to see the supposedly grand Lightning Sword misinterpreting his lord’s words and fawning so shamelessly—yet she merely nodded as though it all made perfect sense.
Beyond that.
“Are the others in the other carriages well? I hope my presence isn’t causing them undue hardship…….”
She added a touch of concern for the other attendants and administrators.
“Why, the separation of genders is a delicate matter, after all. Your heart is as beautiful as your face.”
Evan’s pleased expression had become almost unbearable to witness.
In the capital’s noble culture, a married couple could strip naked and roll in the shadowed groves of a salon without shame.
So what difference could propriety truly make?
“Still, I cannot help but feel apologetic.”
“Tch. Abandon such thoughts. Think only of recovering yourself. It will benefit this expedition all the more.”
‘Tch’ indeed.
She’d never heard such a sound from someone decades her senior.
The more he opened his mouth, the clearer it became how inadequate he was—the true nature of that grandiose figure, the Lightning Sword, Evan Orgus.
But such inadequacy only made him easier to manipulate.
It was common knowledge that Mental Magic rarely worked on advanced practitioners of Hard Body Technique, yet with a fool like this, she didn’t even need it.
Her beauty alone sufficed.
“So you should rest easy…….”
“Then I shall rest as you say, Commander.”
“Ahem. Um. Very well.”
An administrative officer had openly interrupted the Commander’s words, and yet he merely cleared his throat in embarrassment.
Wasn’t this too a form of magic?
“Well then, let us prepare camp here!”
“Lady Karin, I shall tend the fire…….”
“No, no. Allow me.”
“The wood, then, I shall——”
Knights—not mere attendants, but actual knights—scrambled over themselves to help with her camp preparations, yet she felt nothing anymore.
She thought only of her objective tonight.
‘An Experimental Subject…….’
To be frank, if it were just him, capturing or killing him would be child’s play.
But.
‘Trian…. Especially that northern barrier—it cannot be ignored.’
The real thing, incomparable to this little-man complex bundle of the expedition.
She had to dispose of the experimental subject in territory guarded by such an old fox.
Yet it didn’t seem particularly difficult.
‘Piercing through the veil? Even so, a Dual Veil would be beyond him. No—at first, I won’t even need the Dual Veil. If he recognizes my mana, he’ll be terrified. Better to use that to my advantage.’
She wasn’t sure how much influence he wielded in Trian.
But if she could pin a mere administrator—and such a pretty one at that—as a high-ranking mage, that alone would narrow his position further.
‘Then I’ll squeeze out a few tears, and after nightfall, take care of him with a bit of careful handiwork.’
Even if his influence proved greater than expected and Enoch Trian believed his words, nothing would change.
She was a mage who toyed with the principles of the world and commanded miracles—one of the highest-ranking mages, save for those of SevenStar caliber.
With so many prepared spells, manipulating a mere pup with keen eyes was nothing.
And even without magic, she had plenty of options.
‘It’s simple to provoke Evan and make him fight.’
Even if he was a fool, this little man was still a 6-Star Knight, capable of holding off Enoch Trian to some degree.
‘And if I lend a hand in secret….’
She could kill Enoch Trian.
Or at the very least, even with minimal effort, the members of the expedition could hold their own against the Trian Knight Order’s onslaught for a time.
‘And I disappear with the experimental subject in the chaos.’
That method wouldn’t be bad either.
And if it came to that, the sparks of conflict between Aslan and Trian would spread in earnest.
The organization’s plan to sow chaos across the northern continent would begin in Trian.
‘Perfect.’
It truly was a flawless plan.
So much so that earning points with that person from just this single task felt like a stroke of luck.
Of course.
‘I’ll have to research how the experimental subject can see through that person’s veil. Perhaps from that alone, I’ll gain my own secret art. And then, him….’
I’ll tear him to pieces.
From the start, she had no intention of letting live the experimental subject that had killed her slave.
Since that person had said first that ‘killing is permitted,’ she was not ignoring any restrictions.
Karin, the administrator—or rather, the 6-Circle mage Karin—smiled and dreamed of a rosy future.
And right up until she arrived in Trian, that hope seemed as though it would come to fruition.
But the moment she stepped inside Trian’s inner citadel.
From that point on, Karin—or rather, the entire expedition—could not help but sense that something was going wrong.
That northern barrier, Enoch Trian himself and the entire Trian Knight Order were waiting for them inside the citadel.
“What is this….”
The group could only be taken aback.
A hundred-odd knights stood in full ceremonial armor bearing the gray rose insignia.
They lined both sides as though receiving an honored guest, and at the end stood Count Enoch Trian, renowned across the realm, dressed in complete formal regalia.
But the shock was brief.
“They’re bowing as we approach, aren’t they?”
“Indeed. No matter how powerful Trian is, they can’t afford to make an enemy of Aslan.”
“I didn’t expect such a submissive posture, but….”
The conclusion came quickly.
‘How anticlimactic.’
Evan Orgus had to suppress a smile that threatened to slip out naturally.
If he laughed here, he might complicate matters that could otherwise be resolved smoothly.
Even if he was a knight who had done nothing but train, he possessed at least that much discernment.
And so.
The moment the conclusion was clear, he dismounted and charged through the line of knights.
Normally, he avoided standing before other knights without ceremony or his horse, but now he had no choice.
Tap-tap-tap.
“Ha…. How could his lordship come to receive us in person like this….”
The man presiding over this grand ceremony of virtual surrender was far his senior as a 6-Star Knight and ranked considerably above him in station.
Evan bowed deeply before the towering count, deliberately lowering his posture.
His pride was not wounded in the slightest.
‘Even so, I hold the advantage.’
This ceremony itself conveyed the count’s intentions.
And that was what mattered.
Yet something about Enoch Trian’s expression seemed peculiar — as if he were about to voice a complaint.
“How dare you deliberately flout the arrival time? Are you deceiving me? Do I strike you as such a fool!?”
“…I beg your pardon?”
“I stood here in full regalia for half a day, and this is how Aslan repays me? What manner of jest does Enoch Trian warrant in your eyes?”
Half a day? What was he talking about?
We’d only arrived two hours ago.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand—”
As I opened my mouth to voice a legitimate objection to this bewildering turn of events—
“Or is this your own doing?”
“…I beg your pardon?”
Before I could even process the question, the Count’s palm drove toward me with a sharp crack, and the world exploded into blinding white. My body hurtled through the air.
“Gasp—!?”
The impact felt as though my neck might snap.
Bang!
“Gasp—!?”
“Commander!”
“What—what in the name of—!?”
I flew dozens of meters backward, collided with my subordinate knights, and crashed to the ground in a tangle of limbs — yet I still could not fathom what was happening.
But then—
“You dare inflict such humiliation upon me? I shall teach you how hollow that reputation truly is — the Lightning Sword itself! I hereby challenge you to a duel!!”
The outrageous declaration echoed across the square, piercing even louder than the pain.

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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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