The Son-In-Law of the Magician Is a Transcendent Sword Master - Chapter 82
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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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Chapter 82
We were able to reach the Festival Stage before long.
On the platform stood a crudely woven straw doll the size of a person, and Trion’s brainwashed citizens had gathered around the platform.
“Huh? Where’s my brother…?”
And it was only at this point that we realized Arno, who had been behind us, had disappeared.
“M-my brother’s gone!”
Renia cried out in shock.
“H-he was here just a moment ago! I kept checking on him… mmph.”
I hastily pulled Renia into my arms and covered her mouth.
Renia asked with her eyes why, and I quietly turned my gaze toward the Festival Stage.
Renia’s eyes followed my gaze and.
“—mmph.”
She was terrified.
Hundreds of Trion citizens were staring at us with sharp, piercing eyes.
I whispered to Renia in the lowest voice possible.
“Do you understand, Renia? It’ll be trouble if we draw attention for no reason. Just calm down for now.”
Renia nodded repeatedly without saying a word, and only then did I remove my hand from her mouth.
“B-but… my brother…”
“Don’t worry. Arno disappearing isn’t your fault.”
Like Renia, I too had been constantly checking to make sure Arno was following well. But he had gone missing while I was distracted for just a moment.
Even though we were in fog, Arno wasn’t a toddler who had just learned to walk, and the possibility of him getting lost with our group just a few steps ahead was slim.
“Sheril, can you track Arno’s trail?”
“…I would like to do so, but there are no traces of the young master left on the road at all.”
Even a Covert Mage like Sheril couldn’t track him. There was a strong possibility that some magical factor was involved in Arno’s disappearance.
I exchanged glances with Valen. He sighed and said.
“It seems it would be faster to split up and search.”
“Yes. I agree as well.”
However, upon hearing Valen’s words, Renia’s shoulders trembled.
“What if we all get scattered like my brother?”
“Don’t worry, Miss. We’ll form pairs of two to search.”
Valen, having reassured Renia, looked back and forth between Sheril and me and nodded.
“I’ll go with Sheril. You take care of Miss Renia as her companion. You’re 6th Rank now, so I trust you can protect the Miss better than Sheril.”
“Yes. However…”
I looked at the Festival Stage.
The Trion citizens gathered in the Town Square were still directing their bloodshot eyes toward us.
“…For some reason, they seem very interested in us.”
“Indeed they do.”
The atmosphere itself was different from what we saw during the day. The Trion citizens were watching our every move. If we caused any commotion, they looked ready to rush at us like a pack of wolves.
To find Arno, we would have to push through the densely gathered festival crowd. But passing through a group watching us with such sharp gazes would indeed be problematic.
We needed to find some method.
‘Wait.’
At that moment, a thought suddenly flashed through my mind.
“Renia, you have the festival poster, right?”
“Y-yeah. Of course I brought it. You told me to bring it.”
“Can you let me see it for a moment?”
I received the poster from Renia and unfolded it.
[Congratulations on the great Malik’s inauguration!]
[Forget your sorrows and let’s all smile together!]
[Until every citizen of Trion is smiling.]
[※ Warning: Laughter is contagious. Those who do not laugh cannot participate in the festival.]
What we needed to pay attention to here was the warning written at the end.
‘Laughter is contagious. Those who do not laugh cannot participate in the festival.’
Nothing to lose.
I slowly walked into the festival crowd.
“R-Reagan! What are you doing!”
Renia cried out in horror while holding her breath, but I paid no attention.
The closer I got, the more menacing the citizens’ expressions became. Just as the citizen at the front was about to raise the skewer in his hand, I lifted the corners of my mouth and made a small sound.
“Ha, ha, hahaha.”
A dry, emotionless laugh.
That alone was enough.
Waaaaaaah——!
Because earth-shaking laughter erupted from around the Festival Stage.
The straw doll that had been standing on the platform began to burn. As if this was the signal announcing the start of the festival, all the Trion citizens gathered in the Town Square began dancing while making bizarre laughter.
The citizen who had been about to swing his skewer also turned his attention away from me as if nothing had happened and began focusing on the festival.
“I see.”
“Reagan… what’s all this about?”
“These puppets are just faithfully following the content of the wall poster. ‘Only those who smile can participate in the festival.’ So, you just need to force yourself to smile.”
“How did you… figure that out?”
“Hmm. Just… intuition.”
I couldn’t tell them it was due to my experience from my previous life, so I glossed over it.
Among the Black Mages who mainly used barrier magic, there were indeed some oddballs who carved special rules into their barriers.
Like triggering hallucinations when certain words were spoken, or scattering mana the moment killing intent was harbored.
Malik must have also implanted the rule that one must smile into the minds of the brainwashed citizens. It was nothing short of a twisted hobby.
“Well, since we seem to have figured out how to avoid the citizens’ hostility, let’s find Arno first.”
Valen and Sheril nodded at my words.
* * *
So Valen and Sheril headed toward East Street, the direction we had come from, while Renia and I proceeded toward Northwest Street beyond the festival stage.
This inevitably meant we had to pass through the main road teeming with festival crowds, which wasn’t exactly a pleasant experience.
Kyahahaha!
Kehihihihi!
Bizarre laughter that seemed to tear at our ears echoed from all directions.
A festival filled with laughter taking place in the dead of night. At first glance, one might think it was an ordinary festival, but the reality was horribly twisted.
“Kek, khek.”
A clown in laughing makeup strangled himself while shedding tears of blood, and the spectators burst into laughter watching this.
“…Why are they doing that?”
Renia asked as if she couldn’t understand, but it would be difficult for me to answer.
They were simply carrying out Malik’s instructions at face value.
This bizarre play where they had to laugh while abusing themselves directly represented Malik’s twisted psyche.
‘Disgusting bastard.’
I swallowed a brief curse inwardly.
I really had to cut off Malik’s head now, even if it meant pushing myself.
Bang!
Crack!
While making that resolution and quickening my pace, I reached a street stall. It was the same stall that had been dismantled during the day.
A broadly smiling merchant was selling food while cutting with a knife, blood streaming from his hands, but upon closer inspection, it was rotten meat crawling with maggots.
The stench was so overwhelming that Renia unconsciously frowned. Immediately, the surrounding citizens glared at us with hostile eyes.
“Uh, uuh…”
“Renia, you need to smile.”
“Ha, haha.”
Renia forced a laugh. Only then did the citizens withdraw their suspicion and continue what they were doing.
Though what they were doing wasn’t particularly impressive.
The merchant mechanically chopped meat with an expressionless face, unaware that the wounds on his hands were opening, while customers took the meat mixed with blood and maggots and showed exaggerated laughter as if savoring the taste.
It was a meaningless repetition of actions like broken clockwork dolls.
Renia asked me with a pale expression.
“…Reagan, those people… can they be saved?”
“Well…”
In my previous life, people whose minds were broken by Malik’s magic had to live as invalids for the rest of their lives even after he died.
But now was different from my previous life. It hadn’t been long since Malik brainwashed these people.
“If we hurry, we might be able to save them. For now, let’s prioritize the goal in front of us. Finding Arno.”
“Yes!”
Renia clenched both fists as if steeling her resolve and nodded, but…
“Eek!”
When a deranged passerby suddenly jumped out from the fog right in front of us, she was startled out of her wits. Renia leaped up like a cat that had touched hot water and leaned against me as if embracing me.
‘Unexpected.’
I remembered Renia as having quite good courage.
Was this a change that occurred after experiencing war?
Or had she always been like this, but I just hadn’t noticed?
Whatever the reason, the fact that Renia was trembling in my arms right now remained unchanged.
“Hmm…”
The feeling wasn’t too bad.
* * *
Had about an hour passed since we started our search?
“Brother!”
We finally found Arnaud von Benheim in a secluded alley in northwest Trion.
“Haha, I… I… won… hehe…”
Arno was sitting slumped against a wall with his face buried between his knees.
His golden hair was disheveled, and incomprehensible sounds flowed from his mouth.
“What are you doing here! How did you get separated!”
Renia made a worried expression and rushed toward Arno, but….
Grab.
I caught and pulled back Renia by the scruff of her neck.
Renia looked back at me with resentful eyes. I pointed at Arno with my chin.
“Look carefully. Does your brother seem normal to you right now?”
“What on earth are you talking about….”
Swish!
Before Renia could finish speaking, I imbued Benheim’s treasured sword with aura and swung it vertically upward.
Crash!
The rune magic that Arno had launched in a surprise attack was split apart.
“Hahaha! I won! I’m superior! Kekeke!”
Arno’s face as he raised his head was no different from the citizens we’d seen so far. His purple eyes were bloodshot like a beast’s, and his cheeks were raised high.
“Tsk.”
Somehow.
I had a feeling this would happen from the moment he was the only one missing.
“Renia, it seems your brother has ended up in a similar state to the tower master.”
“…No, it can’t be.”
Renia made a devastated expression.
However, the situation was too dire to just despair.
Thud thud thud thud!
Ear-splitting footsteps filled the alley.
The citizens who had been enjoying the festival until just moments ago noticed the commotion and came rushing into the alley where we were.
In front was the brainwashed Arno, and behind us the citizens completely blocked the path.
We were completely surrounded with no way out.
“Wh-what do we do…!”
“…Well. This is quite a troublesome situation.”
Knocking down the brainwashed citizens and opening a path wouldn’t be difficult.
However, those citizens rushing at us were innocent victims who had become puppets due to Malik’s brainwashing. I had to subdue them without hurting them as much as possible.
“Die! Die, I say! It’s the family head’s order! Kehit!”
But for that, Arno was fiercely deploying rune magic and glaring at us with the intent to kill.
Blocking Arno’s magic while simultaneously subduing all these citizens without harting them was impossible with my current level. If I used Barisada, I might be able to break the citizens’ brainwashing, but it would be difficult to cut through all these numbers.
After pondering for a moment, I thought of a clever plan.
“…Renia, hold on tight.”
“Huh? Huh huh?”
I wrapped my left arm around Renia’s waist and used thread sword magic with my right hand.
Flash.
The sword created with thread sword magic was a much broader greatsword than what I usually used.
Of course, I didn’t draw it to swing it around. Swinging a sword of this size in an alley would be close to suicide.
——Clang!
I raised the flat of the greatsword to block Arno’s magic. Then I laid the greatsword horizontally on the alley floor.
“Renia, get on.”
“…G-get on? On this sword?”
“Yeah. I have a plan.”
“What kind of plan!”
“There’s no time to explain, so hurry.”
Renia reluctantly stepped onto the greatsword. I manipulated the thread connected to the sword, and the greatsword we were standing on gently rose up.
In the past during the Hunting Festival, I had learned Petra Rucen’s thread sword magic by watching.
In the battle that followed, I remember seeing Rucen’s family head Kaiden use thread sword magic like a flying carpet in the sky.
At that time, my level was too low to even dare attempt it, but now that I’ve reached 6th Rank, it’s different.
Actually, I’m not really sure if it’s truly different.
“This is my first time trying this, so I’m not sure if it’ll work well. Well, somehow it’ll work out.”
“W-wait a minute… Reagan… don’t tell me.”
Renia seemed to finally grasp my intention as her face turned deathly pale.
But it was already too late.
“St-stooooooooooop—!”
We took flight.
More precisely… we were shot toward the sky.
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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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