CHAPTER 83…………………………………………………….
The garden, thick with the scent of blooming flowers, was already steeped in pitch-dark darkness.
Ashur hurried to Sierra’s side, who seemed about to collapse.
“Sierra!”
Surprisingly, Deric did not stop him.
He simply watched their reunion with cold eyes.
“Ashur! I’m sorry, I’m sorry… sniff… I’m sorry…”
Sierra’s sorrow flowed from her eyes as she clung to him.
Ashur, unaware that he was covered in blood, only worried about the warmth of her body—so hot it almost felt feverish—wondering if she was hurt.
He glared at Deric, who watched them without moving.
“What’s the point of putting on this little performance?”
He was a man Ashur could never understand.
One moment he could be kind even to Sierra, and the next, he was ruthlessly cruel.
“Who knows… maybe it’s what I want.”
Deric looked at the two of them with an enigmatic expression.
A cold wind blew, scattering his black hair.
“In any case, you should know who your master is.”
At Deric’s nod, Ashur’s face contorted.
“Ugh…”
“Ashur!”
Sierra, who had barely stopped crying, witnessed his agony before her eyes.
She could not bear it.
“Please! Duke!”
Sierra approached Deric, who stood stiffly on his own.
“Ugh…”
Ashur, having lost her from his arms, exhaled heavily.
“I’ll do whatever you want… please, don’t do this. I beg you…”
Deric’s hand gently lifted Sierra’s chin.
“Call me Deric, like before, Sierra.”
Then he wiped her tears.
Through Ashur’s vision, he saw black shoes hidden beneath the hem of her dress.
“Ugh… hhagh…”
Even in the midst of endless pain, the fact that they were drawing closer was unbearable.
Ashur struggled to lift his head.
For some reason, it seemed as if life had returned to Deric’s expression.
“You’ve grown a lot, yet you still cry so much.”
At that moment, the orb in Ashur’s hand glowed faintly.
At the same time, Deric’s gaze darkened again, like clouds covering the sky.
“…I trust you will cooperate sincerely in the experiments starting tomorrow.”
At his signal, the men appeared and dragged away Ashur, who had eventually fainted from the unrelenting pain.
Sierra’s wet gaze remained on Ashur to the very end.
A new approach had to be devised.
Kadiya’s effort had ended in vain, but fortunately, it seemed she had not been discovered.
Ultimately, Sierra was made to participate in the experiments aimed at applying the reinforcement magic circles to the army.
The place where the experiments would take place was very familiar to her.
Sierra threw off her doll-like dress and picked up a comfortable dress and robe.
Her destination was not far.
After getting off the carriage, she lifted her head.
The massive ivory tower, which had preserved the continuity of magic since ancient times, came into view.
“…It’s been a while.”
Sierra had grown here from a child into a girl after losing her parents.
The person who brought her to the magic tower had done so out of shallow pity for her situation, showing kindness but not truly guiding her.
Sierra’s teacher had been the vast collection of books.
Fortunately, she was naturally endowed with abundant mana and had the ability to intuitively master magic just by studying the theory.
Had she not been raised as a noblewoman, her talent would have made her famous long ago.
Moreover, she trained relentlessly, diving into all kinds of research.
There were no shortage of people who, despite appearances, called her ruthless because of her relentless nature.
Even in this harsh magic tower, there were peers she could call colleagues.
“Sierra! You brat, how long has it been!”
“You’re still alive, huh?”
“Alec. Theo.”
Seeing Alec, who greeted her with unclouded joy, and Theo, whose lips were slightly pouted as he muttered teasing remarks, she felt a little at ease.
When she first arrived at the tower, the old man who brought her had left her to find her own way, citing his busyness.
She had been completely abandoned after her family fell, and left alone with only the aimless wanderings of the immature Owen.
At that time, not knowing much about what a magician truly was, the sharp, gossiping eyes of the nobles had only frightened her.
Luckily, Alec and Theo, who had arrived around the same time, treated her without concern, allowing her to endure.
Unrestrained peers and endless scholarship gave her the strength to become an exceptionally talented magician.
“Alright, enough greetings, let’s get to work.”
This time, the supervisor following her was a magician loyal to the Isteban duke family.
Normally, knights would follow, but they could not pass through the doors of the magic tower.
Alec spat out provocatively upon seeing him.
“Who’s this? Isn’t he the guy who got kicked out of the tower last year?”
“What did you say? I left on my own, you utterly naive kid.”
Usually, a magician is supported with research funds and occasionally dispatched, but not tied to a single family—so this was unusual.
He had probably done something to offend the tower.
As they glared at each other, mana flaring between them, Sierra wearily intervened.
“…Stop, Alec. You don’t want to be reported for causing trouble with the Isteban Duke, right?”
“Tch.”
Fortunately, they passed without further incident.
Alec seemed to decide to ignore the duke family magician and walked ahead.
They passed a quiet corridor and soon arrived at a place.
“Ta-da! Let me introduce our joint lab!”
It was a place far too familiar to Sierra.
“What… this is my lab?”
“Do you know how many months it’s been since you disappeared? We handled it ourselves.”
He winked with one eye and opened the door, and she followed.
When she had been here, the lab had been piled high with research materials, dull and cluttered; now it was set up like a proper reception room.
The duke family magician glanced around the lab, then, seeming annoyed, flopped onto the sofa.
Since there was nowhere to escape, he appeared willing to merely observe.
Alec led her to a desk further inside, stacked with papers.
She recognized her handwriting.
“You… left all this behind.”
These were precious materials she had not managed to take with her when she left.
“You can’t neglect the materials of a genius magician. But man, your handwriting is impossible to read.”
Though she felt a twinge of emotion, it quickly faded.
“As long as I can read it, that’s enough.”
“Exactly. Thanks for all the trouble decoding it.”
Typical of playful Alec.
Sierra gave a small smile in response.
“Why decode my work? How sinister.”
“Huh. Finally, a smile.”
Apparently her expression had been dark.
It was inevitable.
She had left Ashur alone there.
“Hey, while you were gone, I tried a lot of modifications on the magic circles.”
“…Ah, I see.”
Alec brazenly admitted to what he had done.
Since she had anticipated it, she had already burned the crucial materials.
But the royal family would likely push for active use of reinforcement magic circles.
“Hey, but even a single misstroke can ruin everything. The old men had a tough time.”
Alec rummaged through the desk, chuckling.
“Drawing magic circles is a very delicate task. That’s why I made exact blueprints, right?”
Sierra shrugged.
“Right. I didn’t think you’d be clever with money too. Ah, here it is. But it’s still tricky to use for war, isn’t it?”
Alec glanced at the duke family magician over her shoulder.
He seemed completely uninterested.
“So, Sierra, could you take a look at this? We’ve made some progress.”
“…What…”
At that moment, a sly voice penetrated her mind.
- “It’s a sort of telepathy, but selling it for money would be too risky, right? What do you think?”
- “Can you hear me?”
It was Alec and Theo’s voices.
Sierra looked at them in surprise.
Now she understood why they had been cautious around the magician on the sofa.
- “You’re suppressing your mana barrier, right? Just listen to me.”
She quietly nodded.
She naturally continued flipping through the papers, one by one.
- “The reinforcement magic circle modifications caused chaos for a while.”
After Sierra disappeared, the magic tower fell into disarray. Under her command, reinforcement magic circles had been continuously developed, and her sudden absence left a gap.
While they struggled without progress, another genius magician suddenly appeared.
A beautiful man with long blonde hair and violet eyes, astonishingly smart and powerful.
From the moment he appeared, “unique experiments” began.
