Chapter 38: Sealed Warehouse

The underground dungeons of the imperial palace of the Arken Empire.

The soldiers, dressed in service uniforms, shouted.

“Hey, it’s time for the shift change!”

“Ah, damn it… why don’t they move faster?”

“What are you talking about? I got here before the trumpet sounded.”

“You bastard… later I’ll do to you what you did.”

The guard, with a tense face, carried out the shift change.

“By the way, it’s been a while since this prison had so many occupants.”

“Now that you mention it, you went out on the operation, right? Are those guys really demon followers?”

The man asked what he had felt during the service.

No matter how much he thought about it, they didn’t seem like demon followers, but just hungry poor people.

“I don’t know about the ones they brought, but they were with demon followers.”

“Really? Isn’t that something they use when they beat agitators?”

“It seems these were real. They caught them in an ambush.”

“If real demon followers are showing up, it looks like the country is doomed.”

The one doing the shift change stared at him.

“Don’t say that around here. If I report you, they’ll take you as a demon follower immediately.”

“Wow, how scary. Forget it and finish the shift change. Today I have to see Ashley.”

“I don’t understand why you like that bar girl so much…”

While checking the prisoner list, he stopped clicking his tongue.

“Hey, this idiot messed up and didn’t even count properly.”

“What are you talking about?”

“They reported 12 prisoners, right?”

He pointed at the total.

“Then why are there 13?”

“What are you talking about? When they brought them, there were 13.”

“What are you talking about? We captured 12 and locked them up. Do you think we made a mistake?”

“Are you telling me I made a mistake? I counted them one by one when I put them in! Come see!”

“Oh yeah? Want to bet 1 golden?”

“I bet 10!”

“Perfect. 10 goldens. Get ready.”

Both, convinced, walked toward the cell.

They counted the prisoners one by one.

“One, two, three, four…”

When they finished, the result was clear.

“There are 12, idiot!”

The one doing the shift change hit him on the head.

“What? How can that be?”

The guard also counted.

“Huh?”

Just as he said, there were 12.

“Damn… you really screwed up. Did you drink on duty?”

“A little…”

“A little? You’re going straight to the dungeon! If you don’t want that, prepare the 10 goldens.”

“Damn it… how strange.”

He looked inside the cell.

The poor, exhausted, only waited for the day of their death.

***

Meanwhile, in the imperial palace.

“As expected, it’s not easy.”

Brown hair, a defined jaw, and sharp features.

A face more likely to make women cry than to receive praise for its beauty.

Zed Swallow.

He was hiding in a bathroom, looking at his reflection.

“What do you mean you don’t need two eyes? Of course you need them.”

He was clearly irritated.

Entering and leaving the prison required skills only the experienced possessed.

‘And this is the imperial palace.’

If anyone noticed the escape, the alarm would be triggered.

And then?

The best knights and mages on the continent would come for him.

And he would be captured with no escape.

So he had to appear and disappear as if flowing with the water.

It was not easy at all.

Zed devised a method based on his experience.

‘Like ditching a partner at a party…’

The trick was to disappear when the other person was absorbed.

That way, the other person would think what they saw wasn’t real, and would only realize it after everything was over.

The process was simple.

In fact, easier than abandoning a woman at a party.

At least no one shouted his name or wielded weapons.

‘I might have talent for this.’

After escaping, he infiltrated the servants’ dressing room.

He thought he wouldn’t find his size, but it wasn’t a problem.

There were uniforms for all sizes.

‘It seems many die here.’

Lives like flies.

Dozens die, and as soon as they die, they are replaced.

The servants were practically expendable.

Zed didn’t like that.

Because it wasn’t unfamiliar to him.

‘Perda Valdrova.’

He thought of his superior.

‘What am I to him?’

A man straightforward to the point of being rude.

But even that rudeness had no malice.

Zed could clearly feel it.

‘He’s like someone dealing with people for the first time.’

Someone without experience in communication, used to speaking one-sidedly.

Those kinds of traits were in Perda.

He noticed it when he asked him for advice before the tea meeting.

— How do you talk to women?

He never imagined such a question.

Zed, excited, gave him advice based on his experience.

After the meeting, Perda said.

— Good thing you have that face.

He still doesn’t know whether it was an insult or a compliment.

Either way, in this mission, Perda said there was a document related to his sister.

If it was true, he would understand what kind of relationship they had.

“Alright, time to work.”

After looking at himself a couple of times in the mirror, Zed left.

As soon as he took his first step into the palace,

“Hey, you.”

A voice echoed in the hallway.

And in that hallway, there was only Zed.

“Who are you?”

Zed muttered.

That thing about two eyes and bullshit.

***

Perda placed his hand on the Orb of Truth, and the Orb of Truth asked him.

— Do you swear that you do not follow demons nor obey their will?

Upon hearing that question, Perda thought this.

‘Orb of Truth? What nonsense.’

Perda let out an internal laugh.

In the sealed warehouse, it was also recorded how this place had been created.

What they had installed was not an artifact that pierced into a person’s interior to distinguish truth from lies.

‘What truly matters is the voice that recites the oath.’

That voice loaded with mana.

The moment one becomes distracted by the Orb of Truth, that voice that slightly shakes one’s consciousness is everything.

The orb only judges whether, upon hearing the content of that voice, the mind wavered or not.

‘It’s enough to reinterpret it.’

Since Perda was someone who tended to hate everything by default, that was extremely easy for him.

— Do you swear that you do not follow demons nor obey their will?

The voice asked again.

“Regent? Are you alright?”

Even Yuren, noticing something strange, asked him.

It was time to respond.

Perda needed the demonic grimoire.

However, his heart did not belong to demons, but to Valdrova.

“I swear it.”

The second question came.

— Do you swear that your entry into this warehouse is not due to personal desires?

All of this was for Valdrova.

There was nothing to question.

“I swear it.”

— Do you swear that you are loyal to the Empire?

‘The Empire…’

It must collapse.

“I swear it.”

Shortly after, the Orb of Truth, which was glowing blue, began to emit its verdict and changed color.

— Verified.

The color turned green.

Perda withdrew his hand.

‘This is the procedure to access the sealed warehouse?’

It seemed mediocre, but if you didn’t know it, it was a method that would catch you off guard.

Even now, Perda found it ridiculous and let out a small laugh.

“It is quite a curious object, wouldn’t you say?”

Seeing that Perda was staring at it, Yuren intervened.

“Yes, it is a curious object.”

Leaving behind that “curious” object, Perda and the magical investigator entered inside.

They went down the stairs for quite a while.

They descended an endless spiral staircase and finally entered the first sealed warehouse.

There were shelves there, and inside them were stacked sealed copper tubes.

It was the archive of sealed records.

A place where the Empire’s shame that must not come to light was stored, or great incidents that could have led the continent to ruin.

Perda had used the records of that place to lure Zed.

‘I thought he would have arrived by now hasn’t he?’

He had no way to communicate, so he didn’t know how things were going.

He had no choice but to trust that guy would handle it on his own.

‘Maybe he wasn’t even necessary for this plan.’

It was something he himself had said, but it was an absurd joke.

Zed was absolutely necessary for this plan.

“There is nothing interesting here. Besides, these are things that do not need to be known.”

In those words, which downplayed it, there was a warning not to get involved.

Of course, Perda had no intention of touching anything.

To ease the atmosphere a bit, he asked a question.

“Don’t you feel curious to see this at least once?”

Yuren nodded.

“Of course, sometimes I feel that urge. After all, even if it doesn’t seem like it, I have some academic spirit.”

“And have you done it?”

“Never. There is no need to know unnecessary things and get myself into trouble.”

He was a man with professional convictions, something rare to see in a corrupt Empire.

That was why he could be a magical investigator.

After briefly observing the place, they immediately moved on.

What mattered was further down, in the second sealed warehouse.

They descended toward it.

As they went down, Perda could feel it.

‘A familiar smell.’

Dense malice and cursed entities whispered and groaned.

Like eels surrounding a corpse at the bottom of a lake, they circled around Perda.

Yuren, noticing they were going deeper and deeper, asked him.

“Are you alright?”

Here the answer was not “of course.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s nothing, haha.”

Yuren set aside the suspicion and kept walking.

He must not show that he was perceiving something.

It was better to pretend insensitivity, as if he felt nothing.

The darkness grew denser.

The candles tried to illuminate the surroundings, but it seemed impossible to dispel all that darkness.

For a normal person, it was such a strange presence that it would provoke instinctive rejection and make them step back.

However, Yuren moved forward first.

Perda followed him.

As if passing through a great curtain, Perda’s vision suddenly cleared.

“…Phew.”

A sigh of amazement escaped him unintentionally.

More than a sealed warehouse, it looked like a secret depot of demon worshippers.

Among all of that, one object caught Perda’s attention.

Unlike the other items, one of the books placed on the central pedestal stood out.

A black cover, deeper than the thick darkness, sealed with silver chains.

‘The Shadow Art of Barbatos.’

Although he was called a stealthy demon, he was still a great demon, so the level of sealing was high.

“What do you think of this place?”

At Yuren’s question, Perda responded almost by reflex.

“As it is a place of demons, it definitely emits a repulsive energy.”

“Haha, no need to be so formal. More than repulsion, it is full of wonder.”

Wonder.

Yes, it could not be otherwise.

The high-density mana emanating from the cursed grimoires and books of sorcery.

If that enveloped the entire body, anyone would become enchanted.

The sensation that, by allowing it just a little, overwhelming power would flow through their body.

It whispered like rain in the middle of a drought, more intense than the release of all desires.

“No, it’s repulsive, nothing more.”

But Perda responded firmly.

Even when he lived consumed by hatred, he had never considered that kind of mana pleasant.

Perda was someone who destroyed what he could not possess.

And that mana did not belong to him, nor could it belong to him.

“Is that… so?”

Yuren tilted his head.

“It’s a bit strange someone of your level as a mage should feel at least a little attracted…”

He turned his gaze and fixed his eyes on Perda.

His expression was no longer the same as before.

It was not because of the strange atmosphere of the sealed warehouse.

It was his true nature coming to light.

“Well, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that it’s just the two of us.”

Yuren placed the necromancy grimoire of Gamigin he was carrying on the ground and turned his head.

On his face was reflected a repulsive killing intent he no longer hid.

It fit perfectly with that place.

“While coming here, I devised a scenario.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“I entered the sealed warehouse together with the regent at his request, but he succumbed to the influence of this place and I, with no other option, had to eliminate him. That would be the scenario. What do you think? Quite convincing, isn’t it?”

Perda placed his hand on his chin while listening.

At those words that he would be killed, the first thing he felt was not fear, but doubt.

“Here, if someone falls under the influence of black magic, are they killed without hesitation?”

“Black magic admits no exceptions. Under the almighty light, there is no mercy.”

A viscous smile appeared on Yuren’s lips.

“Even if it is the regent of the Grand Duchess.”

What an unnecessarily rigid country.

“If you kill me, you won’t leave alive either.”

“Don’t worry about me. Unlike you, I have several escape routes.”

“Escape routes after killing the regent of the Grand Duchess?”

Perda was not interested in how he planned to escape.

What mattered was that he was trying to kill him.

And what benefit he would gain from it.

‘He knows perfectly well what would happen if I die and still does it…’

Unlike when he was just a fiancé, now Perda was already the official fiancé.

That made him practically family of the Red Dragon by taking the Valdrova name.

Killing someone from that family would undoubtedly provoke retaliation.

And that retaliation would be directed at the Empire.

It was not comparable to extermination squads that came only to plunder some wealth.

‘Or is that what he wants?’

Someone within the imperial palace was willing to provoke chaos that could shake the entire continent.

Suddenly, Perda recalled the Orb of Truth he had passed through.

He had passed all the oaths.

And the reason was.

‘It seems he knows the secret of the sealed warehouse.’

He had lied from beginning to end.

‘As expected, there is no one decent in this damned Empire.’

In the midst of that critical situation, a smile appeared on Perda’s lips.

“Why are you smiling?”

“It’s nothing. Just that I didn’t think the childish scenario I wrote would actually come true.”

“The scenario you wrote?”

Yuren’s smile disappeared and he frowned.

“I imagined a scenario where I stopped the rampage of an investigator who tried to set a trap for the regent. Unlike yours, mine is actually happening.”

Perda needed the Shadow Art of Barbatos.

And for that, he had to kill the magical investigator.

It didn’t matter whether he was truly honest or not.

“Thanks to you, at least I won’t have any regrets. I can think that I’m just cleaning up trash.”

The smile completely disappeared from Yuren’s face.

“Do you really think someone like you can kill me?”

His words were an unthinkable offense under the standards of a common mage.

He was a fifth-circle mage, a Master Mage.

Recognized across the continent, and with a high position even within the Empire.

In contrast, Perda was barely third circle, a mere Magic Walker.

“If you don’t believe it…”

Mana began to gather in Perda’s right hand.

“…See for yourself.”

From his hand, a spell was fired at a speed no mage could foresee.

A fast projectile shot directly toward Yuren.