Chapter 120:
Translator: MarcTempest
Proofreader: naturallyInconsistent
Chapter 120 – Something’s not going well. Scarlet.
Cloud Family.
The endless vast territory.
The overflowing power of capital.
The power that has a foothold in the royal palace.
And…
The head of the Cloud family, Conrad.
He had a scar in the shape of a cross under his eyes, and his white hair was neatly combed back.
He was buried in a lot of information these days.
“Sigh─”
It was the same now.
He spat out the bitter smoke of the cigar endlessly, and his eyes were fixed on the letters written on the data.
Usually, he would have spent his time checking the business performance of the family or swinging his sword without error, but now his only interest was information.
It was information related to his son’s death.
Kian.
Conrad had to find out the cause of death of his son, who had grown up as a promising candidate for the family, as a father.
“We have successfully transported it safely over a week.”
And finally, the basement of the family.
The intermediaries succeeded in getting ‘Kian’s corpse’.
It took a week, but it was a great achievement considering that they quietly took out the corpse without being noticed by anyone.
“You did well.”
Conrad nodded.
He had planned to avoid even the eyes of the royal family, and he would not have done such a dangerous thing if it were normal. But his son’s death was too special.
“…”
He felt a new emotion when he grabbed the doorknob of the basement.
The act of checking his son’s corpse was strange.
He calmed his mind by sucking the cigar once, and Conrad opened the door of the basement.
“Hmm.”
The scenery he faced when he finally opened the door and entered was somewhat different from his expectation.
What Conrad had asked for was four corpses of the Azure students. But there were five iron plates.
Conrad began to peel off the white cloth that covered the iron plates one by one. It was first to find his son.
So one. Two. Three.
When he finally couldn’t stand it and peeled off all the rags of the remaining iron plates.
“…Heh.”
An indescribable emotion rose from his heart, and his calmness was broken for the first time in a long time.
Two iron plates contained Kian’s corpse. To be exact, his son’s corpse was split in half.
Conrad finally realized why there was one more iron plate.
“…”
He chewed the cigar.
He spat it out on the floor, and he looked at his son with his eyes as if they were about to burst.
What the hell happened inside the danger zone? He was curious about the reason why his son had to face such a fate.
“…?”
But Conrad soon felt something strange.
He felt a strange sense of incongruity as he faced his son’s corpse.
“Wait.”
It’s not a simple sense of incongruity.
His intuition told him.
His son’s body was not the same as usual. It was too unfamiliar and different from him…
Conrad searched every part of the corpse to find the cause.
He soon realized the identity of the sense of incongruity.
“Magic…”
He soon realized the identity of the sense of incongruity.
There was no energy that had to be in his son’s body, who followed the knight’s path.
The energy of the knight who uses his unique ability is nowhere to be found. Only the sinister magic is full.
“How pathetic.”
Conrad muttered with a distorted expression.
He despised him even if he was his son.
He felt it was very pathetic that he put aside the family and the knight’s path, and made a contract with the Witch for his own benefit.
A weak guy.
“There is the honor of the Cloud family…”
His head cooled down.
Sympathy and compassion for his son were erased in an instant, and only thoughts about the honor of the family filled his head.
Conrad pondered quietly, rubbing his chin.
How to act to protect the honor of the Cloud family. It was not difficult to find the answer.
He asked about ten intermediaries.
“There’s no one else who knows about this, right?”
“It seems like we met some magicians during the Hunting competition, but… I guarantee that there is absolutely no one else.”
“I see.”
“Hey, then as you promised…”
The representative of the intermediaries rubbed his palms quietly and looked at Conrad.
His expression was full of greed.
*
Conrad nodded.
And at the same time.
Zap-!
“Ugh!”
“Co, cough!”
The fierce smoke pierced the shoulders, abdomen, liver, and heart of the intermediaries at the same time. His unique ability 「Smoke」 turned them into a handful of meat.
He bit a new cigarette and muttered.
“Clean it up.”
Then a woman came in and quietly cleaned up the floor.
She was Kian’s sister.
He sucked the smoke deep into his lungs and sighed.
“…There are only four witnesses left.”
The four representatives of the magic department.
Now they were the only witnesses.
◈
The morning of the fierce battle dawned.
The Knight of the Flickering Flame, her duel was moved to the next region.
At their power levels, any conflict risked erasing the surroundings without a trace, so it took a lot of time to set up the arena.
And finally.
As Scarlet waited for the duel in the endless plain like the sky, someone came up and talked to her.
“Long time no see, honey.”
She spoke in a sweet and seductive voice. She was the high knight Selphen.
The owner of the unique ability 「Charm」, she was Scarlet’s classmate, and she was the same as she remembered.
Pink hair that stretched to her hips, a habit of licking her lower lip like a snake. Everything was no different from before.
Scarlet answered briefly.
“Did you come too?”
“Isn’t your reaction too stiff? I don’t like that. No. I like you being prickly.”
“Act as a high knight should.”
“Then should I become a sword saint? Well, I’ll think about that later, did you see that?”
Selphen glanced at the people who gathered to watch today’s decisive battle.
Scarlet’s eyes naturally followed her.
“Honey, do you see? So many people gathered today. I was wondering, Libra, that woman also came.”
Scarlet nodded silently.
The crowd of people gathered in the distance.
Their number was a little beyond Scarlet’s expectation.
Royal officials and aristocratic families, it was amazing that they gathered, but that was not all.
There were also quite a few wandering knights who chose the path to become sword saints.
And one more, Libra, the one who cuts memories.
“There are a lot of familiar faces, right? By the way, you are the only one who stayed in the family without wandering~”
Knights who reached a certain level usually chose the path of wandering knights. To put aside everything else, and head for the goal of sword saint.
But Scarlet refused the freedom of wandering.
The reason was simple, Judith.
“Family, sword saint, I have the confidence to take care of everything.”
“Yeah? That’s cool~ But, you wouldn’t feel good that so many people gathered, right?”
*
It was obvious.
There weren’t many spectators for a match with a predictable outcome.
A one-sided contest was boring to watch, and it was a waste of precious time to keep watching until the end.
And yet, so many people had gathered here.
That meant that those who had bothered to come here had judged that the match between Scarlet and Flan was not so obvious.
‘I’ve neglected you for too long.’
She had heard that Flan had gained some fame lately, but she never thought that he had moved the hearts of the high-ranking officials to this extent.
Every single one of them who had gathered here, their whispered conversations, their faces filled with anticipation, all of those things made her realize how much Flan’s momentum had risen recently.
“Honey, I’ll stay away from you, okay? I don’t like the heat, you know. Oh, right.”
Selphen narrowed her eyes slightly.
“I’m interested in your sister these days, you know. If I like what I see after the duel… can I try to seduce her?”
“Your interest will disappear after the duel.”
That was when it happened.
The people who had been watching Scarlet from afar started to buzz.
The Knight of the Flickering Flame narrowed her eyes and looked for the source of the noise.
“…”
She saw Flan walking towards her from a distance.
But what truly surprised Scarlet was not Flan’s appearance, but the people’s reaction.
The way they looked at Flan with their eyes sparkling.
The things that Flan had accomplished were things that Scarlet could have done as well. Then why, why did the people only rave about Flan?
To the traitor of the family.
And even more so, when the opponent was the Knight of the Flickering Flame.
Flan walked steadily until he reached Scarlet’s vicinity. But he didn’t bother to greet her first.
Scarlet quietly looked into Flan’s eyes.
His unique ability circuit was burned white, and what was flickering in his pupils was not fire.
But even so.
Burning.
Scarlet had not forgotten the flame she had seen in Verkel that day.
No, she couldn’t forget it.
How did Flan manage to create such a flame?
That question was the fate and the task that Scarlet had imposed on herself at this place today.
In the end, it was Scarlet who broke the silence first.
“Hey, there’s no need to waste time.”
“I’m always ready.”
Flan’s short answer.
With that, they turned their backs on each other.
There was no more conversation to be had, so they distanced themselves and took their positions.
“Your arrogance ends here today.”
Muttering softly, Scarlet raised her sword.
A sharpness that was unmatched surrounded her as she drew her sword.
The spectators had to swallow their admiration at her momentum.
The duel had begun.
From now on, she had to trust only herself.
And her sword.
And her flame.
She was surely the true Judith.
She had been so far, and she would continue to be.
Scarlet’s energy pressed down heavily.
It was a serious energy that she could only have if she was confident in her belief without a doubt.
That smooth and vigorous energy, it devoured the surrounding currents and gradually increased its momentum.
She would surely win.
The moment she decided that, Scarlet raised her flame.
The flame that never went out covered her sword.
“…?”
No, that didn’t happen.
The black blade that Scarlet held was still just a sword.
There was no flame on it.
“…”
She raised her flame again.
Once, twice, three times.
No matter how many times she repeated it, the result was the same. Her flame did not show itself.
When Scarlet unknowingly furrowed her brow.
“What’s wrong? Scarlet.”
Flan’s cold voice hit her ears.
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