Chapter 71. The Black Magicians
“Binaeril Dalhaim. A guest of the Duke and a magician of Elfenbein.”
At such a bold self-introduction, the black magicians, including the castle lord, were at a loss for words.
A single thought simultaneously crossed their minds.
‘Is he insane?’
He looked far too young to call himself a magician.
So much so that one might say he was a child rather than merely young.
Furthermore, the one introducing himself as a magician of Elfenbein was alone.
One of the black magicians pointed at Binaeril and looked back at the lord.
The lord nodded as if his neck might snap. It was the signal that this was indeed the magician they had been told about.
“You’re the magician?”
“Who are you?”
The black magician who had pointed at Binaeril kicked his comrade’s corpse aside.
They hadn’t heard any incantation whatsoever.
Skipping incantations was something only magicians who had reached a certain level could do.
But the boy before their eyes was far too young.
They concluded that Binaeril was an impostor pretending to be a magician.
“We don’t need to know. Whatever trick you used to do this to our comrade, you’re a fake.”
“Lord of Paguin, who are these people?”
The lord ignored Binaeril’s words and spoke to the black magicians.
“K-kill him before the Duke wakes. Q-quietly kill him.”
“We know. My lord, is this brat really a magician? He doesn’t look like one to us.”
“One man’s head just exploded!”
“He must have used some trick.”
They were letting their guard down.
Binaeril carefully observed the faces half-visible within their hoods.
He couldn’t make out their features clearly, but he found a familiar mark on one of their faces.
It was a tattoo.
Moreover, a tattoo that evoked an ominous sensation of blackish-red.
Binaeril had seen it before on goblins.
“Are you black magicians?”
Several of them flinched at his words.
“…My lord. Did you collude with black magicians to abduct the villagers?”
The Lord of Paguin turned deathly pale, looking as though he might draw his last breath at any moment.
“K-kill him. Now!”
His reaction proved that Binaeril’s guess was correct.
The black magicians simultaneously began chanting attack magic.
To Binaeril’s eyes, it was crude.
Without even chanting, Binaeril left the defense to Eden.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
“A spirit master?”
Someone who recognized Eden’s faint form shouted.
“Be careful. He’s a spirit master!”
He had felt it when fighting the goblins too, but these black magicians had shaky fundamentals.
First-tier magic was nothing more than a rough imitation, unable to display proper power.
“Capture them.”
Binaeril bound the nearest one with shadows and aimed a magic bullet at his head.
Only then did the black magicians realize their opponent was no pushover.
“Everyone, use your secret arts!”
Someone pulled out a reagent bottle and drank it; someone else scratched their forearm to draw blood. Another black magician pulled a straw doll from inside their robe.
Seeing them use such peculiar mediums, Binaeril was certain.
“You truly are black magicians.”
The Lord of Paguin was openly taking their side.
Confirming that his hunch had been correct, Binaeril raised his mana.
Vivian had finished her bath and left her room to stroll around Paguin Castle.
‘What is Sir Binaeril doing?’
It was no simple walk.
Her steps held a clear purpose.
Vivian had been lingering near Binaeril’s room for a full ten minutes.
She had pictured the scene: the duke’s daughter out for a night walk, happening to meet the young magician in the corridor and chatting about the conversation they’d left unfinished during the day.
But it was no use. She couldn’t sense any presence from Binaeril’s room at all.
“Where did he go again? Don’t tell me…”
Vivian suspected the knights.
“Surely they didn’t call Binaeril out for sparring at this late hour?”
Perhaps it was her imagination, but she thought she heard sounds of people fighting somewhere.
Vivian considered finishing her walk and returning.
On her way back to her room, she saw the lord’s door was open.
Faint sounds of fighting came from inside his room.
“Could it be those guys again?”
If it was that damn sparring again, she was thoroughly sick of it.
“This won’t do. I need to say something.”
She began walking down the corridor.
Binaeril had dealt with two black magicians. Three remained.
The one who had drunk the reagent bottle began to grow in size.
‘This one has the same ability as the goblins.’
It was the moment Binaeril decided on the Junkie’s nickname in his mind.
He charged at Binaeril like a wild beast.
“Kekeke. You’re dead now, brat!”
Binaeril caught the Junkie’s arm as he charged.
“O divine power dwelling in both arms!”
He chanted a strength spell and entered a contest of power.
Crack!
Muscles bulged grotesquely all over the Junkie’s body as if about to burst.
But the force he exerted was no match for his size.
Compared to a goblin, he was absurdly weak.
“What the? Is it all water weight?”
Veins bulged on the Junkie’s forehead.
While Binaeril was locked in a contest of strength with the Junkie,
Shhk!
Blood-red arrows were fired from another direction.
It was the attack of the black magician who had slit his forearm earlier.
‘Blood magic?’
Binaeril pushed the Junkie away and deployed a barrier.
The blood arrows crashed against Binaeril’s barrier and shattered helplessly.
Binaeril was certain.
‘These are black magicians a tier below the goblins.’
With this level of power, he felt he could leave the defense entirely to Eden.
Binaeril raised his finger and aimed at the Junkie.
He chanted the activation words for a magic bullet.
The Junkie raised both arms to block Binaeril’s magic bullet.
The magic bullet collided with his forearms and an explosion rang out.
The Junkie was engulfed in acrid dust and pushed far back.
He shouted.
“It’s magic! This guy wasn’t a spirit master! He handles both spirits and magic!”
“I saw too.”
The one using blood magic answered.
‘One’s a Junkie, one’s a Bloodie.’
Bloodie unleashed his blood arrows once again.
It seemed the Junkie would take attacks from the front while Bloodie supported from the back.
‘That won’t do.’
Binaeril aimed a magic bullet at Bloodie.
“Eek!”
Seeing Binaeril’s finger pointing at him, Bloodie canceled his spell and rolled across the floor.
He was more timid than he looked.
Binaeril’s magic bullet grazed over his head.
“Hey! You’re not supporting properly!”
The Junkie shouted.
“You’re supposed to block him properly!”
Bloodie retorted without backing down.
Even their brief exchange revealed that they were a group with poor teamwork.
But one of them still hadn’t joined the fight.
The black magician with the eerie atmosphere who had first pulled out the straw doll.
“Eat this!”
The Junkie stretched his arm long and attacked Binaeril.
This too was familiar. It was the goblin’s fighting style.
Binaeril aimed a magic bullet to intercept him. However.
‘Huh?’
His body wouldn’t obey.
It felt as though something had grabbed his limbs tightly and wouldn’t let go.
The Junkie, noticing Binaeril’s confusion, burst into mad laughter.
“So the curse has finally taken hold!”
The man holding the straw doll laughed low and mocked Binaeril.
‘It’s his doing.’
Binaeril realized instinctively.
It seemed the last one’s identity was a Curse-monger.
Even at that moment, the Junkie’s fist was flying toward him.
But Binaeril had something to rely on.
The Junkie’s fist stopped right before Binaeril’s nose.
In Binaeril’s eyes, he could clearly see the small being blocking the fist. It was the spirit, Eden.
“Grk!”
The Junkie’s complexion fluctuated between red and blue. No matter how hard he strained, at his level he couldn’t handle Eden.
In the meantime, Binaeril sensed the mana binding him.
Whether it was magic or black magic, one couldn’t imprison an opponent with the mental fortitude to resist mana for very long.
Especially if the opponent was a black magician of lower skill than oneself.
Binaeril released his mana and broke the binding curse.
The Curse-monger’s straw doll couldn’t overcome Binaeril’s mana and burst in his grip.
“W-what kind of mana is this!”
Binaeril saw the shocked expression on the man’s face.
It was a natural result. For it was not the mana of a young boy, but the mana left behind by Dekiplio’s legacy.
Binaeril looked around at the three black magicians and said.
“Would you like to experience it too?”
He put his imagination to work.
“Be bound by shadows.”
Binaeril’s incantation began to bind the three like a command.
Slowly from their ankles, to their waists, to their limbs, until finally they couldn’t move a single finger.
Their wide eyes and bewildered groans spoke for their feelings.
Binaeril slowly walked over and stood facing the Junkie.
Without further ado, he placed his finger on the Junkie’s forehead and chanted.
A black magician’s life was extinguished far too simply.
The next one too, and the next one too.
Binaeril didn’t bother interrogating them or leaving room for conversation.
The one remaining would testify to what they had done anyway.
The lord was ashen-faced.
In his eyes, Binaeril looked like a messenger from hell.
“Now, please explain exactly what is going on.”
Just as Binaeril was pressing him, a voice called out to him from the corridor entrance.
Binaeril turned his head. He found the owner of the voice.
“Lady Vivian?”
“What in the world is all this?”
Vivian looked around the corpse-filled room in bewilderment.
As she was trying to find out the cause, one of the corpses lying on the floor suddenly sprang up and rushed at her.
The bastard grabbed Vivian’s jaw and embraced her, then turned his head toward Binaeril.
Vivian got goosebumps at the cold sensation against her lower jaw.
Binaeril too was shocked to see the hand gripping Vivian’s jaw.
Ghastly exposed joints of ashen-white bone. It was not human skin. From the start, the bastard hadn’t been alive.
“This is surprising.”
A voice laden with sinister mana echoed through the cramped space.
“A magician, you say. And quite a skilled one at that. To think I would find an unexpected hindrance among my traveling companions.”
“Who are you?”
Binaeril asked.
“I am the master of the bugs dead and fallen at your feet.”
The creature answered, its fierce eyes gleaming.
The space where eye whites should be was sunken and empty.
A moving skeleton. It was unmistakably the figure of an undead.
A corner of its head was grotesquely cracked.
It was the mark left by Binaeril’s magic bullet.
“Undead? You’re no ordinary undead. How are you ‘alive’?”
The skeleton laughed. If one could call the piercing sound of metal scraping against a wall laughter.
“Tsk tsk tsk. Have you never heard of an undead magician?”
Binaeril searched through Elfenbein’s memories.
A rare type of undead even among black magicians who had sealed their own souls to obtain eternal life.
Elfenbein had called that wicked magician by this name.
“Lich.”
The creature’s mana contained in its voice was gradually spreading and filling the space.
Binaeril raised his mana and resisted the skeleton’s sinister mana.
Only then did Vivian feel like she could breathe.
“Let the lady go. Unless you want the remaining half of your skull shattered as well.”
“I cannot do that.”
The creature raised its bony finger and aimed at the Lord of Paguin.
“Manifest, aura of piercing death.”
Pwing—!
Before Binaeril could stop him, a black beam of light shot out and pierced the Lord of Paguin’s heart.
“Geh, gugh…”
The lord collapsed helplessly, letting out a sound choked with blood.
“You bastard!”
Binaeril fired a magic bullet.
But the creature casually raised his hand, and Binaeril’s attack was deflected harmlessly.
“I shall withdraw today. But remember this. You will meet me again.”
Mana was gathering in the creature’s finger again as it finished speaking.
Binaeril, seeing who was held at the end of its finger, shouted.
The creature was gripping Vivian’s neck and raising its mana.