—Alliance or Debt
“Ridiculous bastards! What did you say? They’ve gathered and are holding meetings just to deal with Vanaheim?”
Samir hurled the communication device away and vented his rage.
For some reason, anger surged up in him violently. He was so furious he could hardly endure it.
If he could have, he would have chewed up and swallowed the Bureau spy who had just contacted him.
The man had claimed he was going to deliver news about Oudin, as if he had obtained some remarkable piece of information. But when Samir opened the lid, it was nothing but worthless news.
“Oudin, what are you doing right now? Surely you don’t think that just because I withdrew like that, I disappeared from before you forever? But why? Why aren’t you preparing to face me, and instead concerning yourself with things like Golden Apples!”
This was not the Samir who was usually as cold as frozen earth. Right now, he was raging like fire, like some lowly black mage.
Just thinking of Oudin made flames of fury shoot up inside him.
That man was an existence that grated on his nerves to an unbearable degree. He bothered Samir like a thorn lodged in his flesh, and Samir could not stand it.
“I will kill you with my own hands without fail. I’ll shatter that arrogant face of yours to pieces so I never have to see it again!”
In that instant, the area around Samir began to be devoured by pitch-black dark energy.
As he ground his teeth, a tremor shook the surroundings.
At the moment, Samir was alone in his room deep in the heart of the Magic Tower. There was no one around, so he was freely letting his emotions explode.
He could not possibly show such a sight in front of his subordinates. The very fact that he felt this much anger toward Oudin was humiliating.
‘No. Those idiotic subordinates deserve to feel my fury as well.’
Samir ground his teeth even harder.
The Magic Tower shook as though an earthquake had struck.
The black mages cowering on the lower floors would be trembling in fear, wondering what was happening. They would be anxious, wondering whether the Magic Tower was about to collapse.
And so they should be.
What on earth had they all been doing for things to come to this? There was not a single useful one among them.
Even after Samir had spent so long painstakingly feeding, clothing, and raising them, not one of them had managed to pull off a single act of terror properly.
Had even Yasin not been defeated by Oudin and vanished into that far-off dimension?
And Nasanhaegyeong had completely tucked his tail between his legs.
If even the black mages he had thought relatively useful were like this, there was no need to look at those beneath them.
Hundreds, thousands of parasite-like humans could squat in the Magic Tower calling themselves black mages, but they were of no use whatsoever.
“What have you been doing all this time, unable to even trample one Oudin to death!”
After shouting in a fit of rage, he remembered that Yasin and Nasanhaegyeong had been insisting from the beginning that they should kill Oudin.
It had been Samir himself who stopped them, saying that the man was interesting and they should watch him a little longer.
Why on earth had he done that? What was it about Oudin that had drawn his interest?
Why? Since when?
Whenever Samir immersed himself in thoughts of Oudin, a distant emotion would wash over him. That bothered him terribly.
‘You said you knew very well who I am?’
The words Oudin had spoken also bothered him. They were scraping viciously at his nerves.
Everything he had planned was being twisted out of shape because of that man, Oudin. He could not understand where Oudin had learned such magic.
When Samir first became aware of Oudin, the man had only stood out slightly; he had been an ordinary mage. Even if he was a little more skilled than others, he had not possessed any talent that could surpass black magic.
But at some point, he had begun displaying astonishing spatial magic.
No, what grated on Samir’s nerves even more was that fear had no effect on him at all.
Neither Samir’s immense aura of malice nor even his mental magic could affect him.
Why?
‘A rival? You are my rival? You dare oppose me?’
Just as flames of rage seemed about to surge up again, a chill suddenly ran down his spine.
When Samir had willingly treated Oudin as a rival and deceived himself by saying a fight was only amusing when there was an equal opponent, he had not noticed it. But now, a cold sense of déjà vu abruptly swept over him.
‘No way. Is it him?’
A former rival suddenly surfaced in his mind.
It had been long before Samir built the Magic Tower as it was now and rose to the position of its leader.
It was when he had been gathering black mages one by one, like shovelfuls of earth, in order to realize his grand plan.
The man who had blocked Samir’s path and interfered with him at every turn. He thought of Bruno.
Had that pure white light meant that man had returned?
Had Bruno returned? Was Oudin, in truth, Bruno’s manifestation?
‘No. That Oudin is completely different from Bruno in nature. His color is different, too.’
From Oudin, Samir felt an ill will akin to resentment. It was the color of an emotion that could not be found in Bruno.
Samir shook his head violently.
There was no way Oudin was Bruno. There was no way Bruno was alive.
“That’s nonsense. It’s impossible. There’s no way Bruno could come back alive, is there? I already threw him into the abyss of the Demon Realm long ago.”
Then why did chills keep running down his spine? Why did he feel Bruno’s shadow from that Oudin?
But it was impossible for Bruno to return.
Samir had trapped him in a perfect barrier and sent him beyond dimensions. He had completely destroyed the man’s spatial magic, so he could never return.
Bruno’s goodness had been his fatal mistake.
In truth, back then, one could not say Samir’s magical skill was superior to Bruno’s.
If Bruno had only made up his mind to kill Samir, he would have been able to do so. But the man had hesitated.
He had hesitated until the very end, and in that exact instant, Samir had utterly ruined Bruno.
He had not possessed the ability to kill him, but he had been able to send him into the abyss of the Demon Realm.
‘Now it’s different. If it’s now, I can kill Bruno as many times as I like. Even if Bruno has somehow returned alive, there’s absolutely no reason to fear him.’
Samir shuddered all over, then strode out onto the balcony.
The sound of his shoes rang heavily throughout the entire Magic Tower.
Leaning out from the balcony, he threw his head back as far as it would go, looked up toward the upper floors of the Magic Tower, and shouted.
“Look at this Magic Tower! This is my Magic Tower! This astonishing space of magic, and the countless black mages who belong to it, are all mine.”
Then he lowered his head, looked down toward the lower floors of the Magic Tower, and shouted.
“I am Samir! I am the leader of the Magic Tower! Submit before me, all of you!”
As he stamped his feet, cheers soon rang out from throughout the entire Magic Tower.
“Lord Samir!”
“Lord Samir!”
“We submit beneath Lord Samir’s feet!”
As the cries of submission spread like an echo, gray energy filled the Magic Tower.
The gray energy, rising thickly like dark clouds, finally wrapped around the Magic Tower in pitch-black darkness.
Only then did Samir’s chest swell with satisfaction.
‘Of course I’ll be perfectly fine. As for a mere Oudin...’
This was no time to be doing this.
The time had come to reveal the Magic Tower before the world.
He could no longer be satisfied with joining hands with corrupt mages and bureaucrats to seize only the underworld.
Samir himself had to become the conqueror of this nation. He had to become its monarch.
It was time to wage an all-out war against Oudin, who stood in his way.
‘I need more warriors. Those sickly black mages alone won’t be enough.’
He considered bringing in black mages from foreign countries. But if he did that, he would have to form some bothersome alliance.
In truth, black mages from other countries were just as feeble.
Nowhere had they managed to properly seize power.
People said the system established by the existing mages was more solid than expected. A few acts of terror did not make the system collapse easily.
That was why the black mages of the world were gradually forming alliances, but it was only troublesome, and it was doubtful whether it would be effective.
‘It would be better to summon demons instead.’
Of course, if he borrowed demon warriors, he would ultimately incur another debt to the Demon Realm. The interest was already piling up from all the power he had borrowed from the Demon Realm until now.
There was no such thing as a free lunch in this world.
At this rate, after the Magic Tower seized power in this world, the Demon King might appear, demand his share, and try to swallow it whole.
But that was a problem to think about when the time came.
For now, the first thing was to become the monarch of this world. Once one became the conqueror of an entire world, even the Demon King could not act rashly.
“Oudin, wait for me. This time, I’ll truly show you what I’m capable of.”
Samir thought of Oudin again and ground his teeth, then headed for the center of the Magic Tower.
In his room at the center of the Magic Tower, he raised both arms high and chanted an incantation. The black energy filling the Magic Tower began to writhe.
Slowly, the Magic Tower changed its form. What had once been a tower made of buildings stacked floor upon floor transformed into the shape of black roots spreading outward.
And in the very center of it, a black hole opened, and a portal leading to the Demon Realm appeared.
Samir leaped into the portal.
* * *
As soon as the investigation team meeting ended, I immediately opened a teleportation portal and returned home.
I could have opened a portal directly into the magical space, but for some reason, I felt like entering the original way.
Since I had returned home first, I looked around the house, then went up to the rooftop and took a look outside as well. Nothing out of the ordinary had happened in the space of my everyday life.
I did not know what Samir had been doing since then, but for now, he was quiet and had not caused any acts of terror.
I took a deep breath and inhaled the air of daily life.
‘I have to protect this. I just have to stop the terror attacks like I’ve done until now. I just have to stop everything Samir is trying to do.’
With my mind settled, I returned to my room and rubbed the pattern on the magic book.
Slowly, a portal opened. Its classical appearance also gave me a sense of stability.
‘I wonder if Gil is doing well. He should be. There’s no way anything could happen inside the magical space.’
Besides, Cheon Danbi and Ren were with him, and I had also told the crows just in case. Since there had been no news at all, that probably meant everyone was doing well.
When I stepped into the magical space, a warmth as soft as cream enveloped me.
It was always a peaceful and safe space, but today it felt even more tranquil than usual.
And it was bright. It felt as if it was full of light.
The place where the mansion was located was actually as cold as the Arctic, with glaciers and snowy mountains as its backdrop, but now, as if an eternal summer had arrived, it was suddenly overflowing with radiant light.
‘Hm? This is a little different. Is it because there are a lot more people here than when I’m alone?’
I walked around the mansion and looked for the team members.
But even after searching the entire house, I did not see anyone.
I did not feel uneasy at all. That was how strongly the atmosphere of comfort and safety filled the place.
I went out into the garden. The garden was quiet as well.
I could feel the trees and grass basking in the sunlight and breathing, the sound of insects moving, and birds fluttering up into the air, but I saw no people.
At the very least, shouldn’t the crows have appeared quickly?
I passed through the garden and headed toward the path leading outside the mansion. For some reason, my feet moved that way.
The moment I stepped outside, I was startled.