After being kidnapped by a thug, I pretended to have passed out, and the bastard conveniently misunderstood as he pleased, kindly guiding me to his base.
It was a special service that spared me the trouble of gathering information to locate the place, and the trouble of walking in myself.
Passed from hand to hand, the dark magician who took charge of me dragged me into a suspicious-looking place on the outskirts of the city.
And in the process, I had my coat and the coin purse I’d stashed in my bosom stolen.
Money aside, I’d grown somewhat attached to that coat after using it for decades, so it was a bit of a shame, but I endured with my eyes shut tight in order to exterminate the dark magicians living in hiding.
If by any chance he’d tried to lay hands on my body with impure intentions, dark magician or not, I would have just killed him, so it was fortunate—for lack of a better word—that he didn’t.
On both counts.
The dark magician carrying me over his shoulder passed through winding alleyways so twisted that the roundabout route was blatantly obvious, then began descending underground.
Judging by the bumpy path rather than stairs, it seemed to be a renovated natural cave.
After descending like that briefly, I finally arrived at what could be called the cockroaches’ nest.
Opening my eyes to slits and looking around, the structure had multiple rooms dug out in layers around a large, elongated cavern. It looked like an anthill.
I was dragged to a large room in a corner. The moment the door opened, a flinching sound was heard, followed by small, quiet breathing sounds that seemed deliberately suppressed.
Turning my gaze, chains, whips, clubs, and other intimidating tools hung on the wall.
On the other side was a prison. In the cramped prison made by digging further into the cave, children were locked up regardless of whether they were boys or girls.
The apprentice-looking dark magician bastard who’d dragged me here took out a crudely made handcuff from a shelf hanging on the wall and fastened it around my wrist.
And opening the iron-barred door, he threw me right inside. Since I’d been keeping my body limp, I rolled across the floor with a heavy thud like a corpse dropping.
Thanks to that, my forehead was slightly torn by a sharp stone protrusion. I could feel blood slowly seeping out from within.
“Haah, such is my fate…….”
The dark magician let out a sigh as he locked the iron-barred door, then went straight out of the room. From my ear pressed to the ground, I could hear footsteps fading away.
Now then.
I counted to three in my mind and snapped my eyes open. Then energetically rose up from that spot.
“Hiek……!”
One child closest to where I’d been thrown flinched in terror and shrank back slightly.
Then, unrest spread like waves, and all the children in the prison shifted slightly, looking at me with guarded expressions.
Regardless, I covertly regenerated the wound on my forehead. The flowing blood instantly stopped, and the stinging pain along the wound subsided.
Raising my right hand and wiping the blood away with my thumb, beneath it was clean, no different from before the wound.
If it was just this level of regeneration, it seemed I could get through it without any nightmares. Or I could just substitute it with the nightmare I’d have tonight.
Then I channeled mana into my arms and smashed the handcuffs with brute force. I tore off the parts fitted around my arms with my hand and dropped them to the floor.
“Y-you, what are you……?”
The oldest-looking child, appearing to be at most around thirteen, took a slight step forward, pointed at me, and shouted.
Though it was called shouting, no strength at all went into the voice, so it only highlighted his malnutrition.
Without answering, I walked to the iron bars and ran my finger along them. No matter how I looked, they were just ordinary iron bars.
“I-it’s no use. Those are extremely sturdy. And even if you get out, you’ll just be dragged back again…….”
This time, a girl sitting in the corner hugging her knees spoke. Her voice conveyed a helplessness that nothing could be done.
Turning my head toward the direction of the voice, the child who met my eyes looked away to the side and spoke again.
“Don’t do anything pointless……. Last time too, someone tried to escape and died…….”
I let that story—pitiful though it was, but hardly worth listening to—pass in one ear and instead asked,
“Are all the prisoners just the ones here?”
My question echoed inside the prison, but no one answered; they only moved their lips hesitantly. They seemed to know something, but wouldn’t open their mouths willingly.
Just as I started wondering if I should use memory-searching magic despite the backlash being a bit strong, the boy who’d shouted at me earlier opened his mouth.
“I don’t know……. Occasionally, about once every five days, people get dragged away from here one by one, but where they go…….”
The child trailed off, but that was enough.
I wished happiness in their next lives for the children already taken away, then concentrated mana in my hand to form a blade.
I raised my hand and sliced horizontally once. Then lowered my hand and sliced once more in the opposite direction.
With just two slashes, seven iron bars were cut like butter, falling to the floor with a clang. And a gap large enough for one person to leisurely pass through was created between the bars.
“Wait, how did you……!!”
“Stay here for a moment.”
I didn’t want to make them follow and become unnecessary variables. They’d all be dead before they could even make it here anyway, and I’d already cast protective magic beforehand, so it would be fine even if something happened.
Approaching the door, I loaded mana into my foot and kicked hard, tearing the handle right off and sending the door falling forward.
Three dark magicians walking outside the door looked this way, wondering what was happening.
It was time to exterminate the dark magicians.
◇
Glen, one of the sixteen elders of the cult, had lately been feeling overwhelmed as things that weren’t going well and things that were going well flooded in all at once.
The thing that wasn’t going well was the expansion to the north.
The great and profound founder of the cult, the seeker who had attained all knowledge of the beyond, the Dark King ■■■■. An existence whose very name cannot be perceived by those who fail to reach exalted heights, and whom those of lower standing can only refer to as ‘Him.’
It was that a command personally given by Him—also one of the great existences—was not being fulfilled properly.
Fortunately, He had shown mercy and forgiven Glen, but Glen could not forgive himself.
‘Belrud, that idiot…….’
Even the Dark King had acknowledged him, and Glen had been so pleased by his rapid realization of the truth that he’d intended to make him his direct subordinate someday.
Yet he had been found with his heart pierced, having been done in by some nobody magician who’d rolled in from who-knows-where.
Fortunately, the lord of that city had already been recruited, so covering it up was an easy task in itself, but…….
“……Thus, we failed to track him down. I apologize.”
Beyond the crystal orb—one of the ancient artifacts—Count Baellund could be seen carefully lowering his head.
“No, Count. Your merits are already immense; there is no need to lower your head.”
“I am most humbled.”
Speaking words different from what he was thinking made his insides boil, but Glen endured and let it pass.
Because the Count’s merits truly were immense.
Belrud was at best a talent who would only briefly reach the level of an elder right before dying of old age, but the Count’s talent far surpassed that…….
More than anything, it was because he had offered the ‘sacrifice’ that the dark magicians had so fervently wished for.
Not some trifling thing rolling around the roadside, but a sacrifice of a level that could draw his and his master’s long-cherished desire closer.
Glen cut the communication and entered the research lab directly connected to his room. The experiment was still in progress.
“…….”
And this was the ‘thing that was going well.’
A young girl bound on the experiment table receiving dark magic. Her deep blue hair, like the sea, allowed one to infer who her father was.
That was Count Baellund’s daughter. A sacrifice offered together with a hidden letter saying he wanted to join the cult, delivered via Belrud.
Was it two years ago, or three? Since Glen had personally executed her mother, who had been sent along with her before his eyes, she had become a thing with dead eyes that only screamed when in pain.
Thanks to that, she was much better for experimenting on. Glen, who had a sadistic inclination, thought it would have been nice if there were a bit more reaction, but.
So, as for why this sacrifice was so special.
He didn’t know how it was possible, but this sacrifice literally had no resistance to mana whatsoever. Unable to hold any mana inside her body, not even the slightest mana could be felt from her, just like a great existence.
Therefore, it meant that no matter what magic was used on her, it would take effect without even the slightest resistance.
And more special than that, no matter how much her soul was tainted, it never broke; of course, she would soon regain her untainted purity.
In other words, no matter how cruel the experiments inflicted upon her, she would recover without any problem and could be used infinitely.
It couldn’t be called anything other than a sacrifice truly befitting the Ascension Ritual, one of the master’s long-cherished desires.
There were still many things unverified for her to be used as a sacrifice, but verifying them through experiments was exactly what Glen was doing now.
And the results born from these massive experiments without restrictions, and the knowledge like by-products, could grant Glen a considerable level of enlightenment.
“Just a little more now. Just a little further, if I ascend upward…….”
Glen had a dream. A grand dream of someday rising to the ranks of the great existences alongside his master.
Though there was still a distance, his heart swelled a little with anticipation at the thought that he had now reached the point where it was almost within his grasp.
But while Glen was briefly letting his imagination soar, an alien sound reached his ears.
———What do you think you’re doing!!
———Kuaaaack!!
“……How noisy.”
Feeling slight displeasure at being suddenly dragged from his fantasies back to reality, Glen approached the door, thinking he ought to punish the foolish ones.
At that moment.
Kwaang!!
The door was suddenly torn away, and an unidentifiable spell flew in together with a cloud of dust.
“Kuk, what!”
Glen cast a defensive spell so quickly that even he admired himself.
But though this defensive spell wouldn’t even be scratched by mediocre magicians’ attacks, now it was being torn apart powerlessly like a sheet of paper.
“What!”
Glen was sent flying through the air by the ensuing shockwave, crashed hard into the wall once, and fell to the floor.
Kneeling, Glen let out a small groan of pain. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, blood came away.
“How dare……!!”
Thinking he would be attacked if he stayed like this, Glen hurriedly rose; fortunately, the dust cloud obstructed his vision so no follow-up attack came.
While Glen caught his breath, the dust cloud quickly settled.
And Glen lost his words at the sight of the attacker revealed before his eyes.
While her white hair was quite noticeable, the reason Glen lost his words was because of her size.
Based on his experience of dissecting countless children and grinding them into sacrifices, she was at most a young girl around ten years old.
She glanced over Glen once, then turned her eyes away as if uninterested and looked around. Then, discovering the experiment table and the sacrifice upon it, she began approaching that way.
With a single gesture, the girl cleared away the tools on the experiment table. And approaching the sacrifice, she slowly embraced her.
The thought that the precious sacrifice for fulfilling the great one’s long-cherished desire had been defiled by a foolish thing that didn’t know even a fragment of truth filled Glen’s head.
Moreover, to pass him by as if he were less interesting than a roadside pebble.
In the time it took to blink but once, unbearable rage completely dyed Glen’s thoughts.
Thereupon, Glen shouted loudly, veins bulging in his neck.
“Don’t lay hands on the sacrifice, girl!! A mere insect like you is not worthy of touching it!!”
The girl looked down at the sacrifice she held for a moment, then spoke to Glen mockingly.
“Why is she your sacrifice.”