Chapter 20

“You bastard!!”

One of the guards, a bald man with thick arms and a beard, charged at me from the front, swinging his axe. Still standing at the doorway with the shack behind me, there was only one direction they could attack me from, making it easy for me to predict his attack.

“Gust!”

Pushed by a strong gust of wind, the bald kidnapper stopped his charge and was pushed back several paces from me. Without looking back at Luna, I stepped outside of the shack after saying, “Wait here,” and closed the door.

Hostile gazes and killing intent came from the two kidnappers in front of me. I could feel a prickling sensation on my neck caused by their hostility, but this much wasn’t enough to faze me.

Master Elara is much scarier.

I’m very grateful that Master Elara has conditioned me to handle killing intent and hostility during the magic combat lessons back home, so I can still keep my calm even in this situation.

“You brat, so you’re a mage?”

“Why is the Tower getting in our way?”

“Why? Is there a need for a reason to stop kidnappers?”

“You guys never cared about what happened to the slums, and now you’re getting in our way?”

“Stop questioning everything I do, you bastards. Are we doing this or not?”

Hearing what I said, the two remaining kidnappers gripped the weapons in their hands and started to shift their stances, preparing to attack.

The bald guy with an axe will probably attack first like before, and the lanky guy with a longsword will follow up behind him.

My experience in training martial arts was still useful even though I’m not good at it. At least I can read how an untrained fighter will attack.

“Mist.”

Fwoooooosh.

A cloud of mist blanketed the area around the shack. Mist was a Tier 2 Water Magic spell, and with my current level of mastery in this spell, the radius the mist covered wasn’t too big, but it was enough to rob them of their vision. After all, they don’t look skilled enough to fight without relying on their sight like a First-Class Martial Artist.

“Wh-what is this!?”

“Damn brat! Where is he!?”

They fell into panic too easily. Well, this will be simple then.

“Search.”

With Search Magic, I don’t have to rely on my eyes. This spell is very simple and plain, not showy at all, but also super useful. Thanks to this spell, I clearly know where they are. It seems that in their confusion, they walked away from each other.

The other two had big holes in their stomachs, and it’s been a while, so they both probably already died. I shouldn’t kill these two, just in case we need to interrogate them.

“Rock Bullet.”

I shot Rock Bullet, but I had already weakened it by not putting much mana into it and also changing its shape so it wasn’t a pointed cone. I didn’t want to injure them too much, just enough to make both of the kidnappers pass out.

After they stopped moving, I blew away the mist covering the area with Gust Magic and went back into the shack to check on Luna, who was still tied up. She looked at me with fear still in her eyes, so to reassure her, I smiled as kindly as I could.

“You’re Luna, right?”

“Hmm.”

Luna nodded her head.

“I’m Cheon Hwi. Your brother asked me to save you.”

…

Rustle, rustle.

“There. You can move now.”

Luna looked at her own body for a bit before standing on her feet after I released the rope tying her up and removed the cloth around her mouth.

“Are you hurt anywhere?”

“Mmm. I’m okay.”

Her long, dirty gray hair moved as she shook her head, telling me that she was fine.

“That’s a relief. I don’t know what to do if you’re injured. I’m really not good at healing others after all.”

That’s the truth. It seems that as talented as I am in magic, I still have limitations. I can easily use Tier 1 and Tier 2 magic, but for some reason that neither Master Elara nor I know, I just can’t use healing magic on other people. Master Elara hypothesized that it’s because rather than understanding magic, I tend to use it on instinct thanks to my high mana sensitivity.

Battle magic is much easier for me to learn, and magic that is applied to the caster, like Tracking and Search, is also easy because it’s applied to my own body. Healing myself is easy to do too. Using magic that applies to others or to things, on the other hand, is hard because it’s not my own body, so I don’t have the sense of how I should apply the magic.

That’s why even now, I can’t use any Tier 1 or Tier 2 Enhancement or Weakening Magic, which are used to strengthen or weaken the abilities of allies or enemies, or to enhance or weaken their equipment. I can only use both of those magics on myself, and there’s no reason to use Weakening Magic on myself anyway. That’s the whole reason Master Elara told me to read tons of books, so I would start using magic through understanding rather than instinct.

“If you’re fine, let’s go back. Your brother was very worried.”

“Hm.”

She nodded her head and grabbed the hand I offered her. Luna looked at the two dead kidnappers inside the shack whom I had killed first, lying lifeless on the wooden floor, and gripped my hand tighter as she moved closer to me.

Seeing her like this, I quickly pulled her along as I walked outside the shack. There’s no need to stay inside and let her see their corpses even a second longer.

As we walked outside hand in hand, we could see the other two kidnappers I left alive, passed out. I left them alive on purpose so they could be interrogated later. Well, the town’s guards don’t care about the kidnapping, but they’re still criminals. Who can say they only ever kidnap slum kids? Maybe they have kidnapped some kids from the town too. Who knows?

Hmm… What to do? Should I tie them up with the rope used to tie up Luna?

Nope, that’s no fun.

“Wait here for a bit, Luna.”

Luna tilted her head up, looking at me, not sure of what I just said.

“Big brother here needs to make sure that those bad guys cannot escape.”

With that, I released my hand from hers and walked over to the two passed-out kidnappers. I activated Enhancement Magic on my own body to strengthen my muscles and dragged the lanky guy to where the bald guy was. I dug two holes after that and buried both of them in an upright position, so after I refilled the ground, only their heads would pop up from the ground.

“Hehe, it’s fine work, if I’d say so myself.”

Now that their whole bodies were buried under the ground except for their heads, it would be impossible for them to escape without help, even if they woke up before I could bring the town’s guards here to pick them up.

With that done, I turned on my heels to walk over to Luna.

“Luna, let’s go back—”

Thump!

Thump! Thump! Thump!

The moment I turned my body, a sense of dread washed over me. I could feel a very unsettling presence behind my back. Cold sweat seeped from my skin, dripping down my face and drenching my back.

Ring.

Ring. Ring. Ring.

The sound of a bell getting closer to me, and my sense of dread grew along with it.

“My, looks like my subordinates got taken out.”

Ring.

“Are you the one who did this, boy?”

Thump! Thump! Thump!

My heart beat louder the moment I heard the voice talking to me from behind my back.

Haaah… Calm down, me. Luna is still here, and whoever is behind me feels dangerous. I need to make sure that Luna can run away.

“Don’t you hear me, boy? I’m asking you if you’re the one who did this.”

I kept my back to him, not turning around.

“…You’re their boss?”

“That’s right. Now, will you answer my question?”

“…Yeah, I did it.”

“I see… Hmm, what to do? As weak as they are, they’re quite useful, you know?”

“Useful? For kidnapping, you mean?”

“That’s right. They know the slums well, and because the guards don’t care if slum kids go missing, I can keep laying low and make sure that I’m not discovered while they bring the kids to me.”

“Why do you need them? Are you a slave trader? Kidnapping kids from the slums to be sold as slaves?”

“Huhu, gosh no. I’m nothing so boorish as that, kidnapping kids for easy money.”

“Then why?”

The moment I asked him why, I could practically hear the sound of him grinning.

“Huhuhu. You’re a mage, boy. Surely you already know the answer.”

Fuck. Don’t tell me the bad feeling I got when I was tracking the kidnappers was true. There’s no way such a coincidence can happen.

“It seems that you already know the answer to your question, boy. That’s right…”

Please no.

“I’m a Dark Mage.”