Chapter 28

“AGGHHH!”

The knight’s wrist was broken, but my grip still did not let him go as I continued to stare at the Saintess. My hand, no, my entire body was shaking. Not from fear, but purely from the anger welling inside me.

“You fucking brat!”

The knight with the broken wrist was about to attack me with his other arm, but I pulled him down, pinning him to the ground with my knee pressing against his neck.

“Leave, and I will spare him.”

Now that I had a hostage, I thought I had the upper hand in this situation. Of course, there was the treaty, so what I was doing right now would surely bring a lot of trouble for Master Elara and the Veynes Magic Tower. Let’s hope this could be chalked up to the recklessness of an apprentice mage.

Still, this is weird. I’m sure I’m already out of mana, and I felt very tired. Not to mention, I still had Miasma poisoning my lungs. But weirdly, I didn’t feel anything anymore.

I felt great, in fact. It was like some kind of energy was flowing through my body.

Just what is this energy?

Wait, it’s coming from my Dantian, so it’s my inner energy. But that makes even less sense. I only have around five years' worth of inner energy inside my Dantian, and my meridians have a defect that always made the flow of my inner energy delayed. It’s the whole reason why my martial arts skills did not improve, and why I chose to learn magic.

But now, my inner energy is flowing very smoothly. Not only that, but the power it generates is much stronger too.

And this knight I’m pinning down under my knee should be around the level of a First-Rate Martial Artist. There’s no way I should be able to do this so easily to someone at that level.

Maybe I guessed wrong, and the knights weren’t that strong?

There are a lot of questions in my head about this situation, but I can find out about all of it later. Right now, the priority is to protect Lirael. That’s all I need to focus on.

“You didn’t hear me? I said fuck off if you don’t want this guy dead.”

The other two knights standing behind the Saintess looked grim. Both of them shifted their positions and stances, ready to jump in and cut my head off at any moment.

“Release him,” the Saintess said to me. I was already taking one of them hostage, and she thought that I would just say, ‘Yes, here he is’? Did I look that dumb?

“No.” I put more pressure on my knee against the knight’s neck, and a ‘Guh!’ sound could be heard. In this position, it would be very easy for me to break his neck. If they cared about this dude, they would not act rashly.

“You heard me. Leave. Leave Lirael alone, and I will spare him.”

The Saintess sighed softly but still kept her smile.

“You truly intend to break the treaty over a spirit?”

“Why not? The treaty means nothing to me, and Lirael saved my life. It’s very obvious which one is more important to me.”

“I see. I can see your conviction,” the Saintess said to me in a very understanding tone, like she was about to give up, only to continue with, “Then I guess he will die a martyr.”

The moment she said that, the two knights made their move, only to be stopped by chains of mana sprouting from the ground beneath them, effectively immobilizing both of the Church Knights.

“That’s enough.”

Master Elara stood in front of me, facing the Saintess and the knights behind her who couldn’t move anymore. Crazy how she could easily stop two First-Rate Martial Artist equivalents that easily, but she is an Archmage, so I guess it’s normal? Well, the only explanation I need is that it’s because she’s Master Elara, so it’s possible. At this point, I’ve already seen her doing a lot of absurd and impossible things that even if she said that she could bring the moon down, I would believe it.

“Let’s stop here, Saintess. At this rate, casualties will appear and the problem will only get bigger. You told Hwi that if he kept protecting Lady Lirael, he would risk war between us? There’s an easy solution.”

The air around Master changed. Rather than heavy pressure, it just felt like nothing. Like suddenly, all the sounds were gone, the wind stopped flowing, and the only thing that could be seen and heard was Master Elara.

“I can just kill all of you here and burn all of your bodies to ashes so no one will find out.”

Silence followed after the threat uttered by the youngest Archmage. No one could say anything for a while. The Saintess, while keeping a smile on her face, was visibly shaken. Her pupils trembled as she looked at Master Elara’s face, searching for any trace of hesitation.

There was none. Master Elara, while fully aware that she would break the treaty and throw away her responsibilities, still chose to help me and risk going to war with the Church.

“That… certainly would be a solution,” said the Saintess while sweating cold sweat.

“Right? Really, there’s such an easy solution. Why did I not think about it? Maybe it’s because I spend too much time behind the desk these days.”

“Giggle. Here I thought that Elara Veynes had matured after becoming an Archmage and leading her own people,” said the Saintess, her tone giving up. She looked at me and the knight beneath me and said, “Alright, we will leave the spirit alone. Could you please release him?”

My eyes were still fixed on the Saintess’s face. This was someone who had just decided to kill Lirael simply because she was a spirit and was willing to go against her faith. Nothing about her could be trusted.

I did not move until Master Elara herself told me to release him, so I did.

The knight, after he was released, eyed me with vengeance in his eyes. Looks like from now on, I need to watch my back every time I go out into town, lest I get stabbed in the back.

The knight walked back to the Saintess while holding his wrist and looking down, probably ashamed that he had been defeated by a kid like me. The Saintess placed her hands above and below his broken wrist and started healing his injury with a golden glow from her hands. Once the knight’s wrist was healed, he bowed to the Saintess and got behind her again.

“Then we will excuse ourselves here,” the Saintess said to us, pausing for a bit before continuing, “But I will be sure to report this to the Pope.”

“Hah! Do whatever you want,” said Master Elara curtly before one of the knights picked the Saintess up and jumped out of the cave through the broken ceiling.

“Well, that’s done. Anyway, what was that about, kid?”

What was what? Oh, it must be about my sudden power-up.

“I don’t know either,” is what I replied with.

Honestly, I don’t know what just happened either. I turned my head toward Lirael, who was hiding behind me. She’s safe, so that’s a relief. I managed to keep my promise to her, barely, though. All thanks to Master Elara.

Really, since we met, I’ve only been getting myself deeper and deeper in her debt. I don’t think I can ever pay her back for everything she has done for me.

“Master.”

“What?”

“Thank you.”

She looked at me, her eyes wide.

That’s rude. Even I know gratitude, you know?

“Heh, it’s fine. Cleaning up after my student is one of the responsibilities of a teacher,” she said as she roughly ruffled my hair. “Besides, you did good. While that Black Mage was a weak one, you, who are just an apprentice beginner mage, managed to defeat him and held out long enough after he went berserk until help came.”

“It’s thanks to Lirael. If I had not met her, I would be dead.”

“That’s right. That’s why you also did good defending her even while putting your own life on the line. You can be proud of that. Still, it was reckless of you to risk MY Magic Tower and MY reputation,” she said while gripping my face with her Iron Claw.

“Ib sowee!!”

“Well, it’s fine.” She released her grip on my face and continued, “Thanks to you, I remembered who I am and what I was like. Really, since when do I care about treaties and whatnot?”

“Maybe you’re getting old?”

“You want to get beaten?”

Master Elara sighed and turned to Lirael, then bowed her head.

“I’m sorry for the unsightly display, Lady Lirael. Even though my disciple owed his life to you, I was about to just let those guys take you away.”

“I-I understand. You have your own position to consider. Actually, is it okay to go into conflict with them?”

“Well, there will be a lot of troublesome things, but those can be solved with money or favors. It will not be too bad either. They know what I was like, and the Pope will most likely just let this incident slide.”

“What you were like, Master?”

“Yeah. I’m not really proud of it, but let’s just say I was kind of wild when I was in my twenties.”

“Uwaah, wild according to your standards already sounds bad. You razed a city to the ground or something?”

“That’s a secret.”

She smiled mischievously after that. Really, only a young woman can do that and look cute, you know? If a woman in her thirties did that, it would just be scary. Well, Master Elara still looked like she was in her twenties, so I guess it looked kinda cute.

Nah, scratch that. If it’s something she needs to keep secret, then she probably, most definitely, did something very bad.

Maybe it would be better not to know. Yep, let’s not think about it anymore. Remember, curiosity killed the cat, and sometimes ignorance is bliss.

Sigh. At least everything is over now. I don’t know if Luna is safe or not, or what happened to Aaron and why the reinforcement came so late, but I can find out later after I get back.

The moment I thought that, my vision turned blurry.

“…Huh?”

Strength left my body all at once, and I leaned down and fell to the ground again.

‘...Crap, I’m passing out.’

I could tell that Master and Lirael were surprised that I was suddenly passing out from their voices, which kept calling my name. Their voices sounded so far away, and my body felt heavier by the second.

Just like that, I passed out.