Overpowered Archmage Doesn’t Hide His Talent -
Chapter 98: ‘The Magician’
Chapter 98 – ‘The Magician’
We won.
The railway was littered with remains that barely resembled corpses.
They looked like smashed fruits in a carriage, their flesh and guts spilling out in a grotesque mess.
“Phew…”
Trixie wiped the sweat off her forehead. Becky, who seemed to have relaxed after the tension, collapsed on the ground.
“Ugh… I hate heights, I hate gore, I hate everything here…”
“Not everything, right?”
Louis looked at me. Becky’s eyes also followed his gaze.
She blushed and fiddled with her hat.
“…W-well, not everything. Just most of it.”
The representatives sighed deeply.
Their bodies were still trembling slightly.
It was understandable.
They had killed ghosts, but it felt no different from killing humans.
“You did well.”
I muttered a low praise.
They had defeated the ghosts with their own power, without any help.
And they had shown less hesitation against enemies that looked like humans.
Then I heard some murmurs from somewhere else.
I saw a mercenary in armor receiving greetings from the reporters.
“Thank you, boss!”
A purple-haired woman with a strong aura.
It was Elysis, the leader of the Mystic Canyon.
She had personally brought the reporters down from the tail of the train.
They didn’t care that I was next to them and continued their conversation.
“Was it amazing?”
“Yes. Oh, I don’t mean the scale of the ghosts… I mean, the magic department representatives were amazing.”
Arine, one of the reporters, answered.
She glanced at the ghost remains around her, and Elysis nodded slightly.
“What did you do up there?”
“We captured the representatives’ actions with the crystal ball.”
“Hmm.”
“But, I’m also a magician before a reporter. This level of manipulation is unbelievable. It’s a really amazing level of…”
“Yeah. I know. I know too.”
Elysis cut off Arine’s words and looked at the tail of the train.
The VIP car that was pointing to the sky.
The next moment, she asked me.
“Hey, long time no see. Did you really do this?”
The leader punched the train roof with a thud.
I nodded quietly.
“…You’re an amazing guy.”
Elysis muttered and smirked. It was a smile full of satisfaction.
“Thanks to you, the magic department representatives are fine…”
She asked Arine.
“What about the reporters? No casualties, right?”
“No. Not a single one.”
Arine glanced at me a few times.
“We were caught in the explosion and couldn’t move… But thanks to Flan, he lifted the train and we were safe.”
“Good. No deaths.”
The leader pointed to Arine’s crystal ball with her chin.
“That thing, are you recording us right now?”
“No? No. It’s a device that needs periodic mana replenishment… It ran out of power in the middle. But we got everything until the ghosts were defeated─”
“Stop. Just answer what I asked.”
“Oh, yes.”
Silence fell, and Elysis’s eyes returned to the train. She stared at it for a long time.
“…Hmm.”
Elysis looked at me and the train alternately.
She had a lot to say, but she seemed to be struggling with something.
In the end, it was Arine who broke the silence first.
She took a step closer to me.
“Hey, don’t worry. We got the representatives’ actions clearly.”
“You might have forgotten something.”
I returned the three teleportation stones to her.
Arine’s eyes widened a beat late.
“Oh, my. I forgot about the teleportation stones! I was so distracted…”
I only cared about capturing the representatives’ actions.
In other words, I had no interest in the reporters who couldn’t do anything.
But Arine was still excited. She seemed to have given up on hiding her identity.
“I wish I had recorded the train more clearly… It’s too precious to see it alone. Oh, if I fill up the mana and record it again─”
“No need.”
My mana is not infinite.
The train is not being held in real time.
It’s just standing up.
That means, it will soon crash down the cliff.
I asked Elysis.
“How much time is left until the main event of the expedition?”
Elysis, who was lost in thought, looked at me and burst into a snicker.
“Look at you. Have you decided to talk to me casually now? There are about five hours left until the main event.”
“Five hours, huh.”
That was satisfactory.
I should be able to reach the destination without any trouble.
Elysis narrowed her eyes slightly and asked.
“Flan. Are you thinking of entering the Mysterious Canyon? It’s a serious matter, even though the place is like this.”
“Still not interested.”
“Is that so.”
She smiled for a while, and then pointed at the rail with her chin.
“Let’s talk while we go back to the station. As you can see, the rail is like this, so we can’t go this way anyway.”
I glanced at the broken rail.
It was completely shattered, but it wasn’t that long if I only considered the ‘distance’.
I figured I could fix it if I had the materials.
“Ask for the materials to be delivered.”
“Materials? Why materials all of a sudden.”
Elysis blinked.
“…Don’t tell me.”
“I’m thinking of fixing the rail and passing through.”
“Oh, you.”
Elysis shook her head.
“It’s not that I don’t know you have the ability to do that. But this rail gets more dangerous as you go further. That’s why I’m saying we should go to another station.”
“Because it’s dangerous, I said I would fix it and go.”
There was a brief silence.
“Huh, you’re really something.”
She looked at me with faint eyes, and Elysis finally agreed.
She shouted at the mercenaries who were waiting behind her.
“That’s it. Don’t prepare for the escort. We’re not going back.”
“Yes. Understood!”
“Instead, bring some materials. To fix the rail.”
“Yes!”
The mercenaries moved swiftly at the leader’s words.
Elysis brushed her purple hair with a good mood.
“Hey, Flan.”
She called my name again.
“One more thing, think about the Mysterious Canyon. I’ll make you a good spot.”
“If it’s not the leader’s spot… Leave me alone.”
“The leader’s spot is not possible, you bastard.”
Elysis shrugged her shoulders.
“Be careful in Verkel. Our guys, they’re rough with people who don’t eat from the same pot.”
“Are you talking about Celestial Blessing?”
“Yeah.”
I sneered as soon as I heard that.
Who the hell was it and what should I be careful of?
“You should warn Celestial Blessing, shouldn’t you?”
“Hmm?”
“Our kids just had a blast killing human-shaped monsters, so they might confuse ghosts and humans.”
As Elysis swallowed a hollow laugh, Becky jumped up like a startled cat next to her.
“Flan, I can’t k**l people!”
The girl went on with a heated explanation by herself.
“Ghosts are monsters in the end, so I killed them… How can I k**l people! I can’t do that!”
“You can.”
Trixie and Louis’s eyes widened as well. Becky pointed at them with her index finger.
“I can’t! Trixie and Louis must think the same as me, right? Look at their faces. They’re all similar to me. Guys, right?”
“…”
There was no answer.
A brief awkward silence fell, and Becky started to feel embarrassed.
“You. Did you just say ‘we’?”
“Wow… Flan, that’s the first time you said that to me.”
The reason why Trixie and Louis’s eyes widened was finally revealed.
Becky also exclaimed, “Oh,” and made a shocked face.
“Tha, tha, that’s right? I just said our kids…”
“Shut up.”
I dismissed their reactions.
It wasn’t that I didn’t mean it, but I didn’t intend to imply anything by calling them ‘we’.
Elysis called Louis this time.
“Hey, Louis.”
“Elysis, ma’am. It’s been a while.”
Louis greeted her politely.
“You’ve been working hard? Grow up and come to the Mystic Valley.”
“Ah, that’s…”
Louis couldn’t finish his answer and glanced at me.
“…?”
Soon, Elysis’s eyes widened and she burst into laughter as if she couldn’t believe it.
“What’s with that reaction? Did I lose you to Flan?”
“Haha… No, it’s not that, I just learned a lot from Flan. I want to stay by his side for a while.”
“Okay. We’ll talk more after the extermination festival.”
The conversation ended like that, and I waited for the supplies to arrive while gathering mana.
“Excuse me, excuse me…”
A reporter came up to me. She had a notebook and a pen in her hand.
“Can I get your autograph in advance?”
At the reporter’s words, the magic department representatives who were next to me looked at me with curious eyes.
“Wow, Flan, you’re really a celebrity now.” “…Should I get one too?” “You can get it if you summarize your paper.” “Geez. Not that.”
I quietly took the notebook.
I quickly wrote my signature.
And I was about to give the notebook back to her, but.
“Ah, can you please write my name next to it?”
My eyebrows twitched.
Annoyance rose from the depths of my heart.
“…Name.”
“Ah, I’m Lorelia.”
I wrote it without difficulty.
“The spelling is correct, right?”
She nodded.
“Yes. That’s right. You’re amazing in person. To be able to show such power as a magician…”
As. As. As…
I drew two lines over the signature.
“You’re not qualified.”
◈
“Oh my! Is that the Knight of the Flickering Flame?”
As soon as he got off the train, an old man greeted Scarlet.
He was the village chief of Verkel, Kenneth.
He personally took off his shoes and welcomed the Knight of the Flickering Flame.
It was only natural.
“Did you have any trouble on your way here?”
Scarlet gave him a glance and nothing more.
“Not really.”
Scarlet had taken a train that was prepared only for her to get here.
The expression ‘the guest of the guests’ was truly for her.
“Haha. Whenever you feel uncomfortable, please feel free to tell me. What can’t I do for the Knight of the Flickering Flame?”
Besides that, the people next to the village chief bowed their heads politely to Scarlet.
“It’s an honor to meet the Knight of the Flickering Flame. The annual extermination festival is a great help to Verkel’s monster eradication.”
The procession continued.
The village chief, the village chief’s daughter, someone whose name I didn’t even remember… Scarlet nodded vaguely to them all.
“These people. Enough with the greetings… Don’t bother the Knight of the Flickering Flame!”
The village chief stopped them and smiled brightly at Scarlet.
“Let’s go to the plaza where the representatives and the villagers are gathered. When they see you, they’ll be overjoyed.”
“Let’s go.”
Scarlet walked with the village chief, followed by a line of others.
They arrived at the square, where the representatives and villagers greeted Scarlet with sparkling eyes.
“…”
But no, that’s not how it should have been. The reality in front of her eyes was too different.
“What’s going on?”
“How did they take down the ghosts so easily?”
“Their score is already that high.”
The villagers and representatives were chatting excitedly. But their interest was not in Scarlet.
They didn’t even seem to notice that she had arrived.
“…?”
Scarlet doubted her own sight.
The village chief’s face turned pale.
He hurriedly looked for the person in charge and asked.
“What on earth is going on here?”
“…Ah, I was so focused on watching.”
The person in charge was still dragged along with his eyes on the record sheet.
“…?”
He muttered something under his breath, but when he saw Scarlet and the village chief’s faces, his mouth opened wide.
He stammered as he answered.
“Ah… Ahhhhh! Village chief! You came with the Knight of the Flickering Flame! Ah, no wonder! I felt this tremendous energy~!”
“Enough, just explain what’s going on.”
“Ah, yes! Of course, we prepared to welcome the Knight of the Flickering Flame. The representatives just arrived and they were still out of it…”
He gave an irrelevant answer.
Scarlet and the village chief were not convinced at all, and Scarlet finally stepped forward and asked.
“What are you all distracted by?”
“Hahahaha~!”
The person in charge swept his hair back and smiled.
It was the most awkward smile in the world.
“It’s really nothing, the Knight of the Flickering Flame doesn’t have to worry about it! Yes!”
Scarlet frowned.
“So, you’re saying you treated me like this because of something trivial…”
“No… No…! That’s not it…!”
The person in charge was flustered and fumbled with his words and body.
He looked like he would collapse at any moment.
Scarlet pushed him aside and approached the record sheet. The person in charge didn’t know what to do.
“Knight! Wait, wait! Don’t do that…!”
“Get off me.”
The knight shoved the person in charge away.
“Look at the score. They haven’t even started yet.”
“At this rate… Isn’t it dangerous for the Celestial Blessing?”
Scarlet pushed through the noisy crowd and made her way to the front.
And finally, she stood in front of the record sheet.
“…”
“…”
The face of the damn mage who shared her surname.
That was all that was on the record sheet.
The magic department representatives were fighting.
The ghosts were swept away like dust, and the magic was shooting out.
Everyone here was captivated by that sight.
“Just, for this kind of thing…”
Scarlet tore the record sheet off the wall with her hand.
The people around her were about to get angry, but when they saw who it was, they swallowed their breath.
“Kn, Knight?”
“The Knight of the Flickering Flame?”
Scarlet’s burning eyes were still fixed on the record sheet.
136, 137, 138…
“…”
The mages who were killing the notorious ghosts.
The score that kept rising.
The square was soon quiet, and Scarlet felt an indescribable emotion rising.
There were less than 30 minutes left until the start of the extermination.
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