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[Translator - Kiteretsu]
[Proofreader - Kyros]
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Chapter 61
"There are so many types of physical poisons. It’s too much trouble to carry around an antidote for each one, right? So, I made this."
Leaving Marisa, who had fallen silent as if struck dumb with shock, Chris eagerly rummaged through his belongings, and soon found what he was looking for.
A transparent orb.
A location signal magic device used to inform allies of one’s position.
An essential magic device when acting separately from the party like this.
"...What are you trying to do?"
Chris grinned.
"What do you think would happen if I sent a false signal to the Demon Cult's demon soldiers using this?"
"!!"
Marisa growled a warning.
"Don't you dare pull any stupid tricks. The moment you mess with it even a little, that magic device will self-destruct."
For location signal magic devices, security was paramount.
If an enemy who had subdued someone used the device to send a false signal to their allies, it could put everyone in serious danger.
Thus, if even the slightest error was detected in the magic pattern input, the device would immediately self-destruct.
The destructive force would be at least equivalent to a 4-star level destruction spell.
"You wouldn’t even leave behind a corpse."
Chris nodded.
She was right.
If such a powerful destruction spell detonated right in front of him, even Chris would find it hard to survive unscathed.
However.
"I just have to make sure it doesn’t explode."
"...What?"
Marisa’s eyes widened as if they would tear apart.
Chris was injecting his mana into it!
"You insane bastard?!"
Marisa squeezed her eyes shut.
If the magic device exploded, it wouldn’t just be Chris who was doomed. Marisa, standing right next to him, would also be caught up in it.
She braced herself for the impact about to engulf her body, gritting her teeth — but something was strange.
It was quiet.
"……??"
Marisa cautiously opened her eyes, and once again, she couldn’t help but open them wide in disbelief.
Chris was doing something crazy again.
"Is this the pattern? How's the security for the transmission circuit? Is the core of the security at the back of the spiral?"
He was infusing mana into the magic device here and there, like he was playing with a toy.
But there was no rejection reaction at all.
"H-How?"
She had no idea how many times she had asked that question since meeting Chris.
Chris kindly explained again.
"It’s nothing much. You just have to make sure the magic device doesn’t recognize my mana."
"……."
In other words, how in the world was he even doing that?
It was like saying, "Even if you're staring at it right in front of you, you just have to make it so they can't see it."
"Ah, it's done."
With a click, the magic device’s security was released.
Immediately after, a signal rang out.
A green alert.
It was a prompt asking to confirm Marisa’s safety.
If a response didn’t come back in time, the Demon Cult’s demon soldiers would come to rescue Marisa.
"What’s the signal code for the Demon Cult?"
"...Do you really think I’d tell you?"
Disabling the security on the magic device wasn’t the end of it.
Normally, when sending a signal with a device like this, more than ten different patterns were combined to create a code.
"Well, even if you don't tell me, there’s a way to figure it out."
At his calm words, Marisa tensed up.
'No way... is he going to torture me?'
It was the easiest method.
If she were in Chris’s position, she would have chosen the same way.
If a false signal was sent from her device as the commander, the Demon Cult’s expedition team would be thrown into complete disarray.
'Damned bastard.'
Marisa clenched her fists tightly.
But she couldn’t blame him.
Right now, she and Chris were enemies.
As soon as she thought about being tortured by Chris, an overwhelming surge of emotion she couldn’t understand welled up, and she bit her lip hard.
It was absolutely miserable.
She didn’t even know exactly what about it was so miserable, but it was the worst.
'Why did I ever get engaged to a guy like him.'
"Hurry up and do it."
"Do what?"
"If you're going to torture me, just get it over with!"
"...What are you talking about."
"What?"
"I need to focus, so can you be quiet? Ah, there we go."
While Marisa stood there blinking blankly, Chris casually tapped on the magic device to send a signal.
He combined the unique code patterns of the Demon Cult.
"……."
"Are you curious how I did it again? Well... hmm. I just did it because I’m a genius. Even if I explained, you wouldn’t be able to copy it anyway, so don’t worry too much about it."
To be precise, he hacked into the magic device, traced the mana patterns, and deduced the code, but Chris couldn’t be bothered to explain it properly, so he brushed it off casually.
Chris gave a smug, annoying smile.
"Well then, I’m off. Oh, and just so you know, don’t even think about trying to undo the binding. No matter how much you struggle, there's no way you could break it with your level of skill."
Without even glancing back, he disappeared.
Left alone, bound and abandoned, Marisa wore a blank expression.
She stared for a long while in the direction where he had disappeared, then muttered a single sentence.
"...You bastard."
* * *
Chris moved quickly.
‘I’ve wasted too much time.’
But it wasn’t without any gain.
First of all, he had made Marisa owe him a debt.
She might curse him now, but once everything was over, she would realize that it was thanks to Chris that she had survived.
‘There will be many entanglements with the Demon Cult from now on. I’ll use this as leverage to make her an easy mark.’
That wasn’t all.
The location signal magic device.
Marisa was the leader of the Demon Cult’s expedition team.
With this magic device, he could issue false orders.
‘First, I’ll order them to climb down the cliffs and conduct an exploration. Next, I’ll have them dig up the swamps and search the ground. I’ll keep them endlessly busy with meaningless work so they won’t get in the way.’
Chris grinned wickedly.
That wasn’t all either.
‘I’ll keep them suffering and then use them at the critical moment.’
Chris decided to use the full force of the Demon Cult’s expedition team for the climax of his ‘operation.’
The Demon Cult’s expedition team would end up dancing in the palm of his hand without even realizing it.
‘Now I need to steal the relic.’
Chris’s eyes darkened.
The relic discovered this time didn’t have overwhelming power in itself.
But depending on how it was used, it could create incredible miracles.
After more than two years of research, Marquess Langham had discovered a way to utilize the relic, which resulted in a horrific disaster for the Dark Demonic House.
That incident led to the death of Nordian, the lord of the house.
‘I can’t let that happen.’
Lord Nordian had to survive to prepare for the future to come.
And for Chris’s own sake, he had to obtain the relic.
‘I’m the only one who can properly use the power of this relic. The problem is where the relic is.’
There were two ways relics appeared.
First, they could have been hidden from long ago.
Second, they could newly fall from the sky.
The phrase ‘falling from the sky’ wasn’t a metaphor.
They were literally thrown down from Gehenna or the Celestial Realm onto the surface. Relics were originally items created by demons or constellations, imbued with their powers.
Almost as if they were watching and enjoying the sight of lowly creatures fighting over their relics, demons and constellations would periodically send relics into the world.
‘I heard roughly where it would be.’
The northwest side of the mountain range.
But even that covered a vast area.
Searching alone could take days or even longer.
‘Still, I have my ways.’
First, he headed toward the northwest side of the mountain range.
Along the way, he didn’t forget to use Marisa’s location signal magic device to issue strange orders to the Demon Cult’s expedition team.
"Why does Lady Marisa keep ordering us to explore places like this?"
“It’s Lady Marisa’s order. There must be a reason for it, right?”
“Well, it is Lady Marisa, after all.”
The Demon Cult’s expedition team tilted their heads in confusion but still followed the signal orders sent by Marisa.
Meanwhile, after Chris arrived at the northwest side, he began to act in an unexpected way.
He inspected the ground and checked for signs where grass and bushes had been bent.
It wasn’t an action to search for the relic.
“Bingo.”
Chris smiled faintly.
They were faint traces.
Signs that someone had passed through.
Traces so subtle that only a professional tracking unit could notice them, but they were unmistakable.
‘This is the deep part of a demonic realm where no human should be living. There’s only one reason why traces like this would be here.’
Chris carefully followed the trail.
When he used the secret techniques of the swordsmanship clans’ shadow arts, his presence completely vanished.
How far had he moved after that?
An astonishing scene appeared before him.
“Have the Dark Demonic House people not arrived yet?”
“No, not yet.”
“How much longer do we have to wait? Damn slugs. Hurry up and let the Dark Demonic House bastards take this relic.”
There were two masked demons standing there!
Judging by their physiques, one appeared to be a woman and the other a man, but it was immediately clear which faction they belonged to.
‘Poison energy. They’re from the Demon Cult.’
And not ordinary demons either.
The man appeared to be 4-star.
The woman seemed to be a formidable 5-star.
However, the man seemed to have a higher status, as he spoke to the woman in a commanding tone.
“How tedious. To think someone like me has to play this mole game. Damn it. Because of that cursed woman, Marisa.”
It was a slip of the tongue that revealed a lot.
‘The man must be a direct heir of the Demon Cult. Probably… one of the young masters.’
The 5-star woman in front of him seemed to be his subordinate.
But why would such high-ranking members of the Demon Cult be here?
Chris answered himself internally.
‘They must have joined hands with Marquis Langham.’
Exactly.
This scheme wasn’t something Marquis Langham had orchestrated alone.
There were collaborators within the Demon Cult as well.
Most likely, they had allied themselves with him to bring down Marisa, their rival in the succession struggle.
As if to confirm Chris’s suspicions, the man spoke in a dark voice.
“Well, it can’t be helped. Once this is over, I won’t ever have to see that unlucky woman Marisa’s face again, so I’ll endure it.”
“……”
“You’ve memorized the plan properly, right? Once Lady Jupien of the Dark Demonic House takes the relic, we lure her into a trap and annihilate them all. Make sure there’s evidence left that points to Marisa.”
It was the full outline of the plan devised by Marquis Langham.
Through the vile scheme of the Demon Cult, the Dark Demonic House’s expedition team was to be completely annihilated.
Among the victims would be Jupien, a descendant of the Baron family, and Chris as well, so it was not a matter to be taken lightly.
Marquess Langham would use the sacrifice of the expedition team as a pretext to demand the reward he desired.
He would claim not only the relic discovered during this expedition, the "Emblem of the Constellation," but also the relic found previously by the Demon Cult, the "Amulet of Twilight."
‘I can’t allow them to have either.’
First, he had to secretly steal away the Emblem of the Constellation right in front of him.
Just then, the masked man from the Demon Cult spoke.
“By the way, I don’t know what kind of relic this is. It seems to be related to the holy relics, but we can’t even open the seal first.”
When relics are first discovered, they are hidden in the form of a seal.
“Well, it doesn’t matter since I won’t be the one keeping it anyway. I just need to deal with that woman Marisa. You, go set the trap now.”
“At your command.”
The 5-star woman vanished swiftly.
Once the masked man was left alone, Chris lowered his body.
‘This is my chance.’
Honestly, if the 5-star woman had stayed, Chris wouldn’t have been able to pull off any move.
But the man was different.
The man’s level was 4-star.
And... Chris’s level was also 4-star, at the realm of "Holy Radiance."
‘Even in a direct fight, I can win.’
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[Translator - Kiteretsu]
[Proofreader - Kyros]
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