Chapter 56
Thud, thud.
A small light, barely illuminating a step ahead.
A figure moved forward, guided by that light.
A quiet alley where only the sounds of small animals rummaging through trash could be heard.
Kain stopped precisely at the promised spot, accompanied by the light.
And the moment Kain stopped.
Whoosh!
Something flew towards Kain.
"..."
Swish.
Kain subtly shifted the coordinates of the flame illuminating his front.
The object that had been flying past the flame hit a trash can behind him with a thump.
"Meow?!"
A cat, engrossed in a leftover piece of meat, was startled and scurried away.
And a moment later.
"Wow, he dodged that."
Thump, thump.
Another figure appeared from the darkness.
"What was that?"
Kain asked with cold eyes, and Eisel, who had appeared, scratched the back of his head with an awkward expression.
"You don't have to be so serious. If you're holding a tiny flame like that in the dark, wouldn't anyone want to try hitting it?"
"I don't empathize with that at all."
"..."
"The Air Sting was very weak, and it flew precisely towards the flame. If that hadn't been the case, I would have counterattacked immediately."
"Yes, my apologies."
Eisel raised both hands in a gesture of surrender.
"So, was it validated?"
"Huh? What?"
"Your statement yesterday, 'I could avoid Wind Ripper.' Wasn't that thrown with the intention of validating it?"
Eisel, who had innocently asked again, showed a subtle expression after hearing Kain's reply.
Then, he burst out laughing.
"Hahaha! Wow, I feel like I've been stripped bare in the middle of the night. I lost. You're more formidable than I thought."
Eisel waved his hand, as if truly apologetic.
"I'm sorry for testing you without permission. But I was genuinely curious if the reason you didn't move at all, even when your neck could have been severed, was truly because you read the trajectory of my magic."
"..."
"As you said, it was an Air Sting with almost no power... And it was activated without warning in a place with no visibility, so in a way, it should have been harder to avoid than Wind Ripper. To react to that so casually... I have no choice but to believe you."
"..."
"But can you ease up your expression a little? You're angrier than I thought. I'm really sorry. Phew, this is going to be difficult if we start like this before going in... Will you forgive me if I grant you one wish?"
"Really?"
Kain stared at him blankly, and Eisel, perhaps feeling uneasy, added conditions.
"...As long as it's not 'bang my head in a trash can and die immediately,' or 'give me all your money,' or something like that...?"
Kain chuckled, looking at Eisel's tense face.
"I'm not angry. There's no harm in thoroughly verifying the ability of someone they’re entering a potentially dangerous place with."
"Oh, then..."
"Still, I'll hold you to your word about granting a wish as a debt. If you're ready, let's go."
"..."
Eisel sighed deeply, then pointed below where they stood.
"You might have roughly guessed from the location, but we're going to move underground from here."
The current location of Kain and Eisel was quite far from where the black market was being held.
"We could infiltrate from a closer spot, but that would increase the risk. I determined this place was the safest all around."
"I can endure inconvenience if it lowers the risk."
"Alright. Let's go in immediately then."
Eisel lifted and pulled away the iron grate of the sewer entrance right next to them.
"Hmm, by the way, it's going to smell a bit."
***
Just before entering, Eisel cast a spell on Kain and himself.
"Wind Cloak."
Also known as a wind mantle.
It's a spell that makes wind envelop and protect the caster's surroundings.
Because the magic adheres closely to the body, it's weak against heavy impacts like swords, arrows, or Ice Spears, but it's quite useful for blocking small, delicate attacks like Fire Needles.
However, this time, it wasn't for protection.
"It prevents the smell from clinging to your clothes."
Most people who enter the black market as customers are wealthy individuals with more money than they know what to do with.
So, they usually bring loyal, discreet, and skilled close associates as escorts.
If such a person were to pass by with the smell of rotten sewage on their clothes, wouldn't they be suspected?
"We can't cover our entire faces since we need to breathe, but this should probably be enough. Ugh, the smell. Bear with it for a bit. Once we get to the main waterway, the smell will be much better."
Kain walked into the narrow sewer, where spiderwebs were frequently visible, and the long shadows of insects, illuminated by the flame Kain held, roamed the walls.
"...I cleaned this place out not long ago, and it's still like this."
Eisel grumbled, leading the way and clearing the path ahead with Wind Cutter.
Kain silently followed behind him.
'I saw it yesterday, but he's definitely not bad.'
Wind Cloak might seem insignificant in terms of its effect, but it's a quite difficult spell among wind-elemental 4th Circle magic.
'Because it's designed so that the flow of wind adapts to the caster's movements after activation, without requiring separate coordinate manipulation.'
In the case of ice-elemental magic, if one wanted to protect the caster in a similar way, they could simply encase their body in ice and then release the coordinate manipulation.
For fire-elemental magic, it would be difficult to use for protection, but to achieve a similar phenomenon, one could simply ignite fire and similarly refrain from coordinate manipulation.
However, since wind is fundamentally a fluid, a slightly more complex method is required to make it follow the caster's movements.
'The detailed values might vary slightly for each mage, but most use a method where the wind moves based on the contact surface with the caster, changing its direction according to the curvature changes of the contact surface, and only limiting direction changes when a certain curvature is exceeded.'
In simpler terms, it meant that while the wind flowed around them, a separate spell was cast to prevent it from clinging too tightly or entering their clothes and messing things up.
The fact that he casually cast such a high-difficulty spell not only on himself but also on Kain, and then used Wind Cutter with double casting in that state, showed that Eisel was not some amateur who focused only on the destructive power of offensive magic.
'At the very least, it's a utilization rarely seen among mages who also learned fire magic.'
And the Air Sting he used without incantation earlier, his ability to conceal his presence, and his movements in climbing building roofs or walls were all marks of considerable skill in that area.
'His cleanup skills yesterday, too, are better than most clumsy assassins.'
In fact, Kain had already identified Eisel's location when he first approached the meeting spot, while extending his senses to check for other threats nearby.
Whether Eisel intended to test Kain's abilities, or suddenly changed his mind to betray and silence him, Kain was prepared to deal with any situation that might arise, observing Eisel's movements with his sensory perception.
And as a result of his assessment, he concluded that Eisel possessed enough skill not to hold him back even if unforeseen variables arose in this task.
In other words, the test wasn't only conducted by Eisel.
'Harmon would praise him endlessly if he saw this.'
After all, it was Harmon Geihardt who, uncharacteristically for a mage, emphasized physical training, saying that to perfectly utilize magic that assisted stride or jumping distance with wind, like the 3rd Circle magic Haste, one must also train their body.
"Phew... We finally got out. Ugh, my back."
While he was thinking that, they had escaped the cramped sewer and could pick up their pace.
Eisel, who had been moving along a relatively large waterway, then turned into a narrower path, navigating the complex, maze-like underground routes without hesitation.
"This way now."
How long had they walked like that?
After turning an unknown number of corners, a passage appeared ahead.
At the end of the passage was a thick iron grate.
"It's a Pernite alloy grate."
A material with high mana resistance, primarily used for safes and prison bars.
Yesterday, instead of cutting the safe, he picked the lock and took the money, but to pass through here, they had to cut the grate.
"Can you cut it?"
"It'd be hard for me alone. That's why I called you. You know what I mean, right?"
Eisel smiled, winking one eye.
"...I'll finish it as quickly as possible."
Kain pretended not to notice and extended his hand towards the grate.
"Fire."
And then, he began to heat specific parts of the grate with flame.
"Oh, as expected. I don't even have to say anything, and you just get it."
Those specific parts were the precise locations where Wind Ripper, which would cut the grate, would make direct contact.
Instead of widely heating the grate and wasting firepower, Kain narrowed the range of the flame and concentrated its power, as if drawing a cutting diagram beforehand.
The sight was as if he had drawn red lines on the grate.
"Good, just a little more."
Pernite alloy grates, as mentioned before, possess high mana resistance.
Therefore, it's not easy to penetrate them with even strong fire-elemental magic or strong wind-elemental magic.
'However, even if a metal has resistance to magic itself, its resistance to 'high temperature' itself will inevitably be relatively low.'
Even if the magic itself doesn't cause damage, prolonged exposure to high temperatures will soften the metal.
Of course, if a high-temperature resistant metal had been alloyed with Pernite, the story would be different, but high-temperature resistant metals have high melting points and are consequently difficult to process, so they are rarely used in alloys.
Especially not when making grates like this.
"That should be enough. Cut it immediately."
"Understood."
And when the grate was sufficiently heated.
Eisel cast the magic he had prepared.
"Vacuum."
First, he used the 4th Circle magic, Vacuum, to separate the air in a certain surrounding area, creating a vacuum layer to block sound.
"Wind Ripper."
While maintaining that, he began to cut through the part Kain had heated, as if grinding it down with Wind Ripper.
To maintain the high temperature as much as possible, Kain kept the Fire magic active, only pulling back the flames from the immediate area where the Wind Ripper was making contact.
Kagagagagak—!
A ear-splitting noise erupted as the grate was cut, but the sound could not penetrate the vacuum layer.
"Hmph."
Kagagagak—.
Eisel concentrated his entire being on cutting through the grate.
Veins bulged on Eisel's temples and neck as he perfectly maintained the 4th Circle magic while double-casting the 5th Circle magic.
Kagagak!
Pushing his mental power to its limit, Eisel never rested once.
And moments later.
The heavy, solid chunk of grate finally separated completely and fell.
Only then did Eisel, having fully released his magic, gasp for breath and smile.
"Thanks. Thanks to yo—"
The moment Eisel was about to speak.
Kain suddenly covered his mouth with his hand.
