Chapter 21: Chaos Magic to Stall for Time

I finally arrived at the third floor of the Star Cluster Society hall.

I pressed myself right up against the door leading to the third floor.

There were no signs of movement from inside.

I created a golden rope using my next magic.

I slid the golden rope through the gap in the door and gently moved it up and down.

There were no magical effects on the door.

If there had been, something would have triggered when the rope slipped through the gap.

I carefully lowered the doorknob and peeked inside. Just as I thought, no one was there.

I quietly gripped the dagger Aransel had given me.

This might end up being my only way out.

I opened the door just enough for a person to slip through and stepped inside.

The third floor hallway was designed like a balcony.

Lining the inner side of the balcony were rows of private rooms.

Clang! Clang!

Soon, the sound of weapons clashing echoed up from below the balcony corridor.

The railing.

I hurried forward and looked down.

There, I saw the disciples clashing with Black Dawn.

Flames were rising high.

It seemed that among those fighting, someone was wielding fire-related powers.

For example, someone like Babienne.

There were a total of seven members of Black Dawn.

Two had long-range abilities, and five were close-range fighters.

Three of them looked especially dangerous.

Among them was the eerie man who had killed the guards earlier.

It wasn’t a huge number.

But whether because of their individual strength or not, the disciples were being pushed back.

The banquet hall was, of course, a complete mess.

From the shards of glass scattered on the floor, it was clear they had broken through the glass ceiling to enter.

However, instead of an open sky above, the original ceiling had been covered.

Escaping through the ceiling didn’t seem like an option.

My gaze turned back to the disciples once more.

There was already a difference in combat strength, and on top of that, they had been ambushed.

Some of the disciples were badly injured and catching their breath in the corners.

If those were the ones Black Dawn had targeted first, then they were likely the most skilled.

The best among them had already been taken down, so it was no surprise the disciples were losing ground.

As expected, the situation wasn’t good.

The disciples were holding out in their own way, but it looked like the outcome would be decided soon.

Things weren’t going in a favorable direction.

If the disciples were defeated here, Aransel and Sohan wouldn’t have enough time to escape.

The moment the escape was noticed, Black Dawn would immediately redirect their forces that way.

If the disciples lost and everyone here rushed off, the two would be in real danger.

Naturally, the chances of the escape failing would skyrocket.

That much had to be prevented.

Clang!

“Urghhh!”

One of the disciples was struck down and rolled across the floor.

The advantage had clearly shifted further to Black Dawn.

I could sense a flurry of movement from their side.

A spark lit in my mind.

Right…thinking about it, those guys are terrorists.

And this place was in the middle of a city.

Time was not on their side.

With how strange the situation inside the Star Cluster Society had become, there was no telling who might show up.

They’d be desperate to wrap this up as quickly as possible.

I crouched low and dashed quickly along the third-floor corridor.

Since the battle was raging below, no one paid any attention to me.

Thanks to that, I reached the third-floor stairs safely.

I descended the spiral staircase swiftly and arrived on the first floor.

The sound of clashing weapons grew louder.

I could see the desperate expressions of the disciples more clearly now.

I bypassed them and headed toward the injured.

The injured were leaning against the wall, swallowing groans of pain.

Many of them seemed to be in a daze.

I checked their eyes. Their corneas were pitch black.

Even when they looked at me, their gaze didn’t follow.

Judging from this, it looked like some kind of mental or illusion-type ability had bound their minds.

They must’ve planned to subdue the disciples like this and kidnap them afterward.

What vile people.

Of course, with my current level, there was no way I could undo this kind of ability.

But… there was exactly one forbidden method I could use.

Black Dawn still hadn’t noticed me.

I dragged the largest, most imposing one over toward a pillar.

Damn it, this guy’s ridiculously huge.

Hopefully, someone this big actually has the skills to match.

I grunted as I dragged him behind the pillar, where my view became partially obscured.

Flames were rising inside the hall.

Thanks to that, it was actually brighter than most places outside.

The light of holy magic would be easy to hide here.

“Before I begin treatment, I need your consent. Do you agree?”

Trying to shake off the tension, I threw the question at the man.

“Ugh, uuugh…”

Consent granted.

“Alright, I’ll begin anesthesia. This might sting a little.”

The most basic function of holy magic was to stimulate the body’s natural healing ability.

Beyond the basics, it could even restore severed parts by recalling the body’s memory, but that’s well beyond my level.

Still, because it’s so fundamental, there’s one very useful trick it allows.

The heart is an incredibly delicate organ.

What do you think happens if you forcibly accelerate the healing rate of something like that?

The heart, overwhelmed and wildly pumping out blood, can’t withstand the stress and simply shuts down.

In other words, cardiac arrest.

It might sound like a terrifying assassination technique that could kill someone at any time, but it wasn’t quite that simple.

For one, holy magic required prolonged contact before it could reach the heart.

And no one would just sit still while you mess with their heart.

Everyone in this world used mana so they could defend against holy magic too.

Which means, this method only works on someone who’s unconscious.

And right now, that was exactly the case.

The holy magic flowing into the man’s body stimulated his heart.

His body twitched in pain for a moment, but it didn’t last long.

His heart stopped, and he died just like that.

My first kill.

But honestly, it didn’t feel like much.

After all, even I have died countless times already.

Death has become far too trivial for me.

At this point, feeling anything over one more death would be laughable.

And to be blunt, what’s there to agonize over when it’s just some uncivilized otherworlder?

Maybe it was all the stress.

There were times when I felt like I was starting to lose it, so I shook my head to clear it.

The man had been successfully anesthetized.

So it was time to show my true worth.

The light seeping from my palm burrowed into the man’s body.

His heart, which had stopped, began to beat once more.

It was resurrection magic.

“Guhk, kuh!”

Soon after, the man coughed violently and opened his eyes.

The black curse-like shadow that had filled his gaze had also vanished.

As expected of resurrection magic.

Curses or whatever else….it restored everything to a perfect state.

“Wh-Where am I…?”

A confused voice spilled from his lips.

He had just come back to life, so there seemed to be some disorientation in his memory.

“Are you conscious?”

“Y-You’re…”

“I’m Haru, disciple of Lady Raphazl. Do you remember being attacked by Black Dawn?”

“Black Dawn…”

At the mention of Black Dawn, clarity returned to his eyes.

“What’s the situation?”

As expected from someone who had trained under a famous figure.

Rather than reacting with panic like an ordinary person, he tried to assess the situation first.

That was a relief.

Judging by the look in his eyes, he had some real skill.

“We’re still in combat.”

“You were the one who treated me?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

Everyone here knew the name Raphael.

And since she belonged to the Grace Magic Tower, it was obvious I was a holy magic user.

“Thank you. I’ll rejoin the fight right away.”

“On your own?”

He had already been taken down once by Black Dawn.

Even if he returned to the frontlines, it wasn’t likely to turn the tide dramatically.

Maybe he realized that too, because he hesitated.

“You have a plan?”

And he understood what I meant.

I was glad I had revived someone sharp.

“There are others over there who were attacked and are lying unconscious. Can you bring them back without being noticed?”

A single person wouldn’t be enough to turn the tide.

But if it were several people, that would be a different story.

What Black Dawn fears most is time.

If that time runs out, they’ll have no options left.

“Easy enough.”

The man accepted my suggestion without hesitation.

In the next moment, he vanished before my eyes.

Wait….don’t tell me he’s in the assassination field with that build?

It was surprising that someone his size could disappear so completely.

Now I understood how he’d been able to stay so calm and logical right after being revived.

If he specialized in assassination, he must have trained his mind as well.

I was lucky.

No, if I were really lucky, I wouldn’t be in this situation at all, would I?

Still, there was finally a glimmer of hope.

The man returned quickly, carrying the injured.

Just like I had done with him, I anesthetized each one and revived them.

As I repeated the process, the number of injured began to dwindle, one by one.

My fingertips started to tremble.

It seemed like the price of drawing too much mana at once.

Fortunately, just as Liliran said, my heart didn’t hurt or anything like that.

“What do you think? At this point, I’d say we’ve got a fighting chance.”

I hid my hands and looked back at the first man I had revived.

Since the injured had been moved in secret, Black Dawn hadn’t noticed anything yet.

But it wouldn’t be long before they realized something was off.

That meant now was the perfect time to launch a surprise attack.

“Our chances of winning aren’t high.”

The man, who had actually fought Black Dawn before, spoke with a grim expression.

It seemed their strength was beyond anything we’d imagined.

“But we can at least buy some time.”

Still, he wasn’t the type to just sit back and take a beating.

I could see the fire of determination burning in his eyes, and I nodded.

“Thanks. It’s all because of you.”

He gave a word of thanks on everyone’s behalf and returned to the battlefield.

“You bastards!”

“We’re paying you back for what you did!”

The disciples were clearly outmatched.

More and more of them were being taken down and left writhing on the ground by Black Dawn.

“What the hell is this?”

“These guys…wait a second.”

But when the fallen suddenly rejoined the fight in large numbers, even Black Dawn showed signs of panic.

Black Dawn had deployed only a small number of troops, likely to avoid detection during infiltration.

And that ended up being their weakness.

Their plan to end things quickly had come back to bite them.

Just as confusion began to spread among Black Dawn’s ranks—

My eyes were already scanning for someone.

A secluded spot.

There, crouched low and clutching a staff that looked like it had been picked up off the ground, was a woman hesitating.

Red hair and a face that screamed arrogance.

But unlike before, her eyes now flickered with anxiety and confusion.

Found her.

Babienne.

I moved swiftly through the shadows.

There was still a chance she was on the side of the Scarlet Flame Lord, the one possibly behind all this chaos.

But if that were true, she wouldn’t have spoken to me earlier.

There’d have been no reason to draw attention to herself.

Of course, I was the one who made her stand out, but still…my instincts told me something.

Just look at that dumb face!

She seriously looks completely clueless and doesn’t know what to do!

If she actually planned and orchestrated all this, I’ll slit my own throat with a dagger.

No way I’m letting myself get kidnapped by her.

And so, I stepped in front of Babienne.

“Babienne.”

“Eek!”

As soon as she heard her name, she swung the staff.

This crazy woman.

I quickly stepped back, and the staff narrowly missed me.

Whatever else she might be, traitor or not, one thing was clear. She was a crazy bitch.

And definitely too dumb to be following the Scarlet Flame Lord’s grand plan.

“Trying to kill someone? Look properly.”

“W-Wait, you’re—?”

She finally recognized me and looked completely flustered.

“If we want to stop that, I need your help.”

I pointed toward Black Dawn.

The first man I saved couldn’t guarantee victory against Black Dawn.

Even though the enemy wasn’t killing them and only subduing them, they still couldn’t be sure of winning.

There’s no need to explain how huge that difference is.

In the end, this fight will be Black Dawn’s victory.

And now, thanks to the variable that is me, the injured have returned.

With time running out, they’re bound to stop holding back.

If it gets desperate enough, they might even consider killing for real.

That’s why before it comes to that, I have to throw in another variable, no matter what.

A variable that could tie up their movements.

I wasn’t trying to buy a huge amount of time.

All I wanted was to throw them off a little.

To make them feel a hint of absurdity.

A flicker of unease that maybe their backer had been compromised.

That’s all I wanted.

And Babienne was a perfect fit for that.

Even if she turned out to be of no value to them at all, it didn’t matter.

What I wanted was time.

This was just chaos for the sake of buying that time!

“I have a plan to stop those guys.”

Babienne had experienced firsthand just how good I was at stirring up chaos.

So she bit her lip hard and gripped her staff tightly.

“…What is it?”

The bee had found its honey.