“I don’t hate you.”

Valletta answered, turning around after a long time. Holding the pen again, she slowly wrote down the unfinished alchemical formula. Reinhardt’s eyes grew wide as he heard her voice. He slowly turned his head as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. All he could see was her little head.

“What did you just say….”

Valletta sighed as she heard Reinhardt’s stupid voice. She had a strange feeling that she might be vulnerable to him.

“I had never thought I hated you, even though you were scary. When have I ever told you that I didn’t like you? I wanted to kick you out because it was going to be a disaster later.” (Valletta)

“So don’t wait for me because I don’t want to…” (Valletta)

“Let’s say it right now. I said I I don’t like slaves.” (Valletta)

Valletta replied firmly. Even if the situation hadn’t been what it was, she wouldn’t have had to send him away.

“…… So you don’t hate me?”

Reinhardt, who came closer, squatted next to Valletta and asked. The sharpness of his mood had gone, and it had softened.

‘Is he bipolar?’

Valletta glared at Reinhardt and her brows contracted. She wrote down the final formula, but with a little toss of the specimen-like plywood, which still moved, she shoved it into the magic circle.

Without replying, Valletta lightly scratched the palm of her hand, causing it to bleed. Then she opened her mouth as she had just done.

Activation.

At the same time as the ancient language flowed from her mouth, the blood from her palm gradually began to be absorbed into the alchemy formation.

”…… What is it?”

She opened her mouth as if in a panic. She hurriedly tried to remove her hand from the magic circle, but it wouldn’t come off. She couldn’t move at all from the position where she had touched the circle. She was constantly sucked into the alchemy formation as her blood was gushing out in the vortex. It was absorbed as red blood was drawn along the ‘alchemy formation’ and ‘circle’ she had drawn. The magic circle was becoming bloodier and bloodier.

”Master……?

“I can’t take my hand off.”

Hearing Valletta’s words, Reinhardt rushed over and grabbed her wrist. He pulled with all his might, but it didn’t budge. Meanwhile, Valletta’s face twisted.

Her experiment was in progress while Reinhardt clicked his tongue and tried to flick his fingers. At that moment, Valletta steeled herself for the feeling that something more was about to escape from her body. Goosebumps broke out on her spine.

Valletta hurriedly pulled her hand away. Fortunately, her fingers, which had been moving with strength, were free for a moment, as if they were free from bondage. Valletta’s eyes wide open when she felt it.

“It moves.”

When she hurriedly put her hand over his, Reinhardt stared at her palm with a stiff expression. The small wound earlier was about the size of a finger. But now, the wound was diagonally dividing half of her palm.

Reinhardt rushed to tear his sleeves to bind her wound. Then, finally remembering, he ran his fingers over it. The wound quickly healed as if it had never been made in the first place.

“Are you all right, Master?”

“Oh, uh, thank you.”

Valletta’s gaze immediately went to the alchemy formula. Sure enough, on top of the magic circle, something awful was seen. She reflexively retreated and rose from her seat.

“Master, come here.”

“…… What is that thing?”

Three incomprehensible black lumps of melted clay buzzed about. It was a strange shape, like a piece of black clay. They seemed to be alive, but their form was not what she had imagined. Its body seemed to be rotting, and the horrible smell of burning stimulated her sense of smell. Yes, it looked like breaking a black burnt cookie.

“Ugh…….”

Valletta took another step backwards, covering her mouth. Reinhardt came up behind her and hugged her tightly around the waist. Her blood stained formation disappeared from the paper as the alchemy formation was activated properly.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you fail, Master. Can I get rid of that one first?”

“…… It’s not a failure.”

The formula was done properly. It’s just. ……

Valletta’s face twisted. She remembered the sharp sensation of something trying to escape from her body. She slowly bowed her head at the terrible sensation.

“I think the price was insufficient.”

If she hadn’t taken her hand away, who knew what would have been taken from her. Reinhardt’s expression hardened at Valletta’s words. He slowly turned and looked down at Valletta, then stared again at the three seething black masses.

“What about the price?”

“There was a gap in the middle of the activation, so I forced myself to take out my hand, but I felt something unpleasant.”

If she couldn’t have taken her hand out, she couldn’t even imagine what it would have eaten. A huge thing must have opened its mouth and ate her. Something invisible.

“Is it the price of life?”

“Perhaps the author who wrote the book paid his life for it.”

Reinhardt tilted his head and held his chin gently.

“I don’t know how he sacrificed his life.”

Valletta sighed small.

“I don’t think we should use this…”

“If you want to play with life, you have to give your life.”

She blinked slowly. With a small sigh, Valletta took out a small notebook and scribbled something, then dropped it on the three black blobs.

“Ignition.”

Unlike before, she gave the command word in Imperial language instead of ancient. An ancient magic circle appeared above her eyes, and the paper burst into flames.

A small fire the size of the palm of her hand burned into the wide sheet of paper that lay beneath the black masses. Eventually, it began to burn bright red. The black clay, which had been buzzing regularly as the fire began to ignite, immediately shook. Valletta’s face twisted as she watched the agonized, soundless wriggling get worse.

“It’s disgusting.”

The thing’s sense of pain was still alive even after all that. It was as if she could feel the sensation of being burned alive, and it made her chest swell. In contrast, Reinhardt’s gaze seemed to be looking at something strange, which was really a strange sight for a third party to see.

“It’s possible to combine living things and then return them to their original state.”

“If you call that black mass a success.”

“If I knew how much it would take my life, I’d like to experiment on it once…..”

It certainly could not move because the masses were not there. Certainly not enough to die all at once, considering the person who wrote the book. She purposely chose a small one.

“No.”

“What?”

“No, don’t do useless thing. I’ll turn the entire empire upside down to protect Master if I have to.”

“You know that’s really useless, right? I can protect my body.”

At Valletta’s decisive words, Reinhardt shrugged and refrained from speaking. She glanced at him and touched her forehead. She felt a little dizzy. It was as if all the energy in her body had been taken away.

“Do you really think that guy is the culprit?”

“I believe it’s possible. If someone is using this kind of magic at the cost of their lives, nothing is impossible.”

“It was indeed the mark of a beast that had bitten off a piece, but does he* (Desilian) really need to turn from human into a beast to do it?”

This was the most inefficient action. Valletta fell silent at Reinhardt’s words. He was certainly right. They didn’t have to do that. Considering that his hypothesis was correct, if this was the fifth village, it meant that the man (Desilian)* had already returned from man to beast and from beast to human four times. (*Valletta and Reinhardt suspected that Desilian was the culprit that made the corpses come back to life.”

“I don’t know ……. we would have to see it with our eyes.”

Valletta stared at the ashes.

“But I can use it now. Making fire with alchemy.”

“Because all you have to do is create a chemical effect.”

“Can you make ice like the Duke?”

“It can be done as long as you use the formula. It was simpler than I thought. Creating the means to attack people. I was a fool that I didn’t know.”

It was her narrow-minded idea that alchemy was powerless. She took it for granted because what she was given was limited.

‘This is why brainwashing from an early age is dangerous.’

She had come to take for granted that she even had memories of her previous life. Of course, alchemy seemed a little more complicated and cumbersome than magic, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t still a threat.

‘There was a reason why I had to write down my formula in advance.’

It would be hard to draw it right away, so she had to write it in advance. Basically, the principle was that the green alchemy formula would disappear after one use. However, recently, she heard that there were inks that were not one-time use, but multi-times use, so there were new types of inks that would not disappear no matter how many times she used it.

***