There was constant screaming everywhere.

“Ugh.”

Valletta put a little more pressure on the hand that was pressing her eyes. It started out as a light pain, but her eyes hurt so badly that she couldn’t even stand, let alone move an inch. If she took a step or wobbled her body, it hurt like her eyes were going to fall off.

‘Is it a little late already?’

Once again, she thought it was fortunate that it was not the eye with the power of alchemy. The best potion was needed to restore the lost eye.

‘… Do we have any ingredients?’

She staggered in pain.

“Phew…….”

“Don’t get caught….”

Valletta knelt on the floor, grabbing her eyes. Her eyes were already blurry. She didn’t know if she should take comfort in the fact that her other eye was fine.

Jin quickly raised his body and took off high into the sky with Valletta on his back. As he flapped his wings a couple of times, the distance between them and the village quickly increased. As he moved away from the radius of the magic circle, the pain that cut her nerves finally disappeared.

Valletta slowly lowered her trembling hand. Jin went to a reasonable distant place and put Valletta down. When she let go of the hand she was holding so tightly, she saw the blood on it. Her face turned white when she saw it. She rushed to cover her eyes on the other side.

She couldn’t distinguish well in front of her eyes, but fortunately she could see ahead. Her vision was blurry, as if her eyesight had failed. It was true that she could see objects, though they were blurry. She slowly lowered her hand.

“Let’s go to the entrance again. Hide in my robe. Thank you for helping me.”

Listening to Jin’s grumbling voice, she carefully put Snorta in her bag.

“You have to be quiet.” (Valletta said to Snorta)

“Kaaaaa.”

She patted the child’s head lightly and walked, a little staggering, to the entrance to the town. It wasn’t too far away, and after about five minutes of walking, she saw people gathered at the entrance.

“Untie me now before I rip you to shreds!”

A tornado created by pitch black magic swept around Reinhardt. In front of Reinhardt, who stood frozen as if he couldn’t even move, there were two unknown people in robes.

One was a man with gray eyes wearing a robe, and the other was a man who seemed familiar.

A magic circle was drawn under Reinhardt’s feet.

‘Are they wizards?’

Valletta’s eyes narrowed.

“That’s great. Are you sure you’re the master of the magic tower?” (Men in robe)

“Valletta….”

Valletta forgot herself for a while as she looked at Reinhardt, who struggled to speak with a distorted face. Had she ever seen the man expressing so much emotion? Reinhardt wasn’t able to use his magic despite the raging storm of magical power. What was the reason?

The atmosphere changed as she watched the situation for a while from behind.

“….. Wait, who did you just say?”

A man standing on the other side asked back with a furrowed brow. The other man in the brown robe standing nearby looked annoyed.

“Well, I’m in trouble.”

Valletta’s brows narrowed at the familiar voice.

‘Gillian?’

What the hell is that man doing here? Valletta gulped hard and squeezed her eyes shut with her hands.

“The magic has already been activated, so I can’t stop now. Valleta is Count Delight’s daughter whom Cain is looking for, right?” (Man in robe)

“Yes, but it doesn’t matter if she lost her limbs.” (Gillian)

See how they recklessly talked about someone’s limbs. Reinhardt

really wanted to push them into a manure trough afterwards. Dying from pain, no one would understand the feeling of having their eyes dug out alive until they have experienced it.

“What the hell are you saying to my Valletta?” (Reinhardt)

Reinhardt, who had been listening to the two of them, lowered his arms and murmured in a gloomy voice. The words that broke off one syllable at a time made Reinhardt’s atmosphere even more bleak.

The pitch-black magical storm that was blowing around him grew even larger. Gillian and the other man who saw this change also opened their eyes wide in surprise.

Valletta, of course, stood speechless in a distant place. In Valletta’s view, it was already like a small typhoon. The only one standing there intact was Reinhardt, who was standing in the center of the typhoon.

”If anything happens to her…you all better be prepared to die beautifully.” (Reinhardt)

Reinhardt slowly raised his head. Valletta’s eyes grew even wider as she watched him, hiding diagonally from the bleakness in his brutal voice.

Madness flashed in his bright red eyes. Anger dropped sharply. At the overflowing madness, Gillian and the unknown man (Lagris) just froze.

“….. Is this the same person?”

“It’s different.”

Looking down at the sealed magic circle that was forcibly broken, Lagris was simply speechless. A great amount of life force was put into the ancient magic circle. It couldn’t be compared to a magic circle made with common magic power. It was usually difficult to break it no matter how many magic tower lords there were. However, the magic circle was forcefully breaking right before his eyes. It was as if the Almighty God had descended wearing a human mask. He couldn’t even move, as it added to the eerie killing power and hatred.

“I will tear you limb from limb alive. You will not be able to die or lose consciousness until the last moment when your hearts are ripped out.” (Reinhardt)

A madman stood before them with a deadly voice.

“I will find things you cherish and kill them painfully in front of your eyes.” (Reinhardt)

“Hey, hey! What are you doing?”

Valletta interrupted. She had a feeling that if she stayed put, Reinhardt would take a dark path. He continued to recite his gruesome words casually, but she wasn’t strong enough to open her eyes and see the darkness.

The brutal air at her call hardened as if time had stopped. The sweeping mana storm quickly disappeared.

“Val….Valletta?” (Reinhardt)

“Okay, but you..… Don’t say things like that carelessly. You know what?” (Valletta)

She didn’t want to create something that would make them both uncomfortable when they remembered the past later.

Reinhardt stared at Valletta and then opened his eyes wide.

“…. Master…? What’s wrong with your eyes?”

“My eyes? Why? Is it weird?”

“You look like a rabbit that exploded.”

He always says things like that.

“First of all, I think my eyesight has gotten worse. The front looks a little blurry, but I stopped my eyes from falling out. I don’t think I’ve lost my eyesight completely. Fortunately, I think this will be solved with a higher-level potion.”

The furrow between Reinhardt’s brows deepened as Valletta nonchalantly diagnosed her condition and gave herself a prescription. He approached Valletta very slowly and struggling, as if he had a few tons of weight on his body. Cold sweat flowed down his cheeks.

“What’s wrong?”

Valletta stood still with her eyes wide open. She looked closely, she could see a magic circle under Reinhardt’s feet. It was obvious that he was being restrained in some way, though she couldn’t be sure.

“……Oh, you solved it on your own.”

Sure enough, a voice came from behind Reinhardt. Seeing Reinhardt take one more step, she stared at him and looked around. The magic circle under his feet was already broken.

‘Was he under some kind of spell?’

Reinhardt’s large hands covered Valletta’s cheeks. Her eyes, reddened with broken capillaries, were not normal in any way. Not only that, but her bloody eyes weren’t even in focus.

Suddenly, Reinhardt clenched his teeth.

“What the…”

“I was waiting for you in the village when the Lost phenomenon suddenly started.” (Valletta)

“I could feel the magic from inside…….. Was that magic? Not alchemy?” (Reinhardt)

Reinhardt glanced at the village and said.

The village, which had been filled with screams, had somehow quieted down as if everyone was dead. Valletta, who had captured the last tragedy in her eyes, turned her head to the other side of the village.

“Yes, it was magic, but it’s kind of strange magic.”

“Strange magic?”

“I felt the power of alchemy as well as magic. I’m not sure if this is a trace of the alchemy that transformed Desilian or something else.”

She thought Lost was a precursor to Lesir, but the Lost phenomenon she experienced herself was strange.

Alchemists couldn’t use magic. Conversely, wizards could not use alchemy. Yet, it was impossible for alchemy and magic to be activated at the same time. If Lost was magic, was Lesir also magic? Was there magic that could make dead things move again? So what were the traces of alchemy that she felt? If alchemy and magic were activated simultaneously, then it could be concluded that the culprit of Lost and the culprit of Lesir were not the same.

The murderer was Desilian, and it was clear that the emperor was probably involved, unless they make it look like a coincidence.

With Gillian, the morphing alchemy that was activated earlier was his work. So the murders were definitely related to the emperor.

Zenith knew about Lost. And Zenith was probably the emperor’s subordinate. Looking at it, the destruction of the village, Lost and the Emperor were related. Then, what about Lesir? If the culprits of Lost and Lesir were different, then who used alchemy to revive the bodies?

‘Will Gillian be able to revive the bodies?’

Gillian was amazing, he could make two bottles of top quality potion in a day. But he finally failed to calm three insects, despite being deprived of enough energy to make about five top-grade potions.

‘It seems that lack of compensation was the cause……’

In the first place, Gillian’s magic power didn’t seem to be that overflowing. Aside from the price, without magic power, alchemy would not work. Valletta’s head seemed to crack open. In other words, it was concluded that another alchemist was involved in this unless Lesir’s creation was done by Gillian.

“Hi, Miss Valletta.”

Valletta held her breath at the sound of a voice behind her as she was lost in thought.

‘I didn’t feel it…….’

A crack appeared between Reinhardt’s eyebrows, and he couldn’t detect the surge of magic.

A faint surprise flashed in Reinhardt’s red eyes and quickly disappeared. The man behind Valletta thrust his magic wand under her neck at the same time as Reinhardt, who had noticed quickly, grabbed her by the waist and tried to pull her into his arms. The gray magic stone glowed intermittently.

“I’m Lagris.”

“Lag….?”

Valletta stammered, opening her eyes wide. She tried to turn her body to look at the man standing behind her, but his magic wand squeezed her neck.

“Shh, don’t move.”

“Ha……”

When she let out a voice that sounded no different than the wind, Lagris looked at Valletta with only his eyes opened. His dry skin was gripping the wand tightly.

***