『Translator: RainTL』
༺ Estelle Hadassa El Rath (1) ༻
The iron bars were thick and tough enough to hold back a demonic beast, and it was further reinforced through a magic spell.
It would create a loud noise if I were to break it with sheer force. It might be possible to lift the spell if Marie was here but… it was probably made personally by the Lord of the Tower, meaning it wouldn’t be easy for her either.
“That one there is a low-grade mage so I don’t think she would have the keys.”
“Oh~. You mean her?”
I said while looking at the mage that was lying unconsciously on the ground. They had to monitor the Saintess but because the higher-ups were too proud to do that, it seemed that they had allocated the task to a low-grade mage.
It might have been better for them had they assigned a veteran mercenary for the task but as expected of the secluded Tower of Mages, even chores like this had to be done by mages.
“It doesn’t matter. Step back from the bars for a bit.”
I took out the red spear that was hanging behind my back and gently stabbed the lock of the prison cell.
-Bam!
“Junior? What are you… huh?”
The prison door started to open before she could even finish her question. It seemed that the lock had been purely based on magic.
“Wow… Is that one of your abilities?”
“Just something that nullifies spells.”
The red anti-magic spear, Gae Derg, was one of the spears you could get from Manannan Mac Lir and was the best weapon to use against mages due to its magic-nullifying capabilities.
“Shall we go now?”
I suggested while reaching out with one of my hands. She gladly took my hand before walking out of the cell.
“Oh my. Thank you so much.”
“The kiss can wait until we are done with everything.”
“Pervert.”
Estelle didn’t seem that displeased by my joke, but that was understandable considering that she was a chill person by nature.
“Did they do anything big to you?”
“Apart from taking my blood, not much. Oh, right, Junior. We have to let the Kingdom know immediately. The Tower is using my blood to…”
“Attempt to revive the Titans, right? And there’s also someone running around with Holy Grail… a large cauldron, yes?”
“Umm… How did you know that already?”
“It’s a long story.”
Estelle was someone on my priority list that I had to invite into my guild. I would have to tell her one day but that could wait for now.
“By the way, Saintess, can you give prayers? It would be a lot easier with a buff.”
“Actually… I can’t use any divine spells right now.”
It appeared to be the same as the game. According to the original storyline, it was because of a traitor of the New Faith doing something, but what exactly they did wasn’t revealed till the end.
“Let’s first find our—”
-Kwaaang!
It was then. Along with a deafening thud, a cold mist of mana pervaded across from the other side of the laboratory.
“Senior Marie?”
There was no one other than Marie who could lower the temperature of an entire floor… Wait, there was another one that could.
“Elder Serarion of the Navy Cult.”
He was the strongest ice mage who would have later appeared at the Northern Kingdom to show off his immaculate strength. The Absolute Zero spell he would use after being baptized by the Frost Giants—
-Kwaang!
A large crystal spear of ice struck the wall behind us.
“Stay back. I think I need to help.”
“Korin?”
Appearing from the wall that was stabbed open by the crystal spear was Marie, who was wearing an outfit that did not suit the cold and harsh environment around us.
She looked at me while tilting her head. Standing behind her was Doggo, who seemed to have grouped up with her already.
Before long, Master Erin also joined the party.
“I am here to help… Ohh?”
She, who appeared from the other side in order to help us, covered her mouth in surprise. That was natural because Elder Serarion… the strongest ice mage was covered in bruises and being dragged along by Marie.
“I guess he’s the ‘previous’ strongest mage. Congratulations, Senior Marie. You are officially the strongest ice mage now.”
“Haht!? Don’t put me on a pedestal like that. This person was weak.”
Now that I thought about it, it was obvious that he wouldn’t stand a chance. Marie was already blessed with a heap of mana and yet after acquiring the power of a vampire, she was able to bash up most knights with her pure strength.
Only the few highest-class mages would be able to stand a chance against her with magic.
“They will start coming here because of that fight just then. Let’s hurry. Your Highness, so your body is like a normal person’s right now, is that correct?”
“H, huh? Yes.”
‘Excuse me,’ I whispered before supporting her by the shoulders and the back of her knees. It was the so-called princess carry.
It wasn’t wrong since she really was a princess.
“This is embarrassing…”
Estelle said with a shy look on her face.
After carrying Estelle, I marked the start of the next set of plans.
“Jump!”
“Nn? Jump? What?”
Towards the wall that was broken by the spell – to that empty wall and the ocean beyond!
“KYAAAAAK?!”
From the 8th floor of the Tower of Mages, we jumped out without even the slightest bit of hesitation.
————
We fell faster and faster as the wind pushed harder into our faces.
“What’s the plan? You had a plan in mind; that’s why you jumped right?!”
The Princess shouted out something while desperately clasping onto my neck, but I couldn’t really hear what she was saying. Well, she was probably asking about what we were going to do next.
“Don’t worry! Senior Mar-!?”
It was then. During the free fall… I looked up to the night sky and was met with 3 other faces.
Master Erin, Senior Marie, and…
“UHIHIHIHIT!”
Dun Scaith was falling with us along with the laughter of a lunatic.
“Ugh… that disgusting bastard.”
We had a plan in mind. The plan was to use the runes of deceleration and acceleration appropriately to absorb the shock of the fall.
However, there was no need for Dun Scaith to even do that. He was the King of Beasts; a culmination of snakes, toads, cows, and dragons. He was probably going to turn into a dragon and—
“OUIIIIIIII…!”
“Huh?”
“Hnn?”
We started to decelerate but Dun Scaith continued to fall without doing anything. Eventually, the exploding noise of flesh echoed from the ground and…
“Kihit? Kihihi…!”
He, who fell before us, turned himself into thousands of toads.
“Uwek… Disgusting!”
Estelle was appalled at the sight of thousands of toads but there was something more important to worry about.
“Senior…!”
“I know!”
Marie fired dozens of spells at the thousands of monster toads welcoming us on the ground. They destroyed whichever toad they touched, but there were simply too many of them.
-Tak!
In the end, we couldn’t avoid being met with a wave of toads the moment we landed on the ground. Venomous toads, bomb toads, bow toads… there was a whole parade of them.
“Master! Carry Senior Marie!”
“Got it!”
Like how I was carrying Estelle, Master similarly lifted Marie with her arms.
“Doggo…! Open up the path!”
“Woof!”
He truly was a reliable party member. After shooting out of Marie’s shadow, the bloodhound crushed all the toads blocking our path, ripped them to pieces, and opened up a pathway.
Immediately after that, I activated Shura to increase my physical stats to the extreme and kicked off the ground. The background changed swiftly as blades of wind cut through my cheeks but thanks to that, we were able to escape from the toads before long.
Like that, we once again entered the underground sewage of the Tower of Mages and hurried to where Lady Josephine and Hua Ran were, hoping that they would have prepared the teleportation beforehand after sensing the commotion outside.
“MUOO…!”
A sudden goosebump urged me to turn around, and I found a flock of things that resembled bulls chasing after us. Master uttered in shock after seeing the one in the lead.
“That’s… the white-horned bull, Finnbennach…!”
“Do you know what it does?!”
“I know it has a very good sense of hearing… and you get cursed if you get struck by that horn!”
“What’s with all these weird animals!? They have absolutely nothing in common!”
Why does a bull have some magical abilities? At this point, why not start a war because of a bull, huh?
“Be careful not to fall!”
Entering the sewage, we started running across the splattering floor. The passageways were narrow and too complex for bulls to run through, but the sound of their pursuit was still echoing behind us.
“Master. Let’s blow this place up.”
“Right. If it’s here…”
We each took out our Silver Spears and crushed the walls of the passageway.
-Kwaaa!
The sound of a large amount of mana exploding at once was incredibly impressive. We, being two rune mages, had planted several letters throughout the sewage beforehand. Although it might not have been possible inside the Tower of Mages, Resonant Activation was possible outside of it.
“GUWOOOOOOO…!”
Flames erupted from all sides of the sewage including the floor and the ceiling as the flocks of bulls got scorched to death by the soaring flames and turbulent storms.
Although this wouldn’t be enough to kill Dun Scaith, it would be more than enough to let us escape from him.
“Here…!”
At last, we were almost there at the control room after escaping from the chasers and found Hua Ran waving at us from a distance.
“Start the teleportation right now!”
There were only 100 meters between us. It was a straight line with no obstacles in the way. Inside the old control room that the mages of the Tower wouldn’t even remember by now, Josephine opened up the alternate dimension, preparing for a long dimensional leap.
“Everyone, come inside the magic circle!”
We quickly entered the circle Lady Josephine set up. I was in such a hurry that I forgot to let go of the girl that I was carrying in my arms.
“10 seconds!”
I heaved a sigh of relief after hearing her shout. This magic circle was linked to the marker that was placed on the main encampment of the Kingdom’s military back on the main continent.
“8… 7…!”
After escaping like this, all we had to do was wait for the seeds to sprout. Attack immediately after the curse implodes and that will be enough for us to sweep through the Tower.
“6…!”
-Kwang!
A roar echoed from a distance… one that shook the entire sewer.
“W, what?”
5 seconds.
-Kwangg!
“Junior. Next to you…!”
-KWAAAAANG!
Deafening thuds were reverberating on repeat from the other side of the wall. It sounded like something was being crushed time after time.
This crazy bastard! Is he breaking through all the walls of the underground sewer?
“Senior Marie. Freeze the wall!”
In a hurry, she immediately froze the wall. At a glance, the frozen wall seemed fortified enough to last for years.
4 seconds.
-Kwaang!
The sound came closer and closer as Master and I pointed our spears toward the wall. For some reason, a strong inkling hit us that the toughened wall might be broken through like silicon.
3 seconds.
-Kwa—!
It thudded. But it stopped and was blocked.
The wall in front of us shook after the impact but remained firm. Right as we were about to heave a sigh of relief.
-KWAAAA!!
The wall and the ice covering it crumbled at once, and appearing from the other side of the cloud of dust was a standing bull with a white horn. That was the form of Dun Scaith that I had seen from him, back when we were at the floating island to obtain Claiomh Solais.
“There you are~”
“Aht…”
Someone let out a vacant mutter.
We were almost there – we were very close to escaping but… in that split moment, with only 2 seconds left behind… if not 1, the horn of the monster stabbed through me.
“KYAA!?”
Estelle, who was still in my arms, screamed as the bull did not stop its march even after stabbing my shoulder with its horn. I couldn’t even do anything – all I could do was desperately hold onto Estelle.
“KORINNNN…!”
I saw the look of astonishment on Marie and Master’s faces but only for a split second… Before long, they jumped across the dimension and disappeared from sight.
-Kwaaaang!
After breaking through several walls of the sewer, we were thrown into the waterway.
***
“Korin…! Korin! KORIN!!”
Marie screamed as she pounded at the magic circle.
However, the place they were in now wasn’t the dark and gloomy sewer that they used to be in, but the military encampment.
“You are back… Huh?”
Alicia closed her mouth after seeing the number of people who came back.
Josephine, Erin, Marie, Hua Ran and Korin. Five people. If things went well, they should have returned in a group of six.
However, all she could see was a group of three. The numbers weren’t adding up.
“Chairman! We have to go back! Right now!”
“Calm down, Student Marie. Even if we teleport back now, we’ll…”
“Please send just me at the very least…!”
Marie ran up to Josephine, requesting for another jump back, but Josephine returned a shake.
“They must have strengthened their security. Going back now would be suicidal.”
“We have to attack right now!”
“Marie.”
“There must be some troops that can…!”
“Marie!”
Erin was the one who put a stop to her desperate struggle. Like the experienced veteran she was, Erin calmly soothed her despite the disappearance of her own disciple.
“I am sure the two of them will be fine.”
“B, but…”
“They would have died already or made it out alive. If it’s the former, going now wouldn’t change anything.”
Holding onto her hands, the teacher of heroes said with a straight and believing gaze.
“Korin will make it out alive for sure. Believe that. That is something you can be assured of.”
Erin Danua, the teacher of heroes, believed in the destiny that was assigned to each hero.
She thus had a firm belief that the hero of this generation, Korin Lork, would not crumble at a place like this.
“Umm… everyone?”
Right as they all started to settle their thoughts regarding this matter, Alicia carefully raised her hand for a question.
“Where is Ms. Hua Ran?”
Gently falling onto the magic circle that was starting to lose its light after the teleportation was the feather of a crow.
***
They were gone! They were nowhere to be found!
“Kughh… KUAAAAAHKK!”
Drenched with sticky and smelly wastewater, Dun Scaith screamed out in uncontrollable fury. It was great that he smashed through the walls with an unstoppable march and stabbed through Korin, that little rat. Even better was the fact that he pushed both him and the Saintess out of the magic circle.
The issue was what came after that. Due to his own unstoppable march, they all ended up diving into a strong underwater current. 10 minutes after swimming through the dark waterways of the sewage, Dun Scaith found himself at the port.
“M, Mr. Scaith!”
One of the mages that was protecting the port recognized him and immediately ran up, but his venomous gaze halted their feet.
“The Saintess has escaped! Find her!”
Korin… his master’s contender wasn’t the important one here.
No matter what, they had to find the Saintess because the divine blood of the King of Gods was crucial to garner enough divine energy for Undry to resurrect the Titans.
In the distant past, a child was born between Balor’s daughter and Dian Cecht’s son.
His name was Lugh Lamhfada. Lugh married the great-granddaughter of Dagda and gave birth to a hero, whose descendants were the royal family of the El Rath Kingdom.
Because of that, the blood flowing through the members of the royal family had the blood of both Balor the King of Titans, and Dagda the King of Gods.
Over time, that blood became thinner and thinner, but there was someone whose blood resembled that of their forefathers, and that was none other than Saintess Estelle Hadassa El Rath.
Now that the titans and gods were no more, with only divinities left behind in this world, she was an omnipotent existence who could borrow infinitely from the energy floating around.
That was why her blood was crucial for the resurrection of the Titans.
People were mistaking her as the Saintess but Tates, the one who inherited the divinity of Lugh, was able to immediately see through Estelle and Miruam.
That was why he had been preparing for the corpses of Titans ever since Estelle was born, and had been preparing for a long time by even dragging the Tower of Mages into it, and yet…
“Kuhhgggg…!”
That damned Korin Lork! And how I wish I could rip that Erin Danua to pieces!
Those two bastards were trying to foil his master’s plans again and again.
“That is not happening. It can’t be!”
Scaith let out a furious roar that echoed across the entire port.
***
“Ughh… So cold, and stinky…”
Being thrown into wastewater and being swept by the currents for a long time felt horrible.
It took Estelle a long time to come to terms with the situation because of everything happening at once, but what was certain was that it was really cold and that they were going to die from it at this rate.
“Junior? Junior, are you alright?”
She was better off at the very least, because her sacred outfit and the rosary had a divine spell cast on it – which the Tower of Mages referred to as Magic of Light – that somewhat controlled the temperature.
While gripping onto the golden rosary on her neck, she crawled on all fours towards the junior who was swept away by the currents just like herself.
“Wake up. We will freeze to death at this rate!”
“…”
He didn’t wake up. There was nothing but white snow around them and their body temperatures were dropping at an exponential rate.
“Goodness sake…! Knnn…!”
Now that she couldn’t use her divine spells, Estelle was no different from a normal girl. While dragging a boy that was bigger than herself, she looked for a place that could allow them to hide from the cold.
Footsteps and a straight line were left on the white, level snow behind them. Fortunately, Estelle discovered a small cave that was hidden from the blizzard before long.
“L, look! Junior! Over there! If we go there, we can raise our temperature… but it’s a bit far.”
It was far – around 300 meters away from where they were. It would probably take her around 10 minutes if she were to crawl her way there by herself, but right now, she had a boy who was bigger than her that she had to take care of.
“Aigo…”
Pushing herself forward, she dragged Korin all the way to the cave. The cold blizzard covered her sight and her wavering arms almost failed her, but Estelle advanced forward, step by step without giving up.
Both Estelle and Miruam… the royal family of this country were more used to physically taxing jobs than what one might expect.
After arriving at the cave, Estelle grabbed a few twigs nearby and created a little fire. It wasn’t that hard thanks to an igniting magic artifact that was hanging on her clothes.
It was something that she bought on a whim when purchasing all sorts of things that had life magic cast on it, and she certainly wasn’t expecting to use it in a way like this. Estelle thought about how her wasteful personality had turned out to be a positive trait.
“Junior? Hello? Can you wake up? Please? You’re starting to scare me here.”
She wasn’t used to death, because the people under her blessing tended to stay alive unless things were incredibly rough for them. It would be sad to see a Prince Charming freeze to death after valiantly coming to save her, right?
“Ugh… his temperature’s not going up. What should I do? What should I do?”
Thinking that his wet clothes might be the problem, she took it off of him but was then worried that it might have made him colder. There was nothing around them that could be used in place of a blanket, and she noticed that his chest was as cold as a layer of ice when she slightly touched it.
One of them was going to die fast at this rate, but that was when Estelle remembered a scene she read from a romance novel.
After losing their way on the snowy mountains, a pair of male and female… to avoid freezing to death, they…
“Noo… That’s, no… right? Come on… That’s just fiction, isn’t it? It’s fiction…”
In denial, she gazed down at Korin, who was shivering like there was no tomorrow… and that rushed her even more.
“Huu, huu…”
Estelle gulped with a half-crying look on her face.
“Me, this Princess; this Saintess, is going this far to save you from freezing to death, okay…? You owe me a good wine. An expensive one, you hear me?”
There was only one option left.
Estelle resolved herself.
Her pure and sacred clothes slipped down onto the ground.
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