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Chapter 77 – The Magician of the Realm (1)
[Translator – Night]
[Proofreader – Gun]
Chapter 77 – The Magician of the Realm (1)
Ketal raised his arm.
His muscles swelled visibly even through his clothes.
“Ugh.”
Milena instinctively took another step back.
The current Ketal is dangerous.
She sensed it instinctively.
Ketal swung his fist.
The massive physical force generated a gust of wind.
The wind rushed toward the raging flames.
The wind blast collided with the building.
Boom!
“Ahhhh!”
The onlookers covered their ears against the sound of the air tearing.
A fierce wind swept through.
People momentarily lost their balance and fell.
As the wind finally subsided.
Milena managed to lift her head and glared.
“…Huh?”
The flames that seemed to engulf the entire building had extinguished.
‘What, what is this?’
What just happened?
Confused, she looked at Ketal standing in front of her.
‘No way.’
Did he extinguish the fire with a wind blast from his fist?
Ketal shook his arm.
“The fire is out. It would be wise to check for embers that might have scattered.”
Milena couldn’t respond.
She just stared blankly at Ketal.
* * *
People were bustling around the charred building, looking for scattered embers.
Milena and Ketal watched them.
“Th-thank you, Ketal.”
Milena spoke in a daze.
Although quite some time had passed, she still hadn’t fully regained her senses.
‘…Just one punch. That was all.’
With just that, he extinguished the flames that had engulfed a three-story building.
She realized anew that the man beside her is indeed a barbarian of the White Snowfields. Ketal spoke.
“Is it over?”
“Ah. Yes. What’s left is just cleanup. Thank you very much.”
“Think nothing of it.”
A man approached Milena.
He shuddered slightly upon seeing Ketal.
“It’s alright. What is it?”
At Milena’s words, the man cautiously stepped closer and whispered.
“There are no traces of arson.”
“…So it happened naturally?”
“Yes. It’s very likely the work of a magician.”
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‘A magician?’
Ketal’s face showed interest.
Milena frowned.
“They’re crossing the line. I understand.”
The man left.
Milena turned to Ketal.
“Ketal, could you return home first? I’ll come find you after the cleanup.”
Ketal nodded.
He returned to the Akasha family residence.
A few hours later, Milena returned home after finishing the cleanup.
“Ketal, you’re here.”
“It seems you’ve finished. What’s the damage?”
“A lot burned down… but we can use about half of it.”
They had to discard half of the contents of the large warehouse.
It was no small loss.
But it was far better than losing everything.
Milena bowed her head.
“It’s all thanks to you, Ketal. Thank you.”
“I’m indebted to you, so don’t worry about it.”
Ketal replied lightly.
After all, what he received from Milena is not small.
She provided him with lodging, taught him alchemy, and even procured expensive and rare materials for him.
Ketal was honestly a little surprised that his connection from the White Snowfields led to this.
“Is that so?”
Milena smiled and sits across from him.
“How is alchemy going?”
“It’s fun. Very enjoyable.”
Ketal smiled contentedly.
“I’m thinking of making an artifact with my own hands.”
“An artifact?”
“Yes. It’s a simple artifact but seems useful. I could ask Arkamis to make it quickly, but there’s meaning in creating it myself.”
Ketal spoke with a pleased expression.
Milena found this genuinely fascinating.
She had briefly dabbled in alchemy out of interest but gave it up quickly.
It required a lot of memorization and extensive knowledge, making it a very difficult discipline.
So it was fascinating to see Ketal enjoying learning it.
After all, he looked every bit the barbarian.
‘…Yes.’
Milena’s eyes darkened.
The man before her is indeed a barbarian.
One of the reasons Ketal was learning alchemy from Milena was to grasp its mysteries.
In other words, the barbarian before her did not know these mysteries.
But he was strong.
Overwhelmingly so.
‘He blew away the serpent in the White Snowfields.’
While traversing the White Snowfields for a trade route, she had encountered the White Serpent.
A massive, nearly sky-reaching serpent that connected lands.
More akin to a calamity than a living creature.
An entity humans could neither resist nor confront.
The moment she encountered the serpent, she had sensed death.
But the barbarian before her blew away the serpent.
Remembering that moment made extinguishing the flames that engulfed a building seem trivial.
Ketal did not know the mysteries.
It meant he achieved such feats purely through physical strength.
‘Is that really possible?’
She was from the largest merchant family in the Kingdom of Denian.
She possessed considerable power and influence.
She had met a few superhuman individuals.
But none of them demonstrated the kind of strength Ketal did.
Even the great superhumans who mastered the mysteries paled in comparison to the barbarian before her.
Thus, she couldn’t help but wonder.
[Translator – Night]
[Proofreader – Gun]
Is the being before her truly human?
Where are the limits of his strength?
After staring at Ketal for a while, she spoke.
“Ketal, you lived in the White Snowfields, right?”
“That’s correct.”
“What did you do there?”
Milena was curious how he obtained such strength.
Ketal tilted his head.
“I didn’t do anything special. I just tried to survive.”
“With strength like yours?”
Milena’s eyes widened.
Someone with that much power tried to survive?
It was hard to believe.
Ketal shook his head.
“I wasn’t born with this strength.”
When he first came to the White Snowfields, he was just a weak, fragile being.
He had to strive to survive amid the extreme cold and monsters.
“The creature you encountered in the snowfields. The Black Slime, was it? I almost died to that thing too. I had to dig into the ground and spend a night in the freezing cold to escape.”
“I-Is that so.”
It was only natural, but it was still hard for Milena to believe.
The strength Ketal had shown was beyond comprehension.
But it was true.
When Ketal was first thrown into the White Snowfields, he had to struggle to survive.
He moved with his tribe and completed quests.
The strength came naturally during that process; it wasn’t something he sought out intentionally.
“I’d like to explain more, but I don’t remember well. It was so long ago.”
“I see…”
If it was long ago, how long exactly was it?
Milena swallowed.
She was curious, but she didn’t press further.
She instinctively knew that asking more would cross a line.
Ketal asked.
“By the way, how are the materials coming along?”
Milena hesitated.
After a moment of deliberation, she spoke as if giving up.
“I haven’t been able to procure them. There are a few issues.”
“Issues?”
“Yes. I can’t afford to focus on that right now… It’ll take some time until the problems are sorted out. I’m sorry.”
“No need to apologize. I’m only receiving your kindness.”
Ketal, who had said that, then asked her.
“Is it related to this fire?”
Milena gave a bitter smile.
“You overheard.”
“I’m unnecessarily sharp-eared.”
“It’s not something I need to hide… Yes, this fire wasn’t an accident.”
Milena frowned.
“It was an attack on our family.”
“An attack?”
Ketal asked with a curious expression.
“Don’t you get along with the surrounding families?”
“The Akasha family grew rapidly. It didn’t take long for us to become the number one merchant family in the Kingdom of Denian.”
Their growth had been so aggressive it could be described as violent.
Naturally, there was considerable friction along the way.
In a limited territory, if someone gained something, it meant someone else lost it.
The rapidly growing merchant family was not looked upon kindly by the surrounding merchant families.
“There were many minor thefts, slander, and rumors… We crushed them all to get here, but there are still families attacking us.”
“And one of them hired a magician?”
“Yes. Someone hired a magician to attack us. We want to deal with it immediately, but it’s quite tricky.”
“Have you identified the magician?”
“Yes, we have.”
“Really?”
Ketal looked at Milena with a puzzled expression.
Milena began to speak.
“We’ve identified who it is and their location, but it’s a highly skilled magician, so we can’t easily take action.”
It wasn’t that she hadn’t tried to respond.
She had hired skilled mercenaries to deal with the magician.
But none of them had succeeded in completing the task.
“It would take at least a top-tier mercenary, and even then, someone from the higher ranks to handle this… It’s not easy to find someone of that caliber.”
“Isn’t Arkamis getting involved?”
“She’s not someone I can command freely.”
Arkamis was the kingdom’s top alchemist.
In terms of reputation, she was above Milena.
Moreover, the contract Milena had with Arkamis was for artifact creation, not the protection of the Akasha family.
They were in a contractual relationship, not a master-servant relationship.
“Still, thanks to some advice from her, we’ve managed to defend ourselves. The magician seems to know a lot about alchemy, so they know how to counter us effectively. We lost this time, though.”
Milena bit her lip.
The magician’s attacks were escalating.
Until now, they had been somewhat manageable, but not anymore.
She was prepared to incur significant costs to deal with the magician.
“I see.”
Ketal’s face showed interest.
“So, the opponent is versed in alchemy?”
“Arkamis mentioned they belong to a school that integrates alchemy… But I don’t know much about that field. I don’t remember clearly.”
“I see.”
Ketal murmured quietly.
“You can’t get the materials because of this magician. If we deal with the magician, you can get the materials.”
“That’s likely the case. It shouldn’t take much longer. We’re searching everywhere for someone capable.”
“If the magician uses alchemy, they probably have alchemical materials, right?”
“Probably.”
“And among those materials, there might be some that I need.”
“That’s… true?”
Milena trailed off.
She finally looked at Ketal’s face.
Ketal had a smile on his lips.
[Translator – Night]
[Proofreader – Gun]