Taming The Villainesses-Chapter 360: Main Character (5)

Before I knew it, my match in Group G was right in front of me.

When I stepped into the arena, the extent to which the previous Group A through F battles had been ferocious brawls was instantly clear—cracks, scorch marks, and shattered debris covered the field.

Looking up, I could see the people watching with anticipation. Somewhere out there were Marmar and her friends, and people I knew—Elga, Stella. I was picturing all of them when—

“To be standing before me and thinking about something else? I'm jealous.”

The red-robed mage standing across from me smirked. He had long red hair tied back, a clean forehead, and a sharply defined nose—an undeniably handsome man.

With that self-confident expression and the fact that he was supposedly a prodigy of the Red Mage Tower, I couldn't help but be reminded of Kasim, the prince of Turki.

━The much-anticipated 7th match is a duel of mages...! In the red corner, from Borja, the guardian of Western safety and the Red Mage Tower! The West’s hero, the so-called prodigy—Roland von Bardiche!

A “von” in the center of his name—he must have been a noble from a fairly prestigious house. Well, of course. You wouldn't even be able to enroll in a place as expensive as the Mage Tower otherwise. They say magic runs in the blood.

━And opposing Roland is the mage in the blue corner! Ah, what an arrogant name it is—Angmar! The thunderous sorcerer who single-handedly wiped out more than half the preliminary contestants with terrifying skill...!

Thunderous sorcerer, huh. Not a bad title. They probably gave it to me based on the storm clouds from my Eclipse spell.

When I had widened the distance between myself and the red mage named Roland—

━You, by chance, are you from the Blue Mage Tower? I heard someone over there was capable of wielding lightning.

A voice echoed directly in my mind. A telepathic conversation—nympthought. I'd already experienced it back at the White Mage Tower, so I wasn’t surprised.

━Think what you want.

I had no interest in wasting time on small talk before the match. But contrary to his clean appearance, this red mage Roland turned out to be quite the chatterbox.

━You saw it too, didn’t you? The Source.

━The Source?

━No need to play coy. The origin of all magic, beyond that door. The truth from which all mana and sorcery flow.

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At his words, I recalled the door I had glimpsed when I reached the realm of high mages.

What I saw beyond it... I wasn’t even sure anymore if it had been real. But one thing I knew for certain—it had been overwhelming.

━There’s no way you could use such massive spells otherwise. Same goes for Queen Ayra. To face her in battle would bring us even closer to the mystery of magic.

━......

━You’re not fooling anyone. Isn’t that why you joined this ridiculous tournament? Because you want to open that door again and peek inside—because you’re seeking a fierce battle?

He was noisier than I’d expected.

I cut off the telepathic link. Noticing that I’d shut him ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) out, the red mage Roland frowned slightly, lifting the corner of his lips with a mocking grin.

“More shy than I expected. Well, seekers of magic are often like that. Anyway, I hope you show me the depths of what you’ve got.”

That was the end of our exchange.

Not that we had anything more to say to each other. Now, only silence and tension filled the air between us.

Even the cheers of the crowd felt distant—pure silence, as if only he and I existed in the world. The tension stretched taut, until—

Deng—!

With the sound of the bell, the match began. And nearly in the same instant, the red mage Roland rapidly chanted:

“Flames of Crimson Purgatory!”

FWOOMMMMM.

From his wooden staff, flames burst forth—intense enough to melt the stone floor and superheat the air. A destructive fire spell with brutal force.

But the attack was a simple straight blast. There was no reason I couldn’t dodge it.

Activating Fairy’s Step, I slipped aside without even needing a mana shield. The flames missed me completely and shot skyward before exploding with a POP.

A clean miss.

But Roland didn’t seem to mind.

“I’ve scrambled the air currents in the area. Weather mages like you are sensitive to that stuff, right? You probably can’t use your lightning spells anymore.”

Contrary to his talkative and frivolous first impression, he was actually quite clever in combat.

Scrambling the air would make it harder for a weather mage to control the battlefield—more mana, more effort, a deliberate debuff.

That was when—

━Is it just me, or is it... hot?

━Why’s the air getting so hot?

I heard the crowd murmuring. Just like they said, the surrounding air had started to heat up abnormally fast.

Hot.

It was incredibly hot.

Even though summer had ended and we were entering fall, the world around us felt like midday at the height of summer.

Every breath dried out my mouth. The heat was suffocating.

Roland explained.

“Noticed it, did you? My unique magic—Scorch—adds durability to red-element mana. Once the flames are lit, they never go out.”

“......”

Just as he said.

The melted stone floor began to bubble like boiling asphalt.

Even standing still, sweat poured down. A spell that transformed the area into a volcanic zone... There was no doubt he deserved to be called a high mage.

Swish.

As fire raged hot enough to blind the spectators, Roland stretched his hands outward, as if presenting a work of art.

“This is my grand spell—Hell of Flame: Muspelheim. Your thundercloud was impressive, but I think my magic burns just as brilliantly, no?”

“You’re even noisier than I thought.”

“It’s my first time meeting another of our kind. Don’t you wonder too—why is grand magic so vast, so overwhelming?”

“Not interested.”

“But I’ve found the answer. Grand magic is about shaking the foundations of the world. It’s the power to rule and dominate. So I proclaim here and now—”

Roland raised his hand high.

“A world completely ruled by mages! Not by lowly non-mana beings—but by red mana’s reign! With Queen Ayra and my power, bringing peace to the world is well within reach!”

His red eyes blazed with madness.

I’d thought he was relatively sane, but it looked like peering into that so-called door of truth had wrecked his mind.

It was a common fate for high mages, they say.

“You should join us, masked sorcerer Angmar. It’s a merit-based organization. With your skills, you’d become an executive in no time.”

“Organization?”

“Yggdrasil. That’s what we call ourselves. A thousand years since the advent of the God of Flame—now we spread our roots toward a new age through magic. Toward the next millennium.”

“......”

“You’ve thought about it too, haven’t you? Where does our immense power come from? We were born different. Born to rule. Born to reign!”

“Rule?”

“All the stars, the sun, the moon, and time itself signal a new age. Deny it all you want, but the world will change. It’s evolving! And I, who saw it first, am destined to be king. For everyone’s sake—it must be so!”

“......”

Conversations with high mages often taught me something. So I had honestly been curious to hear what he had to say.

But if it was just a madman’s delusion, no matter how long you listened, it meant nothing. If there was anything this exchange taught me, it was this:

I began to worry that others might see me that way too.

Just because I had some Angmar blood, just because I’d gotten better at magic lately—had I been acting smug? Had I looked like this to other people?

A lesson learned, courtesy of someone else’s failure.

Clap.

I clapped my hands.

“Simulhell of Despair.”

The ground shook violently, and the boiling battlefield began to sink downward. Simulhell—an entrapment spell I’d once used to subdue an ogre and to seal Reinheart.

“What the—!?”

Caught mid-rant, Roland couldn’t react in time. The collapsing ground swallowed him up, leaving only his shocked face visible above the surface.

“To collapse the earth beneath me...! That’s a grand spell of the durability type...! You—weren’t you supposed to be from the Blue Mage Tower!? Two grand spell types at once? Unheard of!”

“Then I guess your precious little cabal isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. And I never once claimed I was from the Blue Mage Tower.”

Arms and legs sealed.

What remained were his lips and tongue. For a mage, even with all limbs bound, if they could move their mouth, they could still escape with clever spellwork.

He was crazy, but he had real skill. I meant to end this thoroughly.

“You—you saw beyond the door more clearly than I did! What’s on the other side?! Tell me what you saw! I want to know!”

It seemed he felt more thrilled at encountering a higher-level mage than he did regret at losing. He was more of a pervert than I’d expected.

If lunatics like him were gathering to form a mage cult aiming to overthrow the current world order, then “dangerous” was an understatement.

Maybe the unease Bael and Gargar had been sensing was about people like him. Before sealing his mouth, I asked one last question.

“Are you scheming something under this tournament?”

“Heh... well. I couldn’t say yes or no.”

Vague answer. Figures. I didn’t expect him to just tell me. So I reached out, tapped his forehead, and sent a pulse of electricity through.

Crackle.

I read his mind. A type of brain-scanning spell similar to what Mirna often used. She might get mad if she finds out I copied it.

As that thought crossed my mind, a flood of memories from his body and mind poured into me.

Buzz—

He was born into a respected noble house in the West, raised with high expectations thanks to his talent for magic.

As he grew older, he served on the western front, witnessed many deaths, and began to obsess over magic.

That led to a weird sense of superiority. His life flashed past in a blur.

But what I wanted were his recent memories.

Even digging through those, I couldn’t find anything about a plot beneath the tournament grounds. Just my own overactive imagination, it seemed.

━And the winner of Group G is...!!!

Leaving behind the noisy commentators, I headed toward the victor’s waiting room. I wondered if the winners from the previous six matches were already there. It might get awkward.

Creak.

With that feeling, I opened the door to the waiting room.

Fssshhh—

In the wide, clean room—no one. I didn’t know where they’d gone, but the eerie stillness was—

No, wait. There was one person.

“Come out. You can’t fool my eyes.”

Swish.

I reached out and pulled the air itself. Like drawing back a stage curtain, the space twisted and revealed a horrible scent of blood.

“You noticed. Impressive. Well, the others did too. Seems the ones who make it through the prelims and group stages really are different.”

Five bodies lay sprawled across the floor. Whether they were alive or dead, I couldn’t tell, but the blood loss looked well past lethal.

They must’ve been the previous winners who came here before me.

Seated atop the pile of corpses was a man with long, dark gray hair.

Blood covered his entire body. No need to ask who did it.

The only question was—why?

“...Why did you do this?”

“The matches were just too boring. Round of 16, quarterfinals, semifinals... yawn. So I held the real matches here. These guys lost. I, Andromalli, won. Simple.”

Andromalli—the dark swordsman from Group A.

He’d ambushed and killed the other winners as they entered? As the blood soaking the floor made me grimace, he stretched out a hand.

Swish.

Looking at his fingernails, his face remained perfectly calm. The way he carried himself, as if saying “I just cut in line because I was tired of waiting,” sent a chill down my spine.

I gathered my mana while maintaining composure. To draw his attention, I asked:

“Wasn’t the event staff monitoring the matches? How’d you pull this off without getting caught?”

“Event staff? They’re not really in any condition to explain things right now. By the way—have you heard of the dark swordsman Andromalli? I’m pretty famous.”

“......”

Now I was sure.

The red mage Roland had just been a delusional madman.

The real threat wasn't him—or his secret organization.

The one Bael had been warning me about... was this guy.