< 16 : Black Magician (2) >
“I was hungry, so this is perfect.”
“What do you want…!”
Peter shouted at the leader, then glanced at Eutenia.
She was Eutenia, who had wiped out a whole village by herself.
Peter was curious how Eutenia would deal with the thieves.
She just smiled slightly at Peter’s look.
He had no choice but to face the leader of the thieves again.
“I want everything.”
“…What?”
“Give me everything you have! I’ll sell you as slaves, and use the food in the carriage for myself.”
The leader’s attitude was more hardline than they expected.
He didn’t even offer to let them go if they dropped their belongings.
He claimed that the food was theirs, and that they would capture the people and sell them as slaves.
Peter sighed at the hopeless exchange.
He turned his head completely and looked at Eutenia, who was smiling.
Eutenia was still holding a book in her arms with a calm expression.
“It doesn’t look like they’re going to let us go. What should we do?”
Peter asked Eutenia in a troubled voice.
There were more than ten thieves blocking the road.
Peter couldn’t drive them away by himself.
It was natural for him to ask for Eutenia’s help.
Swish.
Eutenia stroked the cover of the book with her slender fingers and spoke to Peter.
“Don’t you think it would be nice to talk a little more?”
“They are thieves.”
“Have you ever thought that they might be reformed?”
“…If they were like that, they wouldn’t be talking about slaves.”
It was a common sense answer.
Eutenia nodded reluctantly as Peter continued to look troubled.
She got up from the back of the carriage with the book in her arms.
The hem of her tunic fluttered slightly in the mountain breeze.
“It looks like you’re in trouble. I’ll help you a little.”
Eutenia’s gaze turned to the thieves who were blocking the road.
They were still looking at the carriage with contempt.
They had the advantage in numbers.
They didn’t feel threatened by a naive-looking young man and a girl holding a book.
It wasn’t a bad judgment in a normal situation.
The only problem was that Eutenia, who was in front of them, was far from ordinary.
“Hello, everyone.”
“Hahaha…! This time, a pretty lady came out instead of a coward.”
“My name is Eutenia Hyrost. I’m an apostle who serves the great one.”
“Apostle? What the hell is that?”
The leader asked with a sour face when he heard the title of apostle.
Apostle of God.
It was not a concept that was used in the six temples of Crossbridge.
They officially recognized only the saintess and the saint king, and did not acknowledge any other apostles below them.
The leader of the thieves, who lived on the outskirts, had no idea what an apostle was, since it didn’t exist in the six temples that were most popular.
Eutenia kindly answered his question.
“An apostle is someone who serves the great one closest to him.”
“What! You’re talking complicatedly, but you’re just a cleric!”
“Are you not interested in serving the great one?”
Eutenia tried to persuade them to join her faith when she faced the thieves.
But the thieves just snorted and even made obscene gestures at her.
One of the thieves behind the leader shouted at Eutenia with an angry voice.
“Hmph, I’ve hated those who sell God since I was young. If there was a God, I wouldn’t be like this!”
“Is that so?”
Thud. Thud thud thud.
As soon as Eutenia finished speaking, a strange sound echoed from behind the leader.
It sounded like something that was locked together was twisted apart.
The leader slowly turned his head toward where the sound came from.
When his head turned completely, he saw something and screamed.
“Aaah…!”
“Boss? What’s wrong!”
“Jack is dead!”
What he saw was his colleague’s body twisted in a grotesque direction.
He opened his mouth wide and looked at Eutenia at the sight of the horrible tragedy that happened in an instant.
There was only one person who could be suspected as the culprit in this place.
Eutenia was still smiling with a book in her arms, without caring about what happened in front of her eyes.
The leader shouted at Eutenia with her calm expression.
“Did you do this?”
“It’s unfortunate. If you had served him, you wouldn’t have ended up like this.”
“She’s a magician! Kill her now!”
The leader was the first to act in the ominous situation.
He raised his sword and aimed at Eutenia, ordering her to be killed.
The most threatening thing in a battle was a magician.
So he wanted to eliminate Eutenia first.
But even though the leader ordered it, the thieves who were waiting didn’t move.
He turned his head again and checked behind him.
“What are you doing…”
“Aaah!”
“Bo, boss… help me!”
“Aaaaaah…!”
Hands stretched out from the shadows on the ground and poured out toward the thieves.
Someone who was caught by the shadows screamed, and someone who faced the shadows ran away.
The result of those who were caught by the shadows was mostly the same.
Thud. Thud thud thud.
They died with their bodies twisted by the shadows’ grip, accompanied by a chilling sound.
The leader bit his lip at the flood of shadows that burst out.
“Damn, crazy…!”
He was not an exception to the attack of the shadows, just because he was the leader of the thieves.
The hands that came out of the ground aimed at him and poured out.
He swung his sword desperately.
Clang! Clang!
The jaws that were aiming at him bounced off with a heavy sound.
But that wasn’t all of the shadows that were after him.
He couldn’t stop the wave of shadows that kept pouring out.
“Ugh…!”
“Repent of your sins and return to his side.”
Eutenia’s gentle voice rang out.
The leader tried to resist by fending off the shadows, but there was a limit to the number of hands he could handle.
The hands that started to reach out from beyond the shadows.
The leader’s hand that was fending off the shadows lost its strength, and he dropped the sword he was holding at some point.
Thud.
The leader’s sword rolled on the ground as it lost its power.
The shadow’s hands that reached out in an instant restrained the leader’s arms and legs.
“Wa, wait!”
“…?”
“Just wait a minute!”
The hands from all directions reached out to the leader who was restrained.
He shouted at Eutenia in a desperate voice as he saw the hand that was aiming for his head.
It was his last attempt to ask her to stop the attack for a moment.
Eutenia looked at him with a cold gaze, as he suddenly made a ridiculous claim.
“What is it?”
“We have a black magician among our comrades who didn’t come here!”
“Black magician…?”
“If you kill me, he won’t leave you alone!”
The words that came out of his mouth were a threat to Eutenia.
It was something that most people wouldn’t care about.
But Eutenia stopped the shadow’s hands that were moving toward him.
She wasn’t afraid of his threat.
She was just interested in one word that came out of his mouth.
“A magician… That sounds interesting.”
Black magician.
Eutenia recalled all the shadow’s hands when she heard that word.
The shadow’s hands that had filled the air disappeared in an instant.
The thieves who were restrained by the shadows became free.
Only three of them survived out of more than ten thieves.
It was a miserable sight for those who had been so arrogant to Eutenia.
“Huuk, hoo…”
The leader breathed roughly as he checked the number of surviving thieves, including himself.
Cold sweat ran down his forehead as he felt relieved.
The other thieves also felt relieved.
They picked up their weapons that had fallen and looked at Eutenia, who was counting the dead thieves.
They wondered why Eutenia suddenly let them go.
It was just a threat from some thieves who did nothing but steal.
The black magician he mentioned was probably not a great magician either.
Peter couldn’t understand why Eutenia spared them.
“Why did you do that?”
“I wanted to see the magician.”
“Excuse me…?”
Peter looked at her with a blank expression as he heard her answer.
She didn’t stop the shadows because she was afraid of the thieves’ threat.
She stopped the attack because she simply wanted to see the magician.
Ever since she received a magic book from her master, Eutenia had been interested in magic.
The magic books and theories that the black magician would have.
And the power of magic that other magicians used.
She thought this was a great opportunity to see various kinds of magic.
Tap. Tap.
Eutenia’s footsteps approached the leader who was sitting in the middle of the mountain road.
His body flinched every time she got closer to him.
When she reached him, Eutenia looked down at him and asked.
“You said there was a magician, right?”
“Ye, yeah! One of our comrades is a terrible black magician! He even sacrifices people!”
The leader still tried to exaggerate the black magician’s power.
But those things didn’t matter much to Eutenia.
She smiled kindly at him with a book in her arms and matched his eye level.
Then she asked him in a soft voice.
“Then will you guide me to him?”
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