Chapter 24: Chapter 24: Raven Queen’s Deal
"Killing more than twenty 3rd Rank Ironback Wolves with 1st-Level magic."
The woman stopped about ten meters away from Arthur. For an assassin, that was an extremely safe distance.
"If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I would’ve thrown the fool who gave me this information straight into a pot of boiling oil."
Her amber eyes were fixed on Arthur, looking him up and down as if he were some priceless treasure.
Arthur said nothing.
His right hand was still in the pocket of his mage robe.
But in reality, his fingertips had already quietly gripped a small piece of saltpeter and sulfur.
If this woman made the slightest move, he would not mind making an even bigger Equivalent Fireball and teaching her a lesson.
The pressure she gave him was even stronger than all those Magical Beasts from earlier combined.
A high-level fighter?
Or... a high-rank shadow assassin?
Arthur’s mind raced as he quickly judged the gap in strength between them.
At that moment, Lilian, who had been hiding behind Arthur the whole time, suddenly peeked out.
The moment she saw the woman clearly, the little princess gasped.
"Pointed ears... dark-purple short hair... two poisoned daggers..."
Lilian’s round eyes suddenly widened, and she blurted out,
"You’re that crazy woman from the underground information market?!"
"The Raven Queen of Shadow Street?!"
The moment those words came out—
Simon and Chloe, who had just been standing by and watching, instantly went weak in the legs and collapsed back into the mud.
Even Elena’s face turned especially grim.
"Raven Queen... Isabella Moore?!"
Elena’s hand, gripping her magic staff, was already sweating.
In the royal capital of the Kingdom of Oran, there was a saying that every noble understood without saying it out loud.
In the daytime, the city belonged to King Richard.
But at night, it belonged to the Raven Queen.
She controlled the biggest underground information network in the entire capital, and she kept countless cold-blooded Shadow Assassins under her command.
As long as the price was right, she could dig up the scandal of any great noble. She could even find out exactly what the king had eaten the night before.
"Oh? I didn’t expect the noble princess to know a poor woman like me, someone who lives in the sewers."
A charming smile rose at the corner of Isabella’s lips.
She gave Lilian a graceful hand-to-chest salute, the kind used in the underworld.
But there was not the slightest bit of respect for the royal family in it.
"You were the one who sent an assassin into the academy last night to kidnap Arthur!"
Lilian pointed at Isabella angrily and shouted her accusation.
Her father the king had mentioned this in anger during the meeting hall discussion last night, and Lilian remembered it clearly.
When he heard Lilian’s accusation, Arthur’s eyes turned completely cold.
So the unlucky man who had tried to sneak into his dorm room last night had been one of this woman’s subordinates.
Arthur’s fingers tightened slightly inside his pocket, ready to cast a spell at any moment.
"Oh my, Princess. You can eat carelessly if you want, but you should be careful with your words."
Spreading her hands, Isabella put on an especially innocent and wronged expression.
"My subordinate was just a kind citizen who got lost."
"He only wanted to pay a visit to this famous ’Forbidden Spell genius’ who has shaken the continent, but that old monster Alberto blew off half his foot."
"Come to think of it, I should ask the academy for some compensation for a workplace injury."
Isabella’s tone was light and easy, as if she were just talking about the nice weather.
But the meaning behind her words made Arthur narrow his eyes dangerously.
This woman not only knew about him creating Forbidden Spell, she even knew the academy head Alberto’s defense barrier inside and out.
Her information network truly was not something to look down on.
"So you came here now to kidnap him yourself?"
Elena stepped forward without the slightest hesitation and stood in front of Arthur.
Her ice-blue hair danced in the cold wind, and a powerful chill of magic spread from her whole body.
"Put away your hostility, little Ice Rose."
Isabella did not bother to hide her contempt as she gave Elena a cold glance.
"If I wanted to make a move, then while you were all busy dealing with those little puppies just now, there would already be a red line across your throats."
Her words were arrogant, but Arthur knew she was not lying.
If a top Shadow Assassin had attacked during that chaos, everyone here except him would probably already be dead.
"So."
Arthur finally spoke.
His voice was still lazy, but there was a cold authority in it that allowed no refusal.
"What exactly do you want?"
Isabella’s amber eyes finally returned to Arthur.
She stared at the black-haired boy. Seeing that he could stay completely calm even in front of her only made her admiration grow stronger.
She had seen plenty of people who were not afraid of death.
But someone like Arthur, with the kind of absolute confidence that came from having his own life and death completely under his control—this was the first time she had ever seen it in someone so young.
"I came here because I want to make a deal with Mr. Arthur."
Isabella parted her red lips and said those words softly.
"A deal?" Arthur raised an eyebrow.
"That’s right."
Taking a few long steps forward, Isabella closed the distance again.
"Mr. Arthur, you may not realize just how dangerous your situation is right now."
She lifted a slender finger and casually tapped the air a few times.
"The Holy Empire’s Archmage Saint has already received a Grand Prophecy about you."
"The Glacial Empire’s [Lord of the Polar Realm] is already rushing toward the Kingdom of Oran with the wyvern knight order."
"Even Victor Bloodworth of the dark mage organization has already offered an enormous reward for your capture—alive."
With every name she spoke, Lilian and Elena’s faces grew a little paler.
These names represented the very highest level of power on the continent of Elderia.
And now, all of them had set their eyes on Arthur.
"You’re like a piece of fresh meat dropped into a pool of piranhas, still dripping blood."
Isabella looked at Arthur with a smiling face.
"That old man Alberto alone, and the little princess’s laughable royal privilege, won’t be enough to protect you."
Lilian’s cheeks turned red with anger, but she could not find a single word to argue back.
Because everything Isabella said was the cruel truth.
"So?" Arthur’s expression did not change at all.
He even pulled a wild fruit from the wide pocket of his robe—who knew where he had found it—wiped it on his clothes, and took a bite without the slightest concern.
Seeing how unconcerned Arthur looked, even Isabella paused for a moment.
Was this boy simply unbelievably calm, or did he really have everything under control?
"So I can offer you information."
Isabella put away her smile, and her expression turned more serious than ever before.
"I control the biggest dark information network on the entire continent."
"I can tell you in advance who wants to kill you, who wants to win you over, what their weaknesses are, and what hidden cards they still have."
"I can even help arrange a safe escape route for you."
For Arthur, who was standing right in the middle of the storm, these terms were extremely valuable.
In a world with no internet and poor communication, the gap in information could mean the difference between life and death.
Chewing on the wild fruit, Arthur watched the Raven Queen with clear interest.
"And your condition?"
After swallowing the fruit, Arthur asked directly.
He did not believe for a second that this cold-hearted woman from the underworld had come here to do charity.
The moment Arthur asked that, Isabella’s eyes lit up at once, like a she-wolf spotting prey.
"I want magic."
She said it word by word, her voice full of open greed and desire.
"I want the magic inside your head."
"Oh?" Arthur smiled. "You want to learn Forbidden Spell? Meteor Blast? Or some other 9th-Level spell?"
"No, no, no."
Isabella quickly waved her hand.
"I know my limits. Even if you wrote a 9th-Level Forbidden Spell on parchment, I wouldn’t understand it, and I don’t have enough Magic Power to cast it anyway."
She lightly licked her sexy red lips and stared straight into Arthur’s eyes with burning intensity.
"What I want is the kind of thing you used just now..."
"The kind of small magic that doesn’t need huge Magic Power, doesn’t need long chanting, and even breaks common sense."
Isabella was an exceptionally smart woman.
She had seen that battle very clearly just now.
Arthur’s most terrifying trait was not his world-destroying Forbidden Spell.
It was the terrifying tactical mind inside his head, full of ways to turn Low Rank magic into something unbelievable.
This strange kind of magic—low cost, high damage—was practically the perfect ultimate weapon for the Shadow Assassin under her command.
"As long as it’s something I’ve never seen before."
Isabella stated her bottom line.
