The blind villain of the academy

Chapter 188: Ortlock City [4]

Chapter 187

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Episode 44 - Ortlock City [4]

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The two villains froze when I kicked the door open.

Silence filled the room for several seconds.

Both villains narrowed their eyes as they looked at us. Then, out of nowhere, the man burst into laughter.

"Hahaha, and here I thought someone strong had shown up. Guess not."

The woman beside him started laughing as well.

"Heh, me too. For a moment, I was scared, but they’re just a little couple with barely Four-Star strength."

"Good, very good. They both look promising. They could be useful to us, so we might as well take both of them."

"Oh, yes. We don’t even know whether the Knights have discovered us yet, so taking two more ingredients won’t matter."

"Ugh, fine. It’ll be a hassle, but we won’t be able to capture any more ingredients for the next few weeks. The Knights have tightened their surveillance."

The pair of villains kept talking to each other while Lumina and I remained silent and motionless.

’Well, this will make things easier.’

I tilted my head and spoke quietly.

"I’ll take care of one."

Lumina nodded.

"Alright."

Even though both villains were Class 6, it wasn’t impossible for my current self to kill one of them in battle.

It would just take a long time.

So I decided to end it quickly.

"Growing Flower."

The space around me changed. The air and the smell of blood vanished.

Instead, the fragrance of countless flowers replaced the metallic scent of blood.

The surroundings changed as well. I was now standing in a field of flowers made of Mana in countless colors.

Purple flowers, pink flowers, yellow flowers, and flowers of countless other colors.

’It’s nice that I can see the color of Mana. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy a field like this.’

I was standing at the top of a small hill. Behind me was a table with two chairs.

Then I focused my attention a few meters ahead.

In the middle of the multicolored flower field...

A man had appeared. At first, he looked amused, but the next second, his expression changed to confusion.

Then he looked up at me.

"A Domain... no, that’s impossible. This is a Trait."

The man grabbed a wand, probably one meant for Sorcery.

’So he’s a Dark Mage.’

That meant things would be easier for me.

Before the man could use his Sorcery, with nothing more than a thought...

The flowers in the field before me began to move.

At first there were only a few, but in less than a second, the petals began spinning like a tornado.

The dark purple tornado was made of Soul Flowers, capable of attacking the soul of any living being.

I waved my hand, and the purple tornado surrounded the man. Before he could even scream, the tornado had engulfed him in the blink of an eye.

However, I didn’t stop there. With a thought, I made the red flowers move.

They floated through the air, swaying gently with the current.

I moved my hand. The red petals surged through the air like waves. Then the purple petals drifted aside, revealing the man.

His body was still intact, but his eyes looked completely lifeless.

’I still don’t know exactly what the Soul Flower does, even though I use it all the time.’

It was difficult to tell what kind of effect an attack aimed directly at the soul actually produced.

But from the few villains I’ve killed with Growing Flower, I’ve noticed that they all become completely motionless, as if they were dead.

No experience, no emotions, no thoughts... nothing.

’Well, let’s finish this.’

The wave of red petals engulfed the man’s body.

They swirled around him in circles, and in the blink of an eye...

His flesh, his bones, and everything that had once been the body before me disappeared.

Only a massive pool of black blood stained the ground.

"Ugh... damn it, Mana exhaustion..."

I placed a hand on my head, overwhelmed by intense fatigue and weakness throughout my body.

’Just as expected, I can only use Growing Flower once against a Class 6 villain.’

I could fight several Class 5 opponents, but against a single Class 6, for some reason, Growing Flower consumed all of my Mana.

’I still haven’t increased its Mastery. Maybe that’s why it consumes so much Mana.’

In any case, the world around me trembled before fading away.

Because my Mana had run out, Growing Flower disappeared.

Then I found myself back in the large hall filled with bodies, with the smell of blood hanging heavily in the air.

I turned my head to the side, and there was Lumina.

The woman from before lay on the ground, completely battered.

’Fortunately, Lumina didn’t kill her.’

I killed the man who had brought me here without a second thought to eliminate any risk.

Even so, I should have told Lumina to keep that woman alive. Fortunately, Lumina had spared her.

Staggering from exhaustion, I made my way over to Lumina.

As I stood beside Lumina, I noticed that she was also completely exhausted. Considering how poor her stamina was, fighting a Class 6 villain had drained a tremendous amount of her energy.

The room around us was a complete mess, but I noticed a thin layer of mana covering the entire area.

’She used an Isolation Trait to keep the noise from reaching outside.’

I turned to Lumina and asked,

"Can she speak?"

She nodded.

"Yes, I made sure of that."

She said it in a rather unsettling tone while staring at the woman with a murderous expression.

’She must’ve said something to her.’

I turned my head and met the woman’s gaze. Both her expression and her emotions reflected nothing but pure terror.

’Lumina definitely said something to her.’

Pushing those thoughts aside, I asked my first question.

"How long have you been in this place?"

The woman answered immediately.

"Four months... f-four months, sir."

"....?"

"All right. Then what exactly were you doing here?"

The woman opened her mouth and replied,

"O-our mission, under the orders of the leader of the Devil Cult, was to come to this city and support someone’s plan."

I tilted my head in curiosity.

"Support whom?"

"The Ice Queen. W-we don’t know what she’s doing. We were only ordered to support her with ’ingredients.’"

"You mean the Demonic Seeds."

The woman nodded.

"Y-yes. That’s what we’ve been doing in this place."

This wasn’t the first time I had come across Demonic Seeds.

Back in Chapter One, Part Three, the mission had been to prevent the destruction of the Fallen Maiden’s Memory Gate.

The infiltrating villains had a Demonic Seed that they were going to use to destroy the Memory Gate.

’Could this be one of the methods they’re using to unseal Apostle Kaiser?’

Exactly how the Ice Queen managed to bring Apostle Kaiser back wasn’t something I remembered.

I only knew that, at this point, it was already too late to stop his return.

That was why I hadn’t even planned on looking for a way to prevent it.

’Mhm, but if they’re using Demonic Seeds, then maybe she’s using some kind of Relic, and the Demonic Seeds are its fuel.’

In any case, I decided to ask something else.

"Who is this Ice Queen you’re talking about?"

At my question, the woman answered,

"I-I don’t know much. I only heard that she’s an Awakened, so she’s probably human or from another race, but not a villain..."

’Well, that’s because she isn’t a villain, but she doesn’t belong to any of the races of the Five Continents either.’

The Ice Queen was, in fact, an Independent Summon.

A rather rare type of entity that didn’t require a Summoner to enter this world.

Normally, Summoners were the only means of bringing beings from elsewhere.

It was believed that these creatures or intelligent beings came from the Astral Plane, since they didn’t exist in any other Plane, let alone this world.

’That includes the World of Dreams and the Abyss, of course.’

But there were exceptions.

Some of these entities managed to enter this world through loopholes between dimensions.

’I don’t know much about it, but it’s something like that.’

I also had no idea what kind of entity the Ice Queen actually was.

But according to my memories, she had a fairly human appearance, with pointed ears.

’The strangest part is that her eyes are hidden behind a strip of black cloth.’

I let out a sigh and pushed those thoughts aside.

"Where is the Ice Queen right now?"

"I-I don’t know. We only know that she’s somewhere in the mountains across from the Abyss Containment Team. That’s all."

I nodded.

"One last question. I heard you were planning to move to another location because you were discovered as soon as you arrived here."

The woman nodded quickly.

"Yes. There are more laboratories like this one. Three in total."

"All right. Then tell me where they are."

The woman opened her mouth and began explaining in detail where the other hideouts were located.

To my surprise, each hideout had at least one Class 6 villain serving as its leader.

As soon as the woman finished speaking, I cut off her head without wasting another second.

Her final expression was one of horror, but I ignored it before turning to Lumina.

"Well, we’re done here. Let’s go."

We had to report this place to the Knights, so before long, this brothel would be filled with Knights.