"No way…that's impossible…"
"What's with that ice mage?! His spells are on the same level as the chairwoman's!"
"Who the hell is he?!"
Mikhail and the remaining guys in the monitoring room were stunned when they saw the whole sequence of events unfold on the magic video screen atop their security consoles.
"They are both…dead!"
Mikhail shook his head in disbelief. He gulped in fear.
"How powerful does that bastard's ice spells have to be in order to instantly freeze fire and wind spells?! And those two idiots couldn't even defend against his icicle spell at all!? None of their spells worked on that giant icicle!?"
Mikhail's hands continued to tremble and he clenched his shaking fists from dread. No matter how much he willed it, the shaking refused to stop. He wasn't the only one. Beside him, one of his companions stammered.
"Just what…is going on? Who is that guy?! I've never heard of such a powerful ice mage before?! There shouldn't be anyone in this world who can compare to the chairwoman!"
"No, there is one," Mikhail suddenly said, his voice trembling. "But he's…he's supposed to be dead."
"What?!" His companion turned on him, agitated. "Who are you talking about?"
Mikhail gave his comrade a cold stare. "The other mage from the Hero party, the same as Chairwoman Miranda. What was his name…Klein Pearson? The kind-hearted mage?"
"That guy? But isn't he supposed to be dead!? Didn't he die during the first assault on the Demonic Emperor's castle about a year ago?"
"Yeah…but…I can't think of anyone else!"
They didn't have the chance to. The door swung open and a girl stepped into the room.
"What's wrong? Why are you guys making such a ruckus?"
Miranda narrowed her dark eyes as she cast her irritated gaze across the mages in the security room. She swept a hand across her long, black hair, allowing the silky strands to fall smoothly down her back. Mikhail's eyes lingered on her lovely hair, remembering how he had the chance to stroke them last night, in his lover's bed.
"Chairwoman!" Mikhail immediately knelt before her, his cheeks turning from pale to a blushing red. He still recalled vividly the memories of heated passion and love that they shared until late morning. Miranda favored him with a smile.
"What is it, Herm…Mikhail?"
There, the mistake again. Mikhail was almost unable to suppress a scowl and his heart stung. Nonetheless, he maintained his composure with iron discipline and continued to report.
"There are intruders…we do not know how, but they have somehow invaded our garrison with a legion of undead. They are accompanied by the four deserters we were supposed to be persecuting yesterday. Those traitors must have shown them a way into the garrison! We have already dispatched the chimera squadrons to deal with the undead they summoned, but the sheer numbers of zombies have overwhelmed them."
"I see…and it seems that two of our mages have died." Miranda glanced distractedly at the screen. "How did that happen?"
"Ah, they went off to deal with the intruders, to cut off the head and eliminate the zombies once and for all. Standard tactical countermeasure – as long as we slay the necromancer or lich responsible for reanimating the zombies, his undead puppets will naturally meet their demise along with him. The deserters will be punished for their treachery. We will try to take them alive so that we can punish them later, but depending on the situation, we were prepared to kill them along with the other intruders. The risk is too great, after all."
"Good. I taught you guys well." Miranda nodded. Then she frowned. "Except that those two mages got themselves killed instead of eliminating the threat."
"The enemy is stronger than we anticipated."
"Hmm." Miranda paused in front of the console, studying the rewound video and replays. Her frown deepened. "These two are top-class fire and wind mages…equivalent to court-rank mages. Yet they were defeated so easily?"
Then she paused the video and played it again, watching the ice spells. Her eyes widened in shock.
"This spell is…this ice mage…he is…!"
Miranda took a step away from the console. Mikhail watched her in concern. This was the first time he had seen his mistress lose her composure. She had always been a paragon of calm and detachment, nothing ever fazing her no matter how hideous and revolting her research and experiments were. Yet now she was visibly disturbed.
"Those pair of enchanted glasses…that face…he looks so familiar…" Miranda closed her eyes and covered her face momentarily, as if searching her memories. "It's been a while, but even so I can't believe I've forgotten all about him!"
"Chairwoman?" Mikhail ventured uncertainly, but Miranda paid him no attention. She continued muttering to herself.
"How can it be him?! He should have died back then! We made sure of it! Herman even chopped off his legs. There's no way he could have survived against the lord of vampires."
Then she shook her head, a finger on her chin.
"But none of us actually saw him die…and we received reports later that the lord of vampires was slain. It is entirely possible, though very unlikely, that he had somehow defeated Vincent Lucard and survived…well, the evidence is before my eyes right now. It is useless to deny the reality. He must be coming after me for revenge. If that's the case, I have to destroy him before he attacks me."
That last few statements were not lost on her subordinates. Immediately, the mages in the room jumped up at the chance to impress their mistress.
"Chairwoman, leave it to me!"
"No, please let me handle it!"
"I swear, I'll definitely kill those intruders and end the threat!"
They were clearly intending to appeal to Miranda, most likely because they were competing against Mikhail, the current favorite of their mistress. Mikhail inwardly thought that they were all idiots.
Did they not see how the intruders so easily obliterate the first two mages who tried to intercept them? No matter how blind they were, they should realize that the intruders were on a totally different level. Trying to confront them in combat was tantamount to suicide. As much as he was completely infatuated with Miranda, Mikhail was not a moron who would stupidly throw his life away for no good reason.
Of course, he wouldn't hesitate to give up his life for his mistress, but he wasn't going to discard it meaninglessly. Unlike the other fools, he would approach this intelligently. Speaking of which, Mikhail had been assisting Miranda in forging a couple of experimental magic weapons, tools that she had been working on as part of a project to save the real Hero, Herman, and his priestess lover, Irene. Perhaps he could borrow one of them…
However, before he could say anything, Miranda spoke up.
"Hmm…very well. Then I'll leave the trespassers to all of you. Mobilize all of the remaining mage corps. Employ whatever means you deem necessary to eliminate them. The intruders might not be ordinary people, but all of you possess enough magic power to be the equivalent of court mages. Make sure you all work together, otherwise you might not be able to defeat them. I will be holding high expectations of you."
Mikhail noticed how cold and detached Miranda's eyes were when she gave the order. He suddenly felt a chill run down his spine. Surely Miranda should know how foolish and pointless it was to send the mage corps against such formidable foes. Yet, not only did she not reprimand and countermand their proposals, she even encouraged them.
Was it possible that his mistress planned to sacrifice the mage corps against the intruders, to obtain a measure of their abilities?
Mikhail closed his eyes and remembered their passionate lovemaking last night. How Miranda held him so close to her, embracing her, wrapping her legs around his waist to ensure that he spilled every drop of his seed into her womb.
How she called him Herman no less than seventeen times over their six rounds of sex.
"I'm just a substitute for the Hero, after all," he whispered to himself, rage filling his mind. "She won't hesitate to discard me like any other tool."
He wasn't naïve enough to think that she returned his love. Nor was he gullible enough to believe himself beyond expendable by his mistress.
One day he would make sure that Miranda would look at only him. And that she would love him, as Mikhail, and not Herman.
For now, though, he had best start by eliminating the threat to his beloved mistress.
*
Chris and company continued to guide us across the garrison and toward Miranda's laboratory. Even if she wasn't in there now, she would eventually be forced to return to that place in order to protect her precious research from destruction.
Well, it wasn't like I was going to destroy her research data and material. I had struck a deal with Lindley. He was going to take all of it. Nonetheless, Miranda wasn't the type who would stand by and allow thieves to plunder her years of research.
If I wanted to find her, that would be the best place to start.
We continued marching onward, with more chimeras throwing themselves at us, only to be crushed under the weight of zombies. Those who couldn't be brought down by zombies were annihilated by Stella and me. Her sword flashed, cutting them apart, while I threw a barrage of icicles upon the foe.
"Amazing…" Wilson murmured, his eyes wide.
"Just who are you guys?" Rose asked, but we didn't answer her.
The garrison wasn't just protected by chimeras. There were traps and enchantments, but Lindley would trigger them by feeding them zombies. The undead were tenacious to survive the traps, often walking about like human pincushions, icicles, thorns, stone spikes and other stuff sticking out of them. Those who lost limbs to wind blades continued to drag themselves forward relentlessly with whatever limbs they had remaining. As long as their heads were intact, they continued to move. They survived fireballs and lightning that would have otherwise killed a normal human outright, though Lindley did lose a good number of zombies to the sheer firepower of fire spells. Even zombies couldn't survive incineration.
And then the elite finally arrived in the form of mages. One of them was speared to the wall by an icicle right after Stella deflected his lightning with her sword. He writhed in agony and glared at us.
"You…how dare you?! Coming in here and slaughtering all of us like this…! You monsters!"
I couldn't help but laugh. "That's rich, coming from you. You guys have been taking the lives of so many innocent villagers, using them in horrifying experiments and turning them into abominations. Yet you complain when you're the one facing the threat of death?"
"That's…that's…!" the mage spluttered. "But…but those guys are just ordinary villagers! You can find them anywhere! They are worth nothing when compared to us mages! We are geniuses who appear once every few generations! We are the chosen ones! Our value is completely different!"
"Disgusting," Stella said before beheading him without wasting any words. I nodded my approval, and we continued. Chris and the others had ghastly expressions.
"That's why we ran away," Chris explained, shaking his head. "We can't…do this. We can't take part in this atrocity."
"I don't understand…" Rose sobbed. "Isn't Miranda Miller supposed to be from the Hero party? How can she…how can she do something like this?"
"And those guys aren't much better," Wilson growled, glaring at the headless corpse. "Blindly worshipping her and buying into her warped rhetoric. Chosen ones, my ass!"
"They will pay for their crimes," I told them, then nodded at Chris. "Continue leading the way."
"Oh, yeah. We shouldn't be far now…"
He hadn't completed his sentence before he was interrupted.
"You won't be able to proceed any further than here, you intruders!"
An entire platoon of mages appeared at the far end of the corridor. Dozens of spells bombarded us, an elemental maelstrom of violence that blew the whole place apart.