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"Wake up.""Get up!"
"Everyone, wake up!"
Heads aching, those who woke up found themselves in an unfamiliar facility. The more perceptive among them recalled their last memories before blacking out, and their expressions turned grim.
Captured by unknown assailants, only to wake up in a strange place.
In this world, such a scenario was all too common. Especially for those living in crime-ridden slums, it was a familiar fate.
They were likely captured to be used as experimental subjects by a mad magician or to be sold as modified slaves.
As the realization of their grim fate dawned on them, despair began to surface among the group.
"It's not time to despair yet!"
A young man's voice rang out, breaking through their growing hopelessness.
"The people who captured us made a mistake. They didn't confiscate the magic imprint drives I had. We can escape."
Claiming to be a dealer of illegal cracking magic imprint drives, the young man began distributing the drives to the others.
Encouraging everyone to escape together, someone cautiously asked the young man,
"But… aren't we just going to get killed by the magicians outside?"
It was a self-deprecating lament from those who had been trampled on all their lives. The young man acknowledged the possibility.
"Perhaps. The magic from these drives might be nothing but a joke to real magicians."
"But think about it. Is it any different to die fighting now than to slowly rot away in the hands of mad magicians?"
Is it a proper life to live each day hoping someone else will die in your place just to survive another day? He spoke passionately about the horrific experiments and ruined morals of the magicians, declaring he'd rather die standing than live on his knees.
Having distributed all the spare magic imprint drives to others, the young man slowly scanned his surroundings.
"I understand if you find it hard to trust me. I could very well use you as bait to escape alone. So, I will go out first and draw their attention."
He told them to use the commotion to escape, and then he stepped out of the room.
In the solemn atmosphere, the remaining people waited for the signal to revolt.
No one knew that the young man had already incited similar uprisings in three other slave storage facilities.
***
WIIIIIIIIING—!
The ear-splitting alarm and flashing red lights signaled the escape of the slaves.
Tarknia, the branch manager, irritably flipped through the surveillance screens. It looked like there was a mass escape at Storage Facility No. 3.
He thought of the supplier responsible for Facility No. 3, a minor organization from an insignificant city called Etna.
He vowed to make them pay the next time they met and called his subordinates.
"Finish it quickly. I don't care if you break an arm or a leg, just keep their heads intact. They need to be alive when we deliver them to the main tower."
His subordinates were skilled combat magicians, masters of manipulating human bioelectricity to knock people unconscious.
A bunch of vagrants who couldn't properly use magic would be subdued in less than five minutes.
Some persistent ones might resist the neural manipulation magic, but their will could be broken by physical force, making them susceptible to the magic eventually.
Tarknia believed he could handle this commotion himself. Stifling his annoyance, he sat down.
'I can't rot away in this backwater. I'll return to the main tower someday…'
WIIIIIIIIING!!
The alarm blared again.
Tarknia's face twisted as he waited for the situation to be resolved. The continuous alarms indicated escapes from other storage facilities as well.
"Was there a smart one among them…?"
The clever ones knew that the more people who attempted to escape, the easier it would be to flee.
It seemed like they were rallying not only their own group but also the slaves from other facilities.
The makeshift storage facilities hadn't had much investment in security, but the ease with which the barriers were breached suggested the involvement of a wild magician.
Wild magicians, who operated on instinct without formal training, were indeed valued highly by the Torres Tower.
"How incompetent. I told them to either use stronger sedation or just cut off the limbs when delivering wild magicians."
Tarknia ground his teeth. In a large-scale escape involving a wild magician, a few successful escapees were inevitable.
He imagined the reprimand from the elders at the main tower. His entire being seethed with anger.
'Cretone. I'll make sure you taste humiliation when I report this to the main tower.'
He needed to report the situation to the main tower immediately. The consequences of losing a valuable wild magician were far graver than those of a mere slave escape.
He pressed the emergency signal device.
And nothing happened.
In the ensuing confusion, a strange voice flowed into the room.
"Excuse me, may I ask something?"
"Who are you…!"
Tarknia activated his magic. His dormant cybernetic body parts came online, enhancing his vision to search for the intruder in the red-lit room.
The intruder wasn't hiding.
"Is this the office of Tarknia, the branch manager of the Torres faction?"
He stood calmly in front of the door, asking the question.
Tarknia felt a sense of dissonance. The figure was clearly 'there,' but he couldn't capture the exact appearance.
It was as if looking directly at him still left his features blurred. Was it a camouflage spell?
Camouflage spells that refracted visible light were often used by the light attribute factions for stealth.
'Did he use the slave escape to mask his presence and destroy the communication relay with the main tower…?'
Tarknia assessed the level of the intruder.
High-level camouflage can perfectly blend the caster with the surroundings.
However, the intruder was merely a blur, yet his presence was unmistakable. Hence, his camouflage magic skill was of a middling level at best.
Yet, an inexplicable sense of dread loomed.
The figure of the unknown intruder was blurry, but the black plank he held was distinct.
"Tarknia. Is that correct?"
Though he rarely participated in direct combat after rising to a higher position, Tarknia was once a seasoned battle magician who clawed his way up from the bottom.
He recognized the weapon the intruder held. A high-frequency blade.
An invention by a sound-manipulating faction. The principle behind it was simple: by embedding sound at a frequency too high for ordinary beings to hear into the blade, its cutting power was significantly increased.
'The high-frequency blade is a mass-produced item, but it's not something a nobody could afford. Did someone from another Mage Tower get wind of this?'
Still, this was a foolish move. If he had managed to sneak in, he should have initiated a surprise attack.
Tarknia activated the magic imprint drive embedded in his right hand. One for each finger.
The stored electric spells were unleashed in an instant. Five chains of electricity surged toward the intruder.
Simultaneously, he inputted the next spell into the computation chip installed in his brain. Tarknia alerted his closely connected subordinates to the intruder's presence.
Though the intruder might have preemptively destroyed the relay equipment to block communication with the main tower, he couldn't possibly intercept the short-range communication between the brain chips of the Torres faction's purifiers.
But no response came back.
"Are you looking for these?"
The intruder tossed something.
Five brain chips, still dripping with fresh blood.
It meant they were all killed with precise strikes aimed at the brain chips, without a chance to send out any communication.
Tarknia's next move was born of his battlefield instincts. He threw himself to the side with all his might.
A black streak sliced through the air, from the intruder to where Tarknia had been standing moments ago. The high-frequency blade was thrown while the intruder had distracted him with the brain chips.
The black blade shattered the control panel of the surveillance system embedded in the office wall.
Tarknia screamed reflexively.
"Which Mage Tower sent you? Plaurous? Typhoon? Directly from Huanglei?"
His desperate cry was also an attempt to buy time. Using electricity manipulation magic, he tried to reactivate the circuit inside the control panel connected to the microphone, to inform everyone of the situation.
He hoped the magicians subduing the slaves would hear the combat sounds from the office and move to rescue him.
"Where would you prefer it to be?"
An absurd question came back.
"If you have a preference, let me know. I will match it."
"You son of a bitch—!"
It was a taunt, telling him to choose how he would die. Tarknia began to unleash his prepared spells.
The first spell: Neural Disruption.
The intruder remained unfazed. If it had worked, he should have collapsed from the neural overload.
The second spell also manipulated the nervous system, but this time it targeted Tarknia himself. He heightened his tactile senses to detect even the slightest air movement and sharpened his reflexes to their peak.
The third spell was an electrical enhancement applied to his cybernetic parts. Yellow electricity crackled ominously over his body.
All of this took only a moment. Tarknia leapt forward.
With the intruder having thrown his weapon, this was a calculated gamble. Using his modified body and enhanced reflexes for close combat.
'If I can paralyze him even once with the electricity, it's my victory!'
Closing the distance took less than a second. Tarknia could almost taste victory as he stared into the intruder's face.
They were close enough to see each other's irises. The blurry figure of the intruder became clear.
'Is he smiling?'
The intruder's magic imprint drive activated. It wasn't a threatening spell. It was a basic water attribute spell: Water Bullet. It compressed and fired a water ball.
In the hands of a skilled magician, it might be dangerous, but from a low-power temporary spell stored in a drive, it was a mere annoyance.
However.
Electricity coursed through Tarknia's body. He tried to retract his magic but it was too late. The water ball shattered against his body, drenching him.
The yellow electricity penetrated even the non-cybernetic parts of his body. Tarknia screamed in agony.
In that moment, the intruder, Orthes, finally moved.
He swiftly retrieved the blade embedded in the wall. Before Tarknia hit the ground, Orthes swung, severing Tarknia's right arm.
The high-frequency blade traced a black arc as it cut through. Removing the arm embedded with the magic imprint drive, the greatest threat, Orthes then sliced through both legs, stripping away his agility.
Thunk—
By the time Tarknia's back hit the floor, only one limb remained.
"What are you…?"
Tarknia trembled in fear. The brief clash had revealed a certainty.
This man was not a magician.
If the blurry figure was due to camouflage magic, the spell should have broken during the intense combat, or at least there should have been a detectable flow of magic.
But there was no trace of magic from this man.
If he were a magician capable of perfectly controlling the flow of magic, he wouldn't need to go through such laborious efforts to subdue him.
Only the elders or tower lords of the Torres faction could reach such a level, and they would have killed him without him even realizing it.
The fact that he had used the most basic magic through a magic imprint drive was another indicator.
Most mass-produced magic imprint drives could store very little magic.
Therefore, higher-level magic couldn't be used solely with the magic contained in the drive; the user needed to channel their own magic.
As Tarknia desperately tried to discern the intruder's identity, Orthes approached his head.
Smiling.
The intruder smiled down at him against the backdrop of red light. Tarknia closed his eyes.
"It seems you are now ready to talk."
To read over 200 fully translated episodes, patreon.com/Denji02