Chapter 59 - The Antidote

“So the last person to visit was the minister of administration.”

“...”

“Are you exercising your right to remain silent?”

“...”

At Aiden’s calm question, the deathly pale civil official shook his head.

“Then should I take your silence as agreement?”

“...”

The man nodded desperately.

Aiden decided to believe him without much doubt. After all, anyone would probably find it rather difficult to lie while dangling outside the window of a tall building, held only by the back of their collar.

More importantly, the prince and the minister of administration...

‘... They never get tired of crawling out of the woodwork.’

He had expected as much, to some extent. He had rushed here as quickly as possible to dig up who was involved beforehand, and there they were again.

Unable to act openly in public, they had apparently switched to making covert approaches like this.

‘Time to teach them a lesson.’

He hadn’t enlisted heavyweights like Noel and Katya to lay the groundwork for nothing. He had preparations of his own in place.

Sighing inwardly, Aiden flung the secretary back through the window. With a thin scream, the man landed among the soldiers and knights sprawled nearby, groaning.

‘I really have gotten a lot stronger.’

He had begun to feel it when he knocked Damian’s jaw sideways with a single punch, despite the man’s reputation as a fairly distinguished warrior in the Empire. Now, the gap between Aiden and these nameless fighters was as vast as heaven and earth. They fell like leaves in an autumn wind.

He had been feeling rather worthless, since he still couldn’t even graze Meyer with an attack each night.

‘My Combat Styles are steadily improving, too...’

When it came to “skills” for manipulating supernatural power, he could copy them immediately just by raising affection.

In that respect, it was cause for celebration that each battle increased his proficiency in Katya’s divinity-wielding Flourishing Flame Arts and Noel’s swordsmanship, One Strike, One Arrival.

With every fight, he could feel his sword strokes and placement of divinity becoming more skillful.

His short-term goal was...

‘Land a punch on my senior’s face.’

Despite how quickly Aiden was growing stronger, Meyer never tired of toying with him every night. He wanted to get one good hit in...

As he mulled that over, one of the fallen men stared up at him and muttered in a half-dazed voice.

“... M-monster...”

“That’s because you’ve never seen a real monster.”

“...”

“You should be grateful it was me who beat you up. Seriously.”

If the two women currently outside the estate had come in instead of him, no one could have said what might happen.

He had done this because, given Katya’s temperament, she might actually try to burn every last one of them to death without mercy if they rubbed her the wrong way.

And lately, Noel seemed a little less restrained whenever he was involved, too.

More importantly, though...

‘... The most important person is missing again?’

Aiden frowned at the grand duke’s daughter’s absence.

Yes, the minister of administration had approached her, but what on earth had they done together for her to be nowhere to be found in her own castle...?

ROOOAAAR!!!

Aiden flinched and looked outside the main castle.

A monstrous cry rang out, the sort that could leave a timid listener weak in the knees. No human or wild animal could possibly have made that sound.

‘A magical beast?’

The words sprang instinctively to mind, and he immediately dashed outside. It didn’t take long to find the source.

“Aiden! Stay back!”

In a spacious clearing near the main castle, Noel and Katya were fighting a magical beast that resembled an enormous arthropod.

Sword light flashed, and flames blazed.

‘Good God.’

The beast moved with such ferocity that Aiden couldn’t help murmuring those words. The blade-like claws protruding from its many legs slashed as though tearing the air apart, an intimidating sight in itself.

It wasn’t on the level of the clash between supreme supernatural combatants he had recently encountered, but he could tell that if he joined the fight himself, one wrong move might leave nothing of him to recover.

Conversely, with two top-tier fighters like Katya and Noel here, they ought to be able to settle the fight somehow.

‘... This looks a little dangerous.’

Unfortunately, at Aiden’s own request, both had committed a substantial portion of their supernatural power to building a “net” around the area. They weren’t losing ground, but it was plain that they were doing little more than keeping themselves from being overwhelmed.

“I’ll cover you!”

Aiden drew his revolver as he spoke, but Noel urgently stopped him.

“Wait, Aiden! Don’t! You mustn’t kill it!”

“What?”

He didn’t need to ask what she meant. The instant he drew his gun and aimed at the beast, a window appeared before him.

-System Message

▶ Presence of a magical beast detected.

▶ ‘Skill: Magical Beast Hunter’ activates automatically.

▶ Analyzing target.

⊙ Liza Aslan [ Magical-Beast Transformation ]

The target has been injected with serum from the magical beast ‘Black Widow.’ Mutation is ongoing in real time. The serum feeds on all the target’s vitality, continuously increasing strength until the target dies. Upon death, the injected target returns to human form.

Weapons: Eight bladed legs

Strengths: Bodily toughness, agility

Weaknesses: Heart, head

“...?”

The window itself came from the skill he had acquired from Grand Duke Aslan earlier. Its contents were the problem.

Aiden froze, staring at the red text. He didn’t need to read closely. The very first line presented an enormous problem.

‘That’s the grand duke’s daughter?’

It looked like a magical beast no matter how he viewed it, but the system wouldn’t lie. He was better off accepting it.

Indeed, upon closer inspection, he could see what looked like a small human body attached to the enormous beast, as if the creature had “grown” out of it.

“...”

Aiden let out a deep sigh. Anger was creeping up inside his chest.

Until recently, the grand duke’s daughter had been meeting the minister of administration. According to the skill’s analysis, some “serum” or other had turned her into this.

There was no need to puzzle out cause and effect. He didn’t have to see it to know what had happened. The minister had clearly done something to her.

In other words, men who ought to have been keeping their heads down had openly committed the insanity of injecting a member of the grand ducal family with an unidentified magical-beast serum.

If they had gone that far, there was a good chance they had laid more traps. And that line about “returning to human form upon death” felt particularly... ominous.

‘Just how underhanded can they get?’

Wasn’t this perfect material for manipulating events however they pleased, editing them into a story about him “arbitrarily murdering a noble”?

His feelings about that were simple, too.

‘That pisses me off.’

Granted, Aiden himself had been planning to teach the grand duke’s succession-obsessed daughter a lesson. But how could he feel anything else when these bastards treated human life like such utter shit?

The minister was probably delighted, thinking he could finally deal a meaningful blow this time.

‘Like hell you will.’

Knowing all that, he had no reason to play into the other man’s hands.

Step one was to avoid killing the grand duke’s daughter before him.

There was a second step, too, but first he had to deal with the immediate problem.

Aiden snorted and dismissed the window displaying her information.

“Dame Noel. Your Highness. Would you follow my instructions?”

▣

The person called Rad Ilza Barfon tilted his neck backward with a crack.

“Whoops.”

He whistled as he secured his head, having nearly bent it far enough to snap it off his body.

The adjustments kept slipping. He would have to be less grotesque than this to pass for an ordinary human.

Ever since the prince had torn this “puppet” to shreds, such “errors” occurred frequently, even after repairs.

‘Still, keeping this scrap heap running has been worthwhile.’

He murmured as he watched Aiden and his companions fighting the grand duke’s daughter, now a magical beast.

Shrouded in black demonic energy, his body was undetectable to anyone nearby. Those in the midst of battle would find it harder still to locate him.

‘In truth, this is the perfect opportunity to deal with them...’

If he had his way, he would “collect” everything over there right now.

The Lionhearted. Deathwish.

Humans with that much potential were quite rare. If he put them through the same process he had used on this human called Rad and made them into his most useful “puppets”...

‘... No. No, I mustn’t.’

Rad ran a hand down his face, wiping away the smile that threatened to escape.

That was selfish desire.

They were expendable assets for a much greater “purpose.” He couldn’t tamper with them as he pleased.

He hadn’t joined hands with that human prince for nothing.

‘Everything has its stages.’

Rather than pouncing on her now, he would find it far easier to use the Lionhearted by placing her beside the prince as his “wife.”

Marriage to the prince once he inherited the nation would make the Lionhearted empress. With her absolute popular support, having her as empress would further cement the Empire’s loyalty to its next emperor.

That would become one of his “kin’s” most useful cards when they swallowed the Empire whole, having made a pact with the prince.

“...”

And it all began with separating Noel from that damned man, by force if necessary.

Aiden Kellermain.

Rad’s perpetually smiling face briefly hardened as his gaze settled on the man, supernatural power rising around him.

‘... That one is a variable.’

If matters had been left alone, he had countless schemes to put Noel at the prince’s side.

Until that man appeared.

Whenever Rad prepared something, Aiden emerged with uncanny timing to upset his plans. He was a thorn in Rad’s side in every sense.

But escaping this latest trap would not be so easy.

The magical beast Black Widow: a black widow spider with a taste for human flesh. He had injected her with serum from a beast whose sheer combat power rivaled a high-ranking knight’s, complete with the painstakingly added effect of “continuously growing stronger until death.”

No wielder of supernatural power in the world could reverse a transformation that had progressed this far.

This was a special serum he had taken extraordinary pains to create. There was no way to neutralize it. It was a masterpiece upon which he staked his pride.

Whether she died from losing the battle or simply from the passage of time, the grand duke’s daughter was doomed, no matter how things played out.

All he had to do was remain hidden and record it, then use that record for propaganda and manipulation however he could.

The influential office of minister of administration was useful at times like this. Creating confusion and turning lies into truth were his specialties, after all.

And above all...

‘Grand Duke Aslan will arrive soon, too.’

Timing it to coincide with Aiden’s departure, he had leaked enough information for Grand Duke Aslan to realize that something unusual was happening on this estate.

Thanks to that, the grand duke was very likely rushing here right now.

If he could arrange for the grand duke to witness his daughter being “killed” at just the right moment, he could saddle Aiden with a rather formidable enemy. A gift, one might call it.

‘Now then, take a proper fall this time, Aiden Kellermain—’

He smiled at the thought.

Devices to “record” the events here were already scattered everywhere.

Just imagining the trouble he would cause that thorn in his side had him barely able to contain his laughter—

“...?”

But the instant he saw what unfolded before him...

‘... What?’

Rad’s expression crumpled.

Something was not going as he had envisioned.

For a start, far from readying for battle, the Lionhearted and Deathwish had even tossed the sword far away and were preparing to charge in barehanded.

Of course, the Lionhearted didn’t appear thrilled by the madness of charging unarmed at a beast with the combat power of a high-ranking knight. Her face went pale as she cried out.

“A-Aiden. Is this really a good idea?!”

“Yes. We mustn’t kill her, even by accident.”

Aiden’s eyes roamed the surroundings.

“Why do someone else a favor?”

The gesture suggested he was certain someone was nearby, and Rad’s brow furrowed still further.

‘... This bastard.’

He was mocking him.

He knew Rad was nearby, and his attitude said he would never fall for that trick.

“Then how are you planning to deal with that without killing her?”

The answer to Katya’s question, delivered as she tilted her head, was surely more of the same.

“In whatever way will most upset the bastard who injected her with that weird stuff.”

Aiden gave a dry laugh and manifested supernatural power around his body.

“He probably thinks it can never be neutralized because he put so much work into making it.”

The First Vow mingled with Savior’s Vow.

Its name was “Purifier.”

“We’ll have to teach him how big the world really is.”