MTLNOVEL 86
“No way!”
Kyle was, of course, against it. He seemed genuinely furious. His complexion flushed red before turning deathly pale, and then he grabbed my shoulders tightly.
Whether he had failed to control his strength or not, a numbing pain shot through me. But before I could say anything, he flinched and quickly withdrew his hands.
“Don’t say such nonsense, Shu. Do you really expect loyalty from those bastards? And you want me to sell you off to beg for our lives? Unless your goal is to humiliate me, that’s out of the question.”
I couldn’t respond immediately.
Was it because I had overexerted myself forcing my luck to recharge earlier? A heavy, burning sensation lingered near my solar plexus. I held my breath, suppressing the queasy discomfort, and forced myself to speak.
“…I’ll be fine.”
My pride would take a hit. But thinking rationally, pride wasn’t going to save my life.
Besides, this deal was far more beneficial to us. I just had to extract information from him and then deactivate Reload. There were only a few minutes left anyway.
Kyle wasn’t oblivious to that fact. Hadn’t he seen me survive after falling off a cliff? So why was he so vehemently opposed to this? I was a little confused.
But that didn’t mean I intended to back down. It wasn’t just about Kyle—this was about the lives of all the knights as well.
I looked at the man and parted my lips.
“If every single person here escapes this mine safely and without exception, I’ll go with you.”
“You want a guarantee?”
“Of course. I’m even offering to go along without resistance. Look, this is something His Highness the Grand Duke absolutely hates. That makes it quite the radical offer. So, you should…”
I wasn’t the type to plead desperately. Nor could I demand his trust.
What kind of words would be effective on someone who acted based on interest and convenience? I thought for a moment before speaking.
“Show some sincerity. Then I’ll behave obediently.”
The White Wraith tilted his head.
“Someone with your personality? That’s hard to believe. But watching you force yourself into an ill-fitting role is always entertaining. Fine. It’s not that difficult for me to be generous.”
In the cold silence, the man raised his hand.
Snap—.
A crisp sound echoed as his thumb and middle finger met, and the mutated goblins surrounding the ravine all collapsed at once. Like marionettes whose strings had been cut, they crumpled in unnatural movements—a sight eerie enough to send a chill down my spine.
They were all dead. Not a single one left alive.
And he had done it without much effort. Though I hadn’t examined them closely, their bodies had melted away into an unrecognizable state. At the very least, they wouldn’t be getting back up.
That was the White Wraith’s display of sincerity.
“……”
The knights had drawn their swords, yet they hesitated, stepping back slightly. It was because the man was approaching.
A mage from the lawless zone—one of significant power, if rumors were to be believed. My throat went dry. My instincts screamed at me to be wary of his presence.
“Now, let’s see…”
The man straightened up and walked toward me.
He was so tall that calling me “kid” almost made sense. Tilting my head up, I realized he was even taller than Kyle. There was nearly a full head’s difference between us, though his slender frame and delicate features made him seem smaller from afar.
His bright blue eyes gleamed between strands of white hair. For a fleeting moment, I thought they might be the same color as Winter’s Heart.
He had an intriguing aura—polite yet insidious, elegant yet wicked. His exterior was as white as snow, but inside, he seemed as black as ash.
He grabbed my chin and turned my face from side to side, examining me like some kind of product.
Kyle clenched his sword tightly, gritting his teeth as he endured the entire scene. He looked as if he wanted nothing more than to lunge forward and strike.
“…How strange.”
The White Wraith muttered to himself, lowering his hand toward my chest. By that point, nausea had surged again, making me grimace.
Clicking his tongue lightly, the man pressed down on my solar plexus. The dense, stifling heat that had been accumulating there surged, and a handful of thick, black blood spilled from my lips.
I thought I had purged it all earlier, but it seemed the aftereffects hadn’t fully passed. The bitter taste lingered unpleasantly in my mouth. Wiping my lips roughly with the back of my hand, I let out a shallow sigh.
“You’re definitely not a mage… Yet, you wield power similar to ours.”
“……”
I didn’t respond. I had no obligation to satisfy his curiosity.
What mattered now was Kyle’s safety.
[Kyle Jane Meinhardt. Estimated time of death: approximately 0 days remaining.]
Damn it. I needed to do something about that cursed number first.
In a low voice, I spoke.
“Your Highness. Give the order to retreat.”
“……”
“Your Highness!”
I turned to Kyle. At the same time, my gaze locked with the red eyes that had been fixed on me the entire time.
His expression looked wounded.
***
Kyle resisted until the very end.
Looking back, I couldn’t say his reaction was incomprehensible. He wouldn’t have wanted to blatantly sacrifice one person for the safety of the rest.
But the situation hadn’t improved in the slightest. The goblins were dead, but there was no guarantee the White Wraith wouldn’t bring something else. The knights grew more and more on edge from their anxiety. Some of them had even sustained injuries while escaping the cave.
Even James, who had been trying to reason with Kyle, cautiously suggested that retreating would be the best course of action. As he held Kyle back, he cast me a slightly apologetic look from where I stood beside the mage.
Of course, if I hadn’t had Reload, this would have been an unbearably cruel choice. But since I had a way, I decided not to resent them. It was my choice in the first place.
“…Let’s go.”
Kyle’s face twisted as if he had been bitten by a rat.
But with the knights behind him, how could he demand they fight an unknown battle just to rescue one person? Having faced the enemy firsthand, he had no choice but to be more cautious.
After a long struggle, Kyle finally backed down. Even then, he looked back at me over and over again. That was when I realized—he had been stubborn on purpose to avoid exposing Reload to the White Wraith.
The knights could leave, but if the Wraith suspected me, I would be in real danger.
“……”
Even knowing this, watching Kyle suffer through his internal turmoil was more painful than I had expected. I could finally grasp just how cruel a choice I had forced upon him.
I had already coughed up plenty of blood, so why did my chest still feel so suffocating?
“Kid.”
Once the others had completely disappeared, the ravine was left in a cold, damp silence. The man, who had been standing straight, gazed off into the distance before speaking.
“You were hiding something, weren’t you?”
His voice, which almost sounded gentle, sent a shiver down my spine.
“Oh, and here I thought I was acting well. Guess I got caught.”
I looked at him indifferently.
“Well, I suppose no matter how much I try, it’s not enough, huh? His Highness isn’t the type to just walk away and leave me behind.”
“……”
“And I doubt you’d bring more goblins.”
Even if he could control them freely, it wasn’t like he could create monster cores in bulk. He had used quite a few during the faction war months ago, and today’s goblins were no small number either.
“You must’ve had a hard time making them, so you can’t afford to waste any more, can you?”
“How do you know that?”
“Well, if you could make them endlessly, you wouldn’t be hovering around the northern territories, making ‘introductions’ and offering ‘gifts.’ You would’ve dumped a whole army of them into the hunt by now.”
“You’re sharper than I thought.”
He seized my arm tightly and started walking, as if wary that I might try to run away at any moment.
Not that I was planning on escaping right now. Frowning slightly, I followed him and asked,
“By the way, have we met before?”
A bright, annoyingly smug smile spread across the face of this meticulously insane bastard.
“Are you trying to flirt with me?”
“You really just say the most ridiculous things like it’s nothing, huh?”
He lifted my arm slightly, making the loosely tied bracelet on my wrist tilt, causing the blue gemstone to catch the light.
“I have something similar in my room, you know.”
A similar bracelet… Was he talking about those germanium bracelets they sell in the imperial capital? The one I bought for Kyle during an outing?
As that thought crossed my mind, a long-forgotten memory resurfaced.
“Oh, it really does have magic in it.”
A white-haired man had been standing beside us back then.
He had looked amused, watching the bracelet with interest. At the time, I had brushed it off, thinking he was simply fascinated by how magic-infused items worked.
A cold chill ran down my spine.
I hadn’t expected he had actually entered the territory so brazenly. Did he blend in with the merchants? Or did he disguise himself? Forge an identity? Use teleportation magic?
Oblivious to my swirling thoughts, the man grabbed my chin, tilting my face from side to side with a slightly intrigued look. Like he was inspecting a new purchase, he even wiped the blood from the corner of my mouth with his gloved hand, as if rubbing dust off a fresh item.
“What is this hidden trick of yours? Your magic aptitude is pathetic. You don’t seem to have teleportation abilities or overwhelming physical strength either. So what makes you so confident?”
His gleaming blue eyes brimmed with curiosity—almost obsessively so.
“If only I could dissect you to find out.”
“…Hey, you crazy—” I quickly cleared my throat. “Ahem. Mysterious mage sir. I have no intention of lying still in your lab, so don’t get ahead of yourself. Instead, how about we start with a simple introduction? What do you say?”
It was a blatant attempt to dig for information.
Despite seeing through my intentions, he readily offered his name, as if to say he didn’t mind giving away that much.
“Nox.”
Nox.
For someone so stark white, the name felt entirely unfitting.