Chapter 102

“Why don’t you come down now?”

“No!”

It seemed Evangeline had taken quite a liking to the piggyback ride, as she showed no intention of getting down.

Not long ago she had trembled in fear before me, but with some time, she seemed to have adapted.

Well, considering [Arcanes] had kept appearing and I had swept them away with just a wave of my hand for about an hour in meaningless repetition, it was natural she would grow accustomed to it.

She must have realized that I wasn’t going to harm her, and that made her let her guard down completely.

Just moments ago, she had spoken to me in awkward honorifics, but now she had returned to her original, casual tone as if nothing had happened.

Now she even hummed a little tune on top of my shoulder as if it were her rightful seat.

“Aaron, Aaron, Aaron!”

I couldn’t for the life of me understand why she was so excited.

Tapping my head and calling my name—it was the unmistakable behavior of a child her age.

“……”

“Aaron!”

“…What are you curious about this time?”

When I didn’t react, she even covered my eyes with both hands.

Clearly she just wanted attention. I sighed, pushed her hands away, and asked. She giggled before continuing.

“I have something I want to know.”

“You’re going to ask another pointless question, aren’t you.”

“It’s not pointless!”

But why was it?

Strangely enough, I didn’t really hate this kind of conversation.

Probably because most of the people I met in the city either feared me, opposed me, or respected me, keeping their distance in one way or another.

Perhaps, with Aaron’s ego weakening, I too had unknowingly started feeling loneliness.

Maybe I craved human warmth.

“So, what is it you want to know?”

“Aaron, why are you so strong? Among humans there are strong ones, but you are absurdly stronger than all of them!”

Evangeline burst into laughter.

I still couldn’t understand what she found so funny. Perhaps she was just at the age where even falling leaves were entertaining. Talk of poop would probably make her collapse in laughter, but that didn’t fit my image, so I refrained.

Well, at the very least, it was clear that our dear Witch of Blood seemed very pleased to have chosen me as her contractor.

From what she explained earlier, she was now inseparably bound to her contractor.

Given her weakened state, if I were also weak and she had to protect me, it would certainly have troubled her.

Her current joy probably came from the relief of knowing she no longer needed to worry about that.

“It’s because I was designed that way.”

“Hm? Then you were created by another human’s hands, like a golem?”

“Something like that.”

“Ohh.”

Evangeline nodded with interest. After that, she continued bombarding me with endless questions.

Not only about the meaning of my name, my family, my household, and other personal details, but also about nearly everything visible in the abandoned factory district.

‘…Dealing with a child can be this exhausting.’

Her barrage of questions kept coming.

I’d heard that parents developed PTSD from their children constantly asking “Why?”—and I felt like I was experiencing something similar.

Just when I was about to grow weary, an idea struck me.

“This is too one-sided. How about we take turns asking one question each?”

It wasn’t just that I disliked giving away my information too freely—I also had plenty of things I wanted to know about Evangeline.

What did she currently know? Which memories had she lost? And how could I use that knowledge?

Some might think I was being too meticulous with a child, but in this world, it was never a bad thing to be prepared.

“Hmm. Fine! What do you wish to know?”

Nice.

I cheered inwardly.

I seized the opportunity to ask about things I could never learn just from the original novel.

For example, about the “origin of witches,” or about the “River.” Or how much she remembered about Araya.

Evangeline answered as sincerely as she could.

Unfortunately, as she herself had admitted, her memory had many gaps, so she couldn’t fully answer my questions.

But she became so engrossed in telling her own stories that she even forgot it was my turn to answer, waving her arms and legs as she animatedly explained.

Perhaps all those questions earlier weren’t out of genuine curiosity—she just loved to chatter. A real chatterbox.

From Evangeline, I learned a few useful new facts.

The first was—

‘Araya ambushed her before the Academy even opened its term.’

Where or how they met wasn’t really important.

Before joining the protagonist’s group, Evangeline’s hobby had been secretly moving between the human world and the monsters’ domain.

Anyone who had read the original novel would know this, and with a bit of effort in Sector E, it wasn’t hard to track down her location.

The real problem was the exact timing.

Exactly when did Araya kill Evangeline, steal her power, and acquire “Necromancing”? That was the key. If I knew, I could set the perfect trap for him, who was still desperately running to avoid pursuit.

‘Araya gained magic earlier than I had assumed. He must have deliberately shown me only weaker skills at the time.’

At this point, the level of his “Necromancing” might already rival the protagonist’s at the latter half of Part 2.

Of course, that was the worst-case assumption. But if it was true, then the current plan with the police to eradicate Ashita-kyo would be meaningless.

‘I’ll have to reconsider the operation.’

And my opinion of Araya fell even further.

Back then, he had claimed, “I had no choice.” But now I knew he had killed Evangeline right after transmigrating. Unforgivable.

The second fact I learned—

‘That recent hallucination incident at the Academy was indeed a magical attack.’

The culprit was 99% likely to be Araya.

The purpose wasn’t clear, but according to Evangeline, it hadn’t been to kill anyone.

“If that one had truly meant to kill those humans at the Academy, instead of scattering hallucination magic, he would have laid a curse.”

If he had quietly spread poison over time and detonated it in an instant, more than half the students would have died—at least, that was Evangeline’s opinion.

“For humans weaker than you, their souls would have split apart. So the one must have had another intention behind it.”

“And what other intention do you suppose?”

“Well… I’m not sure. Maybe he just wanted to test if his power worked.”

No, that couldn’t be. Would he really risk drawing my attention just for that? That was no different than shouting, “I’m here, come kill me.”

It was no surprise—even asking a magic expert, reading that lunatic’s thoughts was too difficult.

The third and final point.

“You need not worry about his resurrection.”

Just as Evangeline had returned alive from the River, I had worried that even if I killed Araya after he became a wizard, he might come back. Fortunately, the answer was no.

“It is immensely difficult for one who falls into the ‘River’ to prevent their soul from being swept away. It is not a ritual that can be mastered in just a few months.”

That was truly a relief.

If he revived every time he was killed, nothing could be more troublesome.

After all, one of the scariest abilities of that mustached plumber was that his lives became unlimited as long as he ate mushrooms.

But even so, my worries were not entirely gone.

“Didn’t he steal your magic?”

“No. More precisely, he stole the authority I held.”

Evangeline explained with a metaphor: witches were those who drew water from the River.

Each witch and wizard was allowed a set amount of water, and Araya had stolen her rights to it.

“Thus, he could not completely steal the knowledge and techniques I possessed. He could still learn them on his own, but it will take a considerable amount of time.”

“I see. So I can rest assured.”

“Of course. However, since he has stolen my authority, compared to other sorcerers of ordinary ski… ski… what was it again?”

“Skill.”

“Yes, compared to those of ordinary skill, the things he can do will be countless. Do not underestimate him.”

Why had she, with such great abilities, been taken down by him so easily? I wanted to question her, but it must have been her fundamentally naive nature. Araya had certainly deceived her deliberately and struck from behind.

Well, in any case—

We talked for several hours. During that time, I wandered through my assigned area, eliminating monsters, and I managed to completely clear two spots of Otherworld Transformation.

‘This should be enough.’

It was as big as a medium-sized city, so hunting down every last Arcane across the entire colony would take far too long.

As long as I dealt with the trolls that had originally caused the problem, the rest would be handled by the local security team.

Even the chatterbox Evangeline grew tired after talking nonstop for hours. At some point, her prattling ceased, and I realized she had fallen asleep atop my head, breathing softly.

Since my living mana detector named Evangeline had gone into rest mode, I once again had to rely on my own scanner modules to seek out and sweep away monsters.

Even as monsters collapsed the instant they met my gaze, Evangeline showed no signs of waking, sleeping peacefully.

‘Just don’t drool on my head.’

When the cleanup of the factory area was nearly complete, I received a call from Maria in the shelter.

“Yes, it’s me.”

[Young Master. I have urgent news to report.]

“What is it?”

[The atmosphere at the Academy is turning unusual.]

“……”

I had already received reports that since the other day, student opinion toward the Academy’s leadership had begun to sour drastically.

Until this morning, it had only been simmering discontent, but now, because of a newly posted article, the fire had caught.

[The gist of the post was to boycott the Academy. It seems quite a number of students are agreeing with it.]

“How did the Academy and corporations react?”

[They forced the article to be taken down, but that seems to have backfired.]

It was an explosion of long-piled resentment.

It wouldn’t be easy to suppress.

[What should we do?]

“Wait until I return.”

This atmosphere itself wasn’t necessarily bad for me.

But the timing was troublesome. The “Android Rebellion” plan wasn’t quite ready to be executed, yet public opinion was moving too quickly.

‘If things explode like this, my plan to make Iri a hero will fall apart.’

I needed to return to the Academy with my group and grasp the situation clearly.

But another problem arose.

[We lost contact with the three who entered the site.]

The signals of Iri, Silence, and Raina—who had been near their last location just a while ago—suddenly disappeared.

It seemed they had been attacked by someone, but the information wasn’t certain.

“…Understood. I’ll go.”

I left instructions to report immediately if any new information came in, then started walking in the direction they had gone.

…I had a bad feeling.

It was hard to explain, but it didn’t feel like a simple mishap. My pace quickened accordingly.

And then—

“…Aaron.”

Evangeline, who had woken up without me noticing, called my name. From her voice alone, I sensed something was wrong and paused.

She suddenly pointed in a direction.

“Not that way. This way.”

“What do you mean?”

“Our enemy lies that way.”

The direction she pointed was blocked by a wall. But I was in too much of a hurry to circle around, so I simply cut through it.

Slaash—!

Using [Cloud Spider], I reduced the walls blocking my path to dust. Several office rooms vanished instantly, leaving a passage.

“Hold on tight.”

I ran in the direction Evangeline indicated.

Every wall that blocked me was destroyed, and in seconds, I covered hundreds of meters and reached the destination.

And there—

A man was standing.

“…Well. I’ve been discovered.”

His face, his build, his clothes—

All were different from before.

But the moment I saw him, I knew.

It was Araya.

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