novelraw Chapter 41
Chapter 41
Ch.41 I’ll Make You Regret a Hundred, A Thousand Times
The surrendered soldiers were all forced to their knees, watching the battle between Leah and Vallien.
“Then try blocking this! Inferno Pillar!”
Inferno Pillar—an ancient spell renowned for its devastating firepower.
Scorching heat from deep beneath the earth tore through the surface, beginning to melt the snow of the frozen plains.
“D-damn it! Water Boom!”
Vallien hastily conjured a water bomb and desperately doused the ground—but his face soon twisted in despair. Grasping at straws, he swung his staff high toward the sky and shouted,
“Raining!”
A piercingly cold wind began howling from the dark heavens.
—Pitter-pat.
Dark patches slowly formed on the ground.
—Pitter-pat!
Seeing the downpour drenching the earth in a frantic attempt to quell the heat, Leah smirked cruelly.
“You really think that pathetic water can stop my magic?!”
No sooner had she finished speaking than black flames erupted from beneath Vallien’s feet.
In an instant, Vallien vanished—evading Leah’s spell—and reappeared some distance away, gasping heavily.
“Haah… haah… Such an immense amount of magic… Could you possibly be a dragon?”
Vallien stared at Leah with stunned disbelief.
But Leah only looked even more intrigued.
“So you judged you couldn’t block it in that split second and used Blink, huh? How interesting.”
She spoke with a sadistic smile.
“But what now? You burned through your magic too recklessly—looks like it took a toll. Can you even block the next one?”
“Damn it!”
Vallien slammed his staff into the muddy ground and roared,
“You won’t have your way!”
The star-shaped ornaments on his staff detached and began radiating golden light.
“Die! Gold Ray!”
Gold Ray—a New Continent spell specifically developed to counter beings with extreme magical resistance.
It was especially effective against creatures like dragons, whose resistance was absurdly high, or against powerful defensive magic.
Without this spell, New Continent mages would’ve stood no chance against dragons and would’ve been utterly defeated.
At that moment—
“Fly!”
Leah shot into the sky, dodging the spell. Vallien frantically raised his staff to aim Gold Ray at her—but…
—Whoosh.
Leah vanished in the blink of an eye.
Vallien desperately scanned the air for her—but she’d disappeared without a trace.
“Pfft. You’re really a rookie, aren’t you?”
Leah had already appeared behind Vallien. She pressed the tip of her staff into his back and whispered menacingly,
“The punishment for mocking me is quite severe. Lightning Chain.”
At her quiet command, Vallien’s body convulsed violently as he screamed in agony.
“Aaaargh!”
—Thud.
Watching Vallien twitch like he’d been hit by a taser, I spoke up.
“Looks like it’s about wrapped up.”
Leah frowned and asked,
“But seriously, Master—how do you even use black magic?”
“Huh?”
“You wield divine power, regular magic, and even black magic. How can you freely use forces with completely different natures?”
It’s thanks to an artifact—but I couldn’t possibly explain where I got it.
“That’s not important right now. We need to rescue these people quickly.”
I brushed her off and ran toward the large tent where the captives were held.
Pulling back the flap and stepping inside, I saw men beaten and bound, lying scattered on the floor.
No women in sight… Are they in another tent?
One man’s arm was bent at a grotesque angle—clearly broken.
“Ugh…”
His pained groan caught my attention.
“I’ll help you.”
I used divine power to heal the injured.
“Who… who are you?”
His voice was hoarse, as if his throat had been shredded.
He must’ve gone without water for a long time.
“Master! Over here!”
Leah’s voice came from the opposite tent, so I hurried over.
“Leah! There are lots of wounded in that tent—go take care of them.”
As I scanned the new tent, I noticed something about a meter long loaded onto a wagon.
Glistening white scales shimmered with a metallic sheen.
A long tail and tiny limbs.
Delicate chains laced with blue energy coiled around those tiny legs, tail, and wings.
Magic restraints?
Its face was small and slightly protruding, and its entire body was covered in snow-white scales.
Approaching Hatchling—or rather, Aria—to check her condition…
—Hssss!
She suddenly opened her eyes and glared at me.
“It’s okay—I’m not here to hurt you. It’s alright.”
As I reached out to stroke her head…
—Grrrr!
She bared her teeth in warning.
Just then—
“Don’t you touch Aria!”
A brown-haired woman in her thirties trembled with fear.
So her name is Aria? Then this woman must be Raela.
In the game, Hatchling’s name changes depending on who takes her in.
If a brown-haired woman adopts her, she becomes ‘Aria’.
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to hurt her.”
I gently brought my hand close to Aria’s head and spoke softly,
“Aria, it’s okay. I won’t hurt you.”
I carefully stroked her head.
—Grrr!
Aria glared at me, clearly refusing to trust me.
I spoke to her in the gentlest voice I could manage.
“Don’t you want to see your mom?”
With one hand still stroking Aria’s head, I brought Equality close to the magic restraints with my other.
—Bang!
The seal binding one of her arms shattered and fell away.
Calming the wary Aria, I methodically destroyed each remaining restraint.
—Bang! Bang! Bang!
Once all the restraints were cleanly broken,
Aria rose to her feet.
—Flap! Flap!
She fluttered her wings, straightened her posture, and stared at me.
Vertical slit pupils—typical of reptiles.
The emotion in those eyes was impossible to describe.
Then again, it’s absurd for me to think I could read a reptile’s expression.
“Who are you?”
Her voice was young and sweet—perfectly matching her cute appearance.
She looked about five or six in human terms.
“My name is Hans. I came to take you back to your mother.”
Aria’s eyes rolled in confusion.
Then, with a firm expression, she shook her head.
“No! I won’t go!”
She suddenly acted like a spoiled child refusing to budge.
She probably imagined how furious her mother would be once she found out Aria had run away.
To coax her gently, I softened my tone even more.
“If you stay here, something terrible will happen. You need to go home quickly.”
In truth, when humans tried to use Aria to hunt her mother dragon, the enraged dragons nearly wiped out all humans in the New Continent.
But whether Aria knew that or not, she turned away as if she couldn’t even bear to look at me and sat back down on the wagon.
“The lair is boring. I’m not going.”
I was about to lose my mind.
After all that effort to rescue her, she was throwing a tantrum about not returning to the lair. My chest tightened with frustration.
“Do you… know Aria?”
Raela asked in a trembling voice. I gave an awkward smile.
“It’s not exactly that we ‘know’ each other… It’s a bit complicated to explain.”
I wasn’t actually acquainted with her mother dragon.
But there were too many awkward details to clarify—after all, I couldn’t just say, ‘It’s because of a game.’
***
Selena had just learned that Equality was gone.
She was now using every resource at her disposal to track down the thief.
‘Who the hell are you?! How dare you take Equality so boldly?!’
According to the Prophecy Scroll, Equality was the weapon destined to slay the Nameless God.
In other words, its wielder was their enemy.
That’s why Selena was mobilizing all her means to find Equality’s owner—though she held little hope.
‘It won’t be easy to find them.’
A mysterious figure who visited a place not even marked on maps—how could she possibly gather intel on such a person?
Even though her organization specialized in covert intelligence…
‘Unless someone actually saw them enter that temple.’
Selena assumed some clueless adventurer had stumbled upon the temple by accident and taken Equality.
It seemed implausible that someone had known the location in advance.
—Knock knock.
“Who is it?”
Still on edge from Equality’s disappearance, Selena snapped irritably. The door opened, and a stout, middle-aged butler entered.
“We’ve found the owner of Equality.”
At the butler’s words, Selena’s shoulders jerked.
“Alex… Are you serious?”
The butler gave a small nod.
Though she hadn’t expected much, Selena was genuinely shocked to hear they’d actually found the culprit.
‘Damn it—was it the Papal See after all? Only they could’ve known in advance.’
Convinced it was them, Selena struggled to suppress her rage.
“Who is it? Who took that accursed thing?”
Alex answered,
“A man named Hans, Baron Pisa.”
Hearing a noble’s name out of nowhere, Selena’s mind raced to recall who Baron Pisa was.
“Oh! That lucky bastard?”
He was famously a noble who’d made enormous profits from every business he touched over the past few years.
Everything he bought or invested in succeeded spectacularly—as if he knew the future. Thanks to that, Pisa Trading Company had risen to become the continent’s top trading house in just a few years.
That’s why his nickname was ‘Son of God’.
“He’s the one who took it?”
Selena tapped her fingers on the desk, frowning in suspicion.
‘Can I even trust this intel?’
One lesson she’d learned from handling intelligence since childhood: reliable information was far rarer than people assumed.
Her brow furrowed.
“Is this intel trustworthy?”
“Yes. There were nearly a hundred people who accompanied him to the Temple of Equality.”
Selena was dumbfounded.
‘What in the world did he do to have over a hundred companions?’
Incredulous, she stared at the butler with a skeptical expression.
“Honestly, that doesn’t make sense. What happened?”
“Well…”
Alex looked slightly flustered.
“When Baron Hans headed to the Temple of Equality, he moved with a massive entourage—cooks, maids, his mercenary retinue—leaving a very obvious trail.”
Selena’s expression turned bewildered.
“What? What does that even mean?”
He brought cooks and maids to a hidden temple? When secrecy was essential?
Selena, who had labored tirelessly to find the temple, pressed the butler skeptically.
“Are you sure?”
“Well…”
Having witnessed Selena’s sleepless efforts firsthand, Alex hesitated to deliver the truth.
Because in reality, it wasn’t Selena’s hard work that led to the discovery—it was Hans, who’d apparently ‘accidentally’ picked up Equality.
‘That sly bastard.’
Alex cursed Hans inwardly, sweating as he wondered how to break the news without devastating Selena.
Just as he worried whether he should even say it, Selena lowered her head onto her desk and muttered,
“How did Baron Hans even find the Temple of Equality? Did he stumble upon it during a trade expedition?”
Seeing her pondering seriously, Alex reluctantly revealed the truth.
“It’s not that… He seemed to know the temple was there all along.”
—Whoosh!
Selena’s eyes snapped up, sharp and furious.
“He knew the temple was there? That’s impossible.”
Both the Papal See and her own organization had waged a desperate, tearful battle to locate the temple.
Yet Baron Pisa knew?
Selena herself had only recently discovered its location—thanks to centuries of accumulated intelligence from her sect.
‘After all the blood, sweat, and tears we sacrificed to find that temple… he just ‘knew’?’
The location they’d uncovered through unimaginable hardship…
‘And now you’re telling me Baron Pisa knew from the start—and casually snatched Equality right from under our noses?’
She couldn’t believe it. No—she refused to.
“But… judging by all available evidence… it’s most likely he bought the information from a mercenary who’d accidentally found the temple and then explored it himself.”
—Grrrrk…
Selena ground her teeth.
“I’ll find that bastard and kill him right now! Where is he?!”
Alex answered cautiously,
“He… apparently went to the New Continent.”
At his words, Selena trembled—not just with anger, but with humiliation.
“Damn it…”
She wanted to chase Hans down immediately—but she couldn’t leave yet.
Another artifact imbued with divine power, like Equality, still remained in the Old Continent.
She planned to retrieve it first, then head to the New Continent.
‘I’ll make you regret taking Equality a hundred—no, a thousand times over.’
She began plotting how to make Hans suffer before his death.
Review at
NovelUpdate
One for All200[Get access to 20 premium chapters each for over 30 series.
Check out List at Membership page]Unlock next 20 premium chaptersValid for 30 daysPurchase