novelraw Chapter 48 : A Sudden Field Trip (6)
Chapter 48 : A Sudden Field Trip (6)
Chapter 48: A Sudden Field Trip (6)
“Mm….”
After asking me so eagerly, Banshi still couldn't bring herself to clearly say what her request was.
She had said it was a ‘difficult request,’ so it seemed she didn’t have the courage to say it right away.
“Is it that difficult?”
“It’s not that it’s hard to say… I just feel like it might trouble you, Lord Archis.”
“You’re thinking of me? Then all the more reason to tell me what the request is.”
“In fact, it’s a big request born out of my own greed.”
“Ah! This is suffocating!”
I smacked her forehead lightly as she kept dragging things out.
“Hurry up and say it.”
“Ah… yes.”
After organizing her thoughts for a moment, Banshi finally forced the request out of her mouth.
“It’s not something I’m asking you to do right away. Even if you agree, it’s not something you can do immediately anyway.”
“Skip the prologue and give me the main point.”
“Ah, yes. Later… when you meet Etar, that bastard… could you use Linking on him?”
“What?”
It was a request I had never even imagined.
She wanted me to use Linking on Etar.
But there was something suspicious about it.
“It sounds like you’re asking because you know Linking can rummage through memories and hide things.”
“…Yes.”
Those words could only mean she wanted me to search Etar’s memories related to her.
There were no memories worth deleting, so she must simply want to confirm something.
A memory connecting Etar and Banshi.
“Is it because of what happened 250 years ago?”
“Yes…”
“But I’m curious. You’re not asking me to search and hide the memory—so why make this request?”
“I’m curious what Etar felt back then, when my family was being massacred. What was he thinking… with what state of mind did he slaughter them…?”
Revenge was revenge, but she wanted to know the circumstances.
I could understand that feeling.
From the perspective of the Emmet Family, it was like waking up peacefully only to be stabbed out of nowhere.
She must have believed there was a clear difference between taking revenge with full knowledge of the circumstances and doing so blindly.
“Too bad. I can’t grant that request.”
“As expected… it really was too unreasonable.”
“No, it’s not unreasonable. It’s that I can’t use Linking on Etar.”
“…What? Why is that?”
“Hm, looks like I need to tell another old story.”
When using Linking, I could inject mana into the other person, or connect our minds to converse internally, or I could unilaterally search through and hide their memories.
On the surface, it looked like the most powerful magic in the world—but precisely because it was powerful, it had a hidden weakness in an unexpected place.
“As everyone in the world knows, Etar and all the headmasters of the main academy and branch schools are my Disciples.”
“Yes, that’s true.”
“So Linking doesn’t work on Etar or any of my other Disciples. Not even on Draco Tylant, the current Archmage.”
“So what’s the reason?”
“I told you before—once I realized my master was using Linking on me, I developed resistance, right?”
“Yes.”
“It’s the same. Back when they were my Disciples, I often used Linking while teaching them. If I taught them a magic spell, I linked with them so they could understand the proper technique directly. Linking invades the other’s mind, after all. So they gradually developed resistance.”
But Banshi’s expression said she still didn’t understand.
“No matter how strong the Archmage is, could they really resist just because they developed a little resistance…?”
“No. Think about Linking’s nature: it invades the other’s mind. What does that tell you? You don’t get it?”
I looked straight into Banshi’s eyes.
I had already hidden the answer in what I said—she simply had to find it.
She pondered for a long time, then her mouth slowly fell open.
“Could it be that… because you enter the other person’s mind, you can’t use your own mana?”
“You really are smart. To be exact, it’s not that I can’t use it at all, but that it becomes heavily restricted.”
The mind was a person’s unique domain.
And that was Linking’s hidden flaw—the flaw that made it far less overwhelming than it looked.
To enter someone else’s domain, I had to abandon my own, entering theirs unarmed. If they knew how to defend themselves, it became poison to me.
The current Archmage and the headmasters of the branch schools—
Because I had used Linking on them constantly in the past to teach them magic, they had developed perfect immunity.
I passed down magic by remaining linked and using the Disciples’ own pure mana to demonstrate specific spells directly.
Thanks to that, the Disciples quickly grasped how to handle and harness mana.
After all, everything happened inside their own minds.
It was such a revolutionary method of teaching that even after building resistance, none of them tried to counter me.
At the time, their desire to learn was simply greater.
Because I used that method so often, they all eventually became completely immune to Linking.
“But didn’t you inject mana into me while we were linked last time?”
“That’s because it was your first time getting linked—you had zero resistance. And you didn’t even know I was inside your mind until I spoke to you first.”
“Yes, that’s true.”
“But the Archmage and the other headmasters are different. The moment I try to link, they immediately realize I’ve invaded their minds—so the magic simply doesn’t work.”
“Even so…”
The difference in magical power should have been enormous—could a bit of resistance really make it impossible?
Banshi still wasn’t quite able to let go of that doubt.
“Didn’t Lord Jick get taken down helplessly?”
“In this era, the Flewd Elementians are already extinct. None of the current mages have ever seen Linking—Flewd’s unique magic—before. They don’t know what it is, so they don’t notice when they’re caught by it. They don’t even know the name ‘Linking.’”
“…”
“You still don’t seem convinced. Want me to run a test on you?”
“What?”
Smack!
Before Banshi could even respond, I conjured a small Flewd-element sphere in my palm and tapped it against her forehead.
I immediately established a link and began searching through her memories.
The target memory was from 250 years ago—the massacre of the Emmet Family.
In the dark depths of her consciousness, raging flames roared, and a gigantic mansion appeared.
The main residence of the Emmet Family.
And inside—people were writhing in agony, their bodies engulfed in flames.
Some fought desperately even while burning. Some had already stopped breathing. Others remained still, consumed by fire, as if calmly waiting for death.
“Big sister…!”
“Delsere! Hurry, run! At least you have to survive!”
“Where are Father and Mother…? No, what is happening right now? Why is everything suddenly on fire…?”
“Don’t ask anything, don’t look back! Just run! No matter what!”
I was seeing everything from Banshi’s perspective.
The woman she called her big sister had long, pure-white hair and eyes, and even her skin was pale.
She wasn’t a mage I knew.
I was deliberately pulling out only the most painful memories Banshi had.
‘I don’t want to remember… stop it…!’
At that moment, I heard Banshi’s voice.
She was interfering with my attempt to search through her memories.
“Bi…g s…is! Don…’t…! So…!”
As Banshi began resisting, parts of her sister’s speech were being cut out as though someone had erased pieces mid-sentence.
I couldn’t predict at all what was being said.
Crack—!
Eventually, her memories—playing out like a video—were slashed with jagged, thick lines, like cracks spreading across shattered glass.
I released the Linking there.
“Sorry. But if I wanted you to understand, this was the only way.”
“Haa… haa…”
Banshi couldn’t even answer; she only struggled to catch her breath.
“Now you see why I said it won’t work? You’re only a 6th Circle, and Linking hit you just once, yet you could interfere to this extent. But Etar is an 8th Circle Mage. I can’t approach him at all.”
“…I understand. Thank you. You at least considered granting my request.”
“Get some rest. Now it’s your turn to recover.”
Maybe because I forced her to relive terrifying, traumatic moments from her life, Banshi’s body trembled faintly.
I patted her shoulder, helping her calm down as much as possible.
After about ten minutes, she gently grasped the hand that had been patting her.
“I’m all right now.”
“Good. Anyway, that’s why it isn’t possible. Honestly, I also want to scour Etar’s memories—I want to know everything that’s happened. But the reason I can’t is simply too clear.”
“Yes, I understand. In the end… I’ll just have to make him speak for himself.”
“It’ll be hard… but that’s the best option.”
We had both recovered somewhat, and staying in this place was starting to get boring.
“Shall we get up? If we walk around the Nohill Family grounds, someone will find us and guide us to where Hapert is.”
“Yes, understood.”
As we got up and crossed the garden, I finally took a proper look at its condition.
“What kind of garden has only one type of plant? Can this even be called a garden?”
“Uh… this isn’t a flower, it’s an herb.”
“An herb…?”
Unlike me, Banshi was knowledgeable in pharmacology thanks to her family background.
She recognized it the moment she saw it.
“Yes. But this is a very rare herb… It’s not something that can normally be cultivated. It only grows in the wild, so how are they cultivating it here?”
“Do you know what it’s used for?”
“It has many uses, but primarily, it’s used in creating mana-enhancing potions. The effect is definite, but naturally, the side effects are severe.”
“Mana enhancement? The potion you mentioned before—the one that can temporarily make someone a Double Caster—does this herb go into that?”
“I’ve never seen that potion myself, so I don’t know. But theoretically, yes, it could be used.”
Why would the Nohill Family be cultivating such a rare herb?
‘Wait… come to think of it…’
When I dug through Jick’s memories, I came across his memory of receiving Tyrant’s permission for the open visitation.
Originally, the open visitation was a right each family could exercise independently. So why did he need Tyrant’s approval?
And it was said this was the first open visitation in 300 years.
Three hundred years was precisely the period when I had died.
That meant that in this era, an open visitation required the Archmage’s permission.
Then came the continuation of Jick’s memory:
—Ah, and Full Moon said he is always grateful for the herbs and appreciates the hard work.
I didn’t know who the person was, but it was clearly someone very close to Tyrant.
And the herbs mentioned were undoubtedly these herbs.
Banshi said they grew only in the wild and were extremely rare.
Putting everything together, the Nohill Family must have some form of connection—or even deep loyalty—to Tyrant, or perhaps the entire Draco Family.
In short, all these herbs were for Tyrant.
“Banshi, what are the side effects of this herb?”
“If you overdose, you go beyond hallucinations—your mind itself collapses. Meaning, you lose your sense of self.”
“Hallucinations… huh.”
Not a word I liked.
I recalled the memory of Tyrant secretly putting a hallucinogen in my drink to kill me.
“I see. Whatever the purpose is, this herb is dangerous to leave alone.”
“That’s a reasonable interpretation.”
“You still have that empty vial from the potion you drank earlier, right?”
“Yes.”
“Give it to me.”
“What are you planning…?”
“Just give it to me quickly.”