Chapter 225. The Machine Of War

Translator: Lili

Weekly Chapter 5/6

“How was it? …Well, it was kind of fascinating.”

Rimel didn’t know exactly what kind of magic that mage had used. However, she remembered vividly how highly trained soldiers had been emotionally unsettled to a strange degree and how, despite the explosion that should have left nothing but bones, the mage had survived with mere injuries. But more than anything, what lingered in her memory was the atmosphere of that mage.

“Was it magic?”

“That too, but… the mage’s aura was even more intriguing.”

The woman had seemed completely normal before the battle began. While observing the enemy camp from afar for reconnaissance, Rimel had noticed the mage joking around with soldiers. The sight had struck her—mages are just humans too, she thought.

But once the battle commenced, the mage was no longer the woman Rimel had observed. Her appearance hadn’t changed—her face and limbs were the same.

What had shifted was something intangible. The longer the battle went on, the more the humanity she’d initially displayed seemed to vanish. It was hard to describe, but if she had to, Rimel would say that the woman had lost some essential ‘human flavor’.

Then again, on a battlefield, it was arguably stranger to laugh or crack jokes. Scratching her head uncertainty, Rimel spoke.

“What should I say…? She suddenly felt like a machine, I guess. Like she became cold and desolate. But then again, war does that to everyone. It’s probably just my imagination.”

“… What rank was that mage?”

Edwin didn’t press Rimel further on her vague statements, choosing instead to ask a different question.

“She was a C-rank.”

Hearing this, Edwin told Rimel she could leave. Overjoyed at the early dismissal, Rimel hurried away, paying no mind to the seriousness lingering on Edwin’s face.

Left alone, Edwin mulled over Rimel’s words. Rimel had reasoned that the loss of humanity on a battlefield was natural, but Edwin knew that wasn’t the whole story.

The design for the ‘substance lethal to mages’ that Edwin needed to convey to the military had started with Garnelly Mailey.

Garnelly had viewed mages as a kind of intricate machine. And, naturally, the easiest way to break a machine was to destroy it outright. But if the machine was too powerful to break, the only option was to ruin it from within.

Garnelly had focused on the ‘fuel’ that powered the machine of mages. Her approach was successful, and while she hadn’t completed her work, Edwin had brought it to perfection.

In other words, the foundational framework was Garnelly’s creation, but Edwin had inserted the final, critical piece. Yet, if there was ever a need to develop an antidote to this weapon of mage destruction, only Garnelly could achieve it.

This was why Edwin found it necessary—both publicly and privately—to keep Garnelly confined. She was the root of everything.

Admittedly, Garnelly seemed disinterested in the outside world and unlikely to interfere with anything. But in this world, there was always the question of ‘what if…?’.

‘Yes, what if…?’

Edwin thought of ‘Mini Cat’, a woman who bore an uncanny resemblance to the dashing man at Shushu’s house. Even though he’d only seen the woman in a photograph, the resemblance between the two was eerily striking.

Edwin had never formally studied magic or met a mage in person, but when it came to magic, he knew more than anyone in Logwin.

“That’s right. If it’s magic…”

The mage Rimel had encountered was only C-rank.

Even so, on the battlefield, she had been so overwhelmingly threatening that Rimel had personally monitored her.

Then, what about mages ranked higher? A-rank? S-rank? They could likely wield far more magic and far stronger spells. Hypothetically, spells like brainwashing… or transformation.

Or perhaps… changing one’s gender.

*Tap!*

The pen Edwin had been tapping on the desk came to a halt. In that moment, Edwin connected two crucial pieces of information: that the prime minister, Kiehlermann, had a mage relative, and that this suspicious man and woman shared the surname Henriad. The conclusion was almost unavoidable.

Edwin’s next course of action became clear.

It was more critical than dealing with Garnelly, who was holed up at home, or the foolish Elma.

It was ensuring that this man named Henriad vanished for reasons Shushu wouldn’t know, in a way she couldn’t notice.

Like snow melting silently under the sun.

***