Magician in Type-Moon

Page 651

This is not a refusal, but rather a way of passing the buck back to the other party, demanding more comprehensive conditions and more reliable guarantees.

However, Princess Tiadea seemed to have anticipated his caution.

Despite Matou Ike's reasonable refusal, she showed no disappointment or anxiety; her flawless face remained as unfathomably calm and divine as ever.

She simply watched him quietly, and then played another card she had already prepared.

"...What do you think if there is a relatively sufficient 'reward'?" Her information flow once again flowed directly into his consciousness, her tone calm, yet like a deep-sea bomb dropped on a calm surface, enough to change the structure of a riverbed.

"Reward?" Matou Ike repeated subconsciously. In the current context, the word took on an unusually profound and dangerous meaning. It clearly referred to more than just money or ordinary magical materials.

Tiadera nodded slightly at Matou Ike's reaction, confirming that he hadn't misheard. Then, she made a move—she slowly stood up.

This simple gesture, performed by her, seemed to carry a certain sense of ritual. Her purple dress, embroidered with alluring roses, flowed down like water, outlining a perfect, almost unreal, silhouette.

As she stood up, the radiance that seemed to emanate from her body appeared to flow out even more clearly.

It wasn't dazzling, but rather a restrained, deep, golden radiance that created a dreamlike atmosphere in this luxurious moonlit room, captivating the senses and leaving one mesmerized.

This in itself is a silent demonstration, an ultimate display of one's own value.

She offered no further explanation, nor did she elaborate on the specifics of the "reward." It was as if it were a priceless treasure chest that needed to be opened in person, its value beyond description.

Finally, before she turned to leave, the information that had directly shaken her consciousness left behind a final whisper, carrying both clear instructions and allure:

"...Tomorrow morning."

"Please come to my room."

"I will open the 'back door'."

"The room is equipped with a special magic lock, so there's no need to worry about anyone else coming in."

"Regarding Princess Silver..."

"I'll tell you then."

She only stated these key points, without any beating around the bush. As silently as when she arrived, Princess Tiadea turned, her purple skirt tracing an elegant and mysterious arc, and quietly left the room.

The door was gently closed, cutting off the last sliver of light in the corridor.

Inside the luxurious guest room of the Tower of the Sun, only Matou Ike and Arcueid, who had been silently guarding it like a golden statue, remained.

A faint, cool fragrance lingered in the air, along with the lingering, unsettling aftershocks and immense suspense left behind by the departure of that "ultimate beauty."

"Matō Pond."

At that moment, a clear and direct voice pierced the suffocating silence like a sharp blade.

It's Arcueid.

The True Ancestor girl, who had remained silent like a perfect background figure, her golden eyes quietly observing the strange negotiation that had just taken place, spoke to Matou Ike again.

She remained seated in the high-backed chair by the window, the moonlight casting a cold, silvery glow upon her, making her appear both pure and aloof.

"Hmm?" Matou Ike slowly exhaled a breath of stale air, shifting his gaze from the closed door to her.

A rare, barely concealed weariness flickered across those usually deep and calm eyes.

As he looked at her, Arcueid rose gently from the high-backed chair, her movements as light and silent as a cat's, and then, unexpectedly, sat down gently on the edge of the weightless bed where Matou Ike was lying.

The mattress sagged almost imperceptibly due to her slight weight.

Her amber eyes were fixed on Matou Ike, and she went straight to the point with the most crucial question:

"What are you going to do?"

Faced with this pointed question, Matou Ike's reaction was an extremely slight, almost powerless shrug, giving an ambiguous answer:

"God knows."

This wasn't just a perfunctory remark; it was a true reflection of extreme exhaustion. Honestly, he desperately wanted to just lie down and collapse.

After experiencing the divine shock at the banquet, the witty exchanges with the monarch of Inola, the secret observation of Lord Byron, and finally the bombshell of the Golden Princess, the tension in his mind had reached a critical point.

He was already feeling incredibly exhausted from those hypocritical social gatherings, and now this extremely dangerous and potentially life-altering "trouble" has suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Even if he were to wish, "Just kill me already!", who could blame him?

After a brief silence, Arcueid spoke again, her thoughts seemingly skipping over the emotional outburst and returning to the key questions surrounding the incident:

"...Do you think," she tilted her head slightly, golden hair flowing across her smooth forehead, "that the Golden Princess was serious about 'escaping'...?"

"It's hard to say." Matou Ike's answer was still cautious, but this time it carried a more analytical tone.

He closed his eyes slightly, as if recalling every detail from just now, "Generally speaking,"

He spoke slowly, his tone carrying a hint of his usual sarcasm.

"I usually just laugh off requests that come from the core of an ancient magic family and are the highest 'masterpiece' of the family, which betray the family. I think they are just bait for a deeper scheme or some kind of test."

"However,"

He abruptly changed the subject, his eyes flashing with a sharp light honed by experience.

“I think her feeling of being ‘desperate’ is real.” He paused, his tone carrying a confidence born from countless life-and-death experiences. “I’m also confident that I’ve survived to this day in this cutthroat industry solely because of this ability to judge people.”

His intuition warned him that the weariness displayed by the Golden Princess Tiades, the rejection of her father's methodology, and the cold foreshadowing of her "death" were not a masterful performance.

It was a profound awareness from the depths of one's soul that the current path would inevitably lead to destruction, and the resulting resolute determination to take any risks.

Does he truly yearn to escape? Perhaps.

But what she truly believed was that if things continued this way, she and her sister would inevitably face tragedy.

"Escape" was the only extreme and dangerous option she could see that might break free from the shackles of fate.

........

early morning.

The air in the lakeside area where the Twin Towers are located is so cold that it makes your skin feel slightly tight, and every breath brings out a clear white mist.

The Lake District's climate is known for its dramatic temperature differences between day and night. During the day in October, the temperature can still hover around a pleasant range of nearly 20 degrees Celsius, but once night falls until dawn, the temperature will plummet, easily falling below zero, as if the night has stolen all the warmth that belongs to the day.

The sunlight had not yet completely dispelled the lingering chill of the night; it merely lazily crept across the outlines of the distant mountains, casting its golden rays upon the thick, damp morning mist that permeated the lake and the forest.

The light undergoes a marvelous diffuse reflection between these suspended, tiny water droplets, scattering countless delicate and hazy halos of light.

Looking out, in this strange landscape shrouded in mist, fleeting and dreamlike rainbows appear everywhere, along with some indescribable strange shadows created by the distortion of light.

They change, stretch, and twist as the fog flows, sometimes clear, sometimes disappearing, creating a sense of unreal mystery.

Matouike stood before a narrow window of the Tower of the Sun, silently observing the scene. He remembered that the Broken phenomenon, considered one of the origins of the legend of doppelgangers, was a special optical phenomenon observed near the summit of Mount Broken in the Harz Mountains of Germany—

The silhouettes of climbers are projected onto the clouds below by sunlight and mist, forming huge, distorted, and sometimes rainbow-hued ghostly images that are often mistaken for supernatural beings.

What I see in this low-lying lake area is not exactly the same huge human figure, but it is undoubtedly a similar rainbow scattering phenomenon and the resulting distorted light and shadow reflected in the flowing mist.

The fact that such a strange sight could be observed so clearly at what is generally considered a "normal" altitude is quite remarkable—it makes one feel that this place is indeed suitable as a magician's residence.

Between the two leaning towers lies a lawn and pebble path, damp with morning dew and shrouded in a thin mist, about a ten-minute walk away.

The splendor and elegance of last night's banquet hall, filled with elegant attire and graceful figures, now seem like a faded illusion, utterly shattered by the cold morning light.

The closer one gets to the Tower of the Moon, the stronger the deep and closed-off aura belonging to the Izeruma family becomes.

In stark contrast to the relatively open and welcoming attitude of the Sun Tower, the Moon Tower is shrouded in an almost deathly silence, like a giant beast that has exhausted its energy at night and fallen into a deep sleep.

Upon closer inspection, the tower's details become clearer. Thorns entwine the dark stone walls, which are covered with cracks of varying depths, some resembling the erosion of time, while others look more like scars left by the impact of some immense force or the loss of control during an internal magical experiment.

This is quite different from the buildings I saw last night under the bright lights and the embellishment of distance; it exudes a desolate, ancient, and dangerous aura.

Following the Golden Princess's instructions, Matou Ike and Arcueid went around to the back of the tower and found the so-called "back door".

It was a low, unassuming oak door, seemingly more suited for servants or goods. As she said, the door wasn't locked, nor did it have any trigger alarm mechanism.

The two were able to easily invade this core territory of the Izeruma family.

The tower was dimly lit, with only the scattered mineral stones embedded in the walls, emitting a ghostly blue or pale green light, providing negligible illumination.

The air was cold, filled with a musty smell of dust, the faint stench of withered plants, and a deeper, more magical ozone odor.

Chapter 676 Death (4k)

The two walked stealthily down the corridor, their footsteps barely making a sound on the thick carpet.

As proof that Lord Baron's will and magical philosophy permeate every corner of this place, the decoration inside the tower is very much in the style of the Creative Department—various paintings hang on the walls on both sides of the corridor.

These paintings have bizarre themes and diverse styles: some depict indescribable creatures under a distorted starry sky.

There are abstract color blocks painted with unknown pigments that seem to be still slowly flowing; there are extremely realistic anatomical diagrams with details so lifelike they are unsettling; there are even portraits of people—the eyes of the people in the paintings are empty or fanatical, and the corners of their mouths have indescribable, stiff and eerie smiles.

If this were a low-brow ghost story, those portraits with their ugly smiles would already be rolling their eyes, hurling vicious curses at the two of them—

In reality, although no such dramatic scene occurred, Matou Ike's keen magical senses clearly indicated that the paintings did indeed seem to be enchanted.

They are not merely decorations, but rather like sleeping guards or surveillance cameras, emitting faint yet continuous magical fluctuations. They may record the presence of intruders, or they may contain mental interference, consciousness theft, or even more insidious trigger traps.

As you walk past them, it feels as if countless invisible eyes are watching your back.

They did not linger in front of these eerie paintings.

Following the Golden Princess's vague directions, the two found a spiral staircase at the back leading to the upper level. The staircase was made of ancient stone, spiraling upwards into the depths, its handrails icy cold.

The Golden Princess's room is on the third floor.

Stepping onto the third-floor corridor, it was equally quiet, with several tightly closed, antique-style oak doors on both sides.

Based on the description, Matouchi identified the door she had mentioned from the row of doors—the door panel seemed to be carved with extremely delicate vine and star patterns that were slightly different from the rose pattern.

Matou Ike stopped, took a deep breath of the cold, magical air inside the tower, raised her hand, and knocked very gently on the door with her knuckles. The knocking sounded exceptionally clear in the deathly silent corridor.

He lowered his voice and asked the door:

"...Miss Tiadera, are you inside?"

Silence reigned within the doorway. Only the figures in the eerie paintings on the corridor walls seemed to cast a silent, cold gaze in the dim light. Every second spent waiting for an answer felt infinitely long.

no respond.

No, to be honest, there was no trace of anyone behind the door. Unlike the back door that had been deliberately left open before, this door was locked. Some kind of powerful magical barrier was attached to it like an invisible wall. No matter how you pushed, pulled, or even applied a slight magical test, the door remained unmoved, its sturdiness was chilling.

Matou Ike's heart sank suddenly. A terrible premonition, like a cold, venomous snake, instantly coiled around his heart. Last night, the Golden Princess's desperate and resolute plea, that real sense of "having no way out," and this morning's unusual silence and tightly closed doors…

Can't wait any longer!

He didn't even look at Arcueid; the understanding was reached in an instant. His magic surged within him, not with great fanfare, but by compressing and concentrating his power into a single point—he suddenly raised his foot and, with precision and violence, kicked the crucial joint between the lock and the frame!