Chapter 63 · BMMAW

Chapter 63

A New Way to Use a Magical Beast: Security Alarm

“What? What are you talking about now? Why suddenly?”

The fire mage quickly turned toward his companion.

They had already fired the sleeping-drug-covered thorn into the wagon.
The woman, the child, and even the magical beast inside should all be asleep.

And now, after doing all that, he suddenly wanted to quit and leave everything behind?

What kind of nonsense was that?

The wind mage spoke quietly.

“We’ve already done enough. I’m staying in this country, so you go alone.”

The fire mage grabbed his arm before he could leave.

“Wait! What are you misunderstanding? People will find out it was us anyway. You know that merchant owner isn’t an ordinary man. Sooner or later, he’ll notice. We can’t stay here.”

“But…”

“Are you scared after seeing that healing mage fight? Or are you afraid of stealing the magical beast? You were fine before the magical beast was mentioned.”

“……”

The fire mage gripped his shoulder tightly.

The leader was officially the 3rd-rank wind mage, but in reality, the fire mage controlled the group. Every decision was made by him. The wind mage only followed along, and honestly, that was the best role for him.

The fire mage lowered his voice.

“Get yourself together! Even if we take that magical beast and the little girl, there’s no guarantee things will work out. But if we fail to get the beast? Ha! Our lives will become worth less than flies.”

“But…”

The wind mage really seemed terrified of the healing mage.

The fire mage glared at him fiercely.

“We had no choice. That damn healing mage killed the captain and ruined everything. The captain was the one who promised us money and noble titles.”

“……”

“If things go wrong, we’ll get exposed here and chased out, and even if we return there, instead of getting money, we’ll just be blamed for the captain’s death. We’re trapped either way. You know how the guild treats traitors, right?”

The Adventurer’s Guild asked nothing when people joined.

As long as someone steadily completed jobs and built experience, it did not matter if they were murderers or terrible people. The guild did not ask about the past or criticize it.

But betraying the guild or causing major damage was different.

The guild would spread descriptions of the traitor everywhere they had influence, making it impossible for that person to live normally.

The Adventurer’s Guild existed in almost every part of life.

From gathering herbs to errands, escorts, hunting, suppressing magical beasts, mercenary work, and even farming.

If nobles paid enough money, the guild would even provide workers for farming.

Even disgusting jobs nobody wanted to do could somehow be solved through the guild.

People even joked that finding work the guild could not handle was harder than finding gold on the street.

No place wanted the Adventurer’s Guild as an enemy.

“M-Maybe we should confess everything to the guild and beg forgiveness?”

The wind mage lowered his head weakly.

He was always like this. After deciding to do something, he always regretted it and hesitated.

But was that even possible now?

The fire mage clicked his tongue and spoke more calmly.

“You already know we can’t. If we confess everything, the guild will hand us over to the nobles immediately. Our heads will roll for treason.”

The wind mage’s face turned pale.

The fire mage sighed.

“Even if we stay quiet, it’s the same. Eventually people will learn we were secretly giving merchant information to the enemy.”

“……”

“Damn bad luck. This was supposed to be the last job, and then that monster appeared…”

The fire mage patted his companion’s shoulder.

“It’s fine. We just need to take the magical beast and the child. This is our last chance. The important thing is that the owner is a child. Children can’t properly control magical beasts yet. Understand? As long as we control the girl, the magical beast becomes ours.”

“…That…”

He really did not understand.

The fire mage hid his frustration and smiled.

“And if we use the child, we can control the healing mage too. What can he do if we threaten to kill his daughter? You saw how he treated his wife and child. He adored them to death. If we get the girl, we’ll gain both a magical beast tamer and a dual-attribute mage.”

“I see…”

The wind mage finally seemed convinced.

The chance of things going that perfectly was actually very small, but once they crossed the line, neither of them would be able to back out anymore.

The wind mage glanced toward the woman inside the wagon.

“Then… wouldn’t it be better to leave the woman behind? If we take both the child and the woman, that giant man might…”

“Aren’t you angry? Everything was ruined because of him.”

“I mean… I am angry…”

“Imagine how that bastard will feel after seeing his woman destroyed and abandoned.”

“……”

It did not matter whether the wind mage understood or not.

The fire mage wanted that giant man’s face and heart to be destroyed by pain.

He wanted him to go mad with anger and grief.

> “That giant bastard will never smile again.”

Anyway, now was the perfect chance.

Everyone was busy treating the wounded and repairing the damaged wagons.

Even if one or two people disappeared quietly, nobody would notice.

And even if someone saw them taking the woman away, they would probably just think:

That crazy mage is after another woman again.
This time he’s even targeting a little child.

People would dislike it and frown, but they would pretend not to see.

Unless someone was personally close to the victim, most people did not interfere in others’ problems.

That was the kind of society this was.

The fire mage tightly grabbed the wind mage’s arm so he could not run away, then looked into the wagon.

The woman and child had collapsed, but he was not sure about the horned rabbit.

It was lying still. Maybe asleep, maybe awake.

Its ears moved slightly once in a while.

“You hit the magical beast properly too, right?”

“Yes. The drug definitely entered its body. I don’t know much about magical beasts, but rabbits have thick skin, so I deliberately aimed for the ears.”

“Good. Open the door now.”

“I’m doing it. Wait a second.”

The wind mage whispered while staring at the metal lock inside the wagon.

The iron latch slowly trembled and moved sideways.

‘Damn it. Why did they put something like that there?’

Without that latch, this would already be finished.

That giant bastard was truly irritating.

A man born with talent among talents.

> ‘A guy like that… in my old life, I would have ordered him around like a servant.’

The fire mage’s face twisted badly.

He was not supposed to live like this.

Originally, he had been a noble.

Not a great noble, but still the second son of a wealthy noble family with land.

He was not someone who should wander around filthy guild offices every day looking for work and escorting insignificant merchants.

If this job succeeded, he would become a noble again.

He had been promised a small but profitable territory.

Not only because he sold information, but because he was a fire mage and his companion controlled wind.

If he had possessed greater talent, perhaps he could have remained in this country.

But he lacked the talent to become 1st-rank or 2nd-rank.

Going from 5th-rank to 4th-rank was possible with effort.

But reaching 3rd-rank required tremendous effort and enormous time.

And above that, 2nd-rank and 1st-rank demanded true natural talent.

The numbers differed by only one or two, but between them existed an impossible wall.

Back in his homeland, everyone praised him as a genius.

But in the end, he was only an ordinary talented man.

“…It’s ready.”

The wind mage spoke hesitantly.

Before he noticed, the latch that firmly locked the wagon door had moved aside.

“Good. Let’s go in.”

If he could only become an average mage, then he would abandon that path and return to being a noble.

And this was probably his last chance.

He absolutely could not lose it.

The fire mage opened the wagon door.

He quickly entered and shut the door behind him.

In the dim darkness, he saw the collapsed woman, child, and horned rabbit.

The horned rabbit, which had been lying completely still, slowly raised its head.

Its black eyes met the fire mage’s.

The magical beast tilted its head and made a small sound.

“Ppii?”

—

Juhwan’s heart felt rushed.

He ran toward the place a servant was guiding him to.

Several guards had collapsed after being hit by arrows.

Juhwan sliced the flesh open with a small knife and removed the embedded arrow.

The guard screamed in pain, his muscles hardening.

Juhwan placed his hand on the wound and poured mana into it.

Maybe because he was in such a hurry, he used more power than usual.

The wound instantly closed.

“Good heavens!”

A merchant owner nearby muttered in shock.

Servants around them gasped.

Around Miller Company, treatment across one side of the caravan was almost complete.

While Juhwan healed people, the merchant caravan remained chaotic.

Some servants repaired damaged wagons after removing goods from them.

Others even dismantled empty carts to reinforce broken wagons.

Elsewhere, guards separated the dead from the injured and loaded them onto carts.

Because carts were being used that way, some goods had to be abandoned.

Servants ran from merchant company to merchant company searching for empty space to carry goods or wounded people.

After healing several people, Juhwan stood again.

It was time to move to the next merchant group.

Leonard of Miller Company had said not to waste healing on people who could not be saved, but most of them could survive.

Since Miller Company promised to pay, and Juhwan guaranteed he could save them, nobody stopped him.

Yes. They would all live.

Anyone treated by Juhwan would survive.

His heart felt slightly lighter.

As he continued using mana, he realized again:

Healing magic was the easiest for him.

It also consumed the least mana.

> ‘Maybe healing magic is easiest for me because of my wish.’

When he first arrived in this world, he saw dead people.

People collapsed like broken logs, and nobody cared.

After understanding what kind of cruel world this was, he met Lizzy and Dorothy.

Maybe at that moment, his heart desperately wished for something.

Maybe his desire to never lose family again awakened healing magic.

The fear of death buried deep inside him exploded after gaining a family.

He never wanted to lose them again.

> ‘Maybe fire magic and wind magic appear the same way.’

Perhaps magic appeared when someone truly needed it with all their heart.

Looking back on everything until now, that seemed certain.

> ‘Was this the power Santa gave me?’

Maybe it was simply because he came from another world.

But even then, it was thanks to Santa.

Juhwan suddenly remembered the Santa sitting near the subway station.

Was that Santa still there, waiting for someone whose wish he could grant?

Or did he only appear on Christmas Eve?

Suddenly his thoughts shifted to the fire mage.

The handwritten message from Santa that appeared when he lowered his head overlapped with the torch suddenly appearing in the darkness while searching for bandits.

Maybe because both appeared in unexpected moments.

Then he remembered the fire mage dragging Marie away.

Juhwan frowned automatically.

If he had not interfered, that man would have dragged Marie somewhere hidden and…

Suddenly something felt strange.

> ‘But didn’t he go too far away?’

That fire mage had probably done similar things before to women from Red Sword.

The Red Sword party feared him deeply.

Maybe Marie had suffered before.

Maybe Jessie or Karin had.

Even if he failed before, he had definitely tried.

And everyone around them probably knew it too.

When Juhwan forced the mage to release Marie, people reacted strangely.

They already knew he was trash.

If so, there was no reason for him to go so far from the caravan.

He could have done it nearby.

Nobody would have stopped him.

He did not even bother hiding it.

He even told Juhwan to wait his turn.

> ‘But he went too far away.’

That place had been directly along the path Juhwan used while searching for bandits.

Not just some random nearby spot.

It was the perfect hiding place.

Juhwan remembered the pile of stones the fire mage used to set up the torch.

There had been many stones.

Maybe messages for the enemy were hidden there.

> ‘If dragging Marie away was only a disguise…’

When someone lit the torch beside the merchant wagons earlier, nobody saw who lit it.

At first, Juhwan thought it was because people panicked or because it was too dark.

But maybe nobody had actually been standing beside the torch.

The fire mage could ignite flames from a distance.

When the enemy attacked, where had those mages been?

When the first arrows flew, the mage party had not been standing where they should have been.

Before anyone noticed, they had moved to the safest place.

> ‘Those bastards are the traitors.’

Juhwan suddenly stood up.

At that moment, a sound sharp enough to tear his ears apart pierced through the air like a needle.

> [PPIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!]

“Aaaah!”

“What is that?!”

“What’s that sound?!”

People screamed while covering their ears.

It was Oz’s cry.

Oz was warning him.

Someone was trying to harm Lizzy and Dorothy.

Before Juhwan could even think further, his body was already running toward his wagon