Chapter 720: War?

1: The Flesh Cook started a ruckus,

2: The Eternal Child Fen awakened a sea monster,

3: The Pied Piper invaded Randa,

4: Holy Power disappeared from the world.

5: As a result, strange rumors and dark sorcerers spread throughout the world.

6: In those chaotic yet ordinary days,

7: An unbelievable tale spread across the entire United Kingdom through the radio.

[…In the end, I took Puppet’s hand.]

8: That story revealed how the ruling elite—mages, druids, nobles, and politicians of the Kingdom—had joined hands with Puppet, a finger of the Black Hand.

9: The story was enough to captivate everyone listening to the radio at that very moment.

10: A wealthy man spending his time leisurely in a grand mansion,

11: A laborer sweating away at a workbench,

12: A housewife cooking a meal for her family,

13: A loafer killing time in a tavern,

14: A child selling newspapers on the street, and more.

15: Yes, regardless of age, gender, wealth, or status.

16: It was that shocking a piece of news.

17: The ruling class of the mighty United Kingdom joining hands with Puppet, a finger of the Black Hand, was simply unthinkable.

18: Still, not everyone believed the story.

19: After all, accepting such a revelation based solely on overheard radio chatter was no easy feat.

20: Most people didn’t believe it immediately. They just thought it was someone’s prank, a trick from the rebel group in Kel, or a leaked radio drama script at best.

21: The shocking truth is often harder to accept than lies.

22: Yet, there were people who took the story seriously.

23: One such person was Mr. F, a civil servant from Sector I.

24: After bidding farewell to an unexpected guest one day, Mr. F began listening to the radio endlessly.

25: As if waiting for something. He indeed waited for something, and it came not long after.

[Breaking news just in… Woodsman Dave, who orchestrated the prison attack, has summoned a massive creature in Zone A, causing catastrophic damage…]

26: It was an urgent news bulletin.

[…Due to the creature summoned by Woodsman Dave, Zone A has suffered extensive damage, with numerous casualties reported…]

27: The news described a deranged sorcerer attacking Randa in a biased and malicious report.

[-Some also claim that the zombie army attacking Randa had been long prepared by Woodsman Dave. His control of the Contaminated Zone in Sector F…]

28: No matter which channel you turned to, the content was essentially the same, though the form varied.

29: It was tiring to hear, until something strange occurred.

30: *Scratch—*

31: The sound from the radio cut off, replaced by a conversation between two men.

[If you have questions, go ahead. I’ll cooperate as much as I can.]

[You’re not really listening to me.]

32: Both voices were familiar.

33: One was Randa’s living legend, Woodsman Dave, and the other was the self-proclaimed hero who saved Randa, Colonel Billy Crowley.

34: Though the details were unclear, the two were conversing for some reason, and their conversation could be heard on all channels.

35: At that moment, Mr. F, the civil servant from Randa, realized something crucial. After paying brief respects to the so-called hero who saved Randa, he stood up and walked toward his wardrobe.

36: He pulled out an expensive 8-million-dollar suit, ironed it, and put it on.

[Ridiculous! You think military mages from the Tower of Magic, druids, nobles, politicians from the Central Council, and the Crown Prince are just ordinary people?!]

37: Meanwhile, the radio continued to tell a story.

38: A story that could upend the entire Kingdom.

39: “The die is cast.”

40: Mr. F muttered with a certain grave resolve and headed outside.

41: Naturally, soldiers from the Royal Army were waiting outside, tasked with protecting (or surveilling) him, and they stopped him.

42: That was their job. They even blocked him whenever he tried to take a simple walk—a basic human right.

43: But today, the soldiers were clearly different from their usual selves.

44: Even without the Warlock’s Eye, Mr. F could sense the psychological turmoil in these soldiers—confusion, fear, doubt, uncertainty, and suspicion.

45: He was certain now.

46: They, too, had heard the conversation broadcast just moments ago over the radio.

[…Damn it!!!]

47: A loud curse rang from the radio still playing inside his house, and Mr. F took it as a sign.

48: “Glad you’re all here. I need your cooperation,” he said.

[Wha—what are you talking about?…]

[It’s a critical situation. The City Council needs to convene. Please assist me in gathering the council members.]

[But that’s not really our job…]

[I know that. That’s why I’m asking for your help. You know things aren’t normal now, not in Randa, and not in the Royal Army.]

The soldiers couldn’t respond immediately.

61: They had heard Billy confess to collaborating with Puppet through their communication devices. Now the question was whether they wanted to become accomplices themselves.

[Of course, I don’t suspect the honorable Royal Army. Just because one apple is rotten doesn’t mean the whole box is spoiled. That’s why I’m asking for your help.]

The soldiers stayed silent.

[Anyway, the City Council will be convening soon enough. Even I’m taking action, so you can be sure the councilors won’t sit idly by.]

Mr. F was sincere. Although the councilors had been overpowered by the situation, they weren’t the types to stay down for long.

As long as they were alive, the council members were always in action, waiting for their chance. And now was that time.

[The Randa City Council has 24 members. Three or four of them could probably persuade their guards and escape, rendering your surveillance efforts meaningless. I’m acting purely to save time.]

[So you’re telling us to just shut up and follow?…]

[I’m asking you to do something meaningful. If you help restore order during this chaos, Randa will remember. This city may be crazy, but when it comes to keeping accounts, it’s reliable… So, what will you do?]

Mr. F asked them, and the soldiers exchanged glances, deeply contemplating.

After a brief pause, Carver made the first move, and the Royal Army soldiers followed his lead.

***

The conversation that suddenly aired on the radio sent shockwaves not just through Randa but across all of Seland, including its colonies.

Given the nature of the revelation, whether people believed it or not, the response was significant.

But nowhere was the reaction stronger than in Randa.

It was, after all, the stage on which the story unfolded, and with zombie armies invading, the Royal Army occupying the city, and tensions at an all-time high, the timing couldn’t have been worse.

As proof, many of the detained councilors and high-ranking officials had already sweet-talked their guards into letting them wander freely, and certain groups, like journalists and business people, were buzzing that something nefarious had been going on.

The Tower of Magic wasn’t immune to this current either.

In fact, it was hit the hardest.

[Master…]

Because the military mages who Puppet had allegedly partnered with were high-ranking officials within the Tower of Magic.

And the leader who had summoned them, Tilda, was currently locked in a battle with Kevin, the new Archive.

A battle witnessed by all within the Tower.

And naturally, most magicians and students gathered in the central square of the Tower had heard the radio broadcast as well.

Radios were commonplace in Randa, the technological heart of the Kingdom.

When the news broke, the magicians, who had earlier been backing Tilda Iceye, the leader of the Skadi Minor School, turned their gaze toward her and the military mages she had brought into the Tower, their eyes demanding an explanation.

Sensing those questioning gazes, Kevin couldn’t help but find the situation ironic.

Not long ago, it had been he who was on the receiving end of those same stares, and yet now, it was Tilda and the military mages who were under scrutinous attention.

The world, it seemed, was an unpredictable place.

But regardless of how amusing it was, it only underscored the gravity of the situation when a magician was suspected of collaborating with dark sorcerers, especially a finger of the Black Hand like Puppet.

[Well, thanks to that, I’m still alive.]

Kevin let out a breath of relief after realizing how the crowd’s attention had inadvertently saved him from Tilda and her military mages.

The grand plaza at the heart of the Tower was now a battlefield.

Pinned down from all sides, Kevin had barely managed to survive by utilizing the power of the spirits.

Even though spirits might be lending him their aid, deflecting attacks from multiple grand masters like Tilda wasn’t an easy feat.

[No, she’s not a grand master. Not exactly. Her Skadi faction was forcibly amalgamated into the Minor School due to my master. So, strictly speaking, I guess she’s only a master. The others, though, aren’t much different—they’re all high-ranking mages.]

To think Kevin was holding off an alliance of grandmasters representative of their respective schools.

The realization hit him like a wave. He had been fending for his life against these formidable opponents and had somehow survived.

Of course, it wasn’t all due to his own power.

Seventy percent of the enemy’s attacks had been deflected by the spirits he had summoned for help.

Without their aid, he would have been subdued, or worse, forced to activate the Archive’s power, potentially wrecking his body in the process.

[But I can’t go on like this.]

Kevin scanned the battlefield, watching the magicians around him.

Though he was holding out with the help of the spirits, realistically speaking, all he was doing was surviving by mere luck.

In fact, he had narrowly escaped death earlier when the radio broadcast stole everyone’s attention.

If things continued like this, it was only a matter of time before he would be defeated.

Kevin decided to take advantage of the current chaos.

[I’m curious about something as well.]

His voice rang out, cutting through the murmuring crowd. His words were directed at Tilda, who had been momentarily distracted.

The crowd’s whispering gradually quietened as all eyes, including hers, turned toward Kevin.

Not only attention but anger, too, was directed at him.

Of course, it made sense. No one would have expected Tilda’s secret deal with Puppet to be exposed in such a sudden and shocking way.

Undeterred, Kevin continued his line of questions without hesitation.

[Tilda, did you summon these military mages to the Tower because you needed them? Or did you strike a bargain with Puppet? Or was it…]

Kevin paused for effect, his words barely veiling his provocation.

[…Were you simply following Puppet’s orders?]

BOOM━!!

Tilda’s answer came not in words but in a blizzard of ice that exploded outward, engulfing the entire plaza in its chilling blast.

Monstrous creatures made of ice emerged from the storm, bearing down fiercely on Kevin like extensions of her rage.

However, as wild and raw as her anger seemed, Tilda’s actions weren’t purely emotional.

They were also calculated. A veteran magician like her understood that no explanation would satisfy the crowd at this point. The best course of action was to subdue Kevin first.

It wasn’t a bad plan.

If she could defeat Kevin and seize his power as the Archive, she could suppress any inconvenient truths.

The storm of ice swirled violently, freezing not only human flesh but also drawing out the very magic that kept people alive.

Like a poison.

What was even more astonishing was how Tilda deftly manipulated the deadly blizzard, ensuring no harm befell her military mage allies.

Riding the winds of the snowstorm, the military mages and the beasts of ice charged directly at Kevin.

But Kevin wasn’t alone. Summoning the ice spirits, he deftly deflected the storm around himself and began to fend off the combined assault of the military mages and their ice beasts.

Magic flared as Kevin’s own spirits locked into battle with his enemies’ summoned creatures. Spells and spirit teeth clashed against the icy fangs of the specters.

From afar, one of the military mages, assigned to the Agni Faction, slashed through the fray with a fiery blade, aiming to bring down Kevin’s summoned ice spirit.

Without the ice spirit, Kevin would have been subdued in an instant.

RAARRGHH—!!

Kevin’s earth spirit, in the form of a massive bear, broke through the frozen ground, raising stone pillars to shield the ice spirit from the fiery strike.

Using the momentary reprieve, the other military mages vaulted off the stone pillars and surrounded Kevin, unleashing a barrage of different spells in unison.

Waves of raw magical force struck like arrows.

Chains of electric nets crackled with physical power.

Floods of molten lava, blending fire and earth, surged forward.

Massive blasts rearranged the very air itself.

Each attack, characteristic of warfare among magicians, would have been lethal.

Kevin dodged, barely, with the agility nature had gifted to the Red Ones, using the help of his spirits to evade death itself.

But his spirits couldn’t escape unscathed.

Before long, the battle returned to the chaos of before. Kevin found himself cornered more and more as his enemies’ attacks grew more precise and relentless.

His spirits were being worn down, their power fading quickly.

Meanwhile, the stone pillar supporting Kevin collapsed from the accumulated shock from the attacks.

Lava still covered the floor below.

In a swift move, Kevin encased one of his legs in ice from the spirits and stomped down on the lava.

Under normal conditions, the molten rock, charged with magical energy, should have consumed Kevin’s flesh. But thanks to the spirits’ protection, his leg remained intact.

Instead, the ice that clung to his body transformed into a vast sea wall, freezing the lava in an instant.

Though the strain pushed the ice spirits beyond their breaking point, forcing them to retreat momentarily, the move had bought Kevin much-needed time, briefly loosening the tight noose of his enemy’s attacks.

Refusing to squander his narrow window of opportunity, Kevin surrounded himself using the fire spirit, the Salamander, to melt the solidified lava once more, transforming it into a massive wave of molten magma hurtling toward the military mages.

*CRASH!!*

But just as Kevin, bathed in elemental fire, charged forward with the molten tide at his feet, an unexpected cold gripped his very core.

Tilda had activated the Iceye family’s Eye of Ice.

Releasing the icy power stored within, her eye’s frigid blast froze both Kevin’s physical body and the surrounding molten rock in an instant.

Kevin tried to break free but realized too late that his body had already succumbed to her freezing spell.

Tilda had been waiting for this moment, poised like a predator in the snow, now pouncing on its prey at its weakest.

*Crackkk—*

As Kevin’s form solidified fully into ice, his summoned spirits dissipated.

Seeing this, Tilda and her military mages slowly approached Kevin’s frozen figure.

They wanted to savor the moment of total victory.

Tilda sneered as she stepped forward.

[Did you really plan on winning earlier?] she asked.

Kevin didn’t respond. Instead, he focused on melting his frozen limbs even as his mana rapidly drained.

[That last attack. You really thought you could defeat me and all the mages here with one blow? Arrogant.]

Tilda’s sneer deepened as she stood face to face with Kevin.

[Just because you got lucky and became the Archive, did you start to think you were Merlin?]

For a moment, an image of Merlin flashed in Tilda’s mind, superimposed over Kevin’s frozen face.

Tilda was reminded of the younger Merlin, when he had single-handedly defeated all five of the grand masters of the Elemental Faction.

[I’ve never thought of myself as Merlin. I’m better than him.]

[What?]

[But you seem to think that, judging by your question. How sad.]

With unerring accuracy, Kevin had struck a nerve.

Kevin wasn’t trying to mimic Merlin. Tilda had simply imposed her own projections onto him.

Like someone stepping on broken glass, Tilda recoiled, her mana flaring as she channeled it into her hands. An ice blade sharper than any razor formed between her fingers, and she swung it directly at Kevin’s neck.

Kevin’s head separated cleanly from his body, hitting the frozen ground with a thud.

But something felt off to Tilda.

The decapitated figure of Kevin… wasn’t the real Kevin. It was a replica formed entirely of ice.

It was a perfect copy, cloaked in Kevin’s emotions like a shroud. Coupled with Tilda’s anger, her judgment had been clouded, and she hadn’t noticed the deception.

Tilda’s head snapped upward instinctively as she realized she had been duped.

There he was—Kevin—high up in the sky with the help of the thunderbird, silently gathering the storm clouds.

It was a classic trick: using a decoy to fool the enemy and follow up with a devastating strike.

For Tilda, it was reminiscent of the young Merlin, who had humiliated the grand masters of old in a similar fashion.

The memory was fresh in her mind—she had seen it firsthand.

A shiver ran down her spine.

But there was a key difference. Unlike Merlin, Kevin relied on the spirits to aid him while pulling his emotions back, using them as fuel.

[Thunderbird!]

Kevin’s voice roared from above as he called forth the spirit.

Responding to his command, the thunderbird seized the accumulated lightning and passed it to Kevin. He then mixed the emotion he had extracted earlier into the raw elemental force.

What came next could be described as neither pure magic nor dark sorcery. It was something new.

Pure white lightning, coupled with his emotions, began to blacken, twisting into living spears suspended in the air.

The blackened lightning spear split into as many spears as there were military mages and as many as needed to match Tilda’s faction.

Suspended in midair, each spear of dark thunder aligned precisely against its target.

Tilda could feel that the spear aimed at her would be fatal.

But there was nowhere to escape.

She and the others were paralyzed, her body refusing to move under the overwhelming weight of the dark lightning’s sheer pressure.

The electric hum grew more intense.

Their only option was to meet the attack head-on.

[Heaven Strike!]

The moment Kevin finished his incantation, the black lightning spears rained down.

CRRRASSSSSH—!!!

A shriek, sharp and wild like the cry of a bird, sounded as the sky split open. Waves of pure black scorched the world below.

Despite launching their defensive spells, Tilda and her allies were struck by a terrifying realization. At least half among them were going to suffer massive damage.

The battle’s outcome was now impossible to predict. Tilda’s side still had the advantage, but battles often ended unpredictably, especially when the momentum shifted like this.

Yet, the unexpected didn’t come in the form they imagined.

[Does nothing come easily?]

A voice sounded from the void as Puppet, using a Zombie Puppet-Archive as his medium, appeared on the battlefield.

He materialized at leisure, as if stepping into another timeline, unperturbed as he opened a book and casually caught the falling lightning with his bare hand.

BAZZZZT—CRZZZZZZZZZ!

The sickening hum of raw, screaming electricity vibrated through the air.

The thunderous lightning coiling in Puppet’s hand crackled and writhed before gradually fizzling out.

Kevin stared in disbelief, and so did everyone else, from Tilda to the military mages and the onlookers from the Tower.

Everyone in the Tower witnessed Puppet’s sudden appearance in shocked silence. Naturally.

The magicians and students observing picked up on everything in an instant. Nothing needed to be explained beyond this point.

Puppet, however, remained unbothered as his hand reached out toward Kevin who was still suspended in the air.

[Since it’s come to this…]

[You might as well take the Archive with you, right?]

From behind Puppet, a new voice interrupted unexpectedly.

It was Oliver.