Ch. 27
Chapter 27: The Villainess’s First Move
I'd considered using the academy's support system to obtain equipment one more time, but I abandoned that idea.
Trusting a system that had already been breached by Milé carried too many risk factors.
Instead, I decided to use a different method.
I would use Milé's mana pattern to craft the magic equipment myself.
Unlike Yuna and Silen's equipment, which required tempering, I already had quite a few magic items suited for a Spirit Master.
One might think: why not just wrap Hyacinth in end-game gear right now and use her as a human bomb? But equipment has something called Equipping Restrictions.
Back in the game days, it was clearly divided by level limits—but now that it had become reality, if a newbie carelessly equipped high-grade gear, they'd be devoured by it. They would be corrupted by the mana the equipment radiated.
Mages especially had to be careful.
So, this time, I would make it myself.
Using Milé's mana pattern, of course.
What emerged was a beginner's oak staff and a newbie robe set. And the Seal of Wind Enhancement, among other things. A gear set that was almost excessive for a lower-tier Wind Spirit Master was issued.
"Th, this is…. If I sold this, h, how much would it fetch?"
"Why do you care about the price when I'm issuing it to you?"
"I, I can't accept something like this. I…. I am not a woman who would compromise her convictions, or, or sell herself so cheaply!"
Saying that, Hyacinth turned red and covered her chest.
What is she on about?
"The Demeter Grand Dungeon is, in crude terms, a maddening dungeon. It wouldn't be strange to add five more floors by normal dungeon standards. From the second floor, chickens that use lightning attributes come flying out…. On the fifth floor, we nearly all froze to death. Isn't that right, Yuna?"
"Yes! Master is absolutely right! That day, Silen and I died about twice!"
"Yeah…. We died. For Rogues, area-of-effect status effects are a living hell, truly…."
The two grumbled.
"That's the dungeon you're about to enter. Are you truly sure you don't need it?"
"I, I can manage with just my own—"
"Even after seeing the quality of this equipment, can you truly say you don't need it? This should be top-grade gear that couldn't even be obtained in a rural place like this."
"Urgh…. Ngh…."
At my words, Hyacinth hesitated, then lightly reached a hand toward the equipment.
Then, with a deep sigh, she looked up at me with trembling eyes.
"Yujin…sir. Magic equipment loses its value tremendously once it isn't new, correct?"
"Well, that's generally the case."
The depreciation on mage equipment is absolutely catastrophic.
First, if a piece of equipment has the previous user's mana pattern too deeply etched into it, it feels deeply unsettling when someone else wears it. It's like it grates against your own mana pattern. Like buying secondhand clothes reeking of cigarette smoke.
Second, among mages, there are many shady characters who tamper with their equipment, so there are occasional cases where gear has been rigged with tricks. In any case, equipment trading between mages isn't common, and even at the Hephaestus Dungeon, mage equipment is strictly traded as new goods only.
"Then…. If I accept this right now, just how much would I owe you, Yujin sir…?"
"I'm saying it's just an issuance…."
"To me, the daughter of a merchant, the phrase 'just an issuance' is an insult. So please tell me."
Eyes looking straight at me.
Not the distrust and trembling from a moment ago—seeing that expression of affront and wounded pride, I gave a nod.
"At current market value, the beginner mage set I've prepared comes to roughly 500,000 Sel."
"That's cheap…."
"You recognize it?"
"Yes. Of course. I'm a merchant. This finishing. This quality. But it's not the kind of money our family could immediately circulate… Ugh…."
"Right. So instead of money—"
"I, I have nothing to offer in place of money. No matter what, I'll repay it in money!"
"Hmm…. Hmm? Right. Fine. Go ahead."
Hyacinth turned red in the face again, and I nodded, none the wiser as to why.
"Understood. Out of respect for your pride, I'll log it as 500,000 Sel—fifty gold coins."
"Y, yes…! Understood!"
"However, if you're going to become a full-fledged adventurer in your own right, I'd like you to repay it through adventuring, not by relying on your family."
"That…. Yes. Of course!"
Whatever else she thought of my words, Hyacinth smiled brightly and confidently at that last part.
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.
.
.
After that, the express leveling-up train departed.
More precisely, it was the train of Yuna and Silen—imparting to Hyacinth the harsh and brutal realities of the dungeon.
"Will you two be alright without my guidance?"
"Don't worry, Master! If it ever seems dangerous, we'll run away at any time!"
I nodded at Yuna's words, brimming with confidence. I'd told them to just slowly explore floors one through four and only accumulate practical experience—what could possibly go wrong?
After sending the kids into the dungeon, I stayed behind at the shop with things I needed to check on my end.
I opened a subspace using Milé's mana. Tens of meters below, Milé's head was visible.
Of course, it wasn't that I had severed the neck and torso to make Milé into a top/bottom-separated Milé. I threw my body into the subspace, felt a brief sensation of falling, and landed on the floor.
I turned my gaze to look around—it was a pure white space. A bit too large to call a studio, a bit too small to call a two-room apartment. You could squeeze in maybe ten people, but they wouldn't be able to breathe, so at this size the floor space was about right.
In that pure white space, Milé was sitting in a corner, looking up at me.
"Senior…."
"Are you getting by alright, Milé?"
"Would you find this place tolerable, Senior?"
"Is that so? I tried my best to imitate Master's subspace lab…. But I suppose the space is cramped?"
"That's not the problem! Locking a person in an empty white room for two days is a perfect recipe for going insane! There's too little sound in here—I can hear myself breathing, hear my own heartbeat. I can even hear the blood flowing through my veins!"
"Mm. I see."
"Don't just say 'I see'!"
Milé snarled. It's rare for her to act like this.
How impudent of a junior.
"Actually, had I so desired, I could have put your upper half in room 283 and your lower half in room 284, making you an amusingly split top-and-bottom doll."
"I have always admired your Spatial Magic, Senior. Can you hear this junior's voice, filled with longing and reverence and devotion and affection, Senior?"
"Right, right. I'll spare you from being split in two. Be grateful to your senior."
Milé and I stared at each other for a long while, then both burst out laughing. As if I were delighted. As if she were exasperated.
This was our banter and our conversation. Under a master as eccentric as ours, even exchanges this ruthless become humor.
"So. Until when do you intend to keep me locked in here?"
"Until I reach Transcendence."
"That could take decades! Time passes inside your subspace, Senior!"
"Yes. It does."
"If you take too long, I'll turn into an old woman!"
"I suppose so."
At those words, Milé erupted once more.
Of course, she was subdued quickly. Not only because her physical skills were inferior to mine, but because the authority over this space itself belonged to me.
"But I can't let you out either. The moment you step outside, you'll go straight to Master and report everything. Right?"
"Yes! I'll tell Master everything—that Senior was tormenting me!"
Shameless thing. The fact that she doesn't lie is a virtue, I suppose, but this one is brazen while pretending to be meek. She loves to blame others and does only what she herself wants to do.
"That's why you can't leave."
"Urgh…."
"But if you take my side, I'll give you something quite worthwhile."
"What is it?"
"Here. Take this first."
What I offered her was a stewed peach.
I know Milé's weaknesses far too well.
This one is the very model of a homebody—the type who loves nothing more than being holed up in her room reading novels, then doing research, then eating sweets, then reading novels again.
In other words, she loves sweet things to an extraordinary degree.
She lightly stabbed the peach with a fork, brought it to her lips, and took one bite.
"Hfm…ngh…. Hfup…. Ngh…. Th, this is…."
"How is it?"
"Senior…. I, I was wrong. Until now, I was wrong. I wasn't born to pursue the truths of magic…. I, I was born to meet this peach."
And then Milé shed actual tears.
This is the moment to slip in the persuasion line.
“Ahem.”
One breath in, slowly. I think through and arrange the words to win Milé over. There's no second chance at persuasion. Finish it in one stroke.
"Milé. Right now, I am raising my disciples in order to conquer the Demeter Dungeon. All for the sake of a perfect spread at the table. And this peach came from merely the fifth floor of the dungeon."
"The fifth floor…. Seriously? Just the fifth floor?"
"Yes. Who can say for certain that there isn't a floor where everything you could ever want is gathered—a floor where only sweet things exist? A tier where honey flows instead of rivers, where the grass gives off the scent of chocolate, and every fruit on every tree holds a rainbow of sweetness waiting to be tasted."
"Goodness…. Impossible. If a place like that existed…. Any girl might die of joy…."
I know your age, and calling yourself a 'girl' as a first-person reference is a bit much.
And I said it myself, but if honey flowed instead of rivers, it sounds horribly sticky and bug-infested and generally unpleasant.
Anyway, Milé's eyes sparkled with light. She's just past the halfway point.
Despite appearances, Milé has an extraordinarily self-preserving personality—if I don't present what comes next, she'll end up thinking differently.
"Milé. I intend to reach Transcendence through the Demeter Dungeon, report to Master, and establish my own school."
"Your own school….?"
At my words, her expression turned serious.
"And I intend to invite you there as a professor."
"A pro…fessor. Me, a professor…?"
"Yes. It's time to shed that Beginnermage label and put on a Seniormage title."
"Huk…. Hfup…."
Tears flooding out as she covers her mouth with both hands.
I know. I know it all too well. How hard you struggled under Master Lidia.
"There, meals with snacks three times a day will be provided, and no one will ever interrupt your research."
"Is, is that really true, Senior…?"
"Yes. Once I reach Transcendence and speak to Master, extracting just one person like you will be nothing at all. You know, don't you? That Master is… excessively well-disposed toward me."
"Th, that's true…. Yes…. Professor. Me…. But betraying Master Lidia…."
"It's not betraying your master. You are simply continuing your own research under better conditions of your own choosing. Here. Have another peach."
"Se, Senior…."
I placed a few more peaches on the plate, set it down, and gave a nod.
"I won't demand an answer right away. But I'll stop by here every day and bring you sweet snacks. I'll open another subspace for you as well. If you have materials you need for your research, you can take them out and work with them."
"Wh, why would you go this far for me?…. I, I'm only a 4th Circle…."
"Milé. I very much like investing at the bottom. You're someone who will one day reach the 8th Circle."
"Huk…. Yujin Senior…."
I patted Milé's shoulder, and without waiting for an answer, I turned away.
From behind me came the sound of quiet sniffling.
Good.
No need to even hear the answer on this one.
I smiled with everything I had and stepped out of the subspace.
.
.
.
.
I don't think there's any immediate risk of Milé harboring misguided intentions or becoming an enemy.
Now then. It was almost time to go meet Yuna, Silen, and Hyacinth.
With that, I gathered my things and rose from my seat—when, flutter, something floated up right before my eyes.
—My love. My Mastermage. Have you been well? I'm sure your killing intent is still aimed sharply at my throat? Sometimes I miss that gaze of yours, when you used to try to kill me.
The stationery of that madwoman I'd wanted to forget began to move.
—What's going on?
—Oh. A quick reply. Good. You pass. So you weren't out playing around with some other woman? Hehe. One bonus point.
—Just get to the point.
—I don't like impatient men…. Well actually, thinking about it, a Yujin so impatient he throws me onto the bed without a second thought sounds kind of appealing too. Alright. Want to meet up right now?
—If you have nothing to say, get lost.
—Oh. A joke. Just a joke. Hehe. The real business isn't this—is the lovely little chick-raising plan of Yujin the Mastermage, for the purpose of the Demociela suppression operation, going well?
—There's no reason I need to answer that.
—Right. There isn't. Two little chicks in beginner full sets, and the wind-type chick who joined today with the mage set. Not bad. I can feel the potential.
What did she just say?
No.
How does she know that?
—By our agreement, I should be waiting on the 50th floor—but that gives me too little screen time, doesn't it? You might forget my face. So…. Hehe. This isn't my true body going there, and it isn't my retainers going either—but I felt like playing a small prank. You'll forgive me for at least this much, won't you?
"Demociela. You…."
—I read an adventure novel popular on the surface. Ahahaha. The Four Heavenly Kings are beings who send their subordinates to temper the heroes, aren't they? Today's subordinate is scheduled to appear in the 3rd floor Boss Room, and the difficulty has been set to: slightly hard!
From beyond the paper, the sound of Demociela's giggling seemed to drift through.