[Si, I'm sorry to disappoint you, Mother Bathory. I didn't care much because he was a poor substitute for a professor, but I don't know what kind of trick he used Really, I'm sorry.]

An anxious voice came through the phone.

The man tried his best to maintain his dignity in his voice, but he couldn't hide his anxiety.

"Ah-! Men" Mother Bathory replied, not hiding her contempt. "It's okay, Mr. Hall. It happens. People make mistakes, after all."

"Th-thank you for understanding. I'm truly grateful."

"However, due to the recent shortage of supplies, I think I might make a mistake with you as well You understand, right?"

"Wh-what?! Wait, what does that mean? Mother Bathory?! Mother Bathory!!

A desperate, almost vulgar scream was heard from the phone.

But Mother Bathory ignored it lightly and handed the phone to her daughter.

As soon as her daughter received the phone, she placed it on the communication device and hung up.

With a click, the noise from the phone disappeared, and silence spread around.

It was satisfying.

Mother Bathory, soaking in a warm bathtub filled with blood, thought it was truly despicable.

An old man acting like a child throwing a tantrum.

However, she could understand it to some extent. She had seen countless times how obsessed the elderly had been with their lives for the past three hundred years.

They seemed wise and detached from life as they aged, but it was a lie.

As people aged, they became more foolish and obsessed with life. Even more than the newborns.

"Hmph"

Mother Bathory got out of the bathtub. Along with that, her marble-like skin, not covered by a single cloth, was exposed.

Her beautiful, milky-white skin, which seemed almost alien, was flawless, and as blood flowed down her body, it created a chilling yet captivating sight.

"My daughters."

About forty women wearing hoods and blood-slave creatures created by blood magic all knelt at once.

Zombies that were neither dead nor alive, connected by blood.

Splatter. Splatter.

Mother Bathory stepped out of the blood bath.

The blood that fell to the floor and the remaining blood around her body moved as if they had gained life and transformed into a red dress.

"It seems like it's difficult for Vivian to bring the guest alone Can you help your sister and bring the guest for your mother?"

"Yes, Mother."

The forty or so hooded daughters responded in unison, moving grotesquely fast and disappearing.

The blood slaves, too disappeared.

After everyone disappeared, Mother Bathory turned her head and looked at the two men in the video.

The two men who were fighting in the dark ambush.

Crack-!

With a sound, the light bulb went out.

Due to that, the already dark laboratory corridor was swallowed by complete darkness.

All they could feel were the approaching killing intent and beastly noises from all around.

It would have been a surprise attack that a normal person would not have been able to handle and would have succumbed to confusion.

If they were normal people, that is.

The dark sea where they couldn't see even an inch ahead wavered, and the beastly noises mixed with the sound of metal, followed by the sound of something igniting.

It was the intense sound of burning air.

Whooosh-!!

Along with that, the darkness receded, and a sinister red light took its place.

Willes had drawn his sword, hidden by a shrinking spell, and set it ablaze.

The intense flames blinded and repelled their enemies just by existing.

However, that was only a secondary effect, not the end.

The real power of the flames manifested when Willes swung his sword.

As the burning blade sliced through the living zombies, they were cut into pieces like butter and turned into ashes. They were burned instantly by the compressed firepower.

Oliver, who hadn't yet grasped the average level of a wizard, could still tell how extraordinary this was.

Releasing such tremendous firepower to turn a human body into ashes in an instant, while simultaneously confining the firepower around the blade.

It was a technique that was only possible with a vast amount of mana and outstanding mana control.

Personally, he thought it might be on a similar level to Kevin's.

But there was something even more amazing than magic skills: combat sense and swordsmanship.

Ordinary wizards would be overwhelmed just by controlling the flames, but Willes simultaneously emitted mana from his entire body to discern the enemies' movements and effectively countered them with his astonishing swordsmanship.

Most enemies couldn't compete with both and were turned into ashes, proving this point.

Having learned close combat from Joe to some extent, Oliver could somewhat understand how efficient and flawless that swordsmanship was.

Was it because of that?

Oliver found the situation tilting in their favor as the enemies fell one by one, even though he only defended using Tonfa.

Anyway, these guys are strange. What are they? They definitely look like zombies.'

Oliver thought as he watched the enemies charging at him despite having broken necks.

Although they had been corroded by the aura of black magic, they had a natural presence like living people and faint emotions, making him think they were affected by manipulation-type black magic. But that wasn't the case.

No matter how much they were affected by manipulation-type magic, they couldn't defy their physical structure. When their necks were broken, they should have died or at least been unable to move. But that wasn't the case with these creatures.

Instead, they charged even more ferociously.

No matter how you looked at it, this was a characteristic that could only be seen in dead bodies, not in living people.

But, it has Life-force and emotions. What is this? Fascinating.'

The moment Oliver tried to use his magic chain to capture it alive, Lena, who had been watching from a distance, moved.

Disguised as a simple guide, she unleashed a massive amount of hidden mana within her, instantly approaching Oliver with its force.

"First, you!"

[Flash]

The moment Lena reached out to grab Oliver, he quickly cast a spell that emitted a blinding light.

Though the intense light couldn't physically harm her, it stimulated her optic nerves. Lena, caught off guard, retracted her hand and covered her eyes belatedly.

"Argh! My eyes!"

"It must be quite dazzling"

Sincerely speaking, Oliver, who had covered his eyes in time with the spell, said this.

It wasn't a malicious statement, but Lena, unable to open her eyes, flailed her arms in irritation.

"You cursed bastard! I'll get you with my own hands!"

As Lena swung her arm, Willes, who had finished off the remaining enemies, rushed in.

Rubbing her eyes to regain some vision, Lena saw Willes charging with a flaming sword and swiftly retreated using her unique agile movements.

As a result, Willes's blade narrowly missed cutting through Lena's torso, slicing through the air instead. It wasn't without some gain, though.

"Ugh!"

Willes's blade grazed Lena's arm.

Lena's arm started burning from the cut, and she concentrated her mana to resist the intense flames and extinguish the fire.

However, for some reason, the fire didn't go out easily. Instead, it burned even more fiercely, threatening to engulf her entire body.

Realizing something, Lena tore off the lower part of her shoulder to shake off the flames from her body.

With a squelch, her arm fell off, and blood spewed out. But the blood soon clotted in the shape of blood vessels, forming a new arm that then generated bones and flesh.

It was a rare sight, but Willes remained calm and composed.

"You're quick for a warlock. If you were a bit slower, your whole body would have been burned."

Oliver understood what Willes meant.

The flames used by Willes were not just powerful flames.

While they were indeed quite powerful, the more threatening aspect was the principle by which the flames burned.

Ordinary fire magic involved the caster injecting mana, but the flames used by Willes were designed to distort the spell formula, causing the flames to absorb mana on their own.

Hence, even if one tried to extinguish the flames with mana, they wouldn't easily go out, and instead, they would burn the opponent even more.

In terms of nature, they were closer to poison than fire.

Or maybe, my Greed Fire. Either way, it's impressive.'

Oliver genuinely admired it.

The spell, designed not for the caster to inject mana into the flame but for the flame to steal fuel on its own, seemed unremarkable at first glance. However, in reality, it was anything but.

With the flame as the subject instead of the caster, it was much more difficult to control, and if the caster's ability was insufficient to control the fire, it could be several times more dangerous than ordinary fire magic.

Once the control over the fire was lost, it could even devour the caster. In other words, the power was drastically increased at the expense of a much greater risk.

Is there a reason for enhancing the power to that extent?'

In the meantime, Lena, whose arm had grown back, spoke to Willes.

"It seems you're not an ordinary solver either?"

"Seeing how you regenerate your body like a lizard's tail, it seems you're not an ordinary warlock either. Using blood as a medium Are you from the Bathory family?"

Bathory family. It was the first time Oliver had heard the name, but judging by Willes's emotional state, they didn't seem like an easy opponent.

Oliver looked at Lena for an answer, and she responded with a sneering smile.

"Do you think we're warlocks?"

"No, I think you're filthy warlocks who sold your souls to demons. I've heard rumors, but I never thought I'd meet you like this. Nice to meet you. Did you sneak in here to steal the research material of other wizards?"

At Willes's contemptuous words, Lena could only laugh scornfully.

"Heh. Heh. You don't know anything [Lightning Chain]"

Lena quickly gathered mana and launched a massive amount of electric shocks at Oliver and Willes with remarkable skill.

The dark blue lightning engulfed Oliver and Willes like a wave, but contrary to its momentum, it didn't cause significant damage.

Willes used the flame magic wrapped around his blade to devour the mana in the lightning, and Oliver also mimicked Willes, using the same method to absorb the lightning magic with the mana he had injected into his tonfa.

Willes was surprised.

The pure mana-infused tonfa obeyed Oliver's will, holding the lightning and even changing the nature of the mana to electricity.

Oliver threw his tonfa in its current state.

Lena, who failed to launch a surprise attack, dodged the tonfa with a frown, but as the tonfa hit the ground, it caused a powerful spark and a wide range of electricity spread around.

Lena, who didn't expect this, was struck by her own electric magic, causing burns all over her body and stiffening up.

As Willes didn't miss that timing and approached, the necklace around Lena's neck broke, and the blood inside it scattered in the air.

Willes stopped at the sudden situation, and in the meantime, a small amount of blood served as a medium to summon flesh-like balloons.

The flesh-like balloons, similar to boils, trembled and then popped, scattering a large amount of blood in all directions.

The thick layer of red blood covered the floor with a splattering sound.

Before they could even understand the situation, the blood rose like a water column, and two women appeared from it.

They launched attack magic at Oliver and Willes as soon as they appeared.

Oliver and Willes blocked it without difficulty like before, but it was enough for their opponents.

Taking advantage of the moment when their attention was diverted, they took care of Lena and disappeared into the blood puddle as if sinking in water.

Oliver was quite impressed by the sight. It was a very interesting trick, with a bizarre mix of magic and black magic.

Crack!

As Lena disappeared with the help of her allies, the light came back on in the bulb, and the surroundings brightened.

All that was visible around were the ashes of enemies burned by Willes and the blood puddle.

It was somewhat chaotic, but it was quite fun.

"They're more kind than I thought. Turning the lights back on for us."

Oliver retrieved his tonfa and looked around to see if there were any usable corpses. Unfortunately, all the corpses had turned to ashes.

"Did you say they were kind?"

"Um yes. They turned the lights back on, right?"

"They just tried to kill us, didn't they?"

"Maybe they had some reason for doing that? Whatever the reason, I'm grateful for the lights being back on now."

After confirming that there were no corpses to salvage, Oliver stood up. He wanted to study the zombie that naturally retained Life-force and emotion like a living person, but it was a shame.

Well, I can ask directly Was it the Bathory family?'

"Mr. Will. Can I ask you a question?"

"That's good. I have a question I want to ask as well. We can exchange questions."

"Ask me? What is it?"

Willes turned to face Oliver head-on. He didn't harbor ill intentions, but he had a mix of confidence and wariness.

"How can a warlock disguise himself as a Magic Tower employee and get a job?"

(To be Continued)

OR

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