I Became the Patron of Villains (Novel) - Chapter 119 - Half (1)

Chapter 119 – Half (1)

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Translated by Jinmu

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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The labyrinth city of Lartania was divided into eight districts in total, four inner and four outer.

Among them, the eastern outer district on the outskirts of Lartania was commonly called the slum district, and to mercenaries and explorers it was known as Filth Street.

Filth Street.

At first it had merely been a place where low-grade scavengers nested, but now it had become a district even the lord of Lartania found troublesome to touch carelessly.

Though it clung to the outer side of the city walls, it was not much different from an extraterritorial zone.

Because many strong figures were hidden there.

For that reason, most mercenaries tried never to go there unless it happened to be their own area of activity.

Three organizations divided and occupied this Filth Street.

One was the underground Zikdan led by Surod.

Another was Punkkal, led by Kokan, based in the northeastern district where all manner of Lartania’s refuse gathered.

And last of all there was Dark Mud, led by Salamandra, which was called part of a three-way struggle in name only, because in truth it was known to be the group that effectively ruled Filth Street.

Of course, in the past there had also been a time when those three had split Filth Street evenly into thirds.

But from a certain point onward, Dark Mud seized hegemony, and the other groups could no longer hold their heads up properly.

The reason was that Salamandra and her executives had become unbelievably strong.

Of course, the other organizations did not know how Salamandra had suddenly risen to a completely different level.

They only saw one thing.

They saw Salamandra, wreathed in dark mana,

tear apart with her bare hands a strong fighter from Laxas who had come close to being a Swordmaster.

After that day, it could be said without exaggeration that there was not a single person left on Filth Street who could ignore the words of Dark Mud.

And inside Dark Mud’s hideout, which could practically be called a kingdom,

“…”

a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood spread out.

Wherever one looked, there were only corpses.

Inside the buildings.

Outside the buildings.

Across the ground, the sky, the exterior walls, the main gate.

Wherever the eye turned, there were only corpses filling the scene.

If there was one unusual feature to mention, it was the enormous golden pipes piercing through those corpses.

Those golden pipes, which had turned Dark Mud’s hideout into a complete wreck like some sort of jungle gym, shone vividly under the blue moonlight in the dark night.

And Salamandra, the master of Dark Mud, stared at the existence before her with a highly tense face.

A woman with green eyes shining vividly under the blue moon, and behind them creaking golden eyes-

No.

Lartania’s upper councilor, Rine.

“Restore.”

The moment the command dropped from her mouth,

the golden pipes that had been impaling the corpses just moments before began moving at tremendous speed and erased the jungle-gym mess.

At the same time, the pipes melted back into her eyes as though they had never existed.

And then,

the rain of corpses began crashing down wildly, producing a blooming field of blood.

Even in that situation,

“Mm. As expected, the power that person gave me is… absolutely splendid.”

Rine nodded over and over, looking bizarrely satisfied.

Then she smiled brightly at Salamandra.

“Now then, it seems all the troublesome things are gone, so shall we have a talk?”

“…”

Salamandra unconsciously furrowed her brow.

But after shooting Rine a brief side glance,

“Tch!”

she simply turned and fled.

The reason was obvious.

She was sure she could never defeat the being before her.

At least, not now.

The moment she reached that judgment, Salamandra rushed into the building without the slightest hesitation and shot down into the underground level.

Because she thought that if she used that thing in the basement right now, she might somehow be able to resist the existence before her.

As soon as she reached the basement, she opened the box she had prepared for that day.

Her only hope.

Her only lifeline.

Unfortunately, the instant she opened the box, she could no longer stretch out her hand.

The only thing she could do was,

“Kuhk-!”

lower her head and stare at the golden pipe that had pierced through her heart from behind and protruded out the front.

That same golden pipe.

The one that had killed every single one of her subordinates.

“Ah, this is troublesome. I was not supposed to kill you.”

With Rine’s regret-dripping voice as her funeral song, Salamandra died on the spot.

Soon after, Rine approached while smacking her lips in regret.

“…Hm?”

Then she saw it.

A huge quantity of Abyssal Cores soaked in Salamandra’s blood.

“This is…?”

Rine’s voice rang quietly through the dark basement.

####

Lately, Evan had not had much to do.

At a place like the Central Tower, where the magic symposium was being held, what work would there be for him to do?

Of course, Alon had not placed any particular restrictions on Evan’s movements, so if he became bored, he could wander around here and there.

…To be a little more precise, though, there was a reason he had stopped doing that recently.

One reason only.

From about a week earlier, the number of mages sticking to Evan had begun increasing exponentially.

If that attention had been popularity arising solely from his looks, he would naturally have been ready to enjoy it.

Pressure? What was that? Evan was the type to enjoy attention.

Unfortunately, the reason was elsewhere.

Namely in the Blue Tower’s tower master and vice tower master, both of whom were entangled with Alon.

Hoo.

Whenever he thought of the mages who swarmed him the moment he stepped outside the room where he was staying, Evan wanted to sigh.

Perhaps the Blue Tower Master and Marquis Palladio- no, the Marquis himself- what exactly is their relationship?

Is it true that Penia Kraisinne and Marquis Palladio are dating?

If you give me a hint just for myself, I will give you a good artifact. What do you say?

Could you pass this on to the Marquis? It is supposed to be very good for the body-

Mages who rushed at Evan the moment they saw him, trying to confirm the rumors and, before that, build some sort of relationship by pressing gifts into his hands.

On top of that, perhaps because they had all spent their lives buried in towers only researching magic and thus lacked socialization, they refused to leave him alone even after Evan turned them down or made it clear that he did not know.

Like penguins moving in a flock, they only cackled and stuck to him harder.

What in the world has the Marquis been doing…?

To be honest, he could not understand at all what Alon might possibly be doing to cause this sort of thing.

No, it does not even seem like he is doing anything-

Of course, he knew that Alon was not particularly doing anything.

Basically, Evan moved around with Alon.

And when they were together, Alon did not really do anything strange.

If he had to name one oddity, it was that during travel he somehow never got tired of eating only sweet potatoes for more than two weeks.

But in a situation like this, Evan could not help wondering whether Alon was secretly doing something without him noticing.

…Well, given Alon’s personality, if he asked, the man would probably only feel sincerely wronged.

…Though it would be hard to tell because of the expressionless face.

Still, since Evan had served him for over nine years and nearly ten by now, he had become able to read Alon’s emotions from within that expressionlessness to some extent.

In any event, because of all that, Evan had not been able to leave his room for several days, but now he was walking around inside the tower after a long break.

That was because he judged enough time had passed for the rumors to have died down.

A little later,

it seems I was right.

He felt satisfied after realizing his judgment had been correct.

Even when he walked around, the mages merely glanced at him instead of crowding around him, so he thought the gossip had finally been suppressed.

It was around the time he began leisurely looking around the tower that,

“It has been a while.”

“Oh, Pellin?”

“Yes.”

Evan ran into Pellin Kraisinne, whom he had met in Laxas.

At first the two had been somewhat distant, but after traveling together in Laxas, they had built a certain degree of familiarity.

“What brings you here?”

“What business would a mage have in coming to a magic symposium? That is what I would like to say, but that is not the reason I came.”

“Then what?”

“…I was dragged here.”

“Dragged? By whom?”

“By my sister. Because of the rumor.”

“…Ah.”

Evan understood at once what Pellin meant.

“Is she very angry?”

Alon had already told him the story that Penia Kraisinne had badmouthed him before.

At that, Pellin paused in thought for a moment, then spoke.

“I wondered the same thing, so I tried asking.”

“And?”

“She slapped me.”

“Hm…”

“Five times.”

“That is unfortunate.”

“I feel somewhat bad saying this, but… she has grown very violent.”

There was a trace of fear in his voice.

By now Evan could see that the admiration Pellin had shown toward his sister in Laxas had faded greatly.

…Since it let him indirectly understand just how much he had suffered under Penia, Evan strangely felt sorry for him.

“So you came because of that rumor.”

“…To be precise, she said she would find the tower master who went around talking about such rumors and beat him- no, speak to him.”

Did I just hear that wrong…?

“Ahem. Then would it not be fine for the vice tower master to come alone?”

“She judged that the tower master would hide, so I was dragged along as well.”

“Ah.”

…So he had been drafted as part of the search party.

Evan briefly thought how fortunate it was that he had no older sister of his own.

“Then did you arrive only now?”

“No. We arrived late yesterday. My sister searched for the tower master alone, and starting today we were supposed to gather and search from the first floor together. She should probably be arriving around now. By the way, where is the Marquis?”

“Well, I would guess he is listening to some lecture somewhere in the tower about now. Still, since the rumor is nonsense anyway, for her to be this angry… she must really hate it… hm?”

At the sudden sound of mages murmuring, the two looked ahead and saw Alon in the distance.

Alon was reading a book he seemed to be seeing for the first time.

And behind him stood Penia Kraisinne.

A strange two-shot.

Unlike Alon, who had not noticed Penia at all, she wore a serious expression as if she were thinking through something.

“Sister, over here-”

Just as Pellin opened his mouth to call Penia,

“Marquiiis-”

“?”

“H-hi thereee…?”

Evan and Pellin both saw it.

They saw Penia, who had looked serious until just moments before, walk toward Alon wearing a bright smile and speaking in a nasal tone.

“?”

For a second Evan wondered whether there was something wrong with his eyes.

“…Vice Tower Master?”

“Aww, do not call me that. Call me Penia, Marquiiis-”

“????”

At Penia’s continuing display of… affection, the faces of every mage present turned utterly bewildered.

And Pellin, who had just been raising his hand to call the person who had been his older sister only moments before,

stood there with his mouth hanging open as if he truly could not understand what was happening.

A drop of saliva even slipped from the corner of his mouth.

“…Has my sister gone mad?”

He muttered those words without meaning to.

####

Penia did not like Alon.

That was an obvious statement.

To begin with, there was not a single reason for her to like him, and whenever rumors connected to him spread, she was only subjected to stress.

Was that not precisely the reason she had come to the tower in the first place, to track down the Blue Tower Master who had spread such rumors and thrash him?

Yet the reason she, who clearly thought that way, was now showing Alon a bright smile was naturally Heinkel.

She turned her gaze to the sky.

Other mages could not see it, but Penia could clearly see Heinkel, in spirit form, looking down at the current situation.

As if she meant to confirm whether Alon and Penia really were in that sort of relationship.

Because she confirmed that sight, Penia had run at Alon and started this absurd farce.

…Even if it meant enduring stress that gnawed at her whole body, she still desperately wanted to receive instruction from Heinkel, who was treated like a hero among mages.

And so,

“Why are you looking at me like thaaat, Marquiiis?”

Penia looked at Alon with a desperate smile.

And the person hearing her nasal words,

Why is she like this…?

was inwardly extremely flustered by Penia’s sudden approach.

At least the Penia he knew would never react like this.

So,

Did she eat something strange?

he looked at Penia with a grave face.

“W-why are you suddenly acting like this?”

“Ahahaha, suddenly? We have always been this kind of pair, have we noooot?”

“…Nooot?”

What sort of bizarre syllable is that supposed to be?

While Alon was inwardly horrified behind his expressionless face at Penia’s nasal tone,

the rumor that Marquis Palladio and Penia Kraisinne were in that sort of relationship, a rumor the Blue Tower had nearly convulsed itself to death trying to suppress,

began to blaze anew.

So the two of them really were in that sort of relationship?

They could not say it because they were embarrassed.

To begin with, the Blue Tower Master himself certified it, so it could not have been a false rumor.

Because Penia twisted her entire body into fake affection in order to learn Heinkel’s magic,

the rumor flared back up again.

“Your Eminence, it is a new rumor related to the Marquis-”

“Yes, what is it, Cardinal Sergius?”

“…There is a rumor beginning to spread that the Blue Tower’s vice tower master and Marquis Palladio really are in that sort of relationship.”

“Ah, that rumor. Was that not false before?”

“Th-this time it does not appear to be false. There are reportedly multiple witnesses at the magic symposium-”

“…What?”

Rather strongly.

Strongly enough that after only three days, it reached the ears of the cardinal of the Holy Kingdom who had been paying attention to rumors about Marquis Palladio.

“…”

The texture of the letter paper brushed between Yutia’s fingers.

…It was the paper used when sending correction letters.