Chapter 59

Detoxification

“So the last person who visited was the Minister of Administration.”

“…”

“Are you exercising your right to remain silent?”

“…”

Aiden asked calmly, and the pale civil official shook his head frantically in denial.

“Then is that silence supposed to mean yes?”

“…”

The man nodded desperately enough to make his answer unmistakable. Aiden decided to believe him without much suspicion. After all, it would probably be difficult for anyone to lie while dangling outside the window of a high-rise building with nothing but the back of their collar keeping them from falling.

More importantly, the prince and the Minister of Administration were involved again.

‘…They really never get tired of crawling back out.’

Aiden had expected something like this to happen eventually. He had rushed here as quickly as possible to identify who might already be involved, only to find those same people again. Unable to operate openly in public, they had apparently changed their strategy to making contact beneath the surface.

‘I should teach them a lesson.’

There was a reason Aiden had gone so far as to mobilize people as powerful as Noel and Katya and make preparations in advance. His side had come with plans of its own.

Aiden sighed internally and tossed the secretary back through the window. The man flew across the room with a thin scream, landing among the groaning soldiers and knights scattered nearby.

‘I really did get a lot stronger.’

Aiden had already noticed it when he rearranged Damian’s jaw with a single punch, despite the young lord being regarded as a reasonably capable warrior by imperial standards. Against unnamed fighters like these, the gap had become almost absurd. They fell before him like leaves in autumn.

He had been suffering a certain amount of self-doubt because Meyer still humiliated him every night without allowing Aiden to properly land even one attack.

‘My combat styles are improving too…’

Skills for handling supernatural abilities could be copied immediately as soon as he raised someone’s affinity. What Aiden could not copy instantly was the accumulated experience required to use them well. For that reason, every real battle mattered.

Katya’s Sacred Flame Art for handling divine power and Noel’s sword technique, One Sword, One Path, both gained proficiency each time Aiden used them. He could feel the trajectories of his sword and the placement of his divine power growing smoother with every fight.

His short-term goal was simple.

‘Land one good hit on Senior’s face.’

Even though Aiden was becoming stronger this quickly, Meyer still toyed with him every night without getting tired of it. Aiden wanted to land one clean blow on the man at least once.

While he was thinking that, one of the people lying on the floor stared at him with half-dazed eyes. “…M-monster…”

“You only say that because you’ve never seen a real monster.”

“…”

“You should be grateful I’m the one who beat you up. Seriously.”

If Noel and Katya, who were outside the territory right now, had come in instead of him, no one could know what might have happened. Considering Katya’s personality, she might genuinely try to burn everyone alive if she became angry enough. Recently, even Noel seemed to loosen her restraint somewhat whenever the matter involved Aiden.

The more immediate problem was elsewhere.

‘…The most important person is missing again.’

Aiden frowned when he realized the Young Lady was nowhere inside her own castle. The Minister of Administration had made contact with her, but what exactly had happened between them for Liza to disappear from her own residence?

A terrible roar suddenly echoed from outside. Aiden flinched and looked toward the exterior of the inner castle. The sound was enough to make a timid person’s legs give out; it could never have come from a human being or any ordinary wild animal.

‘A demon beast?’

Aiden instinctively thought of the possibility and immediately ran outside.

✦ ✦ ✦

Aiden found the source of the terrible roar almost immediately.

“Mr. Aiden! Stay back!”

In the wide-open ground near the inner castle, Noel and Katya were fighting a massive, arthropod-like demon beast. Sword light flashed while flames surged.

‘Good lord.’

The creature moved with such viciousness that Aiden could not help reacting. Blade-like claws extending from its many legs slashed through the air with enough force to be intimidating even to watch.

It was not on the same level as the battles between the highest-ranking supernatural ability users Aiden had recently witnessed. Even so, if Aiden entered that fight himself and made one bad move, he could easily end up without enough bones left to bury.

The reverse of that assessment was also equally true: with two top-class supernatural ability users like Katya and Noel fighting together, they could still bring it down.

‘…They look a little strained.’

Unfortunately, both women had committed a significant portion of their supernatural powers to maintaining the detection “net” around the area at Aiden’s request. They were not losing, but it was obvious they also could not simply overwhelm the creature.

“I’ll support you!” Aiden pulled the revolver from inside his clothes.

Noel immediately stopped him in an urgent voice. “Wait, Mr. Aiden! Don’t! We can’t kill it!”

“Pardon?”

There was no need to ask why. The moment he drew the gun and aimed at the demon beast, a window appeared before him:

System Message

▶ A demon beast has been detected.

▶ ‘Skill: Demon Beast Hunter’ activates automatically.

▶ Analyzing target. ⊙ Liza Aslan [ Beastification ] She has been injected with the serum of the demon beast ‘Black Widow.’ Mutation is continuing in real time. Until the target dies, the serum will use all vitality in the body as nourishment and continue strengthening the transformation. If the injected target dies, the body will return to human form.

Weapons: Eight Bladed Legs Strengths: Physical Durability, Agility Weaknesses: Heart, Head

“…?”

The window itself was the effect of a skill Aiden had copied from Grand Duke Aslan earlier. The real problem was everything written inside that system window.

Aiden froze as he stared at the red text. He did not need to examine it deeply; the very first line was already a massive problem.

‘That thing is the Young Lady?’

It looked like a demon beast from every possible angle. Still, the system had no reason to lie, so believing it was the sensible choice. When Aiden examined the creature more carefully, he could see a small human body attached to the massive beast. It almost looked as though the monstrous form had “grown” outward from that human core.

Aiden released a deep sigh as anger began to rise. Anger began crawling up inside his chest.

Liza had been meeting the Minister of Administration shortly before this. According to the system analysis, she had been injected with some kind of “serum” and transformed into this.

There was no need to reconstruct the chain of events; it was obvious what had happened. The Minister of Administration had done something to the Young Lady. In other words, people who should have been keeping their heads down after their recent failures had openly injected a member of the Grand Ducal House with an unidentified demon beast serum.

If they were willing to go that far, there was likely another trap layered underneath it. The fact that the description explicitly said the target would “return to human form upon death” felt especially ominous.

‘How underhanded are they planning to be?’

It would be perfect material for manipulating the event afterward and presenting it as “the murder of a noble.”

Aiden’s reaction to that possibility was simple.

‘I’m getting angry.’

Aiden himself had planned to discipline a Young Lady distracted by a succession fight. Even so, seeing people treat another human life this casually made his blood boil.

The Minister of Administration was probably delighted right now, convinced that this time he had finally prepared a meaningful blow.

‘Keep dreaming.’

Once Aiden understood what the other side wanted, there was no reason to follow their script. The first step was making sure Liza did not die. There was a second step too, but they needed to deal with what was in front of them first.

Aiden snorted and closed the information window. “Sir Noel, Your Highness. Would you follow my instructions?”

✦ ✦ ✦

The person called Rad Ilza Barfon cracked his neck backward. “Whoops.”

His head nearly came off from bending too far, and Rad whistled as he pushed it back into position. His bodily adjustments still slipped out of alignment surprisingly often. If he wanted to look like an ordinary human, he really needed to be less grotesque than this.

The prince had torn this “doll” apart before, and even after repairs, errors like these still occurred frequently.

‘At least keeping this piece of junk running has been worthwhile.’

Rad watched Aiden’s group battling the transformed Young Lady. Black demonic energy wrapped around his body, preventing anyone nearby from sensing him. People in the middle of a battle would have even more difficulty noticing his presence.

‘This would actually be the perfect chance to collect them…’

If Rad followed his personal desires, he would take everything in front of him immediately. The two most tempting targets were Lionheart and Deathwish—humans with potential on that level were rare. If he put them through the same process he had used on the human called Rad and turned them into highly useful “dolls”…

‘…No. I can’t.’

Rad wiped a smile from his face before it could spread too far. Giving in to that impulse would amount to nothing more than personal greed. Those two were consumable pieces intended for a far greater “purpose.” He was not allowed to interfere with them on his own.

There was a reason his people had allied themselves with the prince.

‘Everything has an order.’

Rather than attacking Lionheart immediately, it would be far more useful to attach her to the prince in the form of a “wife.” Marriage to a prince who would inherit the nation meant Lionheart would eventually become Empress. If Lionheart, who enjoyed overwhelming support from the people, became Empress, popular support for the next Emperor would grow even stronger. When Rad’s “clan,” which had made a pact with the prince, eventually swallowed the Empire, that would become one of their most useful cards.

“…”

There was one obstacle to the beginning of that plan: they had to separate Noel from that damned man, by force if necessary. The obstacle had a name: Aiden Kellermain.

The smile that usually remained on Rad’s face hardened when his gaze fell on Aiden, who was raising supernatural power.

‘That one is a variable.’

Before Aiden appeared, there had been countless plans capable of placing Noel beside the prince. Then that troublesome man had appeared and changed everything. Whenever Rad prepared something, Aiden appeared like a ghost and drove a wedge into his design. He was an irritation that refused to disappear.

This trap, however, should not be easy to escape. The demon beast Black Widow was a man-eating black widow spider with combat power comparable to a high-ranking knight. Rad had injected Liza with its serum and added the painstaking effect of “continuing to strengthen until death.”

No supernatural ability user in the world should be capable of reversing beastification after it progressed this far. This was an especially refined serum into which Rad had poured enormous effort; there was no possible method of detoxifying it. It was a masterpiece on which he had staked his pride.

Whether Liza died from losing the battle or died after enough time passed, the result was guaranteed. Once she was dead, Rad only had to preserve a hidden record of the event and use it for propaganda and manipulation. His position as Minister of Administration was useful for things like that. Creating confusion and turning lies into truth happened to be his specialty.

Most importantly, Grand Duke Aslan would arrive soon. Rad had leaked enough information for the Grand Duke to realize something unusual was happening in Liza’s territory around the time Aiden departed. There was a good chance the Grand Duke was already rushing here.

If Aiden happened to “kill” the man’s daughter in front of him, Rad could create a useful grudge between them. One might even call it a gift.

‘This time, please fall hard for me, Aiden Kellermain.’

Rad smiled at the thought of finally watching Aiden fail. Devices capable of “recording” what happened here had already been spread throughout the area. The thought of finally humiliating that eyesore almost made him laugh aloud.

Then Rad noticed what was happening in front of him.

‘…What?’

His expression twisted immediately at the unexpected sight before him. Things were not unfolding as he expected.

For one thing, Lionheart and Deathwish were not preparing to fight properly. They had thrown their weapons far away and were getting ready to charge barehanded.

Lionheart looked pale enough to scream, apparently not thrilled by the idea of rushing an upper-knight-class demon beast without a weapon. “M-Mr. Aiden! Are you certain this is a good idea?!”

“Yes. We can’t risk killing her by accident.” Aiden’s eyes moved around the surroundings. “That would be doing someone else a favor.”

Rad’s brow narrowed further as he watched Aiden scan the area. Aiden’s movements looked as though he were certain someone was nearby.

‘…This bastard.’

Aiden was unmistakably mocking Rad without even looking directly at him. Aiden knew Rad was somewhere near and was openly declaring that he would not fall for the trap.

“Then how do you plan to deal with that thing without killing it?” Katya tilted her head as she asked.

The answer clearly carried the same deliberate message. “In the way most likely to annoy the bastard who injected her with something strange.”

Aiden laughed and manifested supernatural power—First Vow mixed into Savior’s Oath. The newly combined ability carried the name Purifier.

“The person who made that serum probably thinks it can never be detoxified because he put so much work into it.”

Aiden smiled toward the battlefield before finishing his thought. “We should teach him how wide the world really is.”