Chapter 18
“Is this enough?”
Joseph used his black aura to drill a hole into the boulder as I intended. A cloud of black smoke billowed from the boulder turning to liquid like molten iron.
‘It does look like a monster’s aura.’
The black aura enveloped the surrounding. It felt like watching a bottomless abyss from above.
Then, Joseph quickly squeezed his body through the gap and escaped to the other side of the boulder.
“Genevite! Destroy the ceiling!”
As if waiting for me to get out of there, Milan grabbed my wrist.
“Hurry!”
ROOOAR-!
At Milan’s command, the monster began to cry and shake the whole mine.
‘How does Milan do that?’
Because at this point, Ibelina hadn’t revealed the method to tame a monster. Moreover, the monster that Milen had called was not an ordinary monster.
‘It’s a black dragon.’
The appearance of a monster flapping its wings vigorously behind Milan made me frown. The monster could be heard breathing roughly and was too similar to the Black Dragon of Geneva.
‘Is it Geneva’s mother?’
It was highly possible that this black dragon was Geneva’s mother.
“What’s going on here?”
I removed my hand from Milan’s grip and looked around. Iron bars were installed everywhere like an underground prison, and injured monsters were wailing inside. The monster that breathed roughly did not seem in good condition at all.
I peered at the large jewel that was embedded in the monsters’ forehead.
‘It must be the control device.’
I wonder what he had done to the black dragon. Whenever Milan swung the rod with a black ruby embedded in it, Geneva trembled painfully.
Even if it was a monster, I couldn’t bear to witness such a terrible sight.
“Are you making a chimera?”
“Seems the Count really doesn’t tell you anything!”
While he was answering my question, Milan’s eyes were brimming with a dark aura. I had heard rumors about crazy humans combining themselves with a monster to gain more power.
I guess Milan was that sort of human.
‘It was considered black magic, so I’m sure it’s taboo…’
My father was a nutcase himself, but I never thought he would keep such a crazy person by his side.
“That’s right. He doesn’t tell me anything. My father wouldn’t say anything important to a mere wench like me.”
As I responded to Milan, who seemed to be in a delirious state, I found the right time to draw a magic circle.
“Still, you’re his only daughter. You must be useful in some way!”
Milan grabbed my wrist and tied it on my back as if telling me not to attempt something stupid.
‘This is the problem with alchemy.’
Unlike wizards, alchemists were rarely sent to war because they were often killed by enemies while drawing a magic circle.
“Do you know if a rabbit dies, the hunting dog that caught the rabbit will be eaten by its owner?”
I only stared at Milan who whispered threateningly.
“Do you want to take revenge on me because my father abandoned you?”
Roscoe Cardinale had many enemies. He was a high-ranking priest and a powerful man who used his connection to the pope to exert power among the nobles.
“Yeah, you’re the precious daughter of that cold-hearted Roscoe Cardinale!”
Yeah, but only on the surface.
In order to avoid suspicion, he concealed the fact that he was infertile by raising and treating his illegitimate daughter as his own. But he still abused me because I was living proof of his disgraceful flaw.
I was glad that I revealed my alchemy talent, otherwise, he would have killed me.
“Damn! Don’t you know how much I fell into debt just to manage this mine?”
“Debt?”
“That’s right! For Roscoe, I caught monsters in the wild and attached the control devices!”
A control device.
It was an expensive jewel that could be used to control a young demon hunter, as well as suppress the power of the sword masters or demon hunters who turned into criminals.
‘If you had used all those expensive control devices on those monsters, you would have lost your fortune.’
“But Roscoe Cardinale fired me because of the mineral shortage and the failure of the monster experiment!”
I nodded apathetically at his passionate ramble and glanced over the rock where I had escaped.
Except for this space, all other areas seemed to have collapsed.
Did Joseph get hurt?
“Oh, my lovely chimeras!”
Milan exclaimed in a cracked voice and gestured toward the prison where the monsters were caged.
The four-legged monsters seemed to have lost their original form.
‘That wolf-like monster is probably the same species as Vivi…’
However, it was so terribly deformed that it had lost most of its beautiful silver hair.
“I found out why my experiment failed! It’s not the cost! There are not enough mediums!”
I frowned in disgust when Milan approached me panting rigorously with his foul breath.
‘It wouldn’t be easy to combine the monster with another monster in the first place.’
It was obvious that Milan would end in failure no matter what he did.
“But Roscoe ignored me when I asked for support.”
I understood he meant to take me as a hostage and extort money from my father. I didn’t think Roscoe Cardinale would waste his money on me, but I just nodded silently.
‘I can get out of here before my father refuses.’
So I gestured toward the black dragon to distract Milan.
“…If my father continues to support you, how will you complete the chimera? Can you turn the black dragon into a chimera?”
“Ha! You’re just a wench, but you’re still an alchemist. So you must be curious.”
Milan clapped his hands and moved away from me.
“Humans! We can use humans as material!”
“…What?”
I frowned at Milan’s deranged eyes.
“I’ve captured some children to combine with Genevite! But another ingredient, the Duras drug, cannot be obtained without Roscoe’s support.”
I couldn’t hide my revulsion upon hearing his words.
Is that why the children kept disappearing?
“You’d be better off dying here.”
It would be better for such a disgusting human being to disappear from the world as soon as possible.
I gathered strength into my fingers in order to activate the completed magic circle that I had drawn on the stone wall earlier.
Boom! Boom!
‘Ack, my magic circle….!’
But even after trying so hard to draw the magic circle until my nail broke, the stone wall suddenly crumbled down.
I moved back to avoid the crumbling stone and lost my balance, but firm arms caught and hugged me.
“Don’t say things like that recklessly.”
The low-pitched voice belonged to Joseph. Sweat had formed on his forehead after digging through the ruins and running hard. Meanwhile, his arms smelled like a forest in winter.
‘Does a handsome guy smell good, too?’
Perhaps he misunderstood something, he tightened his grip on me and whispered slowly.
I wasn’t talking about my own life, I was talking about Milan’s life….!
But Joseph, who dropped me in a safe spot without giving me a chance to explain, pulled out his sword. The monsters that escaped when the ceiling crumbled down began to growl at him.
“I think you’d better close your eyes.”
He drew his white sword. Even in the darkness, he easily cut down the monsters. Having not closed my eyes despite Joseph’s warning, I began to examine my surroundings.
There were many monsters, but my focus was only on Milan and the black dragon.
‘It’s over there.’
I drew a magic circle with both of my hands in a hurry and built a wall in front of Milan who was trying to run away by riding Geneva.
“Hyaak!”
I blocked him from every side with a hard wall and snatched the control device from his hand.
‘I need to get the evidence first.’
I was going to use his atrocities as evidence to reveal my father’s wickedness to the world.
‘It’s an opportunity to let everyone know how dirty Roscoe Cardinale is.’
If I was able to tear down George’s biggest supporter, it would only be a matter of time before he lost his right to the throne.
“Gasp!”
However, as soon as I tried to catch Milan, from nowhere a dagger penetrated his neck.