The black magic gathered in front of Mezaia's fingers went through the process of a chanted formula and transformed into magic.

Ziiiing!

A flash of light flickered in the air as a solid line.

"The old woman has a cranky personality."

"As I get older, every day is precious, so I don't have time to be leisurely."

It was a first move that was no different from a greeting.

And the veteran black magician's greeting was also threatening.

Chiiiik!

The wall in the path of the flash of light was melting as if it had come into contact with a huge heat source.

The shimmering haze that distorted the scenery, the stench of the melted wall material, the residual heat that heated the skin.

[The World Tree trembles its stem!]

I could guess the result if I hadn't been able to avoid it.

Instant death.

"I heard you use a strange ability. Do you handle plants?"

Ziiiing! Whoosh!

The wooden stems that had been secretly poured onto the floor were melted by the heat rays that rained down like rain from behind Mezaia.

"It's a pity. This old woman was well-versed in handling fire before black magic."

It wasn't just her fingers that were the medium.

Several clumps of black magic were preparing to emit heat rays even in the air.

"If you don't resist, I'll kill you gently. It's too much of a pity to damage your skin with fire."

"You talk so easily with that open mouth of yours."

Plants are weak to fire.

It was a kind of compatibility relationship.

It wasn't that there was no way to overcome this.

Especially if the opponent was a black magician.

"You probably don't remember that I said I could handle it alone."

Crackle!

"…!"

Mezaia was startled by the sudden electric shock that erupted from the surroundings and dodged.

Her whole body turned into a purple liquid and then returned to its original form a hand's breadth away.

"How did you... my magic...!"

Whoosh!

I could see it.

As the sparks flew, the black magic that was burning in the air like a will-o'-the-wisp.

It was a sight of the spirits tearing apart and burning the black magic as if they were dealing with their mortal enemy.

Even the black magician Mezaia's eyes must have seen the black magic, the driving force of her magic, being incinerated.

The old woman's pupils were shaking at the manifestation of a miracle she had never seen before.

"A pity. I could have finished it quickly."

If she had struggled to control her mana, she would have been burned by the spirit's flames herself.

Perhaps because she was a black magician who had experienced many real battles, she didn't blindly trust her own magic and quickly showed her wits.

"A strange magic."

I put aside my disappointment and analyzed it.

Liquefaction.

It was a magic befitting the study of black magic, which explores strangeness and distortion rather than the truth of the world.

"A physical blow will be difficult."

That's what a liquid was like.

Just as there is a saying that you can't cut water with a knife, a blow does not work on a liquid.

It seemed simple, but it was a technique that was hard to find a flaw in.

That must be the foundation that the veteran black magician had used to preserve her life for a long time.

"...Hehehe. I see, I don't know what kind of trick it is, but your confidence is sky-high."

Mezaia quickly composed her flustered emotions.

The leisure of playing with a grandchild was also gone.

A killing intent gleamed in her cloudy pupils, which had lost their luster.

"I'll deal with you properly."

Pshwaaaak!

The black magician's body melted and soon covered the venue.

***

Mezaia's liquefied body split into dozens of tentacles and poured down, aiming for Allen.

Kagagagak!

Even though it was a liquid, its hardness surpassed that of metal.

The wall hit by the tentacles was broken, and the steel frame pillars collapsed.

The overturned and crushed floor raised a cloud of dust, obscuring the view.

In the midst of it, Allen rampaged like a flying squirrel.

He touched the ceiling as if hanging in the air and zigzagged between the walls and the floor.

His body didn't look skilled in hand-to-hand combat, but his movements were nimble.

Bang!

He shot his gun from time to time, but it was of course useless.

The liquefied body was not pierced by the bullets, but rather absorbed them.

[How long do you think you can dodge?]

Mezaia's voice seemed to shake the space itself, instead of her melted vocal cords.

[If you're just going to run away like that, I'll destroy this building.]

Although her attention was briefly diverted to the brat in front of her, Mezaia was clearly aware of her own purpose.

The collapse of the negotiations, the annihilation of the negotiation team.

If Allen was just busy running away, Mezaia could complete the request without being disturbed.

It was then that she was about to swing the clumped tentacles.

Kwa-deuk!

[…!]

Suddenly, she felt a sharp pain as if her internal organs were being gouged out by a knife, and a paralysis of her body.

[Keu-euk!]

Mezaia cut off the tentacles with her own will, like a lizard cutting off its tail.

Crunch! Crack!

The tentacles, writhing on the floor, were bound and compressed by something that had grown from within.

It was strange that a plant had grown inside the tentacles, but it was bizarre that the plant was compressing the tentacles, which had the strength to shatter even metal.

[What have you done?]

Mezaia even stuttered at the dizzying pain she had felt for the first time in a long time.

From the part that mimicked a face, a liquid flowed down stickily instead of tears.

"You talk too much while fighting."

Allen replied coldly and fired his gun again.

The enlarged body could not dodge the attack as nimbly as before.

A disadvantage that she hadn't cared about because the attack wouldn't work anyway.

That was now acting as a shackle.

[Kuaak!]

Vines grew from the places where the bullets were lodged.

She couldn't help but scream at the tingling pain that echoed here and there, as if her internal organs were being eaten by insects.

[Bullets! It's a magic that grows plants using bullets as a medium!]

Only after cutting off a quarter of her body did Mezaia realize her opponent's trick.

No wonder he kept trying an attack that didn't even work.

He was stabbing a dagger, feigning stupidity.

"Similar."

But it wasn't magic.

Allen's muttering came to Mezaia as a taunt.

Whether it was magic or not, it was a strange trick that exploited a weakness.

Considering the bizarre technique that had burned her black magic, he was an opponent she couldn't be careless with.

However, it was still an exaggeration to say that Mezaia was in a life-or-death situation.

[Kh-kh-kh.]

Mezaia's body, which had filled the space, had shrunk to about 2 meters.

A form that had become closer to a human from a liquid.

Even in that state, the word 'defeat' did not exist in Mezaia's mind.

[Amazing. You're indeed skilled enough to be called for a City Government request with less than a year of experience, young man.]

Bang!

Allen did not react at all to Mezaia's lament-like words.

He mechanically shot his gun and cut off the black magician's body.

He was a model of a cool-headed contractor who did not let his guard down and risked his life to complete a request.

[Hehe, but your skills are not up to the Drexier I had anticipated.]

A war mercenary who had received a medal from the City Government.

The black magician, who had lived for a long time, knew their monster-like skills better than anyone else.

It was the same no matter how old and fallen Drexier was.

That's why the minimum standard for the success of the big event Mezaia had set was to surpass Drexier.

The brat in front of her, who just used a strange trick, was nothing more than a small stumbling block to be passed by.

[No matter how much you struggle, the big event will succeed.]

Mezaia did not dwell on her severed body.

It was just a consumable that would soon be regenerated anyway.

[The Corrupted of the great plain. The test subjects I abandoned in the past will become the raw material for my immortality.]

For a black magician, a corpse is another catalyst.

There was even a school of black magic that dealt with corpses, called necromancy.

This was a technique that applied it.

A huge magic that encompassed the great plain, completed by drawing a magic circle with the corpses of the Corrupted.

Bulge!

Mezaia's body, which had shrunk like a child's, began to swell.

The dead Corrupted's yin and evil energy are converted into black magic and absorbed into the black magician standing in the center of the magic circle.

[As long as the Corrupted exist in the great plain, their deaths will make me immortal.]

In the blink of an eye, Mezaia's body was restored to its original size.

Grrr!

It didn't end there.

It grew bigger and bigger.

The ceiling collapsed and the building shook at its size, which was reminiscent of a giant.

[The Corrupted will swarm endlessly, and the more I kill them, the stronger I become. It's a checkmate that even a war mercenary won't be able to find a way out of.]

That was the full picture of the big event Mezaia had set up.

The Corrupted would rush to kill the negotiation team, and the black magician would become immortal through their deaths.

A fallen war mercenary would not be able to handle this, let alone in his prime.

Not to mention the brat in front of her.

[…?]

It was then that she felt a strange sense of unease.

The black magician's vision, which had been clouded by a sense of omnipotence, regained its clarity for a moment.

The handsome contractor, who should have been in despair, was still staring at her with clear eyes.

"I thought I told you, you talk too much."

Allen did not show any movement, as if he were overwhelmed.

Nevertheless, Mezaia heard a warning from her instincts.

[...]

Her breathing became ragged, and her whole body felt heavy.

It was as if something invisible was trying to suffocate her.

Just like when her black magic was neutralized in the first clash.

It was the same ominous feeling as then.

"Isn't that too long for a last word?"

Whoooosh!

The black magician, who had reached a higher level with her endlessly replenished mana, could finally witness it.

Whoooosh!

A mysterious cluster of light that filled the air.

The bright things, like fireflies, danced, drawing irregular trajectories in the air as if it were a canvas, as if each had a life of its own.

The world is full of bright light.

It was a dreamlike sight that made one lose one's mind without realizing it.

Hoooo!

In the center of it was Allen.

In a space without a single breeze, his hair fluttered, and his fluttering clothes exposed the plant growing from his forearm.

The black magician, who had reached a high-dimensional plane, felt the divinity contained in it.

The cluster of light emanating from the stem was a fragment of it.

Just by looking at it, she felt her own irreverence.

On the other hand, her heart shrank as if facing a natural enemy.

Whoosh!

Mezaia felt her endlessly replenished black magic being cut off.

No, it was all burning.

The structure of the magic was being dismantled one by one, and it was collapsing helplessly like a building swept away by a disaster.

'…!'

Not even a scream came out.

The energy of the opposite pole that incinerated the source of the black magician.

The black magician thus turned to ashes in the hot heat.

***

"...Then with this, we will conclude the peace treaty between Gellerg City and Persear."

The negotiations began in the morning, passed noon, and continued until late in the evening.

The negotiation process was more sluggish and dirty than imagined.

Although the City Government had said to meet Persear's demands as much as possible to prevent war, the opponent's demands were so excessive that it would have been more humiliating than a war if they had really done so.

Councilor Giselle had even lost his temper and shouted in the middle.

What helped then was Claire, whom he had tried to exclude from the negotiations.

She politely added her words to the negotiation process, and without being vulgar, she pleased the Persear negotiation team and skillfully led the atmosphere.

It was also she who had reached an agreement on the excessive conditions that the Persear negotiation team was unwilling to concede.

...It was just that she had reminded them that Sylvester would bear the burden anyway.

Although it was different from the promise, it could be said that she had done her part as a member of the negotiation team.

"It was a satisfactory deal."

Kalkorum, the head of the Persear negotiation team, grinned as he signed the treaty.

A deal.

Giselle's eyebrows twitched.

It was a vulgar vocabulary that belittled the negotiations for peace between cities.

It wasn't even an accurate expression.

Strictly speaking, it was closer to extortion.

Giselle endured the humiliation with superhuman patience.

Even though he had signed the treaty, the negotiations were not over yet.

There was no need to get into an emotional fight.

"I hope you in Persear will abide by the treaty."

"Of course. We are not a band of thieves."

It was an unconvincing statement.

Giselle ground his teeth inwardly as he shook hands.

"I will guide you."

The aides, who had finally taken a breath after overcoming the tense atmosphere, opened the firmly locked door.

And the scene that was revealed.

"..."

The smell of blood and rotting corpses vibrated.

Under the faint lanterns that had been temporarily installed, the corpses of the Corrupted filled the great plain.

He had thought that something had gone wrong outside even from inside, but he had focused on the negotiations because it didn't seem like a big problem.

To think it was this much.

Claire said to the dazed Giselle.

"I'm glad we were prepared."

"Indeed?"

"I told you I would increase my personal escort. I had heard something. I made sure to select them carefully so that you, Councilor, could focus on the negotiations."

Was there such a meaning hidden in it?

Giselle finally admitted it.

"...You've worked hard."

"You're too kind."

"First, I'll have to hear the detailed story after seeing off the Persear negotiation team."

It was a scale of damage as if a war had broken out.

Giselle was displeased with the enemies' tricks, which did not even make an exception for the day of the negotiation, but at the same time, he was relieved that the negotiations had been successfully concluded.

Even though it was a request, he felt pleased with the mercenary corps and the contractors who had perfectly achieved their goal.

It was the same for Claire, who had lent a hand in this.

"...What you said was true."

"Hmm?"

"No, I was just wondering if it would be okay to help with the cleanup."

"I'd appreciate it."

She had succeeded.

Councilor Giselle's attitude was firm, but he clearly had a favor.

Claire, who had achieved everything she had aimed for, grabbed her trembling wrist to hide her joy.

It was just as the barbarian from Persear had said.

It was a satisfactory deal.

(End of Chapter)