REAPER SCANS
I Reincarnated As The Greatest Genius of a Prestigious Family!
[Translator – Rainypup]
[Proofreader – Harley]
Chapter 128: How Dare You Try to Open Your Eyes
Preparing was a breeze.
First, I quickly analyzed the magic circle and filled in the blank parts. It was harder than the magic circle problem that Professor Dinavo gave me during the entrance exam, but it wasn't that difficult.
“The more I see magic, the more I think... I made the right choice in choosing swordsmanship,” Leila muttered, which Priscilla and Ernest immediately agreed with.
“Agreed. I don’t know what he's doing even if I look at it.”
“How on earth do you learn something so damn complicated? It doesn’t look fun at all.”
Why, because it’s fun, of course.
Anyway, it didn't take long for the magic circle to be completed, and I glanced at the unconscious and bound intruders. I'd adjusted my sleeping gas so that they wouldn’t wake up until lunchtime, so we wouldn’t have to worry for a while.
“Alright, now...” I injected mana into the magic circle.
Then, light flowed along the magic circle from the point where the mana was injected, and in an instant, the entire magic circle began to glow.
Could it be because of my Ancient Mana? The magic circle vibrated more intensely than initially expected.
“W-won’t sound leak out?” Ernest worried.
“Hangston’s magic barrier’s still there.”
"Aha."
After reassuring Ernest, I got down to work.
"Hmm."
By the way, this was also covered with a magic barrier. It was weaker than Saul Hangston's, but...
“Kireuk?”
Could this little one read minds now? I smiled brightly at Karnas, who had just popped his head out.
“Please.”
“Kireuk!”
Proudly, Karnas turned his head towards the mana stone and breathed out his flames. Then, the magic barrier covering the mana stone disappeared in an instant.
“Kireeeuuuuk!”
Karnas raised his head with a proud expression on his face. I took the opportunity to take Karnas out of my arms and put him down, letting him wander freely.
“Come here, Karnas!” Priscilla cooed.
“Kireuk!”
“Oh my! How cute!”
While Karnas went to Priscilla, I focused on the mana stone again.
“So what exactly is Dane trying to do?” Ernest asked.
"Extracting the 'essence' of Saul Hangston?"
“Essence? What is that?”
Priscilla answered Ernest's questions on my behalf.
“It’s a kind of legacy that mages leave behind. It’s a little different from esoteric magic. It’s like storing all the information and power they had while alive. It’s similar to leaving a trace of themselves behind.”
“Then the essence that Dane is extracting now...”
“That’s right. It’s likely Saul Hangston’s ‘condensed’ form. Not a real corpse condensed, but his mana.”
She explained it accurately. This essence that I was extracting now contained information about Saul Hangston. Since his mana was contained inside, this essence was priceless.
The only question was, why did Saul Hangston hide this, and what did those five people plan to do with it?
Actually, there was a lot they could do with this. As he died without leaving an heir, we might be able to use it to uncover the secrets of Saul Hangston's extraordinary magic, or perhaps even make a discovery regarding his legendary esoteric magic.
That was why I wanted to take it.
Honestly, I wanted it. Even though I possessed ancient magic, Saul Hangston was a legendary mage. I was curious about his esoteric magic.
“Wait.”
So were these people also after Saul Hangston's esoteric magic?
"What's the matter?"
I turned my head towards Ernest. “Ernest.”
"Huh?" he asked.
“Help me look through what these people had while I’m extracting the essence. See if we can find anything related to Saul Hangston’s esoteric magic.”
"Alright!"
While Ernest was taking their belongings out of his subspace again, I injected more of my mana into the circle. I never thought that learning the extraction formula from Arabella would help me this much.
“Fuuu.”
Of course, it wasn't that simple when the opponent was the essence of Saul Hangston. The internal defense code installed to prevent the extraction of the essence was also quite complex, and it was necessary to avoid it in various ways.
But what I possessed was ancient magic, a powerful force that could suppress all mana. Perhaps mages would be shocked and dumbfounded if they knew that there were 'grades' to the mana that existed in nature.
Well, maybe...
Was it because I was the user or something? Was that showing off too much?
“Dane, I found it. Here, there’s a notebook with information about Saul Hangston’s esoteric magic. It’s like a journal... Would you like me to read it?”
“Just summarize it.”
"Yes. Hmm... Simply put, there are a few theories about Saul Hangston's esoteric magic. One is a 'Meteor Summoning' spell that can destroy an entire continent... Another is called 'Prime Teleport' that can transport tens of thousands of people at once... And the last is 'Create Life'?"
Look at that scale. As expected of Saul Hangston. Of course, this was just speculation. But even if they were just guessing, it was at an incredible level.
“How do those spells make sense? The magic of one person can exert that much power?”
“What’s the point of learning divine powers? Just summon a meteor and you’re done.”
"Wow... Isn't that just godlike?"
While everyone was saying something and expressing frustration, Ernest continued reading the summary. "And, um... It seems like acquiring this esoteric magic is the ultimate goal. Turning the world upside down, you know? That's it for now."
"Good. Thank you."
Turn the world upside down.
This was going to be fun.
First of all, it was clear that they were dangerous, so it seemed certain that we had to hand them over to the authorities.
Time slowly passed, and dawn was about to break.
“It’s almost done.”
I was almost done with the essence extraction. It wasn't as difficult as I thought, and it didn't take long because I accelerated the process.
Besides, it wasn't difficult because the people ahead of us had done the work in advance. Since the path had already been prepared, I just had to push the overwhelming force of ancient magic into the narrow gap, like when I healed Prince Edward’s hands.
And finally—
“That’s it.”
I was able to obtain a fist-sized sphere of extremely compressed, crystallized mana in my hand.
A red sphere that was vibrating strongly. It was so red that it looked like a clump of blood.
“This reminds me of the one at the entrance to Hangston Hall. The one that measures magical talent.”
I nodded at Leila's comment.
When you passed through the curtain, your mana was automatically measured, and the color of the curtain changed according to your magical talent. At that time, Leila’s was red, meaning she was talented.
Mine was green.
“Oh my god... It’s so pretty?”
“Wow...”
Ernest and Priscilla exclaimed. I chuckled and concentrated once more, carefully wrapping Hangston's essence in my ancient mana.
The vibrations gradually died down and finally became silent, and I put it in my pocket instead of my subspace. If something happened while it was inside my subspace, the subspace that Arabella gave me could be destroyed.
“Is it done?”
"Yes. I packed everything I needed to pack."
Now all that was left were the five still-unconscious people and the giant empty mana stone. Maybe they'd just faint again when they saw that the mana stone was empty?
“I guess we can’t just leave these people alone.”
Of course, if we just left them, they would run away as soon as they woke up. So, we needed a plan.
“Dane, how about this?” That was when Leila came up with a clever idea. “Let’s have the guards naturally find them. Thinking about the anonymous tip-offs you mentioned earlier, I think it’ll take too much time. It’ll take quite a while for them to be found.”
I nodded at Leila's words.
“That’s good.”
Certainly, it would be better if they were discovered naturally. Then they would be caught in the act.
“Then how about dismantling the magic barrier as well? Without it, the guards will be able to enter without any obstacles,” Ernest also gave his opinion.
This was also a good method.
Lastly was Priscilla, “I think it would be a good idea to leave some evidence behind. There has to be a reason why these people did this.”
Suddenly, these people became pitiful. The essence that they had been working to extract for months was taken by me. They were knocked out, and when they woke up, all they would face was iron bars and torture.
“Such a shame.”
Of course, I wasn’t sorry at all.
So, we picked out one or two pieces of evidence that could serve as grounds for punishing these people and put them down in an appropriate place.
“Shall we go?”
As we finished preparing to leave...
"Umm..."
One of them let out a soft groan, as if trying to wake up. It seemed they had some resistance to sleeping gas...
Pow!
“How dare you try to open your eyes?"
But the situation was taken care of by Priscilla.
“...Priscilla is from the Theology Department, right?"
“Maybe from the Martial Arts Department?”
Priscilla hit the back of a waking person’s head, knocking him out again. She shrugged her shoulders as if to ask why we were so surprised as we just stared at her blankly.
“Didn’t I tell you? I originally wanted to be a knight,” she stated.
"Oh..."
“Those elders thought it was a waste of my divine power and threw me from the Paladin course to the Elite course.”
So, back then, in St. Aimar’s Hall, the heads of the undead were crushed with divine power... It was a ‘fist’ filled with divine power.
"Hmm."
Dorian...
He’d come to like a terrifying girl.
* * *
Reaper Scans
[Translator – Rainypup]
[Proofreader – Harley]
Join our discord for updates on releases! https://dsc.gg/reapercomics
* * *
Zeke was the first of the five to open his eyes.
What on earth happened?
In great pain, Zeke instinctively looked around quickly.
This was not the passage. It was the second basement they were about to enter.
“What the heck...?”
Zeke’s mouth dropped open. Was he seeing things? Or was he still dreaming?
“Th-the mana stone...”
The mana stone, which should be yellow and radiating intense power, was empty.
“What happened?!”
Zeke quickly got up and approached the mana stone. He tried to feel it, but it was the same.
His heart sank and a chill ran down his spine.
The mission they received from the organization was to finally extract and bring back the mana of this mana stone. After completing the magic circle, following the people they had replaced who spent several months drawing the magic circle, all that was left to do was extract it, but一
Nothing was visible inside the mana stone.
“L-leader.” Zeke shook the captain urgently and woke him up.
At first, there was no response, but after shaking him vigorously a few times, the leader opened his eyes. As soon as he did and saw the mana stone, his face went blank.
“What the hell is this...?”
The remaining three also woke up, and after going through the same process, the five of them fell into severe shock. They didn't even have any of their belongings other than a few objects lying on the floor.
“Leader, wh-what happened?”
Many possibilities came to mind.
Creak! Creeeaak! Creaaaak!
A strange noise was heard from outside.
It shouldn’t have been heard because of the magic barrier on the building's outer wall, but no matter how they thought about it, the sound seemed to be coming from outside, not inside.
The leader made a quick decision.
“Let’s get out first.”
They were heading toward the basement level instead of the passage they entered through when it happened.
Bang!
Just as they were about to open the door to the first floor, the door burst open before they could even touch it and a group of guards poured in.
“Intruders! Surround them!”
“Reinforcements will be arriving soon!”
The leader, Zeke, and the other three were confused. More than ten spear blades were aimed at them.
They said that reinforcements were coming.
'This fucking...’
Something unbelievable was happening.
If things had gone as planned, they would have safely entered, safely extracted Saul Hangston's essence, and safely left again...
‘Did those guards who changed shifts...’
A possibility occurred to the leader.
The organization abandoned them.
He had been feeling something strange lately. They might have been intentionally excluded from certain tasks, or his superiors seemed to have treated him differently than they used to.
'Those sons of bitches...!’
The leader, who had reached the wrong conclusion, cursed inwardly一
"Leader...!"
They realized that the suicide poison that was supposed to be in their teeth was gone. They didn’t know what happened, but they could tell that any hope of escape was gone.
“Surrender obediently! There is no way out for you!”
In the meantime, there was a noise coming from inside, indicating that guards were heading underground.
“There’s a huge mana stone over here!”
The leader was resigned. There was no other explanation for this than the organization abandoning them. After all, they got caught in a situation where they would never have gotten caught otherwise.
"...I surrender.”
“L-leader!” Zeke shouted urgently, but he also knew it was useless.
There was no way out now. Even if they killed all the guards here and left, they were in a restricted area. Since they were discovered...
'Fighting the academy professors? That's crazy.'
The sun had already risen and people were awake. It was a fight they had no chance of winning. If only the organization hadn't abandoned them...
The leader was resigned. Without even realizing that they were in this situation not because they were abandoned by the organization, but...
Due to a strangely named club.
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