Chapter 104 October 3, 2022
Chapter 104 – U.N. Owen (2)
Ludger Chelysie had a teacher…
The teacher was a savior who’d taught him magic and the methods to live in this world.
However, at the same time, he was also the very person who instilled trauma into his disciple because he overstrained Ludger too much.
Ludger experienced many events while traveling with his teacher.
Most of them were extraordinary and rough experiences.
Of course, he didn’t deny the fact that he could come to his current position because of the experiences back then.
Still, sometimes he couldn’t help it but think ‘Wasn’t it a bit too much back then?’
He’d been caught up in various incidents because of his teacher, and it wasn’t like there weren’t any circumstances where he didn’t get harmed.
It was also the case for Pantos.
He was a beastperson, a species that had been originally designated with an outstanding combat ability.
Also, Pantos was someone who was born as a superior being even among them and the other beastpeople.
Usually, even though beastpeople possessed a superior physical ability, they were not much different from human beings in outer appearance.
Except for their ears and tails, on top of fine muscles that were attached to their body, the resilience of their muscles was more exceptionally outstanding than the muscles humans had.
In terms of outer appearance, there was no use classifying the difference.
However, Pantos was different.
Pantos showed a great difference starting from his outer appearance, even when compared to other beastpeople.
Even when he was young, his head had been taller than his peers’, and his physique had been twice as large as theirs as well.
When he was a kid, he was even almost compared with the adults, and now that he’d became an adult, he was beyond such comparison.
Even though his physique was big, his movements weren’t slow or sluggish. He was even way faster than other beastpeople.
His footsteps when he ran through a huge meadow were even faster than a wild horse’s when it was dashing through the wind.
At the time, the tribe believed that he would be the next chief without any doubt.
However, Pantos refused it.
There was only one reason:
—This place is too small for me.
His heart always headed toward a wider world.
He wanted to use his strength wholly.
He wanted to risk everything and confront strong prey.
It didn’t matter who it was.
The only important thing was him jumping over any barrier in his path.
Pantos wandered around the world again while challenging and confronting all kinds of things.
As he wandered around like that, the place he’d arrived at was a small fishing village at the end of the northeast part of the continent.
Pantos had stayed there while overcoming his fear of water, and he’d hunted a whale and surpassed his own limit.
He became stronger, much stronger than when he was in the meadow.
He had the soul of a more well-off warrior and had a more bloated ego.
The place that the end of his arrow pointed him to was none other than Ludger’s teacher.
“The wizard that Pantos originally aimed for was my teacher. At that time, there was no one else but my teacher who was a famous wandering wizard in the first place.”
“But why did you fight instead of your teacher?”
“The timing was amiss. He visited when my teacher wasn’t there.”
“Ah.”
Pantos visited him while intending to meet Ludger’s teacher.
But his teacher had left his spot at that time and wasn’t there.
“So… You fought him?”
“I told him that my teacher was on leave, but Pantos didn’t listen to it.”
Pantos came to fight with a strong person.
Even though Ludger said that his teacher wasn’t there, Pantos didn’t believe his words.
The man in front of him… his gut feeling kept shouting that the man was a strong person.
Pantos had opened his mouth as he seemed to slightly feel wronged.
“I fought with him because I felt that he was strong. Only that.”
Pantos was certain that his judgment was not wrong, even then.
When he entered into a real fight with that man, Ludger had shown an unbelievable power and knocked him down.
Pantos had dominated the fight at first.
Because it was a piece of cake with his superior physical ability and killing instinct from beastpeople’s wild nature to hunt down one wizard.
The rapid spells that Ludger used couldn’t deal any damage to his robust body, and the Coordinate Designation spells that he used could be read by Pantos’s transcendental senses, so they all missed.
Even so, Ludger also didn’t one-sided get beaten by Pantos, and he was barely able to last.
That was how the fight flowed fiercely, and when Ludger’s mana was gradually decreasing…
At that moment, Ludger had used his ‘Real Magic’.
If Pantos thought of that time, he felt that the sense of fear which he thought he had completely overcome was rising again.
“I fell down in an instant. I didn’t even have a chance to resist it. It was my defeat, there are no two ways about it.”
If Ludger’s teacher hadn’t come back just in time, Pantos probably wouldn’t have existed in this world any longer.
And after Pantos regained his consciousness, Ludger had proposed something to him.
—You hold something huge that can’t be resolved within your heart. If I need your help, then you should visit me after receiving my call.
Because of that, Pantos had accepted Ludger’s call.
The strong person who’d mercilessly broken him down had called him…
Also, Ludger said that he would get rid of the thirst that was hidden deep inside of him.
“I have no choice but to follow him.”
—Even when Ludger suddenly entrusted a boy named Arpa to him and told him to show the boy the world a bit more.
—Even when Ludger told him to lay low until he called Pantos again.
Pantos obeyed his words silently.
Because he had certainty that it was only Ludger who could give him real meaning.
Ludger, the person involved, spoke in a light tone as if it wasn’t a really impressive occurrence.
“Anyway, Pantos would be the main fighting personnel in our organization. The rank of his substantial fighting power is second.”
There was no one who refuted those words.
Apart from Pantos’s appearance, which had an overwhelming pressure, the energy which was flowing from him shouted out that he was a strong person through his whole body.
There wasn’t a person who couldn’t feel it in that place.
“All of you have your own role. Pantos is a fighter, Hans is in charge of spying and gathering information, Sheridan is in the development department, and Bellaruna is in charge of medication and alchemy.”
“Oh, Leader, then what about me?”
“Alex, you and I will be going to the location together and, in case of emergency, you will become my substitute in combat as well.”
“Substitute, huh? Your evaluation is a bit poor. Still, I’m not inferior anywhere I go, you know?”
“Your biggest talent is being able to cope with any situation. There’s no one else but you who can move fluidly while demonstrating their talent properly on the spot.”
“Mr. Ludger! What about me?” Arpa raised his hand as he asked.
Ludger asked a completely different question at the naive inquiry.
“Arpa. What have you been seeing and learning while I wasn’t around?”
“Me? Hmm. Well, I actually saw many things as I wandered the world with Mr. Pantos.”
“Have you felt anything as you saw them?”
“I’m not sure. I can’t exactly find that thing yet. Ah, even so, I’m certain of one thing…”
“What’s that?”
“The fact that this world is very beautiful.”
It was a conversation with a context that was hard to understand.
The meaning behind the conversation could only be understood by the people involved.
“I see…”
Ludger kept thinking about Arpa’s words while folding his arms.
“Arpa is smart. He can remember every single thing he sees, even at a glance.”
“Everything? With not even one thing amiss?”
“Yeah. From when I called him until he arrived here. He remembers how many people he encountered while passing by the roadside and what kind of appearances they had—Arpa remembers everything.”
The so-called ability of perfect memory.
It was the talent that Arpa possessed.
To be exact, it was only one of his specialties.
“If he uses this ability, it’s possible for Arpa to have a role that’s beyond basic, so there’s no particular role that has been decided for Arpa because he can do anything.”
He could do anything…
Those words had a huge meaning.
Everyone in that place was outstanding in one field, but it meant that Arpa encompassed all of those fields.
Violeta gulped.
In the end, she could feel with her skin that all the people whom Ludger called weren’t ordinary people, even though there was something wrong in their minds.
“And lastly, Violeta.”
“Yes?”
Violeta couldn’t understand why Ludger called her.
“You will also work with us.”
“Me?”
Because Violeta had never heard such words, she respectfully replied to him.
“I only came here because I was going to guide you in the first place. I’m already very busy with the currently running business.”
“Isn’t the business already running itself?”
“I’m the one who does the clothing designs.”
“Hasn’t everything been done and organized, including the drafts?”
“Well…”
Violeta couldn’t think of any words to refute him.
To talk about it honestly, there was nothing much she could do in terms of the business that was already well on track.
She needed to periodically check if progress was running well, but even without her, everyone would do well on their own.
Then there was only one reason for Violeta to feel uncomfortable in that place:
“…I don’t know if I have the ability to join this group.”
That was what she sincerely felt.
Violeta stared at the faces of people who’d gathered in that place and realized it at first glance.
They were the colleagues who matched with the man James Moriarty, no, right then, he was Ludger Chelysie.
And she ended up realizing it once again…
That she didn’t fit in that place.
“What makes you think that?”
“That’s because… Everyone else has their own outstanding part, but I’m not like that…”
“Violeta…”
Ludger called her name quietly.
“If your ability was lacking or if you couldn’t do other work, I wouldn’t have brought you here.”
“…”
“Still, there’s only one reason why I brought you along and introduced you to everyone: it’s that you are eligible to be together with us.”
“Am I…”
Violeta opened her mouth with a trembling voice.
“…Really able to do that?”
“Of course. I don’t talk nonsense.”
“…My magic skill isn’t that good either.”
“That’s because it hasn’t been long since the first time you learned magic. Your aptitude with wind-property magic is especially high. The only reason you aren’t outstanding in ability is because your lessons stopped there.”
“I have a lowly status as well.”
“I’m not someone who looks at people through an insignificant standard such as status—what I see in them is only their skills.”
“But I…”
She could no longer think of any excuses.
Rather than that, it was more correct to say that she was at a loss of words at Ludger’s remarks as he acknowledged her.
Violeta turned her gaze down.
Ludger, who watched such a scene, pushed himself off of the wall he was leaning on.
“Your face looks troubled. Alright, then let’s do it like this: you don’t have to say such useless words. You can just answer this one question:”
Violeta tore her gaze from her toes and stared back at Ludger.
He was staring at her with an unwavering gaze.
“Do you want to join us?”
At that question, Violeta was able to understand why she had been engulfed in an odd feeling when she had entered that place.
—It was yearning.
She also thought that she wanted to join them while standing in that place.
But her status was low, and she had only learned about magic over her shoulder. In the end, would someone like her fit in that place? Wouldn’t she bring shame on that place just by standing there?
But Ludger wasn’t like that.
On the contrary, he offered to join them in person.
How could she reject his words that seemed to pierce through her mind?
Even so…
Her lips couldn’t say it.
It hadn’t been obvious until then, but once she was aware of it, her circumstances and self-esteem were grabbing her ankle.
Did he feel it?
Ludger spoke quietly in a low tone.
“I want to hear your sincerity.”
“…”
Those words carefully pushed her in her hesitation.
Violeta breathed deeply for a moment. Hoo, haa. She took a deep breath and let it out again while gathering up her mind.
Even then, Ludger waited for her answer still.
Violeta, who had regained her composure, smiled brightly toward Ludger and spoke.
“Okay.”
With that, Violeta became a leader of the Black Rose Women and a member of
at the same time.
“Good.”
Ludger nodded his head with a satisfied expression.
And she quickly took a look at the people who were present.
All of them were the best people in each of their respective fields.
It was a shame that not everyone had come, but that also exceeded her expectations.
“So, now that everyone knows about each other’s faces and abilities, let’s get straight into the strategy meeting.”
The reason why he’d gathered all of them…
“We are going to rob the soon-to-be-held Kunst Auction House.”
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