Chapter 79 (1/2)

“Man, how was I unaware that the lens had this ability until now?”

Isaac hummed as he strolled through the streets, whisking the pen in his hand all over ground as if he was a conductor in an orchestra.

Bang!

The echo of an explosion from afar reached Isaac’s ears. He smirked.

“It’s a good thing I spent so much money.”

It seemed as clear as day that the knight’s friends would try to clean up the corpse, so he placed an eggbomb under the dead knight’s stomach as a present. He snickered, imagining how many were caught in the explosion as he continued to draw a magic circle on the ground. After finis.h.i.+ng his work, he remained crouched, carefully observing the magic circle he had just drawn.

“This is fascinating.”

Isaac never memorised the magic circles. He merely glossed over the book with an understanding that he could simply copy the circles from the book if need be. But when Isaac wanted to remember a magic circle he wanted to draw, the image of the circle popped up in his head like a photo, and all Isaac had to do was follow the lines.

Ever since Isaac escaped from the mine, he contemplated on how he’d get a magic circle powerful enough to turn the tide of battle. It seemed impossible to get a hold of a magic circle powerful enough whilst avoiding watchful eyes, but it also seemed too unreliable to use weak magic circles. But Isaac realised that he could have powerful magic circles without needing to read about them.

Whoever had this lens and pen beforehand drew a magic circle that only Isaac could see once he had the lens on in that room. Although Isaac wanted to reconstruct the magic circle as best he could from his memories, he never expected the magic circle to work properly since he had very little confidence in his memory. Plus, he never had the time or s.p.a.ce to test the circle.

The backlash from the magic circle’s failure to activate was what Isaac was relying on. The strength of the recoil from a poorly drawn magic circle was directly proportional to how strong the magic circle was supposed to be. Isaac drew tens of these summoning magic circles on papers hidden within his coat, relying not on the actual summoning but on the destruction caused by the backlash.

But just when he was about to scatter these papers behind him, the magic circle’s image appeared in his left eye where the lens was, and when Isaac decided to draw the circle, the pen came out of his index finger and his hand moved automatically.

What was more interesting was how he was instantly recalling how to use the pen despite being completely unaware of all its functions. It was almost as if someone was drilling the instructions directly into his brain.

“What am I supposed to call it? A macro? Copy paste? Was it the Queen who made this? I’d like to see her face one day.”

What seemed like an extremely convoluted magic circle in his eyes was completed within seconds. Isaac drew the activation magic circle next to it, ripped one of the mana crystals from his coat and shoved it into the magic circle. He then threw away his cigarette and activated the magic circle.

The funny part about an activation magic circle was that one could set it to activate at a specific time. Confirming that the magic circle was functioning properly, he decided to make his escape, hearing the sudden alarm bells echoing throughout the castle in response to the sudden explosion.

“I guess I should leave it like this. I don’t even have many cigarettes left now.”

Although Isaac still had plenty of mana crystals, he only had a few cigarettes left, which was the most important ingredient. In truth, there were plenty of cigarettes left if Isaac used them for the sole purpose of creating magic circles, but Isaac needed to save some for his habit too.

Isaac looked about his surroundings, and decided to climb up the castle wall in order to get a better idea of his current location.

“Ohoh. It works! Time to be spider man.”

Isaac drew some adhesion magic circles on his hands and began to climb up the wall. It had been a while since Isaac’s body had suffered physical labour, and he had to catch his breath while sitting on the edge of the walls once he finished climbing.

“Maybe I need to work out some more.”

Isaac looked about with beads of sweat dripping from his face. Beyond the wall laid a dense forest, but Isaac still had no clue as to where he was. Seeing that there were knights and soldiers moving about, Isaac a.s.sumed this was some sort of fiefdom, and Isaac wasn’t sure if the Dark Royale had even Lords as their subordinates or if this was a place where a high-ranking member of the Dark Royale resided.

Isaac blankly watched the castle. Screams and shouts echoed throughout the castle, and a fire seemed to have started from afar, seeing a cloud of smoke rising into the air. Just when Isaac felt like something was amiss, a spear flew across the air and struck Isaac.

Clang!

A blue light emitted from the coat Isaac was wearing, accompanied by the sound of shattering gla.s.s. It deflected the spear without any shock, and one of the mana crystals in his coat turned to dust.

“Oh! So this is why people are so obsessed over the name value.”

Isaac muttered those words of admiration without a shred of surprise. Isaac didn’t even need to feel embarra.s.sed for letting his guard down if this was the power of his coat. It wouldn’t always be the case that it didn’t function the way it’s supposed to.

Isaac looked around to see who the culprit was. Viscount Luken, drenched in the blood of monsters, stepped forward with a murderous glare. Isaac pulled out a new cigarette and asked.

“Who’re you?”

“… You will die here.”

Isaac made a troubled face and spoke back.

“I didn’t think you’d find me so quickly? Did you put some tracking device on me?”

“I knew it! So it was you! Was it you who placed those summoning circles to buy time? Ha! Then I suspect you’re surprised to see us find you so quickly! You s.p.a.ced out the summoning circles evenly, but you set them up in a straight line! Did you never consider that we’d find you immediately if we focused all of our forces toward that direction? I can’t tell if you’re smart or stupid at this point.”

‘Ah, of course.’

Isaac did spread those summoning circles in an attempt to cause confusion, but now that he remembered, he did so whilst walking to the walls. That explained why all the strings of smoke followed a straight line. It would have been simple enough for them if they followed where the monsters were.

Whilst Isaac was busy being consumed by embarra.s.sment at his own stupidity, soldiers and knights gathered both on the walls and on the ground, surrounding him.

“So where is this place?”

Isaac asked the question, unphased by the fact that he was surrounded. Luken answered him as he grit his teeth.

“A dead man ought not to know.”

Isaac smirked. He crossed his legs, spread his arms out and asked Luken.

“Really? I’m going to die you say? How are you going to manage that?”

“… Can you continue to act so carefree even after all of the mana crystals you have are spent?”

“And how long is that going to take?”

Seeing Isaac’s belittling smile, Viscount Luken raised his left hand. The knights behind Isaac raised their swords in response, and began to approach Isaac. Isaac smiled, glancing at the knights who inched their way to him.

“Do you really think I’ll let myself be captured so easily?”

Isaac waved his right hand as if he was dancing to music. As he did, a red light shone from where the knights stood. The knights quickly jumped back, and three gnolls showed themselves from the magic circle.

The knolls seemed confused as to where they were at first, but after seeing their meals arranged in front of them, they instinctively jumped at the knights.

“Kuk! Stop them!”

Whilst a fight broke out between the gnolls and the knights, there was more chaos under the walls. A manticore suddenly emerged from the middle of the formation, and a cerberus appeared atop the castle wall.

“There’s more here! Kill it!”

“Uwaaah! Help!”

The soldiers ran about in a panic after witnessing these monsters for the first time, some of them immediately collapsing onto the ground. The knights tried to control the soldiers whilst combatting the monsters, but the situation slowly got out of hand as more and more monsters showed themselves.

“Another one here!”

“Aak! Help me!”

“Knights! Focus on killing the monsters!”