301 Unexpected (1/2)

Peaceful utopias did not exist in this world. There was no lack of idiots who were without common sense. Reality was always stranger than fiction as fiction still needed to be logical to attract readers. In reality, it was forever impossible to understand just why some people could be so impossibly idiotic.

All the older mages knew just how much power the Emblem of Endless Truth represented. However, many members of the royalty or nobility were amongst the younger student mages. To them, they were the absolute bosses in their own territories, daring to say and do whatever they wanted. They were at a young and impulsive stage of their lives when they were found out to have talent as mages and sent here to the Cloud Tower—a place where countless geniuses gathered. They were basically like the legendary protagonists in Chinese webnovels, as they wouldn't stand for suffering the slightest grievances.

Of course, the cruel world would soon teach them a lesson to help them learn just where they stood. During the process of learning, they would often turn from the bullies into the victims.

If they were fortunate, they would naturally mature. However, the prerequisite was that they didn't enrage someone who was beyond their ability to handle.

”Emblem of Endless Truth? It's an academic award? So what? Roland? Never heard of him! He's probably just an academic who stays in his experimental laboratory every day, and he dares to not sell his products to me! My granduncle is the archmage Andrei!”

Well, that was a common example of what those idiots were thinking. They would typically be polite when they first arrived, and when they discovered that politeness wouldn't help them obtain the right to purchase an Iron Horse, they would start trying to use money. When they discovered that the money they were offering was still insufficient, they would resort to arrogant declarations that always ended in angry roaring threats. It was a complete and perfect example of how the rich and powerful typically behaved in a feudal society.

Yawen would then take out her dragonslaying sword and viciously teach them about the mage's mortal enemy—an Underground elf who had full points in magic resistance!

Although gray elves were indeed weaker than dark elves in magic resistance, that didn't make any difference since Yawen was merely facing a bunch of novices who hadn't even mastered two-circle magic spells.

Of course, just getting viciously beaten up wouldn't make these rich young masters give up so easily. They would always want revenge and bring us various small troubles. In the past few days, we had already suffered from four incidents of arson. This was another reason why Cher was glaring at me in such a fashion. Not only did we break the records for number of incidents caused by us, we also broke the record for needing to call the police as well. Especially since the arson incidents typically happened at 1 or 2 a.m. in the morning, which really annoyed the police mages when they were called to the scene.

”Who the hell is it this time?!!”

Alright then, judging by how explosive Cher's tone was, it seemed that she was truly pissed off at this arsonist who had the unfortunate timing of making trouble while she was here.

”With two more incidents, our 'Annual Excellent Public Order Reward' money will be no more!!”

Alright then, it seemed that there was a concrete reason behind her anger as well.

”The archmage Andrei's grandnephew? Andrei, the vice leader of the Sword of Order? This is quite problematic.”

Unfortunately for Cher, her subordinates arrived with a report that caused her to frown. No matter what, a current Truth Overseer would definitely be difficult to deal with, even if he currently wasn't at the Cloud Tower. The Sword of Order and Mystical Blade had a bad relationship with each other to begin with. In fact, it started from when the organizations were established—they intentionally competed with each other even with how they named themselves. If she didn't deal with this situation well, it might escalate into a huge conflict between two of the most powerful mage organizations.

Even though Cher had excellent moral boundaries as an enforcer of the law, she still knew that some things would be quite difficult to deal with. Her status as a public order mage would only be internally useful within the Mystical Blade as well as medium and small mage organizations. However, other large mage organizations wouldn't care at all about her status, nor would the mages care about the pitiful strength of the police forces.

”Let me go! Do you know who I am!? My granduncle is Andrei!”

Even though this young master—who resembled a monkey—was tied up tightly, he remained as arrogant as always. Apart from him, several of his arsonist accomplices had been captured and tied up as well along with large stockpile of oil and fire powder that had been found with them. As for his ”accomplices,” they were basically all rich scions that were mere mage novices who hadn't learned the cruelty of the world. They were blissfully unaware about the consequences of their actions.

Truth Overseers were indubitably influential. Typically speaking, in such a situation, Cher would notify the person's family elders to severely hand out a punishment. However, the person that these young troublemakers antagonized was an archmage with two Emblems of Endless Truth. Cher found this situation quite difficult to deal with, not knowing if archmage Roland would simply let things go.

”Um, archmage Roland…”

Although Cher felt quite humiliated at having let the criminals get off so lightly, she still considered it part of her work to minimize any potential dangerous large incidents before they started. There were things she needed to say. However, the archmage that always had a helpless expression and lowered his head to apologize to her didn't even pay her any attention. Instead, he had an icy expression as he spoke in a low voice.

”Yawen, Little Red 232, the two of you were injured?”

The gray elf shook her head, indicating that she was fine. However, the sword injury on her shoulder actually had a smell of corrosion. The fact that her injury had already decayed to such an extent despite how recently she received it was the best evidence of how highly toxic the poison must have been. However, it seemed that Yawen would be fine after receiving healing magic from Divine Arts in time.

”Father, wahhh! My hair has been burned off.”

Meanwhile, Little Red 232 hopped over to complain. Roland gently patted her on the head, while even Cher was quite angered when she saw the depressed little girl who had a patch of scorched hair on her head.

”Were there any damages?”

”We discovered them quite quickly this time so the fire was put out almost immediately. The warehouse wasn't damaged at all. Out of our people, Yawen was the most seriously injured. However, they set fire to the kitchen, and our hired chefs were unable to escape in time…”

Considering how we intended to add a café addition to the Thorn Garden shop, we hired some local residents as chefs. Since the chefs were only ordinary people, not mages, it seemed that they didn't manage to make it out of the fire alive. Perhaps these rich scions even killed the chefs off on purpose in order to kill any witnesses that could point them out for their involvement…

”According to the Mage Country's laws, what's the punishment for intentional arson that leads to people's deaths?”

Cher paused in surprise when she saw that Roland was talking to her, finally noticing that he was asking her as an officer of the law. It was just that his typically smiling expression was replaced by a rare one of seriousness.

”…According to the Mage Country's laws, it should be execution by hanging, but…”

His bright eyes suddenly dimmed, and the next moment, Roland's eyes seemed to Cher like they were black holes that could devour everything. Without a hint rage or hatred within them, he seemed like an emotionless machine. Cher felt chills run down her spine when she was looked at by those eyes. She found herself unable to tell him to be merciful.

Cher suddenly recalled that she had wanted to investigate just who this Roland person truly was. However, her direct boss, who was considered as someone muddleheaded due to old age by all her coworkers, suddenly came and warned her personally with such a serious expression.

”There's some things and some people that you're simply better off not knowing about. If you would like to live a long and good life, there are some lines you definitely can't cross.”

To be honest, Cher was quite disappointed when she heard her direct boss tell her that. When she thought about how Roland didn't have any other achievement emblems at all apart from the two Emblems of Endless Truth (the graduation emblem wasn't an achievement emblem), and how he always spoke so softly and acted so cowardly to a normal public order mage like herself, she kept feeling like the upper-ranked members of the Cloud Tower weren't as pure as she thought.