442 Unjustifiable Self-defence (2/2)
Walking into his lab, Peavy found his brain extremely clear. The procedures of the experiment emerged readily in his brain. Then Peavy started to reconstruct the magic circles.
The equipment for carrying out the experiment would cost a senior-rank sorcerer months to finish setting up, but he finished it within just ten minutes! Peavy wondered if his long-suppressed talent finally burst out.
With the equipment all set, Peavy started to conduct the experiment and collect data.
A few minutes later, beads of sweat dropped down from his forehead. He could not believe what he saw.
”Impossible… Impossible! Something's wrong!”
The experiment showed clear quanta features!
He hurriedly restarted the experiment all over again, but the result remained unchanged.
”No… No…” Peavy shook his head helplessly.
Bang!
His head exploded. Small pieces of red and white were everywhere on the floor and the walls of the lab.
”Ahhh!!!”
Peavy released a bitter scream and sprang up from the couch. Lips trembling, Peavy murmured to himself,
”Ha..Haha, that felt so real…”
His laughter sounded dry and embarrassed.
Wiping off the sweat from his head, Peavy walked to his lab. The horrible dream he just had reminded him that he had still got an experiment on lightning to do today.
As he walked into the lab, Peavy's heart was still beating fast, and his mind was still a bit confused. He turned on the magic circles while he tried to calm down.
In the magic circle, bolts of lightning grew and began to bounce around within the lab. Peavy, as usual, was about to turn on the most powerful defensive magic circle to shield himself from the lightning.
However, his face immediately paled.
”Why… Why can't it be turned on? Right, it broke yesterday…”
Peavy finally recalled blankly that the defensive magic circle probably had been out of order since yesterday, and he was planning to pay a senior-rank sorcerer from the Magic Engineering Department to come and repair it.
But he just forgot it! He forgot it!
”No!!!”
Layers of defensive spells were activated; pieces of magic items glowed. However, the power of the horrible lightning arc was unstoppable, and it penetrated the spells and items promptly.
Only the bitter scream of Peavy was left echoing in the room.
...
A few seconds after Lucien confirmed Peavy's death, Thompson of the Affair Committee showed up in Lucien's study with a flash of light.
”Who did you just attack?”
In Allyn, a spell used for attacking would be detected by the mythal enveloping the city from above. The Affair Committee would then be noticed to interfere.
”Someone who deserved it,” said Lucien gloomily.
Lucien threw the threatening letter and his prophecy result to Thompson. It looked like that Thompson was the designated person in the Affair Committee for handling the affairs that involved Lucien.
When he finishing reading the letter and the result, Thompson figured out what happened. He looked angry as well, and even said,
”Good job.”
Then Thompson restrained his personal emotion and asked, ”With these as evidence, we could charge you as unjustifiable self-defense without doubt. You wanna pay ten thousand arcana points, or go stay in the magic-forbidden prison for a year?”
”Arcana points,” said Lucien word by word, his heart aching. All his income from inventing magic crystal light and promoting charcoal would go into this, but it was still worthwhile as he got rid of a lunatic.
Thompson nodded. He wrote down the punishment decision and was about to leave. Lucien could not help asking.
”Those sorcerers that have gone extreme, I don't think you guys should leave them there in the public. They need a psychotherapy center, Thompson.”
Thompson shrugged. ”You have to know, Lucien. With years of dangerous and lonely exploration, many sorcerers have, more or less, turned into psychos. No one will agree with this proposal.”
Lucien wondered if he should propose that the Congress start giving lectures on mental health.
...
”The latest one on Allyn's Dumbest Ways to Die - No. 17: Peavy used his death to tell us that we should never forget the first and foremost rule in the laboratory manual - 'Carefully check your equipment and magic circles before starting your experiment,'” said a man with cheerful smile on his face, who was introducing Allyn to the new sorcerers and apprentices on the magic steam train.
In front of him was a beautiful girl who had a white wolf lying beside as her companion.