I Became the Servant of the Blind Wicked Woman

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Hydra Corporation's objective.

Though Orthes had never mentioned it directly before, it was a topic that had come up several times among the board members.

Why had such a powerful mage like Carisia come to Etna City?

Once a mighty city, it was now nothing more than a declining frontier.

To unite the city and accumulate wealth?

Nonsense.

Carisia, who had quickly defeated two of the existing tower masters in Etna City, didn't need to bother unifying the underworld and organizing a new corporation to amass wealth. There were plenty of other ways.

The same went for honor.

A mage as powerful as her could easily receive recruitment offers from not just any tower, but even from the Apex Towers.

'Maybe, just maybe…'

Arabella considered the possibility that such a powerful mage had not 'come' to the city but had been 'expelled.'

Perhaps Carisia had been driven out of a power struggle within the tower and chose Etna City as a place to hide and reorganize her forces.

But this theory also had its flaws. A mage of Carisia's caliber, with subordinates like Orthes, having to flee after losing? Only a handful of towers could host such battles.

Orthes continued his speech, indifferent to Arabella's anxious gaze.

"We will become the new king."

King.

Not the ruler of a hereditary monarchy, but the kind of king who once ruled the world. The gods who blessed the royal bloodlines were long gone.

The power structure had been reconstituted around the Ten Commandments and the towers for a long time.

The privileged Apex Towers. Among them, only ten could be called kings.

The ten towers that possessed the Ten Commandments, the legacy of the Mage King.

They needed no elaborate names like Lernian or Torres. Their simple names, derived from their magic color and attribute, testified to their history.

All towers using that attribute's magic were under their dominion.

The legend of the ten towers, directly granted the Ten Commandments by the Mage King, was passed down in poetic form.

The White Light that signaled the beginning.

The Yellow Thunder that divided heaven and earth.

The Red Flame that gathered heat.

The Blue Ice that bound cold.

The Green Wind that mixed all things.

The Blue Water that filled the ocean.

The Purple Earth that molded the land.

The Green Wood that sprouted life.

The Silver Iron that sharpened the blade.

The Black Darkness that heralded the end.

A declaration to become a new king. The directors immediately thought of the White Light Tower, considering Carisia's light magic.

'Most of the tower masters of the ten towers inherit the bloodline from the Mage King's disciples. Could Carisia be the illegitimate child of the current White Light Tower master?'

Though rare, there were instances in history where the ownership of the Ten Commandments changed. Such battles were often likened to fights between kings and usurpers or royal successions.

'If a new usurper challenging for the throne has appeared, and that person is my boss…'

While Arabella was pondering how to instruct her informant guild members, Orthes made a declaration that surpassed the directors' expectations.

"Of course. I'm not here to tell you a boring story about seizing the Ten Commandments."

This time, Carisia clearly smiled. The directors, witnessing that perfect smile, felt a chilling sensation wrap around their bodies.

"I believe you know, Geryon. The tower master of Pythos Tower. Kaicle."

The direction of the conversation returned to the captured Geryon. He felt both absurdity and fear simultaneously.

The strongest of the three towers in Etna City. The urban legend of Pythos Tower's secret weapon.

"Who still believes in that superstitious nonsense? That's a story from decades ago."

Among the seasoned leaders of Etna City, few fully understood what Geryon was talking about.

Arabella, who collected any city rumors due to her profession. And…

"..."

An old dwarf who had lived in Etna City for a long time and was also the guild master of the miner's guild, Bertrand.

They noticed Orthes' gaze sweeping past them. It was clear Orthes was not someone who would fumble with mere eye contact.

'A warning, or a suggestion.'

A warning not to act rashly or a suggestion to divulge all they knew. Arabella adjusted her evaluation of Orthes from a suspicious figure to a formidable tactician.

"What if it's not just a rumor?"

"Hah!"

Geryon, forgetting his captive status, laughed. The weight of his half-missing arms reminded him of reality, but while the laughter faded, the skepticism did not.

"You would know, old Bertrand. The reason Etna City is declining."

The dwarf stroked his beard. No particularly strong mages or irreplaceable specialties. Or, being isolated from the mage paradise, Elysion…

Many reasons could be listed, but from his long-lived perspective of digging the earth in this city, there was only one reason for Etna City's decline.

"The Etna Volcano is cooling."

The volcano, the lifeline of Etna City, was cooling. Originally, the miners of Etna City made their living by extracting fire-attributed mana stones formed by the volcanic energy.

But now, as the output of mana stones decreased, so too was the volcano cooling.

"Pythos Tower did something to the Etna Volcano. There were rumors that they siphoned the volcanic energy to prepare a special magic. But our miner's guild's investigations found no magical installations outside the volcano."

"Kaicle is trying to condense the Etna Volcano's mana to create a new Ten Commandments!"

Geryon shouted theatrically. His expression soon turned bitter.

"I, too, was once fooled by that rumor and turned the city upside down. Kaicle, he was no ordinary person, after all. He was once a formal disciple of the Red Flame and later scouted by Silver Iron…"

Geryon carefully watched Carisia. Without reacting to his gaze, Carisia's attention remained on Orthes.

"He's a monstrous mage who seized control of the strongest tower in Etna City all by himself, just like your president."

Geryon lowered his head, perhaps recalling his defeat by Carisia. But he soon raised it again, exuding confidence from his own investigations.

"But this much is certain. There is no artificial Ten Commandments in Pythos Tower."

"No. In the first place."

"That bastard Kaicle isn't even in this city."

Pythos Tower was currently unstaffed.

The largest tower in Etna City had no master present.

***

So far, everything is going as expected.

Bertrand, who had worked as a miner in the Etna Volcano veins for almost his entire life, and Geryon, who had competed with Pythos Tower for power.

These two served as the dissenters, claiming that there was no artificial Ten Commandments in Pythos Tower.

But I knew that the 'Ten Commandments of Pythos Tower' indeed existed.

To be precise, it wasn't something worthy of being called a Ten Commandments.

How should I put it?

Ten Commandments in Training? Ten Commandments Candidate? Ten Commandments (To Be Promoted)?

The two prominent traits of the Ten Commandments are immense mana and latent knowledge. Just knocking on the Ten Commandments' door increases a mage's maximum mana and grants them knowledge of spells they've never heard of.

The tower masters directly connected to the Ten Commandments wield near-infinite mana and can use the Mage King's techniques.

The Ten Commandments of Pythos Tower, Kaicle's Ten Commandments, did not.

Due to Kaicle's limited knowledge, there was a limit to the techniques he could imprint.

However, from long-term siphoning of the Etna Volcano's mana, a considerable amount of mana had gathered, though not infinite, enough to be deemed immense.

Of course, I knew this because White No Name used it in the original story, "The Return of the Mage King in 2077."

How did White No Name use this Ten Commandments?

'She just blew it up, didn't she?'

She used it as a bomb to vaporize the entire Etna City. It was more than a nuclear bomb, deserving a description closer to an antimatter bomb.

When the confrontation with the protagonist reached its peak, she prepared this trap to kill the protagonist.

When this plan, which even used Hydra Corporation's headquarters as bait, ultimately failed, White No Name directly risked her life to face the protagonist.

In other words, if we use it for something other than a bomb, we could eliminate one reason for Carisia's death as in the original.

I smiled at the board members.

"No. Kaicle is in Etna."

***

Arabella was the first to notice the discrepancy in Orthes' words.

"Etna? Not Etna City?"

As if waiting for that question, Orthes spoke.

"Yes. Kaicle is in Mt. Etna."

"But…"

Bertrand didn't know what to call Orthes. He had never been given any official title within Hydra Corporation.

But it was clear that he was the second-in-command.

"You can call me by name."

Reading Bertrand's mind, Orthes suggested. Bertrand, with some discomfort, pronounced the name.

"Orthes. Our miner's guild has already investigated Mt. Etna several times. But all we found were the gradually dying flames."

"That's true. The places you investigated, Bertrand, were just that."

"Is there a place the miner's guild didn't investigate?"

"To be more precise, Kaicle is inside Mt. Etna."

Orthes looked around with a chilling smile. Only Carisia, who was in a zone untouched by that smile, wore a satisfied expression.

"We will extract Kaicle and acquire the artificial Ten Commandments."

His gaze turned to Geryon.

"And your role begins then."

To read over 200 fully translated episodes, patreon.com/Denji02