Episode 76
“I refuse.”
Norman rejected it outright.
“How are we supposed to open that safe? And we’re not even sure there’s anything relevant inside.”
“Ah~ that safe? Just my hunch, but it’s probably fake.”
“Fake?”
No matter how you looked at it, the thick metal with its reinforced locking mechanism seemed like a perfectly normal safe.
“The safe is way too conspicuously placed. And I know a thing or two about wizards—they’ve got terrible personalities and can’t help but twist situations just for fun.”
Denis, sorry. Natasha muttered to herself once again.
“Check the back of the drawers or the bookshelf carefully. Shady people love hiding secret doors in those kinds of places.”
“That’s just a possibility. If there’s nothing there….”
“After coming all this way, you’re just going to turn back?”
Norman pressed his lips together. After all the trouble they’d gone through, leaving empty-handed felt like a waste.
“Or would you rather stall for time? Do you even know how to fight?”
“And do you?”
“What exactly did you learn in law school?”
The way she said it, as if she was disappointed, made Norman’s face twitch slightly.
He wanted to retort, ‘They don’t teach combat skills in law school!’ but held himself back.
“As a lawyer, you should at least know how to buy time against a wizard.”
Natasha pulled a dagger from her waist so naturally, as if it were an essential daily item.
“What kind of lawyer carries a knife…?”
“Maybe you’re the one who’s behind the times? It’s been a lawyer’s must-have since the year 568.”
She said it so shamelessly that he almost wondered if it were true.
“I’ll send Ivan the signal. We have exactly ten minutes. The supervisor left his post because of an accident in Sector B, but he’ll be back soon. I’ll stall him for ten minutes while you steal the documents and escape with Ivan. Got it?”
“W-Wait a second!”
“Jeez. You really need a lot of hand-holding. What now?”
If it were Ivan, he would have stolen the report by now.
But for Norman, who was just a regular lawyer, this entire situation was difficult to process.
“How on earth do you plan to stall a wizard for ten minutes? Even if he’s just a low-level supervisor at a factory, you do realize that a wizard is a one-man army, right?”
“Of course I can’t beat a wizard. I’m not delusional.”
Natasha admitted it readily.
Even for her, who had some self-defense training, overpowering a wizard was impossible.
“But stalling is a different matter.”
“…Is it?”
“Completely different. Worlds apart.”
Since it still seemed impossible to last ten minutes against a wizard, Norman eventually gave up trying to understand.
“…Are you sure we can escape?”
“I’ll make sure Ivan takes you with him, so don’t worry.”
“Haah.”
Norman sighed, lamenting how he had come here to inspect a contamination site but had somehow ended up in a magic factory.
Things always got weird when he was involved with this eccentric senior of his.
‘Ever since that Civil Procedure Law class, when Noel and I had to prepare separate presentations for grading, I had a feeling something was off…’
But it was too late to back out now.
Since he had come this far, he might as well find some decisive evidence for the case he had been investigating for the past six months!
“Alright. Then I’ll do my best—”
Whoosh!
Before he could even finish his sentence, Natasha shoved him into the air vent.
“…!”
As he tumbled down, she waved at him with a bright smile.
Thud!
“Ugh…!”
Groaning, Norman rubbed his sore knees.
Natasha watched him for a moment, then brought her hand to her ear.
Beep.
“Ivan. In ten minutes, retrieve Norman from the innermost room on the first floor and get out. I’ll handle my own escape, so don’t worry about me.”
Beep.
— Got it. I found something interesting on the second floor. I’ll show you when we get out.
Beep.
She tapped her earpiece twice, and it lost its glow, returning to its original color.
Now it was time to move.
***
— Intruder alert! Intruder alert! Intruder detected in Sector D!
“Damn it!”
Norman frantically fumbled around inside the drawer.
He must have triggered something by mistake, as the alarm was now blaring.
‘Come on, just a little more…!’
He had found a thin, fishing-line-like wire hidden inside the drawer.
It was obvious that there was some kind of hidden mechanism at play.
Reaching deep inside, his fingertips brushed against a narrow gap.
Snap!
‘There it is!’
With a bit of force, a thin wooden panel came loose, revealing a hidden compartment.
It was barely thick enough to fit a fingertip.
“This is….”
Norman swallowed hard.
A high-capacity magic storage device.
A tiny, thumbnail-sized artifact, neatly concealed.
‘If only I could check what’s inside…!’
Unfortunately, there was no time for that.
Even though the ten minutes Natasha had promised weren’t up yet, the alarm was still wailing loudly.
“Well, well, Natasha’s little junior?”
“Ivan!”
Norman had never been so relieved to see someone before.
“Can you climb up?”
Norman shook his head vigorously.
Getting down had been one thing—he’d been shoved.
But he had no way of leaping up to the ceiling.
“I really hate carrying guys, you know~.”
Thud!
Despite his grumbling, Ivan landed smoothly on the floor.
Without asking for permission, he grabbed Norman and slung him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
“…!”
“Don’t move if you don’t want to fall. Oh, do you have anything to cover your face?”
Since Norman had come dressed lightly for a simple inspection, he had nothing suitable.
Sighing, Ivan grabbed a white lab coat from the office and tossed it over Norman’s head.
“If you don’t want your face seen, hold onto this.”
He also pulled his hoodie low over his face.
Just as Norman was about to protest that he could crawl through the vent himself—
Crash!
Ivan suddenly smashed the window!
Norman’s jaw dropped in shock, but Ivan just chuckled.
“The alarm’s already blaring. This is faster.”
Norman had thought Ivan seemed normal next to Natasha.
But clearly, people gravitated toward their own kind.
He promptly revised his opinion of Ivan to “just as crazy as Natasha.”
***
This is bad.
Natasha thought to herself.
She had been keeping watch outside, ready to leave as soon as the alarm went off.
The moment she tried to hide back into the ventilation shaft, she got caught.
Fortunately, she was wearing the robe she had prepared, so her face wasn’t visible, but they didn’t seem likely to let her go so easily.
“Can’t you just pretend… you didn’t see me?”
The man, wearing a robe engraved with the emblem of the Mage Tower, silently swung his hand.
Shhhk!
In an instant, a deep scar appeared where Natasha had been standing. Seeing the attack carve so deeply into the thick wall sent chills down her spine.
‘If I hadn’t dodged that in time, I would’ve been sliced clean in half…’
How unlucky. Of all people, she had to run into the one and only mage in this factory.
‘If I could just get into the ventilation shaft, I could escape in no time…’
The problem was, her opponent didn’t seem likely to allow that.
As Natasha hesitated, he raised his hand again.
Shhhk! Shhk!
A series of attacks forced Natasha to roll across the floor. Debris from the walls piled onto her robe.
“W-Wait a second. Let’s just—”
Shhhk!
“When someone talks,”
Whoosh!
“You should listen, don’t you think?”
Huff, huff. Her heart pounded, and her breathing grew ragged from the tension.
The thought that even the slightest mistake would mean the end made every muscle in her body tense up.
“That’s some ruthless attacking. Shouldn’t you be capturing me alive? Don’t you need to check where I came from?”
So could he maybe ease up on the attacks a little? Capturing intruders was fine and all, but wasn’t interrogation necessary too?
Despite her desperate plea, the man raised his hand once again.
At that moment—
Hoo!
Natasha blew a handful of wall debris she had hidden in her palm. The finely ground dust spread into the air, clouding the surroundings.
She nearly coughed from the dust but held it in with effort.
‘Now, while he’s distracted…!’
It was just a small trick, but it was enough to divert his attention. Just as Natasha was feeling around for the ventilation shaft—
Thud!
“Ugh!”
The man’s hand grasped her by the nape of her neck with terrifying precision.
As his strong grip tightened around her throat, lifting her completely off the ground, Natasha kicked and struggled, gasping for breath.
“Kh—ahk! Ugh…!”
A pained groan escaped her lips.
Her nails dug into his hand, leaving deep scratches, and she kicked him in the stomach with all her strength—but he didn’t budge.
A chilling thought crossed her mind—was she going to die here?
‘Damn it. If I die, what happens to the others? Will Ivan take care of things somehow…?’
Ironically, that was the only thing she could think about at the end.
In an instant, the faces of Ivan, Jerome, Denis, and Jeanette, along with Mikhail and Olga, flashed before her eyes.
‘Now that I think about it, I was supposed to give the Duke of Winchester something really important when I got back…’
If she died here, would her debt to Ivan be passed on? Maybe he could settle it by liquidating her assets. Hopefully.
‘Wow. Have I really lived such a dry life? The only people coming to mind now are my clients.’
Realizing only on the brink of death how narrow her personal relationships were—it was almost ironic.
‘But… is dying supposed to take this long?’
Just as that odd thought crept into her mind, Natasha suddenly felt her feet touch the ground.
At the same time, the hand choking her throat carefully released its grip.
“?”
Natasha looked at him in confusion, and in response, he wordlessly gestured toward the ventilation shaft.
It was a signal to hurry up and escape.
‘Seriously? For real?’
She silently questioned him with her gaze, but he even went so far as to push her toward it, urging her to move faster.
‘Why the sudden change of attitude…? Ah.’
Something felt off. And then she realized—the robe had fallen off.
She quickly pulled it back on.
From the distance, she could hear the murmurs of guards approaching.
Before Natasha could even ask him anything, he practically shoved her into the ventilation shaft.
“Wait!”
There was something she absolutely had to ask before leaving.
“Do you… know me?”
There could only be one reason for such an abrupt shift in his behavior the moment he saw her face.
At her question, the man hesitated for a moment, then slowly pushed back his hood.
A single golden eye stared back at her, its vertical slit pupil strikingly familiar.
Natasha knew that eye.
The last time she had seen it, it had been much smaller, but there was no mistaking it.
“You, you…!”
Before she could even fully react, he closed the ventilation shaft door himself.
Natasha knew there was no time for catching up on old times.
In the end, she had no choice but to move forward, leaving him behind.
• ❁ • ❁ • ❁ •By Esraa• ❁ • ❁ • ❁ •
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