There was a call from Peruda.
‘It looks like you should come to the main plaza.’
The old man shook his head.
He leisurely finished his dinner, and now, the old man was at the Magic Tower’s basement, watching his twentieth specimen’s drug injection result.
‘Hey Peruda… I am the kind that does not move unless it is for something extraordinary.’
He was the grand mage representing Solia’s King.
Manufacturing drugs and selling them to accumulate wealth, and using that accumulated wealth to perform all sorts of cruel experiments, he had chosen an unbelievably unethical path to get to where he was today.
However, he was Astroa, practitioner of the Seven Circles magic. For humans, it was a level that one in ten thousand mages may or may not reach.
He had more than enough right to refuse Peruda’s request with the reason he provided.
‘The thing that was thrown away from the Magic Tower is running amok here.’
‘What?’
However, the call from Peruda this time made Astroa, someone who is only self-satisfying, attentively raise his ears.
‘It was on its way to the grave, but it is moving? Huhu. Isn’t that something.’
The tentacle of the plant that Peruda used to communicate was twitching.
Sitting on a grand chair at the Magic Tower’s basement, Astroa was enjoying the screams of his specimen, but he got off his ass.
‘In that case, maybe I should go and watch? It might be fun blowing out a candle.’
‘But…’
“Um?’
‘There is a man fighting a disposable asset.’
***
“Huh?! It is the grand mage Astroa!”
“Alright. Everything will be all right now!”
And now…
The citizen’s voices were explaining the current situations.
Astroa entered the scene in the main plaza.
“... I, the grand mage Astroa will handle this personally.”
Astroa arrived at the main plaza using flight magic and discovered a man swinging a sword at a frightened woman. Astroa used barrier, which is one of defensive spells, and blocked his movement.
‘Hm. He won’t speak? Is he mute?’
Astroa formed a Fireball in front of his treasured staff, and he tilted his head sideways.
The man in the mask, despite being in front of a grand mage’s Fireball, was not faltering.
‘He is quite skilled. The way he struck down magic with his sword was not ordinary.’
According to Peruda, the man in the mask was a skilled practitioner.
He was a man who only used a sword to neutralize the magic attacks launched at him by ‘that thing’ discarded from the Magic Tower.
“Hm, I don’t know what kind of mutt you are or which hole you crawled out from.”
As if it could not wait any longer, the Fireball that appeared in front of Astroa’s staff started to vibrate. It looked like it was urging to be launched soon.
“The fact that you swung your sword to a frightened woman, and the fact that you are impudently messing around inside Solia, the grand mage Astroa’s stage… No matter which one I look at, it cannot go unnoted.”
Soon thereafter, hiding his true intent, Astroa made a smile as he launched the Fireball.
His target was the man who wore a mask looking up towards him.
“I have no choice. I will take care of this personally.”
Of course, because the Fireball’s explosion range was quite wide, there was a possibility that the ‘frightened woman’ and other citizens could get mixed in the explosion, but Astroa didn’t care about the aftermath.
To him, the important thing was not the safety of the citizens. It was the citizens’ perception.
‘He is supposed to be highly skilled, right? In that case…’
The grand mage admired by the people of Solia was now, with eyes full of curiosity, staring at the man who wore a mask.
The people’s gaze looked like they were looking at something interesting.
‘His energy itself was strange. He isn’t just some nobody that could handle mana.’
Remembering what Peruda said, Astroa focused mana to his eyes.
He did that to ensure he wouldn’t lose sight of the man’s movements.
Also, it was because it could be dangerous if a skilled swordsman closed in with a sword.
Even though he was floating in the air, he could not let his guard down.
“Now, wait, look at that over there…”