An Arcanist in Karakura Town 34 (Patreon)

It is a good idea to read around 3~4 chapters prior to this chapter to refresh your memory.

An Arcanist in Karakura Town
Chapter 34

-VB-

When the European magicians came out of their “private” meeting, I was ready to meet them again.

The two inspectors of the Compact stepped out of the room. The toga-wearing elderly woman, Grand Warlock Euphorbenos, spoke first.

“It seems that we have been underestimating the threat you have been facing, Magician Marris,” she spoke with crinkled eye smiles. “With what we know now, what you have been trying to do, as extreme as they seemed to us back in the confederation, makes sense.”

“Does that mean you’ll let me do them?”

Not that it mattered. Without the resources, I was limited to what I had already created with my innate abilities and easily purchased mundane materials. I made a lot, and have done a lot, but I could have done more with more.

If those materials were in Japan, then I would have bought them already and made better bombs, spiritual, magical, and mundane.

It irked me a little that these people, who didn’t deign to know the situation, dedicated to Hidemasa what he could and couldn’t do. Why? I was fighting for my survival here, and they didn’t know. It absolved them of their problems, right?

“... The confederation will not be able to promise anything,” she replied evenly.

What?

“It made sense, you said,” I narrowed my eyes. “But you can’t promise anything? The words do not match in direction and causality, Grand Warlock. I have a Hollow infestation unlike anything before, as you yourself have said.”

She blinked. “So you did know about me.”

“A little,” I lied. I only learned about her when she and the other man were talking to each other in “private,” so stating that I knew about her would be a lie.

-VB-

Euphorbenos.

It was a name that, in the magical side of Greece, Anatolia, Greater Armenia, and Italy, made people shake.

Why would it not? It was the name of emperors, tyrants, sages, and more. Once a loyal noble family to Constantine, Sophia’s family took over much of the magical political sphere after his line stopped being the emperor, and became independent one hundred years before the fall of mundane Constantinople to the Turks.

It was impossible for a student of magic, at least in Europe, to not know about her family.

And to state that he knew “a little” about her family when she could obviously tell that it was a lie? And before that lie, he even questioned her decision.

She also knew that he was not some lackey or petty nobility she could bully around. Handling a Hollow on his own would have him labeled a Warlock. Able to contain one by himself with no help from anyone else put him at her level of power, if not more.

He was, after all, waging a minor war over here in the Far East. He must have no tricks up his sleeves than regular spells.

“... and what if I cannot promise anything?” she asked coolly.

He rolled his eyes. “Then the issue you have not seen yet will come to your doorstep,” he replied as he turned around.

He stepped forward to a basin. She followed and saw some of the symbols carved into it, and some of them had to do with detection.

He cut his thumb and dropped a few drops of blood. Immediately, the room lit up as the basin - a blood-powered artifact - produced a three-dimensional map. It showed … them. The people within Marris’s workshop. She could spot five significant blue spheres; she assumed that it was the three of them and two more he must have somewhere in the workshop. She also noted the red sphere right next to them, which had to be the Hollow. She also noted how the spheres showed the magical strength of the individual. She frowned at how small she was in comparison to Warlock Marris, but the comparison between herself and Hans - a four-to-one ratio in her favor - concerned her. If her strength was far less than that of Marris, then why was he panicking over a few Hollows?

She also felt something. Many kinds of presence were far away from here. Why hadn’t she feel them before? As a well-practiced sensor of all things magical, she should have felt them even before they got within a hundred leagues of her location.

And then the map expanded.

Her face drained when she saw the huge red orbs and yellow orbs. They were … many times greater than Warlock Marris. It was also from the direction she felt those presences from. This artifact was a very detailed and powerful sensor.

“Because there is a war between the Shinigamis, the farriers of the dead, and the Hollows. I don’t know anything about your compact or confederation’s classification,” Warlock Marris grunted. “I’m a newcomer, and most of what I do, I’ve learned by myself through mythological references or mimicking modern technology and natural laws. But I think a visual representation like this works just as well in showing you that I’m not -”

CRACK

The entire warehouse shook.

Sophia looked back to the map and saw one of the red orbs had teleported and struck the warlock’s workshop.

The said magician merely looked irritated.

“Oh, I give you a small opening and you think you can go and do that, punk?” he grumbled under his breath. “And they started their fight way earlier than I expected. Holy shit.”

“What is happening, Marris?” she demanded.

“One of the Shinigamis betrayed his coworkers, and used his magical, spiritual, and technical know-how to forced evolutions for select Hollows working for him.”

O-Oh, dear.

“And one of them just tried to use the small gap in the defense I made to look out of the window, so to speak, to try and get inside. The dumb fucker didn’t think that I would have traps!”

He slammed his bleeding thumb down onto the basin, and she saw the map as something -.

She felt it.

She nearly cried out in horror when she felt magic disintegrate above the workshop, and someone - a powerful someone - get caught up in it. She heard their soul shriek as it broke apart violently.

Sophia Euphorbenos trembled as she stared at the man.

“Y-You just destroyed a soul.” A taboo.

“Only way to stop these motherfuckers,” he crassly responded. “Hide, cover the hole again, please! There’s nothing else to see outside.”

Sophia realized that representative - or was it just servant? - Hidemasa, the man who’d come to Europe at this man’s order - was not present. Where was he? At the same time, she realized that the moment he asked to have the hole in the defense covered, the multiple presences she felt and saw through his map disappear. The map also shut down at the same time.

And yet -.

She flinched when the workshop shook again.

“Don’t worry,” he yawned as he faced her again. “The defense will hold even against a nuke.” He then muttered something about a grim jaw. “Shall we get back to discussing why I should hold back on my extreme actions?”