< Chapter 61 - Entering the Palace #4 >
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Scarlet Viper.
The fifth Rogue Master and currently the great-granddaughter of Elijah Viper, the last Rogue Master.
As she journeys to become the sixth Rogue Master over the decades, she finds herself faced with a great question.
‘What is it? What is that guy? What does he do?’
Yuder Bayer.
He is the second son of the Bayer Counts and the inseparable Cordelia Chase of the Chase Counts. They are now one of the couples of the century known not only in the North but throughout the Kingdom of Cailun.
‘And the black cloak.’
Pink Bomb, the self-proclaimed 6th generation Rogue Master – Cordelia Chase’s assistant and sidekick.
I’m seventeen. My birthday is not far away, so I’ll be eighteen soon.
Height: 180cm, weight: around 70kg.
Black hair and green eyes.
His face is very handsome. To be honest, he is a young man.
From what I’ve observed so far, he has a very calculating personality. He’s a man with a dark heart, like he’s raising dozens of snakes inside him.
Her favorite thing is the Pink Bomb. Her weaknesses are her devastating naming sense and the Pink Bomb. However, it’s hard to see it as a general weakness because you never know how she’ll go berserk if you touch the Pink Bomb.
His physical strength is very strong for his age.
Estimated at least B- and at most B+.
He claims to be a prosecutor, but in actual combat, he uses martial arts.
Very strong stamina.
‘Chivalry’ is often used instead of ‘chivalry’.
Scarlett, who instantly recalled the information she had gathered about Uther, fell into even deeper doubt.
Because I didn’t understand.
‘Could this be the secret child of the Spencer Dukes?’
Or an illegitimate child.
A child born of incest who had to hide his birth.
The reason why I started to fantasize that Count Bayer would be enraged and draw his sword if he heard about it was simple.
Because Uder’s information was so enormous.
“Wait here for a moment. One, two, three. Okay, move quickly while the guard turns the corner.”
First of all, the guards’ movements were perfectly understood.
Of course, even if you observe the movements of external guards, not internal guards, for just one night, it is basic information that even a thief of average skill would be able to figure out and enter, so up until this point, there was nothing particularly strange.
But the problem started after that.
“If you gently press the wall here······.”
“Wow, it’s a secret passage.”
“It leads inside. Let’s go quickly.”
“huh!”
Pink Bomb smiled brightly and listened to Uther’s words as if it were natural, but Scarlett couldn’t do that.
Because I just couldn’t understand it.
‘Why do you know this?’
No, how do you know?
The secret passages in a mansion were usually known only to the head of the family and his successor.
It was an emergency exit in case of an emergency.
But Uther knew all the secret passages of the Spencer Duke’s Red Rose Castle as if it were his own home.
How on earth.
Even the closest person to the log master couldn’t find out this information.
‘Come to think of it, it seems like Pink Bomb already knew about the Palace of Mirrors······.’
Could it be that the two of them had done some preliminary research beforehand?
‘That makes sense, but······.’
But it was still incredibly mysterious that he knew all the secret passages.
‘The previous cases were like that too… Are you saying that the information power is extraordinary?’
It seems like I’ve only just made contact with the blue moon.
It also doesn’t seem to have any connection with the royal capital’s information organization.
‘Surely an independent information network?’
Maybe that could be the case.
They are the children of the 12 northern families.
‘No, but that’s a bit much.’
The story of the 12 northern families making a fuss was told in the north.
Furthermore, the Bayer and Chase Counts, the families of Uder and Cordelia, were not particularly famous for their intelligence or wealth, although they were strong in individual military power.
‘What could it be? What on earth could it be?’
The secret of the black cloak.
The source of the guy’s information power is.
Scarlett, who was racking her brain, suddenly looked to the side. This was because she suddenly became interested in the fourth person in the room, Lucas Hresvelg.
‘How will he react?’
It was strange to anyone who saw that Yuder knew all of the Spencer Duke’s guard routes and even secret passages.
So what does Lucas think about the current situation?
‘If you take it for granted······.’
Could it be that Lucas knows something too?
Something Scarlett herself doesn’t know?
Scarlett, who had changed her target, began to glance at Lucas, and Cordelia burst out laughing at the sight.
‘Uder, Uder. Look at that. It looks like Scarlett is interested in Lucas too. Hehe, our Lucas was kind and handsome. And pure.’
As Cordelia sent him a friendly look, Yuder, whose eyes somehow became sharper, sent her a very brief look.
‘Are you handsome?’
‘He’s handsome. Our Lucas, no matter where you put him, people will say he’s handsome… Aha, is our Yuder upset right now? Because I said Lucas is handsome?’
Uther didn’t bother to answer, and Cordelia, who was laughing quietly again, looked at him.
‘No, well… our house’s Yuder is more handsome, yes. He’s not pure, he’s pitch black, that’s why. No, since it’s pure black, is this also pure?’
‘hmm······.’
Still, perhaps because he had heard that he was more handsome, Uther had a satisfied expression on his face, while Cordelia shook her head as if she was dumbfounded.
‘Sometimes I think it’s really childish.’
‘I don’t want to hear that from Pink Bomb.’
‘Hey, that’s the name you made up?’
As Uther and Cordelia exchanged glances that were almost telepathic, Lucas and Scarlett also glanced at each other and their eyes met.
Scarlett’s red eyes and Lucas’ blue eyes.
Scarlett flinched, and Lucas, like Cordelia’s innocent boy, blushed slightly and looked away.
And the look certainly worked quite well.
‘So cute.’
Scarlett, who had been giggling without realizing it, turned her gaze back to Lucas, and at that moment, Lucas opened his mouth as if trying to shake off his embarrassment.
“That··· Prince Yude.”
“Yes, Prince Lucas.”
When Yuder answered quietly, Lucas asked again in a muffled voice.
“Did you hear the information about the Red Rose Castle from the Master?”
Master.
Scarlett also perked up at Lucas’ question, and Uther nodded.
“Yes, I heard it from my teacher.”
“Ah, indeed······.”
Landius was also famous for exploring ruins all over the world after the Paragon Kingdom incident.
The Castle of the Red Rose was originally an ancient ruin that had been renovated and expanded, so Landius might have known about the secret passage – that was just Lucas’s guess, but it was true that it did provide some sort of answer.
But not for Scarlett.
‘What, what is it? The Master of the Black Cloak? Who is that?’
Surprisingly, not many people knew that Yuder was Landius’s disciple.
Because neither Count Bayer nor Count Chase made any particular rumors.
‘Generally speaking, it should be Count Bayer, right?’
Because it was none other than the swordsman.
It was strange to have a separate teacher when he was one of the ten great kalpas.
‘But… it’s plausible.’
Yuder’s specialty was not swordsmanship, but boxing.
As a disciple of Count Bayer, the swordsman, he should have been a swordsman, so it is possible that he might have had someone else as his teacher.
‘I think I know somehow.’
It was quite unexpected that the children of the twelve northern families would claim to be Log Masters.
But if it is something that has been inherited from someone else.
Someone who could aim for the Log Master – for example, if someone like the descendant of the Ship Master is Uder’s teacher.
‘Everything is explained.’
Not only did Yuder use martial arts instead of swordsmanship, but he and Cordelia also declared themselves Rogue Masters and had their own powerful intelligence network.
‘Who could it be?’
The teacher of Uther and Cordelia.
The one who led these two to the path of becoming Log Masters!
I couldn’t find out from Uther and Cordelia.
Uther wasn’t the type of person who could be questioned in a leading way, and Cordelia was always there with Uther.
In that case, the only one who could be the source of information was Lucas.
‘Lucas Hresvelg.’
Scarlett licked her lips lightly and looked at Lucas with eyes full of desire. At those eyes, Cordelia tried hard to suppress her urge to scream “Gyaa-” and turned to look at Uther.
‘Uder, Uder. Look at Scarlett’s face. She seems to have fallen hard for Lucas already. Are you perhaps worried about the difference in status between you and Lucas?’
‘Yeah, no.’
‘Why, that could be possible.’
‘Anyway, no. And since we’re all here, please turn on the lights.’
At the sight of Uther’s gaze, Cordelia expanded her magical light to illuminate the surroundings.
“Ugh.”
Scarlett groaned and frowned at the sudden brightness, and Lucas looked around with narrowed eyes.
A small stone chamber with a diameter of about 5 meters.
The ceiling was quite high, about 3 meters, and in the center of the stone chamber, there were stone pillars about 1 meter high with round pumpkins embedded in them in the four directions: east, west, south, and north.
“That pillar is the palace of mirrors.”
Lucas blinked as Yuder gestured with his hand as if he were a guide.
“It’s a dungeon book, but it’s not in book form?”
“These days, they all make them into books, but ancient dungeon books… no, instant dungeons often had symbols like stone pillars or statues.”
“Indeed… Now that I think about it, I think I saw a similar story in a heroic story I read before.”
He was speaking calmly, but I could tell by looking at his face.
Lucas wanted to run and touch the stone pillar right away.
And Cordelia, being Cordelia, had already laid her hands on the pumpkin.
Uther laughed bitterly and explained to Lucas and Scarlett.
“To enter the Palace of Mirrors, four people must simultaneously breathe energy into the four ambers of each direction. Cordelia has already taken control of the south, so I will take control of the north. You two, take control of the east and the west respectively.”
“All right.”
Lucas, who answered right away, walked briskly, almost running, to the east, and Scarlett also walked quite quickly to the west.
‘Come quickly, quickly.’
Despite Cordelia’s urging gaze, Yuder walked forward with steady, leisurely steps, and opened his mouth again while touching the pumpkin in the north.
“When I count to three, I breathe life into the pumpkin.”
“okay.”
“yes!”
Unlike Cordelia and Lucas who answered right away, Scarlett didn’t say anything, but Uther hadn’t expected Scarlett’s answer in the first place.
I slowly counted the numbers, feeling my heart pounding again.
“One, two-”
“three!”
When Cordelia, who had shouted instead of Uther, breathed life into the pumpkin, Lucas and Scarlett also reflexively breathed life into the pumpkin. It goes without saying that Uther knew better than anyone how Cordelia would act.
And right after that.
The moment when the pumpkin reacted to the energy of four people and began to glow red.
“Good luck.”
At the end of Uder’s low voice, everyone’s vision turned white.
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“Phew.”
After taking a deep breath, Yuder slowly opened his eyes and looked around.
Stone walls and floors.
It was a large stone chamber, just like the one in the original.
‘But it’s a bit different when you see it in person.’
It felt much bigger than what I had seen in the game.
Uder first raised his head and looked at the ceiling.
Strictly speaking, there was no ceiling in the stone chamber. There was nothing to block the view, except for the soft moonlight pouring down from beyond the walls that were connected like cliffs.
‘The area is… about 30 meters long and wide.’
A space so large that it is difficult to use the expression ‘stone chamber’.
Cordelia, Lucas, and Scarlett were nowhere to be seen, but Uther didn’t even think about looking for them.
In the first place, the Mirror Labyrinth was essentially a one-person dungeon, requiring only four people to enter.
‘The level of difficulty also varies greatly from person to person.’
Because of this, the rewards also varied greatly. Since the Palace of Mirrors was originally a dungeon developed for training purposes, the rewards were mainly invisible, such as increased abilities or unlocked potential abilities, rather than material rewards.
‘Lucas… would do well, I’m sure.’
Scarlett is not a future prosecutor for nothing, so she will do well.
Rather, isn’t it Uther himself and Cordelia who are the problem?
‘Why is the Palace of Mirrors called the Palace of Mirrors?’
There was not even a puddle of water inside the stone chamber, let alone a mirror where one could see one’s face.
All there is is a small door in the front.
But this was the Palace of Mirrors, and it was called that for a reason.
‘A fight with oneself.’
The small door at the front opened, and as expected, a man who looked exactly like Yuder himself entered the stone chamber.
“Well, he is handsome after all.”
Uder said, and the ‘Man in the Mirror’ raised both his hands with a sly smile.
And at that action, at the energy in both hands, Yuder smiled bitterly.
‘I wonder if it’s me after all.’
The self that he encountered in the palace of mirrors was not completely identical to his original self.
Because the image reflected in the mirror is bound to be reversed left and right.
‘The self I would have if I had taken a different path.’
Usually, the weapons or techniques used would change, but this time, it seemed like the complete opposite had occurred.
“Gust Wind in the right hand, Fire Wall in the left hand.”
The man in the mirror spoke, and the wind and flames rose at the same time.
A fierce wind blew across the large wall of fire, filling the stone chamber with a fierce wind of flame.
It was extremely difficult to activate two different magics, but that was something that only ordinary people could do.
Yuder Bayer.
A genius at calculations.
“Fuck.”
Uther spoke like Cordelia and kicked the ground, rushing towards the wizard himself.
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Cordelia raised her head. And she swallowed dryly as she looked at the woman in the mirror before her eyes. She had no choice.
Cordelia Chase.
A woman born with wild instincts like a beast.
A person with a genius fighting sense.
The woman in the mirror, holding a long sword instead of a cane, smiled brightly and spread her angelic wings.
Her languidly smiling gestures were as elegant and deadly as those of a feline beast.
“As expected of Cordelia. She’s so pretty.”
Cordelia muttered something to relieve her tension, and soon smiled with her fangs flashing.
As if responding to the angel transformation, she awakened the witch’s power and held the blast line in her hand.
“Come at it.”
Cordelia spoke, and the woman in the mirror answered, flying up with the light wing.
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< Chapter 61 - Entering the Palace #4 > End
