First Light (5)
Reed had insulted the head of the household as well.
To Phoebe, it sounded like he was implying that she had not received proper education.
She could bear insults to herself, but she couldn't bear it when the head of the household was insulted.
That's why Phoebe planned to kill Reed first if she were to kill anyone.
But Reed just laughed.
"What an interesting plan."
It seemed as trivial as a puppy's antics.
"However, there's a major flaw in your plan."
"..."
"The moment you reveal your intent to kill is the moment you take revenge. If you show your murderous intent to someone before then, your revenge plan is bound to be exposed soon."
What was this man talking about?
He was calmly giving advice even though she had just said she would kill him first.
Phoebe looked up at Reed with a dumbfounded expression.
His demeanor had changed from before.
The man who had initially been so hateful now, for some reason, seemed to overlap with someone else.
Someone who was so precious... her first light.
"You have to live if you want to take revenge."
"Get lost..."
"In this hellish world, you have to know how to survive even if people point fingers at you for being ugly. Only then can you laugh in the end."
"Don't spout nonsense to me... just get lost."
Desperately shaking her head, fearing the contamination of her memories, she refused.
"I said get lost!"
Her emotions exploded.
Phoebe rushed toward Reed.
She knocked him down and pinned his shoulders with her knees.
She reached out with both hands to strangle his neck.
But that was all.
She couldn't strangle Reed's neck.
"If you kill me, that's the beginning."
As Phoebe had said, it would have been the beginning of her revenge.
But she couldn't start.
Her head was full of hesitation.
Her hands gripping his neck trembled weakly.
Reed flinched.
Phoebe then backed away as if frightened.
In the end, she timidly retreated from Reed's movements, which were many times weaker.
"Why don't you begin your revenge? If you killed me, that would have been the beginning, right?"
"I don't know. I... I don't know what's what..."
Phoebe couldn't look into Reed's eyes.
There had been only one person who stared so clearly at her ominous eyes.
Head of the household.
Yes.
Phoebe felt the presence of the head of the household from Reed.
That's why she was so confused.
"Then don't start. Just live for now."
Reed said.
"Live disgracefully and find the answer. That's the advice I can give."
It was the same thing he had said just a few minutes ago, but it sounded different to her ears now.
What she had thought was a sarcastic remark now felt like sincere advice.
Phoebe, drawn to his voice, walked over to the tray of food Reed had brought.
Revenge.
She would live to take revenge for the head of the household.
She ate to live.
She began to pick up the food with both hands, not using a fork or knife.
She couldn't taste it, but she felt her empty insides filling up, and a belated hunger tormented her mind.
Reed, who had been constantly belittling her, didn't say anything even when Phoebe ate messily.
He just quietly watched her eat.
Phoebe's movements, clutching the cold food with both hands, gradually became disheveled.
She choked as if her throat was blocked, but it wasn't a sudden seizure.
"Ugh... Ugh..."
It was the sound of collapsing.
The sorrow that had been blocked by a dam of venom and hatred crumbled.
Phoebe was heartbroken.
She hated the people who mocked and gossiped about the person she admired.
Above all, she hated herself for not even being able to argue and just watching.
She felt so ashamed that she wanted to die.
With such a self-defeating mindset, she had only thought about taking as many people with her as possible.
But she would live.
As he said, she would survive disgracefully and take her revenge.
"Ugh... Ugh..."
She couldn't stop the sorrowful sound coming from her mouth.
She forced the food soaked in salty tears into her mouth.
And so, Phoebe became a part of the Silence Tower.
* * *
Tower of Black Sky.
Freesia had always set up a system so that the tower could run on its own even when she wasn't there.
It was because she hated working.
Freesia, who was exceptionally skilled at bossing others around, maintained her dignity to perfectly run that system.
However, it didn't mean she was completely idle.
As the tower master, she couldn't avoid having annoying conversations or keeping up appearances with people she had no interest in.
There was nothing she could do about her nature when she couldn't find a solution even with her cunning mind.
This was the first time she had thrown everything away.
She had sent representatives to the tower master meetings, and whenever there was a need, she sent Tongyang Ma-gun as her proxy.
Ma-gun, who was now handling everything on her behalf, came into her office and said:
"Tower Master, the Silence Tower Master is..."
"Tell him I don't want to because I'm completely naked."
"What does that have to do with..."
"You should get the gist. Right?"
The magic army rubbed his eyes as if he had seen something wrong and looked at Freesia.
She was wearing the same clothes.
He sighed and went back.
As her secretary, the magic army could easily notice.
The reason she was showing such a lazy appearance now was because of the Silence Tower Master.
She was clearly avoiding him.
In fact, Freesia was showing such behavior to avoid Reed.
She was uncomfortable with him.
It wasn't a bad feeling.
Nor was it a good feeling.
She couldn't meet Reed carelessly because that emotion, which she couldn't even understand herself, was too big a variable for her.
The origin of that emotion was when she found Reed in the tower.
When she saw Reed with one arm cut off, Freesia was furious.
'I was scared.'
A long time ago.
When she had a tiny bit of humanity left in her, she felt that fear.
The most frightening thing to her, who couldn't experience the realm of death, was not her own death but the death of others.
The emptiness of having everything precious disappear and being left alone.
When even that humanity disappeared, she didn't give her affection to anyone.
But she ended up giving her affection to Reed.
Because of that, she felt human emotions for the first time in decades.
As soon as Freesia saw the severed arm, she was obsessed with the idea of saving Reed.
However, healing the wound with magic was still nearly impossible.
That's why Freesia decided to use her own blood.
However, it wasn't easy for an ordinary mage to endure the pain unless they were a heroic knight like Adonis.
Freesia fiddled with his nerves to make it less painful.
It was difficult for her to face Reed, who wore the mask of a malicious woman and trampled on him painfully.
'How many people have had this kind of feeling before?'
If there hadn't been a single time since her humanity disappeared, that's a lie.
It hadn't happened once since becoming a tower master, and there had been many times before that.
But if there was such a situation, there was only one solution.
She made an absurd decision to kill the person who made her feel that way.
But what should she do when that's not even the answer?
'I'm annoyed.'
It was even more annoying because she couldn't ask someone else to find the answer.
In the end, it was a problem Freesia had to solve.
"Ah~. Annoying."
Freesia, sitting diagonally on a wide chair, sighed as she looked at the sky.
She didn't like having to think about a man, rather than her research or death.
She got up, thinking of taking a light stroll.
That's when it happened.
"…Hmm."
A sinister energy approached.
It was natural for the Tower of Black Sky to be full of death and pain.
But she felt something with an even stronger presence than that.
She didn't like that it tried to hide its presence on such a subject.
"You dare to enter my tower without fear and try to hide yourself?"
Freesia's hair twitched.
The massive mana inside her made the ground tremble.
"’Come out’."
With a short command, the vibrations spread.
As the huge gong sound rang out and the dark curtain lifted, the figure was revealed.
It had a human-like shape.
The constantly changing appearance, whether old, young, female, or male, made Freesia doubt her eyes for a moment.
It wasn't an illusion that deceived the eyes.
The entity itself was that incomplete.
-Indeed. A woman worthy of being called the continent's greatest mage. To the extent of revealing my appearance.
"It's not because you're the continent's greatest scoundrel?"
Freesia mocked and quietly warned him.
"This is not a place for non-existent things like you to move about. Get out of here right now when I'm in a good mood."
-Can I do that?
Her eyes glowed red.
"No."
Following her hand, the ground stirred and soared upwards.
"Eat this."
Crash!!
A dragon's head emerged, breaking the floor.
The incomplete being swallowed the entire spot where it stood.
The dragon's head lay across her office.
"Tower Master, what's going on... uh!"
The magic army was shocked by the dragon's head.
Freesia gestured for him to leave by waving her hand.
The dragon's mouth contained an acidic liquid that could melt a person in three seconds.
If it stayed like this, it would melt him.
'That won't happen.'
However, Freesia didn't think it would happen.
She sensed that he was an extraordinary person from their first meeting.
Scratch-scratch!
The sound of the dragon's head splitting could be heard.
A green light leaked out from various spots and eventually exploded.
Freesia's shadow created a wall that deflected all the fragments.
"Rise."
With a dignified word that didn't match her young voice.
At her command, magical circles appeared everywhere.
Freesia's skeleton knights, Dullahan, commonly known as high-level undead, rushed toward the broken part of the dragon's head.
They were named among the ones she controlled.
But even they were not enough to stop him.
The named ones' hard skeletons melted like slime.
-I heard you were a lazy tower master, but you weren't just playing around all this time.
"You're pretty strong, huh?"
Freesia looked at the man with interest.
Fighting an opponent whose information hasn't been properly grasped is forbidden.
However, Freesia got up from her seat and began to walk toward him.
She intended to engage in close combat.
-If you're coming to me with the intention of dying, it's better not to come. I don't intend to accommodate that purpose.
"Huh? What the hell are you talking about? You're more of a lunatic than I imagined."
-I already know that what you, who regard the infinite life force that life cannot have, as a curse desire for death.
The incomplete being laughed.
Freesia clicked her tongue, pretending to be offended.
She acted cheekily, but the man's face was full of confidence.
It was so annoying as if he was seeing right through her.
'There's something.'
Her intuition told her.
That incomplete being knew everything.
-I was the one who shared knowledge with the Vulcan family to create you.
"…!"
Freesia's eyes filled with strength.
The infinite life flowing in her blood, the ability that felt like a curse to her who couldn't die no matter what she did, was created by that man.
"Are you proud of your failure?"
-Failure? The information I gave is all accurate. I never intended to create an Eternal Hole in the first place. I needed a failed work.
Her face contorted even more as he claimed she had played right into his hands.
Her reason was about to fly away with anger, but Freesia didn't recklessly rush in.
The incomplete being continued to speak.
-Broken Ring that Defies Fate and the Eternal Hole. One is infinite life, and the other is infinite magic power. If that child has infinite magic power, you have a life force more tenacious than this world.
"So, you made this messed-up body, huh?"
-It's because I have a great purpose. If that purpose is fulfilled, I will grant you death.
"Do you have what I've been searching for for over 100 years?"
-I always have a solution. That way, there's no backfiring in my plans.
Was what this man said true?
Freesia couldn't tell.
"What do you want me to do?"
-There's only one thing I want. The death of a little girl named Rosaria Adeleheights Roton. I need that child's death for Plan B.
As soon as she heard that, Freesia snorted.
"Listen carefully."
Freesia put her middle finger and thumb together.
"It's a zero."
Snap!
When she snapped her fingers, shadows wrapped around the incomplete being.
Tik-tik-tik!
Dozens of skeletons in the shadow reached out and grabbed the shadow wrapped around the incomplete being, dragging it to the ground.
The incomplete being disappeared like that.
Freesia didn't know where the world beyond the shadows led.
But the man will escape from the shadow.
Her intuition told her.
Freesia sat back in her chair.
"Ah."
It's annoying.
There are too many trash in this world.
There's only one body to catch all those trash.
What can she do if it's difficult?
She needs to die quickly.
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