Failed To Abandon the Villain - Chapter 17

Moments later, Reinhardt slid a dagger across the table toward her. It was crude and unremarkable, its sheath covered with strange runic inscriptions.

“This is my gift to you. Keep it close—never let it out of your reach,” he said.

Valetta glanced at the dagger with a wary expression before casting a suspicious look at Reinhardt.

“…What’s with this dagger?”

“If anyone bothers you, don’t hesitate. Just stab them in the eye with it,” he said in a calm, casual tone, as though he were offering her a mundane piece of advice. His serenely folded eyes betrayed the chilling brutality of his words.

“They’ll die,” he added matter-of-factly.

“You don’t need to worry about anything, my master. I’ll take care of all the consequences,” Reinhardt said, taking a leisurely sip of his tea as if he had just given her a helpful tip.

Valetta watched him silently, then picked up her now-cold teacup and took a sip. She didn’t bother responding.

Reinhardt, however, seemed perfectly satisfied as he slipped the dagger into the inner lining of her sleeve. His smile widened with clear contentment as Valetta let out a heavy sigh.

“…Fine,” she replied grudgingly. There was little point in arguing with him; her chances of winning such a battle of wills were slim at best.

Reinhardt rested his chin in his hand, watching Valetta with an unwavering gaze as she half-heartedly sipped her tea. The intensity of his stare was so persistent that she eventually set the cup down with a sigh of irritation.

“What?” she asked.

“Aren’t you curious about the writing on the dagger, my master?”

“They’re runes, aren’t they?” Valetta replied dismissively.

“Yeah, I just thought it was odd that you didn’t ask what’s written on it.”

Reinhardt’s cheerful smile was almost too bright, making Valetta hesitate to ask further. She couldn’t shake the unease that maybe—just maybe—he had cast some bizarre spell on the dagger.

Her wary eyes flicked to the dagger nestled in her sleeve.

“It’s not going to explode or anything, is it?” she asked, her voice tinged with suspicion. If anyone were capable of such a thing, it would undoubtedly be Reinhardt.

The reason? Simple—because he was Reinhardt.

At her question, Reinhardt burst into a laugh, the sound clear and melodious. Paired with his beautiful face, it was dazzling enough to make Valetta turn her head away.

“That face is dangerous,” she thought.

For ten years, she had trained herself not to be fooled by that smiling face. Every morning, she had whispered the same reminder to herself: Don’t trust that smile.

“Of course not,” Reinhardt said, his eyes curving gently like melting snow.

Valetta regarded him with a mixture of unease and resignation. Reinhardt was, without question, the only person she knew who could make a smile look so unnervingly sinister.

“It’s simply enchanted with a permanent spell that can break a mage’s barrier,” he explained.

“Barrier?”

“Mages instinctively generate protective barriers when they feel their life is threatened. The dagger I gave you can break through that.”

“Oh…”

“And if you aim for the eye, their mana will scatter as well. No need to hesitate,” Reinhardt murmured lazily, propping his chin on his hand.

Well, obviously their mana would scatter—being stabbed in the eye means they’re practically dead, Valetta thought, shaking her head to dispel the troubling idea.

Still, as unsettling as his explanation was, it was better to have the dagger than to be defenseless.

“Got it,” she said curtly, standing up from her seat. The confinement of the room was starting to suffocate her, and she needed to find a way out. At the very least, she needed to summon a spirit to protect herself.

Reinhardt rose from his chair as well, watching her with a curious glint in his eye.

“What?” Valetta asked, narrowing her eyes.

“I’m just going to check out another part of the tower,” she added.

“Ah, of course. Call me anytime, my master,” Reinhardt said with a knowing smile.

Valetta shot him a brief glance before turning away, ignoring his parting words.

“I’ll be waiting,” he added, his voice trailing after her as she closed her eyes, choosing to block him out entirely.

* * *

As Valetta thought about wanting to leave, her body wavered for a moment, and then her surroundings abruptly flipped. Her vision shifted, and she realized she was no longer in Reinhardt’s room on the top floor.

The place where she stood now wasn’t a corridor but a spiraling, arched staircase. The walls around her were made of dull gray bricks, and the enclosed space felt oppressively narrow.

“Jin,” she called, attempting to summon the spirit she had relied on before. However, there was no response.

Typically, when summoning a spirit of wind, even indoors, there would be a slight breeze. But here, there wasn’t even the faintest gust. It seemed impossible to call upon spirits within the confines of the Mage’s Tower.

She hadn’t expected much, anyway. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she recalled a similar detail from the novel.

“The Mage’s Tower is suffused with a power that inherently opposes spirits,” she remembered reading.

Valetta sighed and cautiously began descending the endless spiral staircase.

There were no doors, no windows—just the same uneven gray bricks surrounding her on all sides.

“Eighty-sixth floor?”

After descending for a while, she reached a landing where the staircase continued downward on one side, while a space with an ornate door stood on the other. Above the semi-circular doorway, a stone plaque read “86th Floor.”

As she approached the doorway, it swung open on its own. Light spilled into the previously dim staircase, and Valetta hesitated, peeking inside before stepping in cautiously.

The air was thick with the smell of books. The room was a library. Shelves upon shelves of books lined the walls, and several robed figures were quietly perusing the collection or flipping through pages as they stood.

As Valetta stepped fully into the library, the door behind her closed on its own. She paused, taking in her surroundings.

“…It’s so quiet,” she thought, narrowing her eyes.

After a moment of observation, Valetta moved discreetly, slipping between the shelves to avoid attention.

Valetta didn’t really need to hide. However, walking around in a plain dress and soft indoor slippers while everyone else was draped in robes that practically screamed “I’m a mage!” felt embarrassingly out of place.

As she wandered slowly between the bookshelves, voices caught her attention. She froze in place, holding her breath to listen.

“Have you seen the new Master of the Tower? A total greenhorn.”

Valetta stayed silent, her ears tuned to the conversation.

“Right? Think about it. Baltier worked himself to the bone managing this place all these years, and now some child waltzes in and takes over as the Master of the Tower…”

“Is he really the Tower Master? That stupid grin makes him look like a fool. And I heard he brought a Socoro into the Sky Chamber. Has he gone mad?”

Socoro.

Valetta’s brow furrowed at the word. She remembered reading about it—a derogatory term in ancient language used by mages to refer to non-magical humans, implying stupidity. It was a word mages wielded to emphasize their supposed superiority.

“The Sky Chamber? Insane.”

The Sky Chamber—Valetta recognized it immediately. It was the very room she had just been in, located at the peak of the Mage’s Tower, a space surrounded by transparent glass. It was the closest place to nature and a sanctum reserved only for the ruler of the tower and its caretaker, Caspellios.

“I don’t like it. Some wet-behind-the-ears kid doesn’t deserve that position…”

“Apparently, he spent years groveling like a slave in some noble Socoro household. I mean, even if he hadn’t awakened back then, how does someone born to be the Tower Master end up like that?”

Valetta clenched her fists. He didn’t fail to escape. He chose not to leave. Despite being told to run, Reinhardt had stayed. More importantly, he was the Master of the Tower. That much was undeniable, proven by Caspellios bowing his head to him.

They’re going to end up dead at this rate.

Valetta sighed inwardly. She could only hope Reinhardt wouldn’t overhear their words. Not that it would matter much if he did.

“Actually, maybe it doesn’t matter if he hears,” she muttered softly to herself, turning on her heel. Whether they die or not isn’t my problem.

After all, if her memory of the novel was correct, the Mage’s Tower would face a major upheaval sooner or later.

Foolishly, the mages who mocked him didn’t realize Reinhardt had been intentionally ignoring their disrespect. It only took one ill-timed comment from one of them to set him off, and the Tower Master began purging the Mage’s Tower.

As far as Valetta could recall, he ruthlessly dealt with anyone who had spoken out of turn or conspired behind his back.

“That part was glossed over in just a single sentence,” she mused. “I don’t remember the details.”

In any case, it wasn’t her concern.

“And after that, the Mage’s Tower ends up being destroyed at some point too.”

The reason for its destruction? She couldn’t quite remember. It was during a period when Reinhardt didn’t appear in the story, and her interest had been minimal.

Thinking idly, Valetta exited the library and resumed descending the endless spiral staircase. After a while, the effort began to wear on her.

“There’s no way this is how people normally get around, right?”

The lack of anyone else using the staircase strongly suggested that the Mage’s Tower had some sort of teleportation magic system in place. However, it wasn’t as though that helped her. Magic circles required mana to activate, and Valetta had none.

With an irritated stomp on the stone steps, Valetta tilted her head back in frustration.

“Jin! Nereid!” she called, looking around frantically.

She was summoning two high-ranking spirits—Jin, the Spirit of Wind, and Nereid, the Spirit of Water.

Still, no response came. There wasn’t the slightest breeze, nor a single droplet of water to be found. Not even a hint of their presence.

Sighing heavily, Valetta resumed her descent.

“Come to think of it…”

She remembered the Delight Estate’s hidden dealings—particularly the illegal slave trade. If the estate had fallen, what would happen to the slave network Count Delight had controlled? There were prisons on the estate filled with people, many of whom had been kidnapped for this purpose.

“I should find a way to free them too.”

Without caretakers being paid to oversee them, the imprisoned people would likely be left to starve. That alone was enough to make Valetta feel restless as she trudged downward.

After going down for a while, she finally found the next door.

“82nd floor… … .”

Do I really have to walk all the way down to the first floor like this? Valletta sighed. The door on the 82nd floor looked no different from the 86th floor.

As he approached, the door opened. Valetta’s eyes opened wide at the scent of grass that wafted to his nose.

“Oh my god.”

Valletta’s mouth fell open. The room on the 82nd floor was like a wide field. The floor was all grass, and it was divided into sections, and there were many herbs and grasses growing, and it was full of green things.

When I tilted my head back, the sky was bright blue and clouds were floating. The light from the rising sun was strong, but not that hot.

‘Is it magic?’

It looks real too.

‘Can I summon it here?’

“Don’t you know you shouldn’t’t open the door here without permission?”

Valletta turned her head at the sound of a voice she heard while she was lost in the scenery before her eyes.