Failed To Abandon the Villain - Chapter 21

Reinhardt possessed an extraordinary ability: he could cast powerful magic that even multiple wizards working together couldn’t dispel, all without chanting or elaborate gestures—just the slightest movement of his fingers.

The wizards only realized they had foolishly picked a fight with someone they never should have challenged after they found themselves in their current state. Reinhardt gazed at them indifferently.

“No answer? If you’re not going to use your tongue, should I pluck them out one by one for you?”

“N-no, sir!”

The wizards hastily replied, trembling.

It no longer mattered how young the new Tower Master was or when he had awakened his powers. Every wizard present could clearly feel the murderous aura and sheer madness radiating from him.

Their pride was shattered—preserving their lives was the only thing that mattered now. They had no desire to be impaled on an ice spear and displayed like decorations on a wall.

“That’s better. And what do you do while eating?”

“W-we don’t even touch dogs?”

A young wizard, desperate to survive, stammered out an answer.

“Are you calling me a dog?”

“N-no, my lord! We would never disturb you!”

As Reinhardt smirked and slightly lifted his fingers, the young wizard fell to his knees and screamed in panic.

For a moment, Reinhardt glimpsed the survival instincts of the young wizard, whose quick reaction made him chuckle darkly.

“Well said. You can mess with dogs, but not with me.”

“Yes, sir. I understand.”

“Good.”

Satisfied, Reinhardt nodded and casually clenched and opened his fist.

A dull bang echoed through the air, and something fragmented began to fall from the sky in bloody chunks, landing with sickening splatters.

“…Flesh?”

One of the youngest wizards whispered his horrified question aloud, unable to comprehend what he was seeing.

The wizards all turned to look. The figure of the gray-robed wizard, who had been pinned to the wall by an ice spear, was now missing most of its body—only the arms and legs remained. The head and torso were completely gone.

“A promise is a promise.”

Reinhardt smiled gently at the stunned wizards. Unfortunately, his blood-soaked expression could hardly be called kind.

He casually wiped the blood off his body with a flick of his hand, cleaning himself effortlessly.

“You can finish your meals before reporting to me, can’t you?”

“Huh? Y-yes… yes, my lord…”

Meliar, a royal court wizard, nodded frantically as he sat slumped on the ground. Reinhardt gave him a soft smile.

“Oh.”

With a small exclamation, Reinhardt snapped his fingers three times in the air. The scattered chunks of flesh rose into the air, slowly reassembling themselves. Piece by piece, they formed back into the figure of the gray-robed wizard, whose body became whole once more. The man let out a weak, gurgling breath as he reappeared.

The wizards stared, dumbfounded.

“Time-reversal magic?”

“No way…”

What they had just witnessed was something they believed only existed in legends. Seeing it unfold before their eyes filled them with awe, even as they trembled with fear.

The new Tower Master was on a completely different level. Everyone present understood this now.

“There won’t be a second time, so behave, alright?”

Leaving those parting words, Reinhardt and his companion, Caspellios, vanished into thin air.

“…Who the hell was it that said the new Tower Master was just a naïve, low-level kid with no sense of the real world?”

It was a long time after Reinhardt’s departure that a middle-aged wizard asked this question, his voice dripping with disbelief.

A young wizard, who had been lying face-down on the ground trembling, slowly raised his head, his entire body shaking.

“T-that… would be me…”

The young wizard, trembling, stretched out a piece of flesh he had been holding in his palm and offered it forward. Somewhere in the distance, a voice muttered disdainfully, “What a cruel bastard.” The young wizard shrank at the sound, his body stiffening with fear.

In the end, though the scene was gruesome and horrifying, no one had actually died. Well, except for the person who had died—but was brought back.

The wizards painstakingly pulled their impaled comrades down from the walls, using healing magic as they began to clean up the bloodied hall. Their faces were all vacant, their eyes hollow with shock and disbelief.

As for the man in the gray robe, he didn’t even scream. Instead, he shuddered as the horrifying pain he had endured, etched deeply into his body and mind, replayed itself over and over in his head.

“I… survived…”

Muttering faintly, the man in the gray robe collapsed, losing consciousness. The memory of what had happened was something he would never forget—a nightmare that would haunt him for the rest of his life.

***

As Reinhardt disappeared, Valetta resumed her meal with a relaxed expression. However, the loud thuds of the glass walls shaking under the force of a strong wind made her frown.

“Even if it’s high up, this place is way too flimsy.”

The thuds came again, louder this time. As the buttery aroma of the roasted goat leg wafted to her, Valetta reached for it but then paused, turning her head.

“…Oh.”

A small gasp escaped her lips as she remembered something—or rather, someone—she had completely forgotten about. Hastily, she stood up.

Caught up in her standoff with Reinhardt, she had summoned Jin earlier and then completely neglected him.

“My apologies…”

Valetta approached the glass wall with an embarrassed expression. Judging by the gusts, it seemed Jin had been the one creating the wind. Feeling guilty, she opened her mouth to apologize again.

Before she could, the furious hawk-like spirit flapped its wings furiously, conjuring another whirlwind.

Three massive whirlwinds, each twice her height, materialized in the empty air and slammed directly against the glass walls of the Sky Chamber.

Despite the powerful gusts—strong enough to destroy an ordinary house—the glass walls barely shuddered.

“…Guess this tower’s sturdier than I thought.”

Her earlier impression of its frailty instantly reversed. Valetta sighed. Jin had every right to be angry—she had summoned him, completely forgotten about it, and then even sat down to eat.

“I’m really sorry.”

“Do you take me for a fool? Last time you summoned me and then dismissed me without warning, and now you ignore me? Even though I’m not even your contracted spirit, I still answer your call—how can you be so heartless?”

Jin’s thunderous voice boomed in her head, making Valetta wince and laugh awkwardly.

“So it’s true that you can’t summon spirits unless you’re contracted to them,” she mused to herself, surprised.

Valetta honestly hadn’t given it much thought. She called his name, and he appeared—so she’d simply gone ahead with her requests, paying whatever price he demanded.

Smiling apologetically, she tried to soothe the now seemingly sulking spirit.

“I’ll be more careful next time, Jin.”

Surprisingly, Jin’s rage subsided a little at her sincere apology. Spirits were used to humans puffing up their chests and acting arrogantly, but this woman wasn’t like that.

Jin’s sharp hawk-like eyes scrutinized her for a moment before he let out a snort of air.

“Fine. So, what do you need this time, summoning me to this cursed place?”

“I want to leave here. Can you come inside?”

“This is the Tower of those wretched magicians, isn’t it? It’s protected by spells that keep spirits out. This place is a den of unnatural beings that siphon off nature’s power for themselves. Of course I can’t enter.”

Jin’s curt reply revealed a prickly personality that Valetta hadn’t fully noticed before. Prickly? No, more like sandpaper-level abrasive. She nodded, though. She hadn’t really expected him to be able to enter.

“But you—what were you thinking, summoning me into a sealed space like this? Not that summoning me in the first place was anything close to normal.”

“Is summoning a spirit usually complicated?”

“Of course. Normally, only contracted summoners can summon spirits by name. And even they have to go through the trouble of drawing summoning circles and performing rituals to connect with nature.”

“Like summoning a water spirit by calling it from inside a body of water?”

Her indifferent tone as she referenced the cliché methods often found in novels made Jin pause, staring at her with newfound surprise.

“Exactly! People climb to mountaintops or travel to storm-ravaged regions to draw summoning circles just to summon spirits like me!”

Jin launched into a proud explanation of his own magnificence, but Valetta only half-listened. To her, it all still felt surreal—more like a scene from a novel than something that was actually happening to her.

Perhaps that was why she had spent ten years not bothering to remember anyone’s name, or why she could watch people die in front of her without feeling a thing.

“Not that I ever thought going back to my original world was an option,” she reflected, her memories of that time blurry and faint now.

“Is there any other way to summon you inside here?”

“If you’re capable enough, you could contract with a spirit, which would allow you to summon it inside.”

“And if I don’t want to form a contract?”

“Well… with your level of affinity for spirits—being able to summon me by name—you might be able to draw a summoning circle and perform a formal summoning within the Tower. But honestly, it’s nearly impossible. No spirit has ever been successfully summoned inside the Tower before.”

Jin tilted his head in thought, then chuckled as if dismissing the idea.

“No, it’s definitely impossible.”

“A summoning circle, huh…”

Valetta recalled reading about it in a book once. Honestly, she’d only called Jin’s name because she found drawing the circle too tedious. When he appeared anyway, it had been a pleasant surprise.

“Should I give it a try?”

With a casual attitude, she began looking around for a pen and paper.

“Nothing here, huh.”

The only things in the room were a bed and the food Reinhardt had prepared and left on the table. Valetta frowned.

It had been a perfect opportunity to attempt a summoning before Reinhardt returned.

Standing idly, she suddenly shifted her gaze toward the table, her eyes narrowing thoughtfully. Then, without hesitation, she strode over to the table, grabbed a knife, and roughly wiped it clean with a napkin.

Next, she grabbed the hem of her dress with one hand and, holding the knife vertically, drove it straight into the fabric.

Riiiiip.

The expensive, finely woven dress tore apart, and Valetta carelessly tossed the strip of fabric onto the floor. Taking the knife again, she then lightly sliced the tip of her finger.

Blood welled up immediately, red and glistening against the sharp blade.

“What on earth are you doing now?”

Jin’s voice boomed in her head, filled with exasperation, but Valetta paid him no mind. She dropped to the floor, sitting cross-legged, and began drawing a circle on the strip of white fabric using the blood trickling from her finger.

“I’ll try summoning you again, just like you suggested,” she said flatly.

“You fool.”

The transparent hawk-like spirit hovering outside the glass wall shook its head in disbelief, its expression exasperated and exhausted.