The Villainous Mage King Has No ShameCh18 - only in passing

Edited by Iseul

Leonel was staring rather intently, watching as Julian strapped his lame leg into the blueiron armor. The inquisitor stood with his arms crossed and leaned against Julian’s desk. The man was rather tall, his hulking figure made Julian’s beloved house seem exceptionally small. X1qKYf

When Julian glanced up, he noticed that Leonel was still busy looking at him. “If you keep staring, I’ll start to feel shy.”

Leonel scoffed and rolled his eyes. He fixed the straps around his chest and adjusted the witch slayer that sat against his back. “Hurry up. Sun’s about to go down at any minute now.”

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“It’s barely past noon.” Julian gritted his teeth as he stood from the cot. He tested his balance on his right leg, wondering if this was the best of ideas. His mage circuits were still feeling drained from purging Leonel’s corruption. A sigh escaped his lips, but he supposed that he would just have to make do for now.

The entirety of Gostven had mobilized to search for the missing kid. While Julian did not care so much about the likes of disappearing children (especially one annoying little Freddie), he wasn’t about to give up his good reputation so soon. Z8 0hX

Thus, Julian had nagged the inquisitor to join him on the endeavor. What he hadn’t expected was for the overgrown man child to readily agree.

Julian glared at the offensively tall man, and decided that he disliked the judgmental deadpan expression that seemed permanently plastered on Leonel’s face. The doctor strolled over and glared at the witch slayer. “Why are you bringing this terrible thing?” Julian poked at the blade and shuddered. Even sheathed, he could feel cold emitting from the black steel. “Are you planning to kill me when my guard is down? Perhaps dispose of my remains when no one is looking?”

Leonel gave him an incredulous look and opened the front door, only to let go right as Julian walked up to it. Julian flinched, almost getting smacked right in the face. He grimaced at the inquisitor’s childish actions but decided not to scold him any further.

The two of them made an odd pair; a blueiron armor-wearing mage and an inquisitor venturing together into the woods, in search of one lost kid.

Spring was finally coming into summer properly, heat swelling with humidity. Julian groaned and fanned himself for little merit. Meanwhile the young man at his side didn’t utter a single word of complaint, completely unaffected by the heat. He matched Julian’s pace with ease. The inquisitor lazily scanned the forest trails, searching for hints.

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

Julian still couldn’t quite understand why this inquisitor was even an inquisitor. Leonel didn’t seem religious, nor did he particularly care about mages. Was it perhaps for social status, or did his family maybe force him? Random theories kept Julian’s mind busy and amused.

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That too, was a possibility, but Julian wasn’t there to discuss horrible outcomes that the dumb kid might have faced. He frowned, forcing his visage to appear genuinely disturbed. “Be a little more optimistic, won’t you?”

“Hard to be.” Leonel raised a finger and pointed at broken branches and footprints among the dirt. “These foolish villagers are just searching without any proper care or communication. They’re just muddying up any tracks left behind by the child.”

Julian sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. The inquisitor did have a point. As much as Julian wasn’t willing, he knew that it was best to cast a spell to air their search efforts. It wasn’t as if the villagers weren’t aware of his power, they’d probably be more upset if he hadn’t at least tried to use his magic to help out.

The doctor held out his hand, thumb and middle finger pinched together. His eyes closed. His eyes closed, a blue light unraveled from his fingertips like a string of yarn. It spread out into multiple tendrils, shooting out in roughly a dozen different directions. Julian, who was familiar with Freddie’s essence, had a general idea of what he was searching for. He could differentiate the child from the other villages that were out on the search. ekacgP

The spell stretched and stretched and Julian was beginning to feel dizzy until—

His eyes flew open. The doctor swayed on his feet, reaching up to hold his spinning head.

“Did you find anything?” Leonel asked, his large hand circled Julian’s thin bicep to hold him steady. He didn’t even move away when Julian leaned against him for support.

“Yeah.” Julian’s eyes were closed, his forehead resting against the inquisitor’s arm. To think a simple scrying spell would drain him to this point…pathetic. He blamed Leonel, whose injury took a substantial amount of Julian’s mana reserves to heal. “Found a trail of fear left by our little brat. But I can’t tell the time. It could be from five minutes ago. Could be a day old.” KGhnws

Even when the doctor leaned against Leonel’s form, the inquisitor barely felt any weight. Not only was Julian terribly thin, but his complexion didn’t look so good; pale, face glistening with sweat. Leonel pitied the pained expression on the doctor’s face. Just a little bit. He had to resist the urge to just pick up Julian and carry him.

Leonel looked away and kept his gaze on forest trails and tall trees, trying to ignore the person who leaned against him. “Better than nothing. Lead the way.”

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With a sharp intake of air, the doctor steadied himself and fixed his eyeglasses. He shamelessly kept a hand on the inquisitor and used him like a giant walking stick, leaning against Leonel for balance when he felt light-headed. Privately, Julian wondered if it would have been better to leave his blueiron armor at home. That way, he would have had more mana to expend for spells.

Alas, Julian was better off with his blueiron armor, because the terrain got rougher later on. FVe9ri

After reaching the end of the spell, Leonel was able to pick up the boy’s tracks. It was several hours old, according to the inquisitor, but it was better than nothing. They followed it to a steep decline, where the kid had rolled down.

Things, however, did not bode well. For they were led to the corpse of a man. Crows flew away at their approach. The dead man had already been disemboweled, his organs trailing out like a mess of fleshy bloodied strings. Animals had their feast, flies buzzing around.

“What do you have here?” Julian hummed pleasantly as he raised his sleeve to cover his nose from the stench.

Leonel glanced at the corpse quickly and then at their surroundings. BHTWuc

The corpse, though a mess, was not that old. It was only left in such a disgraceful state thanks to the workings of animals. The eyeballs, however, hadn’t been pecked out crows, which was likely due to the abnormally glassy sheen that remained even after death. Such a phenomenon could sometimes be observed in mages that die while spell casting. The bits of mana concentrated in the eyes linger, making it unappealing for animals to eat. The doctor made note of this.

Julian was unwilling to touch the corpse and only made observations from above. The chest had been ripped open with animal teeth, but it also exposed broken ribs that bore the marks of a blade’s devastating thrust.

Curious, Julian held his palm above the corpse and cast a quick and straightforward spell. A light blue glow enveloped the dead man briefly before dispersing.

The dead mage’s circuits were fried at the moment of death. The culprit was an inquisitor. But not Leonel, for he had been with Julian the entire time. 4WQyPM

Julian raised a brow at his companion. “…Were you expecting some friends of yours to swing by town?”

Leonel joined Julian’s side, leaning closer to the corpse for better inspection. He crossed his arms, a complicated expression haunted his visage with lips pulled into a deep frown. He had a feeling that he knew this man. But the corpse’s features were so mangled that it was difficult to tell for certain.

The inquisitor knelt by the corpse and began to peel apart bloodied rags, looking for a mark just to be sure. Sure enough, there was a mark tattooed above on his chest, just above the heart. It seemed to be a flame that hovered over a coat of arms.

Julian cocked his head. “Oh? The Fallen Embers Alliance?” 89O2kN

“You’ve heard of them?” Leonel asked offhandedly. Though, he supposed that any mage would know of them.

“Only in passing.” Julian shrugged. “But something tells me that this mark means something more to you than just the Fallen Embers Alliance.” Intrigued, the doctor inspected Leonel’s expression, amused by this way his brows were furrowed so deeply in thought.

“Yes,” Leonel said with a scowl and sigh. “It means that we ought to get out of here as soon as possible.”

“What?” Julian felt like he was missing something. “What do you mean we need to get out of here?” sKxN8d

Before Leonel could explain, a horn was sounded, indicating that the boy, Freddie, had been found. Julian sighed and ran a hand through his messy brown locks. “It appears that they didn’t even need us in the first place.” But Julian had long lost interest in Freddie’s case. Instead, he turned back to Leonel and asked, “What were you saying earlier?”

“…Let’s head back for now,” Leonel said. Blue eyes veered about, looking a bit lost. His mind was clearly wandering. “We’ll have to prepare to leave as soon as possible. This guy,” Leonel motioned to the dead man, “likely brought along with him some unwelcome guests.”

Chrysanthemum Garden.

Author: Merry…Christmas Eve! Is that right? T u T I can’t really tell because timezones are weird and people don’t celebrate Christmas in China so it’s hard to tell! HJZcUu

As much as I would love to give you guys something special for the holiday seasons, unfortunately this is an extremely busy and exhausting time for me ; u ; so I have some bad news. I’ll be taking a semi-hiatus from the next week onward, up to the end of January. For this period of time, I’ll only be uploading one chapter per week on Tuesdays. In the meantime I hope to prepare more art and gearing up for new extra content in the future!! T o T so please stay tuned…!