Even at a second glance, Eward’s actions seemed suspicious. Accompanied by a group of suspicious people, he had headed into a building without any signage up front. That alone would have been suspicious enough, but a few burly and vicious thugs were even hanging around to intimidate anyone who got near.
This was definitely a shady location.
Eugene grabbed the doorknob and tried to turn it a few times, but the locked door refused to open. It looked like some kind of magic had been cast on top of the physical locking mechanism. Someone else might have asked themself, should I smash it? But Eugene didn’t even pause to consider.
The stars around his heart shone as Eugene checked the flow of mana that he could feel from the doorknob.
Eugene felt lucky he had started learning magic. If it were in the past, he would have just tried to break through by force, but now he was even able to figure out the structure of the mana that formed this locking spell.
However, just because this was true, it didn’t mean that Eugene felt the need to change his method. It just meant that his usual fallback didn’t require as much power as before. In the end, he was still going to forcefully break through the door.
If Eugene’s accomplishments in magic were higher, that might not have been the case, but at present, Eugene couldn't possibly unlock the spell cast on the door using his own magic.
A visible shroud of mana covered Eugene’s hand, and he then pushed this mana into the locking spell. Thanks to the fact that he was already aware of the structure that the locking spell had taken, it didn’t take much effort to overpower the spell’s weak-point.
Although it might seem obvious to say this, to dismantle a spell using this method, one needs to be able to control their mana as if it were their own hands and feet. Even a master wizard with quite some skill in magic would find this task impossible, but Eugene accomplished it with ease.
Creak.
Although the method might seem crude, the results were undeniable. The doorknob that was twisted open forcefully had completely shattered internally. After confirming that the locking spell had also been broken, Eugene lifted one foot.
Bang.
With a sharp kick, Eugene broke the lock off the door. While this caused the door to swing open and Eugene entered without any hesitation, he still kept his guard up. One of his hands was resting on the hilt of Wynnyd, which Eugene had hanging from his hip.
Just by doing this, his vigilance jumped from merely adequate to almost excessive. As long as his hand was resting on his weapon, he could instantly draw it and have it ready for any situation. Eugene was assured by this.
“...Haaah.”
It was hard to see in front of him as the whole floor had been filled with a thick cloud of smoke. The very air felt sticky and clung to the back of his throat, the smoke having a sweet yet savory taste to it. It numbed his senses and caused his vision to go slightly dizzy. Eugene circulated the mana from the White Flame Formula throughout his body, and the mild dizziness went away immediately.
“So it’s an opium den[1],” Eugene muttered with a snort of disdain.
Strange sounds were leaking out from the closed rooms around him. It made sense to find such a place on a street like this, but to think that Eward would immediately come here as soon as he was done with his succubus dream had Eugene’s eyes turn cold.
“I can understand needing a place where he could catch his breath, but this is going way too far.”
How could anyone even breathe properly in a place like this? Just the dreams from a succubus alone were enough to weaken and ruin his mind, but if he was huffing drugs in an opium den on top of that, he was practically drilling holes in his own brain.
While clearing the smoke out of his way, Eugene kept moving forward.
“Who are you? How did you get in here?”
“Close the door!”
Men puffing on their drug pipes rose to confront him as he passed by their alcoves. There were humans, beastfolk, and demonfolk — this opium den was practically a forum for racial inclusivity. Eugene gave his heartfelt applause to the men who came staggering towards him.
“If guys like you were born three hundred years ago, the world might have been able to hold our hands together in love and peace,” Eugene praised sarcastically.
One of the men shouted, “What the hell is this bastard talking about?”
Eugene continued, “But don’t think I’ll let you off because of that, you rotten bastards.”
Eugene didn’t draw Wynnyd, nor did he run directly past them. Instead, the stars circling around his heart went into action.
Bambambam!
He instantly created a few magic missiles and sent them piercing through the smoke.
Although they might be high on drugs, the addicts who had risen to confront the intruder were those who were quite confident in their own skills.
Magic missile was just a First-Circle offensive spell. It wasn’t that fast or that strong. So Eugene’s targets dodged the spell with a snort of disdain.
Or at least they tried to dodge it. Although they had immediately reacted to the projectiles with their attempts to evade, the chaotic trajectory of the missiles made it impossible for them to avoid the attacks.
‘They’re way too obvious,’ Eugene observed with disdain.
There was no way that Eugene would get fooled by the evasive movements of guys like these. Truthfully speaking, he was sure he could have hit them even if he cast the spell with his eyes shut.
“Where is Eward?”
“Gaaah…!”
“You don’t need to tell me. I can just look for him myself,” muttering this, Eugene drew Wynnyd from its sheath.
With a chilling hiss, the silvery-blue blade made its appearance. The men who had been sent flying felt their breaths being taken away by this sight. They knew they were going to die. Although Eugene didn’t exude any obvious killing intent, their instincts sensed inevitable doom. They gave up any resistance and just curled up into balls, burying their heads in their arms.
However, Eugene didn’t swing his sword in their direction and instead raised the blade towards the ceiling.
Whoosh!
A fierce breeze engulfed Wynnyd. It was the form of a lesser spirit of the wind, a sylph. But a sylph summoned by Eugene was actually able to create a gust so strong that it was impossible to believe that it was merely a low-ranking spirit.
This was all because he was at the Third Star of the White Flame Formula. Although he was even able to summon intermediate spirits with his current amount of mana, Eugene wasn’t inclined to do so.
He had calculated that it was much better to increase the amount of low-mana-consumption sylphs he summoned, as he had much better control over them, than draining all his mana to summon an intermediate spirit. Eugene had far too much combat ability to put himself in a position where he needed to depend solely on a spirit's power for his own protection.
“Ahhhh…!”
The addicts still scattered on the floor around Eugene stared at him with fearful eyes. Eugene was now standing in the center of a fierce wind storm as he kept Wynnyd in the air.
Roooar!
The storm suddenly scattered. The gusts of wind it sent blowing in all directions scattered the smoke and smashed open all the walls and tightly locked doors on this floor.
“Wh-what the?!”
The drug addicts found in all of the formerly closed rooms let out screams. Eugene swept his eyes over all of these rooms in a single pass. There were a lot of disturbing, lascivious, and just plain disgusting sights, but Eward wasn’t one of them.
There was no need for Eugene to continue searching for Eward all by himself. He had scattered a number of sylphs along with the gusts of wind, and they were now blowing through the entire building. They soon told him where he needed to go. Even as he continued to bottle up his boiling irritation, Eugene headed upwards.
Baaang!
A number of magic missiles were combined together to blow a hole through the ceiling. Then Eugene used the wind to lift his body up through the hole.
Repeating this process, he arrived on the third floor.
1. The original text calls it a raccoon den. Opium dens were called that because they used to smoke out raccoon dens when they were being hunted. I used opium den to make it easier to understand. ☜
