The Genius Tamer of the Academy

Chapter 202

Believing your brother is dead and watching him die right before your eyes are two entirely different things.

Before her very eyes, her brother was dead.

Elisa clung to the fallen body of the unnamed man, unable to even let out a scream.

Her trembling hands gently stroked the lifeless face of her brother.

“Why… why… why….”

Her bloodshot eyes glared up at the robed woman.

Elisa’s voice, shaking, sounded almost like a desperate cry.

“You could have just… let him go… without anyone knowing!”

“I don’t like leaving loose ends.”

“For… such a petty reason…?”

“Elisa. Don’t disappoint me.”

“Ha… haha….”

Disappointment, she said.

Tears filled with hatred streamed down Elisa’s face.

The robed woman was the one who had saved Elisa when she was nearly beaten to death by the Cement Guild.

Together, they had spoken in sweet voices about the injustices of society.

They had scorned nobles who persecuted the innocent and mercilessly killed the powerless.

They dreamed of killing the emperor and toppling this damned empire to create a new world.

But now.

“Why… would you kill an innocent child…?”

How was the woman before her any different from those nobles?

“Why… would you kill someone who knows nothing… why would you do it?”

By what right?

For what reason?

What justification did she have to kill an innocent child?

“Who do you think you are? Why did you kill my brother?”

For the first time, Elisa couldn’t understand the woman she had followed.

“Ahhhhhh!”

The moment when the beliefs she had held dear crumbled.

Elisa sank into despair.

What had she been fighting for?

Wasn’t the reason she fought now so diluted that she couldn’t even recognize it?

Elisa wanted to kill the woman with her own hands.

She wanted to break the hands that had killed her brother, to gouge out those indifferent eyes.

She wanted to return the pain she felt, exactly as it was.

That, to Elisa, had become justice.

Justice was always fickle, changing as easily as flipping a hand, depending on how one defined it.

Thinking so, Elisa picked up a dull sword.

But

“Ah… ah….”

Her hand, gripping the sword, wouldn’t move an inch.

The robed woman’s power was ‘control.’

The woman frowned, her light voice sounding like a childish complaint.

“I told you not to disappoint me.”

Realizing what her words meant, Elisa’s face twisted in agony.

“You… you bastard….”

“You’ve outlived your usefulness. What a pity.”

The robed woman was like a witch who could manipulate anyone she empowered like puppets.

Now, she issued her command to Elisa.

“Die, Elisa.”

“Ah… ah….”

Elisa knew instinctively that this was not the kind of command she could refuse.

A life spent barely scraping by, born and raised on the bare ground.

“Ugh….”

At the end of it,

Had she laughed, or had she cried?

It was no longer clear, as her body was no longer her own.

She couldn’t save her brother’s life, nor could she choose her own death.

“Ah….”

Elisa raised the sword with empty eyes.

“Gah!”

And then, she plunged it into her own chest.

* * *

There were those watching the entire scene from not too far away.

Yoon Haul’s hands trembled as he stared in shock.

“This… this is insane….”

The Freed Guild was distributing obsidian, and Elisa had been in charge of it.

For Yoon Haul, who had been close to her, that alone was shocking enough, but now Elisa was dead.

Without any resistance, she had died alongside her brother.

Elisa stood frozen in place, her eyes wide open.

The robed woman, annoyed by the sight of Elisa blocking her view, kicked her aside.

Thud.

Without sparing a glance at the fallen Elisa, the robed woman spoke as if irritated.

“Any more rats hiding around?”

“No, there aren’t.”

“Good.”

The robed woman glanced back at Elisa, whose body still held a faint warmth, and clicked her tongue.

“She was quite talented… but too immature to serve a greater cause.”

A short evaluation of Elisa.

Her voice was excessively dry, too much so for someone recounting the end of a person she had just killed.

Han Siha could only grit his teeth and watch.

It would have been better if Solia were there, but she was observing the other side with an invisibility cloak.

Their location had not yet been discovered.

Han Siha held his breath, listening carefully to their conversation.

The man, whose voice was as cold as the robed woman’s, spoke up.

“We were caught off guard by the unexpected raid, but thankfully, we didn’t lose the goods.”

“…We need to relocate. This fight has grown too big.”

Too many had died to continue using the Freed Guild’s name.

The robed woman judged that they could no longer deal with the Freed Guild.

The man nodded in agreement, then cautiously asked.

“Are you still not planning to report this to the boss?”

“….”

“I will follow your wishes, but are you… ultimately diverging from the boss’s intentions?”

The robed woman turned her head toward the man.

Then, she removed her robe.

“That man is too barbaric.”

As her robe fell away, her straight hair was revealed.

She brushed her hair, which swayed in the wind, and smiled brightly.

“I dream of a different world than that man.”

Her eyes, disturbingly captivating, glimmered under the sunlight.

The three people watching from afar couldn’t bring themselves to speak.

Adela unknowingly grabbed Han Siha’s wrist tightly.

“That… that woman is….”

A face seen at the academic conference.

The prodigy mage who had served as the Chair of the Magic Department since childhood—Sepia.

She tilted her head slightly and spoke.

“And recently, I gained a strong ally.”

“An ally…?”

“Han Si-hyuk. He came to me.”

At her words, Han Siha’s face hardened coldly.

* * *

They had seen something shocking and heard something even more shocking.

After Sepia left, they reported everything they had just learned to Lee Han, and the three of them gathered once again.

With the situation as it was, returning to the Freed Guild was no longer an option.

“It seems safer for us to leave here,” Adela said, her expression grim.

Judging by the situation, the NGC zone seemed to be divided into two factions.

This wasn’t a setup that existed in the original story.

Or perhaps it was never detailed to this extent.

They were bad guys, so the main goal was to take them all down; there was no need to distinguish between the less evil and the more evil among them.

The final boss, Abaddon, whom Han Siha knew.

And Sepia, who was trying to break away from his grasp.

Exploiting their conflict could be an option, but that wasn’t the priority right now.

Sepia’s words kept echoing in Han Siha’s mind.

‘Han Si-hyuk. He came to me.’

It was certain that Han Si-hyuk wasn’t dead, but why was he with Sepia, of all people?

Why would he be with such a dangerous woman?

Did he even realize what kind of person Sepia was?

It felt like his head was about to explode.

“She seemed to have the ability to control people.”

“Could she be controlling Professor Han Si-hyuk too?”

“I don’t know what the activation conditions are, but it’s unlikely to be without any limitations.”

Taming also falls under a type of ‘control,’ but the mana that can be used is limited, and the subjects that can be tamed are also restricted.

If his assumptions were correct, Sepia must have similar constraints on her abilities.

If they could figure out those limitations, they could… Han Si-hyuk…

“No, that’s not right.”

It was impossible to retrieve Han Si-hyuk immediately.

They didn’t know what his circumstances were, nor where he was—how could they possibly find him?

Han Siha clutched his throbbing head, lost in thought.

The best course of action in this situation was…

“Let’s join up with Solia.”

They needed to consolidate what they had learned in the Odryse Mountains and discuss it with her team.

They also needed to reunite with Solia, who would be in the Arkenent Territory.

Adela looked at Han Siha with concern and asked,

“Your professor is there… Are you going to be okay?”

“I’m not a kid. He knows how to look after his own life.”

“I know, but….”

Whether he had been kidnapped or had gone willingly, it didn’t change the situation.

“We’ll meet when the time is right.”

However, Han Siha’s expression as he said this didn’t look okay at all.

With a blank look on his face, Han Siha pulled out his smartphone.

He needed to contact Solia.

The cleansing of the Arkenent Territory.

She had said it would be over soon, but it was taking longer than expected.

Han Siha stared at his smartphone, which still showed no response from Solia.

“There’s nothing wrong… right?”

Han Si-hyuk’s situation was making him even more anxious.

Han Siha sent another message.

– Solia.

– Is the job done?

– Solia.

– Answer me.

His smartphone remained silent.

Han Siha stared at it anxiously, his expression tense.

Yoon Haul asked cautiously,

“What’s wrong? Can’t reach Solia either?”

“Yeah. I think it’s best if we go to the Arkenent Territory ourselves.”

Given the size of the cursed land, a sudden situation might have occurred.

If it were Han Si-hyuk, it’d be one thing, but there was no way Han Siha could stay calm knowing Solia was alone and out of contact.

“The issue at Odryse is resolved, so let’s head there.”

“Let’s do that, then.”

Adela also agreed with Han Siha’s suggestion.

Given the circumstances, it was better to leave quickly than to stay here any longer.

“I’ll get in touch with Lee Han.”

“Thanks, Adela. But which way should we go?”

They had said the incident occurred near the obsidian mining site, so it was likely Solia was there.

The Arkenent Territory was quite expansive, so heading directly toward the mining area seemed the best option.

Fortunately, Adela seemed to remember the exact location, responding calmly.

“Opsian.”

“What?”

“It’s the Opsian Mining Site. North of the Arkenent Territory. It’s far from here, but we can reach it within a day.”

“…”

Opsian….

As Han Siha mulled over the name, he froze at Adela’s words.

No way.

“What’s wrong?”

The name of a familiar location.

He hadn’t realized it when he’d looked at the map so casually.

“No….”

The episode of the cursed land in the Arkenent Territory hadn’t existed in the original story.

Or at least, it hadn’t been covered in such detail.

In the original, Lee Han entered the site of a battle between dark magicians, and Solia died during the incident.

She could have survived, but the poison spread, leading to her death.

That was the tragic end of Solia, one of the main characters of the academy.

In the original, that place wasn’t the Arkenent Territory.

Naturally, the Arkenent family had never reclaimed their land.

It had only been described as the Cursed Battle of Opsian.

Because the story was different from what he remembered,

Because the scene was different from what he recalled,

Han Siha had overlooked it.

Solia had been sent to a battle where she should have fought alongside Lee Han.

But Lee Han wasn’t there.

And neither was Han Siha.

“We need to go… right now….”

Han Siha stood up urgently, his face pale.

There was no time to waste.

Even hesitation was a luxury he couldn’t afford.

“We have to go!”

Han Siha clenched his fist tightly.

Solia was in danger.