WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Mordor
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Surviving the Frozen Dark Fantasy as a Genius Mage ◈
Chapter 86: Secret Society
──────
The apex of all life on the surface, one who had inherited dragon blood.
The figure hidden in the shadows had never felt so bewildered in its life.
But this time, it did.
A plan it had considered perfect had fallen apart.
And at the hands of someone it had never even cared about.
"..."
It might have been on a lower floor, but it was still a Floor Master.
It should have been a disaster no one on the third floor could stop.
It was meant to warn them of the Labyrinth's dangers and give them a clue to the filthy truth of this world.
But the figure's plan had failed.
Because of a single silver-haired mage.
"The mage of Thunderfall. Ian."
It knew because of the subordinates it had planted in various places.
He was the one who had killed Isanna, one of its subordinates.
Just when it had stopped paying attention because he had made no notable moves, Ian had expelled the Floor Master it had summoned with great difficulty.
The timing could not have been worse.
'He wasn't hiding his strength.'
The third floor.
At best, he was a mage fit for the fourth floor. The same went for the riffraff around him.
Yet he had expelled the Floor Master through bizarre methods and magical skill far beyond his level.
'An Ogre and lightning...'
It was not something he could have accomplished through luck alone.
'He's more capable than I thought.'
Its faint interest gradually deepened.
It needed to meet him.
'If I decide he's useful to the organization, I'll recruit him. If not...'
The one behind this incident could not act directly for a while.
The organization had ordered it to lie low as well.
Still, there were other methods.
"Let's see your face."
Blazing runes gleamed in its hand.
The flames cut through the sky and settled at an old inn somewhere in the Labyrinth.
The figure sent an invitation to the lightning mage who had begun to make a name for himself.
A rather special invitation.
* * *
[The Labyrinth is not a blessing bestowed by the gods.]
[Do you wish to know the truth?]
Letters flared to life on the page.
Normally, that would've caught my interest, but I couldn't care less right now.
A ninja.
A ninja came for me...!
"Aaaaaah!"
I flung the letter away and called for Elena and Daisy in the next room.
"Elenaaaa! Daisyyyy!"
Then the letter flashed.
My vision blurred, and I collapsed to the floor.
This was...
'Sleep, Subspace construction, Star Infiltration.'
'Fuck.'
My mind, which had grasped the spell from that brief trace alone, was dragged somewhere else.
...
I had definitely been in my inn room, but when I came to, I was inside a vast, silent temple.
Its impossibly high ceiling was supported by dozens of massive stone pillars and dragon vertebrae. The walls were engraved in an ancient language with the honor and history of dragons, while the skulls of enormous beasts, stripped down to bone, lay piled about like medals.
It was a temple of grandeur beyond anything human craftsmanship could hope to achieve.
At the center of the temple in the distance, someone looked down at me from a throne atop hundreds of stairs rising toward the sky.
"You've come."
At that overwhelming voice, every flame on the walls lit at once.
Fwoooosh!
Beyond the eerie yet mystical violet glow, chilling reptilian eyes gleamed beneath the shadow of a robed figure.
Hoo.
Yeah, it was you after all.
I steadied myself with a breath, gripped my staff tightly, and glared at my opponent.
"You brought me here, Secret Society."
"That's right, young mage."
The dragonkin pushed off lightly and crossed hundreds of stairs in a single leap, landing before me.
Those distinctive eyes.
And that chillingly powerful presence I could feel simply from facing it.
There was no doubt it was the dragonkin that had slaughtered Iromis's party members and caused the Floor Master incident.
'A Deep Floors expedition member.'
'Expelling the Floor Master caught their attention.'
There was no point in trying to ambush it with a spell or devise a strategy.
Nothing would work against that thing anyway.
'Even Klaus and his party, who are far stronger than us, couldn't do anything against it.'
And now I was alone, without my companions.
Fuck, I'm screwed.
That was all I could think as cold sweat ran down my back.
Still, if you kept your wits about you even after being dragged into a tiger's den, you could survive.
First, I needed to calmly assess the situation.
'This is clearly a Mindscape.'
'It probably infiltrated my consciousness with a high-level spell using the letter as a medium.'
'The foundation of this place is my mind, which is currently asleep.'
A refined method befitting the most secretive and powerful group in this world.
As I thought, the dragonkin spoke.
"I saw how you expelled the Floor Master. You used crude, low-tier spells in an interesting way."
"Of course. I'm a genius mage."
"A genius... Yes, even if it was a lower-floor Floor Master, you'd need to be at least that capable to expel it."
"Then why did you invite me here so politely, even sending a letter?"
I looked at the dragonkin.
"Are you offering to recruit me? Telling me to join the Secret Society?"
If that was the case, there was a way out.
Heh.
But the low laugh dismissed that thought.
"Your delusions are excessive. You are still nothing more than a trivial fragment. This is not a place you could dare enter. Not even kings and nobles of the surface, nor Deep Floors expedition members, can enter freely. That is the organization I belong to."
"Then what?"
"What I offer you is mercy. I will personally take in your useful talent. Become my subordinate."
"..."
'Recruitment into the Secret Society would've been one thing.'
'But this is the worst.'
I gritted my teeth.
What a fucking joke.
This thing was a wanted criminal who had carried out massive acts of terror in the Labyrinth. Every power group in the Labyrinth, the guild, the Magic Tower, the administration, and the nobles, was hunting it down.
And it wanted me to serve under it?
Not even the head of a dragon, just the tail of a snake?
'It'll use me up and toss me aside.'
I'd never be able to live a normal life again.
Fuck off, asshole.
Who did it think it was, saying that to a genius mage?
Normally, I would've said that and fed it a Chain Lightning.
But this thing was a Deep Floors expedition member who could kill me with one finger.
'Fuck. Nothing teaches manners like being hopelessly outmatched.'
It would kill me if I refused.
If it were someone capable of rational judgment or being reasoned with, it never would've committed such a massacre.
Still...
It wasn't like there was no way to get out of this situation.
'It must be using this troublesome method because reality is restricting it somehow.'
'And because it showed me traces of the spell, I can see a way through.'
First, I had to buy time until I fully understood this space.
"A subordinate? You're asking me to become nothing more than your subordinate?"
I began pretending to be offended.
No, I actually was offended.
"Heh. Does that offend you? Is it because I made such an offer to the one who defeated a Floor Master? No matter what accomplishments you've achieved, you are nothing but a weak and insignificant existence to me and the organization."
An overwhelming pressure poured from the dragonkin.
It declared that compared to the despair it had endured in the Deep Floors, the hardships my companions and I had overcome were no more than children's play.
"If you obey my command, I will grant you omnipotent power and secret arts."
It was making an offer I could not refuse, with my single life as leverage.
"Give me time to think."
"Take all the time you want. But only within this space."
"..."
As I remained silent, the dragonkin spoke again.
"You thought you could stall for time. You intended to understand this space first, then search for a way to escape. The thoughts of spellcaster fools like you, who believe yourselves superior to all others, are so obvious."
The dragonkin stared at me as if it could see through me, then burst into laughter.
"But this is no ordinary space. The very laws governing it are bound to my power. Even a master of the Magic Tower could not destroy its structure from within. If your mind is destroyed here, the body you have on the surface will never open its eyes again. Have you finally faced reality?"
"..."
Silence followed.
I secretly released mana and calculated, trying to understand this space.
The dragonkin seemed to notice, but it ignored me as though watching a foolish performance.
Yes, let your guard down. That made things easier for me.
After about five minutes, the dragonkin seemed bored and demanded an answer with the attitude of someone looking down on everything.
"I'd like an answer soon."
Of course, I only had one answer.
"Fuck off."
"...?"
It seemed no one had ever answered it that way before. Its reaction was delayed for a moment.
Then furious rage seeped out.
"How dare you..."
Rumble!
The dragonkin's horrifying presence made my spine tingle as the surroundings shook like an earthquake.
But unlike before, I had regained my composure and smiled like an arrogant mage.
'So that's how it was constructed?'
'I'll break it apart.'
Because I had finished analyzing this space.
'Looks like it's time to use this little friend.'
Cackle, cackle, cackle.
I pulled out the Tome of Starlight hanging from my waist.
My opponent was a Deep Floors expedition member.
The difference in our abilities was enormous.
But there was one key difference.
In this place, each person's will held greater authority than their true capabilities.
And I was the owner of this space, while it was merely an outsider invading my consciousness.
"You're right. But there's one thing you're mistaken about."
Boom!
When it stepped forward, cracks split across the floor.
"You think the will of a brat who hasn't even lived twenty years can surpass mine?"
Cracks ran through the entire enormous temple as flames shot upward.
Fwoooosh!
"I wandered the Labyrinth from before you were even in your mother's womb."
Behind it, the manifestation of a gigantic dragon made entirely of flame stared at me, radiating pressure fierce enough to crush me.
"I passed through the middle floors, upper floors, Deep Floors, and the sewers beneath the bottom, rolling through the blood, malice, and filth of countless monsters."
And yet,
"And a mere third-floor expedition member dares act arrogant before me?"
Die.
KABOOOOM!!!
It was right.
As a Deep Floors expedition member, it must have suffered unimaginable trials and pain, using them as nourishment to rise to its current position.
But there was one thing it did not know.
I didn't just have the will of this world's owner.
'The essence of magic is calculating mysteries through Grimoires and giving form to imagination.'
'And making it real depends entirely on the caster's ability.'
Mana, innate talent, wisdom, and knowledge.
For an ordinary mage, what they had seen and learned around them marked the limits of their world of spells.
But inside my skull was every secret art and spell that existed in this world.
Which meant...
In this space, I could use every school of magic I knew.
Fire.
Arcane.
Lightning.
Water and Frost.
Earth.
Creation.
Dark magic.
As long as I had the knowledge to understand and visualize the formulas, and the will to support it!
[Blink]
My body flashed violet and vanished.
With a horrible tearing sound, the wall split apart uselessly.
I had easily avoided the dragonkin's slash, an attack I normally would not even have been able to perceive.
"What...?"
Crash!
The dragonkin leaped through space and charged at me in an instant, swinging its blade. Hundreds of layers of shields shaped like geometrically rotating gears blocked it.
"How...?"
Across from me, its vertically slit dragon eyes were wider with confusion than ever.
"No matter how much a Mindscape changes according to each person's will and imagination... it is still bound by the physical limitations engraved into the body and soul... How can you use a spell you've never handled before...?"
No, I had used them plenty.
From beyond a monitor, anyway.
'I can easily bridge that gap by reinterpreting the principles behind spells I've used in reality.'
Maybe you could fight me in reality, but you think you can fight me in this world?
You've made a mistake.
[Arcane Doppelganger] + [Charge] + [Lightning] = [Lightning Doppelganger]
The Tome of Starlight resonated with the parchment within me and created a new spell on the spot.
Crackle!
My image multiplied into dozens in an instant, and they rushed at the dragonkin.
"Ghk!"
Each one carried an electrical charge comparable to a thunderbolt falling from the sky.
Rumble!
The Grimoire of Creation flashed, and huge golems rose all at once from the temple's broken stone fragments.
The Grimoire of Darkness scattered mana, reviving the dragon bones around us as undead and building walls.
"You insignificant wretches! How dare you!!!"
[Diamond Skin]
[Ice Armor]
[Blink]
[Blink]
[Blink]
Mana beyond my limits and countless spells danced according to my will.
This is it! This is it!
Hahahahahaha!
Overwhelming exhilaration and omnipotence coursed through my mind.
Aaaaaaah!
In my current state, even a Deep Floors expedition member looked like nothing more than an insect.
Snap!
Having completely vanished from the dragonkin's perception, I snapped my fingers and cast my final spells.
[Meteor Summoning]
[Lightning Storm]
[Great Earthquake]
If I fused the highest-level spells from each school...
'What would happen? A massive explosion?'
Powerful spells poured from me as my eyes flashed coldly.
──────────!
A tremendous light exploded, shattering the bizarre space constructed by the dragonkin.
Kraaaaaaah!
An enraged scream rang out amid the erupting brilliance and explosions.
The unknown dragonkin's robe and mask were torn away, revealing its bare face.
At the sight, even my victorious smile vanished as I froze in shock.
"...!"
W-What?!
Why are you... here?
Footnotes:
Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried
