Before he fled, he did not forget to activate the Timed Explosion Magic Circle woven into the laboratory’s foundations.

  This blast would tear the underground laboratory open to the surface, baring all its horrors to the world.

  All the preparations he had laid were finally coming to fruition. Long ago, he had foreseen that his treachery with Gulos would one day be exposed—and so he had begun to build his contingencies then.

  These failed experimental abominations should have been destroyed by proper protocol, yet he had hoarded them all, locked away in the dark.

  He had kept them for a day just like this: a day when they would serve as his shield, his distraction, his final weapon.

  And that day had arrived.

  If all went as planned, the pursuers from Langard would be bogged down by the rampaging creatures he unleashed. He would win himself precious time to run—to vanish into the shadows forever.

  Raelingrim Simo scrambled back to the surface in a frenzy.

  He hastily gathered a few last vital trinkets, slung his pack over his shoulder, and strode quickly toward the garden’s gate.

  The monster that had borne him here waited motionless at the entrance, its massive form rooted to the spot.

  Raelingrim tossed his pack onto its back without a second glance, then clambered atop the beast in one fluid motion.

  He seized the reins, casting one final venomous glance back at his beloved Potion Garden.

  “Just you wait. I will return.”

  “Move out—!”

  He snapped the reins hard, urging the monster forward.

  Yet...

  For no reason at all, the beast beneath him did not so much as twitch. Not a muscle moved.

  Raelingrim’s face darkened, a flicker of panic flaring in his eyes.

  “Move! Go! Now!”

  He lashed the reins again and again, shouting in frustration—but the monster remained utterly still, as if carved from stone.

  His heart burning with anxiety, a cold voice cut through his rage, clear and unwavering, drifting to his ears on the wind.

  “Professor Raelingrim,” it said. “Do not bother. It will not move for you.”

  A sharp jolt of dread shot through Raelingrim’s chest.

  His blood turned to ice. His body stiffened completely as he slowly twisted his neck toward the source of the voice.

  There, standing not far away, a young girl watched him silently. A black sword was slung over her shoulder, a silver wand held loosely in her hand—her gaze calm, her posture unyielding, her presence alone a suffocating weight.

  “Hulim Heyerar.”

  Raelingrim stared at her, his fingers tightening around the reins until his knuckles whitened, his voice a low, venomous growl:

  “Why are you here?”

  “Is that so surprising?”

  Hulim countered, her tone flat, her eyes unreadable.

  “......”

  Raelingrim’s expression turned stormy, his face dark with fury and unease.

  Hulim paid his rage no mind, her gaze drifting past him to the Potion Garden beside them as she spoke, her voice steady and clear:

  “The last time I came to this garden, I knew something was wrong here. Something off.”

  “Oh? Wrong?” Raelingrim’s voice turned frigid, his lips curling into a sneer. “And just what about it struck you as ‘wrong’?”

  Hulim turned her gaze back to him, her eyes sharp as blades as she met his stare unflinchingly.

  “That hidden space beneath the earth. It is your laboratory, is it not? Where you conduct your forbidden experiments.”

  “!?”

  Raelingrim’s eyes narrowed to dangerous slits, his breath catching in his throat. His face paled, the color draining from his cheeks in an instant.

  “You knew. All along?”

  Hulim nodded once, her expression unchanged.

  “I sensed the hidden chamber the moment I stepped foot in this garden last time. It was not hard to find.”

  “......”

  “I did not think much of it then, though. I assumed it was merely a private laboratory, nothing more. I asked no questions, because at the time—I did not suspect you of anything.”

  She paused, her voice softening, yet her gaze growing colder, more resolute, as she spoke his title like a condemnation:

  “Professor Raelingrim.”

  She locked eyes with him, her words slow and deliberate, each syllable landing like a hammer blow:

  “You hid your treachery well. Better than most.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  You are not truly a member of Gulos, are you? You were never one of their ranks. You are a collaborator—a partner, bound to them only by your own ambitions, your own goals. You walked beside them, but never once joined them. Am I wrong?”

  “......You are not wrong.” Raelingrim admitted, his voice hoarse, his pride stung to the core. He stared at her, baffled and enraged in equal measure. “But how could you possibly know that?”

  “It is simple.” Hulim answered, her tone effortless, as if explaining a trivial fact:

  “If you were truly a member of Gulos, I would have seen the darkness in you long ago. I would have known from the first moment we met.”

  “Oh~?”

  Raelingrim raised an eyebrow, a flicker of curiosity cutting through his rage.

  “I did not see your true colors, yet you stand allied with Gulos all the same. That left only one conclusion: you are a collaborator, not a follower.”

  “Heh...... Hahaha!”

  Raelingrim suddenly burst into a harsh, bitter laugh, his shoulders shaking with amusement and malice.

  “I care not what you deduce, what games you play with words... it means nothing in the end.”

  His laughter died away, replaced by a cold, sinister grin, his eyes blazing with cruel triumph as he fixed her with a venomous stare.

  “But you have made a fatal mistake, Miss Hulim.”

  “A mistake?”

  Hulim tilted her head slightly, her expression never shifting, never wavering—not even a flicker of surprise crossed her face at his words. She remained calm, unhurried, unafraid.

  “Yes.” Raelingrim purred, his voice dripping with malice, his grin stretching wider.

  “You should never have come here alone.”

  BOOM!

  His words were barely out of his mouth when a deafening explosion roared from the depths of the Potion Garden behind him.

  Hulim glanced over her shoulder, her gaze flicking to the garden where a foul, corrupted aura was seeping upward from the cracked earth, thick and cloying, the stench of blood and magic heavy in the air.

  Raelingrim’s laughter echoed, loud and triumphant now.

  “They were not meant for you, these little pets of mine. But you walked right into their jaws all the same.”

  He leaned forward, his voice a low, taunting whisper, his eyes glinting with madness:

  “A word of warning. They will not harm me. I am their master, their creator. But anyone else—anyone who is not me—will be torn to shreds without mercy. Every living soul in their path is their prey.”

  “I see.”

  Hulim turned back to face him, her gaze calm as ever, her voice unruffled by the chaos unfolding behind her.

  “You planned to unleash them to cover your escape from the empire. To let them burn Langard while you ran.”

  “And if no one had come to stop you, you might have succeeded.”

  “Hehe!” Raelingrim scoffed, his grin sharp and cruel, his confidence unshaken.

  “Stop you? Who could stop me now? You cannot even protect yourself, little girl. You are trapped here, alone, with my monsters closing in—and no one to save you.”

  Hulim shook her head slightly, her voice softening, as if sighing at his foolishness, at his blindness to the truth standing right before him.

  “Professor Raelingrim,” she said quietly.

  “You have failed to notice one thing this entire time.”

  “?”

  Raelingrim’s brow furrowed, confusion creasing his forehead. He stared at her, uncomprehending, a flicker of unease stirring in his chest once more.

  What was she talking about? What had he missed?

  Hulim’s gaze drifted past him then, settling on the monster he sat astride—motionless, trembling faintly, its head bowed low, its eyes squeezed shut in abject terror.

  She nodded at it, her voice calm, her words a death sentence for his hope.

  “You never once asked why your mount has not moved an inch since I arrived, did you?”

  “!!?”

  A bolt of ice shot through Raelingrim’s heart. A crippling sense of dread washed over him, cold and suffocating, his worst fears crystallizing into reality.

  His eyes snapped to the monster beneath him, then back to Hulim, his voice a shrill, panicked yell:

  “What did you do to it?! What have you done?!”

  “I did nothing.”

  Hulim answered flatly, her gaze returning to him, her aura flaring for the briefest of moments—a faint, overwhelming pressure that made the air itself thicken, that made the ground tremble beneath their feet.

  “Nothing at all.”

  She paused, her lips curving into the faintest hint of a smile, a cold, distant thing, devoid of warmth or mercy.

  “I merely let it feel my aura.”

  “WHAT?!”

  Raelingrim stared at her, dumbfounded, as if he had just heard the most absurd joke in the world. He laughed, a harsh, disbelieving bark, his voice rising with hysteria:

  “That is impossible! To cow a monster like this with nothing but your aura—even an A-rank adept would struggle to do such a thing! It defies all reason, all logic—!”

  “Nothing is impossible.”

  Hulim cut him off, her voice sharp and clear, her calm unbroken, her resolve absolute.

  “Perhaps it is easier to show you than to explain.”

  Her unshakable composure, her utter lack of fear, her quiet confidence—all of it gnawed at Raelingrim’s sanity, at his pride, at his certainty.

  He had not been at the camp when Gulos struck. He had not seen her fight, had not witnessed her power. In his mind, Hulim Heyerar was still just a B-rank prodigy—a gifted child, nothing more. A pest to swat away, a nuisance to crush.

  He had no idea what she was truly capable of. No idea the storm he had awakened.

  Before he could voice another question, before he could summon his magic to attack, Hulim lifted her silver wand, pointing it straight at the Potion Garden behind him.

  “Professor Raelingrim.”

  Her voice rang out, clear and unyielding, a pronouncement of judgment.

  “I must correct you on one thing.”

  Hum——!

  As she spoke, a colossal magic circle blazed to life high above the Potion Garden, its light blinding white, its runes glowing with a holy, purifying power that seared the corrupted air clean. It spanned the entire garden, its edges touching the treeline, its center hovering directly over the cracked earth where the monsters clawed their way free.

  “The one who made the fatal mistake,” she said, her voice cold, her wand falling in a single, decisive flick.

  “Was never me.”

  “It was you.”

  BOOM——!

  A towering pillar of pure white light crashed down from the heavens, engulfing the entire Potion Garden in its searing glow. It burned through the corrupted aura, through the stone and soil, through the monsters clawing their way to freedom—incinerating everything in its path without mercy, without pause.

  The light raged for nearly ten heartbeats, a blinding inferno that lit up the sky for miles around.

  Then, it faded.

  Silence fell.

  Where the Potion Garden had once stood—where his laboratory, his life’s work, his monsters had all dwelled—there was nothing left.

  Only a massive, smoldering crater, its edges blackened and scorched, its depths hollow and empty.

  Every last one of his experimental abominations, every twisted creature he had hoarded for this moment, had been reduced to ash.

  Gone.

  Vanished.

  Erased completely.

  “......This...”

  Raelingrim stared at the crater, his mouth agape, his eyes wide and empty, his mind blank with shock and disbelief. He could not speak. He could not think. He could only stare, frozen in place, his entire world crumbling around him.

  His monsters. His escape. His hope. All of it, gone in an instant.

  “Professor.”

  Hulim’s voice cut through his stupor, calm and clear, pulling him back to the nightmare he now found himself in.

  “I think you understand now.”

  Raelingrim slowly turned his head to look at her, his face drained of all color, his eyes filled with abject terror, with pure, unadulterated fear. He stared at her, at the silver wand in her hand, at the black sword on her back, at the calm resolve in her eyes—and for the first time in his life, he knew true, crippling dread.

  He knew what she was.

  He knew what he had done.

  He knew he was doomed.

  “You... you...” he stammered, his voice a trembling whisper, his body shaking uncontrollably. “How... you are... you are an——!”

  A flash of white light erupted between them, a brief, searing burst of magic that struck him square in the chest.

  CRASH!

  Raelingrim was thrown from the monster’s back, sent flying through the air before slamming into the ground hard, his body crumpling like a rag doll. He lay there, sprawled on the dirt, his wand skittering away from his grasp, his vision blurring, his ears ringing with the sound of his own failure.

  He stared up at the sky, his eyes empty and lifeless, his lips moving weakly, a broken, hopeless whisper escaping them.

  “How...”

  He breathed, his voice fading, his strength leaving him, his world fading to black.

  “How could this happen...”