MTM 77

Harto, who had been squirming, jumped up and immediately searched for Zed. But the cramped space barely large enough for his own body was blocked off by a wall of opaque glass.

“Zed… Zed…”

Harto anxiously crawled across the floor, groping forward as he searched for him.

“U… ugh…”

His whole body trembled. In his head, all he could see was Zed lying in the desert, covered in blood.

“W, where… is this…?”

After a long while, Harto managed to calm his breathing and looked around. The walls from floor to ceiling were made of glass, and a round cork was fixed into the ceiling. There was a long gem radiating a blue glow at the center.

“…Ah!”

A flash of memory came flooding back. The moment black flames swallowed him, he had been sucked into the glass bottle pulled out by the man wearing a silver mask shaped like a bird’s beak.

Harto pressed himself against the glass wall in a panic. He wanted to know what was happening outside. But no matter how close he put his eye to it, he couldn’t see through. He thought he heard voices, but he wasn’t sure.

“I can’t see… I have to get out…”

He climbed the wall and tried pulling at the cork, tried squeezing his body into the seams. But it didn’t budge.

“Ugh… And why is my strength draining so much…”

To make matters worse, he couldn’t use his ability. Every time he tried, the blue gem at the center shone fiercely and suppressed him. It seemed made to block his power.

Harto soon gave up and slid down to the floor. If it was impossible, there was no point in wasting strength. With a resigned sigh, he closed his eyes, and focused on listening instead.

Small as it was, the voices became a little clearer.

“What are they talking about…? Sounds like there’s a woman. Who’s the other one? It’s not Zed… right?”

He knew Zed wouldn’t try to resolve anything through conversation. Zed would swing that enormous sword and end everything.

He had clearly been captured by the people after Zed, so whoever was outside was without a doubt the enemy.

Gulp.

Although he was still afraid, he decided to muster up his courage to figure out the situation.

“H, hey! Who’s out there!?”

His voice cracked embarrassingly, but Harto didn’t give up and shouted louder again. But there was no response.

“Hey! Why did you kidnap me? Why do you keep attacking Zed?! You awful, awful people!!”

He yelled several more times, but there was still no answer.

“Don’t tell me… they can’t hear me from outside…”

Harto stared nervously at the glowing blue gem. Not only did it suppress his ability, but it must have been blocking his voice too.

If so, this was a completely isolated prison.

‘…It’s fine. Don’t panic. I can still hear the outside.’

He encouraged himself. Pressing his whole body against the glass, he held his breath. Flattening himself as much as possible, he listened, and the voices grew clearer.

“…I heard the crown prince shaves off all blond hair he sees.”

“I heard something different. They say he cuts off the whole scalp and displays it.”

“Eek! That’s horrible…”

When the woman shrieked, the man closed something with a click and let out a long sigh.

“Well, either way, we’re both blond. That’s probably why we got dragged here.”

‘Blond…?’

That reminded Harto of Zed’s hair. He had never known why the illusionists kept targeting Zed. The exact reason was always unknown to him.

‘So… was it because Zed is blond…?’

But the moment he thought it, it didn’t make sense. Why risk their lives to attack Zed over something so petty? And in the end, they had kidnapped him, not Zed.

If that wasn’t the reason…

‘There’s something I need to tell you.’

He remembered what Zed had tried to say.

‘Harto, you asked me before about Ares Carseon.’

His heart pounded. The truth he had avoided and run from was peeling open.

“By the way, are we really not taking that glass bottle?”

The woman’s voice suddenly sounded much louder. He sensed movement approaching.

Harto held his breath, forcing down the frantic pounding in his chest.

Click.

Then suddenly, his whole body tilted to one side.

“……!”

Harto flinched and hid his body behind the gem. In that moment, a pair of large eyes appeared beyond the glass wall. Someone was peering into the bottle.

“Up close, it looks like there’s some kind of gemstone inside.”

“A gemstone?”

At the woman’s words, the man replied in a surprised tone. He leaned in to look inside the glass bottle as well.

Harto instinctively crouched even lower. He pressed himself against the gem, trying his hardest not to be seen. In his monster form, getting spotted would be even more dangerous.

“It’s not a gemstone. It’s a mana stone.”

A short moment later, the man spoke.

“It’s small, but the purity is high. If we negotiate well, we could get quite a bit for it.”

‘Mana stone? So that’s what this is…’

Harto stared at the blue glowing stone with awe. He had thought it was nothing but a cursed stone that drained strength, but now it looked different. In this world, mana stones were crystallized energy used to produce magic power, and their value depended on how they were used.

“You know stuff like that? I did not expect that. Anyway, good thing we checked. We would’ve regretted leaving this behind.”

The woman laughed and slipped the glass bottle into her pouch.

“Ah.”

Because of that, everything beyond the glass wall went dark. In exchange, the mana stone shone even brighter, it was almost blinding.

“Ugh… It’s too bright… I should just close my eyes…”

Harto closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall again.

At least now he could breathe. From their conversation, he understood they weren’t enemies. They were captives just like him.

But as he listened more, something about their voices sounded familiar. At first he dismissed it as his imagination, but soon someone appeared in his mind.

The man’s voice was identical to Ser from Honey, and the woman’s voice sounded exactly like the fortune-teller Reina.

‘Right… they said the Regnovar Knight Order came to the feast district that day…’

Harto remembered the conversations he overheard at the inn. And since both of them were blond, his guess turned into certainty.

While Harto was stuck inside the glass bottle, Ser and Reina gathered only small valuable items and sat side by side on the sofa to catch their breath.

“…They’re coming back.”

The guards who had stepped away were returning.

Ser motioned for Reina to stay quiet, then pressed his ear to the wall of the carriage. It was the same scene as when Harto was eavesdropping earlier.

“Seriously, how long are they going to mess around out there?”

“No idea. Ugh… I’m hungry. They should at least give us something to eat…”

The guards were complaining about their captain and the senior knights who were leisurely enjoying themselves by the riverside. Only two were assigned to watch the carriage, and they grew more bored as time passed.

Then, after some useless chatter, Kailen asked Serdin if he had any food.

“I only have this.”

“What, sausages and half a potato? I’ve got chocolate and biscuits.”

“Oh.”

“Let’s make a bet. Whoever throws a stone higher wins. Winner takes everything.”

“Deal.”

They gambled with what little food they had. They chose a tall enough tree as a target and began throwing stones one by one.

Thwack!

The stone hit the tree with a dull sound that rang through the forest.

Ser listened to the sound, then slowly removed his ear from the wall.

“I think we can get out.”

“You said we couldn’t earlier…?”

Reina stared at him. He had told her not even to think about opening the door because of the magic barrier. But now, seeing him speak confidently, she was speechless.

Instead of answering, Ser walked toward the door. He glared at it with wide eyes. A moment later, red light began to flow out from his forehead.