*BOOM!*
As a violent, explosive sound reverberated, crimson flames and pitch-black magical energy burst through the room, blowing away all the furniture, flipping the carpet on the floor, and even cracking the floorboards, shaking the entire room.
With such impact, the mirror in the room naturally didn’t stand a chance—it shattered instantly, scattering into a rain of glass shards.
At the moment the mirror broke, the girl within it leaped out and landed opposite Riezel.
Riezel, however, treated the incoming explosion and flames as if they were nothing. Even while standing in the middle of it, he didn’t take a single step back—not even his clothes were damaged. He simply turned around in a relaxed manner and looked at the girl who had landed in front of him.
"Oh my, you found me."
Saying this, the girl who emerged from the mirror was smiling, showing no remorse at all for launching a surprise attack meant to kill him.
"Fairy Knight Tristan?"
Riezel gave her a quick once-over and spoke her name, but she unexpectedly attacked again without warning.
*Ting-ling-ling~*
As a melody rang out, a wave of invisible harp strings shot out like a meat grinder, tearing toward Riezel—the ferocity and sheer force of the attack left no doubt—she fully intended to shred him to pieces.
"Body of Effulgent Heliodor."
Riezel calmly cast defensive magic, causing golden magical energy to shimmer across his body.
*Swish!* *Swish!* *Swish!* *Swish!*
In an instant, countless invisible slashes landed on Riezel, stirring up the sounds of flesh being torn.
However, under the effect of his defensive magic, which nullified slash-attribute attacks, the furious assault completely lost its power and didn’t harm him in the slightest—not even a single drop of blood was drawn.
"Tch."
Tristan, holding a harp, clicked her tongue in annoyance.
"Why won’t you just die already?" Tristan said with an irritated expression. "I was being really generous here, y’know? Skipped the torture and went straight to giving you a quick death. Turning down someone’s kindness like that is just plain rude, don’t you think?"
Hearing this, Riezel narrowed his eyes at the irritated Tristan, then suddenly extended his finger again.
"Lightning."
Sparks of electricity crackled at Riezel’s fingertip before they shot out as a thin bolt of lightning aimed straight at Tristan.
"!!!"
Tristan’s annoyed expression shifted slightly as she instinctively dodged, leaving her original position.
*BOOM!*
Riezel’s lightning, like a laser beam, struck the wall with a muffled bang and exploded, briefly revealing a faint transparent barrier.
Thanks to that transparent barrier, the wall hit by the magic wasn’t damaged—only arcs of lightning danced across its surface.
Riezel lowered his hand.
"Why’d you dodge it?" Riezel looked at the sour-faced Tristan and asked with mock confusion, "Wouldn’t it be better if you just died already? Using your own words, that’d be a generous thing to do, right?"
"You?!"
Tristan was clearly fuming upon hearing Riezel’s words.
*Clap!* *Clap!* *Clap!* *Clap!*
At that moment, a slow round of applause suddenly echoed through the room.
"Hahaha, someone actually managed to talk back to Lady Spinel like that? Now that’s rare!"
A man walked out from the shadows, clapping as he laughed heartily.
"Red Beryl!"
Tristan glared furiously at the man, who raised both hands in a mock gesture of surrender.
"Sorry, sorry. It’s just not every day you see someone stand up to you like that, milady. And this guy’s nothing like Woodwose, who only knows how to hurl insults. I mean, that was one hell of a clean comeback—it really caught me off guard."
Tristan turned her head away in frustration at the man’s overly gleeful tone.
If it had been anyone else talking about her like that, Tristan probably would’ve chopped off their leg by now, but Beryl was the only one she ever let off the hook like this.
It was a kind of special treatment no one else got.
’Beryl Gut?’ Riezel looked a bit surprised as he saw the lanky, wolf-like man. ’So this guy came along too?’
"Yo, how’s it going?"
Beryl, completely unaware that Riezel had only recently decided to start paying attention to him, greeted Riezel enthusiastically when he noticed Riezel staring at him with surprise.
"Didn’t think someone like me, just a humble little human, would be known by Her Majesty the Queen’s future husband. I’m honored."
At these words, the surprise faded from Riezel’s expression.
"A humble little human?" Riezel gave Beryl a look filled with meaning. "You’re no humble human."
"...Hou?"
Beryl dropped the smile from his face and stared at Riezel.
"Sounds like you know a lot about me. No wonder you caught the Queen’s eye..."
"But seriously, this is really surprising. I’ve never heard a single rumor saying the so-called Child of Prophecy is actually a human, y’know?"
As soon as Beryl said this, it wasn’t just Riezel—Tristan also had a huge reaction.
"What?! He’s a human?!" Tristan exclaimed in shock.
"Yep." Beryl kept his easygoing tone. "Not sure why the other fairies didn’t notice, but me? I could tell right away, just from intuition."
In Faerie Britain, fairies usually relied on scent, magical energy, and appearance to tell themselves apart from humans.
In the past, both Artoria and Woodwose had judged Riezel by appearance, deciding he wasn’t a fairy from the four great fairy clans—Earth, Fang, Wing, or Mirror. Given the King Clan had only one member and the Mirror Clan had all but vanished, Woodwose figured Riezel must be a fairy from Paradise, the legendary Child of Prophecy.
Meanwhile, Artoria herself didn’t fully match the typical looks of the four great fairy clans either, because just like Riezel, she looked a lot like a human.
But if that was the case, why had no one ever suspected she was a human?
It was because fairies could rely on their extraordinary senses to distinguish humans, detecting the scent on them that differed from that of fairies, and could also sense the magical energy in humans, which was different from that of fairies.
As a result, even though Artoria looked like a human, no one questioned her identity because she smelled like a fairy and had fairy-like magical energy.
In that case, why hadn’t anyone figured out Riezel was a human?
It was thanks to the Selfless State and the skill known as Pioneer of the Sun.
Selfless State suppressed his fighting spirit and aura, reducing his presence to the bare minimum, which made his scent and magical energy hard to detect, making it nearly impossible for an average fairy to realize he was a human.
Overall, only beings with extremely sharp senses might notice something off, yet even that slim chance was almost entirely erased, thanks to Pioneer of the Sun.
One of the effects of Pioneer of the Sun was the ability to transform its user into a sort of spiritual being, so while Riezel was still human, he also carried qualities similar to a spirit or elf born from nature.
And where did fairies originate?
Tracing back to their source, they were essentially extensions of the world itself, fragments of nature, spiritual offshoots born from within the planet.
In other words, Riezel and A-Rei actually had something in common—or rather, it was Pioneer of the Sun that granted him a spiritual nature similar to A-Rei’s.
Most people couldn’t detect this quality, but beings with abnormally keen senses could.
Thanks to that, every fairy had misunderstood and assumed Riezel was a fairy, not a human.
Even Artoria, if not for her Fairy Eyes that could see through lies, might have doubted Riezel’s claim of being a human, even if he said it right to her face.
No doubt, she wouldn’t have been completely sure without those special eyes.
Beryl, on the other hand, saw right through Riezel at a glance.
He didn’t rely on scent, magical energy, or appearance since his judgment came from something vague and intangible—pure instinct.
"Maybe it’s more about the atmosphere?" Beryl shrugged casually. "Well, fairies have heightened senses, but they’ve also developed a habit of putting too much trust in their own abilities. On top of that, most fairies don’t care about details and only like flashy or fun stuff, so for them, trying to tell subtle differences in the aura or whatever must be pretty tough, right?"
However, what Tristan cared about had nothing to do with that.
"Who cares about stuff like that!" Tristan glared at Riezel like she was looking at something filthy. "Did he seriously trick all of us?"
Since Riezel was a human, that meant he couldn’t be the Child of Prophecy because the Child of Prophecy was a fairy from Paradise, not a human—that much was certain.
It was precisely because of this that Tristan said they had all been tricked by Riezel, completely and thoroughly.
Beryl, however, looked completely unbothered.
"Oh, c’mon, this guy doesn’t even have the Staff of Selection mentioned in the prophecy. Isn’t that enough to say he probably isn’t the Child of Prophecy?" Beryl said with a smile. "Rather than saying he tricked us, maybe it’s more accurate to say we were fooled by Woodwose."
In the first place, Riezel had never once said he was the Child of Prophecy, nor had he admitted it. It was all because of Woodwose running around spouting nonsense that the fairies started thinking Riezel was the one.
"Well, well, this is getting pretty interesting now. So, the so-called Child of Prophecy that got captured turns out to be a fake, and the Queen’s future husband isn’t a Fairy of Paradise but a human. If word gets out, Britain’s bound to be shaken up pretty bad, don’t you think?"
Beryl grinned widely, looking like someone thoroughly enjoying the show.
Tristan, on the other hand, looked like she was about to explode.
"I’m going to tell Mother right now!"
She quickly turned around, ready to leave.
In her mind, her dear mother must’ve been deceived too, which was the only reason she would want to marry this fraud.
If the one she was supposed to marry was the true Child of Prophecy, then this human definitely wasn’t it, so Tristan naturally had to expose him fast and get her mother to take back her decision.
However, that was just Tristan overthinking things.
"Lady Spinel, I doubt Her Majesty the Queen doesn’t knows her future husband is a human." Beryl stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Other fairies might be kept in the dark, but Queen Morgan? Impossible."
It was just Beryl’s gut feeling, but at the very least, he didn’t believe someone like Morgan, a peerless great witch who had developed all kinds of grand magecraft, could be fooled by something this simple.
Morgan surely knew that the man she had chosen as her future husband was a human, not the Child of Prophecy.
Yet, what was the result?
Even though she knew he wasn’t the Child of Prophecy, she still declared she was going to marry him!
And when one added in what Tristan said earlier about the ’Garden’ and the ’Stake’, Beryl started to feel more and more like Morgan, and this mysterious human had some kind of secret he wasn’t aware of.
As a result, Beryl’s gaze toward Riezel grew deeper and more intense.
In response, Riezel met Beryl’s gaze head-on, his eyes filled with something between amusement and mischief.
"Shit!"
As soon as he saw that look in Riezel’s eyes, Beryl felt something click in his mind like a warning going off.
Unfortunately, by the time he tried to react, it was already too late.
"..."
As the air subtly shifted, Beryl could clearly feel it—he couldn’t move anymore.
Riezel’s eyes shimmered with strange colors as he stared at him, and that alone was enough to bind him in place.
’Mystic Eyes!’
Beryl shouted internally.
Mystic Eyes referred to a form of supernatural power concentrated in the eyes, granting the ability to interfere with the outer world through sight alone.
A magus with Mystic Eyes didn’t need to chant or prepare a magic formula. Just by using their gaze, they could apply the magecraft engraved in their Mystic Eyes to targets within their line of sight.
There were many types of Mystic Eyes, each with different effects depending on their nature.
Some could charm.
Some could suggest.
Some could bind.
Others could burn, create hallucinations, petrify—effects so powerful that some Mystic Eyes could even kill with just a look.
Truly terrifying.
Because direct eye contact would significantly amplify the power and effects of the Mystic Eyes, not only was it dangerous to look at them directly, but simply being seen could trap someone in the user’s magecraft with almost no way to guard against it.
For this reason, in the world of magecraft, possessing Mystic Eyes was considered a mark of being a first-class magus.
Beryl couldn’t help but silently curse himself.
How could he be so careless as to forget the threat of a powerful magus and stare straight at them?
It was practically a death wish.
What Beryl didn’t know was that Riezel didn’t actually possess Mystic Eyes and had only activated a type of magic.
It was a magic spell that allowed the user to select an ability from the different gaze effects, forcing the target into fear, panic, confusion, or even madness—Evil Eye.
Fear would trigger a sense of dread in the target, slowing them down and weakening their hostile behavior.
Panic would send the target into a deep fear, making them desperate to escape the one causing it, which in turn made them unable to take any combat actions.
Confusion, as the name implied, would cause the target to lose control of their actions.
Madness was a permanent abnormal status that couldn’t be cured unless healed by magic, which caused those afflicted to enter a berserk state, and in severe cases, might even turn against their own allies.
At this moment, Riezel had activated the Evil Eye, but not to inflict fear, panic, confusion, or madness, but to bind his target.
It was an effect not originally included in the Evil Eye, but perhaps because Riezel’s Mage development ability had leveled up to D-rank, he had discovered over the past few days that some of his magic effects had become stronger and had even gained new capabilities.
In the world of Danmachi, an adventurer with a Falna needed to fulfill two conditions to level up.
One, achieve remarkable feats and accumulate enough high-rank excelia.
Two, raise one of the five basic abilities—STR, END, DEX, AGI, or MAG—to the sixth rank, which was the D-rank.
Maybe it was for this reason that when Mage reached D-rank, the development ability began to show some changes in how it assisted magic.
Mage could enhance various aspects of magic, but its exact supportive effects were never clearly stated, which was why Riezel believed it might even help him replicate magic enhancements seen in the world of Overlord.
In this situation, reaching D-rank had seemingly granted it even more unique support functions.
However, that was just Riezel’s guess since he wasn’t entirely sure yet. Maybe he could verify it after returning to the world of Danmachi.
For now, his Evil Eye had indeed changed and allowed him to apply an abnormal status like binding, causing those with low resistance to magic to become immobilized.
As a human, Beryl was unlike fairies who were born with natural Mystery and resistance to magecraft and magic, so he was clearly someone Riezel’s magic could affect.
Consequently, annoyed by Beryl’s stare, Riezel directly cast the Evil Eye on him, and just like that, Beryl got caught. If it continued, Riezel might even use the Evil Eye to inflict more abnormal statuses, including madness, the one with the worst consequences.
Unfortunately for Riezel, there was someone who was deeply obsessed with Beryl, and she wasn’t about to just stand there and let that happen.
"What are you doing?!"
Tristan’s face changed the moment she sensed something was wrong, and without hesitation, she launched a magecraft at Riezel.
Black magical energy gathered at her fingertips and condensed into a dark bullet, which shot toward Riezel’s heart.
However, Riezel didn’t choose to counterattack this time but used a type of magic that was practically a natural enemy to any magus or magician.
"Sacrament - Wheel Mirror."
As soon as Riezel finished the chant, darkness gathered in front of him and formed a magic mirror that floated before him.
*BOOM!*
In that instant, the dark magic bullet slammed into the mirror.
*Buzz—*
However, instead of shattering, the magic mirror only trembled slightly as the dark magic bullet hit it, before a stream of light flashed across its surface, absorbing the bullet, and then instantly reflecting it back the next second.
"What?!"
Tristan’s expression turned to shock.
*BOOM!*
Her own dark magic bullet struck her, engulfing her body completely.