You Know Nothing of Power

"Master! Young Master William, he..."

Lal's arrival shattered the restaurant's tranquil atmosphere. He shoved the door open in a panic, but before he could finish speaking, a fireball struck him in the back, sending him flying onto the floor beside Aite.

"Lal, what's wrong? Answer me!"

Seeing his butler collapse, Aite's heart went cold. Now, even his chance to call for help was gone. The other side clearly had no regard for human life.

"Don't bother calling him. He won't wake up anytime soon."

The culprit behind all this stepped in front of Aite. William Rusty was a black-haired youth who looked only seventeen or eighteen. His features were rather gentle, lacking his father's ruggedness. He looked down at his father from above, while the two guests caught up in this merely earned a glance before he lost interest.

"You drugged the food? But why?"

The dosage of the potion had been just right, leaving everything below Aite's neck unable to move while still allowing him to speak. He looked at his child in confusion. If this was a prank, it had gone far too far.

"That's right. As for the reason... it's all your fault, Father."

"You're dissatisfied with me? Your mother died giving birth to you, so ever since you were little, I gave you the best of everything and took care of you in every possible way. What have I ever done to wrong you?!"

Seeing the unfamiliar look on his son's face, Aite felt a surge of anger. He could accept betrayal from anyone, but he could not accept betrayal from the child he loved most.

"It's because you took too much care of me! Even when I was ten, you were still feeding me with a spoon! Whenever I played with children my age, you were always hovering nearby to protect me. Eventually, no one wanted to play with me anymore. Everyone said I was the mayor's precious little son, to the point that I don't even dare go outside now! If only there were no you... if only you didn't exist!"

The more William spoke, the more agitated he became. The magic power around him began to stir uncontrollably, and a layer of eerie green light covered his originally black pupils.

"Mental-control magic? Who exactly is targeting our family?"

Aite finally realized something was wrong. His son might have been introverted, but he would never have worn such an expression. Upon seeing that strange green glow in his eyes, Aite clearly understood that his son had been used.

"Since you've noticed, there's nothing we can do about it. Mr. Aite, please hand over the 'key.'"

As he spoke, four more people in black mage robes entered the restaurant. The speaker was the middle-aged man at their head. Rather than concealing his magical fluctuations, he released them with deliberate intensity, as if warning Aite not to resist.

"A-A Mage Mentor..."

Fear appeared on Aite's face. If they had been mages of any other rank, he might still have been able to struggle. But before a Mage Mentor, a Great Mage like him was as fragile as paper. And there were three Great Mages behind him as well. Such a lineup was simply despairing.

Although everyone in this world possessed magic power and could cast minor spells without much trouble, the true measure of a mage's rank was the power of their magic. A Mage Mentor was someone who had stepped into the realm of advanced magic, someone who could arrogantly tell mages of the four ranks below them, "You know nothing of power! Hahahaha!"

Yet the appearance of a Mage Mentor only made Mayuna, lying prone on the floor, want to yawn sleepily. Since the mastermind had already shown himself, she no longer planned to play dead. Well, the table was a little hard. Just as she was about to rise, Ruben grabbed her hand and began writing in her palm. Everyone's attention was on the mayor, so no one noticed the conspiracy of four hands beneath the dining table.

[Don't move. Play dead.]

Ruben's fingertips tickled Mayuna's palm. At some point, she had grown accustomed to physical contact with Ruben. Such an intimate gesture did not make her uncomfortable in the slightest. She quickly understood what he meant, then caught his hand in return and wrote several words in his palm.

[No. Make trouble.]

Ruben was confused when he read those words. Why was Mayuna telling him not to make trouble? However, three seconds later, he understood that what Mayuna had written was not "Don't make trouble," but "No. Make trouble." If he had not still been playing dead, Ruben would have wanted to get up and tug her ears. What kind of girl spent all day thinking about causing trouble instead of living a proper life? Just who had spoiled her like this?!

Just as Ruben was about to continue persuading Mayuna, she withdrew her hand before he could catch it again.

"I can give you the item, but you must promise to spare us and my guests afterward."

While Mayuna and Ruben silently wrestled with each other, Aite had already reached an agreement with the mysterious people. Knowing resistance was useless, he could only protect himself and his family this way.

"Of course. I swear in the name of the God of Light that once we have the item, we will leave. But I am curious—where exactly did you hide it? We searched for so long without finding it. We turned the entire estate upside down, and you aren't wearing any spatial items."

A satisfied smile appeared on the Mage Mentor's face, as though everything were under his control. But he soon looked puzzled, while Aite revealed where he had hidden the "key."

"Is that so? I see. Unlike your appearance, you're quite meticulous."

The Mage Mentor looked surprised at Aite's words. After praising him, he tore open the sleeve on Aite's right arm, grabbed a dining knife from the table, and cut a deep gash into his upper arm. After digging around for a while, he indeed found what he wanted: a milky-white jade fragment the size of a palm. Though it was jade, it shone with a metallic luster, making its nature impossible to discern.

"Now that you have the item, you should cure us of the poison."

Aite's face was pale as blood continuously flowed from his arm. Losing this much blood would not kill him, but without treatment, his chances of survival were still grim.

"This paralytic poison isn't actually difficult to cure. It will wear off on its own in a little over ten minutes, so we'll be leaving now."

The Mage Mentor spoke leisurely and prepared to leave. Just as Aite let out a breath of relief, he added, "But I heard Dris is rather dry, and most of its houses are made of wood. It would be perfectly normal if one accidentally caught fire, wouldn't it?"

Aite was, after all, the recorded mayor of a town within the Holy Empire. If he suddenly died in his own home, the Empire would surely send people to investigate. The Mage Mentor did not think their trail would be discovered, but he feared that someone might trace Aite's family line back through his ancestors and perhaps uncover the existence of the "key." Disguising it as an accident would be much easier. At most, people would sigh over the mayor's death before hastily concluding his funeral.

"You can't do this! You swore an oath!"

"Mm, but unfortunately, we do not believe in the God of Light."

With a smile on his face, the Mage Mentor took a red crystal from his pocket. Within it, a flame seemed to be burning, containing powerful fire elemental energy. Once it encountered fire, that energy would be released and make the blaze burn even fiercer. Ordinary water magic could not extinguish it at all.

"Light it."

The Mage Mentor coolly tossed the fire crystal onto the ground. A trivial task like setting a fire was naturally for his underlings to handle. Thinking of the generous reward he would receive upon completing the mission, he could not help but smile.

One minute passed.

Two minutes passed.

Three minutes passed.

"I said, light it!"

The Mage Mentor had kept smiling for so long that his face was beginning to ache, yet his subordinate still showed no sign of lighting the fire. He turned around and snapped angrily.

"I-I'm trying, but I can't cast Fireball."

The Great Mage underling kept one arm extended with his palm open. A second-tier spell should have been effortless for a Great Mage, but now he felt as though the fire magic elements in the air had been completely drained away, leaving him unable to ignite anything.

The magic power within a mage's body had no attribute, so to cast elemental magic, they needed to draw upon the various magical elements in the air. Without the support of those magical elements, they could only release attribute-less spells such as magic bullets.

"How the hell did you graduate from the Magic Academy?! You, get over here!"

The magus swung his hand and slapped one of his lackeys across the face, then pointed at another.

The second lackey met the same fate. No matter what he did, he could not cast any magic. At last, the magus realized something was wrong. He tried it himself, and sure enough, he could not use fire magic either. Other elements were fine, but he needed to set a fire!

"There's an expert here... Senior, I don't know if you merely happened to pass by, but please don't interfere with our mission. I have some high-grade magic crystals here. Please accept them, if you don't find them beneath your notice."

The magus was utterly shocked. In all his years, he had never heard of anyone capable of freezing the magical elements in the air. That meant the other party was at least a Great Magister. Knowing how to read the situation, he immediately took out a pile of magic crystals from his spatial item, placed them on the ground, and shouted into the empty room.

"Heehee, Ruben, did you hear that? He called me Senior! But I don't like being called Senior by a middle-aged uncle. It makes me sound so old."

The girl's bell-like laughter reached the magus's ears. The two "corpses" he had been ignoring climbed to their feet together. The smile on the peerlessly beautiful girl's face was so stunning that the magus standing opposite her was dumbstruck.

"I told you not to cause trouble..."

What else could Ruben say? He had originally planned to take the mayor's family and run while they were setting the fire, but unfortunately, he had run into such a troublesome creditor.

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