The City Is Full of Schemes—Better Head Back to the Countryside

"Y-you, calm down! If that thing explodes, the key will be destroyed too!"

Seeing Mayuna preparing to throw that terrifying thing over, the mage broke out in a cold sweat. He immediately clutched the jade shard tightly in his palm and warned her.

"Is that so?"

Mayuna held the ball in her right hand and raised her left leg high, striking a pose as though she were about to throw it. People of this world might not understand what she was doing, but Ruben recognized at a glance that she was imitating a baseball pitcher. Should he say she still had the heart of a child, or what? She was actually having so much fun in such a serious situation.

"I can tell you the secret of the key, along with plenty of other information!"

Seeing that Mayuna truly had no intention of stopping, the mage resolutely decided to trade all his information for a chance at survival. Unfortunately, he had run into someone who did not even know what the key was.

"Hmm... not interested."

As Mayuna's left foot landed, she twisted her body and threw the condensed elemental sphere in her hand. The little white ball flew forward with unstoppable momentum... except that was impossible. This world was fair: it had given Mayuna unparalleled magical talent, but not much in the way of physical ability. The young Archmage was actually a frail girl with very little strength, and the ball she threw merely drifted lazily through the air toward the group of four villains.

"Zero points for posture, zero points for strength, zero points for trajectory. If you were in a pitching contest, you'd have lost miserably already."

Ruben gave an objective assessment from the perspective of a bystander. To put it bluntly, he could take on ten Mayunas like this.

"You're so annoying!"

Mayuna, who had been rather pleased with that throw, dearly wished she could shut Ruben's mouth. Weren't those the very words she had just used to mock the other side? How had they come back to bite her so quickly?

The small ball suddenly burst amid a dazzling white flash. The blinding light made Ruben narrow his eyes slightly, but his excellent dynamic vision still caught the mage's final words. His voice was swallowed by something before he could speak, yet Ruben read the words from his lips: So the legend was true—the white-haired, red-eyed demon...

"It's over."

The condensed elemental sphere, which should have been capable of destroying the world, dealt surprisingly little damage. Aside from blasting a semicircular crater into the ground, it had not affected anyone else at all. This was because Mayuna had placed a magical barrier around the sphere's outer shell, blocking the shockwave from the explosion. However, those inside the blast had not even left behind bone fragments.

Mayuna did not like killing, but neither was she an ignorant girl incapable of being ruthless. She understood clearly that the world was more dangerous than she had imagined. Besides, they had already crossed her bottom line. If that wind blade had only been aimed at her, she would not have cared, but it had clearly included Ruben within its attack range. The Archmage absolutely would not allow Ruben to be harmed, though she herself had never considered why.

"Who still remembers that we only came here to eat?"

Ruben made no comment on what Mayuna had done. The hardships endured by the last human on Earth were beyond anyone's imagination. He walked over to Aite, who was still paralyzed, and beckoned to Mayuna. Without him needing to say anything, she knew what to do. Under the effects of healing magic, Aite's wounds quickly closed. After living together for so long, they had that much unspoken understanding.

"You two... no, never mind. Whoever you are, I was saved because of you. Thank you."

Aite looked at the two of them with a complicated expression. After thanking them, he picked up his unconscious child and placed him beside Lal, then used healing magic to restore them both.

"Uncle, what exactly is that thing called the key?"

Mayuna could not help asking. Though the other side had been no match for her, she was still curious about the item they had sent a mage to seize.

"I don't know either. It's something that has been passed down through every generation of the family. When my father gave it to me, he only told me it was very important. Embedding it in the body can speed up cultivation and make the body stronger. That's all I know about it."

"That sounds disgusting. Well, it was destroyed in the explosion anyway."

Mayuna felt the thing was utterly useless to her. Cultivation? What more could an Archmage possibly cultivate into? As for becoming stronger, that was even less acceptable. She did not want to turn into some burly woman.

"Since it's gone, let it go. I couldn't stand it if something like this happened a few more times."

Aite waved his hand quite casually. He had no idea what was worth protecting with his life about the key, which was why he had handed it over so easily.

"Mayuna, let me ask you something."

Ruben pulled Mayuna to his side and whispered several questions into her ear.

"Mm, mm, theoretically that's right. How did you know?"

"Guesswork."

Only after receiving a confirming answer did Ruben return to Lal, who was still lying motionless on the ground, and reveal a shocking fact.

"Mr. Lal, you can get up now. Or perhaps I should call you the mastermind."

"It's fine if you don't get up. Just listen quietly while I talk. I asked Mayuna just now. What happened to William wasn't direct control by someone else, but more like the dark side deep within him being endlessly amplified under hypnosis. And that kind of mind-control magic can only be accomplished through long-term deliberate guidance. He only had two people close to him, didn't he?"

Seeing that Lal did not get up, Ruben did nothing to him and simply continued. Ruben had known from the beginning that this man was pretending to be unconscious. With the help of Earth's knowledge, he clearly understood that there was quite a difference between feigning unconsciousness and actually being unconscious.

"Are you wondering how I figured it out? It's true that William fell unconscious when those four disappeared, but that was only an illusion you created. It was simply too much of a coincidence. We had just come here for a meal and ran into something like this. But if it was premeditated, then it wasn't a coincidence. From the very beginning, you intended to use us as the murderers of the town mayor, didn't you?"

"Your numbers and strength were completely overwhelming. If you had acted openly and seized the mayor's property by force, there was nothing he could have done. But you didn't want to make a big scene, nor did you want anyone else to know, so you acted in secret. You went through such a troublesome method to achieve your goal because you didn't want others to notice the existence of the key, right?"

"You were very cautious. Once the mayor handed over the key, he would definitely have been silenced. But how to kill him became a problem. You had to make it look like an accident without making it too exaggerated. Running into us today must have seemed like a godsend, so you quickly came up with this plan. When you brought us here, you deliberately took us through crowded places, so that everyone around here would know I had gone to visit the mayor's house. Unfortunately for you, I know Dris's streets like the back of my hand."

"After that, all you had to do was arrange the scene to look like an accident caused by an argument. After all, if a town mayor in a small place like this died in an accident, the Empire would not pay much attention to it."

After Ruben finished speaking, he quietly watched Lal on the ground. Before long, the butler climbed to his feet, dusted himself off, and looked at Ruben with a smile. "I really underestimated you two. I admit that not investigating your strength was my greatest mistake."

"Lal, you really... But why? Ten years. For ten years, you've been loyal to me, haven't you?"

Aite wore a pained expression. He clearly could not accept the truth that his butler was the mastermind. To him, the man he had lived with for ten years was not only his capable assistant, but also his close friend.

"That's right, Master. It's been ten years already. Far too long! I originally planned to complete this mission in three years. It's all because you hid the key too well! Three years became another three years, and now it's been ten damn years and I still haven't completed the mission. Do you think I wanted to spend every day in this remote hellhole?"

The smile on Lal's face became somewhat savage. Mayuna did not disagree with him, though. This place really was pretty awful.

"For the past ten years, I stayed by your side and constantly gathered information, because we were never sure whether your family possessed the key. Acting rashly would only alert the others. It was only recently, when you intended to pass the key on to Young Master William, that I confirmed it was in your hands."

"Others? Are there other people who know this thing exists?"

"You know nothing about a treasure passed down by your own ancestors, but I have no obligation to tell you."

After saying that, Lal closed his eyes and waited to die. He had seen everything that had happened just now. With someone like Mayuna here, resisting would be futile. He might as well die with some dignity.

"What should we do with him? Chop him up?"

"Although he used my son and intended to do something so terrible to you, I still want to hand him over to the Empire. There should be a very large organization behind him."

Even though he knew his butler was no good person, Aite still could not bear to watch him die right in front of him. He pleaded for mercy, intending to send him to prison first.

"I understand, Mayuna. Let's go."

Ruben nodded and called Mayuna to leave the mayor's house. Lal was only a mage; in a direct confrontation, he would not be a match for a grand mage. As for the outcome, it depended on just how soft-hearted Aite was. In any case, it was no longer their concern.

"Ruben, I never expected you to be so smart despite acting all silly most of the time. Even I didn't see a twist like that coming."

On the way home, Mayuna savored everything that had happened today and spoke with a giggle. She had originally thought Ruben was just there to make up the numbers, but she had not expected him to have detective skills too. In short, she was very happy.

"How am I silly... What's that in your hand?"

Ruben shot Mayuna an irritated look, only to notice her playing with that glossy white jade shard.

"The Key. How could I just stand by and watch something so interesting get destroyed? The moment of the explosion, I put it into my spatial ring. After saving someone, I should at least get some reward, right?"

"You..."

"Right, I can just use magic power to forcibly purge that paralytic potion from my body. How did you resist the poison?"

Before Ruben could complain, Mayuna spoke first and cut him off. This was also something she had been rather curious about.

"I drank Felosys's saliva before. Ordinary toxins basically do nothing to me."

"Oh."

"W-W-Wait!?"

After instinctively replying with an "oh," Mayuna went back to studying the jade shard. But she quickly came to her senses and cried out in shock, her mind filled with nothing but amazement at Ruben—what a beast, not even sparing dragons!

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PS: Thanks to reader Autumn Wind Night Shadow for the 200 reward, all becoming f; and reader Shredded Brick for the 100 reward.