Mastermind
Copyright© 2026 by FantasyTranslater
Chapter 38
Liyan Aguileras doesn’t like lies.
It goes beyond mere dislike—she despises them.
This hatred stems from her experiences growing up as the daughter of a Red Tower Master.
She enjoyed abundant privileges, but with that came countless lies and deceptions.
Lies that were so intense they left her traumatized.
Thus, she came to hate lies with an almost compulsive aversion, and this loathing intensified when the liar in question was a magician, a result of the trauma from her childhood.
So, when Liyan Aguileras first met Count Palatio, she instinctively despised him.
Despite the rumors that Count Palatio had contributed greatly to capturing foreign threats, Liyan saw him as weak.
He lacked the ‘eye’ that is essential for becoming a high-ranking magician, but Liyan, having a decent amount of talent, could easily see Alon’s mana.
It was pitiful, barely a flicker of power.
While he was undoubtedly a magician, the meager amount of mana he possessed wouldn’t even qualify him to reach the second tier.
This reminded her of another rumor—one that suggested Count Palatio wasn’t the hero who stopped the foreign threats, but rather the benefactor of Deus Macallian, one of the Master Knights.
The idea that he had stolen the glory of Deus Macallian quickly rooted itself in her mind as the truth, leading Liyan to develop a deep hatred for the Count.
Yes, that must have been it.
But how?
Liyan now stared at Alon in shock.
More precisely, she was watching the phenomenon Alon had created.
A chilling space had formed around him, spreading wide across the scorching desert, freezing the very air in the middle of this blazing land.
When she saw frost starting to form on the sand near him, Liyan couldn’t comprehend what was happening.
This was a spell that could never be manifested by the amount of mana Alon possessed.
And it wasn’t just that.
Though she didn’t understand how the spell was cast, Liyan could grasp its structure.
“Compound magic, and at least three different spells...!”
Compound magic.
To explain it theoretically would take a long time, but simply put, it refers to linking two or more spells together.
Of course, linking spells is no easy task.
Various elements must be added to implement magic, but the basic arrangement structure must still be followed.
In short, linking spells meant this: if even one structure is disrupted, the entire magic is nullified.
The magician must re-establish the spells with their own equation to make it work.
The difficulty of linking increases exponentially with each additional spell, making it a challenge that only magicians of at least the fifth tier can attempt.
That’s why, as Liyan dumbly watched Alon prepare his next spell—
“!”
—she witnessed something.
The man with the eyepatch, who had been standing in front of her just moments ago, had suddenly reached Alon.
No one had noticed how it happened—it was over in an instant.
Mercenaries, who belatedly realized that protecting Alon was their best strategy, quickly turned their bodies.
Liyan, too, instinctively started to prepare her magic to aid Alon, but it was already too late.
The man with an eyepatch was standing before Alon with a sly smile, poised to swing his twin scimitars.
However, what Liyan saw was not Alon’s head being severed—
“Freeze.”
Snap-!
—It was the man with an eyepatch, frozen in place.
Frozen in the very posture of swinging his twin scimitars, the man turned into an ice statue in that brief moment.
“Shatter.”
With Alon’s low murmur,
Crack—Crash!
The ice shattered, and the body of the man who had driven them to despair was instantly broken into countless fragments.
Silence.
“Hoo—”
With a quiet exhale from Alon, a white breath once again swept over him.
Retracting the hand that had formed the seals even Liyan couldn’t fully comprehend—
“I’ll give you a chance.”
—he spoke, as if he had anticipated everything.
Without any change in expression, he looked coldly at the group of bandits, who were now frozen in fear.
“Get lost.”
It was a quiet yet unmistakably clear pronouncement, carrying a sharp intent that no one could misinterpret.
With just a single attack, the bandits, having lost their leader in an instant, hesitated briefly before turning to flee in all directions.
Watching Alon calmly dispel his magic as if nothing had happened, Liyan realized just how ignorant she had been and continued to stare at him.
A hint of admiration flickered in her eyes.
As he watched the retreating figures of the bandits, who had fled in a heartbeat, Alon felt a sense of relief and bewilderment hidden behind his expressionless face.
‘Things didn’t go exactly as planned, but it worked out in the end, so that’s a relief.’
Alon knew about the Bloodsand Bandits.
They appeared as part of a side story in the game.
In the game, this bandits had a characteristic where, once their leader was dealt with, the remaining members would scatter.
That was why he aimed to take down the leader quickly, and he had succeeded as intended.
... Though, it was unexpected that the leader had rushed at him before he had even fully manipulated the magic array.
‘It seems reducing the penalty worked.’
Alon suddenly felt the searing desert heat seep back into his bones.
The cold that had spread from him moments ago was from a spell he had spent over half a year developing after returning from Caliban—’The Extreme Cold.’
This spell, which required the simultaneous use of spatial magic, frost magic, and maintenance magic, had the effect of temporarily transforming the surrounding environment to resemble the frozen tundra of the North.
However, for Alon, this transformation was critical.
‘The Extreme Cold’ was important because it allowed me to partially fulfill one of the four conditions required to twist the world’s laws for killing foreign entities—’magic must be used on the land of extreme cold.’
In other words, the spell allowed him to reduce the number of penalties he bore from four to three, making it quite valuable for him.
The negative consequences of these conditions limited his magical abilities.
‘The magic I linked with the extreme cold spell worked well. The difference in difficulty between bearing one fewer penalty is indeed substantial. Even though the spell itself became more powerful than I had initially expected ... due to the belt.’
Though Alon felt momentarily disoriented by the unexpected surge in power,
‘Well, I suppose that’s a good thing.’
Shrugging his shoulders, he consciously reached for the ornament around his waist—a belt adorned with three amethysts—called the “Belt of the Forgotten.”