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Chapter 4
‘What… is this…?’
Cecilia staggered.
It had already been five years since she escaped from the tyrant who had relentlessly pursued her.
Shouldn’t he have given up by now?
And Keres?!
She and her husband had never been in love, but they had been good partners.
She had made sure every single document was properly completed for his sake.
The House of Keres had to divorce her if they were to avoid being implicated.
‘Was the divorce petition rejected? Why am I still the Duchess of Keres?’
That wasn’t her only question.
‘Mejina is an independent kingdom. How did the Emperor of Linek manage to issue a wanted notice on this scale?’
But she had no time to think.
At the piercing sound of blaring sirens, soldiers of the capital’s defense force in uniform poured in from every direction.
“It’s the fugitive! The fugitive has appeared!”
It wasn’t difficult to understand what was happening.
‘A magical detection network.’
It had been built over centuries by the kingdom’s greatest mages.
Of course she had been caught.
Certain of victory, the captain of the defense force shouted proudly,
“Fugitive! Surrender immediately!”
Well, well.
The corners of Cecilia’s lips had only just begun to curl upward—
“Ca-Captain…!”
The captain’s face turned deathly pale.
He looked around frantically like a madman, but the woman who had been standing right in front of him had vanished without leaving a trace.
Cecilia Keres had mocked him once and disappeared from the capital.
‘How…? Teleportation magic can’t be used inside the capital!’
He roared,
“Bring the mages immediately and report this to headquarters! The fugitive is a mage skilled in escape techniques!”
Because it was the captain’s direct order, a mage who had been on constant standby arrived almost instantly.
After sweeping his hand several times over the spot where Cecilia Keres had supposedly been standing, he spoke with an odd expression.
“It’s invisibility magic. She’s probably already left this district entirely.”
“Invisibility magic…?”
The captain was stunned.
Not because it was advanced magic.
Quite the opposite.
Invisibility was one of the most basic spells, and it was common knowledge that it could never evade the detection network.
“The fact that the network didn’t detect her at all means she has mastered it perfectly. I’d only heard of such a thing before. This is my first time seeing it.”
The mage sighed.
“Either she’s hired an exceptionally powerful archmage… or she’s an archmage herself. Either way, this won’t be an easy hunt.”
Escaping a magical detection network was no simple task.
Cecilia silently cursed herself countless times, though it was far too late for regrets.
‘If I’d known this would happen, I should’ve traveled overland from the start!’
But how could she have predicted it?
She had never imagined the tyrant would extend a wanted notice all the way into Mejina.
‘And now they’ve figured out I’m a mage…’
Things were going from bad to worse.
‘First, I’ll leave Mejina and hide inside the Empire.’
She would still have to live in hiding because of the tyrant, but it was better than remaining in Mejina.
‘Teleportation magic will be picked up by the detection network. I’ll have to travel on horseback.’
Her seemingly flawless plan fell apart within only a few hours.
While racing toward the border, she was ambushed by a group of mages.
“Fugitive! Surrender!”
Cecilia’s face darkened.
Judging from the robes emblazoned with the royal crest, they were undoubtedly royal mages.
Even for her, fighting more than ten royal mages at once was impossible.
Her mind raced.
Her invisibility spell itself hadn’t failed.
There was only one explanation.
‘They adjusted the detection network.’
If the network were made even denser, it could detect even an invisibility spell that suppressed one’s presence to the utmost limit.
The problem was that not even royal mages could alter the detection network on their own authority.
‘The Mage King must have intervened personally.’
Cecilia’s expression stiffened.
‘But why? This isn’t important enough to warrant that…’
Though she had only briefly been a duchess, knowledge of international affairs was basic education for someone of her position.
Mejina was a small nation, but because it possessed powerful mages, it maintained relations with the Empire of Linek as an equal.
That was precisely why Cecilia had fled to Mejina five years earlier.
And now the tyrant was causing all this chaos just to capture one woman he was obsessed with?
‘Something isn’t right.’
She doubted they would answer even if she asked, so Cecilia acted immediately.
A massive pillar of blue light shot skyward from where she stood.
The royal mages instantly formed a defensive formation.
It wasn’t necessary.
In the briefest instant,
Cecilia Keres vanished without leaving a single trace.
Boom!
A deafening explosion echoed as an enormous impact slammed into her.
“Ugh…”
Cecilia rolled across the ground, groaning.
The pain felt no different from having all four limbs broken.
‘I was tricked.’
She had successfully halted the entire detection network by using the royal mages as a medium.
She had assumed her teleportation spell would activate flawlessly.
Instead, it had failed spectacularly.
Staggering to her feet, Cecilia prepared herself.
The royal mages would surely arrive at any moment.
But…
‘Where… am I?’
Her eyes widened as she looked around.
She was standing in the middle of ruins that had once been a magnificent palace, now completely overgrown with tangled thorn bushes.
Then—
A hoarse voice descended from the sky.
“This is the future awaiting us all if you do not return to Linek.”
Cecilia looked upward in shock.
A gigantic body towered above her with overwhelming presence.
Its slightly open jaws were filled with terrifying fangs.
A dragon.
There was no mistaking what it was.
The Mage King, Bjorn.
The ruthless genius mage who had ruled the Kingdom of Magic with an iron fist for the past hundred years.
The man known as the Iron Wall of Mejina, for allowing no invasion to succeed.
‘He was a dragon…?’
Cecilia reacted instantly.
Brilliant blue mana erupted explosively around her.
Her body floated into the air as an enormous magic circle formed beneath her feet.
“Pathetic.”
Bjorn sneered openly.
A barrier large enough to envelop the dragon rose from the earth in an instant.
Cecilia gritted her teeth.
She already knew she couldn’t win.
How could a human defeat a dragon?
Her goal wasn’t victory.
She only needed to leave the tiniest crack in that flawless wall—
just enough to create an opening to escape.
Boom!
The thunderous impact scattered the illusion Bjorn had created, revealing reality.
A vast hall.
They had been inside a palace all along.
The entire structure shook violently, as though it might collapse at any moment.
Cecilia’s blue magic circle expanded until it touched Bjorn’s crimson barrier.
The barrier writhed, releasing a dark red aura.
Her entire body trembled.
Simply brushing against Bjorn’s power felt like diving headfirst into blazing fire.
‘Even so… I refuse to be taken back to Linek!’
She had changed the future with so much effort!
She could still vividly remember the prophetic dream she had on her nineteenth birthday.
Six months later, the Emperor of Linek would see Cecilia during the coming-of-age ceremony of his youngest son and fall in love with her at first sight.
As a result, Cecilia would be forced to marry an Emperor forty years older than herself.
Using Cecilia as his excuse, the Emperor’s tyranny would only worsen.
Eventually, she would become the greatest temptress and most infamous villainess in the Empire’s history.
In the end, a rebellion would break out, and she would be executed by slow slicing alongside the Emperor.
Only after entering the Guardian Tower had she learned the truth.
Her prophetic dream had actually been the manifestation of her dormant magical power.
If someone whose magical talent had been praised as the greatest in the history of the Guardian Tower had dismissed such a vision as nothing more than a dream…
‘Calm down. You’ve escaped this long already.’
Cecilia carefully examined the barrier.
As expected of the famed Mage King, it had not the slightest flaw.
But her objective wasn’t to destroy it.
She only needed to create the smallest opportunity to flee.
A gigantic spiral spear, nearly as large as the dragon itself, materialized before her.
She poured only ten percent of her mana into the spell.
Most of even that was spent making it appear far more impressive than it truly was.
Three.
Two.
One.
The spear shot toward the barrier.
Boom!
The impact that followed was far greater than she had expected.
The violent shock rattled her bones.
But she had no time to wonder why.
Quickly…
I have to escape—
‘Huh?’
Cecilia’s hand, which had been about to draw another teleportation circle, froze.
Even after the tremors ceased and the dust settled…
Bjorn was nowhere to be seen.
‘Don’t tell me…’
Had she actually defeated him?
‘There’s only one way to find out.’
Blue mana once again gathered around Cecilia’s body.
Just then—
Something wriggled near her feet.
‘…?’
She immediately looked down.
Her eyes widened.
Something tiny…
Squirming…
A little creature desperately squeaking at her.
“S-Surrender! I surrender!”
An utterly bewildered sentence escaped Cecilia’s lips.
“…A lizard?”
