Night Ranger

The old butler had sent a letter, informing them that Marvin’s younger brother Wayne had a hard to remove curse. Even Magore Academy’s great wizards were helpless.

There weren’t much news on the letter, but fortunately, the old butler who followed Wayne to Magore Academy precisely described Wayne’s condition.

”Twin Snakes Cult’s skill!”

Upon reading the few details, Marvin had more or less figured out what happened.

The twin snakes cultists were actually that fierce. They dared to extend their grip to the Three Ring Towers area?

Wayne’s location, the Magore Academy, was part of the three ring tower. It was safe to say that it was East Coast’s safest area, or so Marvin had thought. He hadn’t expected a problem to happen at his brother’s location just as he recovered his territory.

This was something unforeseen by Marvin.

Why would a twin snakes follower put his hand on Wayne?

‘Could it be that the patriarch saw me? Surely not? I definitely dug out Miller’s eyes before killing him.’

Marvin quickly denied this line of thinking.

...

According to the old butler’s statement, Wayne was apparently in the middle of preparing for a very important competition.

In the three ring towers area, the three wizard tower’s academies would compete against each other. It seemed that recently, the three high level wizard towers joined hands to hold a real combat competition for the first time.

They divided their disciples into a few different levels and let them fight.

Even though Marvin’s younger brother was quite young and had joined the academy not that long ago, he still displayed fairly outstanding magical talent.

With talent like his grandfather’s, as long as Wayne diligently studied, becoming a 2nd rank wizard wouldn’t be an issue. He might even reach the threshold of a 3rd rank wizard.

This kind of talent in the three ring towers was considered quite good, especially in the weakest Magore Academy.

And it was said that this guy had an unusual battle wizard specialty. Thus, under his teacher’s recommendation, he would participate in the upcoming selections for the competition.

Wayne’s performance was very impressive. He surmounted all the obstacles, finally reaching the last round.

But on the eve of the selection, this 9 year old child suddenly fell sick.

This was clearly a set up.

Magore’s teachers did their best but could only delay Wayne’s curse.

He still remained unconscious and clearly couldn’t proceed with the competition.

The one who benefitted the most from Wayne’s coma was obviously his opponent, a wizard named White. Magore’s teachers couldn’t catch White. This guy apparently had powerful backing.

Although there were suspicions, there was no conclusive evidence. The couldn’t do anything about it.

‘Indeed, divination spells already lost their effectiveness.’

Marvin carefully read the letter, not wanting to miss any details.

There was at least a 3rd rank diviner among Magore’s teachers. However, they were powerless.

It was quite obvious that divinations had already stopped working or a [Truth Recollection] would have been enough to catch the culprit.

Wizards had gradually begun to display powerlessness.

Next, the other schools of magic would also begin to weaken and the wizards’ rule would slowly waver

After all, they were about to face gods that were a lot more powerful.

...

”Young Master Marvin, let me go,” Anna said spontaneously.

Marvin shook his head.

This matter wasn’t that simple. Wayne remaining unconscious like this was similar to the effects of a twin snakes follower’s methods.

The average person, even wizards, were unclear about the twin snakes techniques due to not having fought them for years.

After all, curses were the most troublesome. Want to remove the curse? You just had to remove the curse’s source. Magore’s academy didn’t have an expert able to do that.

‘Unless She is willing to take care of it.’

‘But this is clearly impossible.’ Marvin silently thought.

Magore’s academy was affiliated to the rainbow tower’s master, a wizard close to reaching the legend rank, Hathaway. It was said that she was the wizard with the highest chance of rising to the legend rank in the South Wizard Alliance. Marvin clearly remembered that during the game, this woman had successfully ranked up before the Great Calamity, luckily avoiding that split second of severe damage caused by the universe magic pool exploding.

She was one of the few legend level wizards active after the Great Calamity. Sadly, she was killed by a god one year after the calamity.

It seemed it was the work of Shadow Prince, just like Anthony. That guy didn’t use the appearance of a god. He would commonly use an incarnation to mount a sneak attack on mankind’s legend wizards. He would never miss a hit.

If Marvin didn’t guess wrong, Hathaway was definitely in seclusion, trying to break through the final doorstep to the legend rank.

Even if something like the sky and earth turning upside down happened at Magore’s academy, she wouldn’t take care of it.

Let alone a very young wizard apprentice suffering an inexplicable curse.

If not for Magore’s teachers treasuring Wayne’s talent, he might have already been abandoned.

The medicine and spells to delay the curse’s outbreak were quite expensive after all.

The old butler’s letter was quite clear about it. Wayne’s current situation could only be kept up for ten days at most.

And the selection had been delayed, but the deadline was two weeks, leaving Marvin with little time.

”I’ll go personally.” Marvin firmly decided.

”But the territory…” Anna awkwardly said.

”Tell anyone outside that I’m recuperating. There is nothing to be done about it,” Marvin muttered. ”Keep proceeding with my decrees. I’ll have to trouble you with the specifics.”

”I understand.” Anna nodded solemnly.

”The strength of the territory is still a bit weak. But I’ll take care of this issue.”

”Gru and his Bramble team are pretty talented, and they probably won’t be willing to be adventurers all their lives.”

”Don’t worry about money, do your utmost to recruit them.”

Marvin instructed, ”With the Bramble team, White River Valley would be a lot safer.”

Anna nodded.

”I’ll let Agate follow you. Even if she is still somewhat weak, she should be able to deal with a few things.”

”Also, if a young girl comes, bringing her mother from River Shore City, take care of her. Her name is Isabelle.”

”Also…”

Marvin quickly gave her a series of numerous strategic decisions.

It took no less than an hour. He gave Anna a lot of arrangements, in order to deal with any matter, regardless of its importance.

And this diligent butler had been taking continuously taking notes on Marvin’s orders.

Marvin finally clapped his hands, ”Help me get Gru, let him know that I found a book which has the cure to his daughter’s plague.”

Anna hesitatingly said, ”Could it be that you want to tell the truth?”

Marvin laughed, ”Of course not.”

”I’ll tell him that Masked Twin Blades told me that he can join up with him in River Shore City.”

”There, go. After taking care of these, I’ll need to make some preparations for the journey.”

...

Things happened too quickly; even though Marvin had always been good at handling all kinds of tasks quickly, he still felt it was a bit tricky.

Taking the normal route, you would go down the road through River Shore City toward the northwest and cross the Deathly Silent Hills and the Despair Hills in the middle, before reaching the Moonlight Forest.

Then continue north and you’d arrive at the three ring towers domain.

This was close to a week long journey.

He would be delayed.

‘If I directly cross the Despair Hills, I can arrive at the moonlight forest in two days. If my luck is good, I’d be able to catch the moonlight forest hot air balloon and arrive at the three ring towers the next day.’

Marvin drew a straight line on the rough map, memories about those places surfacing before his eyes.

His rich adventuring experience played a great role at this moment.

There were a lot of dangerous places on this route, but there were also a lot of areas with plenty of good things.

Despair Hills was after all close to Jewel Bay, the area Marvin was most familiar with.

‘If I’m lucky, before arriving to the three ring towers, I should be able to get a few first-rate curved daggers.’

As Marvin stared at some areas on the straight line, a few memories began to emerge.

But before that, he still had to make a trip to River Shore City.

Regardless of how, Gru’s daughter’s plague had to be taken care of.

If Anna failed her recruitment, lending help this time would be a major bargaining chip.

He hoped that before he left White River Valley this time, the armed forces could be a little bit stronger.

After all, the recruitment for the garrison was still in progress but it was still somewhat weak.

‘More or less like this.’

‘Rest for an hour, then set off.’

Marvin put survival necessities into the void conch, and began to rest.

...

At midnight, a fast horse left the castle town, going straight for River Shore City.