NOVPUB“Damn it! Brother!”
The moment Bruno saw Veron’s severed head, he reacted instantly.
A swarm of insects writhed from beneath his clothes.
His thoughts raced.
‘He used soundwaves... and metal magic too.’
Elemental magic was divided into ten primary attributes:
<Fire>, <Water>, <Wind>, <Earth>, <Plant>, <Electricity>, <Metal>, <Ice>, <Darkness>, and <Light>—
—with a few yet-unknown mysterious elements.
Sound magic, often derived from the vibration of air, was generally classified as a sub-category of the <Wind> element.
And the spell Ludger used to block the Tesla gun? That had been <Metal>.
‘Metal is derived from Earth. Most mages can only handle closely related attributes.’
Bruno’s analysis placed Ludger as using three elements: <Wind>, <Earth>, and <Metal>.
Typically, mages could master two or three elements. Four, at best, even with remarkable talent.
Five or more was the realm of the truly gifted.
So most mages assumed their opponents would have a limit of three elements.
It was common sense. The baseline expectation.
‘If he uses Wind, then tiny flying insects won’t work well. I’ll need something bigger.’
Still, he didn’t rule out the chance Ludger might possess a fourth element.
From Bruno’s sleeve crawled a massive centipede with a thick, armored carapace.
A genetically engineered aberration from the southern jungle—mutated through dark magic and interbreeding, this creature could never be found in nature.
But the centipede’s head was severed in an instant.
And the blade that followed aimed for Bruno’s throat in less than a second.
“Kh!”
Bruno twisted his body just in time, narrowly deflecting Ludger’s strike.
Beneath his clothes, chains of hard beetles clung to his body like a carapace—armor made of living insects.
‘Close combat? Is he a war mage?’
Bruno leapt back, trying to gain distance.
But in that instant, a spell formation flared right in front of Ludger.
Bruno’s eyes widened.
‘That’s [Roaring Flame]!’
A blazing glyph manifested in the blink of an eye—[Roaring Flame], a 3rd Circle fire spell.
Before even a full second passed, a torrent of fire erupted, engulfing Bruno.
“GAAAGHHH!”
His scream echoed as the flames lit up the corridor. The soldiers guarding the lab turned in shock.
“T-The enemy?!”
“How the hell did he—?!”
Meanwhile, Bruno writhed in the blaze.
Fire—every insect mage’s worst nightmare.
It was the most effective and most incompatible element against their kind.
How could he wield a fourth element?
It made no sense.
“H-How...?”
Most of his insects had been incinerated, and he had barely survived the blast—but he was in no shape to fight.
Burns covered his entire body. Half his face had melted. He collapsed to the floor, trembling, glaring at Ludger.
He hadn’t let his guard down. But he had never anticipated someone wielding such a perfectly countering element.
“Who... are you?”
“...”
BANG!
Ludger gave no answer. He simply drew his revolver and blew Bruno’s head off.
At that moment, backup power kicked in, flooding the lab with light once more.
“H-Huff!”
“T-The Bug Brothers... they’re both dead?!”
The soldiers inside the lab stared in horror at the corpses of Bruno and Veron.
Even all of them combined couldn’t have taken on just one of those brothers.
And yet this intruder had taken them both down—alone.
The soldiers’ morale shattered.
There was no way they could fight such a monster.
They began backing away, trembling in fear—
But then Veron’s corpse began to move.
Rip!
“...!”
Ludger reacted instantly, lunging forward. A split second later, a massive claw tore through the space where he’d just stood.
It was a bug’s foreleg—smooth, armored, and bristling with sharp spines.
The onlookers froze in disbelief.
“I thought he was dead?!”
Ludger muttered as he watched Veron twitch and rise.
The corpse with the severed head began standing back up. What had just lashed out at him was a grotesquely mutated right arm.
Veron stretched out his remaining, human-like left hand.
A mouth gaped open in its palm.
[Surprised? I didn’t think you’d get the drop on me like that.]
“...Bug transformation.”
[Oh? You know of it?]
Bruno controlled insects.
But Veron, with his massive body and lack of insect command, had always been an anomaly among black mages.
So why were they called the Bug Brothers?
‘So that’s it.’
Veron had mutated his own body into a kind of insect.
There was no way his transformation was natural—he had used his own body as the subject of black magic experiments.
He was a prime example of why black mages were considered utterly insane.
“Even so, for your head to be cut off and you’re still standing...”
[My body stopped being human long ago.]
Crkkk!
With a sickening sound, Veron’s form began to change.
His black robe swelled and split open as countless spines burst from beneath it.
Ludger stepped back.
Veron, already huge, grew even larger—towering over Ludger like a monstrous insect hybrid.
A grotesque amalgamation of multiple insects.
At this point, it was impossible to tell whether he was still a black mage or a cryptid.
[You killed my brother. I’m not sad... but someone’s gotta pay.]
Veron’s arms snapped backward, then launched forward like arrows aimed at Ludger.
Ludger shot upward using his wire launcher.
Veron’s strike missed and impaled several of the soldiers behind him.
“AAAGHH!”
“Run!”
Even as his underlings screamed and died, Veron paid them no mind.
[Quick little thing, aren’t you? Like a damn gnat.]
He tilted his head, searching the air for Ludger—
CRASH!
Just then, the steel framework of the ceiling gave way and collapsed onto Veron’s head.
BOOOM!
The heavy iron beams crashed down.
But Veron was unscathed.
His carapace was chipped, but that was it. No real damage.
[Was that supposed to be a distraction?]
He turned his enormous head and stared at Ludger, who had landed on the floor via wire.
It was an obvious provocation.
But Ludger didn’t respond.
‘Troublesome.’
Veron’s form had surpassed anything remotely insect-like.
That massive frame and armor-thick carapace—he was beyond a black mage now. He was a true monster.
‘This is why I hate black mages.’
Ludger raised his revolver, then lowered it.
He holstered all his weapons.
He’d realized it—shooting was pointless.
[Oh? Giving up already?]
Veron sneered at the sight.
But Ludger only extended his hand toward Veron.
[What now?]
The gesture was irritating.
It wasn’t just curiosity—it sparked a sense of revulsion in Veron.
What kind of magic was this?
But no 3rd Circle spell could possibly harm Veron’s current body. That much he knew.
As far as he could tell, Ludger was a 3rd Circle mage.
Sure, his casting speed was inhuman, but that was it.
There was no way this cute little intruder could actually hurt him.
So maybe... maybe watching what he was trying to do could be amusing.
That’s what Veron decided.
“I really didn’t want to use this here.”
[Hmm?]
“But I guess I have no choice.”
The moment Ludger’s words ended—
The entire lab filled with blinding white light.
This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.
* * *
“Sss. Hoo. Still cold out here.”
Outside the abandoned factory, Hans stood shivering, hands stuffed deep into his pockets against the biting night air as he waited for Ludger.
It had already been thirty minutes since Ludger had gone inside.
‘It should be about over by now.’
Ludger hadn’t shown it openly, but Hans could tell—he was angry.
And rightly so.
Kidnapping a seven-year-old child and their parents to use in human experimentation?
Even Hans, who couldn’t claim to be an honest man, believed there were some lines a person simply shouldn’t cross.
And those from the Shamsus School had not only crossed that line—they’d trampled it.
‘He’s late. Guess having two black mages in there made it tougher than expected.’
Especially if those black mages were the so-called Bug Brothers, who had some notoriety.
But even so, Hans didn’t believe Ludger would die.
He’d known the man for years.
If Ludger were the sort to die easily, he’d have died long ago.
The fact that he hadn’t meant only one thing—
He was that strong.
‘Though he rarely lets it show.’
After all, he was the same man who, as a hunter, had singlehandedly killed the monster of Jévaudan.
That same monster had devoured more than five knights, and Ludger brought it down alone.
And he wasn’t just the infamous hunter known as Abraham van Helsing.
Private investigator.
Phantom thief.
Criminal consultant.
Mercenary.
Artist, and more.
He had worn many faces, and each one had stirred up waves in its own time.
Flash!
Just as Hans was thinking it was about time, a blinding white light burst from the abandoned factory.
FWOOOOOSH!
The light transformed into flame, engulfing the factory in a sea of fire.
The sheer force—enough to obliterate an entire building.
Hans knew exactly who was responsible.
‘So he used that.'
He called it “that” even now, but Hans still didn’t really know what it was.
He had once asked Ludger about it—
The only reply he'd received was a strange one: “Real magic.”
‘Magic is magic—what the hell is real magic?’
Either way, the fact Ludger had used it meant the enemy was no pushover.
And it also meant Ludger had gone all in.
* * *
Ludger emerged from the lab, carrying a suitcase filled with experimental data and the drug used on the test subjects.
Hans, still waiting outside, stepped forward to meet him.
“You’re back. Let’s get out of here. You went a little too flashy with it—even if it’s an abandoned factory, the cops’ll show. What about inside?”
“All cleared.”
After taking down Veron, Ludger had ventured deep into the lab.
There, in the dark, he found horrific test subjects locked away in iron cages.
They had once been ordinary people living ordinary lives.
Now, those lives had been utterly shattered.
Their bodies warped, their minds lost, writhing in agony as they teetered on the edge of humanity.
The only mercy Ludger could offer—
Was to send them off without pain.
He had destroyed the lab, killed the scientists, and taken their research notes and results.
“This it?”
Hans peered into the suitcase. Among the documents sat a row of ampoules filled with crimson liquid.
“Yes.”
“This world’s getting scarier by the day. Never thought someone would actually run human experiments in a place like this. And scientists? Inventors? Working with black mages? I can’t believe it.”
“That’s not all.”
“What do you mean?”
“How do you think they got their hands on a facility that big?”
“Well...”
“There’s someone backing them. Someone with deep pockets.”
“That... that’s no small thing.”
To build something of that scale in secret would take more than just resources—it would require powerful connections and wealth.
Whoever supported them was no ordinary figure.
“Don’t worry. I already know who it is.”
“Are... are you serious?”
“Yes.”
Hans felt a creeping sense of dread.
“Boss, you’re not...”
“What?”
“You’re not gonna...”
Ludger didn’t bother to ask what Hans meant.
He simply gazed at him in silence.
Ah.
No stopping him.
Hans realized it immediately and took the suitcase.
“I’ll go back to the hideout first. Drop by if you finish whatever it is.”
He didn’t even wait for Ludger’s reply—just turned and left.
Ludger stood still for a moment.
In the distance, the factory burned red-hot, illuminating the surrounding ruins.
It looked like a candle flaring one last time before going out.
* * *
“This garbage is what you brought me for dinner?!”
CLANG!
Inside a lavish mansion, the tycoon Belvotte Rixon hurled a plate of food at a maid.
Blood dripped from her forehead where the porcelain struck her. She collapsed to the floor.
The food smeared her uniform and face.
But no one dared help her.
The man in his sixties, with a neatly groomed white beard, clicked his tongue and glared at her in disgust.
“You call this food? I pay you and this is what I get? Worthless trash!”
Belvotte left the dining room in a rage.
He had ridden the waves of a changing era to become a wildly successful capitalist.
But by the time he’d grasped his success, the man in the mirror was nothing but a wrinkled old man.
He had paid for that success with his youth.
And now he wanted it back.
That was why he had funded the black mages and their experiments.
But then he’d heard—
Some of the test subjects had escaped, disrupting everything.
Damn it! Idiots! Incompetent fools!
Do you have any idea how much I’ve invested in you?!
Belvotte fumed as he returned to his room.
‘Still, the experiment wasn’t a failure. Soon, there’ll be real results.’
A drug to return the human body to its prime.
The elixir of youth was near.
And not just youth—health, strength, vitality beyond imagination.
That was the moment he reached for the light switch in his darkened room—
“Belvotte Rixon.”
“W-What?! Who’s there?!”
Someone was standing in the center of the room.
Belvotte reached for the magelight—but it wouldn’t turn on.
The darkness was thick. No moonlight, no light at all.
He was trapped with an unknown intruder.
“G-Guards! GUARDS!”
“They won’t hear you.”
A sound-dampening field had already been cast over the room.
Normally, using such magic in the home of a tycoon would trigger a security alert.
But ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) Ludger’s magic was far too subtle for that.
He rose slowly from the chair where he’d been sitting.
And walked toward Belvotte.
“Belvotte Rixon. I have a question for you.”
“W-What?! Who are you?! Identify yourself!”
“A seven-year-old child... fighting to survive a nightmare... forced to watch their own parents become monsters...”
Crack.
Ludger grabbed Belvotte by the collar and yanked him close.
His eyes glowed red in the darkness.
“How do you think it feels to be the one who has to burn them alive—knowing all of that?”
