How to Tame That Gentle Male Lead - Chapter 5.1
“Ah!” Renard exclaimed, snapping his fingers.
“That’s right! The priests of the earth god can’t uproot plants and even when eating, they revere plants, so burning them or offering them as sacrifices is forbidden. But to become a dark mage, one must offer what’s taboo to them as a sacrifice. Or offer an unblessed animal… Perfect. Do we should look for a corrupted priest among the earth god’s clergy?”
“Exactly. Hehe. Moreover, we won’t have to search among the magicians. Magicians are under surveillance from the magic tower, so if they try to leave the tower to become dark mages, they’ll all get caught.”
“I see…”
“Of course, ordinary people, like you and I just now, wouldn’t think that a priest could become a dark mage… I should relay this to His Highness the Crown Prince when we return. That there are cases where priests become dark mages.”
Renard nodded vigorously in agreement. Resena also felt good about discovering another hint about Zergard, the leader of the dark mages.
“Plus, there’s one more thing. As the coachman said earlier, if two places offered plants, it’s highly likely that other places will offer plants too.”
“As you said, sis, a converted priest of the earth god would offer plants, right?”
Resena raised a finger and showed a confident expression. Seeing that expression, which he hadn’t often seen before, Renard suddenly felt that his sister had changed a lot. In the past, when she used to follow the Crown Prince around, she never once showed such a confident expression…
‘Sis. I like that you’ve changed. In the past, no matter how kindly our family treated you, you were only devoted to His Highness the Crown Prince. Now you’re keeping your distance from His Highness… You seem better now, valuing the people around you.’
“But that’s not all. Places that have already been offered can’t be used again because their sanctity has been violated, so he’ll try to damage plants in places other than where his identity has already been seen. Since he can probably manifest abilities related to plants, he might be planning to wither them and set fire to plains to offer large-scale sacrifices.”
Renard applauded Resena’s accurate deduction.
“Sis, you’re really amazing. I couldn’t have predicted that at all… But how can we find the target land in this vast Arnasus territory?”
Resena grinned.
“It’s simple. We just need to find the largest plots of land.”
“…The largest? From earlier… Ah!”
“Having turned to dark magic, to gain power quickly, damaging the largest plots of land would be ideal. At first, as a novice, he probably damaged small plots of land to gain black mana… But as days go by, he’ll become dissatisfied with just small plots. So he’ll gradually choose from larger plots, and eventually aim for the largest plot.”
“Ah…!”
Sister’s words were truly reasonable. Renard could understand why Eldis showed interest in Resena’s new perspective. The changed sister seemed to accurately grasp the psychology of dark mages, which was truly admirable.
“Then what we need to do is…”
“Yes. We’ll station Sword Experts with invisibility magic on the large farmlands and the largest agricultural land to prevent them from being damaged. If we guard like that for about a week, the dark mage will fall into the trap on his own. Like a mouse aiming for delicious bait that no one is guarding.”
***
Ten days passed since they started the stakeout as Resena suggested. The knights were skeptical of Resena’s words at first, but realizing it was the only way to uncover the culprit’s identity, they obediently followed orders and spent nights under invisibility magic.
And on exactly the 11th night, at midnight.
A knight who spotted a man carefully entering a wheat field, wrapped in a black robe, pounced on him the moment he tried to steal the wheat.
“Huh!”
“Don’t move!”
The knight growled and quickly tied him up with the rope he was carrying. Just in case, he didn’t forget to gag him hurriedly to prevent him from chanting any spells.
The culprit, who had instantly become like a tightly bound caterpillar, mumbled and shook his body, but the knight ignored him and dragged him away. Or rather, tried to drag him away.
“Puhah!”
If only he hadn’t used black mana.
The rope was instantly cut by the sharpness of the black mana. The knight bit his lip as he saw the man smiling sluggishly while removing the gag from his mouth. But instead of standing dumbfounded, the knight lit a signal flare.
Whoosh!
In an instant, a red light shot up into the sky. Now that everyone knew where he was, they would all gather, knowing that the culprit had been found. And at that moment, a look of panic appeared on the culprit’s face.
“Stop right there!”
Perhaps because of that.
The culprit started to flee hurriedly. It seemed he judged it would be difficult to face the incoming knights. That was actually the right decision. He was still a novice, too inexperienced to face 10 Sword Experts.
“Ugh!”
“If you don’t stop, we’ll consider it resistance and cut off your arm. If you want your limbs intact, stop!”
“……”
The culprit fled at every turn without saying a word to the knights’ threats. But as knights suddenly appeared in front of him at every turn, he changed direction each time with a terrified face.
But that didn’t last long.
“Your rat-like escape ends now.”
As Sword Master Renard appeared with his sword drawn and eyes wide, the culprit’s face twisted terribly.
Renard didn’t say anything more and threw his sword, covering it with aura. The culprit barely dodged the aura aiming for his neck in an instant, but couldn’t avoid having his hair cut.
“Ugh!”
The culprit, realizing he was cornered, gritted his teeth and summoned black mana in his hand. Even if he was no match for a Sword Master, he couldn’t be caught so easily.
But when Renard jumped in the air and threw multiple auras to the ground, the culprit couldn’t avoid them and took a direct hit to his body.
“Huff. Huff…”
“Stop resisting uselessly and surrender now. I’ll mercifully end your life quickly.”
As Renard spoke to the culprit who was bleeding from his waist and slowing down, he bit his lip and stretched his hand towards Renard. Suddenly, the night air seemed to ripple, and darkness began to envelop Renard. Renard instinctively realized that he was using black mana and surrounded himself with aura.
“It’s useless. Let me show you that.”
Renard charged towards the culprit while quickly releasing about ten short bursts of aura from his sword. The culprit, unable to face the aura that could cut even rocks, threw his body to dodge, but couldn’t avoid the last pursuing aura and quickly received a penetrating wound on his thigh.
At the same time, the culprit’s robe was torn away, revealing a blood-stained ceremonial garment. Renard instantly realized he was a priest and marveled at his sister’s insight. Indeed, her words lately had been flawless.
Perhaps that’s why Eldis was interested in her as well.
“Ugh…”
“Surroundings secured!”
Soon after, knights surrounded the dark mage. Seeing the plan executed as intended, the corners of Renard’s mouth slightly turned up.
While he was buying time, the knights had excellently done their part.
“Surrender. You have nowhere else to go.”
“As if I’d surrender like this…”
Before the culprit could finish his sentence, a binding spell was cast, cutting through the air. Whether a magic scroll for binding the opponent was torn, yellow magical ropes instantly tied up the culprit. As his arms were suddenly restrained, the culprit panicked, and Renard lunged forward, rolling together with the culprit.
“Ugh. Let go!”
“You talk too much. Just faint.”
As Renard delivered a punch to his solar plexus, he instantly lost consciousness. Huffing, Renard stood up, and Resena hurriedly ran through the gathered knights.
“Well done, Renard!”
“It was nothing. The knights did the hard work.”
“No. If you hadn’t knocked him out, he would’ve kept running around. You really did well.”
