Chapter 274: Clean-Up
"So you can make anything with that ink?" Azel asked, watching his head dissolve into a thick black liquid that floated mid-air like smoke.
"Not anything," Ira said, raising a finger.
"The more complex the creation, the more mana it consumes. For example, a simple human head like yours..." she paused, realizing how strange that sounded, "is easier to form because it has ordinary human features: eyes, bones, muscles, cartilage, skin, and basic neural lines."
She gestured, and the ink hovered again, reshaping briefly into a rough skull diagram to illustrate.
"But a monster’s head?" She sighed. "That’s an entirely different story. Their anatomy is layered with special membranes and organ clusters that regulate mana flow, specialized glands that secrete elemental fluid, and sensory nodes that help them channel power through instinct instead of reasoning. Reproducing that kind of biological system is... complicated."
Azel blinked slowly.
’Wow, she’s a nerd.’
He had expected a simple answer like "It’s harder to draw monsters."
Instead, he got an entire lecture on monster cranial structure, not that he was complaining though...
Ira continued, clearly in her element now.
"For instance, a wyvern’s head isn’t just scaled... it’s inner skull houses mana veins that run directly into the sinuses to amplify breath attacks. If I miss even one of those channels, the whole creation collapses. And don’t get me started on hydras. They have parallel neural circuits to control each head independently."
Azel nodded slowly, pretending to follow. "Right. Of course. Parallel... head circuits."
She smiled as if he understood every word.
"But as long as I have enough time and mana," Ira went on, "I could theoretically recreate a full Rank 4 beast, though it wouldn’t be as powerful as the original."
"Rank 4, huh?" Azel said. "That’s already higher than most mages can take on."
She nodded modestly. "Yes, but there’s a catch. Power replication depends on my understanding of its physical and magical structure. If I don’t know how a monster performs its skill, I can’t make a functioning copy. So before I try to draw anything complex, I have to study it thoroughly... down to the exact organs that let it breathe fire or channel lightning."
Azel leaned an elbow on the table, intrigued. "So basically... you’re a researcher pretending to be a mage."
She blinked, then laughed.
"Something like that. All in all, Ink Magic demands a lot of memorization and analysis."
Azel exhaled softly.
’No wonder the developers gave her perfect memory,’ he thought.
Ink Magic was powerful, but the sheer effort required made it nearly impossible for a regular person.
She was built differently and literally designed to handle a skill that required encyclopedic precision.
"Thanks for showing me," Azel said finally, standing from his chair. "That was impressive."
She blinked, disappointed that the demonstration was over.
He slid her notebook across the table back toward her.
"Tell you what... I’ll pose for you tomorrow. You can practice your drawing then."
Her eyes widened slightly.
"O... Okay," she said, smiling bright enough to make his heart twitch for a brief second.
And before she could even blink, he was gone.
The chair rocked slightly from the aftershock of his movement.
Ira’s mouth fell open.
"He’s moving really fast..." she murmured.
The blob of ink still hovered beside her, patiently rippling like a living thing.
She waited for a moment, expecting him to come back.
One minute passed... Then two.
He didn’t return.
With a sigh, she extended her hand toward the floating blob.
It responded instantly... reshaping and hardening in her palm until it once again became the familiar outline of Azel’s face.
This time, she didn’t bother hiding her smile.
His expression looked the same as before, though the lips... again, were slightly fuller.
Her heart fluttered.
’I had them right in front of me... but I couldn’t kiss them,’ she thought, her cheeks burning crimson.
She hesitated, then lifted the inky head closer, her fingers trembling slightly. "Just once..."
Her lips brushed the ink.
The texture was cool and soft, not quite liquid but not solid either... it was like like touching smooth water that refused to drip.
’I’m glad he’s staying, even if it’s for some days.’ she thought, her eyes closing for a second.
The head shivered and then suddenly burst.
Pop!
Ink splattered across her face and clothes, dripping down her sleeve and splashing on the floor.
She froze, blinking through the mess.
"...I should really be concentrating," she muttered, summoning a small spell to clean herself.
The droplets lifted off her skin, rejoining in mid-air before vanishing into thin mist.
"Tomorrow then..."
...
Elsewhere, the walls of Karan Town were busy.
Captain Rhun stood straight, squinting against the afternoon light as two soldiers struggled with something heavy.
The massive stake... the one that had held the werewolf’s severed head was embedded deep into the reinforced stone, and its grisly prize had started to rot.
The stench was unbearable.
"Careful!" one soldier shouted as they tried to loosen the base.
The thick wood barely moved an inch.
Rhun pinched his nose.
"It’s good for morale, they said... keeps the troops proud, they said..." he muttered bitterly. "All it’s doing now is making everyone gag."
Still, he couldn’t deny that the mounted head had worked.
The sight of that monster’s defeat had renewed the soldiers’ confidence.
But now the damned thing was rotting faster than any normal corpse.
"If only Azel was here..." Rhun grumbled under his breath as they heaved again. "He planted it there in the first place. Maybe he could pull it out."
One of the men slipped, almost losing his grip. "Captain, this thing won’t budge!"
"I can see that," Rhun said dryly, adjusting his gloves. "Don’t stop now. We’ll get it loose if it takes all day—"
"I’m here," said a calm voice behind him.
Rhun jumped nearly out of his boots.
He spun around to see Azel standing there with his arms crossed.
The soldiers froze mid-movement.
"Azel!" Rhun said, straightening quickly, though he couldn’t hide his surprise. "We didn’t see you come up!"
"That’s because you weren’t supposed to," Azel said casually, glancing at the mess.
The head on the stake had decayed badly, half of its fur gone and flies buzzing around the edges.
The air reeked of death.
"You guys having trouble with this?" he asked.
Rhun sighed. "We’ve been at it since you left. It’s buried too deep in the wall."
Azel rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I told you we shouldn’t have mounted it there."
"Yes, yes," Rhun said, waving his hands helplessly. "Please, we’re begging you this time... help us get rid of it."
Azel stepped forward. "Alright."
He approached the stake.
Up close, the smell was worse... like spoiled meat mixed with damp fur.
The werewolf’s head had lost all form, its fangs barely visible beneath the decay.
’Rotting this fast...’ he thought. ’Are the other fake corpses like that too?’
He reached out, gripping the base of the stake with one hand.
The soldiers tensed as he crouched slightly, and then...
Crack!
The entire stake lifted off the ground effortlessly, splinters falling from its base.
Rhun’s jaw dropped, it was his second time seeing this but damn...
Azel held it upright.
Then, with a blue glow, the temperature around them began to drop.
White mist coiled around his arm as frost crept along the stake’s surface, spreading rapidly upward.
Within seconds, both the wood and the werewolf head were frozen solid... transformed into a sculpture of pure, transparent ice.
The soldiers watched in awe as tiny glints of sunlight refracted through the crystal surface, making the corpse look beautiful for a fleeting moment.
Then Azel snapped his fingers.
Crack!
The frozen mass shattered, breaking into thousands of glittering shards that scattered through the air like snow before evaporating completely.
The stench vanished with it.
Azel brushed the frost off his hands.
"There. Clean now."
Rhun and his men just stared, dumbfounded.
"...That’s one way to do it," Rhun muttered finally. "If we could all do that, my men would actually enjoy cleanup duty."
He turned to face Rhun directly. "Captain."
"Yes, sir?"
"Give me everything you know about the gangs in Karan Town."