"Mngh... nngh..."
A faint groan escaped Anhel’s lips. Her body gave a sharp twitch before she finally managed to lift her head.
With her vision blurred and her thoughts sluggish, she realized she was bound to a chair. As her consciousness came rushing back, she desperately tried to piece together what had happened to her.
That's right. I was...!
Yesterday, after watching the duel between Yugo and Isaac, she had headed straight for the workshop. She had two goals: to continue her research on the Flame Armor, and to settle one other piece of business.
During the duel, Isaac had wielded Demonic Swords. Anhel had a suspicion about who might have been maintaining those blades, and she had intended to question them.
She wanted to know if they had heard anything from Isaac regarding the source of those swords. Seeking even the smallest clue for Yugo’s sake, she had begun investigating the workshop... and that was when she saw it.
The workshop had been deserted lately, as most of the students had collapsed from exhaustion. However, several swords were laid out inside. Among them, she discovered blades that matched every characteristic of the Demonic Swords Yugo had described. The shock had barely registered before someone struck from the shadows, plunging her into darkness.
Now, she was a prisoner. As she finished retracing the sequence of events, the person responsible for her abduction finally stepped into the light.
"Yo, Anhel... You’ve been out for quite a while. You really shouldn't overwork yourself like that, you know? Heh... heh heh!"
While his words carried a thin veneer of concern, his voice was thick with mockery. The male student chuckled, the sound rattling in his throat.
Anhel glared at him through her restraints, her voice a low, bitter growl.
"It was you... You're the one behind this! Neid!"
"Ah, well, if I've been caught, there's no point in lying. Correct. I’m the Demonic Sword Creator—the source of all these recent 'accidents.'"
Neid Garn. He was a student in the Industrial Department, a rising star whose talent was said to rival Anhel’s own.
Despite having a relationship with Isaac that was practically an exclusive contract, Neid nonchalantly admitted to his crimes. Anhel’s face twisted in disbelief.
"But why? Why would you do this!?"
"Rather than 'why,' shouldn't you be asking 'how'? Aren't you dying to know how I created those Demonic Swords?"
As he spoke, Neid brandished a hammer with a sickening red-black hue. The tool radiated a dark, oppressive magic power that felt even more sinister than the swords themselves. Waving it in front of Anhel’s face, Neid began his explanation.
"Making a Demonic Sword is actually quite simple. You take a blade you've forged and hammer it with this. But you have to strike it while pouring in every ounce of negative emotion you can muster. Once the weapon is saturated with that, you just feed it the life force of some expendable pawn, and it’s finished. See? Simple, right?"
"Life force? You don't mean... the Industrial Department students who have been collapsing... that was your doing too!?"
"Bingo! Give the lady a prize! Unlike you, those guys actually like me. When I asked them to test out my new swords, they were more than happy to help. I doubt they ever suspected their very life force was being drained into the steel! Ahahahaha!"
"Do you even realize what you've done, Neid? You betrayed your own friends and spread terror throughout this city! How can you stand there and laugh!?"
Neid’s laughter only grew louder as he confessed his crimes. Enraged by his callousness, Anhel screamed at him, but he suddenly cut his laughter short. His expression shifted into one of cold, calculated malice.
"You’ve got it all wrong, Anhel. I didn't betray them. I’m the one who was betrayed. Besides, those idiots in the Industrial Department will eventually thank me. I have a perfectly legitimate reason for what I’m doing!"
"What are you talking about? What could you possibly be plotting!?"
Anhel demanded to know the truth behind his claim of being a victim. Neid’s tone grew increasingly heated as he answered.
"Haven't you ever felt it, Anhel? The way our status as Magic Item Engineers is treated as second-class compared to Magic Knights? You see it in this academy every day. Only a tiny handful of 'elite' engineers like us get any recognition, while the rest are treated like background noise. It’s a joke compared to those 'knights' who get worshiped just for existing, no matter how rotten their personalities are. Even though they're nothing but greedy scavengers fighting over materials, everyone still sees them as pure and noble."
"So... what of it?"
"The person who gave me this hammer told me to forge Demonic Swords by infusing them with that very anger. I followed those instructions, and the first result was the blade used in that robbery incident a while back. But... that one was a failure. It was weak and incomplete. Maybe the materials were subpar, but the main reason was that my negative emotions weren't strong enough back then."
Neid stared at his left hand—the one not holding the hammer—as if he were lost in a memory. As Anhel watched him with growing dread, he began to recount the path that had led him to this madness.