My Uncle is the Strongest Dark Mage

Chapter 51

An unexpected commotion arose in the hallway of Aven Hospital.

Professors sprinting down the corridor at full speed from the entrance.

In a hospital where everyone was cautious, someone running around frantically was never a good sign.

People stepped aside, clearing the way for them at the sight of their urgent expressions.

Without even a moment to express gratitude, the professors arrived at Andy's hospital room and flung the door open.

"Uh, uh?"

Inside the single room, specially prepared by Aven Hospital to account for any potential dangers.

Professor Scape, the first to enter the room despite Heming and Anna standing up in surprise at the professors' sudden appearance, urgently scanned the surroundings.

'Strange.'

It had already felt odd on the way to this room— the hospital was far too quiet.

Especially considering that there should have been a commotion if a Black Mage had appeared.

"Uncle!"

Cutting through the professors, Tokun entered the room and headed straight toward Heming.

"Are you alright?"

"Uh, uh, yeah."

"Thank goodness..."

Seeing Andy and Heming unharmed, Tokun collapsed to the floor as if his legs had given out.

What on earth is going on here?

"Heming, may I take a look at your smartphone for a moment?"

Professor Magnus approached the bewildered Heming and cautiously asked for permission.

Receiving Heming's smartphone, Professor Magnus opened it and checked its contents; surprisingly, it wasn't even protected by a lock screen.

"......."

He frowned.

The Magic Boost App, which had been functioning normally just that morning.

It now appeared dim, as if locked.

The app didn't respond no matter how many times he tapped it.

"It's not here. There was another exit."

He couldn't tell why it was like this, but one thing was clear—the Black Mage's escape route wasn't here.

"The Black Mage fled elsewhere! Notify the other branches and search thoroughly! Do not let him escape!"

Following Professor Magnus's words, the police who had arrived quickly grasped the situation and lifted their radios.

"It's alright. Everything will work out."

Heming gently hugged his worried wife’s shoulders as the shouting police officers left the hospital room.

The incident wasn’t over yet.

Heming’s gaze remained fixed on the unconscious Andy, unable to look away.

* * *

A clear sky with not a cloud in sight.

As he rose from the slightly sun-warmed cement ground, a sly smile spread across the Black Mage's face.

He had successfully escaped from the academy.

Breathing in the strong wind blowing on what seemed to be a rooftop, he relished this brief moment of freedom.

"......."

But only for a moment.

Quickly regaining his composure, he turned his head and scanned his surroundings.

The pursuit would begin soon.

He had to flee as far as possible.

Preferably in the direction away from the capital.

"Black Mage, Intel."

"......!"

At the unfamiliar voice behind him, he spun around swiftly.

Standing there was a woman, expressionless, staring at him. He took a cautious step back, wary of her.

"Judging by your reaction, I must be right. No need to dig into the past for confirmation."

Pink hair cascading down to her shoulders.

She was a stunningly attractive woman who would make anyone turn to look as she passed by, but the man's voice coming from her lips felt distinctly out of place.

The woman, uninterested in him, absentmindedly twisted her voluminous, wavy locks while gazing elsewhere.

"Who are you?"

"You don't need to know."

And for the first time, the woman—Professor Clara in appearance—met his eyes and smirked.

"I won't kill you."

It all happened in the blink of an eye.

Before he knew it, he was slammed into the rooftop water tank.

His body had pierced deeply into the opening of the water tank.

A thin trickle of water flowed through the small cracks, accompanied by the pressure building behind him.

What he saw, coupled with the delayed, searing pain, was a delicate foot in a slipper pressing firmly against his abdomen to keep him down.

"Remember what they taught us—never wear expensive shoes when you’re about to stomp on someone."

Is humanity really an animal that learns and grows?

Praising herself over her improved methods compared to the past, she couldn't help but feel proud.

"This Reverse World is truly impressive—unbelievably so for something labeled 5th Class."

By accumulating others' magic power, it could create an endlessly powerful bomb.

Of course, if it became too strong, even the user might be unable to control it, but its storage capacity was virtually limitless.

Theoretically, it could even unleash power equivalent to the 8th Rank.

While it would take time to gather enough, that wasn’t even much of a drawback.

Even if it were a little weaker, at the 6th or 7th Rank, it was still comparable to a massive weapon that required nothing more than carrying around a single smartphone.

Most astonishingly, as long as the smartphone was connected exclusively to its user, it allowed for teleportation to any location.

Considering that spatial magic was so complex that even magicians avoided using it, this could only be described as revolutionary.

At least within the Elemental Kingdom, where smartphones and internet networks were a part of daily life, one could confidently declare there was no better Reverse World.

"But what’s the point of having such an incredible ability when the user is an irredeemable piece of trash?"

It was understandable when Professor Carlson destroyed the Reverse World.

It would have been better, of course, to detect his approach in advance and use the students' Polygon to block his advance, but by the time it had spiraled out of control due to her accelerated flow, such expectations had been abandoned.

"Even when I worked hard to pull the Negative Dimensional Magic Power this way, you were slow to notice. And just when you did, you ended up almost getting caught by a mere 6th Rank professor."

In the end, she had to intervene directly to drive him to this location.

As she said this, Jealousy glanced down and pulled her smartphone out of her pocket.

"I was already so busy trying to lure you here."

She hacked the app with a spirit, analyzed the ritual, and installed the Magic Boost App on her own smartphone.

To block another entrance, she disguised herself as a nurse and approached Heming, locking the Magic Boost App on his smartphone.

The creation and alteration of an entrance to the Reverse World.

That was only possible once she had completely analyzed the opponent's Reverse World.

It was the second method Professor Carlson had explained to Jeon for destroying a Reverse World.

"Ah, but cutting off the arm in one swift motion wasn’t too bad."

Though she criticized his incompetence, she didn’t hold back praise either.

Cutting off the arm mid-process was a fairly decent move.

Normally, when someone is forced to give up one of their limbs, hesitation is inevitable, even after making up their mind.

If he had hesitated even for a moment, the magic would have been completely sealed, and even cutting off the arm would have failed.

"What scared you so much?"

And such a reaction stemmed from overwhelming fear of someone.

It was a look she had seen countless times in the Dark District, so she recognized it immediately.

"Did someone order you to stir up trouble at Benedict Academy?"

There was one thing she couldn’t understand.

A cowardly guy who had hidden and acted in secrecy to avoid being discovered by the professors.

Why then, of all places, had he chosen to operate not in some remote countryside but at Benedict Academy, directly managed by the Demon Lord?

Jealousy, without sparing a glance at Intel writhing beneath her feet, nodded as though she had finally resolved part of her curiosity.

"Oh, there’s no need to explain everything to me. Someone else will listen to that. My job is just to capture you."

"You don’t need limbs to talk, do you?"

Jealousy sneered dismissively as she glanced at Intel, who seemed to be subtly moving his fingers to scheme something amidst the situation.

"Aaaaaargh!"

A scream echoed.

Just like earlier, his arms and legs were severed without him even realizing it.

Red blood mixed into the flowing water, dyeing the floor beneath the two of them a vivid crimson.

"I’ll treat you so you don’t bleed to death. Believe it or not, I worked as an Academy Infirmary professor, so I’m not bad at healing either."

Of course, her expertise lay more in destruction than in treatment.

Back when she worked as an assassin in the Hwan Empire, she had to tend to her own injuries, so she studied the field quite extensively.

Jealousy healed his wounds just enough for the skin to close and the bleeding to stop.

Thanks to this, unless he got prosthetic limbs, his severed limbs would never be reattached—but that wasn’t Jealousy’s concern.

"Who the hell are you?! You!"

Intel screamed at his opponent.

The ruthless brutality of cutting off someone’s limbs without a shred of hesitation.

She was absolutely not an Academy professor.

She was like him.

Someone from the Dark District who operated in the shadows.

"I told you, there’s no need for you to know. Ah, whatever."

Jealousy, who had been fiddling with her smartphone for a while, casually displayed her smartphone screen with a nonchalant attitude.

"Reverse World collapse confirmed. All connection lines shared with other kids have been severed. The Magic Boost App has also been completely erased from this world. Soon, the other kids will come to their senses. With this, everything caused by you is resolved."

Insane.

She had resolved all of that with just a single smartphone?

This was an ability beyond the capability of even an exceptional hacker.

"What? Did you think cyberterrorism was exclusively your domain?"

To survive, one had to handle any task flawlessly, no matter what it was.

Even during her time as an assassin in the Hwan Empire.

Or in her even younger days, when she lived as a slave in the Great Nature Yggdrasil.

For someone like her, who specialized in infiltration and assassination, manipulating electronic devices was as simple as breathing.

"Now, if you want to use the Reverse World again, you’ll have to rebuild the Digital Realm from scratch."

"......."

"Excluding the Reverse World, your curses, necromancy, and black magic are far inferior compared to other black mages at your level."

"......."

"If you’re planning any other schemes, go ahead and try. I’ve already sent word, so until the retrieval team arrives, I’ll keep you company."

The pressure from the water tank, which had been pressing against his back, disappeared at some point.

Intel collapsed forward weakly, his legs no longer supporting him.

"Heh, heh, hahahaha!"

Intel, who had been lying motionless in the blood-stained water, suddenly burst into laughter.

Was it that he had lost his sanity, unable to bear the pain?

'That won’t do.'

He had to extract information, but if the man went mad, how would he get anything out of him?

As she looked down at him writhing like an insect, his laughter abruptly turned into a distorted roar as he glared up at Jealousy with a twisted expression.

"You monster!"

There was no mercy for her opponent.

Only mockery and contempt existed.

Expecting to be spared by begging for his life was foolish.

'A miscalculation.'

If he was going to be caught anyway.

If he had known someone like her was waiting, he would have rather surrendered to the Academy professors.

"A monster, huh? That’s a bit harsh. You haven’t even seen a real monster."

Did he know?

That being captured by her was a blessing in disguise.

How lucky he was not to have been dragged directly to the Master.

"And there’s no need to regret it. Even if you had been caught by the Academy professors, I would have found a way to extract you."

Of course, that would have made things more troublesome, but it wouldn’t have been a major issue.

Unless the President or Demon Lord intervened directly.

The moment he was detected by her and the order for his capture was issued to Oman, his fate was sealed.

"Well, time’s up. Have a good dream. When you wake up again, someone other than me will be waiting for you."

The smirk of a mocking woman.

And with the last sight of mysterious individuals appearing out of nowhere, Intel’s consciousness faded, and his vision went pitch black.