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The Mid-Boss Hides the Heroines Chapter 167

Sealed Tower of the Earth (3)

While three special class students from the Old School Building were deep in planning their strategy to conquer the Tower of Earth.

 

“Ugh.”

I found myself in the Tower of Wind instead of the Earth Tower they had been aiming for.

 

As soon as I opened the door, a sheer cliff and towering mountains greeted me.

The entrance to the Wind Tower was situated in a perilous location, as if I’d been stranded in the heart of the Himalayas.

 

“Up we go.”

 

Kim Fenrir, who had been perched on my head, hopped down to the ground.

The moment her feet touched the ground, I sensed a ripple of mana emanating from beneath her.

 

“As expected, it seems possible to manipulate the magic here.”

 

Kim Fenrir lightly tapped the ground with her foot.
As soon as she let a bit of mana flow downward, a surge of Wind Mana rose from the earth, and a white flower bloomed.

 

The flower exuded a fragrance—mint chocolate, unmistakably so—

 

“Wait a second. Isn’t this spearmint?”
“Why not? I went with mint chocolate for the scent, nyah.”
“People are going to get the wrong idea.”

 

I reached out toward the flower Kim Fenrir had conjured, adjusting the flow of mana.

 

“What are you doing, nyah?”
“I’m fixing it.”

 

Crunch, Snap.

The petals shifted from a simple wildflower to something resembling a carefully crafted artificial flower.

 

“Here, have a bite.”

 

I plucked the flower and handed it to Kim Fenrir. She carefully accepted the white flower and bit into one of its petals with a crunch.

 

“…Oh!”

 

Her ears and tail perked up simultaneously in surprise.

 

“How did you do this, meow?”
“Chocolate crafting and sugar art.”

 

Mana shaped like a flower.
Like creating mana bread, it wasn’t hard for me to recreate dishes from my memories in the form of desserts.

 

Especially if I made them myself.

 

Though it’s not something I’d explain to Fenrir in detail, in my previous life, I had tried all sorts of things to earn money in the culinary field.

 

From recreating game-inspired dishes to creating real-world food based on fantasy worlds. For instance, in a certain world, long before the advent of YTube, there were even cookbooks dedicated to the food of that universe.

And in the Bread Academy world, I had tried my hand at all kinds of recipes.

 

It wasn’t just about making bread; it wasn’t even limited to pre-set recipes from the [Cooking] command.

 

Take, for instance, the [Evening Primrose] that Kim Fenrir was currently munching on. It was a chocolate cake hardened into the shape of an evening primrose.

 

The mint-chocolate flavor? A thoughtful choice for Fenrir.
And at the same time, a strategic preparation for transforming the first floor of the Wind Tower through her abilities.

 

“Kim Fenrir.”
“Yes?”
“Why don’t we turn all the Evening Primroses here into chocolate?”
“Brilliant idea, nyah.”

 

Kim Fenrir swallowed the mint-chocolate evening primrose and scanned the cliffside.

 

“You’re saying we should leave the magically-formed terrain untouched but replace the evening primroses—essential tools on this floor—with mana-crafted substitutes, right?”
“Exactly.”

 

Unlike the Earth Tower, where we exited too soon to analyze the situation, each floor of the Wind Tower had its own ‘mission’.

 

The Earth Tower required eliminating 400 A-rank beasts, essentially encouraging mass destruction through wide-area attacks.

 

But the mission here was slightly different.

500 years ago, the Four Founders didn’t merely receive extermination or sweeping missions in their trials.

 

“See that?”
“That thing blooming up on the cliff?”
“Yes, the one that looks like an evening primrose.”

 

A single white flower grew on the cliffside beneath us, hanging dangerously over a sheer drop.

 

“So I just need to pluck it, right, nyah?”
“Not just pluck it. You’ll probably have to sever it completely.”
“…Ah, I see.”

 

At my command to ‘attack,’ Kim Fenrir leapt straight off the cliff.

 

Tack!
No, she wasn’t falling.

 

She was descending the cliff with precision.

It wasn’t a simple freefall or the use of levitation magic; she was sprinting down the vertical surface as if gravity were irrelevant.

 

And the moment she reached her target—

 

Screech!
Following my command, Kim Fenrir swung her sword toward the target—an Evening Primrose—cleanly slicing it off.

 

“Is this what you wanted—”

 

She turned to look at me after completing the task, but then she noticed something.

 

“Wow, I didn’t expect to encounter these here.”
[Screeeeeech!!]

 

A horrifying wail echoed. It was the kind of scream that resembled a woman’s shriek mixed with agonizing despair, and it burst forth from the severed flower.

 

[[[Screeeeeeeeeeeeech!!]]]

 

Simultaneously, the scream reverberated across the entire cliffside, as though the echo itself was a surround sound effect.

Even though this was within a mental world, if I hadn’t preemptively shielded my eardrums with mana, the vibration might have ruptured them entirely.

 

“…”

 

Kim Fenrir hung from her sword embedded in the cliff, looking anything but pleased. With a clearly irritated expression, she stood atop the sword, balancing on both feet, and motioned for me to come closer.

 

“Hmm.”

 

There was no choice. No flying Mont Blancs would come to help.

 

Since no one else was watching but Kim Fenrir, I decided it was finally time to unleash my original mana for the first time in a while.

 

Fwoosh.

Flames extended from my back, like wings unfurling.
It felt strange, like sitting in the driver’s seat of a car I hadn’t driven in years. But as I let the flow of mana ignite, it all came back to me.

 

Flutter.

The fiery wings carried me slowly downward along the cliff.

 

“What’s the problem? Something bothering you?”
“This is what the ‘Trial of Wind’ looks like, nyah?”

 

Kim Fenrir, her feline ears flattened in irritation, thrust her hand into the screaming mass beneath the severed Evening Primrose.

 

Thud.
The wailing ceased.

Soon, Kim Fenrir yanked something out with her hand.

 

“Why is there a Mandrake embedded in the cliff here? And why is it mimicking the form of an Evening Primrose?”
“Guess that’s how it was 500 years ago.”
Hah, unbelievable.”

 

The Mandrake, now headless, had its mouth agape as it died. Its anguished screams had started the moment its head was severed, but once Kim Fenrir’s claws pierced its body, it succumbed.

 

“If this were reality, climbing up here would’ve been an ordeal, but if you know the right tricks…”

 

Thud.
I reached into the Mandrake’s torso, pulling out a mana core embedded within.

 

“You can at least secure a core that’s roughly A-rank in quality.”
“These things still exist, nyah?”
“Who knows? You’d have to come here to find out.”

 

I gestured toward the sheer cliffside.

 

“Even though the Four Founders passed through this area 500 years ago, if Mandrakes still have their roots here, that says something.”

“And this place—can you actually get here in reality?”
“Probably.”

 

Kim Fenrir shook the Mandrake’s body—the root-like portion of the plant.

Aside from serving as a core’s mana conduit, Mandrake roots alone made for incredibly valuable medicinal ingredients.

 

And yet, the cliffside was blanketed with countless Evening Primroses.

 

If we could locate this place in reality, harvesting just ten Mandrakes could yield a fortune worth hundreds of millions, if not billions.

 

“Hmm…”
“What now?”
“How do you plan to modify this area?”

 

Kim Fenrir tapped the cliff lightly with her foot.

 

“Shouldn’t the difficulty at least match the first floor of the Earth Tower? Otherwise, anyone who knows levitation magic or has climbing skills will find this floor way too easy, nyah.”
“True for us.”

 

I pointed to myself and Fenrir.

 

“Do you think the Mandrakes are just randomly blooming here? Something’s protecting this place.”

 

Grabbing Kim Fenrir by the waist, I leapt off the cliff.

 

Through the dense fog below, we descended even further.

 

Without exerting physical force and with our current forms being a mix of ‘mental projection’ and ‘spirit body,’ we remained undetected.

 

“Wow.”

 

As soon as we passed through the fog, Kim Fenrir gasped in awe.

 

“Are those things still alive, nyah?”
“500 years ago, they must’ve been.”

 

Beneath the fog.

 

The land extending from the cliff housed a group of beings living like an ancient tribal settlement.

 

Near a makeshift hut woven from branches and covered with feathers and hides, hundreds—no, beings numbering in the thousands—slept soundly, their rhythmic breathing filling the air.

 

Despite the earlier, deafening cries of the Mandrake, they remained undisturbed.

This was because Kim Fenrir and I had entered in a state akin to “developer mode”, allowing us to interact without triggering their awareness.

 

Should the angelic power embedded within the core of our spiritual forms be detected, however, these beings would immediately react.

 

“Unpleasant, but let’s give this a try.”

 

I adjusted my mana, carefully shaping its resonance to mimic the remnants of angelic power with Kim Fenrir’s assistance. This would act as a lure.

 

Twitch.

 

All at once, the heads of hundreds of the sleeping beings snapped upward.

 

Simultaneously, massive wings unfurled, and one by one, they fixed their predatory eyes on us, their sharp, hooked beaks gaping wide.

 

“Beastfolk.”

 

Their heads resembled eagles, their bodies were covered in feathers, and their broad wings stretched powerfully from their backs.

 

“Still, they look quite different from the modern Beastfolk.”
“…That’s true.”

 

Kim Fenrir ran a hand down her face, her expression thoughtful.

 

“Something like this, nyah?”
“Fix your face, wolf. Not a cat.”
“Hmph.”

 

With a huff, Kim Fenrir returned to her usual appearance, abandoning the overly feline features that made her look like a 90% furry caricature. Meanwhile, I shaped the faux angelic essence into a more tangible form.

 

Screeeeeech!!

 

A massive flaming beast took shape, wings of fire spanning nearly 30 meters wide. Its aura, forged to resemble angelic power, radiated a threatening intensity.

 

The Beastfolk began to stir in earnest, their wings flapping as they rose with sharp cries, clearly agitated by the appearance of the fiery bird.

 

“Beastfolk from 500 years ago. If historians saw this, they’d be shocked.”

 

To draw a parallel with Ludmila, this would be like seeing her ancestor from 500 years ago—one with a full rabbit’s face.

 

Over those centuries, humanity had pursued countless possibilities, and during those 500 years of peace, the bloodlines of Beastfolk had merged with humans. While remnants of their traits occasionally manifested—like children born with wings—their original characteristics had been largely diluted.

 

“The Four Founders wouldn’t have known. The Beastfolk they fought so hard against have, over centuries, intermingled with humanity, leading to small tribes where individuals are born with wings on their backs.”

 

I smirked. If given the chance, I’d tell those Founders.

‘Humanity is a vessel of endless potential.’

 

“The Founders would probably hate that.”
“What can they do? It’s their descendants who made it this way.”

 

Now then—

 

“Let’s transform these guys into the Mint-Choco Squad.”

 

A group dedicated to guarding the mint-choco flowers.

 

“With proper balance adjustments, of course.”

 

The trial would finally be restored to its rightful state.

 

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The Mid-Boss Hides the Heroines

The Mid-Boss Hides the Heroines

중간보스가 히로인을 숨김
Score 8.2
Status: Ongoing Type: Author: Released: 2024 Native Language: Korean
I possessed someone. In a dating sim game, I became the mid-boss who kidnaps the heroine.

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