Read Novel Full Chapter 147: Hoist by One’s Own Petard
Chapter 147: Hoist by One’s Own Petard
"I call bullshit."
Mias’s smirk died down as a puzzled look danced on his face.
"Huh?"
Vale stared into the bottomless abyss that was Mias’s eyes.
"You know, I almost forgave you..."
Vale sighed deeply, then continued:
"Did you think I’m that dumb, Mias? Did you think I’d just accept your elaborate scheme and not look any deeper? Hell, I don’t even have to look deeper. Do you think so low of me that I’d fail to comprehend what’s on the surface?"
Mias’s perplexed expression grew.
"I’m afraid you’ve gone and baffled me. Pray tell, what has confused you about my explanation? I’ll clarify, just ask away."
Vale laughed sharply:
"Confused? I think I understood well. Too well. Better than you’d hoped for me to."
Mias’s confusion only grew.
"I’m sorry... but I think you’re confused. Here, let me explain again. When—"
Vale cut the Demon off.
"No way... no way."
"What?"
Vale stared at the fraud who called himself a scholar with a vacant expression. He was too surprised to even show surprise.
"Are you serious? Do you seriously not know, or are you pretending not to know?"
Mias sighed.
"Vale, it really seems you misunderstood something. Please, let me—"
Vale cut Mias off again.
"No. No, I understood perfectly. I see now I understood better than you."
Mias leaned back in his chair, then summoned an ottoman and rested his feet on it.
"Go on, then. Enlighten me."
Vale laughed as he patted the dry blood on his arm:
"You know... I kind of wish you were still trying to hide it. I didn’t think you were this conceited."
Mias chuckled to himself.
"One grows the right to be conceited when one’s intellect has never been meaningfully challenged. I won’t claim to always be correct, but I can claim to never being outwitted."
Vale sneered.
’So... he really thinks highly of himself.’
"Alright then. What if I told you that you just didn’t realize you lost?"
Mias chortled at Vale’s remark:
"I think I’d know if I lost."
’Oh... I can’t wait to see the look on his face.’
’Though no matter how much pleasure that look brings me, I’m too pissed to forgive him right now.’
"Oh, really? Well, tell me, Reaper of Knowledge... what would you have done if I lost my fight with Ophelia, and she was about to lop my head off?"
Mias sighed.
"Simple, I would have killed her. But, the oracle had most definitely erased that future, so I knew it wouldn’t happen."
’Seriously?’
’Does he not see the flawed logic there?’
"Come on, Mias. Use your brain. You even said it yourself. This oracle, their goal wasn’t to protect the village... it was to protect Ophelia."
Vale noticed the moment the harsh realization slapped Mias in his face.
His haughty demeanor began to drown out, flushed away by a terrible surprise. The hint of truth danced in his bottomless onyx eyes.
With his intelligence, once he’d finally been privy to an alternate angle of events void of his pride, the reality of everything quickly became clear.
All Mias could say was:
"Oh."
Vale sighed, then continued pacidly:
"Mias, be honest. If I commanded you to kill Ophelia right now, with your other half, would you do it?"
Mias’s face paled, even paler than it usually was.
"Oh my... no. No, I wouldn’t. She has what I want. She had presented me with an answer to a question I didn’t even know I had. It was at that moment that I decided her life had tremendous value."
’Finally...’
Vale gave the scholar a pained smile.
"You’re beginning to see?"
Mias let the ottoman dissipate, his feet falling to the floor and forcing his body to lean forward.
"All too well..."
Salome, on the ground, asked:
"I’m sorry, what? Vale, can you elaborate?"
Vale cast a glance at his Champion, covered in ash, blood, and soot.
"Our resident scholar just got his ass handed to him in a battle of wits, and he knows it. Salome, think about Mias’s power. It’s almost impossible for someone, other than a person with your ability to absorb Aether or one who could attack the soul, to combat him without Items — Items that neither the villagers nor Ophelia had."
Salome’s eyes narrowed in confusion until Vale added the next part.
"Meaning, Ophelia had zero chance in battle against Mias if Mias decided to kill her. Even he himself stated he could kill her at any moment."
Mias began to chuckle, his expression vacant.
Vale continued:
"And the oracle did exactly as Mias expected. They erased the future where Mias kills by making her life an indispensable value to Mias’s pursuit of knowledge."
Mias sighed:
"T-that’s insane. Insanity!"
Vale laughed, half pissed, half relieved:
"Glad you see it now... the oracle wasn’t trying to help Ophelia kill me at all. They were protecting her from you."
All of the evidence pointed toward Vale being correct.
"After all, the oracle manipulated me into giving a reason to call off the assassination and make it a spy job. Then, they had Ophelia pique your curiosity to the point where it was much too wasteful for you to kill her. Then, they even manipulated events in a way that you would whisk her away after we defeated her, while making you think you’d completely outwitted them."
Vale laughed painfully, then added:
"Admit it, Mias. The oracle actually won by way of saving Ophelia. You lost. You played into their hand perfectly."
Mias, stunned, eventually managed to squawk out:
"I... I lost."
Vale sighed, then shouted:
"Not only that, you let them mark you! Well... half of you!"
Mias looked dejected as he stated:
"That I did..."
Mias, the scholar, the Reaper of Knowledge, had been tricked into betraying Vale straight up by this seer’s design.
***
Mias, the marked half of him, was hiding in the mouth of a cave his other half had scouted for and found in advance.
Ophelia was lying down by his side, covered under a blanket of smoke, while a small fire blazed next to them.
Ophelia could heal herself, but she’d yet to wake up, and even then, she’d have to recover her Aether before being able to do anything.
As Mias stoked the fire, he let a part of him separate and form, so that he was looking at himself.
Then, he stared himself down and said:
"Well played, oracle... well played."