Doubt

As she walked through the forest and looked at the world around her, Beatrice couldn't help but take in a deep breath, feeling quite weird about her extremely weak body.

Even though she had once felt this back when she had died, the scale of the feeling was nowhere near what she was feeling right now.

Although Beatrice did not fight much after she became an Official Mage, and couldn't showcase her power, in terms of raw physical strength, she was able to completely destroy her previous self the moment she finished her transformation.

Because of this, the downgrade back to her normal self become even more jarring, causing her to feel quite uncomfortable.

At this moment, though, Beatrice's body suddenly began shaking for a few moments, causing a faint smile to appear on her face.

"This should suffice for now," mumbled Beatrice, she felt the newfound strength that had just entered her body as she suddenly skipped over the Grand Knight level and instantly became a Royal Knight.

Although the increase that she had gained right now could not be compared to the her previous power, it still made her feel a bit better.

A moment later, Beatrice suddenly sped up over five times, as she wanted to use her newfound physical strength to get to her destination as soon as possible.

...

Five minutes later,

Even though her speed was slowed quite a bit by the rough terrain around her, Beatrice still managed to travel around 13 km in these five minutes.

But even though Beatrice wanted to continue moving along, she suddenly stopped in place, a faint smile appearing on her face as she turned her head towards the left.

In an instant, Beatrice suddenly began running towards the left at her current top speed, as a faint dark barrier appeared around her body.

It took Beatrice just under 10 seconds to run the 800 meters that she had towards her targets, and then, after arriving in visual distance of the three mages that she had sensed, Beatrice took action.

The moment Beatrice appeared, all three mages suddenly froze, as Beatrice suddenly shocked their souls using the overwhelming power of her soul.

As Beatrice did not want to wear herself out in her current state, she did not spend much effort on this attack, as such, the mages were able to recover in about three seconds.

Sadly for them though, this was far too late, as by as, Beatrice's single dark bolt had already claimed the lives of two of the mages.

But unfortunately for the last remaining mage, there was a reason why Beatrice had left him for last, because the moment he used his Dark Mana to create a Dark Bolt, he suddenly lost control of the bolt.

And before he could do react or do anything, his Dark Barrier suddenly opened itself up on its own, allowing the Dark Bolt that he had just created to fly through his chest.

A moment later, another hole appeared in the Dark Barrier, allowing the Dark Bolt to return and fly straight through the back of the mage's head, instantly killing him.

Seeing this, Beatrice, who had already dispelled her Dark Bolt as she did not want to waste any more of her mana, faintly smiled as she then began looting the bodies of the mages.

Only a few moments later, Beatrice, now with a small bag of elemental stones in her robe, continued on her way.

'The flying ship should take off from the continent in around a month, I should hunt a little bit and increase my stock of elemental stones until then, otherwise the concentration of Elemental Energy back on Gollwall Island will be a bit of an issue,' thought Beatrice as she once again began running into the distance.

...

As she stared at the box in front of her, as well as at the soul that was tied to it, Selena, who had just returned to her home, couldn't help but faintly frown, as her mind instantly went to the worst case scenario.

'Did she fake her death to escape from me?' thought Selena as she looked at the Beatrice in front of her.

In this world, if one person could be said to know Beatrice the best, that would be Selena.

And from what Selena knew of her apprentice, Beatrice would not do something as meaningless as leaving behind a clone of herself.

No, Selena knew that as long as Beatrice did something like that, she most likely had a plan regarding this clone of hers, which made her instantly raise her guard and think about the fact that Beatrice had most likely faked her own death.

Of course, thanks to the connection between the two that she had created, Selena knew that this wasn't the case, which caused her to feel some doubt.

If someone else did something as meaningless as this, Selena wouldn't have had any doubt, but since this was her own disciple she was thinking about, things were very different.

Selena would have to keep a eye on this clone of her apprentice, as she didn't want to risk falling into the trap of the real Beatrice.

...

As he looked at Archmage Dragonheart, who was standing in front of him with a somewhat worried expression on his face, the Prophet couldn't help but fall into thought.

"A portal..." mumbled the Prophet as he remembered the vision he had seen not too long ago, which had allowed him to realize that this 'Beatrice Agnes', was the Dark Calamity, which prompted him to Divine her location and try to kill her.

A moment later, the Prophet suddenly closed his eyes for a few more moments, causing doubt to appear on his face as soon as he opened them.

"She's dead?" mumbled the Prophet with a confused expression on his face.

As someone who the Prophet had divined would be able to destroy the entirety of the Mage World, the former wouldn't have been surprised if Archmage Dragonheart wasn't able to kill the Dark Calamity.

In fact, the fact that he had managed to do so made the Prophet raise his guard even more, as several options passed through his mind.