When A Mage Revolts

"What... What is this?"

It wasn’t just the merchants and guards, even the mages went as white as a sheet upon seeing the sudden appearance of the ice ceiling.

Was this magic?

If so, why weren’t they able to sense any magic oscillation?

Their messy thoughts led them to take a deep breath to calm themselves down. They looked at their surroundings and saw that the camp was still around. There weren’t any blizzards or anything of the sort. However, they also noticed that this ice barricade did not just trap them from above.

The ice wall formed a ring around them, like a pot. The huge ice barricade easily fit all of them.

"What sorcery is this?"

"I… I have never heard of such magic…"

"This isn’t right. Such a large-scale magic would require major magic oscillation and cause elemental changes during casting. Why didn’t I sense anything earlier?"

The few mages were not too alarmed at the turn of events, instead, they started to exchange thoughts to properly understand the matter at hand. It was a shame that the longer they discussed, the further they went away from a definite result and the closer they were to confusing themselves

After all, what they saw in front of them was a 180-degree flip on their fundamental understanding of magic.

Benjamin’s interrupted them.

"You can stop guessing now. This is no magic. This is the tumulus I have prepared for you."

"... Tumulus?"

The mages were puzzled.

What was that?

Benjamin stood on top of the giant icy grave and scratched his head.

Right... He forgot that this world did any tumulus.

He was going for some cool sounding threats like "This will be your grave" but the ice barricade ended up looking a lot like a tumulus, hence the choice of words.

Such a cool entrance was ruined in an instant.

"You could call the mercenaries up here and disco dance to save some face." The System suddenly said.

"..."

Benjamin sights.

The System’s lame jokes would be the death of him.

Whatever… As things stood, he had accumulated a pile of ice cubes in his space of consciousness and finally managed to construct a huge grave of ice.

Edmund’s duty of diversion was done perfectly, and he had managed to lure all of them together. Benjamin even used the opportunity to trap the entire camp inside. The icy grave’s height did not surpass that of the height of the trees, so they need not worry about people outside the woods noticing.

Now, the tables had turned for the good.

He wanted to make this giant icy trap their grave.

Benjamin smirked.

At the same time, panic-stricken voices could be heard from inside. They were horrified. The loudest voice being that of the merchants. Some had fainted, while others screamed and shrieked. The guards, on the other hand, were uproarious and started to attack the ice barricade, attempting to penetrate through.

None of that mattered. All Benjamin had to do was wait.

"S-so cold." One of the merchants suddenly shrieked, "Hey, don’t you know magic? Quickly do something. I didn’t pay you for nothing."

The mages looked at each other and started to chant. In total, they summoned close to a hundred fireballs, aimed them and fired at the same point on the side of the ice barricade.

They figured that fire magic might be the answer to melt this huge icy grave.

The fireballs traveled halfway but never made it to the ice wall. Mid-flight, the fireballs became smaller and weaker by the end of their flight, had all but completely diminished.

"This... How could this be?"

The mages were dumbfounded.

One of the mages closed his eyes and used his spiritual energy to scan his surroundings. Soon after, his face turned sour.

"There’s something odd about this!"

Unbeknownst to them, countless tiny, refined crush ice spread from the ice walls of the icy grave. This refined powder constantly changed the structure of the water element and absorb the mass heat from the air. This caused the temperature to continuously drop.

The fire magic’s effectiveness was neutralized.

Once the mages realized this, they turned around.

They saw that the earlier brightly lit bonfire was now a rapidly extinguishing tiny flame. The inside of the icy grave was getting dimmer and the ground was covered with snow. It was freezing cold.

They made some fire elements encircle them, so they could still take the cold. However, the same could not be said of the rest. Even the guards who earlier were trying to penetrate the ice wall could no longer even hold their blades; they started to tremble and lost strength in their grip.

"Sir Mages, please do something... If this continues, we will freeze to death!" The merchants grabbed onto the mages. They begged desperately; with every exhalation, steam came out of their mouths.

The mages immediately started to summon an elemental shield to protect the merchants and themselves. As for the rest? They would not receive such royalty treatment.

"S-Sir... I beg you to let me in!"

"It’s so cold, I’ll be frozen to death. Sir Mage... Please help me..."

As the mages did not want to waste their spiritual energy, more than a hundred guards were exposed to freezing temperatures within the icy grave. They stood around the barrier and begged those that were inside. The weaker ones had already fainted.

At this rate, they would be frozen to death in a matter of minutes.

Sadly, nobody seemed to care about their life.

"What the hell is going on?" After seeking refuge in the shield, the merchants returned to their senses and started panicking, "Why is there a mage here? Why did he attack us? Are you pieces of shit doing anything at all?"

The mages all shook their heads stared at the ground.

"We don’t know neither..."

Here they were, sitting, eating and being merry when some huge, unknown magic sealed them from the top. They might even die here.

Die here? Is this a joke?

They were slowly calming themselves after the ambush. They still looked as puzzled as ever.

The "Seven Days of Hell" had been organized a few times now, the merchants were regulars who would come over annually to relax. The mages that were hired thought they were just for show – they didn’t expect to encounter any serious trouble.

They honestly didn’t think that anything would go wrong.

And yet, here they were.

.... What was going on?

They came here to relax! It was all in good fun, why were they on the verge of death now?

"Hey, you outside." The merchants shouted, "Who the hell are you? Why did you trap us here? We have a lot of money. Let us go and you will enjoy a lifetime of riches!"

The other merchants all reacted the same, presenting Benjamin with all kinds of lucrative offers.

The mages weren’t as naive as the merchants. You could say that they still had the will to fight. Once the shield took form, they started to chant some complicated magic to break through the ice barricade.

As they were doing this, Benjamin spoke.

‘You cannot even perform a handstand. Without such honor, nobody would be willing to trade with you."

The merchants were confused with what they heard,

… Handstand? Honor?

What was that?

"If I can do a handstand, will you let me go?" One of them asked.

Benjamin held in his laughter and responded, "Yes."

It was obvious that the merchants were dubious about this. However, their desperation to survive surpassed their rationale, and before long, someone took up Benjamin’s offer.

A few Humpty Dumptys placed their hands on the floor with a grimace and attempted to perform handstands. The result of their attempts was devastating. Not only were they looked down upon by their peers, some even slipped, fell and interrupted the mages that were chanting a major spell.

"Are your heads filled with cow dung? I will toss you out of here!" The interruption caused the magic to reflect back at one of the mages. He vomited blood and started to scream at the merchant without caring about his employment status.

Benjamin who stood on the outside, almost burst out laughing at the sight of this.

"It is so pitiful to be part of their team." The System appeared again and sympathetically remarked.