My Uncle is the Strongest Dark Mage

Chapter 35

A presence is felt.

A faint presence, as light as a gentle breeze, yet irritatingly noticeable, like a mosquito or fly that has entered the house.

Cain, who had been staring at his smartphone, turned his gaze toward the veranda, bothered by the trivial and insignificant presence that had intruded into his domain—something he normally wouldn't have paid any attention to.

"......."

He reluctantly gets up from his seat.

Cain places his smartphone on the table and starts walking toward the veranda.

When he opens the glass window and steps outside, his eyes catch sight of a mysterious paper bag placed on the ground.

'Is it Jealousy?'

A square-shaped paper bag resembling a shopping bag.

He didn’t even need to take out its contents to know what was inside.

It had to be the item he had recently requested from the Elemental Royal Family, which had finally arrived.

An item that had made its way through the Dark District and been delivered to Cain, thoroughly cleaned in the process.

Not only was its location information scrambled, but any potential tracking or eavesdropping magic had also been completely filtered out during its journey.

With Arrogance verifying it and Jealousy delivering it personally, the process was undoubtedly flawless.

Yet, perhaps due to the precedent set by Huren Grant, he hesitated to pick it up immediately.

After staring at the paper bag for about two seconds, Cain finally nodded as if reassured and picked it up.

'Unlikely, but you never know.'

Negotiations had just concluded yesterday.

As a Demon Lord, it was only natural not to engage in problematic actions, but being cautious wouldn’t hurt.

With the Demon Lord's abilities, it would have been entirely possible to discreetly embed magic without his subordinates noticing.

However, it couldn’t possibly escape Cain’s eyes.

'If I get deceived, then there’s nothing I can do about it.'

If one fails to notice and gets caught off guard, the fault lies with the victim.

That was one of the basic rules of the Dark District. If he failed to notice, accepting it as the Demon Lord's skill being that extraordinary and swallowing his resentment was all he could do.

Blaming others for one's lack of ability was one of the most foolish and ignorant things in the Dark District.

'Well, it's unlikely, though.'

And Cain, standing at the pinnacle of the Dark District, had confidence in his own skills.

No matter how skilled the Demon Lord was, they could never deceive his eyes if he put his mind to it.

Picking up the paper bag lightly, as though accepting a delivery, Cain returned inside.

As he turned around, his eyes fell on Arina, who was sitting next to the sofa where he had been lying, her messy books and notebooks spread across the table, deeply engrossed in her studies.

Was she reviewing what she learned at the Academy?

She alternated between looking at her notes and a book she had borrowed from the library.

Her brow was furrowed deeply, unconsciously showing frustration, as if something wasn’t going well.

"If you go around making faces like that as a kid, you'll get wrinkles early."

One of the random internet facts he had been browsing on his smartphone before he got up.

Didn’t it say that women care more about beauty compared to men?

Repeating a phrase about how starting care early is good, Cain nagged her in place of his late sister.

At the same time, he plopped back down onto the sofa and glanced at what Arina was working on before casually speaking.

"That part’s actually an error in the book. It looks like you borrowed an unrevised first edition. Your notes are more accurate in terms of the ritual, so don’t overthink it."

"Oh, really?"

"If it bothers you, go check the study. The revised edition should be on the right-hand bookshelf as soon as you enter."

He vaguely remembered buying and placing it there not too long ago.

In his usual nonchalant tone, Cain resolved the obstacle Arina had hit, placing the paper bag he had brought in from the veranda on top of her open book.

Ignoring Arina’s gaze, which seemed to ask what it was, Cain grabbed his smartphone that had been left nearby and sprawled back on the sofa, answering her question.

"A present."

"A present?"

Suddenly?

Was today a special day, perhaps?

Cain wasn’t the type to celebrate birthdays or anniversaries, so Arina’s puzzled expression grew as she alternated between looking at the calendar on her smartphone and Cain’s face.

'It’s not even a special day, though?'

Sunday, April 13th.

Although the date was marked in red, it wasn’t a special day, as far as she could tell. And as mentioned earlier, it wasn’t his birthday or any other commemorative occasion.

"Thank you, Uncle."

Though puzzled, she certainly wasn’t displeased.

On the contrary, she felt happy that the normally stoic Cain had prepared a present.

Without even dreaming that he had simply picked up something left on the veranda moments ago, Arina, filled with anticipation over what Cain might have prepared, peered inside the paper bag.

"......."

At the same time, her expression grew even more perplexed.

She kept looking back and forth between the contents and Cain, as if questioning whether this was truly a gift.

Her eyes, trembling with a mix of confusion and disbelief, seemed to reach a Richter scale of 5.0.

Halting her restless head movements, she reached into the paper bag with her right hand, pulling out a pair of silver handcuffs that gleamed under the sunlight streaming through the window.

The metallic clinking sound they made as they moved left no doubt—they were handcuffs.

And not the toy kind sold in marts, but real ones with a solid, weighty feel.

"What is this?"

She couldn’t help but ask.

Arina, who could usually accept anything with a smile, found this gift so out of the blue that its purpose was utterly unclear.

"Handcuffs."

"That’s not what I’m asking."

"To be precise, they’re magic restraints."

"That’s still not what I’m asking."

The conversation wasn’t progressing properly.

The more they talked, the deeper her confusion grew.

"I asked a magician, and they said if someone has too much affinity, it can make manipulation training difficult. Using restraints during training can be effective."

Ah, the battery’s almost dead.

Frowning at the low battery warning of 5% remaining, Cain groped under the sofa for the dangling charger cord.

As always, he showed no regard for conversational etiquette, his eyes never once leaving his smartphone from start to finish.

"When you think about it, it makes sense."

Why do those with high affinity tend to struggle more with magic manipulation?

It’s because they can’t quite grasp the feel of handling a low amount of magic power.

If you’ve been attuned to a certain level of magic power since birth, being asked to handle less than that with precision is a challenge.

The brain commands it, but the body doesn’t easily comply.

Hence, what’s needed is experience.

One must directly feel and practice handling smaller amounts of magic power.

"Oh."

At those words, Arina finally realized the purpose and reason behind the gift, letting out a small exclamation.

It had been over a week since Professor Natilda Scape had assigned her the task.

The progress she had made during that time was negligible.

She had only managed to slightly lower her score from 126.4 to 124.9.

The goal of 10.0 still seemed so far away that its end wasn’t even in sight.

She was on the verge of giving up and focusing solely on Professor Magnus’s assignment, much like Maril, when Cain’s words felt like a ray of light piercing through the darkness.

"But if you completely restrain the magic, won’t you lose the sense of manipulating it altogether?"

"Doesn’t matter. Magic restraints allow you to adjust the total amount of magic power to be restrained for the target, based on the registered user’s settings."

Typically, unless the offender is particularly heinous, the police don’t completely restrain a criminal’s magic power.

The reason is that if magic power is fully restrained, over time, the stars within the body slowly begin to collapse.

This is a natural phenomenon that occurs in line with the body’s mechanism, similar to how unused joints or muscles atrophy over time.

Of course, for the user to feel that loss, they’d have to wear the restraints for a few months at the shortest, or even years at the longest.

Concerns about human rights and other such nonsense led to an unspoken rule to avoid complete restraint whenever possible, something that made Cain, the king of the Dark District, sneer.

'That’s why they say if you’re going to get caught committing a crime, aim for the Elemental Kingdom, because slavery in the Dark District is better than that.'

This feature even served as a backdoor for bribes, allowing criminals to bribe guards to loosen their restraints slightly.

While advancements like building-mounted CCTV or black boxes on automated carriages have reduced the concealment of crimes and increased the arrest rate, Cain couldn’t help but feel that the Hwan Empire treated criminals better in comparison.

In Yggdrasil, if the Empress is in a bad mood that day, both petty criminals and heinous offenders are summarily executed, so there’s no point in comparing treatment.

Anyway, his thoughts momentarily wandered, but in conclusion, Arina's worries were completely unnecessary.

"Just in case, register yourself as the owner now."

If you put it off and accidentally lock it around your wrist, the only solution would be to destroy it.

It would be annoying to ask the Demon Lord for another new one just because it got destroyed.

'So stingy. I asked for a few, but they only sent one.'

Cain clicked his tongue, criticizing the Demon Lord as a miser, ungrateful despite having half-destroyed it, and without so much as expressing thanks.

"Okay."

Snapping back to her senses at Cain's words—spoken as he finally connected his smartphone to the charger—Arina imprinted her information onto the magic tool.

Then, to test if the engraving worked properly, she fastened it to her right wrist.

"Ugh."

She frowned at the sudden dizziness she felt.

It felt suffocating.

Like being submerged underwater.

Even though she was breathing, it felt slightly difficult and laborious to do so.

"Hoo-ah!"

Her face brightened as she felt freedom the moment she removed the restraint device.

A truly extreme contrast of experiences.

She now fully understood why criminals grimaced when they were dragged away in handcuffs.

"......."

This time, she adjusted the settings to make it a bit looser.

After registering as a user, she read the hologram-like instructions and adjusted the amount of magic power restraint.

When she fastened it again to her wrist, the suffocating feeling from earlier eased somewhat.

Even so, it wasn’t entirely comfortable.

It was like a right-handed person trying to write or use chopsticks with their left hand—an awkward sensation.

Despite handling magic power daily, the unfamiliar sensation of it not moving as she intended felt strangely intriguing.

'Is this what an ordinary person feels when they try to use magic power?'

Based on this, she could clearly realize just how much talent she truly possessed.

"Thank you, Uncle."

And she saw hope.

Using this, she thought, she might be able to pass Professor Scape's assignment.

"......."

At her radiant smile, Cain briefly glanced away from his smartphone and looked at her.

Then, returning to browsing internet news, he replied.

"Use it as you like. If, by any chance—though it’s unlikely—it breaks, let me know. I’ll get you a new one."

"Okay!"

Well, it probably wouldn’t matter much.

Seeing how delighted she was, he figured a bit of annoyance was worth tolerating once or twice.

'Besides, my sister did ask me to take good care of her.'

Uninterested in his surroundings and rarely acting on things he found troublesome, Cain’s unusual behavior left the Seven Deadly Sins with their mouths agape in astonishment.

Meanwhile, Arina stepped out of the room holding the test magic tool given by Professor Natilda Scape, stopping her ritual studies mid-way.

Feeling the faint breeze rising from the magic tool along with the flow of magic power, Cain’s lips curved into a faint smile as he looked at his smartphone.