Chapter 104
It was a child living in Yaku, a city very close to the Frozen Mountain Range, who noticed its existence.
"Huh?"
The extreme cold descending from the Frozen Mountain Range.
Because the child had been born in a village that made its living from mana stones infused with that cold, they knew the positions of the mountains in the Frozen Mountain Range they had seen all their life.
But now.
"Mom?"
"Yes? What's wrong?"
The child pointed toward the Frozen Mountain Range, where only shadows could be seen through the snowstorm.
Following the child's pointing finger, the woman turned her head, and the child's voice reached her ears.
"The mountain..."
Moved.
"What?"
At that moment.
Rumble.
For people who had lived their entire lives in the Frozen Mountain Range, which was always filled with snowstorms, it was a sound as familiar as their daily routine—the sound of an avalanche.
But the woman instinctively realized that this was not an ordinary avalanche.
She turned her head and quietly gazed at the countless mountains shrouded in snowstorms.
"Which part moved...?"
The woman's voice contained a faint trace of fear along with her bewilderment at the incomprehensible situation.
Slightly frightened by her mother's voice, the child pointed.
"Over there."
At the center of the countless mountain ranges.
The highest mountain in the Frozen Mountain Range, towering so high that even the child could see it.
"That mountain moved a little."
Rumble.
No sooner had the child finished speaking than the sound of an avalanche rang out again.
This time, the sound was so enormous that it echoed throughout the city without anyone having to concentrate, and everyone came outside their buildings to look toward the Frozen Mountain Range.
And.
"Huh?"
"What is that?"
"Did it move?"
Countless gazes.
Amid those gazes, people began to notice one by one.
That the enormous mountain range was moving.
Eventually.
Boom!!!
When the enormous mountain shattered and a monster in the shape of a human appeared, the people immediately screamed and fled the city.
***
One day, some time after the spar between Abel, the heir to House Nebla, and his daughter Kyla.
That day was an utterly ordinary one for Adrian.
The duties he performed as the Duke of Stellaraim.
And while carrying out those duties, the public-opinion campaign he had conducted through his conversation with Abel.
They were peaceful days spent carefully reviewing the progress of that campaign and refining it so that nothing seemed out of place.
"Your Grace."
"Hmm?"
"They say an anomaly has occurred in the Frozen Mountain Range."
"What did you say?"
A sound like a crack appeared in those peaceful days.
"Tell me in detail."
Duke Adrian set down the documents he had been reviewing and looked at the secretary who had called him.
Under the duke's gaze, the secretary slowly began relaying the news he had heard.
"In Yaku, the city closest to the Frozen Mountain Range, countless people are evacuating to other cities."
"..."
"To determine the situation more precisely, we sent people to investigate why the residents of Yaku had evacuated. They all said they had fled for the same reason."
Namely.
[One of the many mountains in the Frozen Mountain Range is moving right now.]
"That's what they said."
"..."
At the secretary's words, Adrian accepted the report he handed him and began reading it.
"Could it be a mass hallucination?"
"We believe that possibility is unlikely. Too many people are saying exactly the same thing simultaneously."
It was an emergency in which an entire city's population had evacuated to another city at once.
If this was a mass hallucination, then something capable of causing a hallucination on the scale of an entire city had appeared, which was too far-fetched.
Then this was real...
The gaze of the Duke of Stellaraim, quietly examining the report, gradually began to grow cold.
The report contained only one fact.
An unusual movement had been detected in the Frozen Mountain Range.
A child said that a mountain had moved, while some people even mentioned the giant from legend.
"Good. First, dispatch the army and conduct reconnaissance to obtain more definite information."
And.
"If the contents of this report are true and that anomalous phenomenon is moving toward the cities, people in other cities may try to evacuate as well. So first, contact the other cities and coordinate with them to make an organized evacuation possible."
Adrian began dealing with the situation faster and more competently than anyone else. He rose from his seat and moved to issue his orders.
About two days later.
Countless soldiers and influential figures from the Duchy of Stellaraim had gathered to watch the footage recorded by the dispatched scouts.
The meeting hall was packed with soldiers, nobles, and the owners of countless companies.
The attendees were so illustrious that they would never have gathered if they had not received letters forcing them to attend in the name of Adrian de Stellaraim.
And shortly afterward.
Everyone fixed their gaze on the Duke of Stellaraim as he entered the meeting hall.
"First of all."
Adrian began speaking in a voice amplified by mana-enhanced vocal cords, loud enough to resound throughout the hall.
The soldiers, nobles, and company owners looking at Adrian instinctively realized that the situation was extraordinarily serious.
They had already guessed as much when they received a letter ordering them to attend this meeting no matter what promises they had made.
"I won't waste words. This is why I called you here."
Thunk.
As he spoke, Adrian activated a certain crystal orb.
[Rumble.]
The people watching the footage being broadcast widened their eyes and began examining it.
"This... is a view of Yaku, the city closest to the Frozen Mountain Range."
But.
"That creature presumed to be a giant is currently laying waste to the city."
[Rumble.]
It was a monster so enormous that calling it a mountain would not have been an exaggeration.
Even in the blue-tinted footage, the monster emitted an absurd level of cold.
The cold wrapped around its entire body froze its surroundings, while the destructive force of its overwhelming size tore the city apart. It was a monster straight out of myth or legend.
"A giant...?"
Yes, it looked remarkably similar to a giant.
[Rumble!]
The ground shook with a single stomp.
[Crash!]
A building collapsed with a single gesture.
When a monster so similar to the giants of myth and legend emerged, the people here naturally could not accept reality at first.
However.
They soon came to their senses and looked at Adrian, who had called them here.
"Everyone has seen the footage, yes?"
[...]
"The creature we have tentatively named the giant is moving in a straight line toward the Duchy of Stellaraim, where we are."
[...]
"Considering the giant's speed, it will arrive in approximately one week."
[After one week, that giant will directly attack the Duchy of Stellaraim.]
As soon as Adrian finished speaking, silence filled the air of the meeting room, not even allowing a single word to be heard.
What were they supposed to say?
What was that giant?
No, was this monster that they called a giant truly something that had existed?
No, no.
Everyone here realized that the reason the Duke of Stellaraim had called them was not to receive some stupid questions like those.
The capable people who had gathered in one place.
In this age, when magic had advanced and a strange power called supernatural abilities had manifested, everyone gathered here had risen to a position of influence worthy of being summoned by a duke. There were no incompetents among them.
Click.
"I am the head of House Owl. May I ask one question?"
"Go ahead. And since I understand that this is an emergency, you don't need to state your affiliation or anything like that from now on."
"Thank you. Then first, is it possible to obstruct the giant's path or redirect its course?"
"No, it is impossible. One of the scouts risked his life trying to lure it off course, but the giant did not budge."
Click.
"Then could we learn anything about that giant's characteristics? Even if we cannot learn everything, we need to know its traits before we can prepare."
"The giant's traits resembled the snowstorms coming from the Frozen Mountain Range. It possessed an absurd level of cold, and just like the giant in legend, magic had no effect on it."
Click.
"You said magic had no effect on it. What about physical force?"
"We do not know yet. The army has not been assembled."
Click.
"Wait. You said magic had no effect on it, but did that apply to all magic?"
"I determined that it did not. A high-ranking mage among the scouts cast a spell, and it did not appear to be nullified."
"Then..."
"I, too..."
Countless other conversations and questions followed.
However, not a single one of those questions was unnecessary or pointless.
They were all questions intended to obtain the minimum information needed to assess the situation more carefully and arrive at an immediate solution.
As Adrian answered the countless questions, a noble's words caused his uninterrupted responses to halt for the first time.
"Then do you intend to use [War Magic]...?"
"..."
[War Magic]
The moment those words were heard, the air in the meeting hall began to freeze.
In the past—a story that began with a kingdom that coveted the Empire's vast territory.
The kingdom prepared knights and mages, along with high-altitude mages specialized in seizing control of the skies, and began attacking the Empire.
A sudden surprise attack.
The kingdom succeeded in a nearly perfect surprise attack, reducing the territory of the vast Empire by 30 percent, and, intoxicated by its arrogance, continued attacking the Empire.
However, the Empire did not simply endure the attacks.
As the era advanced, science and magic merged, and magic engineering emerged as a new field. The Empire had invested enormous resources into that field.
And eventually, they created it.
[Grand Magic] had already existed in countless forms, cast jointly by many mages.
However, the [War Magic] created by magic engineers was a spell activated through a mechanism entirely different from existing magic.
[Division]
and
[Decomposition]
, and
[Repulsion]
.
A spell containing these three concepts, driven into the center of the enemy forces and detonated, proved astonishingly effective.
Because of [Division], the magic circle split apart.
Through [Decomposition], the mana contained in the magic circle was broken down and released, and that mana was broken down again, causing countless particles of mana to scatter into the air all at once.
And to put the finishing touch on it,
[Repulsion]
magic.
The enormous energy generated as mana repelled mana.
Eventually, the mana could not withstand that tremendous energy and collapsed.
The energy unleashed by that collapse caused hundreds of massive explosions, unprecedented in history. That was the magic.
That was the origin of [War Magic].
A mere five shots.
The powerful nation that had attacked the vast Empire disappeared from the map in only one hour.
At this point, the leaders of the other nations watching the war between the Empire and the kingdom thought.
[This is dangerous.]
If [War Magic] had been difficult, they might have conducted their research in secret.
But it was far too easy.
It was easy enough that even a minor nation could use it effectively.
Therefore, the kings and nobles of every country began forming a treaty.
A treaty to prevent the indiscriminate use of [War Magic].
This was the origin of the world's first [War Magic Prohibition Treaty].
Of course, when they said it was easy, they meant that it was easy at the national level.
An individual could never activate [War Magic], because it was impossible for one person to handle that tremendous amount of mana.
"Yes..."
[!!!]
As though he had anticipated the shocked reactions of the countless people staring at him, Adrian calmly looked back at them.
At Adrian's reaction, the people realized.
It was real. He truly intended to activate [War Magic].
"You really mean it..."
"Yes."
"The treaty..."
"It states that [War Magic] may be activated in an emergency like this."
Furthermore, there was also the autonomy granted by the Empire.
"This does not violate the treaty."
Of course, even so, the fact that he was activating [War Magic], which had not been used for decades, would itself be a problem.
"That is how urgent this situation is. You agree, don't you?"
[...]
No one could object to Adrian's words.
"Good."
Adrian looked around at the people in the meeting hall and quietly declared.
"From this moment forward, we will begin preparations to deploy [War Magic]. Contact the nobles of the other cities, both those here and those elsewhere, and have them assemble in the capital!"
"Please wait a moment!"
"...What is it?"
"I agree with Your Grace's proposal to activate [War Magic]. However, how do you intend to hit a target that keeps moving like that?"
At the noble's words, Adrian smiled lightly and thought of a certain person.
"It's all right."
The man who had come to him while he was busily moving about to obtain information on the giant.
"A being capable of stopping that giant's movement has already set out."
Abel had already departed to tie down the giant's feet.
***
"Wow..."
I couldn't get a sense of its size from the information or footage, but seeing it like this made it obvious.
"It's bigger than an ordinary mountain, isn't it?"
Rumble!