Chapter 40
A mage is the very embodiment of aloofness, as well as the backbone of a party.
However.
Some once described mages like this.
-The strongest armor a mage can wear is pride. The problem is, even that has terrible defensive power. That bastard was so much fun to tease last time. I barely prodded him, and his face turned bright red.
-Mages? Those guys really are smart. When things get dangerous, they’re the ones who get out of there the fastest.
-When they have mana, they’re gods of the battlefield. When their mana runs out, they’re just dead weight.
Despite the public’s less-than-favorable opinion of them, mages took pride in themselves.
Because even so, mages were needed everywhere.
A mage was the one who had to see the flow of the battlefield most broadly, the one who broke through the enemy’s defenses, and the one who held a collapsed front line together again.
That was why mages took pride in their own path, devoted themselves to the study of magic, and dreamed of reaching a Mage Tower at the end of it. There were quite a few who aspired to do so.
Yet because they were such mages, they tended to view becoming adventurers with considerable skepticism.
The reason was simple.
The path adventurers walked was unstable.
They had no fixed patron, no stable laboratory, and no proper equipment, yet they wandered from place to place risking their lives over a single request form.
To court mages supported by nobles or mages belonging to a Mage Tower’s school, adventuring did not seem like a particularly dignified profession.
So they regarded adventurers as something halfway between wandering swordsmen and bounty hunters, rather than comrades on the battlefield.
But Kael Arvent, the Archmage who stood at the pinnacle of such people and the tower master of Arvent, one of the three great Mage Towers, thought differently.
He had always emphasized the efficiency and practical applications of magic, and believed that nothing was as valuable as experience gained on the battlefield.
His experience working as an adventurer had been valuable in its own way.
..
..
After the mission ended, Kael returned to his residence in Graveblock Block.
For several days, he spent days that were far busier than usual.
The raid was not officially publicized on a large scale, as little information about it had been released to the outside world.
An armed raid occurred during the transport of important cargo belonging to Seraph Industries.
The raiders were repelled through a joint response by the internal escort team and support forces.
That was all.
The fact that they had captured someone at the commander level was not announced.
Nor was the organization the man was connected to, or the fact that he had been handed over to Seraph’s security team, revealed to the outside world.
But they could not hide everything about the incident.
The transport escort team that had been at the scene had returned alive.
They were all people whose names were known to some extent in the freelancer industry.
Sena, in particular, had an established reputation as a seasoned mercenary.
And she said this.
“There are far too many beings in this world that I can’t understand.”
Brick was even more blunt.
“A fresh F-rank rookie who’d just gotten his freelancer license wiped out an entire PMC unit. Without any equipment or cyberware, no less! How the hell does that make sense?”
Maras and Yudin gave assessments that were not much different, and the words of the four of them spread in an instant.
At first, everyone found it difficult to believe, but very few people concluded that they were lying.
That was only natural, because the people spreading those words were not rookies boasting in bars.
They all spoke the same name.
Kael.
Within a few days, that name began circulating through freelancer networks and corporate security systems.
[Kael]
[Registered Rank: F]
[Specially Endorsed by Seraph]
[Tier 5 ACU User]
[Special Note: Not an Ordinary New Freelancer]
As the rumors caught fire, information about Kael spread rapidly.
In particular, the fact that he was an unidentified combatant whose identity was guaranteed by Seraph must have made an even stronger impression.
Perhaps that was why dozens of notifications piled up on Kael’s terminal every day.
[Designated Contract Received]
[Request for Confidential Meeting]
[Recommendation for Freelancer Rank Reevaluation]
[Exclusive Contract Offer]
……
At first, he thought he could simply turn off his terminal, but he soon realized that doing so was meaningless.
Requests piling up in the freelancer registration network did not disappear, and corporate contract brokers even began coming to him in person.
For several days, unfamiliar faces came and went in front of the old building in Graveblock Block.
Most of them tried to make it all the way up to the Last Round on the fourth floor, so Mira blocked the door with an irritated look each time.
“This is a bar, not a reception room.”
“I have an appointment with Mr. Kael.”
“No, you don’t.”
“You haven’t even checked!”
“I did. I just told you there wasn’t one.”
“We’ve come to deliver an important confidential contract.”
“Please, just get lost!”
Mira turned people away like that several times a day.
On the third day, she finally called Kael over.
“You.”
Kael stopped as he was coming up the stairs.
“Speak.”
“Your guests are turning this place into a reception room. There are more people looking for you than customers coming here to drink. What are you going to do about this?”
“Sorry about that.”
“Haa… I can barely tell whether I’m running a bar or working as a receptionist.”
Kael thought for a moment, then decided to turn the second floor into his office.
The first and second floors had originally been empty spaces after Seraph purchased the building, after all.
The reason was simple.
It would not interfere with the Last Round on the fourth floor, it was close to his room on the third floor, and even if he let outsiders in, they would not need to climb any higher than the floor directly above.
He cleared out the second floor and roughly attached a small sign beside the door.
[Kael]
Mira frowned when she saw the office with nothing but a name written on its sign and no explanation whatsoever.
“Is that it?”
“Is anything else necessary?”
“Usually, you put up things like the office name, business hours, or the types of contracts you don’t accept.”
At her words, Kael looked at the sign for a moment.
“They’ll get the idea.”
“….”
In the end, Mira wrote one more line beneath it with a black pen.
[No Entry Without Business]
Kael looked at it and nodded.
“Not bad.”
“Yeah… I hope this wraps things up. I was starting to get tired of it, too.”
After that, he dealt with people who came to contact him from outside on the second floor.
Kael reviewed the requests and rejected them dozens of times over.
What he wanted was clear, and there were no clues in the requests that might lead him to it.
Related requests were worth considering, but most of the requests that came in were not.
[Erebos Security Confidential Escort Contract]
Kael closed the alert.
[Varna Chemical Lost Research Sample Retrieval Operation]
He closed that one, too.
[Caldera PMC Regular Scout Proposal]
[Initial Contract Payment Available]
[Equipment Registration Support]
[Relocation Support]
Kael narrowed his eyes at the words, which he disliked merely by looking at them.
So he sent a short reply.
[Rejected]
..
..
For several days, Kael followed the same daily routine.
In the morning, he checked and rejected requests; during the day, he turned away contract brokers who came to see him; and when he had free time at night, he patrolled the nearby alleys.
Even in the meantime, however, the rumors continued to swell.
That Kael was Seraph’s secret asset, that he was an experimental subject belonging to some corporation, that he was a legendary figure from a PMC, and so on….
Some even claimed he was an illegitimate child of the Arclight family.
And one day, footsteps stopped outside the second-floor office where Kael was staying.
At the careful tap-tap of someone knocking on the door, Kael raised his head.
“Come in.”
The door opened, and a middle-aged man entered.
He wore an old coat, had pulled his hat low over his face, and covered half his face with a scarf.
He was dressed as though he had made quite an effort to keep his identity from being discovered.
The moment Kael saw him, he spoke.
“Send the contract through the terminal.”
At those words, the man closed the door and stepped inside.
“I thought it might get filtered out if I sent it through the terminal.”
“…?”
A vaguely familiar voice.
“…Then you shouldn’t have come.”
Kael said,
“Go back.”
The man lowered his scarf and took off his hat.
“Please. Just hear me out once….”
Only then did Kael remember who he was.
Anyone who had listened to Magitera’s radio for even a few days could not have failed to recognize that voice.
The man who covered Magitera’s incidents and accidents every morning with a cheerful voice.
Silas Volt.
He was standing in Kael’s second-floor office.
“What brings a celebrity to my office?”
At Kael’s words, Silas smiled awkwardly.
“To be precise, I’m a public radio host, a current affairs commentator, and someone who occasionally delivers the city’s ‘unfortunate’ events in a pleasant voice.”
“If this is an interview, I’m not doing it.”
“Hahaha… If it were the usual me, I would have come for something like that, but the situation isn’t good right now.”
When Silas stopped laughing, his tired expression showed.
Unlike the smooth voice heard on the radio, he looked like someone who had not slept properly for several days.
“I didn’t come here for an interview today.”
“Then?”
“I came because I want to live.”
Kael looked at him with a puzzled expression.
Silas then took a small data chip from inside his coat and carefully placed it on the desk.
“There’s a death threat against me….”
“Go to the Public Safety Bureau.”
“I did.”
“Then why did you come here?”
Silas moved his parched lips.
“They said some procedure was required to protect me… but I think I’ll be dead before that procedure is finished.”
When Kael did not answer, Silas reached toward the panel.
“May I open it?”
Kael looked at him for a moment, then nodded.
When Silas connected the data chip, information about a person appeared on the wall panel.
[Magitera Public Safety Bureau Public Wanted Notice Record]
[Name: Raul Kesk]
[Alias: Cutwire]
[Charges: Serial murder, murder of broadcast station security personnel, threats against corporate officials, intrusion into communications facilities]
[Risk Level: High Risk]
[Tier: 6]
Kael rested his chin on one hand as he stared at the screen.
“He’s a wanted criminal.”
“That’s right.”
When Kael said nothing, Silas hurriedly continued.
“I didn’t want to come all the way here if I could help it. But that man singled me out.”
“Why?”
Silas was silent for a moment at the question, then hesitated briefly before speaking.
Awkwardness and fear seemed to pass across his face at the same time.
“I ‘prodded’ him a little on my broadcast.”
“What did you say?”
At Kael’s question, Silas let out a sigh and opened another file on the data chip.
A broadcast recording began playing shortly afterward.
-Here is today’s news about a publicly wanted criminal.
-Raul Kesk. Alias: Cutwire.
-He’s a criminal notorious for seizing communications networks and broadcasting death threats.
-Mr. Raul, if you’re listening, let me offer you a piece of advice. Every time you send out a death threat, the audio quality is so terrible that no one can understand what you’re saying. Change your microphone. If you want to plunge the entire city into fear, shouldn’t you at least pronounce your words clearly?
“….”
When Kael looked at Silas without saying anything, he lowered his head.
“I needed the listener ratings then.”
Silas let out a quiet sigh.
“I know. I really did something stupid. But that man was already a vicious criminal who killed people, wasn’t he? It’s true that I chose my words badly, but that doesn’t mean he can cut my throat….”
When Kael looked at the screen again, Silas took out another file from his pocket.
This time, it was an audio recording.
When he pressed the play button, a low, rasping voice flowed out.
-Silas Volt.
-Prepare to end your final broadcast with your death. Within seventy-two hours, I’ll let the entire city hear the moment your voice cuts out.
He was no longer laughing, nor did he use his glib tone.
He simply stood in front of the desk and bowed his head to Kael.
“Mr. Kael.”
His voice trembled.
“Please take care of it.”
Kael said nothing.
Silas pointed at the wanted notice with a trembling hand.
“I’ll add what I have to the bounty offered by the Public Safety Bureau. I’ll also hand over information. I have background material I gathered at the broadcast station, too. Some of it may be unpleasant for corporations. I’ll give you everything I have, so please, just keep me alive….”
Kael’s gaze stopped on one part of the panel.
……
[Tier: 6]
“This.”
“Y-Yes?”
“Do I have to capture him alive?”