Chapter 9
Thesalos Walcher died, and every lord returned in his own carriage.
Only Luri and Ferda remained at the Alliance headquarters.
“That was splendid.”
Luri looked up at Ferda and clapped her small hands.
“You made it perfectly clear who held the upper hand today. Impressive. Your political skills have gone beyond the realm of art.”
Then she gave him the so-called double thumbs-up, raising both thumbs with a snap.
Ferda was suffering from a headache as an aftereffect of mana depletion.
He lightly massaged his temples with his fingers as he answered.
“It was merely an unintended result.”
“You didn’t intend for that result, but it happened anyway. What do you plan to do now?”
“What do you mean?”
Luri frowned as though asking whether that was truly a question.
“You just killed a noble. Even with the Grand Duke’s authority behind you, this will clearly become a controversial matter.”
“Is that so?”
Ferda recalled what had happened around him and asked,
“It was so quiet, though. Are you saying there’s a problem?”
“Who would be foolish enough to point that out while someone is dancing with a sword right in front of them?”
“Hmm…… Is that so?”
Everything had gone so smoothly that Ferda had not even noticed he had committed a serious crime.
After hearing that, Ferda finally realized that he ought to feel somewhat troubled.
Seeing Ferda’s expression, Luri let out a small sigh and continued.
“Besides, he was already one of the lords who had pledged his loyalty to Valdrowa. This is more than merely being somewhat troublesome.”
“Was he honest?”
“He was moderately honest and moderately corrupt—a thoroughly ordinary fellow. In the Far Eastern Front, that sort of ordinariness means being the most loyal subject of all.”
“Since I killed the most loyal subject with my own hands, that will interfere with the engagement as well, I suppose?”
“Of course.”
No wonder.
There was a reason Luri’s eyes were sparkling.
Contrary to her expectations, Ferda scratched his cheek and answered,
“The engagement will proceed as planned. If I show them why he deserved to die, won’t that change things?”
“That may be true, but……. How can you be so confident?”
As far as Luri knew, today was the first time Ferda and Thesalos Walcher had met.
Yet he spoke as though he knew Thesalos better than Luri or the other lords, who had known him for years.
‘Why?’
Because I already know.
If Ferda’s memory was correct, Thesalos would even now be in the midst of committing a serious crime.
“Let’s go to Walcher’s territory.”
“Are you saying you’ll dig up some dirt on him?”
“Don’t worry. There’s a whole heap of dust piled up, so you’ll understand.”
“Well, all right. Before that, though……”
Luri crooked a finger toward Thesalos’s corpse.
A threadlike distortion pierced the dead Thesalos’s neck.
It cleanly severed his head.
Luri wrapped the severed head in a cloth.
“Why are you taking that?”
“We’ll need it. Whatever the reason he was killed, he died ‘because he had done wrong.’”
Ferda nodded, understanding.
“So you’re going to impale his head and hang it up? Like you do when dealing with corrupt nobles?”
“Isn’t that obvious?”
“I thought you said he was the most loyal subject.”
“If you want to make this engagement disappear, feel free. I’d be happy to help.”
Ferda closed his mouth.
One way or another, Luri was still helping Ferda.
* * *
Walcher’s territory.
It was the territory farthest toward the front line in the Far Eastern Front, and the land most closely connected to the border army.
At the same time, it was also the territory closest to Valdrowa’s castle.
“They say it’s darkest beneath the lamp. So it was here all along?”
Ferda muttered that to himself.
In reality, he had met Thesalos Walcher in the southern desert.
Until then, he had never imagined that Thesalos would be in the Far Eastern Front.
When they arrived in front of the inner castle of Walcher’s territory, the butler came rushing out.
As befitted the butler of Walcher’s territory, he responded calmly.
“It is an honor to receive such distinguished guests in our humble residence. Unfortunately, our master is currently away—”
“Ah, don’t worry about that. The master is dead.”
“……Pardon?”
The old butler asked again with a bewildered expression.
“I said the master is dead. Let us go inside. Do you know where Thesalos Walcher’s study is?”
“Th-that…… No, more importantly, what do you mean by saying you killed our master……?”
“Never mind. It was hardly an honorable or commendable act, so he must have hidden it. I’ll search for it myself.”
At the end of the one-sided conversation, Ferda walked past the butler and entered.
The butler watched him pass with an expression of incomprehension.
Luri followed after him, handing the cloth bundle to the butler and pointing toward the sky.
“Hang it somewhere the castle gate can be seen clearly.”
“Pardon? What is this……?”
Luri also walked past the butler and entered.
A short while later, the old butler’s scream reverberated loudly through the corridors.
* * *
Thesalos Walcher.
A family of mages that had been driven to the outskirts because of political problems.
It was a family with hatred and an inferiority complex every bit as intense as Ferda’s.
Birds of a feather flock together. Ferda had taken on a companion for the first time, and that companion had been Thesalos.
‘Thesalos Walcher hated the Empire.’
He possessed a Red Circle, and because of it, he was treated as a heretic in the magical world and pushed to the outskirts.
Thesalos developed magic with the single-minded goal of killing every noble who had driven him to the Far Eastern Front.
And what had actually happened?
‘He did succeed.’
Of course, that was all he did: succeed.
‘I never actually saw that magic.’
Before Thesalos could use it—or even properly give the magic a name—he had been killed by Ferda.
Just like today, without even knowing why.
‘Come to think of it, why did I kill him back then?’
Ferda himself did not remember.
It was not strange.
Back then, Ferda had needed something to hate, and that was what he had done.
To reach the Sixth Circle faster than anyone else, he had needed to do whatever it took—even become a monster that killed his own benefactor.
‘It doesn’t matter.’
Ferda felt not the slightest twinge of hesitation.
It was not some delusion that he was in the right.
The only thing that mattered was that Thesalos as he was now would undoubtedly make his fiancée sad.
‘It must be somewhere around here…….’
Ferda searched every corner of Thesalos’s room.
He had said he was devoting his entire life to research.
Even while pretending to be a loyal subject, he must have been hiding some sinister intentions.
As Ferda looked around, he finally found something.
“Here it is.”
It was directly beneath the bed.
The tiles beneath the bed were not tightly fitted, and he could feel a foreign current of air leaking through the gaps.
“You made a secret place beneath the bed.”
“Shall I open it?”
“We should. I’ll look for the switch. Just a moment……”
Bang!
Before Ferda could finish speaking, the sound of something breaking rang out.
When he turned his head, the bed had been split in two, and the concealed secret door had broken along with it.
Luri brushed off her dainty fist and said,
“Why bother looking for it?”
“……”
It was certainly a crude method, but there was no particular reason not to use it.
Thus, Luri and Ferda stepped down the stairs leading underground.
As it grew darker, a faint fishy metallic smell drifted up.
“That’s the smell of monster blood.”
“You can tell the difference? You have quite a nose.”
“Do not compare me to such an inferior creature.”
“My apologies. But I do think your loyalty is rather doglike.”
“……Are you picking a fight?”
Luri glared at him, but Ferda did not react at all.
At last, the stairs ended, and Ferda and Luri stepped into a new space.
“This is……”
Ferda reflexively knitted his brows.
A mage’s laboratory was always a mess, and it was only natural for the accumulation of unknown objects to create a bizarre scene.
Sometimes, one even had to steel oneself for a blood-red sight before entering.
But even taking that into account, Thesalos Walcher’s laboratory was excessively cruel and grotesque.
Anyone with a weak stomach would have vomited immediately, but neither Luri nor Ferda was greatly shaken.
‘Though I don’t seem to be getting used to the smell.’
He covered his nose with his index finger and waited for his sense of smell to adjust.
Luri looked up at one of the corpses and frowned.
“So this is what they mean by saying it’s darkest beneath the lamp.”
The corpse of a dead soldier and a monster were lying side by side on an examination table.
Their abdomens had been split open, and their purple and red organs had been connected with thread.
“To think that the lord I believed was the most loyal of all was a follower of demons.”
A follower of demons.
The demons created during the Dragon-Demon War 150 years ago, after the corruption of the Black Dragon Godwin.
Those who have pursued the demons’ activities ever since and sought to use their power are known as demon followers.
“You never imagined it?”
“I knew mages were gloomy to a certain extent. Their skill tends to match their gloominess, so I tolerate it up to a point. But……”
Deep hatred and a sense of betrayal shone in her silver eyes.
“I never imagined he would indulge in such a vile hobby as connecting the organs of monsters and humans to each other.”
But they say betrayal strikes as deeply as one has trusted.
“Humans are all like that, more or less.”
As a dragon spawn, Luri did not place much trust in humans.
Thus, she could erase him without batting an eye.
What mattered now was what he had intended to gain through such a vile hobby.
Luri found manuscripts strewn across the writing area.
Her eyes skimmed over them rapidly, and when she reached the end, she snorted.
“He really was a complete psychopath.”
“Why?”
“He continued his research based on the idea of using the monster factors possessed by monsters to enhance mana.”
“Did he?”
“Would you like to see?”
Ferda looked at the first page of the manuscript she showed him.
He read through the overview.
Only then did Ferda recall it.
‘That’s right. He was trying to create undead creatures resembling monsters.’
Among the forms of black magic, necromancy is divided into two extremes.
Creating one powerful monster, or covering the field with countless weak monsters.
Because of this extreme tendency to overwhelm with quantity or compete with quality, necromancers are the easiest mages to counter and suppress.
‘He was trying to pit the toughness of monsters against the numbers of the undead.’
If completed, it would become the ultimate magic, capable of mass-producing the Empire’s elite soldiers.
‘But that wasn’t what interested me.’
Ferda had been interested in that magic solely because of the mana cultivation method created to use it.
Monsters constantly produce mana.
‘But it’s defective mana that can’t be used for anything.’
Monsters grew strong by using their overwhelmingly abundant mana as sustenance.
‘But if that productive capacity could be reproduced to draw out pure mana…….’
Even those said to lack talent could reach the ranks of Fourth Circle mages the moment they mastered it.
Through the fruits of that research, Ferda had reached the Sixth Circle, surpassed the level of an Archmage, and even reached the Eighth Circle.
Ferda looked down at the page containing the overview once more.
‘If I researched this…….’
He would be gathering the materials to reach the Eighth Circle faster than usual, and breaking through the Circle would become easier.
‘There’s no doubt about it.’
It was possible.
Perhaps several times faster.
As Ferda stared intently at the overview, Luri watched him just as intently.
‘He’s human. Of course he’d be tempted by greed.’
Luri dwelled on her innate disgust toward humans.
Making her sad was merely an excuse.
Ferda must have only been thinking of killing Thesalos and stealing this research.
‘All humans lie.’
A foolish race that is ensnared by lies, rejoicing and grieving over them.
Since she knew they lied, there was no need for her to feel betrayed.
‘And yet…….’
Why was this man different?
Unlike with Thesalos, her chest felt even tighter.
‘Am I believing that I want to trust this man?’
Luri bit her lip tightly.
With her pride wounded as a dragon spawn, Luri asked him directly in an attempt to shake off those thoughts.
“So what will you do?”
“What do you mean?”
“That research. You could continue it. Isn’t that what every mage would say? Because it would be a waste.”
Continue it because it would be a waste.
It was a truly simple excuse that required no lengthy justification.
Because that was only natural for a mage who pursued knowledge.
But Ferda’s answer differed from that of other mages.
“No.”
Ferda handed the page back to Luri.
“Destroy it all.”
“All of it……?”
For an instant, Luri’s expressionless face cracked.
It was a moment she had not expected at all.
She had thought he would hesitate, at least a little, but Ferda’s answer was sharp as a blade.
“Didn’t I tell you? I hate anything that makes the Grand Duke sad.”
“But you’re going to destroy research like this? It could even become a huge breakthrough.”
“A huge breakthrough would indeed be a wonderful thing.”
Ferda nodded.
“But if it ultimately leads to my fiancée’s sorrow, what meaning could it have?”
Yet Ferda’s eyes held none of that temptation.
They were eyes no mage could ever possess.
Those blue eyes reflected a tranquil landscape of selflessness, like a deep lake.
……
“Why are you staring blankly?”
“I’m wondering whether it’s really all right to do this.”
“It’s all right.”
Blue flames flickered at Luri’s fingertips.
Pure flames created by transforming mana into the form of fire.
If she threw them, the papers would burn in an instant.
Luri’s eyes rolled round as she gazed into the flames, then she looked up at Ferda.
“……You won’t say something different later?”
“It’s fine.”
As Ferda wished, Luri burned all of the research.
The laboratory and all the grotesque corpses used in the research were engulfed by blue flames and gradually reduced to ashes.
‘It burns well.’
Ferda quietly looked down at it.
If it had been Ferda, it was a magic he could undoubtedly have completed after investing a few months.
He had helped Thesalos create it, and above all, it was a magic he had learned once before.
Even so, the reason Ferda had given it up was simple.
‘Every magic bears the nature and emotions of its creator.’
And, as the saying goes, one becomes tainted by the ink one is near; those traits and emotions gradually become part of the caster’s essence and inevitably lead to corruption.
That was why one must not learn black magic, and why forbidden magic existed.
‘And that magic was born from anger and hatred.’
Thesalos hated the Empire.
If Ferda learned that magic, he would undoubtedly become consumed by anger and hatred that were not his own.
‘So it must be discarded.’
Rather than being shackled by trivial matters,
he cherished who he was now.
His twisted desire turned to ash and scattered into nothingness.
His heart, clear and still as a mirror-like lake, made Ferda smile.
“It really…… burns well.”
Luri watched Ferda mutter those words.
Luri’s assessment of Ferda was as follows.
‘An unfathomable psychopath.’
And she added one more thing without fail.
‘And a masochist.’
Luri could not help wondering what sort of bizarre combination that was.
Her discomfort gradually deepened, and her expression twisted along with it.