Chapter 145
***
There is a custom known as the rule of hospitality.
It’s one of those duties to guests that has existed through all ages and across all cultures.
The host who invites someone to a banquet does not harm the guest,
and the guest likewise does not harm the host.
That custom exists not only in my past life, but in this world as well.
No, in a world where aristocratic values still remain, it’s observed even more solemnly than in a world where individualism has developed.
It’s also a custom I follow to the letter.
Once I’ve invited someone to a meal, I host them to the best of my ability and do them no harm.
It’s a belief and image firmly rooted in my heart as well.
In some ways, it’s similar to a doctor not choosing patients based on good or evil.
So I did my best with the dark mages’ meal.
Although, since I couldn’t bring myself to serve them precious lean meat, I did use some divisive special cuts.
Even taking that into account, I’d done my best to the point they should have had no choice but to call it delicious.
‘Besides, the base ingredients were like that, but the spices were incredibly expensive too.’
The cuts were one problem, but because it was beast meat, it was bound to have a strong gamy odor.
That said, drowning it in expensive spices would also kill the ingredients’ individuality.
So from the cooking method to the spices, I carefully calculated everything to mask the odor well,
and even decorated it delicately with aesthetics in mind so it wouldn’t ruin anyone’s appetite….
‘And yet… this kind of reaction?’
To react like this even while vomiting.
What an unbelievably rude reaction.
“I’m hurt. I even used Maniple Grani wine...”
I’d also used an expensive red wine.
How many top-grade wines had I tried in search of one that could make gamey odor itself feel like flavor?
Among them, I’d chosen one with a long aftertaste, where pomegranate and acidity blended together...
And yet the dark mage was vomiting and begging, saying it tasted bad.
“Maybe it just doesn’t suit your tastes.”
Nom.
I tasted the liver steak prepared for me.
The acidity spreading through my mouth and the texture of the liver were exquisite.
The more I savored that harmony, the less I understood why the dark mage was reacting like this.
“Delicious...”
The chimera tamer beside me, eating her liver steak with her hands, chimed in.
Look.
Even the chimera tamer, who was all but a child when it came to taste, said it was delicious.
Besides, chefs say that children’s palates are the hardest to satisfy.
By satisfying that palate, I could say there was nothing wrong with the cooking.
“Don’t you like the food?”
Thanks to that, I even forgot to keep my expression in check and openly showed my displeasure toward the curse mage.
It felt as if my sincerity and effort were being dismissed.
Perhaps my feelings got through to him.
The pleading dark mage turned deathly pale and slammed his forehead onto the table.
“Hiiiiiik...!!”
Why on earth was he doing this?
It wasn’t as if he had some absurd liver allergy or anything.
Just as I was questioning the curse mage about it,
“Professor. That should be enough. We’ll take it from here.”
The soldiers who must have been watching from outside the interrogation room burst in.
Seeing them, I remembered something I had forgotten.
Right.
This was an interrogation, not hospitality.
Of course, it wasn’t as if I had completely forgotten that this was an interrogation.
It was just that, because of Jenny’s request, it was more like a doctor’s consultation than a police interrogation.
“Thank you for your cooperation, Professor. We’ll take over the interrogation from here. Please wait in the side room while he gives his statement.”
Once the soldiers helped him up, the curse mage willingly followed after them.
Perhaps it was just my imagination, but he seemed grateful to the soldiers.
— “I’ll give you a choice, Rodenil. Will you undergo that interrogation too, or will you come along obediently? If you agree, nod.”
— “Mmph! Mmph!”
The blood mage, who was waiting in the waiting room and had not yet eaten with me, nodded.
He nodded so vigorously that I was a little taken aback.
Two of the four dark mages were thus moved to the side room, and the chimera tamer with delirium symptoms was dragged back to prison.
And the remaining one.
Belgian, who handled plague and necromancy.
That man alone was neither returned to his cell nor dragged to the side room.
“Then we’ll take our leave.”
“Thank you for your consideration, Major.”
The place where he was taken was a room known as the “Gwang,” a room with no records kept.
Basically, it was the police bureau’s version of hell.
A space where nothing was recorded, and where no one outside could know what interrogation took place there.
Aside from the faint stench of blood and stale sweat, half-hidden by a bit of perfume, and the rather vicious-looking implements meant to get the body talking, it was no different from an ordinary interrogation room.
Normally, he should never have been brought here.
I didn’t know why, but with the dark mages suddenly becoming cooperative, we needed to extract information before he changed his mind.
In fact, bringing him to a place like this and making him clam up again could even lead to a military tribunal later.
Even so, there was one reason I moved him here.
“Dark mage Belgian. Is that correct?”
“...It is, Professor.”
It was because I used a little of my authority to meet him.
According to Prince Edmund, who made me a professor of black magic,
my rank in the military is close to that of a captain.
So I can have at least this much—a “consultation” with an arrested dark mage that leaves no record at all.
The military of my past life and the military of this world differ in many ways, so I do wonder whether this is really allowed.
Still, within my authority, it was possible to prioritize my personal circumstances over whatever information the dark mage possessed.
“People say dark mages are cruel, but looking at this room, it seems we’re not the only ones, are we, Professor?”
The dark mage, visibly tense, cracked a joke.
Watching that, I pulled up memories from more than ten years ago.
Belgian.
The first dark mage I met after coming to this world.
The one who directly threatened my life.
He was also the cause of my compulsive secrecy about my identity.
There were many incidents that led me to protect the people around me, but the fear I felt when I faced this man was the beginning of that compulsion.
No matter how much money I had.
No matter how strong my escort was.
He was the one who made me keenly realize that this was a dark fantasy world where one careless mistake could send you straight to the grave.
That old bad fate came back without warning, just as it had the first time we met.
If there was any difference from then, it was only that the balance of power had been reversed.
“I’m willing to answer questions, just like the others. In fact, I’d say I know even more than they do.”
“I’m sure you do. According to the report, you’re Tier 2. You’d know more about the Round Table than they do.”
“Then why was I the only one left here?”
Belgian looked uneasy.
“Do you perhaps hold some personal grudge against me?”
A grudge, huh...
Coincidentally, the feeling I had toward him was not a grudge.
Instead, the reason I brought him here.
“Is that all you have to say to me?”
“...”
“Really?”
“...So you became a professor, Shun Isa.”
Yes.
This was why.
The only person in this world who had been hostile to me and yet had seen the face beneath my mask.
That person was Belgian.
How anxious had I been that this man might reveal my identity to the other dark mages?
Ever since the Inspectorate tampered with people’s perceptions, my identity had never been publicly exposed, but whenever I thought of it, I sometimes lost sleep from anxiety.
Not enough to call it trauma, just the kind of anxiety that makes me wake up once every six months from a “damn it” dream.
So I brought him into this room partly to relieve that anxiety, and partly because I was personally curious.
If he spilled information as a dark mage, he could be dragged to the execution grounds, so I brought him here first.
“Eri. You worked hard too.”
Right after confirming that this man really was Belgian,
I comforted Eri, who had been standing behind me with wide, alert eyes.
I figured she probably wasn’t in a very good mood either.
After all, he was the Tier 2 mage she had first met.
She must have also been flustered when she first faced him.
As proof, when I suddenly spoke to her, Eri answered with a clearly flustered look.
“Huh? Ah! Right. It was a bit hard.”
“...?”
What.
Why is her reaction a little lukewarm?
“Haha. It was hard, huh.”
The way her eyes were darting around made it clear she was hiding something from me.
Her behavior was so suspicious that when I pressed her a little more, she whispered back.
“That man, Belgian. Why does he know your identity, Professor?”
“...You don’t know him?”
“I don’t remember.”
“...As long as you’re not hurt, that’s fine.”
Right.
Being healthy and free of trauma is a good thing.
I felt like an idiot for worrying by myself,
and with a much lighter heart, I brought up the question I had been putting off until now.
“Belgian. Your manner of speech has changed. Back then, you seemed much more confident than you do now.”
“...I did.”
Back then, he was so self-admiring that he referred to himself as “this body.”
It was to the point where it felt somewhat theatrical.
By contrast, now...
“Your personality has softened a lot too. Back then, I seem to remember you were so enraged just from seeing my face that you accused me of deception.”
He was just an illegitimate child standing in front of me.
His reaction was different from before as well.
If this had been in the past, he would have taken even that as a provocation and rushed at me in a rage.
But now, he wore a self-mocking smile and admitted it readily.
“Back then, I thought you and I were on equal footing.”
“Do you think differently now?”
“I know my place.”
The once-confident bastard said, his shoulders sagging.
“Back then, I was called a genius among dark mages. I thought so too. But as I watched your deeds through the newspapers... it all seemed pointless.”
He pointed at his leg.
“A guy like me, limping because of the bullet I took that day, and a saint with no holy power at all—I’m not so dull-eyed as to put us on the same level.”
Hearing that made me feel somewhat heavy-hearted.
I know that frustration well enough, because even in medical school I had plenty of chances to run into geniuses.
Of course, that didn’t extend to compassion for a man like Belgian.
I had merely recalled the weight of facing a genius; that alone wasn’t reason enough to pity him.
Besides, I’m nowhere near the kind of genius this man has in mind.
Well, that’s not the important thing.
Still, I think I understand why he ended up like this.
Then, another question.
“Why didn’t you reveal my identity to the other dark mages? If you’d told the Round Table, they would have recognized a considerable contribution.”
I know the structure of the 13 Round Table well from Simeon, my attendant secretary.
— “There is a unit called contribution within the Round Table. If you help the Round Table, you receive contribution points. With those points, you can buy knowledge or information about the magic the Round Table possesses.”
— “You know the Round Table well, Simeon.”
— “During my pilgrimage, I often encountered dark mages. Most of those meetings did not end well, though.”
According to Simeon, dark mages build up knowledge and standing through these contribution points.
There are many ways to earn contribution.
Taking commissions from the Round Table.
Helping a superior’s research within the Round Table.
Selling knowledge or information.
Through the contribution gained this way, they purchase and learn new magic or training methods.
Of course, the problem is that the contribution required to buy something is absurdly high compared to what you get from selling.
Still, even taking that into account, Belgian probably could have aimed for the next stage if he had that information.
— Shun Isa and Yulian are the same person.
Shun Isa and Yulian, whom the dark mages grind their teeth over and want to kill.
That information—that these two were the same person—was extremely valuable to dark mages who could cast curses using nothing but names and information about the people around them.
So if he had told the Round Table about this...
“You might have been able to aim for Tier 4. That would have made my personal safety even more at risk.”
“Probably.”
“Then why didn’t you tell them.”
I’d probably be living a much more exhausting life by now.
That was why I was curious.
Why on earth hadn’t he told them?
I wanted to know the secret behind this stroke of luck that couldn’t simply be explained by my being fortunate.
“You mean why I never told anyone about this?”
Belgian asked back with a somewhat soulless look.
Eyes that held resignation and fatigue.
Those eyes drifted toward his leg.
Soon, a voice filled with grievance burst out.
“Do you know this, Shun Isa? People are beasts who pretend to admire the rise of a genius, yet are more excited by its downfall.”
He pointed at his leg.
“The day I was shot by your bullet, I became a broken mage.”
That’s true.
It was an expensive bullet.
It was also powerful enough to assassinate a count who had once been Tier 5.
Even if he had somehow removed that bullet, the holy power left behind would have still been interfering with his magic.
“At first, they seemed to respect me. Those who had pinned their hopes on my genius said I’d recover. But that mask didn’t last long.”
As if recalling something, Belgian twisted his mouth.
“At first they tested the waters, but once they were sure I had been ruined, they started ignoring me. So I didn’t tell them your identity either.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“It was quite pleasant.”
Belgian gave a low chuckle.
“Those who had ignored me. The elders who abandoned me. Watching them collapse one by one and lose confidence because of the miracles you created was quite satisfying. So I kept it secret. Why would I help them?”
“You weren’t tempted by the contribution points?”
“Even if I learned that...”
Tap, tap.
Belgian tapped his leg.
“Even with the knowledge gained from that, my rank wouldn’t rise. So if that’s the case, wouldn’t it be more pleasant to watch those who ignored me fall from grace with my own eyes?”
In other words, Belgian wasn’t loyal to the Round Table so much as...
“To be honest, I wanted you to keep doing even more. That way I could watch those who ignored me flounder in despair. Well, as you can see, it’s a pity I can’t watch that anymore.”
He was still affiliated there for revenge.
“And of course, it’s also a pity I can’t exact revenge on the family that abandoned me.”
As I quietly listened to the story, I thought for a moment.
Then I slowly opened my mouth.
“Have you ever harmed innocent people in the past? Spread plagues, or killed people and turned them into ghouls?”
At that, Belgian let out a snort of laughter.
“Dark mages may be mistaken, but that would be inefficient. For ghouls, it’s far more efficient to wait for winter and then make them serve than to kill the living. Pus works far better from rotting corpses than from living people. I know that well.”
“Have you ever experimented on people?”
The moment he heard that, Belgian’s face hardened.
Then he pushed back his hair, revealing the brand, and said,
“It’s the brand my hateful father burned into me. After using my mother and me as test subjects for my half-brother’s magical experiments, he branded us when he threw us away. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t see me as the same kind of human as that man.”
With eyes blazing with fury, he erupted emotionally.
It seemed I had hit a nerve.
It didn’t seem like a lie.
The crimes of dark mages are famous, but the crimes of nobles are no less severe.
People are also secretly brought from Limbus Pit, used in magical experiments, and returned like merchandise.
There’s a reason the human trafficking in Sector H keeps surviving no matter how much it’s cracked down on.
So Belgian’s attitude felt credible.
“Is that all your questions?”
“Yes.”
Thanks to that, I was convinced.
“Then let’s end the questions here. I have a proposal.”
“...A proposal?”
“How about using that knowledge of yours for atonement?”
Unlike the other three.
This man still had room to be rehabilitated.
And since the vaccine was made with this man’s research notes as a reference...
Especially when it came to treating demon disease with black magic, I needed it even more,
so I extended my hand to him.