What Changes, What Remains (11)

To travel west from Odine toward Zieden, I had to pass through a number of cities—in other words, small states.

However, the army's pursuers probably weren't expecting this route.

This was information I'd heard while working at Fokka's tavern, but the borders between the small states and Zieden had apparently been sealed on both sides.

In other words, for ordinary humans, it was a dead end.

Merchants said they couldn't pass through Zieden on their way to the Kingdom of Rudoria and had no choice but to take a route far to the south via the Republic of Virestrica.

Conversely, the border between the Kingdom of Rudoria and Zieden, though apparently heavily guarded, could still be crossed without any real problem.

There were probably complicated circumstances behind that.

For instance, the Kingdom of Rudoria was naturally wary of Zieden, but given their past history, it should also have hesitated to fully join hands with the Republic of Virestrica.

And if the only way for merchants to enter Rudoria was through the Republic of Virestrica and its vassal states, economically, Rudoria would effectively have its throat held.

Thus, the Kingdom of Rudoria was trying to maintain a balance by opening a trade route without becoming completely hostile to Zieden, weighing Zieden against the Republic of Virestrica.

This was entirely my speculation, but I imagined it was something like that.

It could hardly be called a wise course of action.

Yet without taking that course, their only options for survival were to break through Zieden and open a route to the small states, or crush the Republic of Virestrica and seize the sea.

Naturally, neither would be easy, and even if they staked all their nation's strength on it, success or failure would be left to fate.

They couldn't make such a decision lightly, and they would also need considerable time to win their domestic nobles and people over to the idea.

If the Kingdom of Rudoria did not act, Zieden and the Republic of Virestrica, wary of the great power that remained still, would also be slow to act.

But the resulting equilibrium was a temporary lull, far from peace, and accumulated strain day after day.

Those tensions would eventually burst over some trigger... and a great battle would occur.

...But setting that aside for now, what mattered in this situation was that the road ahead was a dead end.

Naturally, the army of Odine would not think I was taking this route, so the pursuers it sent would be few, merely a precaution.

For me, a border closure was no problem if I simply passed through a forest stretching across the two countries, but that was difficult for humans to understand.

Ah, and likewise, if I traveled with the serious intent of shaking off my pursuers, humans would have no chance of catching me.

In short, I was deliberately drawing a small group of pursuers along behind me.

Rather than shake them off by traveling through the forest, I deliberately traveled west at a speed that allowed them to catch up.

Actually, when I left Odine, I had only thought it would relieve my frustration if pursuers came, but once I had cooled off a little, I became interested in the pursuers themselves.

The army of Odine didn't know that I was a high elf.

But they definitely knew that I was both an elf and a magician.

In other words, the army of Odine should have understood that sending ordinary soldiers after me would make capturing or killing me difficult.

If so, they would naturally choose elite troops as pursuers.

Such as magicians, or, yes, special soldiers trained to fight using magical devices.

Of course, the latter—the special soldiers—were the ones who interested me.

By seeing how skilled those special soldiers were and what magical devices they used, I would be able to see with my own eyes what Kaushman had left behind.

That was why I thought I could accomplish the purpose of my visit to Odine.

On my way back to the inn after dinner at a tavern in a town where I had stopped during my travels...

When a wind spirit warned me, I instinctively twisted my lips into a smile.

Naturally, I hadn't touched a drop of alcohol; I'd abstained for precisely this moment.

The next instant, an arrow came flying at me.

But its force was extraordinary.

Even the people of the plains, who used bows with tremendous draw strength, had never fired an arrow this powerful.

Yet no matter how powerful and fast an arrow was, I could avoid it as long as I knew the direction it was coming from and its timing.

And because the wind spirit told me all of that, no ordinary marksman could hit me.

The arrow flew past me at tremendous speed as I twisted aside, struck the stone wall of a nearby building, and shattered it, breaking apart on impact as well.

Yes, it had not merely shattered the wall; it had shattered itself as well.

It hadn't pierced the wall or simply shattered it while remaining intact; the arrow itself had broken apart, too.

This meant that, no matter how much force had been put behind it, the arrow itself was ordinary.

Ah, this was truly interesting.

When I looked toward the direction from which the arrow had come, I saw a cloaked man wrapped in dense darkness, blending into the night.

That was probably another effect of a magical device.

Since I had caught even a glimpse of him, I could make out his abilities, if only faintly.

Judging by the fact that he had disappeared only after firing the arrow, the pursuers—or at least the man just now—could use only one magical device at a time.

His weapon was a magical bow.

Presumably, at the moment he fired the arrow, he channeled magic into the bow, activated its spell formula, and reinforced it tremendously.

As a result, its draw strength increased, and the arrows it fired became far more powerful than anything a human could launch.

The next trick, wrapping himself in darkness, was probably the cloak functioning as a magical device.

But cloth that occasionally fluttered in the wind would change the shape of the engraved spell formula, making stable activation unlikely.

Therefore, I could infer that he had inserted metal plates or something inside it and engraved the formula onto them.

Ah, no, it looked as if the entire cloak had produced darkness simultaneously, so there must have been multiple plates embedded at even intervals, not just one.

Those plates had likely been linked by a metal that conducted magic easily, such as fairy silver, or perhaps by monster bone, allowing them to function as a single device.

Ah, that's Kaushman for you.

You really outdid yourself!!!

I silently cheered as I dodged the blade swung by another pursuer who emerged as if rising from the darkness.

There were four pursuers who had launched the attack, and every magical device they used was far more advanced than I had imagined.

Of course, Kaushman probably hadn't created every one of them, but the foundation for them all had undoubtedly been laid and firmly established by him.

As I thought, Kaushman—my teacher, my pupil, and my bad friend—was one incredible man.

That made me indescribably happy, even in the middle of an attack.

That bow device was undoubtedly difficult to handle, but even so, the arrows fired by the archer among the pursuers at least came along trajectories that would hit me.

The blade being swung at me crackled with lightning. If it hit, it could damage even an opponent in hard metal armor—or kill them.

A magical device wielded by a highly trained user.

I could understand why the military would conceal and monopolize them, fearing that information about them might leak to other countries.

Besides, as magical devices, they could only be used by a limited number of people, and they apparently still weren't capable of changing the course of a battle with so few users.

Moreover, there was no way they could capture or kill me with their abilities, no matter how hard they tried.

Even if I hadn't borrowed the spirits' power, the result would probably have been the same.

They were interesting and showed promise, but they still lacked the strength to threaten my life to the same degree as a seven-star adventurer.

If magical-device technology continued to advance alongside the skill of its users, it might reach that point someday. But whether Odine could accomplish that without Kaushman remained unknown.

Well, it was about time I incapacitated them.

If I used my magic sword to cut them down, it would ruin the magical device in the cloak.

Moreover, if I didn't defeat them all at once, one or two might slip away, so it was best to borrow the spirits' power and take them all out in one fell swoop.

After all, I was interested in every magical device they used, and if possible, I wanted to take everything they had.

As a souvenir from the small states I was about to leave behind.

The military would be furious at having its magical devices stolen, but it could always make more.

However, soldiers trained to use magical devices were probably not so easily replaced, so I would spare their lives and send them back alive.

It might be a lenient response to an attack, but considering how dangerous they were and how little effort it would take to repel them, it seemed appropriate.

In other words, they were still far too weak for me to regard them as enemies.

"Wind spirit."

I called out to the spirit of the cold wind blowing through the night.