Chapter 23
#23: Bern, the New Adventurer (21) - Fishing
A person might even die from nothing but feeling wronged.
Malcolm, the lumberjack of Frensia, had recently been unable to shake that thought.
-You damned bastard!! One hour, just that little while, and you couldn't even stay awake!? Because of you, my daughter is gone!!
-If you thought you couldn't hold out, you should've woken someone else up! You couldn't even do something that simple!?
-Die! You piece of trash! Go die right now!!
Malcolm felt wronged.
So wronged he felt like he was going to go mad.
Having lost his parents long ago, Malcolm had gotten by in the world with only his younger sister to rely on.
That was why, when the mysterious disappearances broke out in Frensia, Malcolm burned brighter with determination than anyone else.
No matter who it was, no matter what kind of bastard, he would never let anyone lay a finger on his sister. His one and only family, he would protect with his own hands.
There was no way someone like him would fail to endure a momentary bout of sleep and put his sister in danger.
Throughout the entire night watch, he kept moving his body to shake off the drowsiness. He even chewed on herbs that tasted horribly bitter and sour but were said to wake you up.
His mind was clear, and his eyes were wide open.
It felt like he could stay up all night without any problem, not just stand watch for a little while.
And yet, why?
“...It felt like a chunk of my memory had been cut out. I was wide awake and pacing around my sister, I swear I was. Then at some point I started feeling dizzy, and when I came to, I was face-down on the floor. The others, whose family members had also disappeared, started beating me without warning.”
He desperately explained himself, but no one believed him.
They simply thought he was making excuses to cover up a mistake after failing to stay awake.
Peer pressure is a terrifying thing.
At first Malcolm had argued back and fought the people accusing him, but under the repeated condemnation and resentment, his mind was slowly being worn down as well.
Now even he himself could no longer trust his own memory.
And when Bern said, 'I'll clear your name,' it sounded far too sweet to a man who had been driven nearly mad by guilt, wondering if maybe his sister really had disappeared because of him.
He even went so far as to pour out every little grievance to outsiders who had suddenly shown up late at night without any warning.
After hearing his story, Bern spoke to Blanca.
“Miss Blanca. Do you know magic that puts people to sleep?”
“...You mean someone used magic to put this man to sleep before carrying out the crime?”
“Drowsiness often comes creeping in without people even noticing they're sleepy. Besides, the people here had been having their stamina and mental strength slowly gnawed away for quite some time, so even if someone suddenly lost consciousness, it would have been hard to realize it was due to outside interference.”
At Bern's guess, Blanca nodded.
“That does seem likely. I haven't studied it personally, so I only know it in theory, but I've heard that intermediate-level sleep spells also make the time before you fall asleep hazy in your memory.”
If the culprit had used magic of that sort, Malcolm's situation—where it felt as if part of his memory had been cut away—could be explained as well.
The problem was that it was nothing more than a hypothesis.
“But with no proof, will people really believe that?”
“There is proof. Every kind of magic leaves behind its own traces, and if you're a skilled mage, you can investigate them. Conveniently, there's such a mage here.”
“Huh?”
Blanca looked around for a moment.
Where in the world is there even another mage besides me?
At that moment, when Renya met her eyes, he suddenly became theatrical and said,
“Oho, big sister. Just how much more are you planning to shock this clumsy little brother? Who would've thought you even had that kind of ability!”
What the hell is this crazy nonsense now?
Just as Blanca was about to firmly deny that she had no such ability, Bern grabbed her shoulder and said,
“I believe in you, Miss Blanca. As the best mage in the Eastern Branch, you can definitely do it.”
“Uh, um...”
It was easy to misunderstand because of that outrageous goal of subjugating the lich, but Blanca was fundamentally a rather realistic and diligent person.
She didn't exaggerate her own abilities for no reason, and she usually regarded adventurers who ran around spouting all kinds of bluster and boasts as pathetic.
So here, she had to say a firm no. She had to declare that such a thing was impossible for her.
But Bern's hand on her shoulder and his voice softly whispering beside her kept trying to topple Blanca's resolve.
So.
“...Of course. It is rather difficult, but I should be able to manage it.”
In the end, Blanca ended up speaking the very kind of 'bluster' she had hated so much.
Falling for a bad man was this dangerous.
***
Fortunately for Blanca, Bern didn't actually ask her to find the culprit using nothing but the traces of a spell.
Besides, he just didn't show it much because it didn't fit his investigator persona, but Bern's magical knowledge, thanks to the systematic education he received in the imperial palace, was actually superior to Blanca's.
Maybe not in the future, but he naturally knew that the current Blanca didn't have that level of ability.
However, what would that look like to everyone else who didn't know the finer details?
“So people were falling asleep not because they were simply tired, but because of magic?”
“That mage Blanca. I've heard her magical ability is the best even in the Eastern Branch. The guild promised her generous treatment in an effort to bring her in as a direct member, but she turned it down and remained an adventurer.”
“Starting with Malcolm, it seems she's been meeting the victims who lost family members to that unnatural sleep one by one. They say there's some kind of trace only a mage can notice, and that she'll find the culprit with that?”
Rumors about Bern's party—or, more precisely, about Blanca—spread rapidly throughout Frensia, which was already suffering from the disappearance incident.
And the more those rumors spread, the paler Blanca's face became, until it was almost impossible to tell it apart from the color of her hair.
“B-Bern. Is this really okay? At this rate, if it turns out I actually don't have some ability to see spell traces, I don't think I'll be able to handle the aftermath...!”
But Bern was completely calm.
“It doesn't matter. What's important is that the culprit 'believes' there is such an ability on our side.”
“Are you certain he's human?”
“Not human, perhaps, but I am certain he's at least an intelligent being. More than that, he seems to know the city's layout quite well. There are too many unnatural details to think he just kidnapped people blindly without any information at all.”
Bern predicted that if the one gathering information on the city learned that a formidable mage had appeared and was roaming around saying she could find the traces of his spell, he would surely react somehow.
“But if he's a skilled mage, he may well know how difficult it is to trace a spell back. Would he really believe that a mere rank-3 adventurer has that kind of skill?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Well, because I'm someone strong enough to easily subdue that brute—who, at least by title, is the chief knight of a fief. Wouldn't it be normal to think his companion is of a similar caliber?”
It was, in a sense, an arrogant thing to say.
But when Bern said it, it felt less like simple pride or bluster and more like he was stating an utterly obvious fact.
“Well, there is a chance he'll get so scared he runs or hides, but that's fine too—we can just use a new method. So don't worry too much. It sounds like the previous ones wasted at least a month, so if our time limit is the same, we've got plenty of slack, don't we?”
Bern shrugged.
The way he was trying to act playful somehow didn't suit him, and Blanca let out a small laugh.
“That's true. It's only just begun, so there's no need to tremble over the results yet.”
Blanca felt the tension and pressure that had been locking up her shoulders loosen.
Because, as always, she had come to believe that if Bern was with her, they'd somehow get it solved.
Fortunately or unfortunately, the turn for Bern's prepared 'new method' never came.
Because on the night exactly two days after the investigation began, the fish had taken the bait.
***
Frensia's night was exceedingly quiet.
But it was not the quiet of peace, but the quiet of tension born from not knowing when something might happen.
As proof, all the larger buildings in the city were lit with lamps, and those who couldn't afford oil or candles were at least lighting braziers, doing everything they could to avoid falling asleep.
The man looking down over the city thought it was a truly foolish sight.
Whether they kept a night watch, lit their lamps, or locked their doors, none of that meant anything to him.
If he wanted, the night watch would fall asleep, the lights would go out, and the doors would open.
Such was the greatness of magic.
It was not something petty human tricks could ever hope to resist.
Yes, only magic could oppose magic.
That was why, unlike usual, the man was advancing toward his destination with a cautious attitude.
A small mansion located near the lord's residence.
Protected by high walls and iron bars, it was a fortress that would make most thieves not even dare to try breaking in, but the man did not care.
After all, it wasn't his role to dispel that barrier.
The man took out something black and bead-like from his pocket and cast a spell with it.
The mana drawn into the bead swelled several times over in an instant, then turned into mist and flowed into the mansion.
The presence inside the mansion died down, and soon the mansion's door opened from within.
A woman who looked to be in her early to mid-twenties, with sky-blue hair, came out with a strangely vacant look in her eyes.
『Dream-Inducing Magic』 『Magic that Controls an Unconscious Body』
The former puts intruders to sleep, and the latter makes the target move on its own.
Those two spells were the driving force that let the man abduct victims without being hindered by any obstacle.
Even a high, thick wall or a sturdy locked gate meant nothing once the resident themselves came out and opened it from inside.
Even if it was an environment where the victim alone would have trouble escaping, it could be solved easily by controlling the people around them and making them move together.
The more people he put to sleep at once, and the more he controlled at the same time, the greater the drain, so he only aimed at easy prey—but if he put his mind to it, it was such an absurdly overpowered spell that he could easily take on even a mansion with over a hundred night watchmen.
“I came to check just in case, but it looks like the rumor was fake after all.”
Assuming he could run immediately if things went bad, the man relaxed.
“By the way... hmm. An unexpected catch.”
Seeing the adventurer standing defenseless before him, far more beautiful than he'd expected, the man smiled.
It was the moment his fingertips touched her cheek.
“Aren't you going to take your hand off?”
At first glance, polite.
But with a voice that sounded far more like she was about to snap.
Before the man's brain could even understand the sound, a tremendous impact struck his abdomen.
“Ugh!”
A full-force body blow unleashed from a body strengthened by magic.
The man's body, struck square in the solar plexus, folded into an L-shape, and Blanca, without the slightest hesitation, slammed his face with the scabbard.
Thud!
The man's body sprawled flat on the floor, and just as Blanca hurried to restrain him,
mana surged from the bead in his other hand, and his body began to be sucked into the shadows as though sinking into water.
“Gah?!”
Blanca gasped and quickly tried to grab the man, but before her fingertips could reach him, his body was completely swallowed by the shadow.
Immediately afterward, as though the shadows themselves had wills of their own, they raced across the floor and along the walls before swiftly fleeing.
The reason the man had come here without knowing Blanca's exact abilities was simple.
It was because he had calculated that if he used this third spell, he could at least escape in the worst case.
Racing while hiding inside the shadows, the man thought.
'Damn it, so she was pretending to be caught in the spell just to bait me. If she'd resisted from the start, I'd have noticed something was wrong immediately. But if she can do that, she may be a much higher-level expert than I imagined.'
The difference between firmly blocking a castle gate to keep the enemy out and deliberately opening it to let them in before fighting was worlds apart in difficulty.
Rather than assuming Blanca's mana itself was more than ten times his, it was more reasonable to think in terms of quality—that is, that her magic level was far higher.
'This city is better avoided for now. I'm still a little short on sacrifices, but I'll wrap up the ritual for now—'
At the very moment the man was making his plans for what came next.
Sshk!
With a sudden pain, the man's body was forcibly yanked out of the space inside the shadows.
“H-how...!”
The man stared at the red-haired youth before him as if he were looking at something impossible.
The two spells he had used earlier were, in essence, intermediate-level spells.
Even if they were strengthened by the power of the 'treasure' handed down by his master, they were spells that any rank-4 expert, or someone close to that level, could easily repel.
The reason he boasted that he could even take down the lord's mansion if he wanted to, yet never actually carried it out, was because he thought Frensia's representative knight, Gudren, would probably be able to resist those two spells, wasn't it?
But this final spell, 『Magic to Command the Shadow Monster』, was an exception.
This was an unmistakably high-tier spell, a magic that was not learned and used by the man himself, but a spell that controlled the magical life-form bound to the treasure passed down from his master.
The shadow monster did not take any damage from simple physical attacks, and even attacks containing mana only dealt about one-tenth damage.
Yet this swordsman before him had inflicted a fatal wound on the shadow monster with a single blow and forcibly yanked him out from inside the monster's belly.
He simply could not understand how something like that was possible.
Or could it be that this adventurer was even on the same level as his master?
“You are—”
“-Looks like you have a lot of questions. Same here, though.”
The red-haired adventurer cut off the man's words.
Bern added in a low voice.
“We can have as long a talk as we want later, so for now, please go to sleep.”
Thwack!