Chapter 56: Upset (1)
The building was half-melted, reminiscent of a pointed mountain.
The once-high walls were gone, leaving it bare, and in the training ground, melted stone mixed with the soil, creating stains.
In a word, it was an eyesore.
It was closer to a ruin than a common building for a knights order.
To make matters worse, the laborers were off today, making the eyesore stand out even more.
Perhaps because of the tools left scattered here and there, the ruin felt even more crude.
Cassion simply stared at the common building with a complicated expression.
He had heard about it, but its condition was worse than he had thought.
From a distance, the culprit was approaching.
I immediately found Cassion, who was hiding his presence and spying on the common building, and spoke to him.
“You got off cheap.”
“……”
It wasn't untrue.
He hadn't known his comrade-in-arms was a Mage. He had even treated him with the respect due to a superior officer.
It was incompetence for which being relieved of his position would have been a mercy.
But the 2nd Knights were unharmed.
It was because Cassion’s identity had not been revealed.
“How was it?”
A week had passed since our return from the Sanctuary of Fire.
During that week, Cassion had to stand before the Grand Duke for half of each day.
“He didn’t say a word.”
He didn't even give him a single glance.
“Must have been an ordeal.”
“Not at all.”
Cassion didn't think of it as an ordeal.
Even the thought of it was impious. It was a grace that he was even allowed to stand in Serzila.
“……I got off cheap.”
Just as I had said, he got off cheap.
Cassion was still dazed by the fact that he was alive.
After not only deceiving them for fourteen years but also sending a Mage to the Grand Heir.
“If I were His Highness the Grand Duke, I would have ground you up and drunk you.”
“Does His Highness the Grand Duke eat Mages too? I thought he only put them on display.”
“……”
Cassion looked at me with an dumbfounded expression.
It was an utterly impious joke, but he couldn't get angry. That was his position.
“I heard it was thanks to you. That you used your service to save me.”
“I did. It was a precious service.”
It sounded like half a joke, half the truth.
To Cassion, it didn't matter which it was.
“I will surely repay you.”
“Don’t repay me, repay the Grand Heir.”
“But……”
“My stance was the same as His Highness the Grand Duke’s. You should have died.”
This time, there was no confusion.
My voice was that resolute.
“……Then why did you save me?”
“What could I do, when the Grand Heir didn’t want it.”
As if nothing had happened, my tone became plain. It was hard to distinguish between joke and truth.
But it wasn't bleak either. It was calm, yet somehow threatening.
“Your life belongs to the Grand Heir.”
“I know.”
“Know it even more. The Grand Heir, not Serzila.”
What was the difference?
Unlike other families, the only heir to Serzila was the Grand Heir.
To serve Elaine was to serve Serzila.
Even without being told, Cassion had intended to do so.
“Where is the Grand Heir?”
“Sleeping, in my bed.”
“……”
“You, you have no prejudice? I do.”
I made a genuinely disgusted face.
Cassion cleared his throat and broke the silence.
“He just drank herself into a stupor yesterday.”
The reason was to try and have a dream.
It was because of my request to be told about her dreams as payment for this debt.
“Alcohol… did he perhaps smoke tobacco as well?”
“He said he’d kill me if I nagged again.”
“Ahem.”
Cassion changed the subject.
“Dreams. They are certainly an interesting thing.”
Cassion nodded his head.
There were more Mages interested in dreams than one might think.
The reason was a spirit of inquiry, which was nothing to be blamed for.
A Mage, by nature, is one who swims in curiosity.
“But there’s no way you could have beaten the Grand Heir.”
Elaine’s tolerance for alcohol was enormous.
It was so even without using Aura. It was thanks to her Innate Strength.
“I didn’t drink, I don’t like alcohol.”
“Is it because you’re fire?”
“You know.”
“I have to.”
Cassion had never had contact with the Red Tower.
But he had heard quite a bit. The Mages who harbored fire were all, without exception, foul-tempered or peculiar.
“It must be hard to endure, that’s impressive. They say the bigger the fire, the worse the temper.”
Cassion noticed at once that my personality was not innate, but an acquired result.
“It’s not fire, but the sun.”
“You said it was Fist Fire.”
Cassion recalled our first meeting.
The day Ios of the Ivory Tower died. In front of Cassion, I had said my Origin was Fist Fire.
“We were enemies then, weren’t we?”
It meant I had been preparing since then.
“Don’t tell me you also anticipated the Grand Heir’s arrival?”
“I sort of did. Though I didn’t know she would save me.”
Cassion clicked his tongue at my thoroughness.
Unlike his innate Origin, I was a calculating man.
“By the way, you’re not denying it. At first, you were so certain.”
“The King’s fire is black, and white. There is such a saying in the Red Tower.”
Cassion had seen the white fire.
That was while suspicion had already sprouted through the form of Projection.
“That’s the first I’m hearing of that.”
“I just thought of it now.”
“……”
“Is there a black fire too?”
“There will be if I project.”
“I thought so.”
Cassion could no longer deny my Origin. I was indeed the sun.
“……You should be careful.”
So he warned me.
There is no error in the moon’s prophecy.
“I know.”
I seemed unconcerned.
Cassion found it frustrating, but then thought, so be it.
From what he had experienced, I was a calculating man.
‘He must have a plan.’
He planned to tell Elaine anyway.
Since that Grand Heir seemed to cherish me.
‘Could it be flipped as easily as a coin like this?’
Cassion, who had been worrying about me, let out a hollow laugh.
He no longer felt jealous.
He was too busy feeling infinite gratitude and honor. Because Elaine had chosen a person named Cassion.
“The Ivory Tower Mages had a means of contact. It was a Magical Item like a crystal sphere.”
I opened my mouth.
He must have come to ask the rest of what he couldn't when we returned.
“You must be talking about the Communication Sphere.”
“You know it?”
“Communication Spheres aren’t exclusive to the Ivory Tower. They’re one of the most common Magical Items in the Otherworld.”
Even Cassion himself had two.
One of them was a spare.
Cassion was now a double agent.
He had to relay the Moon Tower’s orders or information to Serzila.
“It is a Magical Item devised by the Ivory Tower. Its usefulness was recognized, and so it spread to all the Magic Towers.”
It was something even a snot-nosed kid would know.
But I seemed not to have known.
“You didn’t know?”
“I’m from the continent.”
“Ah.”
The fact that I had been well-versed in the Otherworld all this time was the stranger thing.
“Give me one, a Communication Sphere.”
“……”
“Don’t worry. You don’t think I’d cause an accident, do you? I’m not a knight.”
“……I’ll bring it to you later.”
Cassion nodded, trying hard to erase his sense of foreboding.
“How do I fill this?”
I held out the bead. The Magical Item of the Moon.
What should have been filled with a silver color was transparent.
It was because it had all been used for my treatment.
“My magic doesn’t go in.”
Cassion took the bead and injected magic into it.
It didn't go in. His magic only flowed over the surface of the bead.
The bead was rejecting it.
Just then, he felt a gaze.
I was staring intently at Cassion.
To be precise, it was his left chest. The heart.
“……If magic doesn’t work, there’s no way a heart will.”
“Don’t we not know until we try?”
I tilted my head.
He seemed serious.
“It probably has to be magic from an Origin related to the moon, probably.”
“Probably. Just like what I’m thinking now.”
“……”
* * *
My business seemed to be just a few questions.
After realizing he couldn't solve the issue with the bead, he was about to leave. Cassion spoke to his back.
“There’s something I want to ask.”
“Ask away.”
Cassion’s gaze lowered.
Serzila’s heirloom sword, Patern, was hanging at my waist.
“How did you get permission for that?”
“I won it in a bet, from Ellen.”
“……What kind of bet?”
“A bet on whether you were a Mage or not.”
The already heavy debt grew heavier.
The sin of deceiving Ellen, a collateral member of the Serzila family, was now added. And she had even trusted him…
“It’s thanks to you.”
I added, annoyingly.
His hand slid along the hilt of Patern.
His hands were as soft as a child’s. It wasn’t just because of the bead’s effect. Even before being healed, my hands were like that.
Come to think of it, his body was like that too.
My body was clean. There were no signs of training.
That was why Cassion was newly impressed.
With a body like that, he had crossed swords with him.
It meant their swordsmanship was on par.
No, speaking without pride, it was more than that.
Since my physique was inferior to Cassion’s.
“Did you enhance your physical abilities with your Origin?”
“I received nutrients from the sun.”
It was a case Cassion had never heard of, but it didn't seem impossible.
From what he had experienced, my Origin was the sun. This meant the King of the Red Tower existed within me, however briefly.
The kings of each tower, those massive Origins, were on a different level from other Origins.
The sun was the greatest among them. Why else would it be the Red Tower? The Sun. The Otherworld could not carelessly speak the name of that king.
“It still looks lacking.”
It was surprising, but the change wasn't that incredibly surprising.
Compared to Cassion, it was on a different level.
A 5th Rank Mage’s physical abilities increase dramatically, even if not to the level of a Sword Master.
Because as their magic becomes immense, the body that handles it also becomes stronger.
That was why Cassion felt my swordsmanship was even more incredible.
“Who did you learn swordsmanship from?”
“Is that what you’re curious about? Not the principle of strengthening the body with the Origin?”
I looked at Cassion with a strange expression.
Cassion paid it no mind.
“That’s what I’m curious about.”
“I learned from the Grand Heir.”
At that, Cassion’s face twisted.
“The Grand Heir has never taught you the sword.”
“Oh, you sounded like a Mage just now. You must have watched a lot, you.”
Cassion’s face turned slightly red.
“In that case, let’s just say I’m self-taught. Because I’m a genius.”
At that, Cassion nodded.
He seemed to be convinced, which I found even stranger.
“You’re like a real knight.”
“Thank you.”
“It wasn’t a compliment.”
“How can that be?”
“……”
I gave up on understanding Cassion.
Instead, I shifted my gaze. In the empty training ground, the 2nd Knights were training.
“Why don’t you go? Everyone would be happy.”
Though the distance was close, the 2nd Knights hadn't noticed Cassion. They hadn't even recognized me.
It was because of Cassion’s magic that erased his presence.
Cassion was only looking at them.
“Feeling a guilty conscience?”
“……”
Even when I chided him, Cassion couldn’t move.
Because he had deceived them until now, and he had to continue deceiving them in the future.
If the day came when Cassion revealed his identity, that day would be the day Cassion died.
He had to deceive and devote himself until he died.
It was what Cassion wished for, but the position of having to deceive his comrades-in-arms was still bound to be uncomfortable.
“What’s the point now.”
In my view, it was a light concern.
It didn't seem like the Serzila knights would feel a great sense of betrayal.
They would probably just hit him a few times and then accept it.
Saying, so that's why you were able to enter the Boundary, because you were a Mage.
It wasn't something to recommend.
It didn't seem like he would listen even if I told him. What seems trivial to an onlooker can be serious to the person involved.
“As I said before, you got off cheap.”
“That’s true.”
“Enjoy it while it’s cheap, you never know when the price will go up.”
“……?”
“Who knows, maybe the Otherworld will advance south tomorrow.”
Cassion didn't even laugh, as if it was a joke that wasn't funny.
I couldn't laugh either.
The Otherworld advances south in 20 years. In this life, it could be slower, or faster.
“You never know what the world will bring. So enjoy it while you can.”
* * *
One week.
During that week that Cassion had suffered, my daily life was monotonous if you called it monotonous, and new if you called it new.
When I woke up, I meditated, then went to Kubel’s for breakfast. I taught Kubel, then had lunch, and in the evening, I sat before a table of drinks.
However, next to me was Elaine, not Ellen.
Whenever Elaine was gone for a moment, it was one of two things.
Either work had come up, or she had gone to see Shura.
When I returned to the annex, there was no sign of anyone.
I immediately walked over to Kubel’s annex.
Elaine had now become shameless enough to beg Kubel for food.
In front of the large annex, a large figure was visible.
It was Kubel.
Kubel had a somewhat anxious look on his face.
He bit his nails and drew circles with pointless steps.
“Is the Grand Heir inside?”
“Harad!”
As soon as Kubel saw me, he quickly approached.
“What’s wrong? Did the Grand Heir hit you or something?”
“Did you perhaps fight?”
I tilted my head.
“Fight? With the Grand Heir?”
“With Lady Ellen, I mean.”
“We didn’t fight.”
Over the past week, we hadn't even had a common argument.
Aside from the lack of additional dreams, my relationship with Elaine was smooth sailing.
“Uh… for now, I think it would be best for you to go back.”
Kubel said, repeatedly glancing behind him.
It was then that the door of the annex burst open.
Literally burst open. The door hit the wall.
The door flew off. Kubel sighed, and Ellen crossed her arms and glared at me.
“Why haven’t you been coming out to drink lately?”
Her voice was sharp, as if it was stinging.
“Who?”
“You.”
“Me?”
I pointed to my own face.
Ellen nodded.
Crack. A chilling sound came from her neck.
“You haven’t been coming out either.”
We were always together.
“What are you talking about. I’ve been waiting every day at the Snow Leopard’s Footprint.”
“……?”
What kind of nonsense was this.