Book 3 Chapter 2
Episode 51
The Ant Colony incident at Redacable concluded with the intervention of the 'Golden Children' and the Magic Alliance Special Investigations Division, who arrived a step late.
The five bandit guilds that once dominated the Empire suffered devastating damage and scattered to various regions. The estimated number of fatalities alone was a staggering two thousand.
The lord of Redacable was transported to the Papal Curia by the 'Golden Children' under the charge of having neglected such a colossal black market.
─This whole affair, wasn’t it orchestrated by the Papal Curia?
─Exactly. To wipe out the bandit guilds in one fell swoop.
The decisive reason why such rumors were inevitable was that the unidentified individual who perpetrated this massacre had completely vanished.
The suspicion was further amplified by the fact that the victims were limited to bandit guild members and those who had illegally participated in the black market.
As a day passed, the bloodstains and flesh caked onto the ground began to rot, and maggots swarmed.
In that maggot-infested field, a person with a strong stomach was biting into an apple with gusto, sifting through ownerless stalls one by one.
Doran Slade, Section Chief of the Magic Alliance Special Investigations Division.
'Hmm, as expected, most of them must have fled with their valuables.'
A woman with a haggard, irritable face and hollow eyes approached Doran with a yawn.
“Hey! There has to be something to check, right? All that’s left are worthless items.”
“Tyrintid, the basics of investigation are 'why' and 'how.' There's plenty of value in searching.”
The ravens attacked this place faster than Doran expected… why?
Was it to retrieve something?
If so, they could have just quietly retrieved the item and left, so why did they make such a mess? Was it simply to attract attention? If so, why did they need to attract attention?
“Anyway, the Ant Colony is finally over. The Papal Curia will completely eradicate it now.”
“Do you think so?”
“Of course. What do you mean, 'do you think so'?”
“The Mad Dragon has been very intelligently controlling humanity. You can tell just by the fact that he knew about the existence of this Ant Colony and kept neglecting it.”
Doran picked up a maggot wriggling in the flesh of a blood puddle. He placed it on a stall and covered it with a wooden box.
“Here, we have a maggot. What do you think will happen if we leave it trapped like this?”
“What kind of non-riddle riddle are you spewing? It'll starve to death.”
“Or it might awaken a new power, smash the wooden box, escape, and wreak havoc on the human world.”
Tyrintid glared at Doran with a look that said, *What kind of lunatic is this?*
Doran chuckled, opened the wooden box, spat out the apple he was chewing next to it, and then closed the box again.
“The maggot can now eat these apple scraps and survive. This is the human world as it is now.”
“What?”
“It's a world controlled by highly sophisticated methods so that it doesn’t die and doesn’t explode… in other words, to maintain the status quo.”
Cruel and inhumane pastimes, forbidden by the gods through scripture and codified as taboo by the Papal Curia, are gaining popularity all over the world.
Haraderiman, the Mad Dragon, who possesses the power to oversee all creation, naturally knows this and is still neglecting it.
'I don't know what he's waiting for that he focuses on maintenance rather than improvement…'
Tyrintid, who understood Doran’s analogy, scratched her head in annoyance. There are no fools in the Special Investigations Division.
“If it’s being intentionally neglected to prevent strange things from happening… then a second Ant Colony will emerge elsewhere. And the Papal Curia will neglect that too.”
“Precisely. You truly are my subordinate.”
“Hey! Who’s your subordinate?!”
As Doran dodged Tyrintid’s sharp punch, Runen, a wizard with a distinctive mustache, approached him.
“Section Chief.”
“Yes?”
“Take a look at this.”
He picked out a page from a thick file and handed it over.
It was a list of personal information of the adventurers deployed for the Redacable escort this time, obtained with the cooperation of the Alliance (Adventurers' Guild).
Of course, no punishment would be meted out to them. The Magic Alliance had no intention of creating an awkward relationship with the Alliance. What the Papal Curia would do, they couldn't tell.
“You nearly had a big problem. The Heavenly Disaster Young Master truly came and went.”
Doran's eyes, usually closed with a perpetually smiling expression, slightly opened.
[Rain Ludwig.]
Fortunately, his name wasn't on the list of fatalities… but if anything had gone wrong, I might never have been able to face Senior Kaiven again.
Who could have imagined that a sixteen-year-old young noble, given a small clue, would find his way to the black market through the Alliance?
Young masters, raised delicately in their mansions, usually cower and give up or send a proxy when told they need to find a book in the black market.
'Ha, he truly is quite a character.'
Doran, who had been letting out a hollow laugh, paused.
But why is he so obsessed with Tureina's book? Is it just a sense of responsibility for a lost book? Or is there something else…?
* * *
“How is Rain doing?”
On the outskirts of Redacable, in a labyrinthine cluster of countless shacks, a woman with her face concealed by a hood walked in.
On a hastily prepared bed, a black-haired boy lay panting. Even at the sound of a familiar voice, he only gasped painfully.
Sammy, a plump young man sitting beside him, replacing the handkerchief on Rain’s forehead, shook his head.
“He shows no signs of waking up. Judging by his severe sleep talking, he seems to be in a lot of pain.”
The woman pushed back her hood, revealing noble, elegant features in the candlelight. She was Hirpien Dial.
“Can’t the priest heal that?”
“The dark poison has already been removed. But the pain from being eroded by the dark poison will remain… This is not something I can heal.”
Only comfortable rest would be the answer. Hirpien gave a wry smile.
“We need to get out of the city before the investigation net spreads further. I have to leave now. Could you convey my regards to Rain? That we are all very grateful.”
“Of course.”
“This is the reward, and this is the item Rain entrusted to me.”
Hirpien placed a pouch full of gold coins on the side table. It was five times the usual reward amount.
But what surprised Sammy more than the amount of the reward was the title of the book next to it.
A treatise on Tureina… the very book the 'Golden Children' are confiscating wherever they find it across the continent.
“Well then, goodbye, Rain… Thank you so much. Let’s meet again later when you’re healthy. If you come to the archipelago, I’ll treat you as an honored guest.”
Hirpien suddenly kissed Rain lightly on the cheek.
Huh…?
As Sammy stared blankly, she then kissed Sammy on the cheek and smiled.
“We Islanders always kiss on the cheek when expressing gratitude to someone of the opposite sex. You could call it the highest form of appreciation.”
* * *
In the old temple, a stronghold of the Black Church, an ancient, sinister demonic energy swirled like myrrh smoke, grotesquely refracting and distorting the entering light.
Flap.
As a raven made of magical power flew in, magical energy stirred in the empty upper seats, and human figures began to appear one by one.
“Numbers 3 and 6 have fallen.”
As the man standing before the steps of the high throne spoke, the human figures, shimmering with magical haze, reacted individually.
[Libeny? Who was it?]
[It wouldn't have been strange if he died any time, but it's hard to believe Milleck is dead.]
[What, you bastard?]
There were a total of eight upper seats in the temple. Since Libeny and Milleck had died, the third and sixth seats were empty.
Number 2 was raging most violently, and Number 1 was the only one completely silent.
The man spoke again.
“Fortunately, Number 6 managed to send a raven before dying, so we were able to obtain approximate information about the opponent.”
[What did it say?]
“Rain, dangerous magic, urgent removal.”
Dangerous magic… If Milleck, who judged everything coolly, deemed it dangerous, it must be tremendously dangerous.
While everyone was agitated with their various emotions, Number 5 spoke.
[There are a total of thirteen mages named Rain registered with the Alliance. Four of them are already deceased, and five are nobodies.]
Her consciousness was in the temple now, but her actual body was in an Alliance branch office in a frontier city where fifty or so people had been massacred and lay strewn across the ground.
More precisely, she was using telekinesis to examine hundreds of documents at once from the stacks piled like mountains in the office.
“But the remaining four aren't the type Milleck would mark as dangerous, are they?”
[Then is there some secret code hidden in the word 'Rain'?]
“Wait, there is one exceptional case.”
As Number 5 flicked her hand, rummaging through documents, a piece of paper that had just passed by shot out from the stack and flew before her eyes.
“Rain Ludwig.”
The moment that name was uttered, the eyebrows of Number 1, who had been quietly meditating with closed eyes, subtly twitched.
“His growth rate is tremendous. He registered less than a month ago and is already Bronze rank.”
[Bronze rank? He's just a little less trash than other trash. Are you kidding me right now, huh? Could Libeny have been taken down by someone like that?]
[Ludwig? You mean that Heavenly Disaster Young Master?]
“He was called that, but apparently, he took the top student spot in this Delaiten Golden Generation?”
Then Number 7 snorted, sounding intrigued.
[Hmph, so he hid his power as a child? The young lad must have read a lot of novels.]
Number 2, who had been listening patiently, let out a roar again.
[Hey, hey, even if he's the top student, do you really think Libeny would have fallen to some first-year rat like that? Think a little, you idiots.]
Then Number 1, who had maintained silence until now, spoke in a low voice.
[Given Libeny's personality, it's not impossible he died due to carelessness. More than that, he was too reckless. Perhaps he received divine retribution.]
[What?]
Number 1 had a relationship with the radicals who enjoyed slaughter, like Numbers 2 and 3, that was not just bad but outright hostile. Before a fight could break out between them, Number 5 quickly spoke.
“I can catch and interrogate the others, but this Rain Ludwig is a problem. Kidnapping the heir of a magic clan from Delaiten is no small feat.”
[No, let's change our perspective. Wouldn't things be much easier if Number 1 is at the school too?]
It was Number 4 who said that. She was a woman with a particularly mischievous voice.
[Valensidis, even if that guy is truly the master Milleck spoke of, he's no match for you. Kill him, disguised as an accident.]
Then everyone's gaze turned to Number 1.
The eyes of the woman sitting on the throne as well.
Her expression was hidden by a deeply pulled-down old straw hat, but her overwhelming presence was so powerful that even a child could sense it.
“Eliminate anything that might become an obstacle for now, Valen.”
Number 1, who had endured that overwhelming aura head-on for a long time, finally bowed her head in submission.
[…I will observe him carefully, and if he is confirmed to be the person who went to Redacable, I will quietly deal with him, Master.]
As the woman exhaled smoke from her pipe, signaling the end of the meeting, the figures wavered one by one and disappeared.
'Libeny… the child I created through human alchemy.'
She had guided him from infancy until he became a witch, yet strangely, she felt no emotion.
Was it because she never gave him affection in the first place? No, it was because she must never cry, no matter what. The emotion of sadness had been excised from her heart long ago.
The woman did not cry. Not once since the day before the unbearably harsh summer of three hundred years ago ended, the day she parted with that person.
It wasn't because she was a disciple of Friede, the Priestess of the Fire Dragon, nor because she herself had once carried out the noble duty of a priestess.
- Master, please take me with you. I'll fight too. Just let me come with you, please…
Only, just only, it was because of the words that person left behind when she clung to him, weeping, as he placed his straw hat on her head.
- Wizards don't cry. Others will look down on you.
After adding, "I'll be back soon, so wait with Pipi," her master left.
And never returned.
Not even to this day, three hundred years later.
The straw hat he had placed on her head thus became a memento.
Not a single day passed that she didn't live for him. If he still hadn't awakened, then surely some part of the magic was flawed…
After two hundred years of research in both magic and sorcery, she reached a principle that could compensate for the flaws of Juyeosogyedaeban.
- Impossible.
But the Dragon race denied her research findings. Haraderiman, the Mad Dragon, leader of the Papal Curia, immediately expressed his denial.
- Even if you can melt the ice that grips the body, you cannot melt the chill that binds the soul, for that is the domain of the gods.
Wasn't that something that could only be known by trying? If the soul was trapped in there and not being brought out, if it was still wandering in the cold…
The woman put the pipe she inherited from Master Friede into her mouth and filled her mouth with its smoke.
Then, gloomily caressing her master's straw hat, she exhaled a long stream of smoke towards the starry night sky, beyond the crack in the ceiling where star clusters spread.
'There isn't much time left now. Really, there isn't much time left.'
