The Knights' Spring (1)
As always, the day was cold.
"...The fairy must be terribly angry again today."
The child shivered once, watching the blizzard tear past.
Even so, as always, the child pressed both hands together and begged forgiveness in the direction the storm was raging.
"Fairy, please forgive us."
Words of forgiveness, spoken every day for some three years. Whether the fairy could hear them at all, the child had no way of knowing. Still, the child always asked to be forgiven.
"I want to see the sunlight."
The adults said that long ago there had been a thing called sunlight. The sky had not been choked with black clouds; it had been blue, and you could breathe without a mask and feel the air come sweet into your lungs. The child knew nothing of that. By the time the child was born, the sky was already always dull, and the world was nothing but a white field of snow.
According to the adults, it was all because someone had angered the fairy, and for that reason they often cursed those exalted ones. A few even raged at the fairy herself, demanding why she was so cruel when they had done nothing wrong.
The child did not side with them. Every day, when this hour came, the child slipped out of the village, pressed both hands together, and made a wish.
Forgiveness.
Mother and Father had said that if you did something wrong, apologizing came first. That was only proper. So the child apologized every day in place of those so-called exalted ones. And if the apologies went on like this—
Maybe someday they'll give the sunlight back.
The child dreamed of it: of looking up, at last, into a blue sky; of the village taking its food from fields instead of dangerous hunts; of a little sister growing up in the sunlight. And—
"...of living as warmly as the people in the Colony."
The child begged forgiveness for the sake of a day like that, hoping the fairy would stop hating people.
"Eren, what are you doing out there?"
"Ah, Mom!"
"Come along, quickly. You'll catch cold."
"Okay!"
Answering, Eren set a single pretty pebble—precious as any treasure—down upon the ground. A gift for the fairy.
Whoooosh—!
On the Central Continent, blizzards raged through every season of the year.
It had not always been so. Once, the imperial royal house and the Magic Tower had joined their strength to capture the fairies and put them to use. The Winter Fairy's fury answered them, and a winter more than ten years long came down upon the Central Continent. From a certain point on, the land was cursed ground where no crop would grow, and the enraged commoners and territories had each proclaimed themselves vassal kings and were gathering into warlord factions.
The absurd part was where that anger pointed. It stopped at the Empire. The Magic Tower, known to have led the experiment, drew no storm of reproach at all.
The reason?
Not because the Empire's people were fools. Simply this.
"So this is the Magic Tower's great greenhouse."
"It's really wrapped around the whole city?"
"Now that's a sight."
A greenhouse raised by the Magic Tower. The field of mana enclosing the entire city looked like a hothouse built for growing crops, save that it had been made vast enough to swallow a city whole. It was magnificent past all description. It pulled a sigh of wonder out of you whether you wanted one or not. Outside, the weather was winter. Inside the city, the air was the gentle breath of spring.
Across the Central Continent, cities of this greenhouse kind had come to seem only natural. The Tower had done wrong, yes—but this was the fruit of the remedy it had devised in hope of being forgiven. The colossal greenhouse called a city house. Or, as others named it, a Colony.
Thanks to the Colonies, the Empire's people had come to see the Magic Tower as a group that caused accidents and then tried to fix them—a necessary evil, the sort of facility you needed if you meant to stay alive. Not everyone lived in a Colony, of course. There were still those who rejected mages and made their lives outside, and those who had burned the wilds into farmland never enjoyed the privilege. But for the people who did live under that privilege, the Tower was an organization you must never deny. To them it was closer to a temple, something they needed without limit.
The moment you stepped inside a Colony, warm air closed around you.
Merchants and travelers who had forced their way in through the blizzard peeled off their heavy coats, saying they might live after all.
"Hoo. Now I can breathe."
"Thought I was going to freeze to death."
"Come on. Goods first."
With the blizzards never letting up, most merchants were throwing themselves into the food trade. No matter which Colony you visited, there was never enough to eat. A green merchant newly come from the West felt a wash of relief at the prices food was fetching, as if the brutal crossing had been worth it. The hardship, he could feel, had paid him back.
Perhaps it was only that the work was finished, and his mind had a little room.
"Come to think of it, I still haven't seen the Magic Tower. The old hands said you can't miss it if you just keep to the road..."
It was little more than a mutter to himself. Someone caught it anyway.
"Hmm. Would this be your first time on the Central Continent, sir?"
"...And you are?"
"Hehe. Just a fellow scraping up pocket money."
"Ah. One of the Streets."
Street—a slur for the abandoned children of the roads, the street children no one had claimed. This one was probably selling information for spare coin. Most Streets were assumed to make their money by theft. To see a child earning it instead in a place where adults crowded and jostled was a little pitiful, and a little admirable.
The run had left the merchant's purse somewhat fatter. Curiosity and a small good deed could share the same coin. He tossed the child a silver.
"Right. The Central's my first time. So tell me what you know."
"Th-thank you, sir!"
One silver was more than enough to loosen a child's tongue.
"What is it you want to know, exactly? The biggest warlord on the Central right now? The feudal lord or vassal king with the strongest hand? Or the Magic Tower?"
"...All of it interests me, if I'm honest. But the Magic Tower is what sits on my mind."
The ivory tower of mages, the greatest power raised upon the Central Continent. It was no exaggeration to say its influence amounted to half the Empire. For a merchant whose living was the trade run, it was not a place he could afford to ignore.
Whatever the Tower turns its eye to, the goods worth carrying change. Again and again.
Even a novice like him knew the Magic Tower was one of the best clients a trader could hope for. The bastards were drowning in coin. Word was they didn't even haggle.
And yet, from the moment he had entered the Empire, he had not met a single mage—let alone the Tower itself. For a name that enormous, its owner was strangely impossible to find.
Where is this tower supposed to be...?
He had wandered colony after colony for the whole of the journey and never once seen anything like a tower. Was it in the imperial capital, at the Empire's heart?
"Haha. I think I know what you're thinking, sir. Say Central, and the sight you can't leave out is the Magic Tower—so of course you're wondering why you haven't seen so much as a mage, never mind the Tower."
"...Sharp, aren't you. Clever lad."
"Hehe, thank you. Ahem. Before I answer—what do you imagine the Magic Tower looks like, sir?"
"Hm?"
The question came out of nowhere, and the merchant blinked. A tower was a tower. What else was there to how it looked?
"Do you think it actually has the shape of a tower?"
"It... doesn't?"
"Hmm. You really did come to the Central knowing nothing at all. You'd have heard it if you'd asked anyone else..."
"You think I wanted not to know? Those spiteful gentlemen wouldn't teach me a thing. Said I'd find out for myself once I arrived."
"Ah. That does happen."
"Ahem!"
It was a little embarrassing. A merchant was supposed to be sensitive to information, and here he was ignorant of even this. But the quick-witted boy did not jab at the sore spot. The coin was coin, yes—but he also knew better than to make a stranger uncomfortable for no reason.
"...What those spiteful folks told you isn't exactly wrong, either. Stay on the Central long enough, and you're bound to get a look at the Magic Tower."
"Hm?"
"The timing's good, as it happens. Or maybe you're just lucky, sir."
"What are you—"
"Look up."
"...Up?"
The merchant wasn't sure what the boy meant, but he looked up before he could think better of it.
And then—
"Hk—!"
He went white and dragged in a breath that did him no good. The sight in front of him was that far from real.
The name rose of its own accord. The Castle in the Sky. It was vast without end, and unreal on top of that. How could a castle of that size fly?
As if to answer the question—
"They say more than several hundred mages live inside the Magic Tower. And the telekinesis of those hundreds becomes the energy that holds the Tower up in the air, moment by moment. Because of that, the Magic Tower flies all year round."
"All—all year?"
"Yes. Of course it lands now and then, to take on food and supplies. Where it lands, though, is random."
"Well, I'll be..."
The merchant thought he understood why so few traders ever managed a contract with the Magic Tower.
It wanders wherever it pleases. Pinning a contract to a thing like that wouldn't be easy.
Even so.
"But why go about with a castle that size floating in the air?"
"Mmm. One rumor says the Magic Tower is full of artifacts beyond counting. To protect them, they lifted their tower into a height no one else can reach."
"Plausible."
"The next rumor says there's research you can only do in the sky. Work too dangerous to attempt on the ground."
"...Now that is a frightening story."
Not every question had been settled. Still, the boy's words were enough to persuade him partway, and the merchant tossed him one more silver.
"Huh? Th-this is far too much..."
"You've quite a way with words. You know how to spin a conversation so a man wants to hear the rest. A minstrel's gift, that. Haha."
"...Thank you for thinking well of me, sir!"
"Work hard. Live well."
His curiosity answered, the merchant nodded to himself.
And as he did—
"The next run is decided!"
The dream caught fire in him.
None other than—
"...There goes another fool, off to chase the Magic Tower. Tsk."
The wide-eyed innocence of a moment ago was gone. Pocketing the silver, the boy wore a cynical sneer and clicked his tongue.
There were always men like that. The first run goes smoothly, and they convince themselves everything else will too. They never recognize beginner's luck. They would do perfectly well if they stuck to the work they already knew, and instead they puff themselves up to climb a tree that will never hold them. If passion alone untied every knot, how easy the world would be.
Truly—
"Green. Hopelessly green."
Hardly a fitting verdict from a boy still green as grass himself. Even so, he had clawed through a harsher life than the novice merchant ever had, and he delivered it as he turned away. Not toward home. He was already looking for the next mark nursing an empty dream.
And then—
He flinched.
The boy stopped mid-step.
No. He had no choice but to stop.
He had lived only twelve years, but every one of them had been spent on the street, and his sense for danger was sharper than anyone's. In that instant a tremendous cold sweat broke over him. He had reason.
"...Well. Is this about enough?"
"Would you look at this guy."
Somewhere in the back alley, two men who looked dangerous past all reckoning had an axe and a spear leveled at each other, killing intent pouring off them both.
"Gulp..."
The boy swallowed dry and stepped back. This was exactly the sort you could not afford to get tangled with—
Crack.
"...Well, shit."
He had just been thinking his luck was running strangely good. Backing away, he put his foot on a twig, and his face went bleak.
And then—
"You got business with us—?"
The boy fainted.
"This brat. Why's he suddenly out cold?"
"Riffraff. That face of yours is vicious enough to do it."
"...Hss. I ought to deny that. Why can't I?"
Lee Han looked as if the whole business left a bad taste, but he laid the child out comfortably anyway. It wouldn't do for the boy to crumple wrong and wake with his mouth pulled crooked.
Once the child was safely down, he turned back to it.
"...Things got a little strange. Shall we try again?"
"Tsk. Cocky bastard."
"Don't like it, then don't come. I can go alone."
The bastard with the spear let his displeasure show, brow knotting tight. For the moment, though, he was the one underneath. Like it or not—
Fwoosh—!
He drove the spear in without a shred of hesitation.
Clang!
"...Mm. Not bad."
The spearman said nothing.
The spearhead had been aimed dead at Lee Han's brow. It could not leave so much as a mark on him. All it raised was the ring of iron being struck.