The First Request
Gerik finished buckling on his light armor and checking the half-dozen short daggers at his belt, then stepped down from the carriage to meet the escort captain.
“What seems to be the matter, Sir Gerik?”
“Roughly twenty Pincermouth Ants are heading our way.”
“Which direction?”
“Kairon. Where are they?”
“Northwest!”
“You heard the man.”
The escort captain turned his gaze northwest.
I poked my head out of the carriage and looked that way too.
As far as my eyes could tell, there was nothing there.
The captain seemed to be in the same boat.
Even so, he took Gerik at his word, returned to his post, and began preparing for battle.
“Everyone get ready. A swarm of Pincermouth Ants is coming. Merchant leader, please stay inside the carriage.”
A ripple of unease spread through the guards; their faces hardened.
Gerik, on the other hand, looked perfectly relaxed.
“First real fight. You feeling confident?”
“Confident? Hell yes!”
Thud. Thud.
Kairon slammed his fists together as he jumped down, every bit as eager. If anything, he looked downright excited.
“I’ll kill them all!”
“I was asking Lulu, not you.”
“I think I’ll be fine.”
I already knew what Pincermouth Ants were. I’d read about them in the monster encyclopedia I’d borrowed from Aaron’s study.
They were ants with jaws like pincers, exactly as the name suggested.
Those jaws could supposedly shear through dead trees in a single bite.
Each one was about two Lulus tall, and their carapaces were supposed to be quite tough.
Still, when all was said and done, they were just bugs.
And bugs are afraid of fire.
Since I’d just finished making a staff that could shoot flames, they’d make the perfect test subjects.
“Here, Sera.”
“Thanks.”
Gerik had already climbed onto the roof of the carriage. He handed Sera her bow, then jumped back down with his greatsword in hand.
“Once they’re close enough for Kairon to see, he’ll charge in on his own. Watch our backs, would you?”
“Got it.”
Sera nocked an arrow without another word.
I stood beside her and leveled my staff toward the northwest.
She gave me a strange look, but in the end she said nothing.
The swarm finally came into view.
“Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah—!!!”
Kairon roared and sprinted forward.
Gerik followed at a more leisurely pace, deliberately keeping his distance so he could clean up whatever Kairon missed.
Watching the two of them, Sera asked me,
“Lulu, can your magic reach that far?”
I narrowed my eyes and tried to gauge the exact distance to the ants.
“Yes, I think so.”
“…Really? Then I’ll take the left side. You take the right. Sound good?”
“Sure.”
The creak of a bowstring being drawn sounded beside me.
I gathered mana right next to her.
Then—
Twang.
The moment Sera released her arrow, I understood.
The flavor I had tasted when I grabbed her hand yesterday.
And the flavor I was tasting now from the mana that had briefly settled inside her body.
Black mage?
It carried the same undertone as the residue that had forced its way into my mouth the first time I met Aaron.
The black mages are split into two factions.
There are the formal mages belonging to the Black Tower, and the rogue black mages who broke away and operate alone.
The former are recognized as ordinary mages, but the latter are treated as criminals. That’s why they gather in an organization called the Pantheon and continue their inhumane research.
The black mage who bought you belonged to the Pantheon.
Even among black mages, the nature of their mana is completely different, so you can tell them apart. The magic of the leader who first broke away… Actually, you probably don’t need this scholarly explanation.
Anyway, it should be easier for you. Just remember the taste of the first residue you ate.
Sera probably didn’t belong to the Tower.
The flavor of the mana I tasted was closer to the residue left by a Pantheon black mage.
Sera the black mage flinched when she noticed Lulu staring straight at her.
“W-what?”
It wasn’t like she had anything to feel guilty about.
She hadn’t used black magic, so there was nothing to be caught for.
All she had done was move her mana subtly to reinforce her arms and fingers.
That was Sera the black mage’s specialty—manipulating mana so discreetly that even high-ranking mages or knights could be fooled.
She hadn’t been worried that Lulu might have seen through her identity.
The reason she had flinched was simply that Lulu’s face, staring at her from so close, was unreasonably pretty.
“Why are you looking at me like that? Never seen someone shoot a bow before?”
“Nope. First time.”
“…I see. Even so, shouldn’t you be casting your spell? Or are you planning to let Kairon and Gerik die?”
“Oh, right. I spaced out for a second.”
In that instant, Sera focused on the flow of mana Lulu was using.
Her light-green hair fluttered.
And that was it.
…Where’s her circle?
Sera’s eyes widened.
At the same moment, the dark world was dyed crimson.
Shaaaaaaaah—!
A jet of flame erupted from Lulu’s staff.
Or rather, it was closer to a beam of light than flame.
That alone was absurd, but when Lulu swung the staff, the beam swung with it.
…Huh?
With that single sweeping ray of searing red, all twenty-two charging Pincermouth Ants were vaporized.
One remained, but it was already fleeing for its life.
Total annihilation.
Twenty-two Pincermouth Ants wiped out with a single arrow and one spell.
In truth, it was basically all Lulu.
Sera’s arrow had only taken down one.
What the hell was that?!
No ordinary mage could have done it.
A spell of that power would require at least the fifth circle—perhaps even the sixth—and a very long casting time.
Yet Lulu had simply fired it off.
And not only fired it—she had swung it like a whip.
Could a high-ranking mage even do that?
No.
And no mage, no matter how great, could crouch beside an ant carcass, absorb the soul that had just left it, and swallow it.
Not even an archmage could manage that.
Just… what is this kid?
As a black mage, Sera’s sensitivity to souls was high enough that she could see and recognize what had just happened.
That was how she knew beyond doubt that Lulu had eaten the soul.
Eaten a soul?
A monster’s soul, at that?
The artifact that had fired the beam earlier could be explained away. Maybe she had found it in some ruin or dungeon.
But eating souls?
Was that something a human being could do?
Suddenly a passage from a book she had read in the Pantheon flashed through Sera’s mind.
The Third Disaster does not stop at merely butchering the opponent’s flesh.
It devours the adversary’s soul in its entirety, binds the stolen spirit like an extension of its own limbs, and uses it as raw material for alchemy.
The being known only as the Third Disaster—its very name erased by the passage of time—was an alchemist.
The ultimate practitioner of alchemy and the most heinous calamity the entire continent had hunted for eighty years.
Even the master of the Pantheon had said that his own notoriety was nothing compared to the Third Disaster’s.
After it became known that the Third Disaster used souls, countless alchemists had joined the Pantheon and begun learning black magic in an attempt to uncover the method.
Yet none of them had ever been able to wield the same authority.
And now this tiny alchemist was using that incomprehensible power as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
…No way.
The moment her thoughts reached that point, cheers erupted around them.
“Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!! Lulu! You really are an incredible mage!! Amazing! So strong! I, Kairon, acknowledge you! Lulu, you are a magnificent and splendid mage!”
“Hah… This is just ridiculous.”
“Wow! Mage-nim! We believed in you alone! Whoa! In all my years as a merchant leader I’ve never seen anything so incredible… Wow, this is easily worth a year’s supply of drink. Truly magnificent! Thank you! Ha-ha-ha! Tonight I must bring out the liquor I’ve been saving!”
The other escorts shouted in excitement too.
Some even improvised a song on the spot.
What Lulu had shown them was more than enough to make their eyes roll back in their heads with joy.
Even mages from the Tower would have rushed forward with the same crazed look.
They would have bitten and clung like mad dogs, desperate to figure out what trick she had used.
You idiots… That wasn’t magic…
Because what Lulu had shown them wasn’t magic at all.
That was an artifact! She’s an alchemist…! And she ate a soul?!
If mana was used but neither spread through the body nor formed a circle, the only possibility was an alchemist.
Moreover, one capable of crafting artifacts with the firepower of a high-ranking mage and devouring souls exactly like the Third Disaster.
But she couldn’t reveal that truth.
Sera herself had plenty to hide, and the crowd’s favor had already swung completely toward Lulu.
“It wasn’t the magic that was great. It was me.”
Lulu declared it boldly, sweeping her gaze across the cheering people before turning to look at Sera.
Sera swallowed hard.
The face before her was so beautiful it could stop a person’s breath, yet now that she knew what lay behind it, the sight was nothing but terrifying.
Could she win if they fought?
She ran the numbers, but gave up almost immediately.
There was no point in calculating.
How could anyone defeat an alchemist who could fire beams of insane power like that?
And who knew how many more artifacts she might have?
If it came to a fight, Sera would be reduced to ashes before she could even do anything.
After death, even her soul would be trapped and consumed as alchemical material.
A servile smile crept across Sera’s face—the face of someone who very much did not want to die.
“A-amazing… Really. I’ve never seen magic like that in my life. It… didn’t even look like magic.”
“I was surprised by your archery too, Sera. That didn’t look like an ordinary bow.”
Goosebumps raced across Sera’s entire body.
Did she figure it out…?
Her mind began to spin.
“R-really…? Um… Have you seen an archer like me somewhere before?”
“There was a black mage who bought me for four silver coins. He was planning to take me to his breeding pen and make me give birth to twenty baby monsters. Later I learned he was a Pantheon black mage.”
“Th-that… th-th-th, th… th…”
“But that experience—”
Before Lulu could finish, Kairon came running back from afar and hoisted her high into the air.
“Bwa-ha-ha-ha! Splendid and magnificent mage Lulu!! Amazing!! Splendid!!”
Like a lion proudly lifting its cub for all to see, Kairon held Lulu up so the entire caravan and escort could admire her.
Even then, Lulu’s gaze remained fixed on Sera.
“Aah…”
Sera’s legs gave out. She collapsed on the spot.
But that experience—
What on earth was the next part of that sentence?
I haven’t forgotten? I will never forget?
I can’t forget, so I have to kill even you?
She had no idea.
And that made it even more frightening. Asking again was terrifying. Pretending she hadn’t heard was just as terrifying.
If Lulu ever learned what Sera was thinking, she would have been deeply wronged.
Because the words that were supposed to follow were simply, “I remember it as a good memory.”
Thanks to being sold to that black mage, she had met Aaron and become an alchemist.
No matter what the black mage’s intentions had been, the result was positive, so Lulu felt no particular hostility.
Besides, the black mage was already dead, wasn’t he?
There was no need to cling to the matter any longer.
In fact, Lulu was rather glad to see Sera.
She felt like she had obtained new alchemical material and wanted to get along well.
But Sera could not read that intention.
Nor could she ask directly.
Because she was sure that if she did, Lulu would say something like, “You noticed? What a shame. Please die,” and kill her on the spot.
Sera did not want to die yet. It was precisely because she didn’t want to die that she had fled the Pantheon in the first place.
So she made up her mind.
…Let’s run. I’ve done it once before. The second time will be easier.
Still, she had a conscience, so she would leave the advance payment of silver coins behind and slip away quietly. With an alchemist like this, the caravan’s escort would be more than sufficient. She just had to get away fast.
Sera repeated that resolution several times.
Of course, that resolution would never come to pass.
Because Lulu had taken an interest in Sera.
There was no way an alchemist who had to satisfy her curiosity at all costs would quietly let such fascinating material escape.