An Unexpected Gift
Judging by that idiot’s face, it wasn’t a lie.
Someone who seemed to be a first-rank officer really had taken the item from Zalman.
But why in the world would someone of that rank come here?
So Zalman had been deceived.
And by someone who knew the Pantheon’s plans, no less.
Did a stooge slip in here...?
Morman let the thought settle in his mind, then opened his mouth.
“...That man you said was a first-rank officer—do you remember his face?”
“Of course I do! There were only two women. And one of them was short... was she short? Her face, her face... her face...?”
He couldn’t remember.
Zalman tapped his own head a few times.
It was pointless. No matter how hard he clawed at his memory, it would never come back to him.
That was what Aaron’s reinforced robe was for, and that was what the cognition-disrupting magic was for.
You didn’t notice it while you were looking.
Only after the two of you parted would you try to recall it, and only then would you realize that you had been bewitched by something.
That was exactly what was happening to Zalman now.
“M-Mo... Mo... Mo... Mo... Morman-nim...”
“Ha. You hopeless bastard.”
Morman rose in a hurry.
He wanted to kill Zalman right there and then, but the city knights were already closing in. Worse, there were plenty of eyes watching, so it wouldn’t be easy.
“Make sure you’re never taken alive.”
“I won’t be caught. I’ll definitely recover the heart shard, I swear!”
“Tch.”
Morman quickly moved to another spot and blended into the crowd.
At the same time, knights began gathering little by little around where Zalman stood.
They didn’t make much noise as they spoke.
They didn’t know Zalman’s face, but his appearance had already been confirmed over and over through the wanted notice and the witness statement.
And they had also confirmed with their own eyes that he really was here. At last, the man believed to be the wanted criminal Zalman Becker had been found.
The knights slowly approached him.
But that was all they did. They didn’t immediately draw their swords.
They still hadn’t confirmed that he was truly Zalman Becker.
There had been a report, yes, but it could have been a false alarm caused by a mistake. Identity verification came first.
It would be much easier to rush him from the start, overpower him, and ask questions later, but if they acted that recklessly, visitors to the territory would start to thin out.
So this sort of verification was unavoidable.
The knight approaching Zalman spoke.
“I’m Grik of the Berg Guard.”
“W-What is it?”
“We received a report that you’re a wanted criminal. If a simple verification checks out, we’ll let you go quietly, so stay right where you are.”
“Hehe... Me, a wanted criminal? Well, now that’s something. I’ll just sit here and not move!”
As stupidly as he could manage, Zalman grinned and slid his right hand, engraved with a workshop, into his clothes.
Then he clenched the parchment with the drawn formation circle and the dust-pouch mushroom in his hand, and took a breath.
Huu... Hah... Please, please... please, please...
One time.
He only needed one chance to escape.
It was easy. He had done it all this time.
He only had to do the same thing as before. He just had to get through today. Then he could go find the “Sculptor,” change his face, and hide away again...
Thinking that, he began preparing his transmutation.
The disassembly would take about five seconds.
All he had to do was break down the dust-pouch mushroom and flee the moment the powder burst out.
Simple. It’s simple... I can do this.
Five seconds.
Just as Zalman began the transmutation, he suddenly jumped to his feet.
No, he tried to stand up.
“Huh?”
His pants were stuck to the chair.
The chair? It was stuck to the floor.
And in his right hand, the disassembly transmutation was still going on.
“W-Wait...!”
It couldn’t be stopped with words.
The transmutation had already been completed.
Bang! The dust-pouch mushroom disassembled, and pale dust exploded in every direction.
“Magic?! No! It’s a dust-pouch mushroom! Alchemy!”
“Charge!”
“An alchemist! Kill him at once!”
The knights rushed in through the cloud.
They moved frantically, urgently, but Zalman was still sitting right where he was.
There was nothing he could do; his pants were firmly glued to the chair.
“W-When did this...?”
It wasn’t that it couldn’t be undone.
He had the parchment with the formation circle, he had enough mana, and he knew the method.
But there wasn’t time.
It took about five seconds, and simply yanking off his pants would take longer than that.
But for a knight, five seconds was more than enough to reach a mage or alchemist and cut their throat.
Swish—!
Even with a sword lunging straight for his neck, Zalman kept rifling through his memories of what had just happened.
More shocking than the fact that he was about to die here was that alchemy itself—close to divine in its brilliance—had stunned him beyond belief.
It couldn’t have been more than a second.
How on earth had they transmuted the ground, the chair, and his pants into one?
Snick—
He never understood it, even as his head was severed.
*****
“So alchemists get executed on the spot, huh.”
Standing at a distance and watching the gruesome scene, Sera flinched hard.
Even so, the way she earnestly explained it made her seem rather diligent.
“...They’re treated worse than dark mages from the Pantheon. Still, the Gidum Empire is one of the better places for it. If this had been the Eskart Empire or the Luminarion Holy Kingdom, they’d have captured him alive and tortured him.”
“Why torture him?”
“To find out where his allies are.”
“I see.”
After confirming that Zalman was dead, I headed back to the Adventurers’ Guild.
“Let’s go collect the bounty.”
“You seem really excited.”
“Yes, I am.”
“Hah, seriously. Weren’t you just saying you don’t chase money or whatever?”
“Sera, alchemy costs a lot of money.”
“And?”
“So this wasn’t earning money. It was acquiring materials.”
Sera, walking beside me, laughed in disbelief.
“...The way you talk, it’s like you’re treating people as alchemy materials. You’re not actually doing that, right?”
“Since we earned money, let’s buy something tasty on the way back. We can all share it.”
“You...? Why aren’t you answering me?”
“What was good about Sera?”
“Answer me!!”
“Ah, right. We should split the seven gold coins too.”
Sera, who had been badgering me a moment ago, widened her eyes.
“Huh? Really? Why?”
“We found him together and turned him in together, so of course we should split it. We’re friends.”
“Ah... ehehe. Friends... Yeah, thank you...”
*****
I didn’t bother announcing that Sera and I had caught and turned in a wanted criminal.
The more ears there were listening, the more mouths there were to spread it.
Sera said that things like this were best kept quiet, known only to the people involved.
It would probably be fine to tell fellow adventurers like Gerik and Kairon, but telling merchants married to money was a terrible idea, she said.
I decided to take Sera’s advice.
When I thought about it myself, that did seem best.
After handing some delicious food to the non-alchemists, I went into the room with Sera.
“Hurry up and open it.”
“It might explode, so Sera should open it.”
“...Why would I open something that might explode?”
“I was joking.”
Click. I opened the wooden box.
Then I tilted my head.
“What is this?”
“...Beats me. What is it? Can I touch it?”
“Yes.”
Inside the box was something with a faint, strange red glow. It looked like a stone at first glance, but I couldn’t imagine he would have killed someone just to bring back a pretty red rock.
Then again, it didn’t seem to be a gem either.
Sera stared at the mysterious stone and shook her head.
“I have no idea.”
“I’ll check it.”
“Go ahead.”
I put the red stone in my mouth.
“...?”
“Uuumm.”
“...???”
“Uuuuuumm.”
“...Hey!! Y-You don’t even know what that is and you’re eating it?! Spit it out! Spit it out now!!”
“Bwaaaah.”
“Ugh...! What are you, a child? Don’t just eat random things!”
Sera’s fingers forcefully snatched the stone out of my mouth.
I spat out the odd salty taste lingering on my tongue and said, “Tsk, tsk. This is how I have to check.”
“Even so, there are limits!”
“Give it back. I think I know what it is. I’ve eaten one before.”
“Y-You have? Seriously? What is it?”
“A monster’s heart.”
“...You ate a monster’s heart?”
“Yes. Eating it to check isn’t a lie.”
Aaron had given me a sharp scolding, and I had to eat only grass for two days, but I still remembered the taste clearly.
Thanks to that, I could tell exactly what it was without swallowing it now.
“This looks like the heart of a huge monster. And one with a lot of mana, too.”
“No, how do you even know that?”
“I’ve tasted one before.”
Unfortunately, I hadn’t been able to put it directly in my mouth.
I didn’t want to eat only grass again.
But I could still taste it.
During transmutation, every flavor is felt on the tongue, so while disassembling and adding onto the things Aaron made, I had sampled all kinds of materials.
“So? How big do you think it is?”
“Very big. It looks like a super-large species.”
“If it’s super-large... then this must really be a tiny fragment.”
Sera’s face was sinking into disappointment.
“Is it bad if it’s a really tiny fragment?”
“Well, it can’t help but be disappointing. No matter how amazing the monster’s heart is, this little fragment wouldn’t even give you ten percent output. Of course, that would change if the heart belonged to a dragon, but there’s no way that’s the case.”
“A dragon?”
“Yeah. If it were a dragon’s heart, then even a fragment this small could produce incredible efficiency. That’s less like a monster—more like a divine beast.”
I knew very well how precious a dragon’s heart was as a material. There had even been a book on dragons among the ones I’d taken from Aaron’s library.
Apparently, a dragon’s heart was originally as huge as a house, but even a chunk the size of a fist could produce firepower on par with a high-ranking mage.
That was why alchemists loved dragon hearts above all other materials.
An ordinary alchemist needs a tremendous amount of mana to complete transmutation. A dragon heart can be thought of as a mana-storage artifact that supplies that mana in its place.
And because it’s the closest thing to its natural state, it doesn’t have any specific properties. It just flows along the path dug out for the transmutation.
That said, if you and I have workshops engraved into our souls, we can use it in a slightly different way. Our alchemy is different from other alchemists’ alchemy.
Even something as small as a fingernail, if you have a workshop, would let you transmute a golem capable of flight.
Aaron’s teachings flashed through my mind.
I glanced down at the heart fragment, half the size of my fist, and told Sera, “Should I try using it?”
“Use it? For a dark mage like me, it’d be like a mana-storage artifact. But for an alchemist?”
“There are lots of ways, but I think a golem is best.”
“A golem! A real golem? Huh? Not a doll, a golem? A golem that moves on its own?!”
“If I engrave the order into it, it can move on its own.”
“That’s insane!”
I took out suitable materials from my backpack.
Sera’s eyes had already been shining at the mention of a golem, and when she saw the materials spilling out of my pack, they brightened even more.
After watching her for a while, I could tell those were the eyes of greed.
Sera was openly money-hungry.
“Wow... what is all this? Just how big is your storage space that metal and wood keep coming out like this?”
“My master made this backpack for me.”
“Right, you. You kept talking about your master, your master. Who is this master, anyway?”
“Master Aaron.”
“...Aaron? Who’s that? Doesn’t sound famous. Is he some alchemist on the run from the Third Calamity? If he took in a disciple while in that state, he can’t be an ordinary person. Does your master have some kind of nickname?”
As she began the golem transmutation, Lulu pulled out the phrase that could describe Aaron most clearly.
“The world calls my master the Third Calamity.”
Sera’s mouth fell open in a daze.
At the same time, the golem transmutation was finished.
It was a golem that cared nothing for appearance and focused only on efficiency. It had six arms and four legs.
I built its frame out of moonstone, which had at least a decent mana conductivity, then reinforced it with ogre hide to give the joints flexibility and durability.
I didn’t bother making a head. It would only create a weak point. The golem I made could move just fine without one.
Then I transmuted the core from gold mixed with a little mithril, since mithril also had high mana conductivity, and inserted the monster heart fragment into the core’s center.
Without even injecting mana, the golem core activated with a low, rough hum.
For a fragment of a heart, that output seems awfully strong.
I quickly engraved the command into the golem’s heart.
Golems follow the commands engraved in their core. And those commands are carved into the core itself, which is simple enough.
You just have to specify, one by one, every action the golem will take.
The command I wanted to carve now was to bring me the water bottle by the window.
First, I input how to walk forward using its four legs, and how many steps it should take before stopping.
Next, I had to input how to raise its arms once it stopped, how to move its fingers while its arms were lifted, and what it should grasp, how, and with how much force.
Finally, I carved in the entire process of approaching from behind and setting it down in front of me, and the command to bring me the water bottle by the window was complete.
Of course, I also had to specify the force control in between. If I didn’t, it might crush the bottle or fail to pick it up properly.
However, since I had inserted the monster heart fragment into the golem core, I set it to use only about one-fourth of one-tenth of one percent of the mana output coming from it.
That much should be more than enough to fetch a water bottle.
Thus, it took about four seconds to complete the golem and finish the core.
Click—the core locked into place, and the splendid six-limbed, four-legged golem stood up.
“Sera, look at this. It’s working beautifully.”
Then, using its magnificent four legs, it—BOOOOOM!!—shot forward.
“Ah.”
The six-limbed, four-legged golem—no, now it was only a four-legged golem—slammed into the wall and shattered its four legs, but somehow still succeeded in grabbing the water bottle.
Only after crushing the bottle too did it twist its upper body upside down and twitch there pathetically.
It looked like it was trying to return this way according to the command I’d engraved, but with its legs smashed to pieces, there was no way it could come back.
What I had taught it was how to return using its legs, not how to crawl home on its arms.
“It seems to be working a little too well.”
Scratching my eyebrow, I turned to Sera, who was still staring blankly.
“If you just look at the mana output, doesn’t this seem like a dragon heart fragment?”
It seemed the ruined Zalman had left behind a dragon heart fragment after all.
Aaron had said that even a fragment no bigger than a fingernail could transmute a flying golem, so what could I make with a heart fragment half the size of my fist?
If this really is a dragon heart fragment...
All at once, the image of a bombardment golem dropping explosion potions from the sky surfaced before me.
Wow...
My heart began to pound with excitement.