The Mage Who Makes Monsters
I looked down at the magic tool in my hand and asked,
"Lord Bormora?"
"That's right! Lord Bormora!"
"And who is that supposed to be?"
The one who'd made this thing, most likely — but I had no idea who that was. A criminal would bow his head at the mere presence of a mage. Hearing a mage's actual name was vanishingly rare. The only names I knew were Zorbanof and one mage who operated out of Laften. I didn't know a single other.
"If he's some famous figure from a magic school, I wouldn't know. I'm not affiliated with any school."
"Uggghhh, damn it."
The magic tool let its irritation and dismay show. Separate from that, though, I'd already pieced something together.
"It wasn't the bandit's idea to control that gang. That was you."
I felt the magic tool flinch. I'd wondered why that bandit had been so obsessed with growing the tool's power. He might have been trying to satisfy his own greed with it, sure — but a few things didn't add up if that was all there was to it. If the magic tool had been goading him on, everything made sense.
"So you're the one who caused this whole mess."
Murderous intent began to gleam in my eyes. Countless innocent people and living things had been wiped out because of a single magic tool. That was not something I could let stand.
"W-wait."
Talking was a waste of time. I slammed the magic tool I was holding straight into the ground. Unlike last time, it didn't shatter in a single blow.
"Gyaaagh—!"
It took the hit, but it seemed to have some kind of self-protection. If once wasn't enough, I'd just keep going.
"S-stop."
Slamming it over and over wasn't hard at all.
"Stop, ghk, stop, please, stop!"
I just had to keep hitting it until it broke.
"It was Lord Bormora! It was all Lord Bormora's will!"
I stopped my hand just as I was about to bring it down again. When I slowly turned the magic tool over, the skull wore a miserable expression.
"Lord Bormora deliberately released magic tools into the world."
The mage Bormora. He was the one backing all of this. Just as the bandit had blabbed, a mage really was involved.
"To what end?"
I couldn't see what distributing tools like this was supposed to accomplish. When I asked, the magic tool started hedging again. So I moved to smash it once more, and it hurried to answer.
"Monsters! To create monsters!"
Create monsters? What kind of nonsense was that?
"What for?"
"Because monsters can produce mana stones. The point was to have them eat humans and produce monster mana stones. There are so many humans, after all."
I was beyond speechless. I couldn't even find my voice. I'd known mages were lunatics, but this was beyond anything I'd imagined.
"Now you understand. So as for me—"
"I'm going to kill him."
"What?"
Creating monsters to turn humans into mana stones. I could not tolerate something so insane. That was a monster. A monster that had to be put down.
"Bormora, you said. Do you know where he is?"
"...Are you out of your mind? Lord Bormora is a distinguished mage who stands on a far higher plane than you!"
Higher than me, sure. I didn't know how to make a magic tool like this either. But that didn't mean he was on some unreachable, distant plane. The mages I'd seen wouldn't have needed to go through this kind of hassle.
Turning humans into mana stones meant he wasn't getting enough monster mana stones allocated to him. He'd cooked up this scheme to fill that gap. Which meant, in the end, he wasn't that high-level a mage. The magic tool was singing his praises, but to it, its creator was everything. Of course it would talk up the mage who'd made it.
Still, it's true I can't do anything about him at my current level.
I had only just become a mage — a Neophyte, the lowest rank there was. So how was someone like me supposed to get stronger?
Monster hunting.
It all came back to hunting monsters. Hunting them was the fastest way for me to grow stronger.
"W-wait. Just listen to me."
I ignored the magic tool and stuffed it into my bag. I was done here. It was time to head back to Laften.
I climbed over the half-destroyed fortress wall and stepped outside. In the distance, the sun was rising. And beneath that sun, a single figure caught my eye.
It was Melun, watching from the mountainside with a tense, anxious face. Every other bandit who'd been with him was dead. He was effectively the only adult man left in the village. He, too, was a man who had killed several innocents and offered them as sacrifices. But if I killed him, the village would die with him. The old people who lived there may have been bandits themselves, but the children weren't.
I looked toward Melun for a moment, then turned away.
The justice I'd wanted to uphold. In the end, it was a world where those who suffered unjustly could have a voice. Was I becoming someone who could champion that justice?
It's a thin kind of justice.
Being swayed by personal feelings, questioning whether I was even right — all of it was proof that I, too, was a contradictory person. But so what. Becoming a mage hadn't changed who I was. I was simply a man who had inherited the justice my father had howled for.
I would hold to my convictions — but I couldn't let myself be consumed by them. People are contradictory, and that is precisely why they must wrestle harder and chase after answers all the more. Only then could they reduce those contradictions, even a little.
I looked up at the sky as I walked on through the mountains. I had become a mage capable of creating worlds, and I still couldn't grasp the contradictions of this one. That was how far I still had to go.
As I'd originally planned, I set out for Raoren County, crossing mountains and valleys and open fields. Whenever I ran into a monster along the way, I hunted it down. There were more wild monsters than I'd expected. That was probably why several nearby villages had reached the end of their lives — the beasts had likely spawned from there. Thanks to that, I was able to gather a decent amount of food. A ruined warehouse still had preserved rations inside. Just in case, I left behind enough coin to cover what I'd taken. If anyone came looking later, it would be of some help.
Laoren lay to the north. The farther I climbed, the more the temperature dropped. I was fine, though. Even in thin clothes, my mana was constantly active. The natural cold didn't affect me much.
Still, looking like this, other people are going to find me strange.
Even to my own eyes, the clothes were far too thin. They were getting old besides. It was about time I picked up something new. Conveniently, Jefran — the city where I'd first met Zorbanof — lay along the way. It was the city that had been finished off by the outrages of corrupt officials and a monster outbreak. But it was a fairly large place, so with time it should have recovered. Two years had passed since then. I figured it would have at least the semblance of a city by now.
I'm still carrying all my things, anyway.
I'd buy a change of clothes and get a proper meal. The preserved rations were just about running out.
I walked and walked. I hadn't realized it when I'd flown through the sky with Zorbanof, but I'd come much farther than I thought. On a person's legs, it was a distance that took a long, long time. At least I could walk without tiring. If I'd needed more rest, it would have taken even longer.
"A city at last."
In the distance, smoke was rising over the walls — cooking fires being lit in every house for the evening meal. Two years ago, the Jefran Barony had been reduced to ashes. Traces of the damage still lingered where the walls hadn't been fully repaired, but it had more or less put itself back together as a city. A place like that ought to have a room I could stay in.
I followed the carriage road, and the gatekeepers at the wall came into view.
"Good evening. I'd like to enter the city."
I hadn't washed in a while and looked a bit rough, but travelers always did. The gatekeepers didn't find it particularly noteworthy.
"Do you have something to prove your identity?"
At the gatekeeper's question, I rummaged through my bag. Inside was the hunter's license I'd been issued some time ago — the kind they gave out because monster hunters occasionally had reason to leave the city. The gatekeeper took it and turned it over in his hands, then told me to wait a moment and headed toward the guard post.
After a while, he came back.
"I'm sorry, but this hunter's license was voided a year and a half ago."
"What?"
For a moment I couldn't make sense of the words, and I just blinked. Then I remembered being dragged off by Zorbanof. I'd split off from the others while luring the monsters, and after that I never came back. When a hunter went missing, there was a six-month grace period. Once that expired, they were declared dead.
They thought I was dead.
Fair enough. I would have thought the same if someone went to fight a monster and never returned. I hadn't accounted for it because I'd been cut off from the world for so long.
The gatekeeper looked at me with narrowed eyes. A natural reaction, given that I'd shown up with a voided license.
"Please don't misunderstand. It's me. I was injured fighting a monster and barely made it back alive."
I'd actually been off training as a mage, but it was close enough.
"There are hunter guilds everywhere. Couldn't you have just renewed it?"
"I could barely get on my feet for two years. And this is the first city I've reached."
"Hmm. All right. We can contact the guild. But first we'll need to search you. That all right?"
I had nothing to hide. I set my bag down and spread my arms, and the gatekeeper patted me down.
"Bandit gangs have been rampant lately, so things are a bit tense. We got chewed out from above just the other day — if we don't follow procedure, we're the ones who catch it."
"Yes, I understand."
Jefran had been wrecked not that long ago. I couldn't blame a gatekeeper working here for being careful.
"I'll need to check the bag as well."
The magic tool was in there. Would that be a problem? If he found it suspicious, I could always smash it right in front of him.
I waited. Then the gatekeeper found something and frowned.
"This is..."
So they'd found the magic tool after all. I swallowed a sigh and was about to speak — then I realized what he was holding wasn't the magic tool.
It was a gold plaque stamped with an emblem. Specifically, the gold plaque I'd taken after killing that bandit gang. I'd held onto it figuring I'd return it to its owner someday, but why would—
Ah. Those bastards had come from Jefran.
"This is an item stolen from House Jefran! Seize him!"
At the gatekeeper's shout, the guards stationed nearby rushed in all at once.
Well. Things were getting messy as hell.