The Weight of a Mage's Name
I'd protested more than once that I'd taken it off bandits, but the guards wouldn't hear it. Even I had to admit it wasn't a story anyone would swallow easily. Of course they'd figure I was just another thief.
I could have run if I'd wanted to. None of the guards could have held me. But they'd already seen my monster hunter license — a warrant would go out the moment I bolted. Better to settle this now than deal with the headache later.
So I let myself be taken in quietly.
They didn't haul me straight to a cell. They wanted to interrogate me first, to pinpoint the remnants and trace where the gold had come from. I was marched to the guard headquarters.
Evening. The sun had gone down completely. Guards passing in the hallway grumbled about the day's meals — an ordinary garrison, same as any other.
Considering this place was razed two years ago, they've recovered pretty well.
I wondered what had become of the corrupt officials. A monster outbreak of that scale — the capital wouldn't have just left it alone. They might have sent an inspector and cleaned house.
A moment later a guard knocked and opened the door.
"Captain. I've brought him."
"Good work."
A middle-aged man sat inside, still at his paperwork. The guard bowed and left.
They were leaving me in this room unrestrained? Well — anything that looked like a gauntlet or a weapon had already been confiscated. And the man in front of me was considerably strong. He hadn't been made captain of the guard for nothing.
"A pleasure. I hear a gold plaque belonging to House Jefran was found among your belongings."
"That was House Jefran's gold plaque?"
So those bandits had worked for House Jefran. Now I understood how this had all unfolded.
"Judging by your reaction, you really didn't know."
"No, sir. As I said earlier, I took it off some bandits I captured. If I'd known what it was, I never would have come to Jefran in the first place."
"I see. I understand. The plaque will be confiscated, but I'll take you at your word that you seized it from thieves."
The captain was more reasonable than I'd expected.
"Yes. That's fine with me."
I was about to take my leave when hurried footsteps approached from outside. The captain and I both looked toward the door. A moment later it burst open without a knock.
"Captain, we've got a problem! Lord Ford is coming!"
"What?"
Ford. A name I'd never heard in my life.
The captain hurriedly tidied his ledgers, then his eyes met mine. He swallowed a groan. Something was about to get messy. I decided to sit tight and watch.
A moment later the door rattled open. A greasy-faced, pot-bellied man stood there — the kind of man who'd clearly invested a great deal in his own body.
"Lord Ford. You've arrived."
"Hmm. Working late, Captain. Hard at it, I see."
"Not at all. Simply doing what needs to be done."
The captain was flustered in his presence. Meaning this man's station sat higher than the captain's.
"So this is the one who brought in the gold plaque."
"Yes, that's him."
Ford looked me up and down. Then the corner of his mouth lifted.
"Not bad. He'll do."
"L-Lord Ford, this man is likely uninvolved—"
"Captain. Are you saying my judgment is wrong?"
"N-no, sir."
They were carrying on as if I weren't even in the room. From what I was hearing, they meant to pin something on me.
This has to be about House Jefran.
But this man wasn't Baron Jefran. His surname wasn't Jefran. A mere guard captain would never dare address a noble by name — so the fact that he went by Ford, whether that was a given name or a family name, meant he had no blood tie to the house at all.
And yet he can treat Jefran's guard captain like this...
Assuming the worst wasn't difficult. The newly installed Baron Jefran was still a child, they said, after the previous baron's sudden death. The ones who'd ruled through that figurehead were the corrupt officials. I'd assumed that after Jefran collapsed in the monster incident, those men would have been purged.
Apparently they'd been left in their posts after all, and whoever came had simply gone home. The capital would have given them a warning, so the city itself was probably running normally enough. But given enough time, the same result would come around again. They'd run the city however they pleased and bleed it dry.
The crime they want to pin on me is probably meant to smear House Jefran.
To show how pathetic the people who'd served House Jefran had been — and that House Jefran itself was no different — and thereby justify their own rule. Even an illiterate could read that much. Of course, this was only a guess. I'd need to confirm it.
"Handle it."
With that, Ford turned to leave. I watched him for a moment, then spoke.
"Hey. Are you a retainer of House Jefran?"
A question tossed out to confirm what I'd been thinking. The captain froze. Ford stopped walking. Then he slowly turned his head toward me.
"What did you just say, you lowborn filth?"
"Hearing gone fat too? I asked if you're a retainer of House Jefran."
"Hah. This is why you can't deal with thieves."
Ford wiped a broad hand down his face in disbelief. From that reaction just now, he really was a retainer of House Jefran.
"Captain."
"Y-yes."
"Execute him. Immediately."
The captain swallowed and looked at me. He drew the sword that had been leaning against the wall. A vicious killing intent rolled off the blade. His face said that things had gone too far to take back.
The captain wasn't at fault. When the people above you tell you to do something, you don't have a choice.
Ford turned his head as if there was nothing left to see.
"Sorry."
With that brief apology, the captain swung. The blade came straight for my neck. I tilted my head slightly.
Clang!
The instant the sword struck my neck, it snapped in two. The captain's eyes flew wide. The broken blade flew on and buried itself in the door Ford was opening.
"H-huh!?"
Ford nearly fainted, letting go of the doorknob. If he'd taken even one more step forward, the blade would have been lodged in his skull. Naturally.
I watched his back for a moment, then turned. The captain was staring at his broken sword in a daze. Then his eyes met mine, and he realized something. He dropped flat to the floor.
"I-I greet you, Mage!"
A sword swung at bare flesh, and it hadn't even left a mark. It didn't take long to understand what that meant.
The moment the captain prostrated himself, Ford flinched and looked back at me.
What is a mage? They exist on a different plane from ordinary humans. Nobility is just a hierarchy people invented. To a mage, a noble is nothing special. A man who served a noble house would know that perfectly well.
"T-to fail to recognize a mage — I, I have committed a grave offense!"
Ford flattened himself to the floor just like the captain.
He'd ordered a subordinate to attack a mage. That alone would have painted a very clear picture of what came next. No one blames a mage for killing a person. But a person who attacks a mage is killed on the spot. A mage steeped in authority and arrogance would never let a human live after that.
Of course, I was an apprentice mage. A wilderness mage who belonged to no school, at that. Honestly, other mages wouldn't lift a finger to help me. There's no reason to help a nameless, school-less mage. But they also wouldn't question it if those same mages killed a human who'd attacked one of their own. They wouldn't help me — but they'd take a fellow mage's side.
That was the world of mages as Zorbanof had described it.
A line that told you exactly how little mages regarded humans as fellow people. Of course, if it were a monkey you'd raised yourself, you might attack the mage who killed it. But most of the time, mages just quietly let it slide among themselves.
If I killed Ford and the captain right here, no mage would come asking questions. And the families who found their bodies wouldn't be able to come after me either.
The height of injustice. That was the difference between a mage and a man.
"Ford."
"Yes, Mage!"
When I called his name, Ford answered with desperate urgency. His face had gone beyond pale — it was wrecked. The face of a man who knew his life was on the line.
"How many have you killed like this?"
Ford went rigid. He clearly hadn't expected a mage to ask that kind of question. His lips just flapped. He couldn't answer.
"Captain."
"Yes!"
"How many has he killed?"
"Twelve, sir."
Twelve people. A lot of people had died. All for the greed of securing a position.
My hand settled on Ford's bowed shoulder.
Passing through that bandit village, I'd come to understand a few things myself. This world doesn't change just because you pursue justice and cut down every villain you find. A villain's death only calls a new villain into being.
So there has to be an example. An example that justice can close around your throat at any time.
"Ford. Your death will be worth something. Because of it, the other retainers will start doing their jobs properly from today on."
"M-Mage! Please, wait! I beg you, hear me out, just hear me—!"
There was nothing to hear. I'd already heard everything from the captain.
I snuffed out the flame of his life.
The flame of life is extinguished.
Ford collapsed, his head striking the floor. A quiet death settled over the room.
The captain was frozen, unable to move, at how quickly it had all happened. A person had died at the flick of a hand. Even seeing it with his own eyes, it was hard to believe.
"Captain."
"Yes."
He answered with the face of a man who expected to die next.
"Tell Ford's fellow retainers this. If they fail to govern the Jefran barony properly, a mage will come calling."
This corpse is the proof.
"And if they refuse to believe it and get any other ideas..."
My eyes caught the lamplight and shone, translucent.
"...the same thing that happened today will happen to them."
There was only one answer the captain could give me.
"Yes."
Mage.
The power that name carried. How terrifying it was, how fearsome, how overwhelming.
Today, I understood it all over again.