Acknowledged
He had not been a seasoned 4th Tier. Had he been, the Projection would have come far sooner. But Ios's painting had not emerged complete — it had gone on painting itself only after it entered the world.
So it wasn't ink. It was a painting.
A strange taste spread through his mouth. It was an illusion; the taste belonged not to his lips but to the Sun. And the Sun wanted to eat more.
So this is how the addiction takes hold.
Harad could finally understand, if only a little, the magicians who went mad hunting Origins. Devour hearts day in and day out, and he doubted any reason would survive. Swallow them with an actual mouth, and even less so.
Does reaching the 6th Tier truly mean overcoming it?
There was a legend to that effect — that upon reaching the 6th Tier, one was freed from addiction and seizures alike. It wasn't a tale entirely without basis, either. The 6th Tier was said to be the realm where one had subjugated one's own Origin.
Still, he could not take it at face value. In his past life, Harad had been 5th Tier. He had crossed paths with the Outlands' 6th Tier, but never closely enough for a proper conversation.
Had I known this would happen, I should have asked.
The regressed Harad might well end up with no choice but to lean on legend. The more hearts he ate, the faster he would grow — and the faster he grew, the more the future would change.
The taste of paint faded from his mouth. Only then did he feel his mind return to him.
"You alright?"
Harad checked on Gulen first.
Gulen was a wreck. His leather armor had burned away to nothing, leaving him bare, and every inch of him was mottled with burns — everything but his face.
"Sorry about that. My Origin can't tell friend from foe."
It was only because Gulen had had the sense to keep his distance, and because he was a knight, that it had stopped at burns. Had he been a magician, the Sun would have devoured even that.
Origins resembled magical beasts in many ways. They put mana above all else.
"...Well. This much is nothing."
Gulen answered with a dazed face, then staggered over and flung himself into the snow. Excellent first aid.
While Gulen pressed snow to his body to calm the burns, Harad went and fetched the coat he had stowed in the carriage.
"Put this on, at least."
The coat never came close to Gulen. It dropped to the ground instead — the hand that had thrown it was shaking far too hard.
"Did he do that to you?"
"I was done in by my own Origin."
His whole body creaked. His insides were worse: it felt as though someone had wrung his guts out in reverse. A wound left behind when a piece of the Sun climbed over the window that was Harad.
And the wound was larger than he had expected. He was still only 3rd Tier, after all. Without the tempering that had come before, the vessel might well have shattered.
It's because it was a Projection that I lived. A full Manifestation would have killed me for true.
With his past-life experience he could deceive others about his tier — but only up to the threshold of the 4th. Beyond that, he had to be sound. An Origin was not something trickery alone could manage.
"Rest a while."
Harad slumped down where he stood.
"You too."
"I'm fine."
Gulen stood at a careful remove, hand resting on his sword, looking for all the world like a man standing guard.
"Do you know the Outlands well?"
Gulen asked it abruptly.
"Not well enough. That's how I got caught."
"You still seemed to know a great deal, though."
"If the measure is you lot, then aye, I suppose I do."
How did he know? Gulen never asked the banal question. That was the kind of man he was — for those he trusted, reasons were a trifle.
"Then who's the one who got in safe?"
"If I told you — would you believe me?"
"..."
Gulen did not trust him that far.
"I understand. I wouldn't believe it either, in your place."
"I'll try believing half of it."
"Much appreciated, but half isn't enough. Hesitation only ruins the work."
He could have claimed belief even as an empty courtesy. Gulen didn't. Not then, not now.
"Save that half-faith for somewhere else. For 'I'll be the one to deal with whoever slipped in safe.'"
Gulen fell silent.
Harad knew the silence for a yes.
"More to the point — how was it? The 4th Tier, I mean."
"Well..."
"What you saw just now, the Outlands calls a Projection. It means only the shadow of an Origin was cast into the world. That's merely the word for it — in truth, a piece of the Origin manifested."
"..."
Gulen frowned, evidently struggling to take it all in.
"What if he'd been 5th Tier?"
"Only the man himself would know. All the rest of us can do is guess."
"How convenient."
"That's why magic is so profound."
Gulen looked at Harad.
"And you? What becomes of you?"
"You didn't see?"
Harad pointed at the sky. Dawn was breaking through the blizzard.
"The Sun will rise. A smaller one than that."
The Sun. Absurd — and yet Gulen could not refute it. Earlier, he had witnessed the very thing Ios had shown, and the traces it left were vivid still.
This was, without question, the North — and yet the ground around them resembled some withered desert city. The lingering heat barred snow and wind alike; the earth had dried and split open.
"If he had been, we'd be dead. You and I both."
"..."
Had Ios been 5th Tier, Harad would have died not to the painting but to the Sun the man manifested.
Gulen swallowed without meaning to. No pride stirred in him. He hated to admit it, but... he had been afraid.
"Fuck."
Gulen punched his own face. The pus crusted on his fist stuck to his bruised cheek, and he kept punching until every last bit of it had flaked away.
Harad didn't stop him.
How long had it gone on? At last, Gulen stopped.
"I'll be honest with you."
The face, swollen to twice its size, opened its mouth.
"That painter bastard didn't scare me. But you did."
Gulen accepted reality. He admitted his own lack.
"Yes. I acknowledge you more than I did."
"Weren't you already doing that?"
"...More. More. No — I fucking acknowledge you."
At the crude phrasing, Harad chuckled.
Before he knew it, Harad pulled himself upright. His knees trembled, then steadied.
"Starting to feel almost livable."
This, too, was magic if anything was. The Sun grants vitality — what that vitality meant had always been vague, but in this case it worked as recovery.
When Harad stood, Gulen lowered the hand he had kept on his sword. He had been standing guard this whole time.
"Earlier. You called me by name."
Gulen tilted his head, then gave a small start of recollection. It had been when Ios projected his Origin. In that moment, Gulen had been certain Harad would die.
"If it displeased you, I apologize. The situation was rather desperate."
"No. I mean it was fine. Call me by name from now on."
At that, Gulen looked ill at ease.
"You and I aren't familiar enough for that."
"It's because I can hardly stand it, that's all."
Gulen's you and Ellen's you were different — different by miles. You was no strange thing to call a man, but hearing it from Gulen made his skin crawl. He hadn't thought much of it at first, but once he had noticed, it began to grate on his ears.
"Or. Is it 'my dear', then?"
"Don't talk shit."
"If you won't use my name, then call me Lord Harad."
"I'd rather not, Harad."
At last, his ears felt clean.
Harad turned his head abruptly. From the direction opposite the garrison, someone was closing in at speed along the road that led to the territory.
Two of them.
At the sight of their faces, Gulen took his hand off his sword.
"The 1st Knight Commander and the 2nd Knight Commander."
Gulen used honorifics for the 2nd Commander alone.
"Be careful, now. Commander Cassion hates magicians."
Second Commander Cassion's loathing of magicians was famous. Meet a magician: kill first, ask after. The other knights were no different, but Cassion was uniquely severe. He killed the merely suspicious, too — like an inquisition.
"He doesn't look like a Northerner."
"He's an immigrant."
Cassion had lost his family to a magician and come to Serzila for revenge. A reasonable enough reason; say the word magician and everyone thought of the Outlands.
"Gulen!"
A shadow stretched long across the snow — and stopped right before their eyes.
It was Toremote, Commander of the 1st Knight Order. One of the Sword Masters who were Serzila's pride.
He looked Gulen's ruined body up and down — the face especially — then drew his axe on Harad.
"Magician. Was this your doing?"
The killing intent was monstrous. His skin prickled. The aura rippling above the axe moved as though it were alive.
That phenomenon was the very proof of a superhuman. A Sword Master's aura carries a trait all its own.
"The face, Gulen did to himself."
"Bullshit."
"I'll not deny the wounds to his body, but this is excessive."
Too much to be mere worry for a subordinate.
"Keep duty and private feeling apart, Commander."
Toremote's fury was rooted in a father's love. Gulen was Toremote's only son.
"That's right, Father."
"Gulen?"
When Gulen took his side, Toremote slung the body-length axe across his back. His eyes still bored into Harad, all the same — a gaze demanding explanation.
"What you reported as graffiti was magic. The 1st Knight Order guards the Great Wall, and I killed the magician who inscribed that magic. Here."
Harad gave him the summary, short and thick, as a knight would.
"Which means you'll be writing an incident report."
Toremote turned his gaze on Gulen. He plainly did not trust the magician's word — he had not been there for the duel.
"Incident report?"
For a moment he seemed about to deny reality outright. Toremote demanded the account from Gulen.
"Apparently the shadow of the Sun rose up, he says."
Gulen's explanation had no preamble. No eloquence either — at least, none that Harad could hear.
Toremote nodded along without pause.
Father and son, is it? Their eye level matches exactly.
Gulen's account was short and thick. Toremote swept his gaze over the surroundings and soon conceded; the scene itself stood as evidence.
"Astonishing."
Toremote accepted it faster than the 1st Knight Order would have. There was a sticky conviction to his gaze as well — partly because the witness was his own son, but the name of the 4th Tier carried weight too.
"Had it not been Gulen telling me, I'd never have believed it. A magician overcoming the tiers."
"I was lucky. Ah — and it wasn't the Sun. A fistful of flame, rather. The Origin is such a vague thing that Gulen must have misread it."
"I see."
Toremote was satisfied.
"Commander of the 1st. You believe that?"
Second Commander Cassion did not look convinced.
"Commander of the 2nd. Knight Gulen saw it with his own eyes."
Toremote believed Gulen's word like iron. Not merely because he was his son — the 1st Knight Order was bound tight.
"To a magician, the tiers are absolute."
"Didn't he say he was lucky?"
Cassion glared at Harad. In truth, he had been from the very first. Unlike Toremote, his killing intent had yet to relent — it still pressed against Harad even now.
"Bear with him, Magician Harad. This one's feelings toward magicians are rotten to the core. All the more exacting for it."
"I understand. Aren't most magicians rotten, though?"
"You've a Northerner's nerve about you too!"
Toremote pounded Harad's shoulder, looking thoroughly pleased. It felt as though his bones were ringing. His vision jolted up and down with each blow — and through the jolting, Cassion went on glaring.
"If you find the strength to spare, slip out past the Boundary for a look. I doubt the magician came alone."
Harad said it in passing. Conjecture — but the odds favored it. A 4th Tier was a rather valuable asset, and some magician would surely be stationed somewhere in the Boundary to confirm whether Ios had infiltrated safely.
"We'll look. A shame, but I can't go myself."
Toremote was one of the five superhumans Serzila boasted. But the Boundary was barred to him. It was the Emperor's stern command, handed down when Grand Duke Aratus was placed under the Imperial Sabbatical: the Sword Masters of the North were not to set foot beyond the territory.
"You may know this already, but a Sword Master must not enter the Boundary."
Toremote seemed to genuinely mourn the fact.
"No one ever sneaks out?"
"Not I."
This imperial decree was the single matter that could make even those simple Serzila knights contemplate the unthinkable — because if it were ever discovered, disgrace would fall upon Serzila itself. That sliver of possibility was what kept Serzila's Sword Masters careful.
There were exceptions, of course.
"Oi, Cassion."
Toremote needled him. He was larger even than Gulen, which made it look rather like bullying. Cassion looked every bit as put-upon as Harad.
"...Fine. I'll go."
"Much obliged."
"So the 2nd Commander isn't a Sword Master, then."
Harad asked, feigning ignorance.
"No. This one is the same as me."
"Then there is a way to go in secret, I see."
"Only this one can manage it. A gift of his innate aura, that's all."
Toremote pounded Cassion's shoulder as though to say he was in good hands. Cassion's whole frame rocked with each blow — and those rocking eyes stayed fixed on Harad.
Should I tag along?
Greed, that. Vitality or no, the body wanted rest.
Even in better condition, it would be greed.
Harad gave up the notion without regret.
"Then I'll leave it to you."
"You're not coming with?"
Gulen asked. He had simply assumed Harad would return to the garrison with them.
"I ought to go rest a while. The body's in poor shape."
The 1st Knight Order's acknowledgment would swell larger than it had today, and bind tighter too. It would happen all the same without Harad there to see it.
"If we find anything, I'll share it with you."
Toremote's voice drifted back from behind him.
A grand undertaking.
It must have meant the conquest of the continent. Or, more precisely, the cornerstone laid for that conquest.
They hadn't infiltrated Serzila alone.
The Outlands had seeped into the continent as well. Not the time to dwell on it — the North alone already filled his head to bursting. In truth, he knew little even of this much; having lived his life in Serzila, he knew next to nothing of the continent. The continent would have to be set aside.
The search. The prophecy.
Nothing came to mind for those either. Harad clicked his tongue.
This is a stifling business.
A frustration that would only loosen when more Outland magicians lay dead.
"Well, well."
Harad, stepping into one of the buildings, clicked his tongue. The walls were packed dense with leather and cloth, and dead center among it all lay a dead man. The tailor — the Ivory Tower magician Ios had given up.
The corpse was in fine condition. Freshly killed, by the look of it.
He died when Ios did. Cutting the tail loose, were we?
But how had they known Ios was dead? The only witness was Gulen — and Toremote and Cassion. But all three had made for the garrison, not the territory.
So they have a means of contact.
That means would sit with the magician waiting in the Boundary for Ios's infiltration. He would have reached out to this one — the magician who had been playing tailor. Whether it was the right answer he could not say, but of every picture rising in Harad's mind, this one seemed the most probable. Find the means, and the hypothesis would harden into fact.
But search as he might, no foreign object revealed itself anywhere in the building. Harad peered into the tailor's — no, the magician's — mouth, then opened his throat.
The thing he took for the foreign object came out when he split the belly. The stomach had shrunk into a tight little ball, and when he nicked it, something round slipped free: a crystal ball, one of the first images the word magician ever conjured.
"Ah."
The crystal ball was cracked. His fingertip barely grazed it before it split apart along the fissures — and in the process, a thin thread of mana burst free.
He had not loosened the frustration, but he had proven his hypothesis.
A harvest, if nothing else.
Magicians who infiltrated carried a means of contacting the Outlands. Effective range, presumably, as far as the 1st Boundary.
Do they all carry one, then — every infiltrated magician?
The magician's heart had gone cold. Given enough time, the mana drained away entirely, and the heart lost all meaning as food.
Harad built a fire, burned the corpse to ash, and left the building. His footsteps felt light and heavy at once.
"Tsk."
The gatekeeper clicked his tongue as he opened the gate for him.
Stepping into the Inner Castle, the first thing to surface in Harad's mind was Elaine. Or Ellen. The latter he might have sought out; the former was not someone he could bring himself to visit. He and Elaine, the Grand Duke's daughter, were still awkward with one another.
It will only grow more awkward.
The business with the 1st Knight Order would see to that. Harad was all but certain of it. The Elaine of this age would surely make it so.
Ellen, though... I couldn't say.
That far, Harad could not predict. Ellen. She was Elaine — and at the same time, someone Harad had never come to know in his past life. She resembled Elaine, and yet she didn't. She was freer, brimming with life.
He didn't much dislike that vitality. If anything, the thought that it would someday be gone felt like a shame.
In the end, she's the same person.
Comparing the two, Harad let out a hollow laugh. It was a comparison without the least meaning.
The doors of the Grand Duke's residence stood firmly shut. To Harad, that silence felt like leave granted.
Toremote went to the garrison, though.
Without so much as a report, Grand Duke Aratus seemed to have learned the whole of it. Another face of the Grand Duke he had never known in his past life, then.
No matter how I turn it over, this is not a man who dies without a sound.
The Grand Duke's residence blurred. His eyes were closing; his overdrawn body was pleading for sleep.
I'll need days of rest.
For a Projection, the aftereffects were mild — he had the Sun to thank for swallowing Ios whole. Harad made for the annex.
The annex was dark. In that hush, Harad felt a strange ease. The cheap bed was wonderfully soft.
Keeping company with cheerful knights came bundled with exhaustion. Come to think of it, it had been the same in his past life; more often than not he had mingled only because Elaine pressed him so hard.
The Ivory Tower...
The magician Ios had told him of — the man was working as a tailor...
The memory cut off.
When his eyes opened again, a head was resting at the head of his bed. Someone's severed head — though not a face he remembered.
Harad lay where he was, eyes open, and stared at it in silence.
"Lunatic."
Looking closer, it wasn't only the head.
"You've a strong stomach too, I see."
Elaine was looking down at him — down at Harad, staring at the severed head — with an expression of pure incredulity.
"Hmm. Did you have a nice dream?"
"..."