Chapter 15
Chapter 15
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 15
Chapter Title: An Opportunity in the Slums
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That dawn.
Dale went out to the castle courtyard alone and circulated the mana from his heart.
“Rise, wall of ice.”
He created an Ice Wall as a test, then took a few steps back and aimed his finger.
“Ice Bullet, ‘12-gauge 00 buckshot’.”
As he chanted, the ice bullet formed at Dale's fingertip—
Bang!
A large chunk of ice acting as a shotshell shattered into fragments, scattering eight ice pellets in a spray of buckshot.
“Ice Bullet, ‘Barrett M82,’ ‘.416 Barrett (10.6x83mm)’.”
Bang!
Next was a large-caliber, anti-materiel sniper round.
Needless to say, there was more than one type of bullet. Depending on the purpose—suppression, lethal, or non-lethal—and the situation, there were countless variations.
.22 Long Rifle to 12.7x99mm NATO (.50 BMG).
For use against birds, humans, or beasts; from anti-materiel rounds for light armor to anti-tank, and even specialized anti-monster rounds.
Therefore, the gun and the bullet had to change according to the objective.
He didn't need to be an engineer or a scientist. Simply recalling the scenery of that world was enough.
Afterward, Dale continued to add various formulas, testing his abilities with the Ice Wall as his target.
A 2nd-Circle mage. But with the addition of just one circle, the 'world of Dale' that he could project into this one had expanded severalfold.
As an artist, Dale had already reached a state bordering on perfection. All that remained was to expand the range of tools at his disposal.
To superimpose the canvas of the hellish battlefield he had experienced, without a single alteration, upon the heart of this nation, this empire.
It was then.
“Dale?”
A voice called to him from a distance. He turned his head to see Charlotte.
A rapier was in her hand.
Her breathing was ragged, her cheeks flushed. Sweat poured down her body like rain. It seemed she had been engrossed in her sword training alone, even at this hour when everyone else was asleep.
“So you were practicing your magic here.”
“Yes.”
Dale nodded and waved his hand, dispelling the towering Ice Wall.
“And you were training with your sword, Lady Charlotte?”
“That's right.”
Charlotte nodded, sheathing her rapier.
“I was practicing the footwork Lord Helmut taught me.”
Since that day, Charlotte's swordsmanship, under Lord Helmut's tutelage, had been improving by the day. It wouldn't be long before Dale would lose to her in a pure sword fight.
“Is learning the sword enjoyable?”
“Ah, yes.”
Charlotte nodded at Dale's question.
“Um, well, you see...”
After nodding, Charlotte hesitated as if she'd just realized something. After a moment, she stammered out her words.
“...I'm sorry for acting so willfully.”
Just like a child confessing their wrongdoing.
“I... in front of you, Lord Dale... I acted rudely, without proper etiquette...”
“It was more than just a little rude.”
Charlotte lowered her head, not knowing what to do. Dale suppressed a laugh as he spoke.
“Alright, I'll make a special exception and forgive you.”
“R-really...?”
“And it's incredibly awkward, so you don't have to be so formal.”
As he said that, Dale burst into laughter. It was a very easygoing laugh, and it finally made Charlotte's face turn bright red.
The predawn moonlight was faint.
“...I really like the weather here.”
Charlotte spoke while looking at the moon. Surprised by the unexpected words, Dale tilted his head.
“This cold?”
The cold of the Duchy of Sachsen's frozen lands was so infamous that people from the Empire shuddered at the thought of it.
“Even if you swing your sword late into the night, it cools down your heated body right away.”
But thanks to it, cooling the sweat that poured like rain was no trouble at all. It was the one advantage of the cold here.
“I didn't think there was anyone else who thought that way.”
Dale, who had also secretly thought it wasn't so bad, was a little pleased.
He felt as though the wall between them had lowered, just a little.
***
Around that time.
Unlike Dale, who thought everyone was asleep, Lord Black was looking out the window from his bedroom in the castle.
He watched his son, who was alone in the courtyard, raising an Ice Wall and projecting his magic at it.
From Dale's fingertips, Ice Bolts of all shapes and sizes shot out without reservation.
When he first heard from Sephia that his son had a 'talent for taking life,' he had dismissed it as the typical elven exaggeration.
He was wrong.
—He recalled the deep darkness accumulated by the ancestors of the Black Magic Tower.
The unforgivable sins committed under the banner of pursuing truth. The fear most people held for black mages was by no means baseless.
The deep-rooted darkness of a bygone era.
The reality was that even the current Lord Black owed a great debt to that same darkness. And he imagined the abyss that would be painted by Dale's fingertips when that darkness combined with his son's 'talent.'
A scene that even the great Master of the Black Magic Tower could not easily imagine.
It was then.
“My dear, what are you looking at so intently?”
Elena, having returned from her shower, approached her husband, dressed in a nightgown damp with water.
It was around that time that Charlotte, finished with her sword practice, appeared before Dale.
“Oh, my!”
Seeing the scene, Elena burst into surprised laughter.
In the deep hours of the morning. A boy and a girl, out in the castle courtyard.
“My, my. Our son is already at that age.”
To Elena, who was unaware of the context, it could only mean one thing.
Duke Sachsen didn't bother to correct her misunderstanding, remaining silent.
“Dale asked you to take in the Orharhart girl, didn't he?”
Elena chuckled with amusement.
“I wonder if it was love at first sight.”
“Do they look like a good match?”
Duke Sachsen asked in return. Truly without much thought.
“Well, I don't know. It's just...”
Elena shrugged, her words trailing off.
“It's a mother's duty to guide her son so he can be honest with his feelings.”
After speaking, she reached out her fingers toward the nape of Duke Sachsen's neck.
“And it's also a wife's duty to wish for her husband's happiness.”
Understanding her meaning, Duke Sachsen turned and kissed her. After the kiss, he spoke, forcing himself past his embarrassment.
“I'll always love you, Elena.”
“Hehe, you.”
Just as Elena wished for the happiness of her beloved family, it was time for Duke Sachsen to fulfill his 'husbandly duties.'
***
Elena's decision, after witnessing her son's "tryst" with Charlotte, set off a butterfly effect no one could have predicted.
***
Sometime later, on the outskirts of the city of Sachsen. In the city's slums, where vagrants and beggars, filth and animal entrails lay scattered about.
However, thanks to the urban relief project that had started a while ago, the area was regaining a considerable amount of vitality.
Under the name of Duke Sachsen's wife, Elena.
Leading the duchy's supply convoy into the streets, she distributed necessities to the hungry and destitute.
Every week, she personally visited the slums, handing out food to children and providing blankets to the poorly clothed. Furthermore, she arranged for guild representatives to negotiate with the street vagrants to help them find work.
—And on that day, Elena was not the only one from the ducal family to visit the slums.
This went without saying for the handmaidens assisting Elena and the ducal family's escort knights.
“Dale, please escort Lady Charlotte well.”
Saying that it was a nobleman's duty to be considerate of a lady, she had ordered Dale to personally look after her handmaiden, Charlotte.
“Yes, Mother.”
Using her own work as an excuse, she had paired them up, hoping they would spend time together.
“Thank you as always, my lady!”
“My lady, I'm so glad to see you looking as healthy as ever!”
“I hope your journey here wasn't too difficult!”
“Thanks to Lady Elena, we were able to spend the winter warmly!”
Moreover, the people of the slums looked at Elena as if they were witnessing the grace of the Holy Mother.
'So this is Mother's work.'
Dale also stepped forward to follow his mother's example.
“Oh, my, L-Lord!”
He took the hands of the starving vagrants in his own, pondering ways for them to get back on their feet.
Charlotte, too, extended a warm hand with a gentle smile.
“Oh, my, how could a noble lady like you... to someone like me...”
“Please don't say that.”
Just as the two of them began to drift away from Elena's line of sight, a bawling child came running toward them.
A child who looked to be no more than four or five years old.
“What's wrong?”
“Don't cry, tell me what happened,” Charlotte said, stroking the child's head.
“Help me, miss! My mommy, my mommy...”
The child said, urgently pulling on Charlotte's clothes, leading her toward the back of the slums, to the end of a more secluded, hidden street.
“Oh, what should I do.”
Charlotte gasped in alarm.
“First, let's call the people over there and go together...”
“There's no time for that! Please, hurry up and come see my mommy!”
The child's cries, urging Charlotte on, echoed loudly.
“...”
But unlike the bewildered Charlotte, Dale's mind was perfectly calm.
'Suspicious.'
A place beyond the sight of the escort knights attending to the ducal family. Imagining the end of that secluded street, Dale narrowed his eyes for a moment.
The very moment he was pondering the source of this unknown sense of unease.
“...!”
An ominous possibility flashed through Dale's mind.
And after he noticed the hidden gaze watching him from a distance, that possibility turned into certainty.
'A high-ranking member of the Thieves' Guild.'
Though dulled compared to his past life, the battlefield senses he had honed over a lifetime did not disappear so easily.
'They must be after the Divine Sword's daughter, hired by the Holy Sword Master.'
And so, Dale smiled quietly.
'A good opportunity to test my abilities, for a change.'
This wasn't a mock battle where knights crossed swords in fair combat. Nor was it a fight against green-blooded monsters like orcs.
A chance to unleash 100% of his power without worrying about prying eyes... all under the guise of self-defense.
A venue to hone his true talent for killing living people.
This wasn't about winning or losing.
'How completely can I dominate them?'
He was simply curious. About the few spells he had refined and modified for practical combat since reaching the 2nd Circle. And also, the new technique expanded into the 'second form' of his Shadow Cloak, which he hadn't told anyone about.
Taking the ducal knights along would be one option.
But if a defenseless boy and girl, led by a child's innocence, went without a single knight, the enemy would surely take his bait.
Never once doubting that they were the spider spinning the web.
“Let's go, Charlotte.”
Dale took the hesitant Charlotte's hand and pulled her along.
***
'They took the bait!'
The fact that members of the ducal family had started appearing in the slums thanks to Elena's relief project could only be called a stroke of heavenly luck.
Jade, a high-ranking member of the Thieves' Guild 'Kaleidoscope,' spun a hidden blade and switched to a reverse grip.
“Don't you dare lay a single scratch on the eldest son of House Sachsen.”
Their target was not Dale, but merely a handmaiden of House Sachsen.
He was well aware of how dangerous it was to lay a hand on someone from a ducal family, especially House Sachsen. Nevertheless, when faced with a fortune in gold, human reason doesn't always make the most rational decision.
“Subdue the little wench and get out of the duchy, fast.”
He waited for the prey, lured by the bait, to approach the mire of the slums.
Never for a moment doubting that he was the spider spinning the web.