How a Wizard Survives (26)
How a Wizard Survives (26)
"Make way for Jaeger, the Demon Slayer!"
"Waaaaah!"
As soon as I shut the smithy door, my teacher and Ash's cheers rang out.
I trudged in, feeling a headache coming on.
I had a mountain of things to ask my teacher right away.
But now that we were finally reunited, I was the one who started running my mouth with excitement.
"Teacher, listen to this. So, in the Einhold family..."
The smiles of the two listeners soon turned uneasy.
As I was wondering why, Ash threw an unexpected curveball.
"Hmm... so what?"
"What do you mean, so what?"
"Isn't that Angelica girl a noble either way? It's only natural she'd marry a match chosen by her family. There's no problem at all for the head of Einhold."
Ash spoke as if she knew the nobility inside and out.
In fact, there had always been something aristocratic in her speech and bearing.
She was definitely from a prominent family.
As I clicked my tongue inwardly, Ulysses stepped in.
"Ash, Jaeger is sensitive about this issue. He nearly got sold off himself once."
"Ah. So that's how it is."
Ash nodded dismissively.
I sighed again.
"Even so, there has to be a line, doesn't there? Besides, I'm a commoner by birth... I never imagined the head of Einhold would be that sort of person."
And for a family head, had he not been utterly helpless against Chainfist?
As I was busy roasting him, Ulysses came to his defense.
"The head of Einhold is no pushover. As a mage, he is probably the weakest of all the family heads in history... but the current head has doubled Einhold's wealth and influence."
"...So he's a surprisingly capable operator, then?"
"Exactly."
"Where in the world have you been, Teacher? You don't have to tell me if you can't, but... you didn't show up at the Royal Palace because of me, did you?"
As I poured out the questions I'd been holding back, Ash started brewing tea.
Ulysses answered surprisingly readily.
"It's time you knew. Here, have a seat."
Scrape!
Afraid he might change his mind, I quickly pulled out a chair and sat down.
Ulysses chose his words, grinning as if he found something highly amusing.
"Well... I'll just tell you in order. So, your teacher here has been to the Einhold Ducal Territory."
"Ah, the Einhold Ducal Territory? Why on earth would you suddenly..."
I never imagined it would be a place I knew.
Ash looked surprised too. Ulysses pulled two small vials from his coat.
Inside the glass vials were a person's blood and hair, respectively.
I'd seen plenty of blood working as a Heretic Inquisitor, so it was unmistakable.
"This is why. The blood and hair of Martina Einhold, the two-year-old daughter of one of the Eight Swords of Einhold. The banquet in Reshutal had relaxed security, making it easy to acquire."
Now I understood even less.
Human blood and body parts are magically significant materials, but...
Why take samples from a two-year-old rather than from the family head or one of the Eight Swords?
My teacher drew up mana and reached out a hand to me.
"With this, I can use Kinship Test Magic. Here, let me have yours too."
"Kinship test?"
"Yes. If my guess is right, you are of Einhold blood."
Einhold? Me?
I let him take a little blood and plucked out a hair for him. The result came quickly.
The two blood samples clashed in midair, then mixed together without any real resistance.
Ulysses nodded as if he'd expected it, a reaction I couldn't quite understand.
"A match. You are cousins at the very least. You cannot possibly be the family head's son... which means you are the son of one of the Eight Swords of Einhold."
"H-how in the world does that work? Not that I'm doubting your magic, Teacher."
"It's because of your Gravity Magic."
It was Ash who answered my question.
She nodded as if things finally made sense.
"As Ulysses said, your Gravity Magic was far too refined."
"Right. Normally in these cases, there's a mage of that particular school among your ancestors. The ancestor's mana and magic get inherited through the blood. Especially for a family like Einhold, which has produced mages of a single school for generations, well..."
My thoughts were too tangled for me to calm down.
Before I knew it, I was challenging my teacher's conclusion.
"That doesn't make sense. If I'm from the Einhold family, what was I doing in a backwater village like that..."
"I still don't know that much, but it probably isn't unrelated to you being born an Awakened One."
He was right.
Once I started doubting everything, even the fact that I was an Awakened One seemed suspicious.
There was no doubt about my ability, but was it truly the product of chance?
"..."
"No need to be too shocked. I already had a rough idea."
"You did? Did Einhold approach me because of that..."
"It's not that. I looked through the records, and there was no mention of you. It means they either think you're already dead, or they have no idea you even exist."
As expected of my teacher, he had handled everything thoroughly.
Come to think of it, if I was a descendant of the Eight Swords as he said, then Angelica and I were first or second cousins...
I doubted the head of Einhold would have recommended marriage knowing that.
He could simply reveal that I was an Einhold descendant and take me into the family.
"Good heavens..."
"Anyway, that's the end of my travelogue. I was genuinely horrified when that bastard Chainfist popped out the moment I returned to Reshutal, you know?"
"Right. About that Chainfist... just how strong is he among demons?"
I had looked through the Inquisition branch's records, but my teacher would be more accurate.
He deliberated for a moment, then gave his assessment.
"In terms of his true body's raw combat power, he is above average at the least. Did the bastard not look every bit the brawler at first glance?"
"Ah-ha..."
A demon who had single-handedly turned the Royal Palace upside down was only considered mid-tier at best.
Still, I'm relieved it wasn't the low-tier the Inquisition branch had classified him as.
But just as that relief was washing over me, my teacher promptly added.
"Of course, in terms of faction power, he's unquestionably the weakest."
"Th-the weakest?"
"The bastard's a loner with nothing but strength. He had nothing to lose in the first place, which is why he charged in so boldly earlier."
And humanity was holding its own against such beings.
As I was marveling at that, Ulysses threw a question back at me this time.
The herbal tea Ash had personally brewed washed a little of the fatigue from inside my body.
"So, how close did Reinhardt get?"
"Ah... the Inquisition has already identified Ash's existence, though they would never imagine she is a Puppet Mage."
As I roughly explained Reinhardt's intelligence-gathering capabilities, Ash trembled slightly.
But Ulysses just shrugged, as if he'd expected it.
"That much is no problem. As long as information about the puppets doesn't leak."
What in the world was my teacher planning to do with the puppets?
As I couldn't bring myself to dig any deeper, he exchanged a glance with Ash.
"But I think it's time you learned about your great teacher's evil scheme as well."
"Are you sure it is all right?"
"Yes. Before that, one thing... how did the king decide to respond to this incident?"
"Ah, about that..."
As I searched for a diplomatic way to describe the king's unreliability, Ulysses beat me to it.
"It's obvious without even looking. Reinhardt argued for war, but they dodged it with one excuse or another, right?"
"You know well."
"Because they're always like that. The demons' power grows stronger by the day, yet they always stand back with their hands behind their backs and just watch."
Unusual disgust filled my teacher's voice as he looked straight at me.
"Jaeger. I'm only human too, so I'll die someday. But I can't defeat the Transformation Demon alone."
That's right.
The Transformation Demon is unquestionably among the top-tier of demons.
And if Ulysses dies and the demons take his soul, humanity will be in mortal peril.
"Cold Sleep and such are just a stopgap. It's just putting a lid on a corpse to keep its stench from rising. If the demons set their minds on it and attack the Winter Fortress, they'll be able to collect every soul stored there. Then, spring will have come for the demons."
So the Cold Sleep facility was called Winter Fortress?
I was momentarily at a loss for words before Ulysses's plan was finally revealed.
"Ending the war with the demons is my duty. Otherwise, humanity might perish after I'm dead."
"Ha-ha..."
Having witnessed Ulysses's skills firsthand, this didn't sound like a simple joke.
Without a doubt, he was the strongest mage of this era.
His soul passing over to the demons would be a disaster in and of itself.
"Then how?"
"Since I can't do it alone, I'll need help from others. In truth, if all of humanity devoted itself to the war against the demons, it wouldn't be a hopeless fight."
Was humanity really stronger than I had thought?
But could all of humanity really move as one?
Didn't the King of Reshutal himself have absolutely no intention of going to war?
And that's not all.
If war broke out, the demons would target humanity's leaders.
If those bastards go around assassinating the royalty and nobility, the hard-won allied forces could collapse.
Could he have read my thoughts?
Ulysses glanced silently at Ash.
Ash, who had been waiting for her cue, gave a small clap.
Clap!
"This is where Ash's puppets come in."
The puppets that soon walked out from the basement looked oddly familiar.
I flinched in surprise when I saw a puppet that perfectly reproduced the face of the King of Reshutal I'd seen earlier in the day.
And that wasn't all.
Puppets of the queen, the princess, the king's close aides, and even his servants came filing out to form a line.
By this point, I had a rough idea.
"Th-this is..."
"We replace the King of Reshutal and his close aides with puppets. Once Reshutal, the core of humanity, starts moving, everything else will follow. Even if the puppets are assassinated during the war, it will not matter. The real leadership will be me and Ash."
Good heavens.
Ulysses's plan was several times bolder than I had imagined.
His earlier act of posing as a noble and observing them must have all been for this scheme.
He had been collecting information on the key nobles of Reshutal and handing it over to Ash, the puppet-maker!
"Now I understand. That's what you meant when you said Reshutal must not fall yet..."
"It would be a headache if the king died after we painstakingly made the puppets to replace him. And I had to save my adorable disciple too."
Having finally learned of the plan, I shuddered all over.
It was no wonder Ulysses was so confident.
Even Reinhardt would never be able to imagine something like this.
My teacher straightened formally and asked me.
"Well? What do you think?"
"If the demons are annihilated... mages will no longer appear, correct? There would be no need to keep being persecuted either."
"Right. The tragedy of countless people being used like expendable supplies on the Front Lines will also end. Jaeger. Will you cooperate with your teacher's plan?"
"...Sure, let's give it a shot."
I firmly clasped his outstretched hand.
Incompetent nobles with no backbone could just be locked away somewhere and that would be the end of it.
Besides, according to Ulysses's plan, we would still have to go to war with the demons eventually.
So he would probably try to make the best possible use of capable people like Reinhardt and Katrina.
'If things go well, I wouldn't even have to be at odds with them!'
I liked every part of this.
A mage's true enemies were not Inquisitors, but demons.
I keenly felt my teacher's lesson once more and willingly became an accomplice.
Pleasant laughter echoed through the smithy at dawn.
