9. No Man Is an Island
9. No Man Is an Island
In the end, I didn't use the oblivion magic. I decided to let the dreams be for now.
Instead.
'Adam Caines.'
I was going to learn about the Finance Director.
If it were my master the Archmage appearing in my dreams, or those bastards from the Magic Tower, or even Beatrice—I could accept that. I'd write it off as a curse from someone who hated Chloe, or nothing more than my own inferiority complex bleeding into my sleep. I'd have cast the oblivion magic without a second thought.
So why, of all people, was it the Finance Director Adam Caines, a man I'd met exactly once? A meeting that, if I'm being honest, wasn't even particularly friendly.
And why, in that dream, was I gazing at him so painfully? What in the world did those words I overheard—like a monologue—actually mean?
It gnawed at Chloe.
'I need to know more about him.'
What, was the Finance Director nursing a secret crush on me and somehow planted himself in my dreams? Even I thought that was absurd, but I had to keep every possibility open.
At any rate, I wasn't going to understand why he kept appearing unless I learned more about the man himself.
So Chloe tapped her network and investigated the Finance Director.
<Adam Caines, Finance Director of Grandis Academy. Presumed orphan.>
<Lived alone in a remote cabin in the Langria Mountains before suddenly appearing in a nearby city.>
<Worked all manner of manual labor in the city to earn tuition, then enrolled in Grandis Academy's Administration Department.>
<Maintained excellent grades for three years; graduated with the highest marks for a 1st Rank in twenty-four years, finishing as salutatorian.>
<Hired by Grandis Academy immediately upon graduation. One month later, caught the Chairwoman's eye and was promoted to Finance Director. Currently serving.>
<Note: the cabin he is said to have lived in was quite far from the village and was considered abandoned. It is presumed that Adam Caines, an orphan, happened upon it and lived there in secret.>
<Possesses no talent whatsoever for magic or martial arts.>
<Carries a surname, but no record of a family named 'Caines' has been confirmed; highly likely to be fallen nobility or to have assumed the surname himself.>
<Recipient of such conspicuous favor from the Chairwoman that a rumor has circulated among the faculty that he is her secret lover.>
......That was all there was.
None of this was what Chloe wanted to know. A past connected to her. Some magical talent capable of cursing her. A connection to someone who might have laid a recurring curse on her—
That was the kind of information I needed, but everything I'd dug up was just miscellaneous personal trivia. There was no way this could explain why the Finance Director kept appearing in Chloe's dreams.
So Chloe resolved to use her last resort.
"Lovely weather we're having, Finance Director!"
"......The sky is thick with dark clouds."
"Ah. I-is it? I just meant, you know—!"
Namely: approaching the Finance Director in person and finding out directly.
I'd been tailing him on and off to learn his daily patterns. I needed the most natural possible timing—not just a simple greeting, but a moment where I could draw a little closer.
The opening I'd settled on had come just minutes ago: the Finance Director walking down a path, visibly preoccupied with some worry.
The habit was exactly like Chloe's own, so I was certain. Of course, whether a faculty member like the Finance Director would actually ask a mere student like Chloe for help was still an open question.
Fortunately, he was the one who suggested I assist him, which let me accompany him naturally enough—or so I hoped.
Except.
"Student Chloe, you may relax."
"I-I am relaxed? You saw me during the duel—of course I'm comfortable!"
"......Are you? You keep averting your eyes."
"You're imagining things!"
I simply could not meet his face.
Every time I properly faced the Finance Director, that dream came rushing back.
The voice I'd heard in the dream—my own voice—echoed in my mind.
──So that dead woman matters more to you than me, standing right here......?
'Ngh.'
It was stirring up strange feelings for no good reason.
Chloe wasn't a fool. She knew this sensation was something beyond simple goodwill—something closer to love.
But these weren't Chloe's own feelings.
'This is like the Magic Tower.'
Under the banner of selecting talent through competition, the Empire's Magic Tower was rife with backstabbing and scheming of every kind.
Hiring thugs to break a rival's limbs. Fabricating rumors about a family tragedy. Manipulating competitors with mental magic.
That was why Chloe had reacted so sharply to the dreams. She'd been through counterfeit emotions like this too many times already. Worse—because she was beautiful, some of them hadn't even been trying to eliminate a rival. They'd been driven by vulgar, petty desire.
Naturally, Chloe had beaten every last one of them and won the competition to become the Archmage's disciple. Every single bastard who'd stared at her with lecherous eyes, she'd sent packing with a permanent injury where it counted.
So she'd assumed this would be more of the same. A scheme to make her believe she'd fallen in love, so someone could use her.
It was just—why the Finance Director, of all people? And why, unlike the incidents at the Magic Tower, was the impulse this overwhelmingly intense?
That was what I needed to understand. Nothing more.
"S-so what are we doing now?"
"First, let me be clear: I'm not asking anything unreasonable of you, Student Chloe. However high your 5th Rank may be, you are still a student. This is simply something I find difficult to handle myself."
"Something you find difficult, Finance Director?"
"I am 1st Rank, after all. I require a capable mage."
A capable mage.
It was probably just empty flattery. So why did my heart flutter at the words?
'Damned fake feelings.'
I'll find out what kind of person the Finance Director is, then erase it all with oblivion magic. Even if he turned out to be the mastermind—if this were all a trap, if he harbored ill intent—Chloe had long since prepared for every contingency.
Not only was I cycling my mana to cast magic at any moment, I'd brought an escape scroll infused with my master's mana. Even if there were a mage powerful enough to curse me lurking behind the scenes, I'd be fine.
Objectively speaking, there were only two mages on this continent greater than the Archmage, and both were 8th Ranks of the Empire. There was no way some mere academy Finance Director could be connected to people like that.
That level of preparation was exactly why I could even choose to approach the Finance Director directly in the first place.
Chloe struggled to keep her gaze from drifting toward him as she waited for him to speak.
"There is a place I need to enter for work."
"A place you need to enter......?"
"Yes. I'd like you to go there in my stead. The work there is already finished, so there's no danger."
"What do I need to do?"
"Confirm what I tell you, and record it. I did receive a report, but for procedural reasons I need to verify it with my own eyes. I'm not well-versed in magic, so I require your assistance, Student Chloe."
"Magic? What kind of magic requires that?"
The Finance Director hesitated for a moment.
Then he continued, in a voice that sounded like he barely believed it himself.
"......Summoning magic."
"What?"
"The kind the Empire and the Kingdom have forbidden."
*
Summoning magic.
Exactly as the name implied: magic that summoned something. From retrieving a small item left at home, to calling forth spirits or even monsters at the higher end.
And that was precisely why both the Empire and the Kingdom had banned it. Because you could call forth a monster.
'It hasn't happened yet.'
As she polished her worn sword the way she always did, Rus sifted through her memories of the previous cycle.
An incident from back when she'd been a perpetual dead-last, still a freshman.
Several professors gathered in one place, attempted a summoning ritual, failed, and wound up calling a 5th Rank monster instead.
The memory had faded a little after witnessing the Chairwoman shatter an illusory Manticore at the entrance ceremony and a Kraken during the uninhabited-island midterm with a single blow each...... Still, a 5th Rank monster was, in essence, a calamity.
The kind of thing that could singlehandedly obliterate a small village, or reduce a city without stout walls to a wasteland.
To kill one safely, you'd need at least three 5th Rank knights or mages working together. That was why the Empire had never even dared contemplate subjugating the 8th Rank monsters of the Western Wasteland. Why they'd given up on the region despite knowing it held magic stones and every other kind of precious resource.
'Because even if every 8th Rank in the Empire went in together, the odds would be even at best.'
They called them Ranks as a matter of convenience, but a monster's Rank did not equal a human's. After the Mountain King—one of the 8th Rank monsters—had singlehandedly driven the Holy Kingdom, the hegemonic power before the Empire, to the brink of annihilation, the Empire, now the new hegemon, had wisely given up on the Western Wasteland.
And having witnessed the example of the Holy Kingdom—once a hegemon, now barely clinging to life at the edge of the continent—the Empire and the Kingdom had promptly banned summoning magic.
Monsters were the enemies of humanity—of every living being on the continent. And summoning magic was exactly what could unleash such enemies in the middle of a city.
'It had a long history of incidents even back then.'
You could argue that by that logic, other destructive magics ought to be banned as well, but summoning magic had an extensive track record. Terrorist groups favored it above all else, and it had been involved in the rise and fall of nations, in massacres, far too often.
It hadn't even been banned yet during the Holy Kingdom's era—so really, the ban was simply whichever hegemon imposing its mood. Summoning magic probably wouldn't be legalized again until the Empire itself collapsed.
Digression aside.
That was why a summoning ritual that actually called forth a 5th Rank monster could have been an enormous problem—but thanks to Kirke, who happened to be passing by, the monster was killed and the matter was muddled through, with the Kingdom carting the professors off to confinement.
It had been a big enough incident that even Rus, singularly focused on training at the time, knew about it. It was also the event that gave Kirke—already popular as a young genius professor—even greater renown and standing.
She'd been speculating that for some unknown reason the future had shifted and that event had been erased from existence, but—
'Over there, then.'
Rus's ki-sense, now elevated to the 6th Rank, was amplified even further through her blade. Her heightened perception exceeded even that of a 7th Rank.
It helped that this old sword was no ordinary blade.
Thinking back on all the misery it had once put her through, she'd love nothing more than to snap it in half right now—but for the time being she was relying on its aid, so she couldn't.
"Let's go."
Ssk.
Rus drew a light cut on her hand and let the blood seep into the blade. Its form began to change at once.
The grip, the crossguard, even the blade—all dyed black. The shabby old sword transformed into a demon sword whose mere appearance radiated an ominous, malevolent air.
The Dark Sword.
Gripping the blade once called by that name, Rus donned the mask and hood she had prepared in advance.
'I'll settle this before the incident breaks out.'
Maybe it was because, with this Dark Sword, she'd cut down the summoning magic those zealots used so many times. Holding the blade like this gave her a vague sense of when and where summoning magic was being constructed.
Over the past few days of observation, the professors had been constructing it only briefly during this time window, then leaving immediately. Knowing it was forbidden magic, they seemed to be proceeding slowly and carefully.
Moving at night would've been ideal, but she meant to reach the summoning circle before the professors arrived and ambush the scene—which left her no choice.
Without waiting further, she hurled herself out the window. Hood and mask on, her entire body wrapped in a black robe—she looked unmistakably suspicious to any observer.
"Looks like rain soon?"
"Let's hurry inside."
"............."
The students on the street failed entirely to notice Rus passing right beside them.
The thick, dark clouds suffusing the air with gloom made it possible. In this much darkness, she could use the Dark Sword's power to conceal her presence.
'Still, the future hasn't changed completely.'
The timing was different from what Rus remembered, but the summoning-ritual commotion was happening after all. Or more precisely, was about to happen.
Rus nodded to herself. Familiar events unfolding as expected brought a measure of relief—proof that the future hadn't veered entirely into the unknown.
'The forest...... is even darker. Good.'
The artificial forest within the Magic Department grounds. A considerably large expanse where all manner of medicinal and magical herbs grew.
Because it was artificially cultivated, the ambient mana swirling through it was rough enough that 1st and 2nd Ranks couldn't even enter.
A guard force was posted there, naturally, to prevent theft of the magical herbs—but even the guards rarely included anyone above the 6th Rank. She could slip in without difficulty.
Somewhere in this forest lay the abandoned basement that was Rus's destination.
'They said the summoning commotion happened in the Magic Department's forest in the previous cycle, too.'
The location matched exactly—no room for doubt. This was the same future Rus remembered.
In the original course of events, Kirke would 'happen' to be passing by at just the right moment, kill the monster, protect the students, and emerge a hero. There was absolutely no way Kirke just coincidentally wandered past that spot. The summoning itself had clearly been Kirke's scheme from the start.
So all I needed to do now was end the incident before Kirke had a chance to play the hero.
Rus had reached that conclusion, and was stepping into the dark forest to alter the future—
Crunch.
"......!!"
—when the sound of footsteps from nearby made her hastily veil herself with the Dark Sword's power.
Her alarm wasn't from the sudden footsteps themselves. As on the street just now, anyone below 6th Rank wouldn't notice her anyway.
It was because—
The voice accompanying the footsteps belonged to someone she knew well.
"Where the hell is it?"
'......Chloe Pisti?'
Why was she here?
The Magic Department's forest was off-limits to students without prior authorization. Had she simply happened to get permission for today?
Rus was still trying to make sense of the unexpected figure when—
"Ah, here it is."
Chloe soon located the basement door hidden among the undergrowth.
Creeeak.
She entered without hesitation, reemerged a brief moment later, and pulled the door shut behind her.
Rus stood frozen, staring blankly as Chloe made her way out of the forest.
Then she followed and opened the basement door herself.
"......As expected. It's a summoning circle, all right."
Inside the neglected basement, just as she'd anticipated, lay an enormous magic circle. But aside from the circle itself, the room was empty—and curiously, the circle held absolutely no remaining trace of mana.
The emptiness beyond the circle was suspicious, but she had confirmed the basement's condition. She'd seen summoning circles countless times; even Rus, lacking in magical talent, had no trouble identifying it.
The only thing that stood out was that they'd used cheap substitutes instead of proper magic stones to draw the circle. Not as if the professors lacked funds—so why resort to such low-quality materials?
At any rate: portions had been erased here and there, but it was unmistakably a summoning circle.
'Which means Chloe must have seen it too.'
Did she not recognize it as summoning magic? It was impossible to know for certain, but it was hard to imagine that a 5th Rank mage—the Archmage's own disciple—would fail to identify it.
More than anything, she wouldn't have sought out and entered this hidden basement without a reason. She'd clearly come here with some purpose in mind.
Why had Chloe looked at a summoning circle and walked out as if it were nothing?
'Don't tell me.'
She already knew about it? Even that it was being constructed in this very basement?
From whom in the world could she have heard?
......The answer was obvious.
'Kirke.'
Chloe Pisti, connected to Kirke?
The thought struck her in an instant, and Rus's eyes wavered.
'But after the academy collapsed, Chloe followed Adam......?'
If Chloe had been Kirke's associate or pawn, shouldn't she have followed Kirke to the Holy Kingdom instead?
What were the other possibilities?
'Did she betray Kirke? Or was she watching Adam? If not that—did she cooperate with Kirke only temporarily, just for this summoning magic?'
Her thoughts spiraled, possibilities multiplying—but at least one thing was certain.
Right now, Chloe was linked to Kirke. There was no other way to explain how she'd found this basement, or why she'd seen the summoning circle and left without any visible agitation.
The only ones who should know about the circle were the professors collaborating with Kirke. In the previous cycle, the academy had failed to notice the ritual until the Chairwoman had been forced to issue a public apology. No one else could possibly know.
Inside the dark basement, Rus's thoughts only deepened.
'......The professors will arrive soon.'
Ambush them as originally planned and stop the summoning ritual? Or follow Chloe instead?
The dilemma was brief.
Tap!
Pulling her mask and hood down even more firmly, Rus concealed herself in the darkness. Moments later, she had caught up to Chloe, who was making her way out of the forest at a steady pace.
"What the—!? Who are you!"
".........."
A bizarre mask. A sinister, ominous blade. An unknown figure.
Understandably, Chloe—who had no way of recognizing Rus in disguise—shouted at the figure who had suddenly materialized from the gloom.
Sshng!
Rus leveled the Dark Sword at her.
[Answer only the questions you are asked.]
"What the hell kind of nonsense is this—"
The mask artifact warped Rus's voice into something grotesque. There was no chance Chloe would recognize who stood before her.
She shed the identity of the power-restrained 6th Rank new student and became an unknown entity wielding its full strength. She suspected she would be using this identity often, to handle one matter or another in the days to come.
With the tip of the blade aimed at Chloe, Rus steeled herself.
If—and it was truly only an if. A thought she could barely bring herself to believe.
'After the academy fell.'
What if Chloe hadn't followed Adam after his corruption?
──What if Adam had been corrupted because of Chloe?
If Chloe, connected to Kirke in some way, had corrupted Adam for some unknown purpose?
'Kirke only used men as test subjects. And Adam is a man.'
It was absurd. A wild leap. Pure imagination.
Why would they bother using Chloe when they could simply kidnap Adam? Did a mere 1st Rank like Adam even hold that much value? Hadn't the Adam and Chloe she'd encountered in the border kingdom clearly been in a relationship where Adam took the lead? Weren't half the people in the world men—wasn't that a bit broad to pin on him just for being male?
A flood of counterarguments rose, and yet Rus could not stop the what-if.
Because in the end, to Rus, Adam was a benefactor who remained a good memory—a good man. She'd witnessed his corruption firsthand and still couldn't accept it, so this was almost a defense mechanism: an attempt to shift the blame onto someone else.
The Chloe who had once burned nations and cities, who had massacred, was beginning to overlap with the Chloe who was still just a student. Even now, Rus could hear the screams. She could still see the bodies burning to death before her eyes.
Inside the mask, a thread of hostility coiled through Rus's gaze.
[You saw what was in the basement.]
"......You—don't tell me—?"
[Tell me everything honestly.]
Through layer after layer of what-ifs——if it truly was Chloe who had corrupted Adam. If she could find the evidence, the proof, and be certain.
Then Rus would not hesitate.
......After all, once already.
With this very sword, she had cut Chloe's throat.
She'd killed people. Countless times already.
[How did you know about the summoning magic?]
The Dark Sword gleamed with a baleful light.