The Sleeping Dragon of the Forest (1)
Nia Lion arrived at Delin's Lake.
As always, the emerald lake glittered and shimmered, beautiful as ever.
"...He's not here."
But Nia did not wear her usual bright smile. The person who always seemed like he should be here wasn't.
"I wonder if he'll ever come back."
She shook her head, letting the gloomy thought slip out.
She had come to harvest Adrane's Flowers. It was late in the dead of night, but the research needed them urgently.
The moment she crouched down to pick one, she froze.
The flowers were far fewer than before, and her pupils trembled at the sight.
— You can only harvest three a day. No more than that.
...It was as if someone's voice were echoing in her ears.
"With no one keeping watch... everyone just took as much as they wanted. At this rate, they'll be gone before long."
Nia gave a bitter smile and gave up on harvesting altogether.
She stared down at the faint protective barrier that wrapped around her body—the protective magic Luid had cast for her back when she was struggling.
Thanks to it, she had been able to harvest rare materials without being affected by the enormous mana dwelling within Delin's Lake.
"I never even got to say thank you."
Nia let her small body slump.
"Maybe I should ask Hershey. Ask her to let me see him."
Then she remembered—Hershey got asked that question dozens of times a day.
Better to give up, really.
"If it's meant to be, we'll meet someday!"
Instead, she cheered herself on with a little fist pump and started toward another spot. A chicken in place of a pheasant, as they say—she thought she'd gather some other magic ingredients instead.
Grrrowl—.
She turned toward a sound—a howl so sinister it crawled down her spine.
Fear flooded Nia's eyes.
A vicious-looking black hound with three heads was staring straight at her.
'Robin Hood's Steakhouse,' in the heart of the Imperial Capital.
After training wrapped up, the knights held their customary dinner here.
"Try this one too, Luid."
Luid sat at the head of the table, lavishly doted upon. The lady knights fussed over him with unbridled enthusiasm.
"I told you all to leave me alone."
Clang.
Amelia blocked Irina's fork with her own.
"Oh, come on. Don't be so stingy."
"And since when were you two close enough for that? As far as I know, you've never even met my brother before."
"But we're going to be family in the future, aren't we?"
"Says who—?!"
Luid was using the bickering as a side dish, quietly cutting his steak. He sliced off a bite-sized piece, speared it with his fork, and put it in his mouth.
Tastes awful.
He'd salted it in advance, which made it somewhat palatable, but it still couldn't hold a candle to that inn from before.
"Luid. It's about time we headed home."
Amelia said it while dabbing the corner of his mouth with a handkerchief.
It was already five in the morning.
Far too late an hour for a twelve-year-old to be wandering the streets. More than that, she could feel these beasts eyeing Luid, and it irritated her to no end.
"What about you, Amelia?"
"...I have to go investigate the scene."
He'll say he doesn't want to again.
— Isn't it boring?
— It's fun.
Knights' training was nothing special. Just the same motions repeated countless times. She'd assumed he'd last a few hours and then want to leave, but Luid had actually said it was fun.
She'd figured he'd refuse to go home.
But now she had a case to handle. She had never once beaten Luid in an argument, yet Amelia had a hundred rebuttals prepared in advance.
"He could just come along, you know."
That was when Irina cut in with a beaming smile, leaning her chest onto the table. Amelia bristled and shielded Irina's chest with her arm. Bad for the children's sensibilities.
"We've all been exhausted, but with Luid around, everyone perks right up. All we've seen lately are these dreary lugs—consider it eye candy."
The lady knights nodded vigorously in agreement.
The men sitting a little ways off flinched.
"Besides, isn't young master Luid a genius? I never understood why the Commander keeps coddling him."
Irina laughed sheepishly, a smile that nearly closed her eyes.
Amelia shot her a glare. Irina paid it no mind.
In truth, everyone was chiming in, and even Amelia—human, after all—caught herself thinking, Am I being too overprotective? Does Luid hate it?
"I'll eat and then go home."
"Huh?"
But then an unexpected answer slipped out of Luid's mouth.
He looked straight at Amelia as he spoke.
"Your business matters more."
"Oh."
A collective sigh of disappointment rose from the knights.
Amelia was overjoyed.
So I still come first.
It isn't easy to like someone while they lecture you—but Luid really was a thoughtful boy after all.
Amelia smiled contentedly.
It was the very moment she resolved to take his hand gently and walk him home.
CRASH!
The dining hall door burst open as if shattered.
"We have a situation!"
A knight in full plate armor rushed in, shouting urgently.
"A—a student of the Academy has been abducted!"
Luid, who had been grinding his way through the steak, bit his tongue.
Ow.
Tears welled up at the corners of his eyes.
[January 5th — Around 20 children vanish from the slums. No trace.]
[January 12th — Three children vanish from the nearby village of Redin. No trace.]
[January 17th — Four children vanish near Raifno's smithy on the outskirts of the capital. No trace.]
[January 24th — One child goes missing from 'The Resting Wind Tavern' in the heart of the capital. No trace.]
[February 15th — A dark mage's minion emerges from a hidden passage of the Imperial Academy. The slumbering guardians of the Chalice of Mana awaken.]
[February 22nd — Nia Lion goes missing from Delin's Lake at the Imperial Academy. Traces of a fierce magic battle.]
Luid bit down on his pen and stared hard at the book. He didn't entertain the same regret as before—wishing he'd moved faster.
Nia Lion's disappearance was a fixed future, after all.
What troubled him were two things: that the abduction site had been Delin's Lake, and why an episode that was supposed to unfold in the later half of the story was happening now.
"...Seventies. Near-Archmage. An intense longing directed upward. A psychopath who could exploit children without a shred of guilt."
His deduction was definitely not wrong.
But he had missed exactly one thing.
"...The dark mage."
The dark mage's minions he had witnessed during the Every Library occupation.
One of them had been Nia Lion's arrival—he'd known that much.
The other, however, was unmistakably an intrusion from outside.
He'd stopped paying attention after storming out over the Headmaster's overreaching behavior, but the mastermind had never left the capital. It was still the early acts—who would have guessed a major mid-story episode would get pulled forward?
Luid admitted his mistake. He'd failed to connect the two because he'd drawn a line between 'the novel's plot' and 'an incident that happened in reality.'
Utterly foolish. Both of them were, plainly and simply, his reality now. Whether it happened within the original story or outside of it.
"What am I going to do about this."
Luid gazed up at the mansion's ceiling with listless eyes.
Archmage Clifford was a title of the past.
His body had aged beyond what mana alone could hold together, and his mind, too, was no longer what it once was. In practical terms, he no longer possessed the abilities of an Archmage. Clifford had always been a genius forged through effort rather than talent—his growth had been slow from the very start, and so his prime had been brief as well.
Had he achieved his milestone a mere twenty years sooner, he would not now carry an old man's body. But Clifford did not regret it. That, too, was one of the achievements of the life he had walked.
Lately, however, he felt himself aging at an alarming pace.
Walking was a struggle, and even the paperwork he had processed for a decade no longer made sense to his eyes.
Clifford lay in his bedchamber, asleep. As if dreaming of something, he tossed and turned.
The instant his exquisitely crafted monocle slid into alignment, Clifford's eyes snapped open.
"Ghk."
Pain lodged itself in his heart. Clifford groaned and clutched his chest as if to tear his heart out.
That was when someone entered his chamber.
"F-Father."
It was Phoenicia. She seemed to have something urgent to say, drawing breath in a hurry. Clifford rose from his bed.
Seeing him clutching his chest, Phoenicia froze—then rushed to support him.
"Wh-where does it hurt? I—I'll summon a physician at once—"
"...I had a dream."
Phoenicia had urgent news to deliver.
But the way Clifford looked—as if his breath might fail him at any moment—made her unable to speak it. It felt as though whatever he said next might become his final words. With sorrowful eyes, Phoenicia took the old man's hand.
"It is a tale from an old legend. The life of a very foolish adventurer."
His words began a little rambling, and Phoenicia resolved not to miss a single syllable.
"The adventurer was a mediocrity of ordinary talent. Catching a goblin or two a day to get by... Then one day, while hunting goblins as he always did, he wandered into a certain cave."
The dream he had just woken from rose before Clifford's eyes, vivid as if it were laid out in front of him.
"A dragon. There was a dragon. A colossal dragon that existed only in legend, deep in slumber."
At Clifford's tone—speaking as though he had seen it with his own eyes—Phoenicia swallowed dryly.
"But the fear was fleeting. The adventurer was captivated by an enormous scale that had fallen near the dragon's body. That emerald-glinting scale looked more precious than any jewel he had ever laid eyes on. If he took even one, he believed he could live comfortably for the rest of his days."
"The adventurer screwed up his courage, picked up the scale, and took it. His prediction proved true. He made a fortune, and people praised that third-rate adventurer as a 'Dragon Slayer.' But a nameless adventurer with no real power could hardly keep the legend alive forever. And so, the adventurer sought out the dragon once more."
A sneer crept into Clifford's voice.
"At first he intended to take only a few more scales—but somehow, the dragon looked terribly docile to him. Perhaps because he had spent years being praised by those around him? He had come to believe he truly possessed the strength to slay a dragon."
The adventurer took up his spear. He filled it to the brim with mana. He climbed atop the dragon's neck. It seemed possible. The dragon slept like the dead. No—perhaps, he thought, it was already dead.
The adventurer imagined his future. A brilliant future. The future in which he truly carried away the dragon's corpse.
And with a heart full of dreams and hope, he drove his spear into the dragon's nape.
The price of that folly was—
— Krunch.
"That was the adventurer's end. His reward for disturbing the dragon's peaceful slumber. I know it was only a dream, but watching it, the man was a fool."
Clifford spoke with contempt, a faint disgust simmering beneath his words.
"Why would anyone disturb a slumbering dragon—a sleeping dragon of the forest that did nothing but sleep? That adventurer did nothing but invite his own death. Tsk. If I'd had the chance, I would have taught that fool a proper lesson—"
"Headmaster."
Phoenicia bowed her head and spoke.
"...Nia Lion. First-year, Magic Department."
"Why the long face, my girl? What's with that sorrowful expression—"
"She is missing."
Clifford's eyes flew open wide enough to tear.
Clifford let out a hollow laugh as he surveyed the devastated landscape of Delin's Lake.
"Hoh ho."
Traces of a violent magic battle still lingered across Delin's Lake.
Nia Lion's mana was scattered everywhere.
And he could sense the aftertaste of dark magic as well. It was certain, then.
The one who had taken Nia was the dark mage.
Clifford's head swam with dizziness; he staggered.
"Father!"
Phoenicia hurried to steady him.
Clifford's hand trembled faintly.
"...This is a first. A student of mine, abducted. Sia, is this my karmic debt? Is that what this is?"
"......"
Phoenicia could say nothing. The fear held within Clifford's eyes—an emotion she was witnessing for the very first time.
"I have never once regretted the past. Not when the years it took a mediocrity like me to reach Archmage stretched twenty years longer under an inadequate teacher. Not even when calamity struck my family. But now, I find myself regretting."
If only everything could return to that moment.
A month ago—the time when Luid Christopher left the Academy.
He had felt it was a shame, but hadn't thought much of it. Water under the bridge; there was no way to stop it.
That boy would become a fine wizard in his own time, with or without him.
A grave misjudgment. It was the Academy that should have begged for help. It was him.
Luid Christopher's mere existence had already been exerting an enormous influence—shielding students from the dark mage, eliminating threats before they could come to pass.
"If that loafer had still been sleeping peacefully at Delin's Lake, none of this would ever have happened."
Delin's Lake lay empty.
Deep regret stained Clifford's eyes.
"...It seems I am the one who woke the sleeping dragon of the forest. The foolish adventurer was me."
Phoenicia had never seen Clifford look so frail.
"...Send word to the Imperial Palace."
Clifford steadied himself on unsteady legs.
What he had to do now was clear.
He would rescue the missing student, without fail.
And whatever sacrifice, whatever price it demanded, he would bear it.
"The Academy does not possess the power to resolve this incident on its own."
"...!"
Those words were a confession of his own incompetence.
Which meant—the resignation of the Headmaster.