The Slumbering Dragon in the Forest (2)
The Tower of Pisa.
Once celebrated as one of the Three Great Magic Towers, it was now a shabby shell of its former glory, without a single apprentice left within its walls.
There, an old man gathered up spellbooks and artifacts of every kind and stuffed them into his bag of infinite holding.
Then, the air itself warped.
Hugo, Master of the Tower of Pisa, trembled in terror and pressed his forehead to the floor.
From the distortion, accompanied by a swirl of black smoke, someone emerged.
Krrrk— krrk.
The hideous sound of steel grinding against steel.
Hugo didn't so much as dare lift his head. He dropped to one knee.
"M-Master Chiron. You have come."
"Is the work proceeding well, Hugo?"
"...We are in the final stages. All that remains is to activate the magic circle."
"Our Lord places great expectations upon you."
Chiron wore his full dark helm.
Nothing moved within it but that ominous black smoke, and yet Hugo couldn't shake the feeling that the thing was glaring straight at him.
Gulp—
Hugo swallowed dryly and lowered himself even further.
"Yes, my lord. I shall bear it ever in mind."
"See that you do."
Chiron's body crumbled apart.
Just as when he had appeared, black smoke scattered and dissolved into the empty air.
"And remember— you must reclaim the holy relic, the Chalice of Mana."
Only the faint echo of his voice remained.
Long after Chiron had vanished, Hugo still could not raise his head.
Only after an eternity had crawled by did he finally rise from where he knelt.
"At last... I shall reach that realm."
The freckle-covered face twisted into something strange. It was a smile of joy.
"That last child had quite a lot of mana stored up. Heh heh."
"Kyang!"
"?"
Out of nowhere came the cry of a fox.
Creeeak—
The tower's door swung open.
A white-furred arctic fox stood there, one paw raised in a wave.
"Hi there."
"...?"
Hugo stumbled backward in shock and fell flat on his rear.
"A f-fox? Talking?!"
"That's what surprises you?"
Miho rose up onto her hind legs.
Her body began to glow a brilliant white, and when the light faded, a darling little girl with blue hair was standing there, smiling sweetly.
"Hey there, little man."
Miho planted her hands on her knees and leaned forward.
"I don't care what you people get up to. Really, I don't."
Her smile was as adorable as ever.
Then, in the blink of an eye, her expression twisted into that of a demon.
"But you do NOT wake Master Luid from his nap."
Luid had come to the Academy for the first time in a while.
Well, "a while" wasn't quite accurate. It hadn't even been a full month since he'd last set foot outside it.
"Hershey."
"Y-yes?!"
Hershey, who had been studying, fidgeted and hastily shoved something behind her back.
Luid tilted his head.
"Hm? Where's the fox?"
"Ah... s-she said she was stepping out somewhere for a bit..."
Hehe. Hershey gave an awkward laugh and scratched at the side of her head.
"A-anyway, it really has been ages since you visited. Is it because of everything that's happened lately?"
"Yep."
Luid could tell Hershey was hiding something, but he decided not to pry.
He hopped up to sit on the desk and looked around. It was a quiet lecture hall.
"So this is the Extra Class classroom, huh? First time seeing it."
"Well, you never attend class... and the magic exhibition was held in the grand auditorium too."
School has its own particular romance, its own charm.
All those little experiences you can only have at that age.
It wasn't as though Luid was blind to that.
'Maybe I should have come out a bit more?'
If he actually tried it, it might even be fun. The thought crossed his mind briefly—before he dismissed it as too much of a hassle. It would only be fun during breaks; the actual lessons would be boring.
"I'm a hanryang, you see."
"...What's a hanryang?"
"Someone who lives in leisure without holding any official post."
Luid slid down off the desk.
She'd probably never heard the word before—it belonged to a dynasty from his old world, after all.
But no word described him more perfectly.
A gentleman of high standing, gloriously unemployed.
Still, even a hanryang had his duties.
Someone who did literally nothing at all wasn't a hanryang—he was a houseplant.
A true hanryang was... someone who made the people around him think, 'Well, I suppose he's earned it.'
Luid looked Hershey straight in the eye.
"Pass a message to the Headmaster for me."
Which was why, every once in a while, putting on a little show of heroics counted as a plus.
"This is the only time I'm helping out—"
Hands shoved in his pockets, Luid strolled out of the lecture hall.
On the way to the Tower of Pisa—
He ran into Damon sitting atop a massive boulder, gazing up at the sky.
"You need not be so ashamed."
"What are you doing?"
"I was conversing with a subject of mine paying homage."
What Damon was looking at was the sun.
Luid ignored him and kept walking. Nothing good ever came of entangling yourself with someone who was clearly unhinged.
"Hold—"
Damon looked him over with imperious eyes.
"Come with me."
"Do you even know where I'm going?"
"To apprehend the villain, no?"
A faint smirk tugged at the corner of Damon's mouth.
"I was just growing bored."
"I'm not your entertainment."
Dark magic was magic whose sole purpose was slaughter.
At its root, it was fundamentally different from white magic, which existed for the advancement of humanity. Pitted against each other at the same tier, a dark mage would overwhelmingly crush an ordinary magician.
In other words—it was dangerous.
Luid had no confidence in his ability to fight while protecting someone else.
"Insolent as ever, Luid Christopher."
"Guess the Emperor didn't scold you enough."
Luid shot Damon a cold, flat stare.
"It's nothing of the sort. I'm off to take a nap, so don't follow me."
He tossed out the excuse and made to move along.
But then—
"Heading to the Tower of Pisa, are you? Luid Christopher."
"...!"
Luid's eyes went round as he stared at Damon.
Damon gave a casual shrug and hopped down from the boulder.
"Best not to underestimate the intelligence network of the imperial family. It being Windsor's affair, I was graciously overlooking this upstart who dared encroach upon my domain."
Damon slipped a hand into his pocket.
"Windsor has shown itself worthy of such courtesy."
"If you're feeling so courteous, why not keep overlooking?"
"That would be inconvenient, rival. Should I not be worth the wait you've granted?"
Damon strode toward him in long, deliberate steps.
"I have been tolerating a loathsome insect crawling about where it doesn't belong—surely I've earned the right, at the very least, to watch that insect be crushed."
Luid knew that Damon was the kind of man words simply wouldn't reach.
'...Well, whether he follows or not.'
There was no real reason to stop him.
It was dangerous, sure, but—
"If you get hurt, that's not on me."
"Hmph. If I am bitten by vermin, the fault is naturally mine. What business is it of yours?"
"Fine, then. In exchange, follow quietly."
"Speaking of which, Luid Christopher."
Luid turned back with an oh, what now expression.
Damon's face was practically glowing with self-satisfaction.
"You were unaware, it seems? The place where Nia Lion is confined is not the Tower of Pisa, but—"
Damon raised a finger and pointed high into the sky.
So high that its peak vanished beyond sight.
A spire almost impossible to look at directly through the blaze of sunlight. The Skyscraper—the very place Luid had visited once before, when harvesting the Phoenix Feather for his pillow.
"She is at the very top of the Skyscraper."
"...Huh?"
"To hide a tree, you conceal it in a forest. The classics exist for a reason, do they not?"
'No way.'
As far as Luid knew, the mastermind was Hugo, Master of the Tower of Pisa.
Thanks to his meager talent, the tower was on the brink of collapse under his leadership. That was precisely why he had become a dark mage.
And so he had kidnapped Nia Lion and pressed on with his research.
His goal: to wield the Fifth Magic lost to the Tower of Pisa—Dead Soul Resurrection—the spell that summoned the souls of heroes long dead into a medium.
Nia Lion was the experiment ideally suited for it.
So naturally, the experiments should have been conducted at the Tower of Pisa.
"...Is that intel reliable?"
"No one understands the minds of vermin better than I. Call it a hobby, if you will—observation."
"So it's a guess."
"Would you grace it with the word 'certainty' instead?"
Damon spoke with utterly serious eyes.
"I have never once been wrong."
'Damon isn't the type to say things without basis, though.'
Unhinged as he seemed, he was still a chosen prince. Not just anyone could head the Karos imperial line merely for carrying royal blood.
'Might as well trust him.'
The Tower of Pisa was a fair distance away. Checking the Skyscraper on the way there wouldn't hurt.
Luid changed course toward the Skyscraper.
High above the Skyscraper.
The Phoenix should have been perched at its summit, but for some reason, there was not so much as a glimpse of the great bird anywhere.
Instead, the repulsive stench of dark magic hung thick around the entire spire.
Fighting down the nausea, Luid followed the smell until an iron cage came into view.
"They really are here."
Luid crouched down in front of the cage.
"He gathered quite a lot of them."
Damon swept the interior with an icy gaze.
The cage was packed full of young children.
Their faces were gaunt and hollow-cheeked—whether because they hadn't been fed at all, it was impossible to say.
Nia Lion was there too, slumped in a corner in her Academy robe.
Luid extended his hand.
CRUNCH—!
The iron bars crumpled in an instant, tearing open a wide gap.
"Damon. Mind handling the aftermath? I'm going after the culprit. He was probably here until just now."
"Leave it to me. I'll deal with everything, then follow."
"No. Don't follow."
"..."
Hearing about something and seeing it with your own two eyes were worlds apart.
No child had died yet. But it was easy to imagine that what they had endured was pain worse than death.
Traces of foam dried at the corners of their mouths. Scratch marks raked across their skin.
And above all—the mana of their life force, scraped away to the very razor's edge.
The mage called Hugo had intended, it seemed, to drain the children's mana for as long as they could possibly endure.
'I don't know how much power he squeezed out of this wretched atrocity, but—'
As Luid looked down at the emaciated children, a cold blue flame ignited in his eyes.
"It's just... I might have a little trouble controlling myself."
Luid was a little angry.