Violence in the Name of Education (2) (Revised)
Violence in the Name of Education (2) (Revised)
"You said something happened in the North?"
"It wasn't anything major. I heard they lost contact with the White Tower."
Calliope's face contorted. Seth tilted his head as if he couldn't understand her reaction.
Given the North's terrain, losing communications was fairly common, after all.
"Don't tell me you think this woman is in the North?"
"About fifty-fifty?"
"Come on, would a woman who looks like this really have gone up north?"
"Then did you ever once imagine Her Highness could be vicious enough to burn her own hand?"
"That's..."
Seth trailed off. What had happened last night was a shock even to him, a man who'd been through every hardship imaginable.
Aria had always been called so pure-hearted that people said she was naive. But the Aria he'd seen yesterday was not that person. As if she'd become someone else entirely, her eyes had boiled over with hatred.
Just what kind of relationship did they have?
Seth checked the drawing Aria had handed him once more. White hair and blue eyes. An appearance that called to mind a gently raised noble lady.
[Is there anything we should know?]
[She'll be in the City of Beginnings. Once you find her... come back to me.]
What if she isn't there?
Neither of them could bring themselves to ask that.
Aria's gaze had been far too resolute. Her tone had made it clear she didn't even want to imagine a situation in which the woman named Olivia was not in the City of Beginnings.
But Olivia was not in the City of Beginnings. They'd combed through it three more times, and the result was the same.
'I had a bad feeling about this.'
Calliope frowned.
"I think heading east would be a better bet. For someone with looks like this to remain unknown..."
"No, it's the North."
"Captain!"
"A hunch, just a hunch. You trust my gut, don't you?"
Certainly, Calliope's intuition had something that couldn't be explained in words. How many times had that intuition saved their lives?
"Even you didn't know Her Highness's real personality, Captain."
"...I never believed the past was the real her either."
Seth sighed.
This woman simply did not know how to admit anything.
Maybe it was because she was from the South?
"Then at least let's take a warp gate! Do we not have money? Our operational funds are ample."
"Those leave a full record, and we're currently acting without His Majesty's knowledge. If we get caught, it's the guillotine."
Seth scratched his head furiously, as if annoyed.
It wasn't that he didn't know that. He was just frustrated.
"Ugh, with no word of her, how long is it gonna take to walk all the way to the North..."
As he grumbled, Seth's gaze swung behind him.
"Kieeeek!"
A giant wyvern, its talons spread wide, was descending at a terrifying speed. They had only just left the city limits, and already they were facing a large species like that.
Seth knocked both fists together with a heavy thud.
Fortunately, it didn't look like they'd have to walk.
"Kiek, kieek..."
The wyvern, which had flown without rest for several hours, plummeted straight to the ground. Normally it could have flown all day without trouble, but having two people on its back had taken its toll.
Thud!
Calliope landed lightly, thanks to an artifact that reduced falling speed.
Boom!
"Hngh!"
Calliope shook her head as she watched Seth land recklessly with his bare body. If not for that foolhardy nature of his, he'd have been promoted long ago.
"Follow me. Once we're over this mountain, it's the White Tower."
They surged through the mountain in an instant.
The next moment.
"...!"
The sight of the half-destroyed White Tower came into view. Without a moment's hesitation, Calliope drew her rapier.
"You, check the surroundings!"
"Got it!"
Calliope entered the White Tower in the blink of an eye. The situation inside was exactly what she had expected.
All around, the place was filled with the corpses of mages...
"...Huh?"
The mages who should have been dead were huddled together around a fire.
"C-cold..."
"D-damn it. Why did I have to go and uselessly learn light magic."
"We don't even have firewood. Maybe a magic book..."
Did the monsters of the North have a hobby of only wrecking buildings and then running away?
No, that couldn't be it.
Instinctively, Calliope scanned the faces of the mages. Spotting a familiar face among them, she moved her feet.
"White Tower Lord. What in the world happened here?"
Lloyd, who had been warming himself with his back turned, slowly turned his head.
"...You know me?"
Calliope decided to bluff her way through it.
"His Majesty sent us. We were told the reports had stopped."
"Reports... Right, there were the regular reports."
Lloyd's face was one of utter desolation. Known always for his cheerful demeanor, seeing him wear such an expression was something she simply could not adjust to.
"Please tell His Majesty. I am a sinner unworthy of the title of White Tower Lord."
"What exactly happened here?"
Crunch.
Calliope's gaze dropped downward. Past his robes, she could see Lloyd's fist clenched tight.
When Lloyd raised his head again, his eyes were bloodshot.
"A witch. A witch took my disciples."
"...A witch, you say?"
"Yes, that damned witch!"
Lloyd couldn't continue speaking. His whole body was trembling like a person afflicted with a disease.
"Gurk!"
The next moment, Lloyd clutched his heart and collapsed.
"T-Tower Lord!"
"Hey, bring his medicine!"
"Huff, huff..."
Lloyd, having barely regained his senses, grabbed hold of Calliope. Then, with every ounce of strength he could muster, he opened his mouth.
"Disciples, save my disciples... Grrrgle!"
"He's having another seizure!"
A witch. It was a far-fetched claim.
But if those were the words of a Tower Lord, the story changed.
'Abduction, then. Does that mean they're sacrifices?'
Young mages were sacrifices that demons favored. It was a highly plausible scenario.
'Damn it.'
Calliope did not dare to presume she could judge the suffering they must be enduring right now, writhing as blood poured from their bodies.
"Do you know where the witch went?"
******
"Brain, brain, brain..."
"Hee, heehee... I can't, I can't see anything in front of me."
Jeina and Ro were in a half-lucid state. Normally, Aramis would have said something, but he couldn't bring himself to scold them.
That was because he himself had just woken up after losing consciousness too.
'I feel like I'm going to die.'
He'd never even heard of a training method this barbaric.
Honestly, he'd been confident at first. It wasn't as if he'd never pushed his magic to its limits before, and he had plenty of practical experience.
Skill? He could pride himself on being several times more outstanding than his peers.
But this was genuinely hopeless.
Aramis turned his head and looked at Jeina.
Thump.
That was already her third collapse. The moment he saw Jeina's lifeless, wandering eyes, Aramis had no choice but to keep his mouth shut.
It was because the good-natured mage was nowhere to be found, and some nameless zombie was crawling along the floor instead.
"Oh dear, our disciple has collapsed again. Guzzle it down, all the way."
"N-no. Nooo..."
Gulp, gulp.
"There, feel the energy surging back? Now hurry and get up so we can start again."
"I-I don't want to..."
"You don't want to?"
"N-no, ma'am. Actually, I love it. Wahahahaha... I am happy. I am happy..."
Was that truly something a person should do to another?
But Aramis couldn't bring himself to protest.
- It's the path you chose! Endure it through grit and sheer stubbornness!
They had already crossed a river of no return.
Smack!
"Graaaaah!"
"Get a grip! You have a dragon badge and you can't even keep up with my lessons? Does that make any sense?"
"S-stop the violence!"
"Stop? Stooop?"
"P-please! Please stop!"
Zzzzzap!
In an instant, the surroundings brightened. Along with the smell of burning flesh, Glacia collapsed onto the floor. As if she'd been waiting for it, Olivia pulled out a potion and shoved it into Glacia's mouth.
'The moment she gets up from that, she's going to get clobbered again.'
Compared to that side, over here was heaven.
At least it didn't hurt.
'Heaven? This crap is heaven?'
For a moment, Aramis almost suffered cognitive dissonance before snapping back to his senses.
Whatever others did, he at least must not break.
'I am the pride of the White Tower!'
Aramis glared fiercely and gripped his staff with force. It had already been six hours since this brutal training began repeating itself. At first, he hadn't grasped it at all, but now he felt he could do it.
No, he had to do it.
Olivia had called this the basics. He knew she had mixed in some exaggeration to motivate them, but her claim that every mage of the Gold Tower could do this was probably true.
If he could not overcome the basics, he could never reach the truth, let alone become a Tower Lord.
Aramis's eyes sank with heavy resolve.
'This time, I will succeed without fail.'
Thanks to the potions, his physical condition alone was at its absolute peak. To be honest, while the method was barbaric, it was a technique that even most tycoons would not dare attempt.
Potions restored stamina and mana in an instant, and their price alone skyrocketed endlessly, yet they also had no side effects.
What kind of lunatic would use such treasures for disciple training?
And without a shred of regret at that.
To be honest, he desperately wished she would show a little regret. Anyway.
To clear his mind, Aramis took a light, deep breath, then poured mana into his staff.
In the empty air, snow blossoms bloomed one by one. Their number was not large. Compared to the snow blossoms Olivia had summoned, they were woefully insufficient.
But that didn't matter.
The important part wasn't the destructive force in the first place.
He used mana to seize the snow blossoms before they could fall to the ground.
The blossoms, prevented from falling, crashed against one another, shattering repeatedly, until at some point they gathered into a cluster and took on the shape of a cloud.
'Up to here is easy.'
He had succeeded in reaching this point many times. Since ice and water were fundamentally similar, it barely required any application.
But the next part was the problem.
Compression and rotation.
'First, I'll increase the size.'
As the cloud grew larger, his mana plummeted sharply. The mana that had seemed so relaxed was scraping the bottom in an instant.
In the early stages, this was where he'd failed. The dropping mana felt so overwhelming that he'd gotten scared and given up before even trying.
- Scared? You have potions, and you're scared of that little thing?
But after being beaten like a dog, he'd realized the truth. That the pain of mana exhaustion was far less painful than getting beaten black and blue with a staff.
Aramis concentrated on increasing the cloud's size. Whatever happened to his mana, he no longer cared.
'Urgh.'
Before long, a tingling sensation spread through his whole body. It was a warning sign of mana exhaustion.
But he did not stop. Having come this far, he couldn't stop anyway.
Wooooong!
The cloud, compressed to its limit, let out a thunderous roar as if about to explode.
His nose started bleeding. Aramis, not even aware of the fact, added rotation.
Whoooosh!
At some point, the sound of a fierce wind reached his ears.
He had finally succeeded.
'I did it...'
The tension released, and Aramis slumped down onto the spot. Olivia strode right up to him and spoke.
"I told you, didn't I? That it would only take a day?"
"...Then may I rest now?"
"What are you talking about? You think you'll get the hang of it after doing it once?"
"...Pardon?"
Olivia smiled a calm smile and opened her subspace. Then, as if doing him a favor, she pulled out a potion.
"Drink."
"..."
She seriously wanted him to do this one more time?
"If you do it nine more times, I'll let you rest. We've got to hit ten."
"..."
Aramis squeezed his eyes shut tight.
No matter how he thought about it, he had picked the wrong teacher.