Mage Corps (3)
Celia called me demented.
Even for her, that was going way too far. Had she always talked this rough to me?
“And on top of that, the moment you got tired and dropped the noble act, you just sprawled there with your legs wide open. What is that supposed to be? Are you trying to seduce someone?”
“Seduce? What the hell. The Emperor’s already bad enough, but—”
I cut myself off and shut my mouth.
“What about the Emperor?”
“He said I was his woman.”
When you thought about it, it wasn’t completely wrong, so I hadn’t been able to argue. By the rules, every woman in the Imperial Palace belonged to the Emperor.
I never expected him to pin it on me just for getting dragged into the palace, though. If I pushed back any harder, there was no telling how that lunatic Emperor would decide to handle me.
“Um, Lady Olivia.”
“What?”
“If the Assassin Guild in the Imperial Palace fought my Teddy Bear Unit, who do you think would win?”
Hmm. Assassin Guild versus Teddy Bear Unit. They were probably about even. But if I had to choose, the dolls would win in the end. You could always make more dolls.
“Don’t do anything crazy. Please.”
“This is a life-or-death matter of going all-in against the Emperor.”
No. Just stop. That Emperor was genuinely dangerous. I still didn’t know everything about him, but one thing was certain: he was weirder than the Demon King. The fact that he actually seemed to want a war only made it worse.
Whatever he was thinking, I had already decided to go along with his will. More precisely, I had zero patriotism for the Empire; I just didn’t feel any obligation to go around advertising this mess.
Anyway.
“If Natalia hears about this—”
“If I hear about it, what?”
I nearly jumped out of my skin. At some point Natalia had appeared right beside me.
What the fuck. These days every single thing that happened made me want to swear. Why was Natalia even here? When the hell had she arrived?
“Ah, shit. Seriously, every woman around me is completely unhinged. When I was a man they wouldn’t even bring up the word ‘confession,’ but the second I became Olivia everything went to hell.”
This was so goddamn troublesome.
“Before that, you died fighting the Demon King, remember?”
“That’s exactly my point.”
Ah. Right. That was true. Fuck. It would’ve been so much better if they’d just said something earlier.
“Ugh. Thanks for the belated harem, I guess?”
Honestly, even if they’d confessed back then I wasn’t sure I would’ve accepted. But if I’d heard those confessions while I was still a man, I at least wouldn’t have thrown my life away so pointlessly out of guilt toward them. I might even have held back and avoided that final clash with the Demon King.
If I’d realized that thing was the Demon King, I would have used it instead. Instead I poked it and got myself killed. Completely absurd. Looking back, I had been so stupid. I should have found another way.
“What’s with that reaction?”
“It’s not a compliment, you people.”
Why were they getting bashful about it?
“But is it true His Majesty likes you?”
“I have no idea.”
I shook my head at Natalia’s question. That guy’s jokes weren’t a one-day thing. He didn’t seem like the type to fall for a woman just because she didn’t have a husband.
“The princess likes you too, you know.”
“Let’s not talk about that.”
If the princess ever found out my real identity, something truly horrifying might happen. The person she had tried to get close to was actually Noah. I could already picture her face twisting. No—beyond twisting, it might turn into a full-blown disaster. She might march into Ashtar Territory. Or abdicate. Worst case, she could try to blackmail me into staying by her side. Just imagining it made my skin crawl.
“And the imperial princess might have had feelings for you as well?”
“Seriously, why is every important person around me completely insane?”
I really didn’t get it.
“They say love makes people crazy, right?”
“The love I know and whatever you people are doing seem pretty far apart. Don’t they?”
The love I knew was supposed to feel fresh. Getting flustered just looking at each other, faces heating up, feeling happy simply by being near someone—something like that.
“That’s harsh coming from you.”
“Exactly. You’re the least normal one here.”
“Don’t you start.”
What grudge did they have against me?
“By the way, you use Void Magic? Isn’t that the ancient magic that vanished?”
True. The records were so incomplete that no one even knew why it disappeared. The reason was actually simple, though.
“Did you forget where I come from?”
“Well, yes, but still.”
That place still had plenty of records of strange magic left. The region people particularly avoided was full of history if you dug deep enough. Of course it was a magic-saturated wasteland as hard to enter as the Demon Realm, so almost no one ever went there.
“Anyway, you actually came all the way to the Mage Corps.”
“What’s the problem?”
“Isn’t it entertaining? The famous Noah in the Mage Corps?”
What the hell was wrong with me being in the Mage Corps?
“Enough. How’s Crad Castle?”
“We left only the garrison and pulled everyone else out. Ashtar’s second son is probably in charge now.”
“That brother of mine, huh.”
If the second son kept handling Crad Castle, there was nothing to worry about. Clanis knew nothing about war, and Crad’s local army was strong.
“To hear those words come out of your mouth… truly surprising. The world is worth living a long time just for moments like this. Imagining Noah calling someone ‘brother’…”
For a second I pictured it too—Noah, not Olivia, calling the Ashtar brothers “big brother.”
Ugh. At least I was biologically the woman Olivia now. Even so, the image was so disgusting I genuinely wanted to die.
“Fuck. Maybe I should just kill myself.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll stop teasing.”
Fine. That was enough. But I still had more to ask.
“While we’re on the subject—how’s the Hero Party doing?”
“The Hero Party?”
“Yeah. The Hero Party.”
Those people still mattered. As the Hero Party they were important to the human-demon war either way. They might even have to play a major role in whatever war came next. Their origins were different, but since the kingdom had officially appointed them, they were obligated to aid the Empire if war broke out here.
Honestly I wanted to finish everything myself, but the Emperor clearly had other plans. So they would have to cover the gaps I left.
“Your little sister seems to have gotten somewhat close with the second son thanks to the heads-up I gave her. As for the Hero…”
“What about the Hero?”
“Can I really say this?”
From that reaction, the bastard had clearly done something idiotic again. Let’s hear it. If he still hadn’t gotten his head on straight, it would be a problem.
“I need to know so I can decide whether to kill him next or not.”
“I just happened to overhear it.”
“And?”
“The Saint and the Elf were worrying about how hard the Hero was training.”
“That guy?”
Wasn’t that actually good news? Fortunately it looked like Noel and Ashtar’s second son hadn’t just left him alone. Right—if you wanted to make a decent human being out of that Hero, you had to work him half to death.
“But then he said, and I quote: ‘I will definitely make the Ashtar princess mine. I want those huge tits for myself! Unlike you lot who just played around, I’m serious!’ Word for word.”
He was going to make me his? My tits?
“Ugh, fuck.”
“He already looked like he’d pictured grandchildren with you.”
Just imagining it gave me full-body chills. The thought of that moron groping my chest and doing god-knows-what with me sent something cold crawling up my spine. Absolutely unforgivable. Merely imagining it was a capital crime.
“I’m going to catch him and cut his throat.”
I took down the Demon King. A Hero was nothing. Just do it first—everything starts by doing it first.
“But to be fair, your breasts really are big.”
“Disgustingly so.”
“Is that so~?”
Then I’d just shrink them. Maximum reduction. Careful, precise control—shrink them right down.
Suddenly Celia dropped to her knees right in front of me.
“Ah—no! Don’t do it!!”
She had clearly seen my chest starting to shrink and was panicking.
“Why not? They’re inconvenient in combat. Big breasts are the worst possible thing for a woman in a fighting profession, aren’t they?”
“E-even so, you can secure them with a bra! Why are you trying to throw away dreams and hope so easily?!”
Dreams and hope. The Hero’s dreams and hope, no doubt. Why the hell should I play along with that stupidity?
“Honestly it bothers me too. Wearing a bra is stuffy.”
“Olivia. Speaking as the Light Sword, I’ll say it too—your skill is more than enough to compensate for that.”
“Argh. Seriously.”
Were these people insane? Why were they so obsessed with someone else’s chest? In the end my little rebellion was crushed.
“By the way, I overheard the Mage Corps students talking earlier.”
“About what?”
“They said we’ll be able to go on a field trip to the Holy Kingdom soon.”
The Holy Kingdom—home of that old fox.
“Field trip?”
“Yes. This country’s Goddess Church is a bit… ambiguous. So Ishtar regularly sends Mage Corps members to the Holy Kingdom for exchanges.”
“Oh no.”
I never should have come here. Now I had to meet that old fox of a Pope. Damn it. I hadn’t known. I should have joined the Mage Corps after the trip was over.
“Wait. No. I’m the Ashtar princess.”
“That’s true.”
“So with my authority as a princess, I can just skip the field trip—”
Couldn’t I?
“Lady Light Sword, watching Lady Olivia casually use power she never touched even as Noah is quite entertaining.”
“I was thinking the same thing. Wow. This is actually worth seeing. The great Noah becoming Olivia was already shocking enough, but watching her swing that authority around…”
“Fuck.”
The curse almost slipped out.
“You’re a Saint to begin with. Rumors say even the Pope is looking forward to meeting you.”
“What? That Holy Kingdom that treats the Empire’s Goddess Church like garbage?”
Looking forward to the Empire’s Saint? In that place?
“The Pope is different, after all.”
“Hmm… still. No matter how you look at it, this is—”
Honestly it felt wrong. More than anything else, I absolutely did not want to meet the Pope. That old fox would recognize me instantly and it would become a massive headache.
Ah. Should I just send Bernoa instead? Wouldn’t that solve everything simply? No—there was no way the Pope wouldn’t know Bernoa. This was getting seriously awkward. I was stuck with no good options.
Bang!
“What was that noise?”
While I was buried in thought, an explosion sounded outside. I looked out the window and saw the Mage Corps students creating spheres in every way imaginable, clearly trying to copy the Void I had made. Giant non-attribute orbs. Elemental orbs of every type. That wasn’t how you did it at all. They were probably experimenting, trying to reverse-engineer my sphere somehow. Their passion was impressive, at least.
“At least among elemental magic, lightning isn’t the real thing.”
“Isn’t elemental magic itself impossible for this?”
“If anything’s possible, it’s got to be non-attribute, right?”
“Non-attribute doesn’t even have higher-tier magic.”
“It’s not that it doesn’t exist—it just doesn’t connect to Void Magic.”
They were definitely different from the trash at Attelina. At least they had the will to learn. The problem was that everything they were doing was completely pointless. Void Magic was closest to pure non-attribute mana if you had to compare it to anything, but none of the foundations currently taught in the Mage Corps were of any use.
If they kept this up, though, things could get troublesome.
“Well, more important than that right now is calming the Mage Corps students down.”
If they continued like this, some kind of incident was bound to explode here as well.