The Passionate Mage Division (2)
At Kise’s delivery of the mission, the division members let out cries of dismay.
“Hah. Judging just from the expedition, that looks like quite a distance, doesn’t it?”
A fair number of mages murmured agreement with that one.
It wasn’t actually that far.
“Ah. It was like that during the expedition, but the actual distance from here to Crad Castle isn’t that long. Besides, that’s the border, and we’ll only be going as far as the area around it.”
That region was already a safe zone. With the army stationed there, there was no real reason for the mage division to push all the way into Crad Castle itself.
“So it’s basically a little outing, then?”
“No. Our goal is to subjugate the monsters currently on the move and secure public order as far as that area. After that we’ll be linking up the roads. More importantly, the Holy Kingdom’s Holy Knight Order is over there right now as well.”
The Holy Kingdom’s Holy Knight Order?
I turned to Kise and asked,
“Why is the Holy Kingdom there?”
“Ah. Lady Olivia, that is—”
She was attaching the “Lady” again.
This was exactly why I couldn’t stand Kise.
If she had any sense at all, she would know better.
“I’m just a member of the mage division for now.”
So act like a superior for once instead of bowing and scraping like that. What good was this?
“Ahem. Miss Olivia. Ahem. It’s because there are matters to discuss regarding the recent expedition. The next head of Ashtar will be handling that. The mage division will only be subjugating the nearby monsters.”
The Holy Kingdom showing up felt a little suspicious.
Maybe this meant I could wrap up the whole exchange right there. No need to go all the way to the Holy Kingdom itself—I could just talk things over with the priests who’d come along with the Holy Knight Order.
Oh. Not bad at all.
If I went there and quietly put in a request with the second son…
“Lady Olivia.”
“I know. I know, okay? Stop making that face.”
Celia was staring a hole straight through me.
She was telling me to keep it in moderation—in other words, that I still had to go to the Holy Kingdom in the end.
That damn girl. She was really overdoing it.
The mage division’s first mission had been handed down.
I’d assumed there would be some kind of class, thinking along the same lines as Atelina, but it turned out they were throwing even the entire reserve mage division into training without warning.
“So this is how it’s ending up, huh.”
In my case, I had simply been put in charge of the entire reserve mage division.
Apparently, because I was also Eldacrad’s reincarnation, the reserves were being placed under me. On top of that, my skill had already been proven with Void Magic, so there was no pushback—if anything, Kise had been forced by the reserves’ relentless pressure to make me their commander.
“When you look at it that way, this side’s better.”
That idiot Kise had probably wanted to keep me at her side.
If she had, there would’ve been a whole power struggle with Celia, and that would’ve been a pain.
Anyway, thanks to the reserve mages, I was the one leading them now.
Every last one of them was mounted, cloaks flaring—they cut a surprisingly sharp figure.
Yeah. This was what I’d wanted.
Exactly this: leading a bunch of mages.
“Then let’s move out.”
“Yes.”
I unfolded the map again.
The mana line Kise had marked started at the mage division’s main hall and snaked its way up until it landed on Crad Castle.
Since this was the division’s first mission, we might as well take it a little easy.
Crad Castle
At Crad Castle, Lockton—the next head of the house—had come on a tour of inspection and encountered an envoy from the Holy Kingdom.
The fact that the Holy Kingdom’s envoy had personally followed the route of Lockton’s inspection was not something that could be brushed aside.
And so Lockton himself faced the holy knight who had come as that envoy.
“What sort of discussion did you wish to have that you would send someone?”
“Ahem. His Holiness the Pope has congratulated Ashtar on the capture of Crad Castle.”
Right. He already knew that much.
The Holy Kingdom had been tangled up in this whole affair; once the expedition was over, that level of courtesy was only natural.
“I understand that much. But you didn’t come all this way for something so trivial.”
“Haha. Indeed. The truth is, this Crad Castle sits right in the center between the Demon Realm and Ashtar, does it not? The soil itself is more Demon Realm earth than not.”
“That’s true.”
Step outside the northern gate and you were immediately on gray earth.
“So, regarding that—what would you think of jointly governing this Crad Castle with the Holy Kingdom? The priests could purify the demonic energy as well. Wouldn’t that be ideal?”
Out of nowhere?
Crad Castle didn’t have many Ashtar civilians to begin with.
At most there were Ashtar’s soldiers and camp followers.
There had never been any intention of stationing ordinary people in a fortress that sat on the absolute front line against the Demon Realm.
“What exactly do you mean by that? This castle is, without question, a fortress reclaimed by Ashtar.”
It was a castle of Ashtar, restored entirely by Ashtar’s strength.
Even if the expeditionary force had included Holy Kingdom power, the one who had actually retaken Crad Castle was Saint Olivia.
If one insisted on framing the fall of Crad Castle as something that had merely “belonged to the expeditionary force,” there would be nothing more to say—but that was not the case.
“We are not forcing the matter. However, would that not create problems for future exchanges between the Holy Kingdom and Ashtar?”
So in the end they meant to threaten them that way.
Continued exchange with the Holy Kingdom was not strictly necessary. But what mattered was that the Holy Kingdom remained the headquarters of the Goddess Church.
From the standpoint of Ashtar—an Empire great house whose only faith was a Goddess Church without roots of its own—cutting off exchange with the Holy Kingdom would be as good as committing a sin against every civilian who believed in that faith.
I might need Olivia’s help after all.
Crad Castle was the fortress built by Ashtar’s hero. They could not simply hand such a place over.
The civilians would point fingers for a long time.
If they severed the exchange, one option would be to relocate the Empire’s Goddess Church headquarters to Ashtar itself.
But the more he thought about it, the stranger it all felt.
Or did they have some other hidden motive?
“No—this whole affair began because the Holy Kingdom failed to properly manage Saint Bernoa. Why are you suddenly saying something like this out of nowhere?”
He tested the waters.
“Bernoa was sent to the Kingdom, and the Kingdom yielded her to Ashtar for the sake of friendship. That she fell while in Ashtar means Ashtar failed to manage the Saint properly, does it not?”
Dragging up an incident from decades ago was almost laughable.
Ashtar had failed to manage the Saint properly?
Frankly, it was absurd—but if the Holy Kingdom was going to dig in its heels, they might have no choice but to take a step back.
No matter how he looked at it, this was pure sophistry. There had to be something else.
There was no reason to treat people who dared to touch Ashtar with kindness.
“Hah. So what you want is to rule Crad Castle together?”
Lockton spoke bluntly.
He wanted nothing more than to drag his younger sister in from outside right this instant and throw these holy knights out—but he held himself in check.
“Yes.”
It made no sense.
There was definitely a reason the Holy Kingdom was doing this.
“Even if the mouth is crooked, the words should be straight. You have something you want, don’t you? That’s why you’re doing this.”
“What do you mean?”
“Let’s be honest. The Holy Kingdom is a nation ruled by the Pope. I don’t believe such a nation is foolish enough to covet another’s land. Even the holy knights who came from the Holy Kingdom must know perfectly well that this is an absurd demand.”
“Mmm… that is…”
So it had been true. The Holy Kingdom’s holy knights wore awkward expressions.
Just as he’d thought. There was a reason that Pope was coming at them like this.
“I knew it. You had a separate motive.”
“Ahem. Very well. Talking further will only tire our mouths, so I’ll speak plainly. His Holiness wishes to see the Empire’s Saint.”
Good. Honesty was better.
In the end, that was what they wanted.
“You mean Olivia.”
“Yes.”
Strange. The holy knights were taking this high-handed tone because of Olivia? What was going on?
Or were they trying to take her away simply because she was the Saint of a worthless Goddess Church?
Either way, this was bad.
“For what reason?”
“Exactly as I said. His Holiness takes a deep interest in the Empire’s Saint who captured Crad Castle.”
Interest in the Empire’s Saint. Fine. That much was possible. But even setting that aside, the Holy Kingdom’s reaction right now was thoroughly off.
Olivia’s already with the mage division, so why go out of their way?
Olivia, who was with the mage division, might well visit the Holy Kingdom as part of an exchange anyway.
“Olivia is with the mage division right now. Why bother? If the mage division goes to the Holy Kingdom, you’ll meet her then.”
“His Holiness does not wish to see the mage division. He wishes to see Olivia as Saint and as Taesa.”
In short, they were telling Ashtar to send her as an official envoy.
“So you used this impossible demand as a pretext to try and damage Ashtar’s authority.”
“Ahem. No, it’s not necessarily that—”
The way he even cleared his throat as if trying to hide something was suspicious.
“Not that? What isn’t? Aren’t those rather provocative words?”
“We had no choice. Didn’t the Empire’s Emperor appoint a young lady of the Ashtar family as Taesa?”
So they had decided they could not treat her carelessly—something along those lines.
Lockton’s brow furrowed.
Even so, to go as far as trying to diminish Ashtar’s authority…
“Still, isn’t that going much too far?”
“Please consider the Holy Kingdom’s position as well. Suddenly a Saint of the Goddess Church turns out to be a young lady of Ashtar. From the Holy Kingdom’s standpoint, as fellow believers in the Goddess Church, we cannot simply fail to meet your Saint. And yet… you know how it is. Your Emperor—”
“Ah. Right.”
Had he been taking this too seriously for no reason?
The Emperor was a scoundrel; there was nothing to be done about it. That man never let go of anything that caught his fancy. That was why he had given Olivia a status like that and tried to keep her locked up tight in the capital.
Once the break was over, he would almost certainly summon her to the capital at once.
An Emperor like that would never easily allow her to be sent to the Holy Kingdom.
So they had decided to test the waters with Ashtar, which still held some influence over the Emperor.
“Would it be possible?”
“Hmm. And what do we get out of it?”
Lockton folded his arms and quietly watched the holy knight in front of him.
“If things go well, His Holiness may recognize the Empire’s Goddess Church.”
Recognition of the Empire’s Goddess Church.
“I heard the Pope was being ignored.”
“Who wouldn’t object after seeing a man that corrupt? He only uses the Goddess Church to fill his own belly.”
That much was true.
No—when you thought about it carefully, Ashtar was the one quietly backing that rootless Empire Goddess Church from behind. If things went this way, Ashtar alone would end up playing the villain.
“Then whose idea was it to touch our Ashtar?”
“That, too, is the idea of His Holiness the Pope.”
He had never thought it could have come from the head of some mere holy knight, and it seemed he was right.
“Threaten first, and if that fails, try to bring us in under the Empire’s Goddess Church, is that it.”
“Yes.”
Right. Of course.
That old man had clearly gone senile. Pope or not, to think of playing games like this with Ashtar…
Even if the generations were different, this was too much. Someone needed to be sent over to deal with him.
“That old geezer’s about due for dementia.”
“Ahem. Your words go too far. He is still the head of the Holy Kingdom. To speak of His Holiness that way… Outwardly he remains quite presentable.”
Head of the Holy Kingdom, was it? Presentable? He had dressed up his exterior to look like a man in his twenties, but inside he was no different from a grandmother.
If that power of his ever came undone, he would age in an instant and crawl straight into a coffin.
There had been exchanges ever since the days of Lord Eldacrad, yet they were unspeakably rude. How dare they insult Ashtar.