Cleric Besia (2)
Left alone in the room, the girl thought to herself.
What a strange boy.
She'd watched him casually open the door and walk right out, claiming he had a way. Besia had tried to follow — but the door wouldn't budge. Of course it wouldn't. There was a lock. And that boy had undone it like it was the most natural thing in the world.
"Noble, my ass."
Judging by how easily he'd picked that lock, he was some up-and-coming thief. Thinking that, Besia drew both legs in tight against her chest and sat down on the floor.
The floor was cold. Not that she wanted to stand. Even standing was too much. Her stamina, already at its breaking point, kept gnawing away at her will. Just sitting still made her miserable. She wanted to collapse and pass out right then and there.
Even so, Besia believed in Argal.
No — she wanted to believe. That this boy who looked like he had nothing at all would throw her a rope in this hell.
Growl.
Feeling the hollow ache of her empty stomach, she thought of the white bread she'd eaten yesterday. That single piece — the first she'd had in so long — had been impossibly sweet. If she ever made it back, she wanted to pile cakes even sweeter and more delicious than that white bread into a mountain and eat them every single day.
She wasn't sure a cleric was allowed that kind of luxury, but after everything she'd been through, they'd surely let her, wouldn't they? If she asked the kind Bishop Revega, he'd feed her until her stomach burst...
She was lost in that daydream when someone returned who slammed her mood straight into the dirt.
Clunk—
"Tsk. All that fuss over a single potion."
Gaudium appeared with potions dangling from one hand. He scanned the room and tossed a bottle to Besia — then sensed something was off.
"What? Where did that brat go?"
He was asking about the vanished Argal. Besia hesitated over whether to tell the truth or lie, but the truth was she didn't have a lie worth telling. He'd just opened the door and walked out. She could hardly say he'd vanished into the earth. Besides, she had no idea where Argal had gone.
"...He opened the door and left."
"Hmph. The quiet cat always climbs the hearth first. Trouble, no matter how you look at it."
Gaudium slowly twirled his fingers, tracking Argal's location with black magic. A black magic circle bloomed above his hand.
"Does he think the shackle around his neck is a decoration? I do wonder how he opened the door, but even if he runs, there's nowhere to go in this tower... What?"
He furrowed his brow, puzzled. Normally, anyone who knew they were underground would head upward, toward the light. But Argal had gone deeper. Further down.
Gaudium found this interesting, and muttered to himself.
"Doesn't matter either way. I'll just use him as an example. Girl — I'll show you what that act you've been putting on really looks like."
Besia didn't understand at first. Then she did. He meant to use torture magic on Argal. A vicious little demonstration of how a person thrashes under unspeakable pain.
Gaudium gestured for her to follow, but the girl couldn't manage more than a few steps before she crumpled.
"Tsk. Look at you — you can barely walk. Drink this first."
He tossed her a blood-red potion. She hesitated. Was drinking this the right thing to do? But Besia was so thirsty she swallowed it down gratefully, gulp after gulp. Until now, she'd refused to eat or drink anything a black mage gave her. But she'd already pretended to obey once. There was no point holding that line anymore.
Fortunately, Gaudium hadn't tampered with the potion. Vitality surged back into her.
Then she followed him, and what she saw made her blood run cold.
There's an underground space like this?
If ordinary mages built their towers high, researching magic at the summit, black mages did the opposite — they dug down, tunneling into the earth to hide from prying eyes. These were called black magic towers, and every kingdom and every church treated them as targets for extermination. A black magic tower of this scale couldn't exist without the kingdom's consent.
How much food did it take to keep this many black mages fed? At minimum, you'd need merchant-caravan-scale trade flowing in and out. There was no way that escaped the kingdom's notice. The Church would never compromise — but a kingdom could negotiate with black mages politically. This black magic tower existed under the kingdom's permission.
Besia followed Gaudium, terrified of how deep the conspiracy here ran.
Gaudium had been cheerfully contemplating how to break Argal — until he realized the trail was heading somewhere impossibly deep. His face went rigid.
The destination was the tower's treasure vault. It was the most secure place in the tower, sealed with a cipher unique to black mages. Without that cipher, entry was impossible.
Gaudium seized the vault keeper with black magic.
"H-Hieek! Lord Gaudium!"
"Did that brat go in here?"
"The slave, you mean? H-He just went in!"
"How did he get in?"
"Huh?"
The keeper answered as if it were obvious.
"He wrote down the cipher and submitted it, so I let him through. Didn't you send him, Lord Gaudium?"
"What kind of nonsense is that? I never sent him. I had him locked in a room, for that matter..."
He thought it through realistically. A slave who'd only arrived yesterday couldn't possibly know the cipher to his treasure vault. That much was obvious. The keeper had clearly made a mistake. Otherwise, how could Argal possibly know a cipher that existed nowhere except inside Gaudium's own head?
"We'll settle this later, keeper. Depending on the severity of your crime, you're a dead man."
"I'm innocent!"
"That's a problem for later. First, we're going inside."
He scrawled the cipher on a scrap of paper and tossed it to the keeper. The man muttered through tears of injustice.
"But I didn't... it was definitely right..."
Gaudium wanted to kill him on the spot, but he had more urgent business. He entered the treasure vault.
And there, sure enough, was Argal.
Black hair. Shabby experimental robes. The boy stood motionless before a mountain of black-magic treasures, and he didn't so much as glance over when Gaudium walked in.
Gaudium felt a flicker of relief that the slave hadn't done anything to the treasures — and then rage, as he prepared his most vicious torture magic.
"Ready to pay for what you've done?"
"It was a waste of time."
"What?"
"Even after leaping through time, the soul's connection remains."
Argal stretched out one hand.
"Still, I learned something. So it wasn't completely meaningless."
At its master's will, a single treasure buried at the very bottom rose into the air. It was a thoroughly shabby dagger — covered in rust and grime, its design so crude it barely qualified as craftsmanship. Calling it a treasure was a stretch. Antique junk would have been more accurate.
Gaudium chuckled and mocked him.
"I don't know how you got here, or how you just happened to pick up the one relic that fits this situation — but are you planning to grind away your own lifespan to escape?"
"..."
"Kerseia's Altar Dagger. Every time you pierce your own hand, it eats your lifespan and lets you cast powerful black magic. Even if you get out of here with that thing, you'll be dead within a year. Wouldn't it be better to follow my will and live forever? If the immortality experiment succeeds, I'll even give you that dagger as a gift."
Besia was horrified. Was that his method? A dagger that consumed his own lifespan?
"And a child who's never used black magic in his life — you think you can control that kind of power? You'll be stopped by me and die. Put it down now and I promise I won't harm you..."
"Are you afraid?"
A short murmur. A single line that jabbed Gaudium's pride.
"...What did you just say."
"You, an Elder of a black magic tower, frightened by this little thing? Well, I suppose you would be. You're confident you won't lose — but you're not confident you can win without taking damage."
"Just because you have a mouth doesn't mean you should run it."
"There's something you're wrong about, though."
Thuck—
Argal drove the dagger into his own hand.
Besia couldn't help but stare, eyes wide. If Gaudium was right, the cost was an enormous amount of lifespan. She was stunned that Argal would make that kind of sacrifice.
Or is this actually better?
Better a short life as a free human than a slave to a black mage?
A massive storm of magi swept over everything. Besia was already weak, and magi — lethal to a priestess — flooded the air around her. She was on the verge of passing out.
"Aaaah— you're insane!"
Caught in the blast, Besia swore on instinct. Was she actually going to die? She squeezed her eyes shut — and then a hand settled on her head. It was warmer than she expected.
"Stay still. I'll go kill the black mage."
"...You."
Besia looked at Argal's pale face. Blood poured from the hand he'd stabbed with the dagger. His body, eroded by magi, looked agonizing just to look at.
That was when she understood.
He really is trying to save me. He's going to get us out of here, even if it means sacrificing everything he has.
"If you die... I won't... let it go..."
Those were her last words before she fainted.
Leaving Besia behind — who'd muttered something strange about not letting it go if an Immortal died — I faced Gaudium.
It had been a long time since I'd felt this omnipotent. Magi. The power I'd lived with my entire life after becoming Immortal. I focused first on controlling the magi I'd just reclaimed.
Even black mages didn't store raw magi in their bodies. Unrefined magi was an extreme poison to the human body. They either packaged it carefully in a specific location, or kept it outside the body entirely. Those were the two usual methods.
I was an Immortal, so stuffing magi into my body wouldn't really hurt me — but the problem was that a human body would become something close to a corpse. Becoming something that was alive but not living... I was going to the Academy. I planned to help the Hero. That wasn't a look I could afford.
So I decided to store the magi somewhere else. I had the perfect magical tool for it, after all.
Vwoooooom—
I concentrated the magi into the dagger. If I ever lost it, I'd be essentially powerless — but I was going to carry it on me at all times anyway, so it didn't matter much. The black clouds were absorbed into the blade, and the wreckage around us settled somewhat.
Then Gaudium, having pulled himself together, appeared before me.
"...I never used it, so I didn't know. It even gathers magi for you. Perfect for a beginner."
"You've got a lot of misconceptions."
I spun the dagger in a lazy circle. Magi drifted out like smoke, tracing perfect rings. A few slashes of the blade, and a high-level magic circle formed in an instant. Confusion flickered in Gaudium's eyes.
"It even assists with casting black magic? That's practically a magic sword with a built-in battery. A far greater treasure than I expected. Truly unexpected."
He clearly couldn't imagine that I was the one doing it. Fair enough. Until moments ago, I'd been a noble's son who didn't even have mana, let alone magi — a near-incompetent. Who'd expect someone like that to suddenly start casting high-level black magic?
"Think you can beat me by leaning on a tool?"
As one of the handful of black mages in Ambrosia whose skill actually counted, he began firing off counter-techniques against every spell I cast. As he kept dismantling them, confidence gradually filled his face.
That expression didn't last long.
"Why...?"
If it were a mere ego sword — nothing but an imitation of a true Holy Sword or magic sword — there would be a limit. Gaudium would know the dagger in my hand wasn't a real magic sword. It granted immense power from the outset, but that was the ceiling. From there it would only weaken, never grow stronger.
But my attacks kept growing stronger, more precise, and higher-tier black magic began to take form. Even the great Gaudium couldn't help but notice something was wrong.
The dagger moved in a frenzy. The higher the black magic, the more extreme the magic circles required to manifest it. It took time — but the results were certain. Black magic that Gaudium couldn't hope to match — no, that even the Tower Master of Ambrosia couldn't surpass — took shape.
"I told you."
This is the end, Gaudium. After this, only the hell you have to endure remains.