The Cardinal and the Magicians
Cardinal Michael.
Despite wielding the absolute, unchecked power of a cardinal, he was a modest man who came across like a kindly neighborhood grandfather.
My, even the clothes he wears are so humble.
Humble? Don't you mean shabby?
Gah! Shabby?! How dare you say that about a Cardinal of the Twelve Hour Church!
"By the way, my disciple."
"Y-yes, Master..."
"Have you finally cast off your confusion? You seem to have achieved something."
"Well, about that..."
"Never mind. This isn't the place for that conversation. Ah, your name was Khtun, was it?"
"Yes."
"You may go on ahead. I need some time with my disciple, so I'll see you separately later."
"Yes!"
Ancestor, did you hear that? The Cardinal said he wants to see me separately.
That's good.
Of course it is.
From what I'd been picking up here and there lately, the Twelve Hour Church wasn't particularly well-known to the general public, but when it came to demon hunting, they were considered the absolute best.
You know how it is. The kind of thing that people in the know all know about—the real deal among the real deals, so to speak.
And now the realest of those real deals wanted to see me separately. Even without any particular reason, of course my heart would race!
You power-hungry little sycophant.
Thank you.
And so, tucking away my fluttering heart, I went to meet my father.
Father had apparently heard my shout as well, for he was already coming out toward the castle gate, and we met halfway.
"Father!"
"Khtun! I heard the news from the messenger the Viscount of Hadion sent. You accomplished something quite significant, I understand?"
"Heh heh, it was nothing much."
"Nothing much, indeed! In any case, welcome home. Let's go inside."
We moved to the reception hall. It wasn't long before my original brother, Vilheim, arrived.
"You've returned."
"Yes, Brother."
"You've done well."
Vilheim said this and took his seat. Ah, and my stepmother, Lady Hella, had come as well.
"You've truly been through a great deal. You weren't hurt, were you?"
"No, I was fine."
"You've grown so much..."
Ugh, I could never quite get used to Stepmother Hella. For some reason, she seemed more affectionate toward me than toward her own son, Vilheim.
Anyway, after that touching (?) family reunion—
"So, you've returned. Did you not run into Young Grand Duke Merlin and Ellie? They left a few days ago."
"Ah, yes. We must have missed each other on the road."
"Hmm, they may have taken a detour. So then, what happened? I've heard the rough outline of events, but I'd like to hear it from your own mouth as well."
"Ah, yes. Well..."
Without diminishing a single detail of the actual facts, and adding only the slightest touch of embellishment, I proceeded to recount my mythic feats.
Are you a con artist?
This much is fine, isn't it?
"Dear, it seems Khtun has the makings of a bard."
"Haha, indeed. The tale is quite savory. My eldest, what do you think?"
"It's enjoyable to listen to."
See? Even the family likes it.
The family listened with enjoyment to my story, spiced with a few spoonfuls of exaggeration. But it couldn't remain purely enjoyable. Why? Because of the message left behind by our territory's mage, Ren.
After the story had ended—
"So... yes, Sir Bioren left such words behind."
"Yes. But did you already know?"
"Know about what? Sir Bioren's circumstances?"
"Yes."
"I didn't know about his connection to the demon worshipper named Rebecca, but I had roughly guessed the rest. I also knew that his relationship with the worshippers was far from amicable. He did tell me that much."
"I see."
Then what about Vilheim, Ren's closest friend? When I glanced over at him, Vilheim answered calmly.
"I knew. I simply didn't speak of it because it was a personal matter."
So that was how it was.
"But it's all so sudden. For Sir Bioren to leave like this..."
"He did say he would return."
"I truly hope he does."
I felt the same. His true intentions had been hard to read, and something about him had always felt off, making me uneasy while we were together—but the man himself wasn't a bad person. And given the circumstances he'd been through, that level of twistedness was practically a solid performance.
Anyway, enough reflections on the departed. Now came the main topic.
"What do you think? About Sir Ren's words."
The demon worshippers' conspiracy is only just beginning—prepare yourselves. Father's take on those words was as follows.
"There's merit to it. Setting aside how horrific the upheaval in the south was... it never looked as though the worshippers had actually accomplished anything. They must have had some purpose for doing what they did, yet we could never figure out what it was."
Father seemed to have felt that something was off as well. Well, of course. If they went to the trouble of staging an incident on that scale, they must have had a clear purpose.
The problem was this: just what purpose were the worshippers trying to achieve? Speculation on that point ran wild in every direction.
"Human sacrifice, perhaps? I've heard that worshippers offer sacrifices to demons in exchange for power."
"If that were the case, I think they would have approached it more secretly."
"Then what?"
"I wonder if the chaos in the south itself was the goal... though that doesn't seem quite right either, does it?"
"Vilheim, what are your thoughts?"
"I've actually helped Ren purge demon worshippers several times. Not every worshipper blindly believes in and follows demons. To them, demons are closer to a means to an end."
"In that case, they wouldn't have risked their lives for something meaningless."
"Yes."
"Then what on earth are they after...?"
The discussion continued for quite some time after that, but no particularly compelling conclusions emerged. Well, that was only natural. It's hard for the righteous people of Falaon to understand the minds of wicked worshippers.
In the end, the conversation had to close without any real breakthrough—but on one point, there was no disagreement.
"I haven't known him long, but I don't believe Sir Bioren would have spoken nonsense. It would be wise to prepare on a large scale."
That they needed to prepare for the danger.
"Let's leave it here for today, and each of us give some more thought to countermeasures."
"Yes."
"Yes."
And so the family council came to a close—leaving behind the homework of defeating the worshippers (?).
The days that followed were peaceful. Father held a grand festival to commemorate the victory at Hadion, but not before thoroughly handling compensation for the dead.
"They ultimately gave their lives for Falaon. We must not treat them carelessly."
"That's my father for you!"
While my heart felt at ease, I pondered the defeat of the worshippers and did what I could on my own. First up: the Valhalla Skeletons.
"Too many were destroyed in the last battle. I need to replenish them."
Replenishing them wasn't difficult in itself. Thanks to the hard work of Bishop Philos and the other priests at Hadion, the cores had already been purified. So all I had to do was generate them...
"Honestly, arming the Valhalla Skeletons is a real pain. They say you only need to equip them with weapons, no armor required, but still..."
Because it's not just one or two of them.
Until now, I'd armed forty-five of them and stored spare weapons in my subspace. But— the losses in battle are just too high.
At the Hadion Viscounty, the Viscount had been accommodating enough to cover the losses, but at this rate, one or two more battles would bankrupt the family fortune.
So I'd come up with an idea. What was it? Bone Weapon. Weapons crafted from bone, plain and simple.
The method itself wasn't particularly special. It was something modern creative works had covered extensively, and even here, it wasn't all that rare for necromancers to equip their summons with Bone Weapons.
The method wasn't all that difficult either. Bone Chain is essentially a type of Bone Weapon, after all... and I'd already applied something similar at Hadion.
My memory was hazy from the heat of battle, but it had been my bone magic that sealed the breached gate at Hadion. So I figured if I just muddled through somehow, it ought to work out...
"Ugh, this is hard."
In a small workshop attached to the lord's castle, I was struggling to create Bone Weapons.
Generating the bone itself wasn't difficult. The problem was... the shape was all wrong.
Maces were relatively easy—just get a decent size and put some weight into them. But when I tried to make a sword, some meaningless club would appear, and when I tried a shield, I'd get a giant lump.
And that wasn't the only problem. Even the maces I could make... weren't particularly useful.
I'd managed to get the form roughly right, but weight and durability were the issues. Even though they were made of mana, bone as a material was hard-pressed to be denser or heavier than steel.
The one silver lining was that mana consumption wasn't a major concern.
"So in the end, there are three things to improve."
One: precision. Two: material quality. Three: generation speed.
I needed to make them in a usable shape, solid enough, and fast enough to arm all forty-five skeletons at once.
How is it that I can make Bone Chain so easily? I could whip up the far more sturdy and precise Bone Chain in no time.
Still, I didn't worry about it too seriously. After all, I could see myself improving the more I practiced. However...
"This is the real problem."
You mean the Spirit Essence.
"Yes."
On this front, there was almost no progress. I practiced extraction in my spare moments, and there had been some slight improvement... but at this rate, who knew when I'd actually succeed.
Creating the essence directly is hard, too. No matter how much mana I poured into the bone, it just exploded—there was no sense of condensation.
"Tsk."
I finally got up from my seat. Before I knew it, the sunset was settling in. I'd come out at dawn and taken both breakfast and lunch in the workshop, so I'd spent no small amount of time there.
I headed out for a walk through the village to clear my head, but even during the stroll, my mind remained a tangle of complications.
One: arming the Valhalla Skeletons. Two: essence extraction and production. And on top of that, I had to consider the threat of demon worshippers that could strike at any time. My head was truly about to explode.
Hardworking me—I deserve some praise.
Fine. This time, even this ancestor of yours will praise you.
Yes.
How long had I wandered the village? As I was heading back toward the castle, I spotted a crowd of unfamiliar people lingering in front of the gate.
What's this?
They were speaking with the guards. Curious, I approached slowly and eavesdropped on the conversation. Before long, I understood who these men were.
"Excuse me. I am a mage by the name of Jake. Might I be permitted an audience with the Baron?"
"I've come from the Blue Magic Tower..."
Mages? It wasn't just one or two. At a glance, there were five or six who looked like mages, and their attendants numbered in the dozens.
Why are mages here?
...I was thinking, when one of the mages talking to the guards spotted me.
"What a dense fellow... Hmm?"
"......?"
"Might you be Young Master Khtun?"
He knows me?
"Yes."
"Ohh! To meet the famous Demon Crusher in person like this! A pleasure to make your acquaintance. I am Delis, a third-circle mage of the Blue Magic Tower!"
Hmm, being a mage, he seemed well-bred and learned. I took the hand Delis cheerfully offered for a handshake and asked,
"Yes, Sir Delis. But what brings you to our territory...?"
"Ah, perfect timing. I was just having trouble with that thick-headed soldier over there—no flexibility whatsoever. Can you believe it? I say I wish to see the Baron, and he tells me he'll send word inside and that I should wait in the village?! What kind of way is that to treat a guest, honestly."
"......?"
What is with this guy? Insulting the master of the house right in front of the master's own son?