Even If I Shout (4)
"In the end, there's no information to be gained from the exterior."
Meanwhile, Meister finally reached his conclusion. His face was unchanged from when we first met—calm and flat.
"Which means the only way left is to research this thing itself for information…"
No—one thing had changed. His violet eyes glittered with interest.
"Interesting."
To claim the title of Craftsman at such a young age, you probably had to find amusement even in hopeless situations like this.
Well, for someone like me who was curious about the equipment's true nature and wanted answers, it was pure gain.
"First of all—you. If you recover any lost memories about the equipment, tell me. I don't expect anything to suddenly come back, but just in case."
In the meantime Meister pulled paper and pen from his coat and began scribbling something with rapid strokes.
"Also, about this property of returning to you—I'll need your cooperation on that as well."
"Cooperation."
"If you don't want to, I won't force you. It's not like I bought your equipment, and I don't have the money to buy your cooperation either."
I couldn't make out the content, though. Normally a Korean translation would float above the writing so I could read it… but with this guy, the translation wasn't coming through properly.
"But you'll do it, right?"
It wasn't that the letters were flipped and unreadable. The translation wasn't completely absent either.
It simply looked like '@$%#@#@#@#@#@#' and nothing more.
"…The results must be shared."
"Obviously."
Why did it display like that? I slightly narrowed my eyes and stared hard at the writing beneath the translation layer.
"Good. Then next… let's coordinate schedules."
And then I understood. Compared to every other script I'd seen so far, the forms here were far more crushed and scrawled. Bad handwriting, maybe? Was that why it couldn't interpret it?
This was ridiculous.
"Are you free tomorrow?"
"In the morning."
"Then meeting at the Magic Tower in the morning should work?"
At the Magic Tower? Not the workshop?
I raised my eyebrows slightly, then nodded. I already had a schedule to go to the Magic Tower right after lunch tomorrow. Arriving from the morning wouldn't be a loss.
At least not in terms of route.
Visiting the Magic Tower itself was a little unwelcome, but that was only because of the mages' unique brand of madness… eccentricity… whatever it was. No real problem.
"Then we'll meet at the Magic Tower at this time tomorrow."
"Confirmed."
And so I smoothly locked in the appointment. Meister was the type who was clean about beginnings and endings, which made things easy.
…Or maybe it was simply that he was comfortable because he didn't know me—or my concept. With the party, I couldn't even hold official conversations this long.
Well, after that Derpu-whatever city, I couldn't completely drop the concept even with strangers anymore.
BOOM!
"What the hell did you bring in here?!"
"Wait, Sage Karl. Please calm—"
"To the research wing immediately…!"
"Sage!!"
Separately, just because the appointment had been easy to make didn't mean the next day's work would go easily.
As expected, the Magic Tower was a tower of lunatics… no, eccentrics.
"The Demon Knight is late. Could something have happened…?"
"Surely not. He's just a little delayed, that's all."
"Even so…"
"Maybe he just overslept?"
"Come on, no way."
Even Archmage, who had been listening, raised a skeptical "surely not" at Berserk's suggestion.
If it were two weeks of unconsciousness from injury, that would be one thing—but a Demon Knight who simply slept in was beyond imagining.
"Why 'surely not'? The Demon Knight can oversleep too."
"Well, that's true, but…"
Of course, as Berserk said, the Demon Knight could oversleep. No one was perfect in every moment.
Besides, hadn't the Demon Knight secretly shed tears in the city before last—though, regrettably, they still didn't know why? Even things that didn't fit could still happen. With that precedent on record, it was a reality they had no choice but to accept.
"Knowing it and being able to imagine it are different things, aren't they…"
"True enough."
Still… something that didn't fit simply didn't fit. Like how the words "Demon Knight" and "laughter" refused to match.
In the end, everyone grew restless with worry.
"Ah. Here he comes."
"More importantly, why is he coming out of the Magic Tower…?"
Fortunately, before their brains could be fully occupied by daydreams of late sleep or worse, the Demon Knight quietly appeared. His attire was somewhat different from usual.
"My lord, your clothes…"
It wasn't as if the Demon Knight had never worn different clothes before.
In battle he always wore the same thing, but when resting he did change into other garments. That said, it never went beyond swapping the inner shirt, wearing a corset instead of a vest, or changing coats.
"Demon Knight, have you decided to join the Magic Tower?"
But now he had a gown-style mage's robe draped over his shoulders. There was no making sense of it.
"…So you arrived before us?"
Who would have thought they'd see the Demon Knight wearing that robe. Archmage looked him over with a complicated feeling.
A visitor's pass hung from the gauntlet visible between the folds of the mage-exclusive robe.
"…W-well, come inside for now."
Judging by the pass, someone must have lent him the robe to wear…
Archmage recalled the Magic Tower's unspoken rule—that lending a robe meant "this person is my guest, so touch them and I'll destroy you"—and tried to peer inside the garment.
A mage's robe usually had its owner's name embroidered on it.
"…How did you end up wearing Karl's robe?"
The name she found was, surprisingly, one she knew well.
He was the personal disciple of Surging Cheongsanho, and a name frequently mentioned as the next Great Sage in the making.
He was also a research-obsessed eccentric. The kind of eccentric with whom casually running into each other and borrowing a robe should have been impossible.
"Did you call me here for idle chatter like this?"
…But of course the Demon Knight would never explain something like this willingly.
She sighed and led the party onward. The Demon Knight followed right behind, looking somehow foul-tempered.
"Demon Knight, are you learning magic now as well?"
"No, of course not…"
"But you're wearing a robe!"
"That's exactly why…"
As always, the two of them chattered away in their ongoing effort to get closer to the Demon Knight.
"Ah, Archmage!"
"Hm? Ah, Liam. It's you."
Someone hurried up to them then. Gray hair close to an afro bounced and swayed with every step.
"Due to an urgent request from the lord, the Great Sage has had to leave, so unfortunately I'll be handling the guidance today."
"Is that so. Well, it can't be helped."
Sage Liam pushed back hair so tightly curled it had puffed out into a soft cloud and offered a light apology.
It was somewhat disappointing for Archmage.
If Cheongsanho himself had stepped in to examine the Demon Knight, nothing could have been more reliable. That was how she felt.
"So the one to be checked today is… this gentleman, correct?"
But this examination itself was a favor from the Magic Tower. Even among Great Sages, Cheongsanho's time commanded an especially high price.
So rather than show her disappointment, she chose to proceed with the day's work.
"Yes. This way, then."
Liam began fulfilling today's appointment.
"Would you remove the robe for a moment? There's a disruption spell woven into it, so examining you while wearing it would be a problem."
The examination room changed every time, but the process itself was similar. I followed the mages' request and slowly took off the robe.
It was the robe Sage Karl had lent me in exchange for tearing apart not only my gloves but my coat as well. I still didn't understand how that counted as a fair trade.
"…No joke. Never thought I'd see the day I'd get to touch a Sage's robe."
"If I just tear a little piece off… no, I shouldn't, right?"
"Who is that guy that Sage Karl would even hand over his robe?"
"You don't know? That's the Demon Knight."
"Everyone stop unless you want Karl to disassemble you."
"Yes, sir."
Still, earlier when I'd been walking around, everyone had carefully kept their distance out of caution, which had made getting around easier. I did wonder what kind of mage Karl was that people stepped back just from seeing the robe.
With those thoughts, I lay down on the prepared bed.
Several mages immediately gathered around and began casting something over my body.
"Here—use the findings from Hudelen as reference too."
"There aren't many mages there who deal with essence, are there?"
"True, but Great Sage White Wind led it, so it should be reliable."
"Ah, in that case."
Ah. Just lying still and listening to people talk was making me drowsy.
"No issues with his health. Though the Demon Energy reading in the right arm seems stronger than the records."
"More than that—how does it take this form? I heard he's wearing a sealing tool made by Great Sage White Wind. Could that be the cause?"
"Well… that seems a bit odd for an explanation…?"
Still, I shouldn't sleep. Eyes closed, I forced the drowsiness away, hoping the mages might let slip some useful clue.
"This form is closer to a demon contractor than a zombie, isn't it?"
But this was a bit much.
"If you move—!"
CRUNCH.
"Hup."
Halfway through sitting up, I unconsciously put force into the hand bracing against the bed. Gauntlet marks remained in the metal frame.
The mages, softer than iron plate, all shut their mouths at once. These ones seemed to have less guts than the Hudelen mages.
"Did you see that just now? The Demon Energy flowed."
"I saw it."
"I saw it."
"Did it purify into mana? I couldn't see properly."
"Uh, from what I saw, it didn't seem to."
"Hmm. So when he uses it instinctively, the Demon Energy itself is what's being used?"
…Correction. Not less guts—more. Their eyes had gone completely crazy.
"Just once more! Please, just one more time!"
I debated whether to press them about the words "demon contractor" or simply go along with their request. In the end I chose the latter.
I'd heard similar things in Hudelen, so this time it seemed better to let them reach their own understanding.
"……"
Still, I ought to look thoroughly pissed off.
I arranged my face into something murderous and obediently followed their requests.
Once with the right arm, once with the left. Weakly, then strongly. The mages put their heads together and began murmuring.
"Hey, this is seriously weird. If he hasn't contracted, how can the Demon Energy only be concentrated in the right arm?"
"To call the right arm a core… yeah, that doesn't work either, right? There's no way Great Sage White Wind wouldn't know that."
"If the right arm were the core, they would have ordered it cut off long ago. That is simply a demon dwelling in the flesh. It's just that all the Demon Energy the dwelling demon produces has been driven into the right arm."
Then a story I'd heard once before came up as well. Nothing particularly important.
In short: even if you cut off the right arm, the demon inside my body wouldn't disappear, so there was no need to take the loss for nothing.
That was exactly why I'd never considered cutting the arm off in the first place.
"To say it's because of the sealing tool… but even before that, the Demon Energy was only concentrated in the right arm, so that can't be it either."
"Is this really not a contract effect? What if he just used the right arm as a vessel for Demon Energy when he contracted?"
"…Ben, watch your mouth. Unless you want the Demon Knight to kill you."
"Oh."
More than that—did that bastard actually want to fight my concept? I glared at the one who'd been going on about contracts until the veins stood out.
It was fortunate they'd only said the distribution of Demon Energy resembled a demon contractor. If they'd called me a contractor, the concept would have demanded bloodshed already.
"…So did he really drive the Demon Energy into the right arm by instinct?"
Still, for all their research passion, they apparently valued their lives—they sidled away in a crab-walk.
"That seems a little strange, doesn't it? Contractors separate it out to use Demon Energy at high purity, but… if you're going to convert Demon Energy into mana anyway, there's no need to gather it in one place."
"…No, perhaps it is meaningful. According to Archmage, over time…"
Thanks to that, the voices reaching my ears gradually grew quieter. It couldn't be helped, but it was a shame. I'd hoped I might get something out of this round.
BANG!
In that moment, the door of the room where I was being examined flew open. The Hero's party waiting at the entrance startled—except Berserk; she already seemed to know—and rose to their feet.
"What."
"Meister! Now that you're a mage, you can't just go around throwing doors open—!"
"Well. Ordinarily I'd show respect too, but do I really need to when you've laid hands on Sage Karl's guest?"
More importantly—why had Meister come at all?
"Sage Liam, you know this too. Touching someone who's been lent a robe means you're ready to die."
"It's a misunderstanding. And that's something Karl should come handle himself—why are you…"
"Would Sage Karl be faster, or would I? That's the only reason I came. And for a 'misunderstanding,' you said a powerful signal came from the robe?"
"We didn't even touch the robe, so why would there be a signal…!"
Uh… well. Someone did touch it, I think?
Meister's eyes, standing in the doorway, rolled to one side, and my gaze moved with them. Naturally Liam followed Meister—he couldn't see my gaze shift since I was behind him—and turned his head toward the corner.
"Ah, hahaha…"
One of the mages was holding Sage Karl's robe and laughing awkwardly. Clearly the culprit.
"You…!"
Liam clutched his head.