Air Conditioners Steal Ice Mages' Jobs (6)
Mana stone consumption this year was up compared to previous years.
"Reason?"
"We suspect the widespread distribution of a new artifact called the air conditioner, sir."
"I see."
And with that, the Imperial Magic Investigation Bureau began to move.
Mana stones. Artifacts crafted to store and release mana, they had long since become indispensable to daily life — and at the same time, they were dangerous. The Crown managed their trade volume accordingly.
It hadn't always been that way. Once, they'd been regarded as nothing more than a clever convenience — an invention to ease the lives of low-mana non-mages.
But not long ago, that incident happened.
Some madman, a mage, bought mana stones in bulk and unleashed an act of terror using the enormous mana they contained.
The damage had been catastrophic. The explosion of the mana stones erased a mountain, boiled away a river, and wiped an entire village off the map.
After something like that, a surge in mana stone distribution was not a matter the Imperial Magic Investigation Bureau — the agency responsible for magical incidents across the empire — could afford to ignore.
"There are also signs of factional conflict brewing among the mages."
The chief investigator took the documents his subordinate handed over and skimmed through them. From what he could tell, cracks had formed between the mages of the Cold Magic Tower, who had enjoyed a seasonal monopoly on summer business, and everyone else.
And at the center of that conflict, once again, was that artifact — the air conditioner.
The chief investigator's brow furrowed.
The air conditioner drove up mana stone distribution. The air conditioner sowed discord among the mages...
Suspicious. Deeply suspicious. His instincts as an investigator insisted on it.
What if the plan was to set the mages at each other's throats, throw the empire into chaos, and then — in the confusion — recover the mana stones already circulating in the market for some hidden purpose? If the Investigation Bureau's eyes were fixed on the mages, the seditious elements lurking within the empire might seize the chance to run wild. The response to them would naturally be delayed, too. And the longer the Bureau faltered, the greater the damage to the empire.
Perhaps it was an overactive imagination. But he had always believed that assuming the worst and preparing for it was the only way to respond when that worst actually arrived. There was no harm in caution.
"Put surveillance on the mage who developed the air conditioner. Shadow him and find out whether this is a lone operation or an organized one. Report anything suspicious. If the situation turns urgent, act first and report after."
"Yes, sir!"
The subordinate bowed with crisp formality.
And so the Imperial Magic Investigation Bureau began watching Owen.
At the same time, the mages of the Cold Magic Tower were on the move.
"Kill him! Find that Owen bastard and kill him!"
Their intent was simple: eliminate Owen, the source of the invasion, so that no one could ever trespass on their rice bowl again.
Of course, there was no way the other towers could have missed such a reckless, impulsive move, and they too mobilized — to protect Owen.
It was an absolute circus.
"Isn't it suddenly cold in here?"
"Now that you mention it."
Which should have been an impossible thing to say. This was the outdoors — no air conditioner anywhere in sight, dead center of a street with the sun beating straight down on it.
I was still glancing around, searching for the blonde girl while biting into my apple, when it happened.
Ssssssshh—
The moment those words left my mouth, a bone-piercing chill came rolling in from behind me. It slipped over my shoes and up into my trousers, climbed my legs to my spine, and from there reached the nape of my neck — and gooseflesh broke out across my skin in waves. The apple dropped from my hand.
"Is this guy insane?"
The curse slipped out before I could stop myself. The offense was simply too absurd. Selling the air conditioner, the only real danger I'd ever anticipated was the threat of ice magic aimed at me. Frost mages facing the loss of their livelihood to their fellow mages — of course it would come to this. What I hadn't counted on was this. How was anyone supposed to imagine a mage taking aim at me in the middle of a crowded street? There are limits to going off the rails, and hadn't he crossed the line entirely?
I turned my head toward the direction the chill was seeping from. Among the ordinary passersby stood one suspicious figure. A mage wrapped in a wide, billowing blue robe, his face above the collar lost in shadow. Almost certainly frost magic from the Cold Magic Tower.
The hood came off.
Hair, eyebrows, even beard — a white-haired old man, ancient as winter itself.
"Owen. So it's you. Owen."
White ice spread across the street from where the old man stood. Crack, crack. The pavement froze over with a sound like a glacier calving, and so did the walls of the surrounding buildings.
"Kyaaaah!"
At that violent pulse of mana, the passersby screamed and scattered in every direction, panic written across their faces.
I let out a sigh and turned around.
"You're a public nuisance, old man."
"Not going to deny it?"
"Deny what? Your colleagues tailed me for days — they've probably got my face memorized by now."
Do you have any idea how long it took me to shake those stalkers off?
Tap—!
The old man struck the ground with his wooden staff. A whirl of cold erupted from the point of impact. The moisture in the air froze along that rising chill, sharpening into ice.
"Before I kill you, I'll ask. Are you a mage hired illegally to destroy us?"
"No."
"Then was someone precious to you murdered by our hand?"
"No."
"Then why did you create that artifact? You had to know it would make an enemy of us. Why?"
Mages really are insufferably arrogant. Look at him, carrying on as if he were some grand existence beyond mortal challenge.
"That is..."
The old man waited for my answer.
"You still don't know...?"
"Answer me, damn you!"
Drag the conversation out on purpose, and the impatient old fool loses his temper. I pulled a quill from my coat and gave him my reply.
"I won't give you the answer you want."
As I curled the corner of my mouth into a smirk, the old man's eyebrows twitched.
"You wretch!!"
At his roar, the held-back attack was finally unleashed. A torrent of razor-sharp ice shards came hurtling straight at me. I simply watched them. I didn't move from my spot.
"Frozen stiff with fear before death, are you!"
As if. I wasn't moving because there was no need to dodge at all.
I swept the hand holding the quill through the empty air. Ink scattered — and yet it didn't fall. It hung suspended in midair. Then the mana-soaked ink began to move. Rearrange itself. Form equations.
And at the last, it drew in the moisture of the air, froze it, and intercepted the incoming ice shards head-on.
Crack-crack-crack!
Ice collided with ice, spraying tiny fragments. A white dust of frost burst out like mist, then caught the wind and swirled away into nothing.
The tendons stood out on the old man's fist where it gripped his staff.
"You — don't tell me you're a cold-attribute mage like us?"
"No."
I am not a cold-attribute mage. The reason I could wield the same ice magic as the old man anyway is that the magic I awakened is a little... special.
To put it simply, think of it as magic that works like a magic cipher. I complete an equation. If that equation is correct and perfect, it manifests the phenomenon it describes. There is one condition, of course: the environment for the equation to occur must already exist.
That's why even knowing the synthesis method for ammonia, I couldn't produce it alone — not without the four-hundred-degree temperatures and two-hundred-atmosphere pressures it demands. It's why I can only conjure ice inside this frozen world the old man has created. If he hadn't dropped the surrounding temperature first, I couldn't have used ice magic at all.
"Otherwise it makes no sense that you could use ice magic at all!"
But the old man, knowing none of this, was fuming, calling me a traitor to frost magic. A decrepit old fossil with lungs that loud. My eardrums hurt.
"And that's quite enough of this conversation."
Cutting off his tirade, I scattered ink into the air again. Ice shards materialized around me — several times the volume of what the old man had produced moments ago. No, dozens of times.
At the sight of hundreds of ice shards pointed his way, a slow flush of bewilderment crept across the old man's face. He was a seasoned mage, after all. He must have realized it — the gulf in ability that stood between us. Decades of his life devoted to magic, and yet the look on his face said he couldn't bear to admit that this young upstart stood on a higher plane than he did.
That, however, was none of my concern.
"I'll give you a handicap."
The ice arrayed itself toward the old man.
"I'll fight you with your specialty. Shall we settle this with firepower? Or with finesse?"
"...You're making me choose between answers you've already fixed. Finesse, then."
The old man raised his staff. A single ice shard, honed and sharpened to a merciless edge, began circling at his side. The way it flitted about like a fly spoke of long years of practice — he was clearly quite adept at remote manipulation.
...Hm. Well, well. The old man didn't eat his age with his rear end after all. Fine. I'll admit it — for now, your finesse is a little better than mine.
"Here I come."
Before the words had even finished leaving my mouth, the ice fired in a single volley.
"Wha—! Weren't we competing in finesse!"
The old man staggered backward, sputtering.
KRAKOOM!!
An avalanche of ice swallowed his voice whole.
It was my victory.