At Atradeon's Words, Yujun...
At Atradeon's words, Yujun's eyes went wide.
"The Castle Lord?"
"Which is why I am of two minds."
"About what?"
"Whether I ought to wash my hands of this affair, or see it through."
"If you've already started, you should take it all the way."
"You may not fully grasp this, but the lord of Heaven Castle is a being of absolute power. And that power is not confined to Heaven Castle alone. It reaches across the whole of Heaven. The moment you become truly entangled in this, something may arise that cannot be borne. Dangerous work, even for you."
"We found out the mastermind is the Castle Lord, and now you want to quit because of the power he holds? After coming this far?"
"The Castle Lord is not the mastermind. He has merely taken part in the affair. I mean that he is not the one driving it. Something more dangerous than he may well be involved."
Atradeon took another swallow of the harsh-looking liquor and let out a heavy sigh.
"I will speak plainly. I do not mind dying myself, but my family's safety hangs in the balance. For my stubbornness alone to cost them their lives would be an utterly empty end. For me, at any rate. So I want no further part in this."
"Then Sertiphs's death just gets buried like this? Swept quietly under the rug?"
"......"
"But if your family's caught up in it, there's nothing you can do. I'd have done the same. I understand."
"You have my thanks."
Yujun's gaze shifted from Atradeon to Yenil.
"Yenil. What about you?"
"I'm hardly some fugitive on the run. I don't care if it's dangerous. Not if you're beside me."
"......Right."
Yenil's words invited misunderstanding, though she almost certainly had not meant them that way. Having him nearby would simply make it easier to learn New-Generation Magic.
Manuela, however, heard something else entirely, and rounded on her.
"What do you mean, you don't care so long as he's beside you?"
"Exactly what I said."
"......You're after him too?"
"Mm."
Yenil answered without a flicker of hesitation. She meant she was after his magic—the precise opposite of what Manuela imagined. The trouble was that she had left the object out of the sentence, and Manuela never caught the distinction.
Manuela bit her lip, looking thoroughly wronged.
"I was with him first......"
"What does order have to do with anything? You've enjoyed yourself plenty. How about you hand him over to me now? I was already frustrated at how slowly things were progressing. So that was your fault?"
Because Yenil had dropped the subject—magic—Manuela had no choice but to misunderstand. Their interests simply could not have been more different. Yenil wanted the magic Yujun possessed. Manuela wanted Yujun himself.
"Anyway. Step aside a little. Or lend him to me for just a few months."
Yenil said it in a cold, scoffing tone.
"The way you think...... it's very different from mine, isn't it?"
"Hm? Bringing up whose turn it is again? That won't do. He already promised me. Throwing a tantrum like that won't get you anywhere."
Yujun stepped between them.
"Enough of this. Let's go inside and talk."
Atradeon had said he wanted out of the affair, but they still could not do without his help. Yujun's party took a large room at a nearby inn and went straight to the point.
"Atradeon. You don't have to involve yourself directly. Just pass along whatever you know. A message, anything—it doesn't matter."
"Very well. That much, I can do."
"And it's not as if we'd give your name if we were caught. This way there's no risk to you, is there?"
Atradeon nodded.
"You said the Castle Lord is connected to Sertiphs's death. Is there proof?"
"I had it from a reliable source. I consider it all but certain. There are also rumors that the Castle Lord has been doing a great many strange things of late."
"Strange things?"
"His face has grown suddenly grim. Not merely tired—the very air about him has changed, they say. He replaced his guards entirely with people of unknown origin, and among them were two players confirmed to be Demon God Worshippers."
"The odds it's coincidence..."
"None. But it is certain, at the least, that the Castle Lord has some manner of tie to the Demon God Worshippers."
"Were the newly hired guards of the heavenly race?"
"No. Of the heavenly race, there were only three. Which is why the castle's own residents have grown suspicious of their lord."
"And even so they can't pull him down from the seat?"
"I told you. Absolute power. Unless the Castle Lord dies, or it comes to light that he is an Apostle of the Demon God, the lord will not change."
"Then the only way is to kill him ourselves."
"...You intend to kill him?"
"If he's a Demon God Worshipper. Or something close to it."
"Not a Worshipper, but close to one? What do you mean by that?"
"A collaborator. If he's pouring everything he has into the Demon God Worshippers, he has to die. Well—if he's being held hostage, that's another matter."
"You might well be capable of killing the Castle Lord, but you must decide quickly. Dither, and you will be the one who pays for it."
"I know. Do you happen to have a list of the ones confirmed as Demon God Worshippers?"
"I did not write it down, but I have it memorized. I will send you what I know of them by message."
"Thank you. Is there anything else we should watch for?"
"You already know the Demon God Worshippers are strong, and you do not fear them, so I have nothing particular to add."
"I'm especially strong against Demon God Worshippers."
"Is there some special option on your items related to them?"
"Something like that."
It was not an item. It was an effect of the Primordial Player's privilege.
"We shall speak of it later. I will be staying at another inn, not this one. Do not come looking for me in person. We will communicate only by message."
"Let's do that."
With that, Atradeon left the room.
Yujun sat on the bed and waited quietly for the information to arrive. Yenil, who had been watching the whole exchange, spoke up.
"Shin Yujun. I understand all of it."
"Understand what? How things stand?"
"No. The Magic Enhancement you taught me."
"......"
"I have mastered it completely. You may test me, if you wish."
"Test you for what. I don't think you'd bother lying about something like this."
"Then the next magic......"
"I'll teach you two. They won't feel as fresh to you as Magic Enhancement did. But they're a step above existing Ancient Magic, so I think you'll like them."
Under the pretext of devising New-Generation Magic, Yujun taught Yenil, in full, how to cast two spells he had refined from Ancient Magic. A sharp-minded player seldom forgot a magical formula, and Yenil committed both to memory without setting a word to paper.
"Hmm. One of them resembles a spell I had already created."
"D-does it?"
Of course it did. She, too, was a sorceress of a generation, one who had been forging new and original magic of her own. Whatever Yujun could conceive, she could naturally conceive as well—all the more so when the spell in question was something he had thrown together in a rush, pressed for time.
"But is this all?"
"Why?"
The moment dissatisfaction crossed Yenil's face, Yujun felt his heart drop. Surely not. She hasn't seen through it, has she?
"Can't you teach me more? This is only enchantment-type magic combined with the basic elements. I should be able to master it quickly."
"Hey—don't you know you'll choke if you swallow it all at once? The next ones are harder, so I'm trying to warm you up first."
"Harder? How much harder?"
"Several times more than Magic Enhancement."
At Yujun's bluff, Yenil lit up.
"R-really? A spell like that exists? Can't you teach it to me now? I'm certain I can learn it well!"
She looked ready to seize him by the collar, so Yujun put on a straight face and pushed her back.
"No. Don't try to take the lead. I'm doing all of this for your sake, so just go along with it and take what I give you. Understood?"
"Yes. I understand."
Yenil gave up cleanly. Yujun held all the leverage, and Yenil held none. The imbalance between them was so absolute it could have been ranked two steps further down the chain.
"And for a while, you won't have time to study magic anyway. We're going to be on the move."
"Right now?"
"Yeah. Get ready."
Yujun rose at once.
"The information? Weren't we supposed to wait for that before we left?"
At Manuela's question, Yujun grinned.
"There's been a place giving off a Demon God Worshipper's aura since earlier. Figured I'd start by crushing whoever's there."
"...Nearby?"
"Somewhere within about ten kilometers, I think. They're moving slowly, but they are moving, so I want to hurry."
Yenil tilted her head.
"You can sense a player at that distance?"
"Yeah. Unskilled Demon God Worshippers, especially. Those are even easier."
Yujun's ability to detect Demon God Worshippers was not merely better than other players'. It was dozens of times better, and that was no exaggeration. Which was why something impossible by Yenil's common sense was entirely possible for him.
"That's possible? There must be thousands of players between here and there. You can sense every single one of them?"
"No reason I couldn't."
"......"
Yenil studied him as if seeing him anew. In truth, she had never understood why Yujun—little short of a grandmaster of magic—fought chiefly with the sword. To her mind, magic stood beyond comparison with any skill or trait. She herself had solved everything through magic, and grown strong through magic. She was not wholly without skills and traits, but she possessed few of them; she had spent an immense stretch of years researching and studying magic instead.
She had seen plenty of real battle, and still she had never gone out of her way to acquire skills or traits. Already counted among the strongest sorceresses of her age, she had believed that reaching the pinnacle of magic was the swiftest road to power, and that belief had held firm until now. But with someone before her eyes who might have reached the extreme in both magic and the sword, that certainty wavered, if only slightly.
Even in the days when I was active, there was a man who devoted himself to the sword alone.
Even he had fallen short of Shin Yujun. Of course, items accounted for part of the difference.
Even taking items into account, Shin Yujun seems a monster of a far higher order.
In those days that swordsman had matched Yenil for a time, only to lose to her in the end.
I don't think I could defeat Shin Yujun.
She could say so with certainty, having already tested her magic against his. On magical ability alone, she was no match for him. Add a sword to that, and she could not begin to imagine how strong he would be. She also knew that only a few months had passed since he gained his power.
No matter how extraordinary the talent, does strength like that even make sense?
It was an absurdly short time in which to study magic. Even granting him both luck and talent, wasn't the span simply too brief? And now he meant to single out one player at a distance of ten kilometers and track that position in real time? Had he claimed to be using magic or an item, it would have been easier to believe. But he was not the sort of player who strung together lies of that kind, and so Yenil's thoughts grew tangled.
I ought to watch a little longer, and see whether he is truly a player at all.
She had contracted to travel with him in order to learn magic, yet even setting that aside, he was an intensely mysterious man. A thought occurred to her then: even if magic had never drawn them together, might she not have ended up beside him all the same?