At the Crossroads of Life and Death
To gain anything in this world, one had to risk everything.
He had known that truth for a very long time. Yet, seduced by a fleeting taste of peace, he had tried to forget it.
Einzel looked up at the sky. A suffocating, damp chill hung heavy over the city. The imperial capital, which should have been the safest and most tranquil sanctuary on the continent, was now the most perilous place in the world for them.
"...So, where are we going to look for clues?" Peria asked.
"Well, I suppose our most direct option is confronting those knights," Einzel replied. "The problem is, torture won't work on them."
"I doubt we'd learn much from them anyway."
"Why do you say that?"
"Count Cerindel was the last person I saw before I was tortured and killed. I pried everything he knew out of him back then, and if a noble like him was left in the dark, what could ordinary knights possibly know? All he knew was that the Imperial Court ordered my capture specifically because of that ring."
"Hmm... That means it's a secret so closely guarded they couldn't even disclose it to their trusted retainers. Either that, or it poses a direct existential threat to the imperial family."
"I can't say for sure," Einzel said. "What matters most right now is unraveling whatever is hidden inside that ring. Wouldn't it be best to start by tracking down the word 'Tecamiel'?"
"Tecamiel..." Peria rested a finger on her chin, deep in thought. "It sounds like an ancient tongue, but I don't have the faintest clue what it means."
"Really? Even you?"
"Yes. I know every commonly used ancient dialect, but I've never once heard of 'Tecamiel.' It's likely not Ancient Imperial, but from another nation altogether."
"What kind of historical entanglement could the Empire have had with foreign nations?"
"Should we start by digging through the imperial archives?"
"Not a bad idea."
"The only problem is finding a place that would actually keep uncensored records like that."
"There is one place," Peria said, a faint smirk tugging at her lips.
"Where?"
"The old man had his workshop in the Magic Tower, but he also kept a secret archive elsewhere to store all the private research he compiled over his lifetime."
"And where is this archive?"
"I know the way, so just follow me. Though it'd be nice if we had some way to mask our presence."
"We'll have to make do. Let's pull up our hoods for now."
They pulled their cloaks tight, masking their faces beneath deep shadows as they slipped into a deserted alleyway.
"Isn't this right next to the Imperial Palace?" Einzel asked, an uneasy knot tightening in his chest.
"Yeah, it's near the palace," Peria said, brushing back a stray lock of hair with an irritated sigh. "Don't look at me like that. What am I supposed to do about the old man deciding to build his archive right under the Emperor's nose?"
She stopped in front of a nondescript stone wall. "All right, this is it."
Einzel ran his hand over the cold masonry, feeling nothing out of the ordinary. "There's nothing here but a solid wall. Did something go wrong? It doesn't feel like illusion magic either."
Peria sighed softly. "Just... step aside for a second."
As Einzel stepped back, Peria fished an ornate key from her pocket. She pressed the key straight against the solid stone.
Though there was no visible keyhole, the key slid smoothly into the masonry as if sinking into still water.
"What in the world...?"
"Dimensional magic. The wall itself is enchanted to let only this specific key pass through to the hidden lock inside."
She twisted the key. With a heavy, metallic clunk, the masonry pivoted inward, revealing an open doorway.
"Unbelievable..." Einzel stood dumbfounded. "Using high-tier spatial magic just to build a private archive..."
He trailed off, shaking his head. "No, wait. If he went through this much trouble, whatever's in there must be worth it."
Peria nodded. "Exactly. The old man may be resting in a coffin now, but he was once the Master of the Magic Tower. You really think he would've gathered mundane junk?"
With that, she stepped across the threshold.
A plume of stale dust billowed into the air, carrying the sharp stench of damp rot and mildew.
"...Are any of these documents even intact?"
"It always looks like this," Peria replied dismissively. "It's just a decoy enchantment to trick intruders into thinking there's nothing here worth taking."
Einzel walked in, gazing at the endless rows of towering bookshelves crammed with decaying tomes. He pulled one out and cracked it open. "Even this one's completely ruined with mold."
Beneath the thick green fuzz, the ink was entirely illegible.
"Hmph. Impatient as always, aren't you?"
Paying him no mind, Peria walked briskly down the central aisle, her boots clicking against the flagstones. "If I just pull this one..."
The moment she drew out a particular volume, brilliant light burst from the empty slot.
In the blink of an eye, the illusion shattered. The grime, cobwebs, and crumbling mold vanished as if they had never existed, revealing a pristine, meticulously organized library.
"...Impressive."
Einzel glanced down at the book in his hands. The mold was gone, its pages crisp and spotless. Hastily sliding it back into place, he turned his attention toward the historical chronicles.
His gaze soon landed on a set titled Annals of the Empire.
Oddly enough, although it was clearly a multi-volume chronicle, every single tome was bound in a completely different size and thickness. He pulled out the first volume and opened the preface.
"This book is a firsthand, concurrent record of the events that transpired within the Empire. Here, I pen the inaugural volume of a chronicle to be passed down through the generations, from master to disciple.
October 4, Year 1052 — Karpen Asus"
Einzel tilted his head in confusion. Year 1052?
The present year was 536. It didn't take him long to realize that a different calendar system was in play.
"It says the year 1052, but it must be an older calendar. Do you know when this was written?"
"What? 1052?"
Peria walked over and peered at the preface over his shoulder.
"This is from before the Empire adopted the Tilhaspetu calendar... back when they still used the Gsiton calendar. In other words, these records date back to when the Empire still flew under the banner of the Phoenix."
"Tilhaspetu... You mean the First Saint?"
"Right. After he overthrew the corrupt mages occupying the Magic Tower and the emperor-centric church, the year of his death was designated as Year 0. That's the calendar we use today. Before that, everyone followed the Gsiton system."
"Every volume in this series has a different size and binding," Einzel noted. "Doesn't that mean we could trace the entire history of the Empire from that era right up to the present day?"
"That depends on what the final volume is."
Peria reached up and pulled the last volume of the Annals of the Empire from the shelf. The moment she flipped open the cover, she froze.
"History repeats itself.
Year 483 — Carven Theodore"
Inscribed across the title page was the name of her late master.
"What on earth is this book...?"
Peria began leafing through the pages. The volume was filled with records of every description. Some were mundane trivia, but others contained explosive political secrets—such as how the current Emperor, originally the younger brother, seized the throne only after the previous Emperor collapsed and died of a sudden illness.
Flustered, Peria blurted out, "P-Pull all of them out! Every single one!"
At her urgent demand, Einzel gathered every mis-matched volume bearing the title Annals of the Empire and stacked them onto the reading table.
Peria immediately sat down and began reading from Volume 1. Watching her flip through the parchment at blinding speed, Einzel quietly turned his attention to the other manuscripts scattered across the archive.
"This is it! Could this be what it's about?!"
It was several days later when Peria cried out, her voice echoing through the vaulted chamber.
Einzel walked over to her, his arms laden with bread and provisions. He had risked discovery to slip out into the city streets, navigating imperial patrols with utmost caution to bring back food.
Setting the supplies down onto the table, he asked, "What did you find?"
"Look here!"
Einzel leaned over the passage she indicated. It was taken from an uncensored manuscript entitled Magic Behind the Empire.
...The leadership of the Magic Tower pursued forbidden research aimed at transcending mortal limitations. Designated the Philosopher's Stone Project, their goal was to create an artifact capable of amplifying mana beyond the natural laws of the world.
Because understanding how the human body channeled mana was essential to its creation, countless human lives were sacrificed in the process. When a priest named Tilhaspetu uncovered their atrocities, the conspirators were overthrown and vanished into the shadows. Tilhaspetu believed the experiment had ended in failure, but in truth, it had succeeded.
That completed creation was known as the Catalyst.
"...The Catalyst?" Einzel murmured, his brow furrowing.
"Yeah. Read this part, too."
The Catalyst was passed down in absolute secrecy, entrusted only to a single lineage. These mages were the core researchers behind the Catalyst's creation—the very faction that governed the Empire from the shadows until the emergence of Tilhaspetu.
"So you think that ring is connected to this Catalyst?"
"I do," Peria said firmly. "If the Catalyst is powerful enough to amplify mana beyond the laws of nature, it's easily an artifact the Imperial Court would stop at nothing to claim."
"Does the Annals of the Empire mention anything about it? From what I saw, those chronicles were written by mages of your own lineage."
"No, there's not a single word about the Catalyst in there. Our predecessors probably held low ranks in the Magic Tower back then, meaning they didn't have clearance to access top-secret research."
"Then what makes you so certain the Catalyst has anything to do with that ring?"
"Look right here."
Multiple factions were mobilized to craft the Catalyst. Among them, the school that contributed the most—slaughtering countless human subjects in the process—took the phoenix as their sigil. Even before the founding of the Magic Tower, before the rise of the Empire itself, their emblem had always been the divine beast that embodied immortality.
"A phoenix..."
"Exactly. That's the link."
"But the clue said 'fledgling phoenix,'" Einzel pointed out. "Aren't you focusing a bit too much on just the phoenix part?"
"'Fledgling phoenix' could easily be an epithet referring to the successor of that faction."
"Hmm..." Einzel frowned, turning the thought over in his mind before shaking his head. "Well, whatever the truth is, that's not our most urgent problem right now. The situation outside has taken a turn for the worse."
"What happened?"
"The Imperial Court has officially issued an extermination order for both of us."