Chapter 124 — Please Protect This Land (1)
"Kaa."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
The librarian bowed his head and answered gently.
Compared to his response when the emperor first appeared in the library, the change was enormous.
"How many were there?"
"About three volumes."
"Even the fact that they exist is remarkable."
Roan had asked the owlbear librarian, Kaa, to locate books that mentioned Fiora.
"Perhaps the sword is older than Your Majesty believes."
"...Hm?"
Kaa's gaze fell on the sword slung at Roan's hip. Roan, too, looked down at Fiora under the librarian's scrutiny.
Older?
"I cannot be certain that it is the same object, but the same name appears even in ancient records."
"...Fiora appears?"
"Yes."
Ancient records...?
Roan's face colored with puzzlement.
When the librarian carefully handed him a worn and fraying book that was nearly falling apart, his expression grew even more unreadable.
The librarian, however, merely asked him to exercise caution while reading it, adding nothing beyond that.
After all, even Kaa didn't know the details of the contents.
He had simply carried out Roan's orders and retrieved books related to the search term — Fiora.
Having borrowed the books from the library since early morning, Roan headed for the training grounds with a bundle in his arms.
The library stood apart from the inner citadel that housed the office and living quarters, and the castle was quite large.
Unless you streamlined your routes, more time bled away than expected.
Not long after he stepped out of the library.
He spotted the Chancellor and the Treasurer just arriving for work.
"Your Majesty. I trust you are in good health."
"Did you have a good evening, Your Majesty?"
"Mm. You enter the palace early."
"We do need to send the soldiers home quickly, do we not?"
Aranya smiled warmly, then noticed the books in Roan's hands.
"You are coming from the library, I see. Your Majesty is diligent even at such an early hour."
"Indeed. I had... a few matters to investigate."
"Ah.... It truly is no simple undertaking, after all."
Roan, who had been briefly puzzled by Aranya's words, realized that she had misunderstood.
Aranya apparently assumed he had borrowed books about the crystal research.
"It would be splendid if I could join the Count's research. A pity."
"Have you not been chased away by the Count several times already, Liron?"
"Hoho, but the Count's machines are objects that any mage would crave to handle personally."
"You are a guest, Treasurer. Please see to it that you do not give offense."
"Whatever do you mean, Chancellor. Mages, by nature, are attention-seekers who love nothing more than when people show interest in their results. The Count simply does not show it outwardly; inwardly, he is surely delighted by my visits."
Liron shrugged his shoulders and protested.
That line sounded a little stalker-like....
"Moreover, I have heard that the crystals are dangerous to you. Would it not be better to keep your distance?"
"Ahh. Regrettably, yes."
Liron was a lich.
A being who preserved his own life force in a specific location through magic power, turned his body into an undead, and devoted himself to eternal inquiry.
His life was connected to him through mana from his Life Vessel, hidden somewhere.
If he stayed near a crystal that drained mana,
he, as a lich, would have his lifeline quite literally severed.
"Perhaps I, too, should craft a mana absorption shielding device like the Count...."
Liron could not abandon his lingering attachment to the Count and his research. Aranya, who had been watching his demeanor with a slight frown, asked flatly.
"A shielding device.... Are you referring to that strange yellow garment the Count wears about?"
"Ahh. Yes. That is correct, Chancellor."
"It... looked uncomfortable."
Roan's eyebrow twitched.
The research was confidential information, known only to the Small Council and the three grand lords.
How had Aranya seen the shielding suit?
"Has the Chancellor also visited the Count's research laboratory?"
"Ah, no, Your Majesty. There are occasions when the Count, wearing that suit, drifts from the autumn banquet hall—from the laboratory, that is—to the library like a ghost."
"...Mm. The attire is certainly conspicuous...."
If it had reached the Chancellor's eye, then everyone in the castle must have surely witnessed the Count in his shielding suit.
Roan sighed.
"It seems the Count sometimes even falls asleep in the library in that state. It is a little pitiable."
Liron's expression was unreadable,
but Roan and Aranya both smiled wryly, their feelings plain on their faces.
"Though the North White Territory appears to employ competent officials.... It is not easy to inquire how matters proceed in Dos, or whether there is any way to assist the research. There is much I wish to ask."
"He might feel pressured."
"Yes. Though he has not stowed his life away elsewhere as I have, he seems to drive himself rather precariously."
The two officials voiced their concern about the Count's condition in one accord. They, too, knew this was not research that could be finished overnight.
Even Roan, the emperor, found it difficult to ask the Count lightly about progress.
They, without a close connection or direct contact with him, would naturally find it even harder.
"So please ask him to share the work even with a non-living being such as myself...."
"Please convey to him that if there is anything he requires, he should not hesitate to tell us. Your Majesty."
The Chancellor cut off the Treasurer's roundabout plea as if slicing a radish, then smiled as she spoke.
'Should I regard this as a long-term campaign?'
He had entertained some hope.
A capable mage was researching day and night, and the raw materials themselves were legendary-grade items in this world.
The 'Dark Forest Seed' and the crystals, after all, had grown an entire forest perfectly well while merely embedded in the earth. So he had vaguely expected that planting them in the ground might make it work.
As expected, it was not so easy.
Parting from the two and heading to the training grounds, Roan silently swung his sword, as if shaking off the worries that darkened his face.
Yet his unsettled heart revealed itself through his body.
"...Whoa."
He nearly slipped.
A mistake Roan's body almost never made.
Roan examined what he had stepped on.
"...Mm."
A small, black stone fragment.
An object that had no business being on the earthen floor of the training grounds.
Roan noticed that it was faintly absorbing mana.
At last, he realized what it was.
It appeared to be one of the fragments shattered during the previous physical-impact test on the crystals.
"Hmm."
Roan picked it up.
A tiny piece the size of a fingernail.
Because Roan had retrieved the stone in a state where he had not imbued it with 'Starlight,' the object looked black even to his eyes.
"I cannot simply leave this lying around."
He couldn't exactly tell a servant to take care of it and throw it away somewhere.
'...It's like industrial waste.'
Precious though it was, its handling somehow felt like hazardous material.
To dispose of the stone fragment personally, Roan ended his training early and brought it to his office, a borrowed book still clutched in one hand.
Upon reaching his office, Roan retrieved the small glass box placed on one side of the bookshelf.
Now, using the barrier magic he had learned from Helen, he could handle that box. Inside it were the leftovers.
Fragments and powder from the crystals that had been used in experiments so far and then discarded, or that Roan had originally retrieved back at the beginning.
Things that could be shown to no one,
and could not be carelessly thrown away.
So Roan had gathered them together, sealed them, and was now using the box as a paperweight for the documents in his office.
"Only this one's different."
Leaning back into the soft office chair,
he used magic that had now become familiar to open the box and placed the fragment from the training grounds inside.
Amidst the entirely transparent pieces
and the crystal powder he had turned transparent by secretly bestowing a blessing upon it yesterday without the Count's knowledge,
only the fragment that had broken off — the fragment of the stone that Helen had once blessed — remained black.
Roan stared at them silently for a moment.
'......Huh?'
An abrupt sense of dissonance flickered through his mind.
"...Huh?"
Roan sprang to his feet, the box still in his hand.
What if the exterior didn't just appear different because its appearance changed, but looked different because its core substance had been altered?
Back when he first illuminated a crystal with 'Starlight' and discovered it.
Roan had already been in the state of having discovered the ruins.
With holy power and mana, one could locate ruins normally invisible. Thus, he had assumed that himself, Aina, and the crystals were all alike: akin to the ruins.
Just as holy power and mana revealed ruins,
holy power revealed crystals.
He had thought it was solely that distinction.
Even under Helen's divine magic, crystals shone. So Roan had, until now, believed that holy power merely 'made invisible crystals visible.'
That 'Starlight,' too, was used to discover something hidden, like the ruins or the crystals.
He had conceived of it as a principle similar to temporarily dispelling an object under a constant invisibility spell to nullify the magic.
But of course, his own power,
though comparable, was different from holy power.
The ruins and crystals Roan discovered with 'Starlight,' once sighted, remained permanently in the state they had been at the moment of discovery.
Just like the crystal Roan had first brought back — the one that now served as a paperweight — which he had made shine before the Lord of the West Blood Territory and then brought here in a transparent state.
Crystals that Helen blessed would eventually return to their original black color over time.
However, crystals that underwent Roan's 'Starlight' or 'Blessing' remained forever as cool, subtly radiant crystals of light from that moment onward.
"It... changes them...."
Roan muttered, so quietly that no one could easily hear, then tightened his free hand, the one not holding the box.
He hadn't verified it yet.
So he couldn't be certain.
But even the smallest clue would be precious to the Count.
Roan, about to move in haste, took one step forward, then halted abruptly.
Can I trust the Count?
"...Ugh."
Letting out a groan, Roan slowly sank back into his office chair.
No matter how trivial it might seem, what would happen if he conveyed the fact that crystals changed after undergoing his divine magic?
What's more, this power wasn't ordinary holy power. Just by seeing the results, one would know. It would become obvious that his power differed from Helen's.
The danger of having his power known lay in its being countered.
In Legend of the Holy Hero, what countered holy power was mana. Specifically, the curse power wielded by Erenier was the antithesis of holy power.
That was why, when pursuing Erenier's route in the game, you never placed Helen in the party.
It was fine that the Count had developed a favorable impression of him. He also understood that the Count found him intriguing.
But if that interest combined in a distorted form — if the Count developed a desire to experiment on him, for instance, or to abduct him.
Giving all possible benefit of the doubt, fine. He could grant that it was possible.
What if that warped sentiment became the foundation, and the Count joined hands with the Lord of the South Black Territory?
Erenier was still the Dark Archduke's person.
No matter that she was his fiancée, until they were married, she, too, was someone he had to regard with caution.
Ever since hearing the (former) Demon King's nagging, he had been careful not to let anyone perceive the full scope of his power.
But in a truly worst-case scenario —
if the Count, Erenier, and the Dark Archduke joined forces and attacked him?
"...Damn it."
Roan clenched his teeth.
He had no confidence he could win that fight.
Of course, this was an exaggeration.
It was merely a hypothetical construct, presupposing the worst of the worst.
But if it did come to pass,
the Dark Archduke would seize the imperial throne,
Erenier would monopolize her beloved Roan every night,
and the Count would experiment on his body to his heart's content.
An alliance where everyone got what they wanted.
And the Archduke, Erenier, and the Count
were not such dimwitted people.
The moment I disclose my power to the Count,
the initiative passes into the Count's hands.
If that happens, could I
protect myself?
Could I survive?
"...No, the question is wrong."
Can I truly trust the Count?
Fixing his gaze on the crystals inside the box resting on his desk, Roan sank silently into thought for a long while.