The Magic Tower (3)
“For every task you complete, the Magic Tower provides a modest research stipend. In other words, as long as you can produce results, money shouldn’t be a major issue.”
It was a mouthful of empty reassurance.
What’s more, it was cunning to the core.
A mage was someone permitted to place a foot inside the workings of the world.
Once you had stood face-to-face with mysteries ordinary people would never touch, you were left with an endless thirst, an appetite for knowledge that could never be filled.
That was why no one who entered the Magic Tower’s framework could ever truly escape it.
Those who pursued magic were the most shackled by mystery of all.
“What about the fee for borrowing the workshop? If you’re short on money, you can always pay after you’ve finished the mana crystal recharge.”
“I appreciate the offer, but I’ll do the mana crystal recharge another time.”
Lawrence took his money pouch from his bag.
There was no doubt that recharging mana crystals offered a financial advantage.
Five silver for a single run.
And it only took thirty minutes.
But this was not the same as the mercenary requests he normally took on.
This was, after all, work offered by the Magic Tower.
He had no idea what risks it carried, and the information he’d been given was woefully thin.
From the mention of mana crystal recharge, however, he could at least infer one thing.
They were almost certainly extracting the applicant’s mana by some method or another.
Was that really safe?
Would there be side effects, or some lingering damage afterward?
Even if he asked the man in front of him, who knew how much of that answer he could trust?
Malcolm was part of the Magic Tower too, after all.
There was no way he’d voice anything that reflected badly on the Tower.
“Is that so? Understood. It’s not as though this is our only chance, after all.”
Malcolm nodded as he accepted the five silver.
Maybe Lawrence was overreacting.
As the man had said, perhaps the Magic Tower was simply offering mana crystal recharge as a form of relief to those who applied for it.
But there was no such thing as kindness without a price.
The Tower must be giving away that much money because it stood to gain something from the exchange. Still, not knowing what that price was meant Lawrence couldn’t throw himself into it blindly.
They were draining a mage’s mana to recharge a crystal.
To put it bluntly, the process might even leave an irreparable scar on the individual involved.
No need to rush.
He didn’t know the Magic Tower yet, so he needed to approach it as carefully as possible.
He could always do the mana crystal recharge later.
Lawrence finished filling out the wooden tablet.
There weren’t many blanks to complete.
His place of origin, his name.
His main attribute magic, and the reason he had visited the Magic Tower.
He filled in the entries without hesitation, but when it came to his name, the nib of his quill stalled.
Should he write it truthfully?
The doubt did not last long.
Soon, the boy’s full name was written on the tablet.
There were several reasons for revealing it.
The Mercenary Guild did not casually disclose its members’ personal information.
The Magic Tower might know there was a mercenary who used shadow magic.
But it was unlikely they knew Lawrence’s name as well.
If anything, writing some half-hearted alias on the tablet would have been more dangerous.
A lie that would be exposed in an instant was worse than useless.
And yet, all that caution proved pointless in the end.
After glancing over the tablet, Malcolm casually put it into his bag.
“Workshop number 13. Here’s the key. I hope you achieve something worthwhile, Number 13.”
* * *
After leaving the Magic Tower, Lawrence went in search of Workshop 13.
But once he actually entered the workshop district, finding the place itself turned out to be a task in its own right.
There were so many identical workshops scattered around that he couldn’t tell one from another.
Without the placards, there was no way to distinguish which number belonged to which.
Before long, however, Lawrence figured out the pattern by which the workshops were numbered.
Starting from the Magic Tower and circling outward clockwise, Workshops 1 through 10 were laid out in order.
He wasn’t meant to follow the workshops around in a ring.
If he simply crossed the road, the numbers dropped by ten at a time.
“If you could keep it down a little in the evening, that would be nice, Number 147.”
“Huh? What did you just say? Keep it down? Whatever I’m doing, it can’t possibly compare to the noise you make!”
One thing he had learned while walking through the workshop district was that the mages here didn’t address one another by name.
Instead, they used workshop numbers in place of names.
So was that why Malcolm had only glanced at his tablet so carelessly?
Lawrence, too, was being called by the number of his workshop rather than his name.
“Failure. Another failure. It was all for nothing!”
The workshop district was unbearably noisy.
He had no idea what exactly they were doing inside those workshops, but the sound of explosions was practically routine, and now and then a mage would come racing out in a panic.
“Shut your mouth and get back to research, Number 77! Is this place nothing but your personal workshop!?”
“I’m going to research in my own workshop. Why should I have to mind your feelings!?”
“There he goes again! If you want to fight, go do it outside!”
Snippets of bickering and angry shouts drifted from every direction.
He didn’t know much else, but it was clear there were plenty of mages suffering from the noise.
The workshops were clustered together like a shantytown of boards and planks.
Because the gaps were so narrow, whenever even a small issue arose, the neighboring workshops were quick to bare their teeth and point fingers at one another.
There had to be at least two hundred mages in the workshop district alone.
Including the scholars who could not use magic, the Tower must refer to the district’s residents only by numbers.
Perhaps that meant any mage who merely stayed in a workshop was not worth remembering by name.
At least not until they solved their task and proved their worth.
Proving you had the qualifications to enter the Magic Tower and proving you had the right to live here were two entirely different things.
That was what the Tower’s guide had said, wasn’t it?
The Magic Tower had to be a place ruled strictly by merit.
“I’ll finish it today. Watch it with that timber!”
“Take your time bringing it in! If the wood gets damaged, we’ll have to haul it again!”
Hammering rang out in heavy, uneven beats.
Not far from the workshop district lay a fairly large open space.
Was this the statue of the Tower Lord Lionel had mentioned?
Laborers hurried back and forth, hands and feet in constant motion.
Nearby, there were mages keeping watch over the surroundings.
Just like inside the Tower, they wore robes of pure black.
The outer guard wasn’t made up of soldiers, but mercenaries.
Lawrence knew it for a simple reason.
Their discipline was as lax as any regular army would never tolerate.
Spitting on the ground was one thing, but puffing on a cigarette in the middle of duty could only be the work of mercenaries.
One of them even looked familiar.
A mercenary with his face masked.
He couldn’t be certain from this distance, but that partisan spear with the wing embedded in its tip was impossible to mistake.
Maris, the Silver Plate mercenary.
Once he confirmed it, Lawrence turned away.
There was no need to court unnecessary danger.
Maris knew not only that Lawrence was a pilgrim of the Order, but also that he was a shadow mage.
There was no reason to approach a place that could invite trouble.
The workshop numbers steadily decreased as he walked.
Step by step, Lawrence continued forward until he checked the sign.
13
This utterly plain workshop was to be the boy’s home from today onward.
A laugh escaped him before he could stop it.
He had never imagined he would end up with a home like this.
Even if it was only a temporary borrowing, there was something strangely unsettling about having a place to call his own, bought with money he had earned himself.
The instant he unlocked the door, a foul stench stabbed at his nose.
“……”
Frowning hard, Lawrence checked the inside of the workshop.
There were three rooms in all: a bedroom and a study.
In the small room that served as a storage space, there was a door leading down to the basement.
There were not many visible belongings.
An empty bookshelf. A chair paired with a desk.
In the storage room, a collection of filthy cleaning tools stood out.
After taking in the general layout, he stepped back outside.
He could endure many things, but not the stench.
For now, he left the door wide open and started airing the place out.
He had no idea what kind of research the previous owner had been doing.
The odor that clung to the workshop was like a half-mixed blend of rotting corpses and filth.
If he had to compare it to something, it was close to the smell of Neil’s leather coat.
In other words, it was an odor fit to be compared with excrement and urine.
How long had he been waiting outside before the smell finally began to thin?
At some point, an old man with white hair appeared from the neighboring workshop.
The owner of Workshop 14 was an elderly man.
Deep wrinkles lined his brow and face, and like Malcolm, his skin was pale.
The old man stood with his back straight and pulled a cigarette from within his robes.
With a small flick of fire, the mage lit it and drew in a deep, satisfied breath.
“Well, now. A new neighbor in a place like this. Workshop 13 will be noisy again after all this time.”
“Good day. It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Lo—”
“No need for that, lad. In the workshop district, a mage doesn’t have the right to give his name. He’s just a nameless soul pursuing the workings of the world. You’re Number 13, and I’m Number 14. Keep that in mind.”
As though it were some unwritten law, Number 14 said it so matter-of-factly.
“I’m Number 13, and I’ll be staying in Workshop 13 from today onward. I look forward to getting along with you, sir Number 14.”
“You can drop the ‘sir’ too. Number 14 is enough.”
“Even so, I can’t do that.”
Lawrence shook his head.
He had no idea how many years separated them.
However rude an orphan might be by habit, the boy was not so lacking in manners that he would address someone old enough to be his grandfather so casually.
“Even when I tell you it’s fine… honestly. Still, it’s been a while since I’ve met a young fellow this courteous.”
As if to say do as you please, the old man let out a small chuckle.
“Number 13, you don’t seem like a mage in the best possible way. Right. From the fact that you borrowed Workshop 10’s district, I doubt you’re a scholar… no, no. Exceptions exist everywhere. Are you a scholar by any chance?”
“No. I’m a mage.”
“Then you must be from a commoner background.”
Number 14 stated it without hesitation.
“May I ask why you think that?”
“A sense of privilege for being different from others. The conviction that one has been chosen. That is the identity that turns a mage into a mage. Number 13. I don’t see that in you.”
“That sounds almost as if mages shouldn’t be like that.”
“I won’t apologize. Being different from others is terribly inconvenient, after all. Remember that. What I just said is the form of mage the world thinks of, and the form most suited to the mage we generally know.”
For good or ill,
Number 14’s words amounted to saying Lawrence did not seem like a mage.
“Even you, Number 14, don’t look like an ordinary mage to me.”
“I’ve already lived long enough, haven’t I? A mage with death merely waiting for him—what would such a man have to be proud of, to soak himself in a sense of privilege? Before time, everything becomes meaningless.”
His voice was hollow.
His distant gaze was full of emptiness.
“You’ve been in the Tower for a long time, then.”
“Of course. My countrymen have all died or gone away, and I’m the only one left here, alone. I’d like to record the results of my research with the Magic Tower before it’s too late. But who knows when the Tower will grant me that permission?”
A dry smile appeared on Number 14’s face.
Judging by his words, it seemed that although he had remained in the workshop for a long time, he had never produced the kind of results the Tower wanted.
“But why are you standing out here instead of going in?”
“Well… the smell is awful, so I was waiting for it to clear out.”
“Ah, the smell, is it? Well, yes. The Number 13 who was here before you was a fellow whose head had gone quite off the rails.”
“Do you know what kind of research he was doing?”
“He was definitely studying chimeras. He said he wanted to make a controllable chimera and use it as a soldier. You know what a chimera is?”
Lawrence shook his head.
“A chimera is an artificial creature made by fusing monsters or magical beasts together.”
“Monsters and magical beasts? That’s possible?”
If such a thing could be made, it would be a monster in the truest sense of the word.
“Who knows. I couldn’t say.”
“Didn’t you say the Number 13 before me was doing that research? Then surely he must have produced something in the end…”
“Produced something, did he? Ahahaha. He certainly did. But it wasn’t the chimera you’re imagining. It was Number 13 himself, reduced to a corpse. He’d bought a goblin slave, and while he was asleep, his throat was cut. Foolish, really. When a mage overestimates his own ability, he doesn’t live long.”
“……”
So the smell coming from the workshop really had been that of a corpse.
And if there had been a monster inside the room as well, then combined with the creature’s own stench, it made perfect sense that the place would reek so horribly.
“What task did the Magic Tower give you?”
“They told me to study the practical usefulness of Water magic.”
“That’s no easy task. Water attribute magic is harder to use than most others.”
“Since this is my first time being given a research assignment like this, is there anything I ought to know?”
Since the opportunity had come up, he figured he might as well ask.
Anything at all would help.
If there were advice, it might make the task easier to solve.
“What’s difficult about it? Just think about how to use Water magic to kill a person effectively, or kill a monster efficiently. Focus on that, and do your research. The best thing would be to show it directly before the Magic Tower’s examiners. Of course, doing something like that with Water and not some other magic is nonsense—but that’s exactly why they gave you the assignment.”
Number 14 continued, “The direction the Magic Tower wants from these tasks is offensive in nature. Keep that in mind. That’s all I can tell you as a senior.”
“Thank you. That was a great help.”
“Help, my foot. If you really think so, bring me something in return.”
“Would cigarettes do?”
“You’re really going to bring some? Then food would be better. I was just about out of things to eat anyway.”
“Understood. I need to stock up on some things myself, so when I go out this time, I’ll buy some for you too.”
It was his way of repaying the kindness he’d been shown today.
If all he had to do was buy someone a few meals to receive this level of useful information, Lawrence had no reason at all to refuse.
“But what kind of assignment did you get, sir?”
“Me? I’m a bit different. I’m not studying a task assigned by the Magic Tower—I’m studying what I want to study.”
He pulled out another cigarette and put it between his lips.
“I’m researching the Arme Empire. Its history, its culture. These days it’s all gone, so it’s all just archaeology, really.”
“Arme… what?”
Arme Empire?
The unfamiliar name made Lawrence ask again.
“You don’t know the Arme Empire?”
“I know what an empire is. But the empire I know isn’t the Arme Empire. It’s the Minuet Empire.”
The Minuet Empire.
The one and only empire that still existed on the continent.
It was the greatest power on the mainland, something every orphan wandering the back alleys had at least heard of once.
“Exactly. The kingdoms that exist today were mostly nations that gained independence from the Minuet Empire. If the Holy Cross Order hadn’t stepped in and supported their independence, there would have been an even greater flood of bloodshed. But that isn’t the empire I’m talking about.”
“Then are you saying there’s another empire?”
“More accurately, there was another empire. By now it’s vanished from the memory of the masses—a tragic empire, forgotten by everyone. The ancient language we learn when interpreting magical texts is the language of the Arme Empire. Well? Are you interested yet?”
Life returned to Number 14’s aged face.