(Perhaps) The Mouth Is the Source of Calamity (1)
In Winterhome, the Mage's Tower was, to put it bluntly, both Catherine's personal fief and her castle inside the fortress itself.
That meant anyone wishing to enter needed either an invitation or prior permission.
Those who did not fell into exactly three categories.
1. The rare few who required neither invitation nor leave.
2. Intruders no one would scold even if they died for it.
3. People for whom the situation was so urgent that permission, invitation, and every other nicety went straight out the window as they simply charged inside.
The maid who had interrupted Catherine's meal a short while ago belonged firmly to number three.
An entire floor of Winterhome's main keep had been sealed off by knights and soldiers.
"Ah, Supreme Magic Advisor. You've arrived."
"Duchess Elizabeth is waiting for you inside."
Catherine answered with a small nod. And Karem soon understood exactly why the maid had been so frantic, and why the knights and soldiers had locked down the whole floor.
A cold as sharp as the wind that pours down from a midwinter ravine filled the corridor.
Even in the height of summer, Iceland was only as cool as autumn elsewhere—but the chill saturating this entire level was cold enough to raise every fine hair on the skin, every bit as frigid as true winter air.
This was unmistakably an abnormal situation.
The farther they advanced toward the center of the floor, the colder the air became.
And past a certain point they could see sections of the castle itself frozen solid—along with the soldiers and servants who had frozen with it.
In front of that frozen stretch, Elizabeth, held back by the knights, paced restlessly, white breath puffing from her lips.
"Atanitas! You've come!"
"Duchess. Just what is going on here?"
"I don't know either. Robin has been out of his senses since last night, so I was nursing him, and then a moment ago he suddenly screamed and—this..."
Elizabeth was so flustered she could not even finish the sentence properly.
Catherine examined the frozen mana saturating the floor.
Magical-tool runaway or a curse—both could be ruled out.
Every magical implement that entered Winterhome passed through the Tower's inspection. There were no exceptions, and nothing of the sort had slipped through even while she was away.
Even if something had gone berserk, an unstable piece of junk would never have been allowed inside Winterhome in the first place. And for it to freeze an entire section of a floor solid? Impossible.
Which meant the cause was almost certainly not a magical tool.
"The third young master was ill?"
"His body is colder than frozen stone, yet he keeps saying he's freezing. How can this be happening?"
Only then did Catherine fully grasp the situation.
She turned to the knight holding Elizabeth back.
"How was Young Master Robin when you brought the Duchess out?"
"Exactly as Her Grace described, when we escorted her out."
"Then it's fortunate it erupted now, if anything."
"Fortunate?!"
Elizabeth was aghast.
To a parent, the word was wildly inappropriate.
But Catherine meant it.
"Yes, Duchess. If this were winter—or even autumn—Young Master Robin would already be on a very early journey. There is no time to explain."
"Wait—Atanitas! Atanitas!"
Elizabeth, still restrained by the knights, called after her urgently.
Catherine never looked back. Without the slightest hesitation she strode straight into the frozen corridor.
Into the heart of the disaster.
The deeper they went, the more frozen servants and maids lined the way.
Trapped inside the ice, they stood frozen mid-task, mid-gesture, still so lifelike they seemed not even to know they had been frozen at all.
"How is it that the Duchess herself was unharmed?"
Karem looked around at the people sealed in ice as though time itself had stopped.
"From the atmosphere it seems the third young master is the cause of all this. And the knights were fine as well."
"A lady of a house with sufficient power and wealth always carries a few protective magical tools on her person. That much is only natural."
"Then what about the knights?"
"They would resist with tools or by circulating their own mana, of course—wait."
Catherine, advancing with her staff tapping the floor, suddenly stopped dead.
She whipped her head around and stared at Karem, who had been following right behind her, as though something were deeply wrong.
"What. Why did you come along?"
"Pardon? You never told me to stay put."
"What? I didn't? No—hold on. Why are you perfectly fine?"
"Pardon? Are you saying I should be frozen solid like a midwinter salmon?"
Karem was scandalized. How could she say something so harsh?
But Catherine declared it in a tone as sharp as a blade, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"Of course you should."
For a moment Karem felt a flicker of unease—had she finally caught on to all the little tricks he had been playing with her tongue? But her next words brought relief.
"No protective tools, no equipment, and you can't even handle mana—how is an eleven-year-old brat perfectly fine in the middle of this?!"
"Whew—well, even if you ask me that..."
Karem scratched his head with a helpless look.
He genuinely had no idea.
And Catherine thought the same.
He really doesn't seem to know.
Just an eleven-year-old boy. Even counting his previous life he was still under forty. An ordinary person who, across both lives, had never been a con man—or anything close to one (though he had told the occasional lie)—could never fool her eyes.
Which meant Karem's words were pure, unvarnished truth.
But the flip side was that there might be a truth even the person himself did not know.
Catherine scanned him from head to toe the way one might scan a magical specimen. Her gaze locked onto one particular spot on his body.
Specifically, the right pocket, bulging suspiciously.
The moment she focused on it, every one of her senses zeroed in.
"Brat. What's in your right pocket?"
"Uh—ah? Ah?"
Karem reflexively pulled the object out.
And Catherine was stunned.
A perfect sphere of ice.
A treasure even dwarves who had spent centuries on their craft could never have shaped.
And the power radiating from within it—so overwhelming that for an instant Catherine felt a fierce, raw greed.
But seizing something that belonged to her subordinate was a low she would not allow even herself. Barely suppressing the desire, she stared at the thing in Karem's hand with a gaze half shock, half envy.
"...Brat. Where in the world did you pick that up?"
"I found it when we went to Fungusby. You know, that time—"
In that instant a landscape from the past flashed before Karem's eyes.
The hailstone that had come flying through the window, smashed a god square in the head, and punched clean through.
For the sake of the Nameless Traveler's honor, Karem twisted the truth in his head and lowered his voice.
"Well, you know. The Nameless Traveler gave me a gift."
"That's right. I received a fang from a beast of Nastrond. Brat, you received some kind of seed back then, didn't you?"
"Yes. But when we got back, this was sitting in my pocket."
"Ha! Do you even know what that thing is?"
"Uh... ice that doesn't melt?"
The endlessly vacant, I-know-nothing-at-all tone of Karem's pure, clueless voice left Catherine speechless.
But she decided to accept it.
How could an ordinary person who could neither see nor wield mana possibly sense divine power?
That was what Catherine told herself.
Yet even after she had made up her mind...
The divine power saturating the ice sphere in Karem's hand was so intense it would have relegated most sacred relics said to carry a god's grace to the bottom of the pile. It sealed her lips.
"The reason you're still fine right now is that ice sphere."
"Oh—is that so?"
"Yes. The divine power dwelling in it is keeping your body from ending up like those completely frozen ordinary people around us."
"Whoa..."
"Now that you know, give thanks to the god."
Catherine dismissed the matter for the moment and started moving again.
"So, Lady Atanitas. What exactly is all this?"
"How would you like the explanation? Simple, or complicated?"
"Hmm, simple, please."
"Young Master Robin appears to have more than enough talent as a mage. If his head can keep up, he'll become an extremely powerful one."
"Oh—so the reason everything around us is frozen is...?"
"Exactly. He seems to have a particular gift for ice magic, just like me."
It was not uncommon for an undertrained mage to lose control of their own mana. Freezing an entire floor of Winterhome was a serious problem, but the solution itself was simple.
Bring Young Master Robin back to his senses, then teach him how to control his mana.
That did not mean they had unlimited time, however.
If left alone too long, Robin would inevitably injure himself with the mana he could no longer control.
Catherine flung open the door from which the chill was leaking without a second's hesitation.
"Uuuuungh... c-cold... Mommy..."
Catherine approached the third young master, who was wrapped up in his blankets like a giant cocoon. After scanning the surroundings thoroughly, she yanked the covers open at once.
"Hmm. First we need to bring him around."
"Is something worrying you?"
"Yes. He's not quite at my level, but Young Master Robin's talent is considerable. Mana like this... Brat."
"Yes. What do you need?"
"I'm going to have to borrow that sacred relic you're holding."
Catherine flicked her fingers lightly through the air in Karem's direction. Mana charged with an archmage's will gathered at her fingertips and the spell activated.
An invisible force wrapped around Karem's body and glowed faintly.
"That should keep you from turning into ice cream in a freezer."
"Oh. Weirdly enough, I don't feel a thing."
"You never do until it actually hits you. Now place the relic on Young Master Robin's body."
"Yes. Understood."
Karem set the ice sphere directly onto Robin's chest.
The change that came over the pale, violently shivering boy—who had looked half-frozen to death—was dramatic.
No—it was not only Young Master Robin.
They could see the freezing chill being sucked into the ice sphere as though a blizzard were being drawn in.
The corpse-like violet tint left Robin as well; starting from his head and fingertips, his original skin color slowly returned. By the time the ice inside the room had vanished, Robin was breathing far more easily, looking almost himself again.
Karem pricked up his ears toward the corridor outside.
The people who had been frozen were stirring and murmuring as they came to their senses.
"Lady Atanitas?"
"Hm. Yes? What is it."
"The people who were frozen outside are waking—"
"Of course they are. We've solved half the problem."
"I see. Wait—half?"
Catherine jerked her chin.
Robin, who only moments earlier had looked as though he had been lying dead in the middle of a midnight snowfield for days, now looked like a living person again.
There was just one remaining problem.
"Yes. Normally, suppressing the mana is enough to wake them. But it seems the strain on his body was greater than expected."
Karem agreed with her assessment.
Even though Robin was vastly better than before, he was still sweating coldly and moaning, and his body temperature remained ice-cold.
"Brat. How old is Young Master Robin?"
"Uh, eight—no, wait, he should be nine by now?"
"Hmm. Then even diluted, we can't use a potion."
"We can't use a potion?"
"Correct. Excessive medicinal effects are no different from poison if the body can't handle them. Calling a priest for divine power would only be kicking the can down the road. Magical tools the same. We need something natural yet indirect—something that carries the mana of fire..."
"What, should we just feed him a raw fire-demon hand?"
In Karem's previous life as Garam there had been a well-known saying.
Yakshik dongwon—medicine and food share the same origin. Or uishik dongwon—healing and food share the same origin.
In short: rather than taking medicine outright, eating three healthy meals a day in ordinary life is itself medicine.
Of course Karem had not been serious.
If they actually fed the boy a raw fire-demon hand, he would have no defense against being locked in the prison tower for blasphemy.
"Oh. That's actually a better idea than I expected. Change the angle and the answer appears."
"A raw fire-demon hand? I was joking."
"....."
"Uh... Lady Atanitas?"
Catherine simply stared at him in silence.