The Magician's First Love

Madri?

His master's younger sister...?

Why was her name coming up here, of all places?

Even Messi found it difficult to keep his expression in check. She was a woman whose corpse had never even been found. Her name had no business surfacing in a place like this.

The silence stretched. Messi steadied himself and offered a deflection.

"I don't know who this Madri is, I'm afraid."

"So you do know Madri? I never even said it was a person's name, yet you asked who she was at once."

"You asked about a relationship, so I naturally assumed it was a person. It would be rather odd for it to be the name of an organization, wouldn't it?"

"Do you mean to keep dodging? There's clear proof on your finger that you couldn't possibly not know her."

At the end of Frox's pointing finger sat the ring on Messi's hand.

Instinctively, Messi covered it with his other palm. His mind was racing.

Master's ring... was this connected to Madri?

It was the ring he had taken when his master died. There had been no special keepsake by which to remember the man, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠so Messi had simply slipped the band from Barcelo's finger onto his own. It was a plain silver ring. He had assumed there was nothing distinctive enough for anyone to recognize it...

"That is a symbol worn by members of House Adrian. It also possesses a powerful poison-warding effect."

"...!"

This... this was Master's Pidokju?

The Pidokju that had appeared in the diary as well. A treasure that had helped Salgaras's Deadly Poison — ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the so-called Seven-Treasure Toxin — seep only slowly through his master's body, rather than killing him outright. And it had been sitting on ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Messi's own hand all this time. He understood, viscerally, what it meant to miss what was right under one's nose.

Taken aback by Messi's reaction, Frox asked again, a note of bewilderment in his voice.

"You... you didn't know?"

A brief silence. Then he continued.

"You're wearing a symbol of House Adrian, and you have the same black hair and black eyes as she did — the only one in that family with coloring like that. I couldn't help but assume you were connected to Madri."

That made sense. If the ring belonged to House Adrian, Messi himself would have thought of Madri at once.

"Will you tell me? What is your relationship to her?"

If he'd already figured I was connected to Madri, he would have known I wasn't royalty of another race... The fact that he isn't using that as leverage means he has no intention of treating me as an enemy.

If anything, the man seemed desperate for Messi to share whatever he knew.

But to explain his connection to Madri, he would have to speak of his master — and that would reveal that he had inherited Barcelo's enmities as well. Ironically, Messi's greatest weapon in unearthing his master's past was the fact that he appeared to have no connection to Barcelo whatsoever. He could not give that away so easily.

"Since you know the ring's properties so well, this should be easy to understand. I wear it solely for its poison-warding ability. I have no connection to House Adrian whatsoever."

"Heh. And you expect me to believe that?"

"If anything, I'm the one who's curious. Why are you so determined to connect me with this Madri?"

Frox nearly bristled at the brazen answer. But then...

No. That isn't a dodge. He's asking me first. He wants to know what I was to her — whether it's safe for him to speak of Madri at all...

He had already guessed, privately, that this other-race man had not washed up in House Ahental without a story. And if that story involved Madri, a measure of caution was only reasonable.

Frox had learned, over a long life, that there were times you had to open your own hand first if you wanted the other man's trust.

A brief silence. In that interval, he finished arranging his heart to be honest. Then he spoke.

"...Madri was a friend of my youth."

Frox went on with the story, pausing now and then to sip his tea when his lips went dry.

"House Adrian is a family known as 'the merchants who sell poison.' The essence of poison is that it harms someone, of course — but used well, it can become medicine... or a material for magical research. So magicians have always been fairly frequent visitors to that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠house."

"So you grew close while buying magical materials."

"Well, Madri had no voice at all in House Adrian, so we were never entangled in any official business. You would know better than most, wouldn't you? What life is like in the Center for someone with black hair and black eyes."

He knew. Of course he knew.

To the people of the Center, an "other-race" was what the Han of ancient China had once called a barbarian.

They were the civilized ones — those who pioneered and developed the floodlands that symbolized the curse of the evil god Ohgana, and who lived in accordance with Gaia's will. The other-races were those who had submitted and adapted to the savage order that evil god had made, never even managing to kindle a civilization, surviving only as tribal nations.

So long as that frame held, there was no chance they would have looked kindly on Madri, who carried other-race blood.

"I first saw her on an errand for my master, sent to buy magical materials. A girl who could not leave the estate, preserved there like a doll in a glass case."

"..."

"House Adrian was never particularly welcome in the Center, perhaps because of their destiny of dealing in poisons. They were doing everything they could to break that situation — even if it meant forging blood ties with other houses. And she was the sacrifice for that."

"To my mind, it must have been an extraordinarily hard time for her. And yet she was bright. Her eyes and hair may have been steeped in darkness, but she herself was like light. You know this as well as I do — there are plenty of people who drain the very spirit from those around them, and precious few who lift it. She was one of those few."

In Master's diary, Madri came across as quite the tomboy...

There had even been a line calling her temperament unpleasant. In Frox's telling, by contrast, Madri was being painted as a gentle, almost fragile young woman of the sweetest disposition.

"Whenever my master gave the order, I went to House Adrian. I bought the materials, and I spent most of the time that remained with her. All she ever talked about was which house's son or daughter she had met in society, what they had said, what they had done — but I found even that delightful. Strangely enough... I was quite fond of those hours."

He turned the memories over. Frox, a man caught somewhere between middle age and old, drew a smile at the corner of his mouth.

It was a lonely smile, too. From that loneliness, the rest of the story was not hard to guess.

"I thought we had become close... but perhaps she did not. One day she vanished without a word. A political marriage had been arranged, so I had always known a day like that would come... but there was not even a letter."

"Perhaps something grave had happened in her heart."

"I don't know. Time passed, and I assumed she had become someone's wife in some house... and then, looking back, word reached me that she had become a Woodcutter."

"..."

Messi knew how that story ended. He could not say a word.

"Isn't it astonishing? Haha. She had left in search of freedom. She wanted to be a bird that did not lose herself even in the cruelty of the wild, rather than a beautiful bird in a cage. All that time, I had never truly seen her. No wonder she didn't leave a single letter."

He had every right to resent Madri for her coldness — and yet he turned that resentment upon himself.

Messi knew the name of that particular affliction.

The man had been in love.

"You were in love with her."

"Without a doubt."

Frox closed his eyes. Even after all these years, could he still see his first love's face so clearly?

"When I heard she was in the Forest of Resentment, I went to find her myself. I meant to lay my heart bare. This time, I wanted to truly see you — that was what I was going to say. But..."

The rest did not come.

At the place he had gone searching, he must have heard of Madri's death — or of the Woodcutters who had died with her.

Frox looked at Messi with a gaze still tangled in old attachment.

"News of her death left me in despair. I still think of her, now and then. And then today I saw your ring, and your hair, and your eyes. So I wondered if perhaps... you..."

Only then did Messi understand the heart with which Frox had asked about his relationship to Madri.

The man had guessed that Messi might be of Madri's blood. That he might be the child she had borne with someone else she had loved...

Do I tell him the truth?

Messi had to choose.

He could tell Frox what had happened in the Forest of Resentment — or he could bury it here, and leave the magician's life untouched.

Leto's words, spoken as Messi was leaving Benuda Village, rose unbidden in his mind.

If I tell this man that Madri's body was never found... won't he spend the rest of his life chasing the past again?

It would be a cruel thing to do.

The magician before him had lived all these years with a long, unspoken attachment hidden in his heart. To tell such a man the truth would be to shove him back into the shackles of the past.

He might even leave this place the moment he heard it, and set his feet toward the ruins in the Forest of Resentment.

But... if this man were with me when I uncover the full truth of the tragedy that befell Master, he would be an enormous help.

He was a Great Magician — and there were vanishingly few of those in this world. If he was truly someone Messi could trust, his cooperation could make any number of things, large and small, far easier.

Messi needed the man's ability and his aid. And yet, at the same time, he wanted to keep this matter limited to himself.

What do I do...

The longer he sat with it, the deeper the dilemma grew.

Frox looked at the empty seat across from him. An empty teacup sat there as well.

He was lost in thought, turning over the request of the man he had been speaking with only moments before.

It was a one-sided request so bald it was almost absurd. There was no basis for it, and no reason Frox was obliged to accept it.

And yet, meeting Messi's eyes, a single thought had come to him.

Those are the eyes of a man who has his reasons...

He was hiding something. What on earth was it?

Is there something about Madri that I don't know?

Something like intuition stirred in him.

Frox was a magician. A magician was one who uncovered the hidden principles of the world, distilled them into theory, and then used mana to twist those principles until a singularity was born.

Which was to say that men like him prized understanding with the head far above anything the heart might feel.

And yet that man had entrusted himself to intuition, and given his answer.

Hah... I haven't the faintest idea what this is about.

Frox let out a long breath.

Quite apart from it being a matter that concerned his dear friend, the Viscount of Ahental, Frox had already been inclined to help Messi.

It had all sprung from a single misunderstanding.

Madri... he has to be of her blood.

The Adrienne Poison-Warding Ring on Messi's finger.

It was a symbol of membership in the house, and it possessed a rare and precious ability. It was not an item some ordinary other-race could obtain simply by wanting it.

And then there was the rest of him. The color of the hair and eyes, yes — but the features, too, were similar. If Madri had borne a child, Frox could not help thinking the child would have looked just like this.

She had died while serving as a Woodcutter, so Messi's father had likely been one of them as well.

The problem is the age...

He had heard of Madri's death thirty-three years ago. Which meant that if she had given birth before then, this Messi would be about that old...

They say the Forest Tribe hold on to their youth far longer than humans. If that blood is mixed in him, he could well look this young.

Sometimes a lucid mind was its own kind of trouble. The head, in its eagerness to believe what it wanted to believe, would obligingly find a reason that fit.

"A truly strange thing. More than thirty years have passed... and I meet her blood again. Is this what they call fate?"

For a situation built from each man's private thoughts and piled-up misunderstandings, it was remarkably — almost exquisitely — well aligned.

"Lord Ascaron!"

A man in a red robe tore through the place in a frenzy, searching for someone.

The space around him was packed with red flesh, as if he were standing inside the stomach of some enormous beast.

At last the robed man found the one he sought, and dropped to his knees.

"Have you heard? The Second Young Master of House Ahental has returned alive!"

A flinch.

The one who had been cultivating with his back turned slowly moved his head.

Grnnd.

The astonishing thing was that only the head turned — a full hundred and eighty degrees, like an owl's. It was a grotesque sight, and yet the messenger did not so much as twitch.

"How?"

"Th-that much, I don't..."

"How strange. The Realm Breakthrough Scroll and the Dark Field Scroll were delivered without error. Did the First Young Master hold them back?"

"No, my lord. The First Young Master delivered them to the traitors on the Second Young Master's side. That much is certain."

"How strange. The others I might understand, but the one called Raud had reached Lavish at his age. If he had used the Realm Breakthrough, he would have arrived at Brillant... Did he perhaps have a change of heart and give it up?"

"I... that Raud, they say he did not return alive."

"How strange. Then that means Raud, who used the Realm Breakthrough, was eliminated. How, exactly?"

"I-I don't know..."

"How strange... Then at the very least he would have known we were behind it. Has the Second Young Master said anything?"

"He made no particular mention of us, from what I hear."

"Why?"

"Th-that's what I'd like to know, my lord."

"How strange."

"Pardon?"

"...that an incompetent like you is still alive!!"

Ascaron's mouth yawned wide. A long tongue shot out like a serpent and bored into the messenger's eyes.

The man screamed and writhed. Then, little by little, he withered like a mummy, until what remained of him was no more than a rotting stump of dead wood.

Ascaron smacked his lips as if the taste displeased him, and thought.

If the Second Young Master returned alive, that truly means he explored the ruins in the Forest of Resentment... What did he find in there?

It was a pity for House Ahental. But Frox was not the only magician whose curiosity had been piqued.