The Siege Plan
The Siege Plan
It was a cloudless, clear day. Perfect weather for leaving the capital.
Herlein gazed up at the open sky and prepared to sortie. Her bearing was north—toward the Dark Land.
Please, just let her be alive.
The Imperial Household's complacent response had squandered the golden hour. Even so, Herlein wanted to cling to whatever scrap of hope remained. She believed that if anyone could survive those snowfields, her close friend would.
Kleis's disappearance was partly her own fault. Herlein had enrolled Aether here. She should have made repairing the fractured relationship with her assistant her responsibility for the semester.
Herlein shook her head. A sigh leaked from her throat.
Time couldn't be rewound. Instead of thinking, she was better off moving.
By the time she finished inspecting her kit, midday had long passed. Her stomach wasn't hungry even after skipping three meals. She simply had no appetite to put food in her mouth.
"Professor Herlein!"
That was when the familiar voice reached her. Two students came running toward her.
The special-class students Kleis had entrusted to her. Vermel, the top-ranked admittee, and Aether, her friend's former assistant. Seeing those golden eyes, her mouth went dry.
Right. Her expression. She had to smile.
"Oh my. What brings you two here?"
"We heard you were heading north, Professor."
She'd only told that to Aether. Herlein met Aether's eyes. The girl, who rarely shifted her expression, grinned.
The day they gathered with the academy president and several nobles to plot rebellion. Aether had been in the basement with her, too. Herlein had told Aether she was going north to search for Professor Haspelt. At the time, the girl from the Gold-Eye Tribe hadn't seemed to want her to deploy.
Was it the news that Kleis had gone missing? Because she feared Herlein might end up the same way?
The point where her friend vanished was near the 3rd Defense Line. Breaking through that far was no simple feat. What worried Aether could very well happen to her, too.
How pure, in a sense. She'd come to stop her, hadn't she?
She owed the students an apology, but she had to press forward. Herlein readied herself to refuse any persuasion.
And then.
"I'll pray you return safely."
"Huh?"
The unexpected answer made her falter.
Right. Sometimes it went like that. Herlein answered with a bitter smile.
Vermel held something out to her. It was a charm written in elvish. She accepted it with thanks, and as she held it, a solemn power seemed to flow along her fingertips.
That wasn't all. This time Aether produced a thick bundle of magic paper. Dozens of sheets, by a rough count.
The scrolls were neatly finished. Compared to her friend, Herlein wasn't deeply versed in scroll magic. Still, looking at these geometrically complex patterns, she could guess what sort of spell they held.
"Is this... Flare?"
"It's stronger than that."
The girl bared her teeth in a grin.
"It doesn't matter even if you know nothing about Fire Magic. The formula's constructed as Composite Magic. You only need to feed in a little mana to trigger it. Use this and it might even take down an Extinction-class in one shot."
At the words of the girl from the Gold-Eye Tribe, Herlein had to shut her mouth.
It was absurd under normal logic. How long had Flare even been developed, and she'd already finished something like this?
If any other student had offered her this, she wouldn't have believed it. But Aether was different. The girl's words carried that much conviction.
"Well then, we'll be going."
The two students said their farewells and left. Herlein gazed vacantly past the horizon until they shrank to dots. Clutched in her hands were the bundle of scrolls and the fine amulet, seemingly woven from branches of the World Tree.
"Ah."
I had been blessed with good students.
She had no time to stand around. She needed to press on with even greater resolve. Herlein serviced the golem that served as her warhorse.
A high-grade Rexon. A military mount faster than a horse that required no relay stations. Taming it was difficult, but for Herlein, who had spent years in military service, handling a mount was no hardship.
Herlein stepped onto the stirrup and swung herself up. Steel plates reinforced the saddle fore and aft, so the ride quality was poor.
"Krrrk."
"Ngh...!"
She nearly lost her center of gravity and toppled over. She steadied her startled heart and calmed the Rexon as it pawed the air.
"What's gotten into her today?"
It was a fuss she hadn't heard in almost three years. Whenever this golem was in a foul mood, it would rear up and quiver its lip like this.
A golem was classified as half-animal, after all. Its instincts were bound to be keener than a human's. When her mount acted up on sortie day, Herlein began to feel uneasy.
Something felt ominous. She tucked the amulet Vermel had given her into her chest pocket.
In any case, her course remained unchanged. She had to find Kleis's trail. She had even spent her own money to prepare to hire beastman mercenaries for the task. She planned to link up with them on the route to the Northern Front.
Her social standing as a countess. Her military rank, exalted enough to be called the foremost among strategic-class mages. The economic means she'd earned through her ability to service golems. She would stake everything on these next two months.
Even if she went bankrupt over this, it didn't matter. Hers was a life that had started from bankruptcy to begin with.
Before she knew it, dusk had fallen. Her preparations complete, she requested the northern citadel open the road for her.
"By His Majesty's command. You are ordered not to let this army's northern advance pass through."
"What?"
An abrupt pronouncement. Eyes going round, she questioned the guard again.
"What are you talking about? The Emperor authorized my deployment. Are you going to open up, or not?"
"The decision has changed. Word has come that no matter what happens, Countess Herlein is not to be dispatched outside the capital."
"That's absurd...!"
She was stunned. She'd prepared the moment she got word, and now it was on the verge of coming to nothing.
"I am merely carrying out what was reported to me. When His Majesty has spoken, even a countess cannot be let through."
Fine. What good would gnawing at the guards do? Herlein sat still and considered the situation.
She was, after all, someone who shared the academy president's aims. Even if it hadn't yet surfaced, she was effectively at odds with the crown. More than anything, she now knew for a fact that the Imperial Household was being manipulated by demons.
Blanton. That bastard, is it.
They'd let Kleis head north without issue, but now they meant to block her own departure.
Yet after a moment's thought, Herlein couldn't help but lift the corners of her mouth.
Her objective was Kleis's rescue. If her friend had met with misfortune, she had to recover her remains at least. She'd been at a loss because she hadn't known whether she was dead or alive—but now she knew for certain.
Kleis was unmistakably alive.
**
At the same moment, Rosemary was groaning.
[Be careful on your way, Professor!]
That elf clearly knew about her Scope ability. She could have deliberately said the opposite of her true feelings to throw her into confusion. And Rosemary had fallen for it despite knowing that.
She couldn't act, couldn't retreat. Truly a white elephant.
But she had to make a decision.
"You think this will make me shut the city gates?"
She resolved to push through with her original intent. She wore a faint, acrid smile as she observed the rest of the scene.
In the next image, Vermel handed Herlein the amulet. An incomprehensible elven custom. Wearing something like that on your body wouldn't make bullets veer away.
"What a foolish race... Hm?"
Rosemary's lips tightened downward again. Crunch. She heard something break in her mouth. The sugar candy she'd unconsciously been rolling on her tongue had shattered.
On the screen beyond the Scope, Aether was giving Herlein something. It looked like paper, but it was no ordinary document.
"Scrolls?"
The crucial question was what kind. She shoved both hands forward, enlarging the view. As the zoom resolved at high resolution, the scroll's pattern began to reveal its contours.
And the instant Rosemary saw the design engraved on that scroll, she froze in fright.
It was complex. Not just complex—filthily, obscenely complex.
A mechanism so esoteric that even she, who could construct a three-dimensional Construction Formula at a planetary scale, couldn't interpret it. A glance at the Output Section suggested it was built on a Flare foundation.
Was it Flare? It had to be Flare, right?
[It's stronger than that.]
Aether answered the question that had risen in her mind with instant timing. With trembling hands, Rosemary dragged the screen to its maximum magnification.
"D-don't tell me... it's a Black Day formation...?"
Black Day and White Night. The only two supreme magic circles she'd never been able to realize as a scroll.
Rosemary shook her head fiercely. She raised her mug and guzzled premium gasoline. The aftertaste was unpleasant.
"Sis, d-don't do anything stupid.... Are you trying to slaughter every last compatriot...?"
As she'd thought. That secret meeting with the elf had been for the purpose of developing a scroll that could artificially activate Black Day.
With that assumption, everything fit. A chill ran through her whole body. An instinctive terror inscribed into her hierarchy.
"Blanton!!"
"You called?"
"Seal every exit from the citadel! Right now!"
If that was truly a scroll that triggered Black Day, the Demon King's army main camp would be wiped out. Every comrade standing by in the tower would die, too.
Yes, better to maintain the status quo, just in case. She only had to hold out for half a year here, anyway.
Crunch. Rosemary bit her thumbnail and paused the monitoring.
**
"So, is the magic in that scroll really stronger than Flare?"
"Obviously bullshit."
"What?"
How was I supposed to whip up something stronger than Flare on the spot? I hadn't even had the time.