The Bad Ones
Chris hadn't expected to part from the ogre so soon. There was still so much he wanted to ask, and yet they had split in a dazed blink—like beans scorched in a flash of lightning. Turning their last exchange over in his mind, he doubted the ogre would have answered him anyway.
The instant the transfer ended, he reflexively drew up his mana and swept his surroundings. The pillars of a pavilion came into view.
So I've been moved to the pavilion.
On the off chance, he looked up at the ceiling. In the pavilion the evil spirit Tenbo had led him to, Motaro had hung overhead; here, only a rope dangled. Someone had arrived first and carried the treasure off.
I'm late.
Swallowing his disappointment, he stepped out of the pavilion. He followed the narrow path ahead until a staircase appeared.
Where there are stairs, one climbs them by reflex. He steeled himself and set a foot on the first step, and it moved without resistance. No binding spell held it, and the gravity hadn't grown heavier. It was an ordinary staircase—which only made it more ominous. Something dangerous, he felt sure, was waiting at the top.
Don't go.
Chris turned and headed down. Great trees packed the slope, stabbing at the sky, so the land below the mountain was hidden from view. He thought of climbing one for a look, then simply kept descending. He would have to come down sooner or later anyway.
Once he left the forest, the view at the mountain's foot opened before him. A vast city spread out there, large enough to house a million souls with room to spare—but it had fallen to ruin, and dread and desolation struck him at once.
He made the city his destination and went down the mountain. Between collapsed, fire-blackened houses, the roads had been torn open in place after place.
Following the broken roads toward the city's heart, he came to a broad open space that must once have been a plaza. A fountain stood at its center, but the basin was shattered beyond recognition and bone-dry. A few coins lay scattered inside.
Chris stepped into the fountain and picked one up. An old man he had never seen was engraved on it. He didn't know which country's currency it was, but money was money.
He gathered every coin and tucked them into his spatial pouch. When he straightened from the stoop, people were standing beside the fountain.
"Whoa."
The exclamation slipped out of him in surprise. Not long ago he had run into Tower Master Hal's party from Mickclonia Magic Tower, and Elder Julien of Touleno Magic Tower.
So if he met anyone else, he had expected Tower Master Hell's party from Herman Magic Tower—yet unfamiliar mages were watching him, eyes glittering.
One man and two women. Judging by the wrinkles on their faces, they were well along in years. Then again, recalling how Donna and Tom had grown young in an instant, guessing a mage's age from their looks was hardly reliable.
The woman with her white hair braided into a single plait spoke.
"Peculiar clothes."
Chris had wound leather around himself to cover everything below the waist. To anyone else, it must have looked ridiculous.
"I've been through rather a lot."
"Who are you?"
Chris pointed at himself.
"Me?"
"Is there anyone else here? Of course it's you."
His mind spun. He nearly offered a different name, then remembered he might run into someone who knew this face, and gave one that matched it.
"Sid."
"Sid... And where do you belong?"
"Herman Magic Tower. If it isn't rude, might I ask where you mages are from?"
"No reason not to."
She answered with a smile.
"Rafunian."
"Ah. Rafunian."
In that instant Mental Force swept over him and passed on.
"Seed Cultivation, then."
Chris brought his hands together respectfully.
"Yes."
"I know most of Herman's Seed Cultivation mages. I've never seen you."
"You even know the Seed Cultivation mages of other towers. Your knowledge is truly broad."
"Stop the nonsense and answer what you're asked."
"Yes. I've taken many secret missions, so I'm not well known outside."
"Secret missions. Now I'm curious what those are."
"I can't speak of a secret..."
Her brow twitched, and Chris changed course at once.
"...but for the three of you, I'll make an exception. I was tasked with finding the magic circle that leads into the Horace Ruins."
"You arrived around the same time we did, so you must have found it."
"Yes. When did you enter?"
"A few years ago."
"Oh! Then that isn't right."
"Isn't right?"
"I came in this year."
The male mage, who had been listening, spoke in a booming voice.
"How is someone who entered far later than we did standing in roughly the same place?"
"I wonder that myself."
Chris thought of the ogre, Kanta.
Where did he send me?
"How did you get here?"
"I walked."
"That isn't what I mean."
The man grew irritated.
"By what means did you come!"
"Through a magic circle."
"Where is this circle?"
Chris pointed toward the mountain.
"I was wandering a cave when I found a magic circle and activated it, and it moved me to that pavilion up there. I'm as bewildered as anyone."
Worry had him in its grip.
What if they search my spatial pouch?
The Motaro he could afford to lose. It unsettled him that the evil spirit Tenbo kept urging him to eat it; the ogre's dismissive attitude toward Motaro unsettled him; so did the sense that it didn't sit well with the Acrian Magic Book, and so did the fact that mages of utterly rotten character wanted it so desperately.
But the black crystal was another matter. Inside it lay the magic book that would open his path to Ring Binding.
The man asked the very thing he feared.
"Did you obtain anything after entering the ruins?"
"No."
"Your word is hard to believe."
"Why is it hard to believe?"
"Without luck's help, you couldn't have come this far. A lucky man claiming he gained nothing doesn't make sense."
Chris indicated his leather skirt.
"Look at the state of me. I'm a wreck, and you call me lucky? I haven't so much as glimpsed luck."
The red-haired woman, her hair shot through here and there with gray, spoke for the first time.
"Give me the spatial pouch."
His worry had become reality. Chris put on a pitiful face.
"It's a paltry fortune. Nothing at all to a Ring Binding mage."
"You have a long tongue."
Cold sweat ran down his back.
What do I do?
Three mages he judged to be Ring Binding. Flight was impossible.
"You don't seem to know that your life matters more than your property."
The moment she took a step forward, new people appeared behind them.
"Is it fitting for Rafunian's elders to bully a junior still wet behind the ears?"
Every gaze swung toward the source of the voice. People Chris knew.
Perez, Richard, Daryl.
The Three Great Elders of Mickclonia Magic Tower were approaching. Any other time he would have shuddered and hated the sight; now he was glad of it. A variable had entered the crisis of losing the black crystal.
Elder Richard, his white beard grown long, stepped forward. A kindly face was no reason to lower one's guard. The Three Great Elders of Mick Magic Tower were notorious.
"Who are you?"
Chris bowed his head.
"Sid, a Seed Cultivation mage of Herman Magic Tower."
"Who is your master?"
"I didn't study under anyone in particular."
Richard tilted his head.
"At Seed Cultivation, there ought to be a mage assigned to teach you."
"There are special circumstances."
"And those are?"
"I've been wandering outside on secret missions..."
"What secret missions?"
Chris stole a glance at the Rafunian mages. Seeing that, Perez asked,
"Why are you watching the Rafunians?"
"I'm not watching them. It's just strange, hearing the same questions all over again."
"So they asked the same things. And what is this secret mission of yours?"
"Finding the magic circle that leads to the Horace Ruins. One of those circles, forgotten and left to rot until its priority climbed."
"You're here, so you succeeded?"
"Yes."
"Hand it over."
"What?"
"The spatial pouch."
How were they all cut from the same cloth?
He couldn't tell mages from bandits.
Flustered, Chris scratched his head.
"The Rafunians want it as well..."
"You can ignore them."
"Why...?"
The red-haired woman of Rafunian picked up the thread.
"Yes. I'm curious myself. Why can he ignore us?"
Perez bared his teeth in a smile. Sharp teeth suited that gaunt frame.
"Because we're stronger."
It must have been true; the Rafunian side offered no rebuttal.
Chris was in a bind.
This won't do.
Only if the two powers stayed evenly matched would a way out open between them.
Daryl spoke with a gentle smile.
"We'll be taking the child from Herman."
She looked as kindly as Richard. Her nature, he was certain, was anything but.
The three Rafunian mages huddled, murmured briefly, and took a step back. Chris felt as if he had been moved from a wolf's jaws into a tiger's.
Climbing onto the ruined fountain, he said,
"Might I have the names of the three from Rafunian?"
The red-haired mage answered.
"You claim you roamed outside on secret missions, and you don't know us?"
Chris gave an awkward laugh.
"I was assigned to the Touleno side."
"Were you a spy, by any chance?"
"Yes."
"I thought I smelled something of the sort."
"You've a keen nose."
"I am Carmen."
The woman with her white hair prettily braided was Britney, and the loud-voiced man was Shay.
"And the newcomers are the Three Great Elders of Mick Magic Tower, aren't they?"
Before they could answer, Shay spoke first.
"You don't know who we are, yet you know who they are."
"I looked into Mick Magic Tower once, out of personal interest."
Chris clapped his hands as if delighted.
"Even so, your name is the most familiar of all."
A strange light entered Shay's eyes.
"You know me?"
"Are you the Shay who made the Shay Mana Helmet?"
"Something I made for a lark when I was young... Is that still wandering the world?"
"Yes. I've used it."
"Did you feel mana through it?"
"I did feel mana later, though whether that was because of the helmet, I'm a little unsure. Does it actually work?"
"No."
"So it was a scam after all."
"A scam?"
"I paid a high price for it."
"How much?"
"A hundred gold coins."
"You're rich."
"There's some money in the family."
He looked at his companions.
"What a waste."
Britney asked,
"What's a waste?"
"He's rich, isn't he? The way he's guarding that spatial pouch—he must be carrying quite a few valuables."
Richard let out a short laugh.
"So you're thinking of taking us on?"
"No reason we couldn't."
Tension climbed between the two groups. Chris clenched his fists and shouted inwardly.
Yes. Fight. Fight!
Only then would a path to survival open.
Carmen, whose red hair made her temper look like fire, stopped Shay.
"Don't stake your life on something worthless."
Chris clicked his tongue to himself. A waste of that red hair.
Shay insisted,
"You don't know its worth until you open it."
"Then we open it."
Carmen fixed Chris with a gaze as cold as a snake's.
"Open the spatial pouch."
Chris was disappointed.
No chance of setting them at each other's throats.
Then he bit his lip hard.
It isn't time to despair yet. I have the Motaro.
Chris thrust a hand into his spatial pouch and kicked off the fountain.
There was a sharp rush of displaced air, and his body shot skyward.
"You think we'll let you run?"
Perez roared and surged upward—just as Chris drew out the Motaro.
"I knew it!"
Shay clapped and shouted.
"That bastard had the treasure!"
Perez said,
"It's my treasure."
Chris climbed a little higher and held the Motaro aloft.
"If I go any higher, lightning will strike, and the Motaro will be destroyed."
When Perez and the other mages of Mick Magic Tower flinched, Chris formed a fireball as well and pressed the threat.
"Do you want the Motaro ruined?"
They all hesitated.
Daryl warned in a cold voice.
"Ruin the Motaro, and you'll suffer for a hundred years."
Perez took up the words.
"A hundred years is too short. Two hundred!"