Between the Wolf and the Tiger
"Aigoo, Tower Master. Your face has changed a great deal. You must have had a hard time of it."
Chris smoothed his expression and laid the flattery on thick.
The old man looked bewildered.
"What are you talking about?"
"You're the Tower Master, aren't you?"
"Not me……."
The old man standing beside him took one step forward.
"I am the Tower Master."
Chris clicked his tongue.
"Aigoo, the two of you. At your age, and still full of mischief."
"Do you know my name?"
"Of course I do."
Chris said it without a flicker of doubt.
"Hell, great mage of Hermann Magic Tower!"
His knowledge of the magical world was painfully shallow, but fortunately he at least knew the name of Hermann Magic Tower's master. He laid the gold on thick.
"How could I fail to know the greatest mage on the continent?"
Tower Master Hell said, "You belong to our tower?"
Even as he answered, Chris was searching for a chance to run.
"Yes."
"Then why is this the first time I've ever seen you?"
"The tower is enormous. It's hard to know every member."
The fireball overhead sank a little lower.
"I know them all."
Chris lifted his eyes to the fireball once, then dropped them again.
"That's quite an exaggeration."
The old man beside the Tower Master said, "It isn't exaggeration. Hell has memorized the name and face of every Hermann mage at Jenyeom or above."
Chris tore the mask from his face in an exaggerated motion, ripping it away roughly on purpose until blood smeared him from brow to chin. The mages started, eyes flying wide. For a moment they thought he had actually torn his own face off.
"Don't be alarmed. It's a mask. No wonder you wouldn't recognize me."
He pressed the mask back into place. Blood pattered from beneath his jaw.
"You— the elders……."
"The Children of the Mask……."
In the reactions of the two Chukhwan mages, Chris saw a crack he might slip through.
Children of the Mask. An organization of spies who go about in masks. And the Tower Master doesn't control them. The elders do.
Which meant there was discord inside Hermann Magic Tower, or factions.
"I don't understand why you came after me, or why you attacked."
There was a corner of it he genuinely couldn't make sense of, so the look on his face came out true.
Hell asked, "Why are you running?"
"Me?"
"You mean to cross into Britan. Don't you?"
"Well, yes…… but I was only doing as I was told."
"As you were told?"
"Sta— no. Number One……."
Halfway through the sentence, Chris's eyes went wide.
"Oh! Did he give me this job on purpose, to lure all of you in?"
"Lure?"
"You said selling arms that way was a mistake. There's no way he would make a mistake, so he must have let the trail show on purpose……."
He played the part of a man betrayed. He had meant to fall back on the fool's act he had polished since his slave days, but at the last moment he remembered that sort of thing didn't work well on mages, and he changed course.
"Wow. Number One shouldn't do this to me."
The memory of Tom stabbing him in the back in prison made the performance come of its own accord. Mid-sentence, Chris frowned.
"Why would Number One lure the Tower Master? And why did the Tower Master fall for the lure?"
He muttered it to himself, then shook his head from side to side.
"We're not on the same side?"
The old man beside Hell said, "Who taught you magic?"
"My master told me not to say. I can tell you this much. Number One is not my master."
"What did you do with those children?"
"Who……?"
"The owners of the spatial pouches you sold."
"There wasn't just one or two……."
"Tiller. Dalton. Kagon."
Names Chris was hearing for the first time. Even so, he could guess. Five hundred and ten people had gathered to go to the Horace Ruins.
The five hundred collected by the five leaders, Scott among them, were not people of Hermann Magic Tower, so the Tower Master would have no reason to know them. Chris had never so much as laid eyes on the spatial pouches carried by the five high mages who vanished through the magic circle, so it wasn't them either. That left the five leaders of the camp. Take away the one who lost half his body through the teleportation circle, and four remained. Take away Scott, whose name he already knew, and three were left.
By simple elimination, he pinned them down.
So those three were Tiller, Dalton, and Kagon.
He put on a troubled face.
"Ah. They……."
"Did you kill them?"
Chris said nothing.
"Given that Vance's body was torn in half, they're all dead. Aren't they?"
The one who died trying to move by scroll. That was Vance.
"Vance wasn't skilled enough to jump straight into the tower. How did you find the corpse?"
"Fortunately, it fell into the tower's hands. Your answer?"
"Number One ordered it."
"Did you kill them?"
"No. It was Scott's doing."
"Scott?"
"You don't know him?"
"I don't."
"He's Number One's disciple."
Chris bit his lip and went on.
"If you didn't know Scott existed, of course you wouldn't know I did either. I thought I was working for Hermann Magic Tower. He said that once this mission was finished, he'd summon me to the tower and give me a reward…… Have I been deceived?"
"Where did Tiller, Dalton, and Kagon die?"
Chris bit his lip and gave no answer.
The Tower Master's voice turned angry.
"Speak!"
Chris stayed silent.
"I told you to speak!"
The fireball sank lower still. The distance was still considerable, and already the heat reached him. His scalp grew warm.
"I can't say."
"Why?"
"He said it had to stay an absolute secret. Tiller, Dalton, Kagon, Vance…… a place Scott kept secret even if it meant killing his own……."
Halfway through, he understood. Once the job was done, Scott had meant to kill those four.
Real bastards, the lot of them.
Inwardly, he cursed Stan and Scott both.
"I am the Tower Master. The Tower Master of Hermann Magic Tower, the tower you belong to!"
"You didn't even know I existed. You attacked me, and now, after the fact…… From what you're saying, you're not even in a position to command our organization……."
"Number One betrayed you. He threw you away as bait."
"Even so……."
"There's no need to keep faith with him. Take us there."
The old man beside him said, "Guide us."
In that instant a massive spear of water came shrieking in and punched clean through the fireball.
Shwaaaaa.
Steam billowed up in a thick white shroud, and water poured down like a waterfall. A booming voice rolled through it.
The Tower Master shouted, "Who's there?"
The steam tore apart, and a big man showed himself.
At the sight of him, the Tower Master made a sound like a man in pain.
"Julien."
Chris asked, "Who is Julien?"
Julien made his disappointment blatant.
"Hey, mask mage. You know Hell, and you don't know me?"
Chris swallowed.
"Mage Hell is the Tower Master."
"The strongest man in a tower doesn't become Tower Master. They pick some sharp fellow out of the lower Chukhwan and put him to work. I'm far stronger than the Tower Master."
"How long have you been hiding?"
"Since Hell and Hugo hid."
So the old man standing beside the Tower Master was Hugo. Chris looked at Hell and licked his lips.
"You didn't know Mage Julien was hiding?"
The blank look said he hadn't.
I didn't know Hell was hiding. Why? Because his magic sits above mine. And even that Hell didn't know Julien was hiding. Why? Because Julien's skill sits above his.
So the strongest one here is Julien.
Maybe not by a vast margin, but he was clearly better than the Tower Master.
Do I go with him?
Chris hesitated, unable to settle it easily. It might only mean climbing out of a wolf's jaws and into a tiger's.
At that moment the ground overturned, and a new figure appeared. A bald old man, without a hair left on his head, glared at Julien and bared his teeth.
"Don't meddle in another tower's affairs."
Even with a new enemy before him, Julien had room to spare.
"Mole Pearson."
The nickname did not sit well. Pearson's brow twitched.
"Don't call me Mole."
"Then shall I call you Bald Pearson?"
That pleased him no better. A dangerous air rose off Pearson's body.
"Wait. Hold."
Hell checked him before he could attack, then turned a glare on Julien and warned him.
"Three lower Chukhwan and three Sikbae are more than enough to take a mid-grade."
Chris looked at the middle-aged man standing behind Hell and Hugo.
Only two Sikbae in sight…… so one of them is hidden.
He sharpened his senses. Nothing. On a whim, he spread mana into the ground, and something caught in the flow that ran toward six o'clock. Someone was hiding beneath the earth, the way Pearson had.
The hidden one caught the mana Chris had let slip and burst up through the ground. The iron hooks gripped in both hands were the first thing the eye went to. Short, with shoulders far too broad for the height — a stocky, compacted shape.
Six against one.
Who wins?
Chris hoped both sides would destroy each other.
Then I run.
He quieted his racing heart and evened his breath.
Julien said, "You think you can beat me?"
Pearson said, "Of course."
"I don't think so. But suppose you have a hidden card, and suppose you manage to beat me anyway. At least half of you will die."
Hell and Hugo could not deny it. Even the belligerent Pearson could not.
"Besides, this is the domain of the Albar Kingdom. The front yard of our Tuleno Magic Tower. If we fight, who has the advantage?"
"Even a shit-dog walks into its own front yard already up by thirty percent. Is that it?"
"Comparing a tower elder to a shit-dog is rude."
As he said it, he flicked a hand, and the blades of wind Hugo had laid around them to threaten Chris shattered and flew apart.
At the blatant show of force, Hell's expression hardened. His robe flipped back, and a staff came into view. The red gem set in its head drew the eye.
"Let's try catching a shit-dog, then."
Julien clicked his tongue.
"Ruder than you look. You do know I'm holding back a great deal?"
Pearson provoked him. "Don't hold back."
"I'm holding back because there's something I need."
"You need a Concept? I'll be happy to install one for you."
"If we fight, I'll kill you first."
Pearson faltered.
Hell said, "We can't hand over our boy."
The Tower Master seemed to mean him, and it soured Chris's mood.
"Excuse me, Tower Master. Until a moment ago, you didn't even know I existed."
"I had my suspicions."
You suspected a fact even I didn't know?
Chris laughed on the inside.
"Is that so. Do you happen to know my name?"
"I don't."
"Please call me Sid."
"Your real name?"
"Of course not. I've used so many aliases that these days I'm not even sure what my real name is."
Julien said, "Come over here. Stick with the Tower Master and you die."
Chris held out an open palm.
"If I come to you, do I get to live?"
"Guide me to the place with the magic circle that leads to the ruins, and I'll let you live."