An Unexpected Encounter
"Oh—no. That won't do."
"If you would come here..."
The voice that answered had gone cold.
"I told you. I don't know where you are."
"Doesn't the mask have a way to find someone's location?"
"There is no such function. And even if there were—every other mage is pressing forward after the treasure, and you want me to be the only one who turns back? Talk sense."
"I pledged you my loyalty, and this is how you cast me aside..."
"Number Five! Cast you aside? What a way to put it."
"If I'm left here alone, I'll grow old and die."
"Find some mana stones and you can use the magic circle, can't you?"
He never said the circle was broken.
"How am I supposed to come by fifty top-grade mana stones in a wasteland like this?"
"That's for you to work out."
"Agent One!"
"Don't contact me unless it's something special. No—even if it is special, don't, if you can help it. I'll contact you."
Chris severed the mask's connection and swore.
"Heartless bastard."
He folded his arms and paced for a while.
"Shouldn't have called."
Chris went into the jungle and came back with wood. He split it and stacked it on the roof of a collapsed house, then trained beside the pile.
Drawing on the secret of Iron Body, he absorbed mana and sent it into his Thought Space, but his power was already saturated and would store no more. His training had struck a wall. Iron Body could carry a mage only as far as Sikbae. To reach Chukhwan, he would have to learn an entirely new method, and he could hardly spend the rest of his life stalled at Sikbae.
Who would even teach me?
He wrung his mind dry and still couldn't think of a single person. With no progress, there was no pleasure in the work either. He loafed for a few days, then connected to the mask. Agent No. 1 was still wearing his.
The mask was superb—so much so that it barely felt like a foreign thing—but it still wasn't the same as one's own skin. If the man had no intention of answering anyone, why keep it on? Chris couldn't make sense of it. Heartless wretch. He nearly did to him what he had done to David: packed his will into a shout and hurled it down the link, just to get under the man's skin. He held back. There was no telling how a thing like that might end.
Chris swept his hands through the air as if he were conducting. Moisture gathered into a droplet. The droplet swelled until it was the size of a watermelon, then spread thin, and behind it metal-attribute mana bound itself to black-attribute mana and clung fast. The film of water began to reflect the world like a mirror.
He looked into it. David's mask covered his face, and yet the features were not David's. A different foundation had produced a different face. If he had decided to pass as David, he ought to do it properly.
Chris took the mask off and set his hands to his face. He pared bone and shifted muscle, working himself as close to David as he could. The pain was enough to set his teeth grinding, but he endured it by remembering the training of Iron Body, which had hurt far worse. He wiped away the blood, let his face settle for a day, and put the mask back on. Then he formed the water mirror again and studied himself. Close enough now that a stranger might have believed the two of them brothers—but not the same.
He removed the mask and went back in with finer work. The likeness was already near enough that he didn't need to tear the whole face down and rebuild it as he had before. A week later, masked, Chris looked so much like David that no one but the parents who had borne and raised the man would have had an easy time telling them apart.
Good enough.
Satisfied, he took out David's staff.
It thrummed as he swung it like a club. Then he caught it in both hands and fed wood-attribute mana down into it. David had set no safeguard on the thing, so Chris could use it as his own. He filled the staff to the brim—wood-attribute mana for a core, fire-attribute mana bound over that.
"Burn the world!"
He roared and loosed the whole of it at once, and the ground around him became a sea of fire. Watching the blaze roar, Chris smiled, well pleased.
"Ah. That's nice."
Once the staff sat easy in his hands, his interest turned elsewhere. David had been Sikbae, but the world had known him as Jenyeom. His true strength, most likely, had been known to Agent No. 1 alone. Which meant Chris had to counterfeit Jenyeom.
How had David hidden it? The dead don't talk, so there was no asking. Just as he had taught himself magic, he set himself to puzzling this out alone.
A Chukhwan mage, it was said, took the measure of another mage's strength through Willpower. What, exactly, did Willpower sense? Chris didn't know. He could only guess.
What separated Jenyeom from Sikbae? The clearest difference was the Klpandi—whether one had sprouted or not. Hide the Klpandi, and he might slip past Willpower. So he judged.
Hide the Klpandi.
He tried to grow other grasses lush enough to cover it: the trick of hiding a tree by planting it in a forest. He tried, and he failed. He could not raise those other grasses to the Klpandi's height. The moment a blade strove to grow larger, the Klpandi drank the mana and refused to let it. Out on that plain, the Klpandi's presence stood alone—a crane among chickens. There would be no concealing it like this.
Chris spoke to it.
If I'm going to imitate David properly, I have to hide my strength. Bear with it a little.
He pleaded, and went on trying to grow the other grasses. The Klpandi did not listen. Whatever grew past a certain point yellowed and withered.
Attempt after attempt taught him something. The Klpandi had thoughts of its own. They were bound so closely that it was hard to call the thing a separate life, and just as hard to call it the same being as himself.
If I die, you die too. Cooperate.
The Klpandi was like a five-year-old who wouldn't listen. It offered no cooperation at all. Chris realized that neither reason nor threats reached it, and he changed his approach.
Don't you want to grow bigger?
The Klpandi, shaped like a weed, shook its leaves.
Listen to me, and you can.
He gave up on the other grasses—the Klpandi seemed to think they were meant to replace it—and instead heaped earth thick over the thing to bury it. The Klpandi spun and shook the soil off. It looked stifled. Chris coaxed it, gently.
I'm not asking you to stay covered every day. Just when I need it. An hour or two. All right?
The grass rustled. It seemed to agree.
This is only practice. I'll clear it away in an hour.
He covered it again. Distaste was plain in every leaf, but the Klpandi did not break down the soil that buried it.
Thank you. Just hold on for one hour.
Time passed slowly. The food he had carried into the ruins was nearly gone. Even if he rationed it, he doubted it would last five days. Water he could make by condensing the moisture in the air. Food, he had no way to make.
There had been none in the spatial pouches of Sheikh, Harvey, or David.
Why didn't any of them pack food?
He couldn't understand it. In the worst case he could go into the jungle and eat insects, so he didn't clutch his head over the problem. He did hope that day would never come.
Connecting to the mask each morning had become a habit. Agent No. 1's window still made its presence known. Then the third window, which had sat empty all this time, suddenly came alive.
Chris shot to his feet.
Number Three is in! Did they drop into the jungle?
He hoped so. He spent the day pacing, strung between expectation and excitement. Number Three did not come.
If they won't come, I'll call them.
He set fire to the wood he had prepared. It was dry, and the flames climbed hungrily. Watching the smoke rise into the sky, Chris smiled.
Agent No. 1 had entered the ruins without a word to the other spies. Judging by everything since, he had never possessed the faintest intention of moving with them in tow. And yet, after Number Four and Number Five, Number Three had now come in as well. Everyone but Number Two. That was what made life interesting.
That afternoon, a party came into view. Tower Master Hel of Hermann Magic Tower had arrived with eight, counting himself and Julien. Tower Master Hal of Mickclonia had come with seven. This group numbered twelve.
What shocked Chris was that he knew six of them. Knights of Grant Kingdom and knights of Albar Kingdom—kingdoms that ought to have been at war—were walking toward him side by side, in perfect amity. Behind them came six figures in robes, split into two clusters: two out in front, four following. The pair in front seemed to be watching the mood of the four at their backs.
Yan, commander of the Grant royal knights, recognized him and shouted.
"Mage David!"
Chris remembered that Yan had met David when he came to Mick Magic Tower to investigate the prince's death, and he answered with a silent bow.
"Yes. It's me."
He flew over to them. At Yan's side were Vice-Commander Michael and Bianca, a rank-and-file knight.
Bianca. The princess certainly gets around.
To the right of the Grant knights stood Albar's: Supreme Commander Marquis Dominic, Count Tren, and Viscount Cashew. Count Tren was a Sword Master, so his presence beside the supreme commander made sense. Viscount Cashew was nothing more than a vassal lord under Tren. Why he had come in here, Chris could not fathom.
He looked at that cucumber-long face and asked, "Who are these people?"
He knew them. He was careful not to show it. He was David now, not Timothy.
Yan stepped in, introduced the knights beside him, and then added, for the benefit of the company, "This is Mage David of Mick Magic Tower."
He did not introduce the six mages at the rear. Chris was looking at them in open puzzlement when the four who had been hanging farthest back came forward. The knights eased aside as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and Chris understood at once who was in charge of this party.
So those mages are the core of it.
He bowed with careful courtesy and asked, "Who might you be?"
Two of the four were women. One was a gaunt old crone. The other was a blonde of middle years.
The old woman spoke. "Mick Magic Tower, you say?"
Even as she addressed him, her eyes flicked to the magic circle behind him. It was not what anyone would call a gracious way to hold a conversation, but Chris kept his manner respectful.
"I had the honor of studying under Mage Randal."
The old woman glanced aside. "Who's Randal?"
The blonde answered—a plump woman, and a mage. "A Sikbae mage."
"Nothing special, then."
If she could dismiss a Sikbae so lightly, she was probably Chukhwan herself. In that instant a strange pulse rolled over him.
Willpower!
Chris braced inwardly. From the moment they had come into sight he had been working his Thought Space, burying the Klpandi completely beneath earth—or, more precisely, beneath earth-attribute mana that looked like soil. He had prepared for exactly this. The pulse grazed his Thought Space and passed on. The old woman let out a short, contemptuous breath of a laugh.
"Jenyeom."
A fierce delight went through him at having fooled a Chukhwan, but he let none of it show. The mages seemed to have no interest in introducing themselves, so he turned to Yan.
"Commander, would you introduce them for me?"
Yan glanced at the old woman, then opened his mouth. "They are from Tuleno Magic Tower."
Whatever discomfort they stirred in him, he did not name them one by one.
"And the two standing apart over there?"
"On the left, Sir Nuba, court mage of our kingdom. On the right, Sir Lucien, court mage of Albar."
Chris gave the two mages a bob of the head. "A pleasure."
It was a completely different manner from the one he had used with Tuleno. He had sounded thoroughly arrogant, and he had done it on purpose, having judged the pair to be Old Mages. A David of Mick Magic Tower, he thought, would have behaved just so. Insolent as the performance was, neither mage showed any offense. They smiled and returned the greeting.
Patient, these two.
The old woman walked past Chris toward the magic circle, and the other mages followed. Yan spoke as he went by.
"Come with us."
"Yes."
Chris went along meekly, because he wanted something from them. If he hadn't, he would never have lit the fire that brought them in.