Do Not Oppose the Tower
Yan folded his arms.
"Hmm."
He still seemed to hesitate.
"From now on, I'll cooperate fully with you knights."
"You mean that?"
"Yes. I give you my word. My realm is only Jenyeom, but I'll be of use all the same."
Only then did Yan unfold his arms and answer.
"This isn't a war we started because we wanted one."
He turned the point of it toward Marquis Dominic of Albar Kingdom.
"They declared war and came marching in. What were we supposed to do but hold them off?"
Marquis Dominic shrugged.
"I didn't want the war either. I was ordered from behind."
Chris said, "So Tuleno Magic Tower gave the order."
The true power behind the war was Tuleno Magic Tower. Chris looked out at the mages beyond the house.
"Why would Tuleno do it?"
Yan answered, "There was a magic circle inside our kingdom that they wanted to use."
"Ah. So you entered the ruins through the circle in Grant Kingdom."
"Albar must have a circle of its own. I don't see why they'd choose war instead of simply using that."
Chris already had a fair idea, but he played ignorant to keep the talk running smoothly.
Marquis Dominic said, "The circle under Tuleno's control has been used so often, they say, that it's worn out. Using it would be dangerous..."
Chris narrowed his eyes. So that was why Julien had joined hands with Tower Master Hel of Hermann Magic Tower. Were Claudia and Melissa, like Julien, down to the last of their years? If they were, they might have acted without the other elders' consent.
"I understand the mages' circumstances. Even so, Albar Kingdom didn't have to fall in with them and raise an army, did it?"
"I don't think you quite grasp the power of a magic tower, Mage."
"I know as much as I need to. A tower wields tremendous influence over a kingdom."
Bianca cut in. "No. You don't know."
Irritation had dropped her into plain speech, and she corrected herself. "You don't."
"And what is it I don't know?"
Bianca gave no answer. Vice-Commander Michael sighed and spoke.
"When I rose to vice-commander, a mage came to see me. Seed Cultivation, they said. We fought, and I lost. As he left, he told me: do not oppose the tower."
The humiliation of that day seemed to rise in him. His face looked wretched.
Yan said, "It was the day I became a Master. We were so glad we threw a party. A few days later a mage of the Ring Binding realm came from the tower. We fought, and I lost. As he left, he told me: do not oppose the tower."
His expression was bleak.
Bianca opened her mouth. "It was when my father ascended as crown prince. A mage came from the tower and said: do not oppose the tower. Father was young then, and his blood ran hot. He flung water at the man and roared at him to get the hell out. The next morning he woke to find the head of the knight he treasured most sitting on his nightstand. He ran to the king and demanded punishment. They say the king looked at him with sorrowful eyes and said: do not oppose the tower."
Dominic and Tren of Albar said much the same. Viscount Cashew seemed to be hearing it for the first time. Shock widened his eyes; he glanced around, then spoke.
"If we turned every force in the nation against the tower, couldn't we win?"
Dominic laughed, hollow. "I can handle Seed Cultivation well enough. But Ring Binding? Only a Grand Master can face Ring Binding, and our kingdom hasn't got one. Search the whole continent and you'll find barely three..."
Chris turned it over. Every tower must have at least ten Ring Binding mages. Seed Cultivation, in the hundreds. A kingdom's Masters, three or four at the most. No contest at all. But why is the gap in numbers this severe?
The thought slipped out of his mouth. "Because mages live so long?"
Dominic murmured as if to himself. "Yes. That's exactly the problem. A Master dies once he's past a hundred. Even a Grand Master hits the wall at a hundred and fifty. But a mage who reaches Ring Binding lives more than a thousand years. Mages linger, Masters die young, and once the years pile up and the numbers accumulate..."
Viscount Cashew made a pained sound. "The more time passes, the worse it gets for us."
Chris said, "I don't understand."
Bianca said, "What don't you understand?"
"If the towers are stronger than the kingdoms, why don't they found nations of their own instead of ruling indirectly from behind?"
"That... I don't know either."
She looked at Yan. "Why do they?"
"In the old days they ruled directly. The side effects were enormous."
Chris asked, "What kind of side effects?"
"It's a little awkward, saying this with a mage right here... Mages are a bit, you know."
The man who had spoken so frankly until now hesitated.
Chris jumped in first. "Yes. No manners at all. They look down on the whole world, and whatever morals they had, they sprinkled into the soup and ate. Madmen everywhere. Live in a tower long enough and you start to wonder if they go out of their way to pick only the trash and make mages of them."
Yan laughed as if the assessment suited him. "They say that long ago, mages with the reins off committed horrors without a second thought. According to histories buried in the dark, deeds that would outrage heaven and men... Offering a hundred thousand people as sacrifice was no rare thing... Sacrifices counted in the thousands were beyond numbering. The people's resentment pierced the sky, and blood ran like a river."
Dominic took up the thread. "If you mean to eat pigs, you have to raise them—but they slaughtered every last one before it was grown. Hunt the wild boars off the mountains until the breed itself is about to vanish, and then swap the pigs for people and mana stones. They say it felt, back then, as if the world were ending."
Yan said, "Once resources ran short, war broke out between the towers. There wasn't a day, they say, when the blood dried. The fear that they would all perish together if things went on took hold among the high mages, and they agreed to step back to the second line."
Dominic said, "Time passed. Trial and error piled up. And the order we live under now took shape."
Chris said, "So you couldn't refuse the order to attack Grant Kingdom."
Viscount Cashew thought hard, then said, "You had no choice but to start the war, but you didn't want blood, so you only pretended to fight. I couldn't understand why you kept avoiding battle like that."
Dominic laughed. "All I did was raise my voice for nothing. Let me apologize, while I have the chance."
He bowed his head toward Yan. "Every insult I aimed at you and your kingdom—none of it was sincere."
Yan bowed as well. "The same goes for what I said."
Chris asked, "Is the war over?"
Dominic said, "It is."
"How was the agreement reached?"
"The magic circle in Laphunian Magic Tower's domain will be opened so Tuleno's mages can use it. In exchange, Tuleno pays the price."
Puzzled, Chris pointed outside. "There are no mages from Laphunian here."
If they had come through Laphunian's circle, a Laphunian mage ought to be with them.
"Laphunian used a different circle, they say. I heard the elders who meant to leave had already gone. Their circle was activated some time ago."
"If Tuleno's circle had been sound, there would have been no war. A shame."
"That's what they say of the circle that leads to the Horace Ruins."
Chris was badly startled. That means there's another circle in Tuleno's domain, leading to some other ruins. The thought that there might be several more places like this leaves me strangely sour. Why sour? Not knowing why only makes it worse.
"What about Tuleno Magic Tower's other elders?"
"Since they were already late, they bowed out and said they'd come even later. Use the circle in your own domain, and you don't have to pay Laphunian."
"Laphunian must have named a brutal price."
"Yes. They did."
"And why did all of you come in together?"
"We demanded it. We'd burned through a great deal of supplies fighting a war. It would have been too galling to stand in the back and only watch."
"Did the Tower Master allow it?"
"We split the cost."
"Laphunian's demands must have been excessive, if the Tower Master went so far as to share the cost with you."
"Yes. That's why I thought Tuleno's Tower Master would refuse them."
Accepting terms that steep... just as I thought. The Tower Master's life is running out.
"So you want the treasure as well."
"Of course. Why else would we have come in? Isn't it the same for you, Mage?"
"I'm fine. If I can only escape this wretched place, that will be enough."
Chris lowered his voice and went on. "Do you think the mages will stand by and watch while you claim a precious treasure?"
Dominic and Yan did not look worried. Dominic said, "We'll negotiate."
"Negotiate?"
"Hand over the treasure they want, and in return have the supplies we send the tower every year written off."
The resources poured into the tower each year must be enormous.
The talk broke off, and for a moment silence held.
"I enjoyed the conversation."
Chris took his leave. He was heading off to watch the repairs on the magic circle when Bianca followed him out.
"They say the mages enjoy it."
"Enjoy what?"
"When a man becomes king, or crown prince, or a Master, and tries to remake the country to suit himself, a mage shows up and dumps cold water all over it. There's a fine pleasure, they say, in watching a king learn the truth of the world and fall into despair. I heard they even compete for the chance to take that duty."
"Given how filthy mages are by nature, it's entirely plausible."
"I didn't know, back then..."
"Back then?"
"When we met before."
"Ah. Then."
"Back then you seemed fiercely proud of mages. Not anymore. You almost seem to hate them."
Something pricked at Chris from the inside.
"They say people don't change, but now and then someone does. Especially after they've been betrayed."
Without warning, she changed the subject. "Did they catch Chris?"
He had not expected his own name to leap out of her mouth. He startled hard, but none of it reached his face. He had acted so often that hiding what he felt was no longer difficult.
"Chris...?"
"The magic aspirant tangled up in Prince Mark's murder. The tower even put out a warrant. Had you forgotten?"
"How could I forget? The name came out of nowhere. It threw me for a moment."
"The commander asked for leniency back then, and a twenty-year sentence came down. I was shocked. It hit me all over again. The tower really does think we're worth shit."
Chris had not expected a princess to use a word like that. This time his face slipped, and his eyes went wide. Seeing it, Bianca looked faintly abashed and shrugged.
"Live with rough bastards long enough."
"Right."
The commander kept his promise. Paying for the helmet, too. At bottom, he's a man who keeps faith.
"They still haven't caught Chris."
"How did a man with no power manage a jailbreak? I was astonished when I saw the warrant later."
"His story is bound up with the Horace Ruins, so I can't speak of it in detail. It's a secret."
"A secret... Tell me it's a secret, and I only want to know more."