Red Rain Falling on Caipol
Friday morning, the day after Blow had put his head together with Yulia and Jane, found him in Mnevoir's laboratory at her summons. The room was the same as ever, buried under stacks of documents—the sort of place that felt as though it would do a person's lungs no favors if they lingered too long.
"Good morning, Professor."
"You're here."
"Yes."
"You ought to have a cup of coffee. I sent the assistant out, so I'll brew it myself."
The professor says she would really rather you come alone.
When they had heard that the night before, neither Jane nor Yulia had looked pleased. Even so, Blow did not think Mnevoir was the sort to say such a thing without a reason, and so he had had little choice but to do as she asked.
A short while later a cup of coffee sat before each of them on the desk where he and Mnevoir were seated. She let the silence steep for a moment, then spoke.
"I'm going to tell you something rather difficult."
"You're laying the weight on so thick I'm getting a little uneasy, Professor."
"It is that heavy."
He had tried, half to clear the air, to come at it sideways, but the remark didn't take. Her expression was unshakably firm, and at the sight of it Blow could only swallow dry.
"First of all—Lady Lisleia has arrived in Caipol."
"Ah. Has she really?"
Relief left him in a long, heavy breath. If she had failed to reach Caipol on time, he would have been bound for the Imperial Capital with no way out of it. True, he now had the Edfolk family and the Campbell family at his back, both throwing their weight around in the capital—but even so, being hauled before the Magic Bureau was a courtesy he would rather decline. It could throw his business into serious disarray.
The trouble was that Mnevoir's face, as she delivered the news, was nowhere near so relieved.
"Has something gone wrong on another front? Did the Magic Bureau go back on their word?"
"You could call it a problem. The truth is, I wondered whether I ought to hide it even from you, the person it concerns. That didn't seem right."
"What? What do you—"
"My master said she had a small matter to see to, and asked that her arrival be kept secret."
What kind of nonsense was this?
Blow tilted his head the moment he heard it, and put the question to her carefully.
"A secret from the Magic Bureau as well?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I don't know the exact reason myself. Lately, though, it seems tied to the unsettled mood across the continent."
Word is the whole continent hasn't been quite right these days.
For no reason he could name, Randolph's voice rang in his ear, and Blow had to swallow again.
"Is there something I don't know?"
"Put simply, there are people who want to tear the present order down."
"That's—not a conspiracy theory? It's actually true?"
"At first I thought it was a conspiracy theory, same as you. But the things my master is hearing, and the things reaching me, are anything but ordinary."
"......"
"The problem is that at the center of it stand the Six Great Mages, my master among them."
"You mean..."
"As heroes of the war, they are, in a sense, the current order made flesh. To anyone who means to bring that order down, they are the first things one would want removed."
"Then isn't Lady Lisleia in danger as well?"
Mnevoir lifted her cup as she answered.
"I couldn't say how one ought to define danger. But my master put it like this."
"How?"
"That a thing like this has to have its seeds dried out at the very start."
"So Lady Lisleia, now that she's here, means to dry out the seeds planted in Caipol?"
"Yes. Which is why, in truth, she wants a measure of cooperation from you."
"Cooperation—as in, I act as though Lady Lisleia never came?"
Mnevoir nodded. Blow stroked his chin, and his head tipped to one side.
"I hate to say it, but however great a mage Lady Lisleia may be, asking my cooperation when I haven't so much as seen her face once is a little..."
"You've become a proper man of business. But if this ends well, she will take proper responsibility for that Spirit of Space of yours."
"......"
"I'll stake my own neck on what I just said."
"Well, if you're going to put it like that..."
"And if my master had wished it, she could simply have given an order—to you and to me both—in the name of the Six Great Mages. She could also have told you nothing at all. And yet she seems to have taken a liking to you."
"What? To me?"
"Yes. To begin with, the very fact that the word cooperation left my master's mouth says as much."
"I'm not sure I follow."
"When my master moves, she judges more deeply, and more widely, than you would think. Beyond even what I can calculate."
I've never once seen her face, and she likes me? Has she already been in touch with Lord Deschamps?
While Blow dragged a finger along his jaw, unable to credit it easily, Mnevoir was already refilling the cup she had emptied.
"My master said there are too many people in the Magic Bureau."
"She judged that if her arrival got out, drying out the seeds would become difficult."
"Yes. That's it. Lord Deschamps is a man who travels openly from place to place, but if word spreads that Lady Lisleia has come to Caipol, eyes will turn this way without a doubt. This is the first time she has moved in about five years."
"True enough. If it got out, there'd be an uproar. Too many people revere her."
"Aurora, for one, is waiting on it with ridiculous expectations."
Mnevoir drained her coffee in one long pull, then went on.
"So the ask is that you give her a few days. It's my request as well."
"Understood, Professor."
"You're agreeing very readily."
"A few days of cooperation, and she takes responsibility for the research into my Spirit of Space. That's enough for me."
"......"
"It feels a bit like a covert operation. Rather fun, actually."
"Still no sense of tension, Blow Deblique?"
"It is certain, though? That she's arrived."
"Yes."
"How long do I keep it secret?"
Mnevoir glanced at the calendar, then nodded toward him.
"Until she shows herself in person. It won't take her very long."
"Understood, for now."
"For the time being, you'd do well to be careful yourself."
"Me?"
"Yes."
"Don't tell me my name is on those order-breakers' list as well?"
"You are, after all, the reason Lady Lisleia has come to Caipol. If those minutes were ever passed to someone, they could use even you as bait."
Until a moment ago he had been smiling over it as if it were nothing more than a secret game. The instant the chance arose of actually crossing these nameless people, his expression had no choice but to harden.
"Then when should I take the limit to be—when Lady Lisleia shows herself?"
"Around next week."
"Then until then I'll keep to myself as much as I can."
"Good. And if anything happens, contact me without fail. Do you have a communication-magic device?"
"No. There's a mage stationed nearby. Haghia."
"You mean that Haghia of House Campbell?"
"Yes."
"That's genuinely fortunate for you. And both Yulia and Hervena can use communication magic as well."
"But tell me, Professor—should I keep Lady Lisleia's arrival secret from them, too?"
"As a rule, that would be better, wouldn't it? Nothing good comes of multiplying mouths."
"Understood."
Mnevoir watched him nod, grave as he was, then let out a thin sigh and added one thing more.
"Even so, I'll leave it to your judgment, Blow Deblique. Watching you run a business, I dare say I can trust you with that much."
"Thank you for the compliment."
After that he spent a long while with Mnevoir, setting in order what she had told him of the first experiment. Anticipation and unease—carrying both at once, he left her laboratory and made for Hills.
Hervena's laboratory.
She had failed to sleep the night before as well, and sat staring blankly straight ahead. The day she first heard that voice, she had torn through everything from her room to the corridor and still found no clear trace of magic. That was why, at the time, she had even wondered whether she was simply hearing things.
What in the world is this...?
A migraine was gathering. She pressed her fingers to her temples and tried, from the beginning, to think it through again. The kinds of magic were endless. Even magic that dealt in pain—she would never have known of it if she had not made the bracelet herself. Which meant there could also be magic that reached into a person's mind, or some inefficient working that appeared at a door and vanished without a trace.
And the trouble was not only that conversation. From around it—from the moment she lost the spar, all the way to now—she had felt a gaze on her, as if someone were looking her over.
Is someone watching me? Even now?
A chill ran down her spine, and she turned her eyes to the laboratory door. At this point she was waiting, rather, for the owner of that voice. If it showed itself once more, she felt she might finally settle every question she was carrying. She wanted, too, to ask what those words had meant—sweet to the ear, and sunk in deeper than she had expected.
Just then a knock, soft and precise, sounded through the laboratory.
What she had been waiting for had come. Hervena drew a long breath and rose from her seat.
Back at Hills after his talk with Mnevoir, Blow told Jane that Lisleia had arrived—and, with that, that there were people trying to bring the order down. Jane's brow drew tight. She let out a faint sigh and folded her hands together, uneasy.
"You're saying the Young Master could be in danger."
"For now it's only a possibility."
"But if the professor said it, doesn't that mean the possibility is rather high?"
"You think so?"
"Yes. I think it would be better to tell Senior Yulia and Hervena everything, and soon."
"And if we do, and Lady Lisleia's operation fails, we'll have nothing to show for it—neither soup nor rice. If Hervena hears this, she'll insist on crushing them all herself before it even starts."
"That's true, but..."
"And if you look at it a little more kindly—supposing I am one of those people's targets—then being able to remove them at this moment isn't a bad thing."
"That's true, but..."
Even so, Jane's fingers trembled, little by little. Blow couldn't stand to watch it. He shifted to her side and patted her shoulder.
"If it were truly dangerous, she would have told me straight. Don't worry so much."
"It's just frightening that people like that exist. The very idea of collapsing the order."
"......"
"They sound just like a Demon King. The way they talk..."
"Even so, Jane, I think we do what we can."
Jane managed a smile, and for her sake Blow deliberately brightened his voice.
"Let's leave Red Forest with Miss Liliane and Linne for a little while."
"Miss Liliane?"
"Yeah. Tell her we're having her try it for the experience, just briefly, before the second shop opens."
"All right..."
"Hills, for now, we'll have Hans keep running. Don't tell him too much—just that I have something to see to."
"Understood."
"I'd like you to coordinate between the two of them. The way I would."
"Can I do it properly? Me..."
"There's no one else I can ask. Right—I should go see Hervena for a moment. I ought to have stopped by her earlier. The exams should be over, shouldn't they?"
"Liliane went to sit her practical today. Yesterday ought to have been the last day."
"Hm. Then do I just wait? I have a feeling she'll turn up with Skadi and Hervena in tow."
"Yes. Probably..."
Jane nodded. After that the two of them talked through, this way and that, how they ought to proceed. They were on their way to Red Forest to check on Foresti Made when the door of Hills burst open and Skadi came rushing in.
"B-Blow!"
Her face was wound tight in a way that wasn't like her at all. Blow knew at once that something had gone wrong, and went to her.
"Skadi? What is it?"
"Outside. Now."
"Why? Why?"
"Hurry, let's just go, all right?"
"What happened?"
Instead of an answer, Skadi held out a single sheet of red paper.
...Redfrin?
He had been tangled up with her since his scoundrel days. Brow drawn, Blow took the page she offered.
According to the minutes, Blow Deblique is no different from a mana stone possessed of a terrifying quantity of mana.
An ordinary mana stone is governed according to its user's will. Blow Deblique, however, is a human being, with a will and emotions of his own, and in that fact he may be said to carry a danger of the gravest kind.
The leaked minutes state that his first rampage was of such a degree that it could barely be suppressed, and only when five students contending for rank at the Empire's second magic school joined forces against him.
Among them was Hervena Westriver, called the great mage of the next generation—and even Yulia Edfolk, daughter of Deschamps Edfolk and Karen Edfolk, who had defeated that very Hervena. It is judged that Rachel the Black Blade, who happened to stop by the magic school at the time, also played a part.
The greatest problem at present is that Lisleia of the Six Great Mages, the one meant to control him, has not arrived in Caipol. In her absence, should Blow Deblique rampage once more, stopping him would be all but impossible.
More troubling still is the record he already bears: in his school days he caused no end of trouble, fought duels with cadets of the nearby knight academy, and otherwise revealed an impulsive, violent temperament.
Should the annihilating power he possesses be joined to that unstable nature, the aftermath is considered capable of a result more horrific than any disaster that has ever befallen Caipol.
Facts blown wildly out of proportion, and words chosen to provoke.
Blow's nails bit into his clenched fist. Jane, so startled she had even stopped breathing, clapped both hands over her mouth. Skadi caught his arm and cried out, pleading.
"This is being scattered all over Caipol, right now! Let's go to my estate! Quickly!"
Through the open door, red sheets were drifting down out of the sky. Blow could only squeeze his eyes shut.