The Iron Legion Commander
That evening, the carriage arrived in the capital.
The Imperial Capital Orellion. Beyond the massive fortress walls, the imperial palace with its golden-tiled roofs came into view, and behind it, a single magic tower soared into the heavens, boasting its magnificent grandeur.
"That is the Imperial Magic Tower," Stern explained. "It is also where the upcoming Congress will be held."
Stern's explanation made perfect sense.
It was far more massive and splendid than the magic tower of Benheim. The Imperial Magic Tower was a place that every mage on the continent dreamed of visiting.
It was the headquarters of the Imperial Magic Academy, and at this point in time, the stronghold of the Archduke of Demonic Magic.
"I must head out to coordinate some agenda items with the elders beforehand. You two go ahead and find a way to pass the time."
Stern moved busily the moment they arrived in the capital. Since House Benheim was the one convening the Congress, there was likely a mountain of administrative procedures to handle beforehand.
Arno, acting as the public face of the family, also needed to show his face to key figures, so he followed Stern.
In the end, only Lunia and I were left behind in our lodgings.
"What should we do?" I had asked before they left.
"Since you've finally come to the capital, do as you please. Just make sure you don't cause any trouble."
Stern left after giving that strict warning.
The Congress was scheduled to open in three days. Until then, Stern had essentially given us permission to move about freely.
Meanwhile, Lunia had been incredibly excited about visiting the capital for the first time in a while. However, her grand ambition to devour all the delicious food the city had to offer vanished the moment we unpacked. Unable to overcome the fatigue of the long journey, she began to nod off before falling fast asleep.
"..."
I gently lifted Lunia, laid her down on the bed, and pulled up the covers. Then, sitting by her bedside, I quietly stared at her face.
Her soft, rhythmic breathing. A peaceful face sleeping without a care in the world.
Looking at her innocent face, I suddenly felt a pang of resentment toward the Lunia of my past life.
"...You could have told me a bit more in detail."
When the Lunia of my past life spoke of the downfall of the other prestigious magic families—excluding Benheim—she had been strangely tight-lipped.
All I knew about House Lucen was that Kaiden had ruined the family, and his successor, Petra, had fought a desperate resistance against the Archduke of Demonic Magic before being captured and beheaded.
She hadn't even told me the name of the heir to House Eyrid.
As for the other great magic families, she had simply said they crumbled before the overwhelming might of the Archduke of Demonic Magic, never going into detail about their internal affairs.
But ever since our encounter with House Lucen at the station this morning, doubts had begun to sprout in my mind.
...Lucen.
Petra Lucen. The tragic woman who fought against the Archduke of Demonic Magic in my past life, only to end up with her head displayed on a pike. And now, she was being abused by her own father.
No, whether it was truly abuse or not was still uncertain. But the evidence was clear.
Artificial mana injection.
The mana core of Petra's that I had examined earlier was completely ruined.
The jumble of different energies swirling inside her core was a clear trace of an attempt to artificially modify it.
Interfering with a mana core from outside the body was practically a taboo. A backflow of mana would easily kill a person, and even if they survived, the excruciating pain—pain so terrible they would pray for death—could leave them permanently crippled. During my days as a mercenary, I had seen more than a few people end up like that.
And judging by Kaiden's attitude, he was well aware of Petra's precarious state and was actively condoning it. Whether he had done it himself or simply stood by and watched, Kaiden was, without a doubt, a wicked man.
Hadn the Lunia of my past life said exactly that?
If so, it was highly probable that Kaiden Lucen, obsessed with bloodlines, had laid his hands on his daughter to forcibly raise her realm because her natural talent didn't satisfy him.
In the worst-case scenario, House Lucen might have even colluded with black mages. Whatever the truth, it meant House Lucen was already rotting from the inside out.
House Eyrid is no different.
A mysterious hereditary disease called the Black Plague, an heir hidden away in a den of black mages, and a family escort unit so weak they could barely be called third-rate.
House Eyrid's current actions were so suspicious that even Stern had openly doubted whether they were in league with black mages.
"...It's a complete mess."
Two of the empire's five great magic families were already showing highly suspicious behavior. Was even this orchestrated by the Archduke of Demonic Magic? Or was it simply that their festering wounds were finally being exposed?
Once again, I realized just how helplessly the empire's magic society had collapsed when the Archduke of Demonic Magic first rose to power.
"Tsk."
Did the Lunia of my past life not know about this?
Or did she know but chose not to tell me?
Either way, I didn't like it.
Dealing with a colossal enemy like the Archduke of Demonic Magic was already overwhelming enough, but our supposed allies were proving to be nothing but ticking time bombs.
And it wasn't just House Lucen and House Eyrid. There was no guarantee that the other two magic families were any better. In the end, the list of things I needed to investigate during this Congress had only grown longer.
"Whew."
My thoughts spun in endless circles.
My mind was growing cluttered.
Ultimately, I pulled the blanket over Lunia's shoulders and stepped out of the lodgings.
There wasn't any grand reason for heading outside. For one, if Stern caught me alone in a room with a soundly sleeping Lunia, my head might actually fly off. But more than that, I wanted to clear my head by walking the streets of the capital.
And so, I stepped onto the streets of the capital.
True to its reputation, the Imperial Capital Orellion was prosperous and peaceful.
Magic lanterns lined the wide avenues, lively crowds bustled about, and laughter echoed from every corner.
While Benheim County was considerably prosperous, it couldn't compare to the capital.
It was definitely reduced to ashes in the end.
In my memories, the imperial capital was nothing but a ruined wasteland burned to the ground by the Archduke of Demonic Magic.
Yet right now, Orellion boasted the grandeur of the continent's greatest city. People overflowed as far as the eye could see, dressed in all sorts of colorful attire, enjoying the night air.
Perhaps that was why even this ordinary, everyday scenery stirred a deep, unfamiliar emotion within me.
I walked through the bustling district, lost in sentimentality for a while, until I turned into a dark back alley.
Crash!
A loud, shattering sound echoed from somewhere nearby.
It was immediately followed by harsh shouting and a painful scream.
I shifted my steps toward the noise. Deep inside the pitch-black alley, a group of men had surrounded someone and were ruthlessly beating them.
"Cough...!"
A mage clad in a shabby robe rolled on the dirt floor, desperately clutching something to his chest.
On the other hand, there were three men throwing punches. Judging by their attire, they weren't mere street thugs. Dressed in high-quality fabrics and wearing gold rings, they looked like members of an organized back-alley syndicate.
"Let go! I said, let go!"
The mage shrieked, lifting his head.
The dim light of a streetlamp illuminated his face. The moment I saw it, my eyes widened.
"That guy is..."
It was a familiar face.
There was no mistake. There was no way I could ever forget that face.
If the Mercenary King Barg was the right hand of the Archduke of Demonic Magic, then this man was his left hand.
His name was definitely...
"...Viktor?"
The mage known by the epithet 'Iron Legion Commander'—Viktor Otto.
In my past life, he had led a steel army—a legion of golems—and relentlessly harassed Lunia's resistance forces. As a golem researcher, Viktor had been a cold and cruel mage, second only to the Archduke of Demonic Magic himself.
Because of that, I never expected to run into Viktor in a back alley like this. Even if this was the past, seeing the future left hand of the Archduke of Demonic Magic getting beaten up by common thugs was surreal.
No, that wasn't what was important right now.
Instinctively, my hand drifted toward my waist.
It is right to kill him now.
It was the same as with Barg. He was a future calamity. If I slit Viktor's throat here and now, I could prevent countless casualties in the future.
If the Iron Legion vanished, the Archduke of Demonic Magic's military might would be severely crippled.
A thick wave of killing intent surged within me.
At that moment, Viktor cried out.
"I told you I'd pay you back! Just give me until next month!"
Viktor crawled along the ground, desperately shielding the object in his arms. What he was clutching so tightly was a mechanical arm crudely pieced together from scrap metal.
"Shut up! I'd sooner trust a stray dog than your word! Hand over that scrap metal while we're still asking nicely! Selling it to a junk dealer should at least cover our drinks!"
The men grabbed Viktor by the hair and shook him. Listening to their conversation, it seemed they were loan sharks.
"Not this! This is my everything! It's the piece I'm submitting to the Imperial Exhibition next month!"
"We don't give a damn about some exhibition! Just give us our money!"
"If I can just... win an award at the exhibition! If I can just prove my theory isn't wrong, I'll make a fortune! I'll pay you all back then! I swear!"
The men snorted at Viktor's desperate plea.
"Cut the crap. An outcast kicked out of the Academy is going to the exhibition? Don't make me laugh."
The men sneered and kicked Viktor in the stomach.
But hearing their exchange, a sudden realization struck me.
...An outcast kicked out of the Academy.
Over the past year, I had learned, seen, and heard a great deal about magic in Benheim.
The empire's magic society was notoriously conservative. Consequently, golem magic, which utilized physical materials, was treated as more than just a minor field—it was practically a dead science. Deemed inefficient and excessively wasteful, some academic circles had gone so far as to ban its research entirely.
The men's claim that a golem mage like Viktor Otto had been expelled from his magic tower made perfect sense.
Most importantly, the words he had uttered: the Imperial Exhibition.
Yes. The Imperial Exhibition.
An event hosted by the Imperial Magic Academy.
There was no way the Archduke of Demonic Magic would miss such an occasion.
Only then did I begin to grasp how Viktor had ended up as a mage under the Archduke's command.
...He was sponsored by the Archduke of Demonic Magic.
The Archduke of Demonic Magic had recognized Viktor's research when no one else would, stepping in as his sponsor.
A savior reaching out to a genius pushed to the edge of a cliff. In Viktor's eyes, the Archduke must have seemed like a god.
In the end, lured by that sweet temptation, he had fallen, becoming the Archduke's loyal dog.
It was merely a guess, but given the Archduke's track record, it was highly plausible.
If that's the case...
I took my hand off the hilt of my sword.
My killing intent subsided, replaced by cold, calculating reason.
If I were to help this man right here...
I can reduce the future military strength of the Archduke of Demonic Magic.
Not only that, but I might also be able to recruit an exceptionally skilled golem researcher like Viktor to our side.
However, before stepping in, there was one problem.
Stern's strict warning.
If rumors spread that the son-in-law of House Benheim had gotten into a brawl with back-alley loan sharks, it would be troublesome in many ways. Getting caught up in gossip right before the Congress would only cause trouble for Stern and Lunia. If things went wrong, it could ruin the entire Congress.
But I couldn't just stand by and watch either.
After a brief moment of deliberation, I hid myself in the shadows of a nearby alley corner.
Reaching the 5th Circle had expanded the pool of common spells I could cast. I had taken the time to learn a few that seemed particularly useful.
Flash.
I cast the spell.
My ash-gray hair gradually stained a deep crimson. It was a basic color-alteration spell.
Next, I took off my uniform and turned it inside out. The white lining was revealed, hiding the black outer fabric. After popping the collar and loosely fastening the buttons, I looked exactly like a noble wearing a white dress uniform.
Crimson hair and a white uniform.
This was more than enough of a disguise. I would have liked to alter my face as well, but face-shifting magic required reaching the 6th Circle, so I had to give up on that.
"Good."
I stepped out of the alley with a confident stride.
"Why don't you wrap it up there?"
At my sudden intrusion, the loan sharks turned their heads.
"Who the hell are you?"
The man who appeared to be the leader approached with a scowl. However, the moment he got a clear look at me, he froze.
Crimson hair, and an elegant white uniform.
He seemed to instinctively realize I was no ordinary drunkard.
Having assessed the situation, the man bowed slightly and asked,
"...Uh... it seems my lord has business with this man... May I ask who you are, and which house you represent...?"
"I am that mage's sponsor."
"Sponsor...?"
The men tilted their heads, their brows furrowing. Since Viktor had just been crying about having no sponsor to pay off his debts, it was only natural for them to be skeptical.
Viktor also stared up at me blankly.
But I had no intention of giving them a chance to doubt.
"It would be in your best interest to listen while I'm still speaking nicely."
I reached out my hand.
Hum—
Threads of blue mana spun out from my fingertips.
In an instant, the threads intertwined, rapidly taking the shape of a sword.
Although it was blue, its form and the sheer pressure it exuded were no different from the real thing.
"...Lu-Lucen?"
The men gasped in unison, utterly shocked.
In the empire, House Lucen was the only family that used magic to forge swords. On top of that, I had crimson hair.
To anyone looking, I was undeniably a mage of House Lucen.
"So, do you have a problem with that?"
I asked, tilting my chin up.