Chapter 169: The Tin Knight and a Short, Yet Distant, Voyage
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 169: The Tin Knight and a Short, Yet Distant, Voyage
To be honest, Rapunzel wasn't entirely comfortable traveling with the Tin Knight's party.
Of course, it wasn't due to any negative feelings like dislike or hatred.
She wasn't so twisted as to bear ill will toward the people who had not only informed her of her brother's death—a fact that still felt unreal—but had also delivered his last mementos to her.
She was simply intimidated.
There was Dorothea, the great witch who had single-handedly defeated a ‘mage’ that had overwhelmed Rapunzel, who prided herself on knowing how to throw a punch (strictly speaking, Dorothea hadn't defeated him with magic, but that's how it looked to Rapunzel).
And then there was Adelaide, a noble lady who seemed to be a member of some incredibly lofty bloodline, to whom even the haughty vassals and the lord of Donnengarten had bowed and scraped.
Sharing every moment with these titans, who were leagues above her in both ability and social standing, in a small—no, frankly, not-so-small—carriage was more than a little uncomfortable.
What if I get on Dorothea’s bad side and she curses me? What if I’m rude to Lady Adelaide and get punished?
To avoid these negative futures, Rapunzel focused all her energy on reading the room, and soon came to a single conclusion.
This party is so weird.
For starters, the carriage itself was far from ordinary.
The carriages Rapunzel knew were not particularly fast vehicles. Just as a person carrying a heavy bundle couldn't walk or run like someone unburdened, a horse pulling the heavy load of a carriage couldn't run very fast.
Its average speed was about the same as a person's walking pace, or slightly faster. If the horse and carriage were of exceptional quality, they might manage the speed of a light jog. Any faster, and the horse would quickly tire out, or the carriage itself would run into serious problems. That was the common sense Rapunzel knew.
But this carriage casually defied that common sense.
Its base speed was equivalent to an unburdened horse at a full gallop, and it could maintain that speed endlessly without a moment's rest.
Moreover, the vibrations that should have accompanied such speed were almost nonexistent. On a well-maintained road, it was so quiet she wondered if they were moving at all. Only when they traversed rough, wild terrain did it finally feel like she was riding in a carriage.
She tried to dismiss it, thinking it must be because it was an expensive carriage for high-ranking people, but when she saw what the highest-ranking person in the party was doing, even that conviction wavered.
"Hah, hah."
A rough breath… no, not quite that harsh. It was the sound of someone just starting to get winded.
It was the sound of Adelaide's breathing as she ran with all her might on her own two feet, a short distance from the carriage.
It was bizarre enough that a high and mighty noble lady was jogging by herself while everyone else rode in the carriage, but that was just the beginning.
As the knight sitting at the edge of the carriage's cargo bed flicked his finger, a stone about the size of a thumbnail flew toward Adelaide's face.
Thwack! A crisp sound echoed as the stone met Adelaide's forehead.
But that was all.
Adelaide didn't lose consciousness and collapse, nor did she roll on the ground with a serious injury.
Other than a slight reddening where the stone had hit, she continued running without a change in her expression. The Tin Knight continued to flick stones at her.
Rapunzel’s expression was one of weary disbelief.
I get that it's training to protect her body with mana, but do they have to be so brutal about it?
A skilled warrior can go beyond simply reinforcing their body with mana and concentrate it on specific parts to further reduce damage. At the highest levels, one could even draw a blade across their bare skin and not leave so much as a scratch.
Rapunzel herself knew the basics of this technique, but the training these two were doing was on a completely different level.
First, the distance between them was less than three meters. Second, the knight varied the impact point, size, and power of each stone he flicked. And crucially, this training had already been going on for hours.
In the near-instant it takes for the stone to reach her, she has to judge where it will hit, how powerful it will be, and how much mana to invest. And she maintains that concentration for hours while running? Is she even human?
With the red and blue marks and scratches steadily increasing on her body, the scene looked more like abuse than training. Yet the person in question wore a serious expression the entire time, showing no sign of pain. It wasn't that she couldn't feel it, but rather that her concentration was so intense it seemed to push the pain away.
And the running itself doesn't even seem to be that hard for her…
It was a scene so far removed from the ‘noble lady of a lofty bloodline’ that Rapunzel had imagined.
Shaking her head, Rapunzel turned her gaze to Sophia.
She was humming a light tune while writing something at a tremendous speed. The realization that her posture hadn't changed one bit since Rapunzel had gone to sleep last night was, in its own way, utterly terrifying.
Rapunzel finally understood.
The witch she had initially considered the most frightening was, in fact, the most ‘sensible’ person in the group.
Her fashion sense was a bit questionable, but if you thought of it as a ‘witch's formal wear,’ it started to look somewhat acceptable. Or maybe it was just because of her face and figure. In any case.
"What, are you curious?"
For a moment, Rapunzel's face went pale, thinking Dorothea had read her thoughts about her fashion. Fortunately, Dorothea was talking about something else.
Dorothea, who had been experimenting with something in her hands inside the moving carriage, held up that ‘something’—a lock of Rapunzel's hair.
"Your hair," she said. "It seems to have the property of absorbing mana as a nutrient."
"It does?"
Rapunzel looked dumbfounded.
When Dorothea had first asked for a lock of her hair, she thought it was just out of simple curiosity. She never expected such a conclusion.
"Normally, the quality and fullness of hair are affected by a person's physical condition. If your hair grew at your speed, your body should have shown some signs of abnormality. But your hair always grows at a constant rate and maintains its luster and beauty whether you're starving or full, healthy or not. That's proof that it's not purely a part of your body."
"But I've never felt my mana being drained by my hair."
"It's been consistently absorbing a set amount since you were born, so you probably just thought that was normal. Also, your hair itself has the property of absorbing mana not just from you, but from the surroundings as well. Look."
Dorothea held up a single strand of Rapunzel's hair and began to channel mana into it.
At first, the golden strand showed no change, but as Dorothea infused more mana, it began to lengthen at a speed clearly visible to the naked eye.
"Oh, you're right."
Rapunzel felt a little dazed. It was fascinating to learn a fact about her own body that she never knew, but more than that, she couldn't quite grasp what it all meant.
As if sensing this, Dorothea added a simple explanation.
"In short, it's very useful in many ways. As a catalyst, or as a material for magic tools. It has the drawback of losing its efficacy a certain amount of time after being cut, so it needs additional processing before then, but that's a problem easily solved if you have a source of supply."
"I see… Huh?"
Hearing that, Rapunzel felt something was off.
A source of supply? Secured?
Dorothea shrugged as if to say, You're only just now getting it?
"If that constitution of yours became known, you'd be captured by some mage and end up like a silkworm, constantly harvested for your thread. Honestly, it's a miracle it hasn't happened already."
"Whaaaaat!?"
Rapunzel's shriek echoed, drawing the attention of the other party members, who had been engrossed in their own tasks.
"Where did you learn to handle mana?"
"Uh, um, well, that damn… I mean, my older brother. He said I needed to know self-defense in this harsh world, or something."
"Then he must have known. Well, judging by the magic he developed himself, he did seem quite competent."
Nodding in understanding, Dorothea asked, "So, with that fact in mind, I have a proposal. How about you postpone getting off at the next town?"
"Postpone… what do you mean, specifically?"
"Sophia, give me the map."
"Yes, here you go."
Dorothea drew a long line on the map Sophia unfolded.
"This is our current route. As you can see, we have to cross the strait to get to our destination, the Magic State. That's also why we squeezed a ship out of them as payment for dealing with the mage. We were originally planning to drop you off at a port city before crossing, but if you agree, we can take you all the way to the Magic State. We'll take payment along the way, in the form of your hair."
"I don't mind about the hair, since I have to cut it anyway because it's a nuisance… But the Magic State? Why would I need to go there?"
"Because you have a talent for magic," Dorothea said matter-of-factly.
"Your hair is a treasure that others would covet. Conversely, it also means you have an endless supply of catalysts that grow without you needing to do anything. If your own mana is 100, the mana in your hair is more than ten times that. And that's just with it grown down to your back; it would be even more if you grew it longer. For a mage, it's an unparalleled advantage."
Sophia, who had been listening from the side, chimed in.
"Aha, so the magic towers, then? The towers are always looking for talented mages. Once she belongs to one, she won't have to worry about being kidnapped and harmed by just anyone."
"Well, to be precise, among them, 'Protection' and 'Foresight' are decent choices, while 'Control' and 'Annihilation' are not so great. But the one on our route is the Tower of Foresight, so it doesn't matter."
Dorothea's blue eyes turned to Rapunzel.
"Of course, all we can do is take you to the city where the tower is. Whether you can get in or not is up to you. If you're unlucky, things could get even more complicated."
What will you do? her gaze seemed to ask. Rapunzel was lost in thought for a moment.
The guardian who had protected her and looked out for her, even from afar, was gone. And through this incident, she had keenly realized that she couldn't protect herself on her own. She had the inheritance her brother left her, but it was uncertain whether she could resettle as a stranger in a foreign land with that alone.
"…Would it be all right if I imposed on you a little longer?"
"It's hardly an imposition. We're being fully compensated, after all."
The witch gave a nonchalant nod.
It seemed that was all she had to say.
Just then, the Tin Knight leaned forward.
Rapunzel flinched involuntarily. She was a little afraid of this inscrutable, incredibly strong knight.
Adelaide, who could hear his ‘voice,’ explained to her.
"Ah, the knight says he's pleased to have you with us, even if it's for a short while."
"The pleasure is all mine. Thank you for having me."
"And, he says to be careful, as he predicts we'll probably run into another incident or two."
"…Excuse me?"
"It'll be okay! I'll help you a lot if things get dangerous!"
Rapunzel had no idea what they were talking about.
According to the map Dorothea had shown her, the Tower of Foresight wasn't that far away. No, to be precise, the distance itself was considerable, but most of it was crossing the strait, so there shouldn't be many opportunities for trouble.
Are they saying pirates will show up or something? Nah, no way.
Rapunzel took it as a joke meant to ease her tension.
*
Two days later.
"You goddamn bastards!! You haven't forgotten Cap'n Bill, have you!!"