Chapter 191: The Tin Knight and The Crossroads of Swords and Magic
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 191: The Tin Knight and The Crossroads of Swords and Magic
Not long after they left the Tower of Foresight.
Dorothea delivered her verdict to Rapunzel.
“It would be best if you didn't travel with us any longer.”
A sudden declaration of exile.
Faced with this outrageous tyranny, which ignored the bonds they had formed and the contributions she had made, Rapunzel spoke resolutely.
“Understood.”
There was no appeal against the injustice, no bitter outburst telling them to go off and live happily ever after without her.
And for good reason—she knew this order of banishment was for her own sake.
It all started with a conversation she’d had with Tower Head Medir before leaving the tower.
「By the way, do you intend to keep that golden-haired young lady with you?」
「That's up to her. As long as she doesn't refuse, I plan on having her with us while we're in the Magic State.」
「Don't. This is a word of advice from an elder.」
He had spoken in a solemn tone.
「You people are exceptional. Your personalities, your abilities—nothing about you is ordinary. But the girl, Rapunzel, is different. She is undoubtedly talented, but not enough to keep pace with you. If she continues to travel with you, the consequences will surely become a headache.」
Dorothea hadn't denied it.
Considering the adventures the party had experienced so far, Medir’s words had hit the nail on the head.
「Why don't you just take her as your apprentice?」
「I believe I said I would take 'responsibility' for letting you go and step down.」
「Don't give me that crap. There's no way you people, who go on and on about tradition, could replace your leader so easily.」
「You act like you don't care about politics, but you're surprisingly sharp. Well, I was just about to tell her to come find me later if she's interested. It's impossible right now, but after things have settled down a bit. The commotion should die down after about half a year.」
Returning to the present.
“If you stay with us, it'll do you more harm than good. You can go to the Tower of Foresight after some time has passed, just like that Medir fellow said, or you could go to one of the other towers. Of course, we still have our original contract, so if you insist on staying, I won't stop you…”
As the witch’s gaze seemed to ask, ‘What will you do?’, Rapunzel quietly shook her head.
“No, you've already helped me more than enough. I'm indebted to you for everything.”
“Alright. I've added a little extra to your severance pay to make up for the shortened escort period, so use it well.”
“Miss Rapunzel! Please take care of yourself!”
“If fate allows, we shall meet again. I wish you peace.”
After receiving farewells from Dorothea, Adelaide, and Sophia in turn, Rapunzel parted ways with the group.
Though in the Tin Knight's case, she couldn't hear his voice and could only guess his meaning from his gestures.
She waved for a long time at the departing carriage, and when it was finally out of sight, she murmured to herself.
“I might have done something I'll regret.”
To be honest, Rapunzel wasn't entirely without a desire to continue traveling with the party.
She had been driven from her home territory, accused of being a witch. The only family she had a connection with, her older brother, was dead. She was now facing a life she had to live alone.
Continuing to travel with the Tin Knight's party—who were strong, rich, and with whom she had formed a bond—was by no means a bad choice.
However, Rapunzel knew.
She knew she was far too lacking to stay with that chaotic party until the end.
It wasn't just a matter of ability.
It was hard to believe, but she'd heard that when their journey began, Adelaide had been so weak she couldn't even hold a candle to Rapunzel.
She had reached her current level thanks to enduring the Tin Knight's grueling training, and if Rapunzel were to undergo the same training, there was every possibility she could grow as well.
A possibility, yes, but.
‘…Honestly, the thought of doing that training myself is a bit much.’
The training Adelaide did, in terms of both quality and quantity, was at a level that would overwhelm not just a common soldier, but even a knight from a respectable order.
The girl herself seemed to have adapted, carrying out the exercises without complaint, but just watching from the sidelines made Rapunzel shudder.
While she wasn't entirely against the idea of staying with the party, her motivation wasn't strong enough to endure something like that.
Even if she were to hang around aimlessly, she could only stay with them until they left the Magic State. It was better to make a clean break now than to grow vaguely attached to them.
All the more so since she had already achieved her minimum goal.
Fingering the letter of introduction from Medir and the pouch of gold coins from Dorothea, Rapunzel contemplated her next move.
She had secured a guarantee to enter the Tower of Foresight, but that didn't mean she absolutely had to go there.
Since Medir himself had said he needed time for the commotion to die down, she had the option of checking out the other magic towers in the meantime.
The party had said they were moving in the order of Annihilation, Control, and then Protection. To avoid overlapping with their route, it seemed best to head for the Tower of Protection.
The fact that she had to travel by sea was a slight concern, but Rapunzel wasn't too worried.
‘What are the odds I'll run into pirates again, like last time?’
Once she made her decision, she acted quickly. Rapunzel swiftly made her way to the nearest port city and boarded a ship bound for the Tower of Protection.
“Yes, please sign here.”
As she was about to thoughtlessly write her name on the list the receptionist handed her, Rapunzel paused.
She remembered that both Tower Head Medir and Dorothea had advised her to change her identity from now on.
Dorothea had even given her a potion to change her hair color.
The witch was endlessly prickly with outsiders, but she had a tendency to be soft on those she considered her own.
Twisting a strand of her reddish-brown hair, she mulled it over before finally writing a suitable name on the list.
Trot.
*
“You have no way to contact your master?”
Dorothea’s voice was filled with dissatisfaction.
It was the reaction of someone who had gone to the trouble of securing the Witch of the North's top disciple as a guide, only to be told that guide was useless.
But Gale was unfazed.
“To be precise, I have a means of contact, but it doesn't connect well. She's a very free-spirited person, you see. However, my guess that she's in one of the four towers is likely correct.”
“Then hurry up and go find her. You can check them all easily with the power of those shoes, can't you?”
“Could you please not say such absurd things? The maximum distance I can travel with the 'Shoes of Borealis' is to a place within my line of sight.”
“Can't you just use them consecutively? It'd be much faster than walking.”
“The mana consumption would be unbearable. Dorothea might be able to do it, but even if you went alone, you'd have no way of finding my master, would you?”
This might make it sound like Gale's mana capacity was small, but that was a misunderstanding.
Knights pursued mana quality, emphasizing enhancement efficiency and delicate control, whereas mages tended to focus on increasing their total mana capacity to handle the consumption.
The total mana of a respectable, fully-fledged mage was enough to fully charge the Tin Knight about twice.
By the same token, Sophia had about 0.5 Tin Knights and Adelaide had about 1.4 Tin Knights, while Gale had a simple 500 Tin Knights.
A talent ranked among the very best in the history of the magic towers.
The white knight armor she wore pursued maximum performance at the cost of having atrocious fuel efficiency, so the fact that she could handle it with ease and casually spam magic spoke volumes about her immense mana reserves.
And yet, compared to Dorothea, the gap was like that between an adult and a child. But the very fact that her mana could even be 'compared' to Dorothea's meant she was far from ordinary.
“Well, don't worry so much. I can tell if my master is nearby, so we won't have to rummage through each tower one by one like we did at the Tower of Foresight.”
Gale’s explanation was that they would approach a tower, check for her master's presence, and if she wasn't there, they would immediately head to the next one. If she was there, they would ascend the tower.
Only then did Dorothea regain some of her composure.
If they proceeded in that manner, even accounting for travel time, it would be possible to check all the towers in about a week.
The grace period given by the Wicked Witch of the East was still more than twenty days, so as long as they didn't waste time in some ridiculous place, they had plenty of time according to their plan.
“In that case... I guess it's fine to stay in one place for a few days.”
It was Adelaide who responded to Dorothea's words.
“If you're doing this for my sake, you don't have to worry. We can always come back later.”
“It's fine. No need to complicate our route. We only have two tokens left to collect anyway, and we need to get them all before you return to your domain.”
The City of Annihilation, Trudvangar.
As its epithet suggested, this city was home to the Tower of Annihilation, but it also had several other peculiar features.
One was that, unlike the other magic towers which were located in relatively northern regions, Trudvangar, where the Tower of Annihilation was built, was situated at the southernmost point of the Magic State—right on the border with the Lydia Empire.
The second was that it was practically the only place in the Magic State with a system similar to a guild. And the last was none other than the fact that the fourth Lennart dojo was located here.
Dorothea muttered, looking dumbfounded.
“The more I look at it, the weirder this layout is.”
Sophia agreed.
“If you think of it as a normal country, it's like having the royal castle in a frontline city on the border. Strategically, it's the height of absurdity.”
[The 'Tin Knight' says that building structures right in front of the enemy's base to pump out combat units is also a tactic!]
[The 'Tin Knight' adds that it's even more effective if you slurp up all the resources the enemy is supposed to take!]
“What kind of insane strategy is that?”
Dorothea shook her head and continued her complaint.
“In the first place, the Tower of Annihilation is the Magic State's core fighting force, right? Meaning, they're the ones who clash most fiercely with the Empire. So what kind of crazy idea was it to build a Lennart dojo in a place full of those guys?”
“I know. I couldn't believe my ears when I heard its location either,” Adelaide chimed in, nodding in agreement.
Gale interjected.
“Ah, that was probably the result of a suggestion from my master. She said that when countries try to become friendly, the warmongers always get in the way, and fire tends to spread and grow. So, since a fire was bound to start anyway, it would be better to gather all the warmongers in one place. That way, it would end as a small fire before it could become a wildfire.”
A moment of silence fell.
The Tin Knight spoke.
[The 'Tin Knight' wonders if having a terrible personality is part of the criteria for selecting the Four Great Witches!]
[The 'Tin Knight' compliments them, saying that if their goal was to teach the world a lesson by serving as a cautionary tale, then they have achieved a magnificent success!]