Chapter 195: The Tin Knight and The Crossroads of Swords and Magic (5)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 195: The Tin Knight and The Crossroads of Swords and Magic (5)
Dorothea frowned, clearly displeased.
“What a creepy fairy tale.”
“It is, isn’t it? It doesn’t specify what kind of ending it is, which somehow makes it even more unsettling.”
“Wasn’t there any other information?”
“At the very least, that was all I received. My master seemed to know more, but she was careful with her words for some reason. Do you have any idea what she said?”
“How would I know what she said? I didn’t hear it. Stop dragging it out and just tell me.”
Ahem. After clearing his throat lightly, Gale spoke, mimicking someone’s voice.
—I don’t know much. And if I speak carelessly about things I don’t know, the one in the East will be angry.
For an imitation of the legendary Great Witch, his tone lacked a certain gravitas, but Dorothea had no time to dwell on that.
Her attention was captured by a different part.
“The East?”
“Yes. I can only think of one person my master would refer to in such a way. The Witch of the East. That is, Dorothea, your master.”
“My master… is connected to this thing?”
Dorothea fell into thought for a moment.
It wasn’t an entirely baseless connection.
Her master was a figure whose age was impossible to guess, and she was a long-standing fixture of the eastern continent.
A Great Witch who had settled in the eastern continent for ages.
A Tin Knight who had slumbered in an old castle in the eastern continent.
Lining it up like that, it would be more natural for there to be a connection or two between them than for there to be none at all.
However.
“But the Tin Knight himself seemed to have no idea who my master was.”
For better or worse, they had traveled together for quite some time.
Dorothea hadn’t gone on and on about her master to her companions, but she hadn’t gone out of her way to hide information either.
And whenever the Witch of the East was mentioned, the Tin Knight’s reaction was far too unfamiliar for someone greeting a known acquaintance.
“Well, we can speculate on that in several ways.”
Gale calmly laid out his inferences.
The Tin Knight didn’t know, but the Witch of the East knew him unilaterally.
They knew each other, but the Tin Knight didn’t know her as the ‘Witch of the East.’
Or, they actually had no connection, and the Witch of the North was mistaken about something.
Or simply, the Tin Knight had forgotten the Witch of the East.
“I originally guessed the last one. After all, a human soul can’t endure for that long. There might be some differences depending on the environment or the will and mental strength one had at the moment of death, but I read in a book that they usually dissipate after about ten years. Even if they manage to hold on, they go mad. Ah, am I preaching to the choir, speaking about souls in front of an expert?”
“Hey, wait a second.”
Dorothea urgently cut Gale off, then covered her eyes with a hand as she forced out her words.
“You… you knew that there’s a human soul inside this thing?”
“Well, I’ve suspected it for a while. I mean, from the looks of it, this fellow’s operational period seems to be at least over 800 years. Maybe even 1000? And back in those days, neither the Tower of Protection nor the artificial souls it developed existed. That leaves only one obvious thing that could be inside, doesn’t it?”
Gale gave a playful shrug.
“Besides, I’m sure you were prepared for me to find out the moment you entrusted me with these modifications.”
“…Tch.”
Gale’s guess was only half right.
Many doll engineers in Tik-Tok had examined the Tin Knight, but Smith was the only one who had figured it out. Dorothea had thought that, depending on Gale’s skill, he might have missed it.
“So? Continue what you were saying.”
“Right, so, I figured that if it’s a magic doll that has endured for so long, and if its contents are human, it wouldn’t be strange for it to be insane. Losing a few memories would be getting off easy. But, traveling with you all recently, another theory came to mind.”
Gale gently touched the magic doll’s core, the part where a ‘normal’ magic doll would house an artificial soul.
“If this theory is correct, it would explain why the Tin Knight doesn’t know the Witch of the East, and also why his soul is in relatively good shape compared to the state of his body.”
Flick!
As Gale snapped his fingers, a small magic character appeared in the air, illuminating the core with its light.
Dorothea realized it wasn’t just any light, but one that revealed the normally invisible soul, though she didn’t understand its purpose.
A moment later, however, Dorothea’s eyes widened.
The inside of the core was empty.
All that remained was a faint, thread-like trace leading to an unknown destination.
“—If the soul inside, or rather, the soul that was inside until just a moment ago, belongs to someone other than the ‘knight’ from the story.”
*
On the way to the magic tower after receiving the letter from the Lennart dojo, Adelaide came to a realization.
‘I’m being watched.’
She wasn’t exactly being followed.
To be precise, being followed was unnecessary.
The opponent’s ‘eyes’ were already monitoring the entire city at all times.
Fwoosh.
From atop the southern watchtower, the same one she had seen upon first entering the city, a bird made of flame flapped its wings.
Crackle.
From the second watchtower to the northwest, a bird crackling with electricity flashed its sharp, glowing eyes.
Shiiik.
From the third watchtower to the northeast, a bird exhaling a faint chill like breath quietly preened its feathers.
The Tower of Annihilation stood in the city center. Three watchtowers were arranged in a Y-shape with the tower as their axis, each guarded by a bird-shaped spirit.
Adelaide realized her mistake.
The watchtowers and the birds atop them weren’t for monitoring external enemies.
Well, perhaps they usually were, but not at this very moment.
The proof was that with every step she took toward the Tower of Annihilation, she could feel the spirits’ gazes on her growing more distinct.
To be exact, only the flame bird was staring intently at Adelaide and Sophia; the lightning and ice birds didn’t seem to be paying much attention yet.
“Hmm, this is strange. I definitely feel a growing tightness in my chest.”
Sophia tilted her head beside her.
She also seemed to feel the gradually intensifying pressure, but she hadn’t yet discerned its source.
“Miss Sophia, the truth is…”
Adel told Sophia about the spirits, and Sophia let out a little “Aha.”
“I see. So the ‘pressure like you’re facing a great beast’ was meant literally. Well, when I look at the watchtowers, all I can tell is that there’s something on top.”
In truth, it wasn’t that Sophia was unperceptive, but that Adelaide was overly sensitive.
Her naturally keen five senses were enhanced by her mana, and then further augmented by The Belt of Amaryllis. Adelaide’s detection ability had reached a level that few skilled individuals could ever hope to match.
To put it in the Tin Knight’s terms, it was like she was calculating A×B×C while everyone else was just doing A×B.
“How do you think they found out we have the letter? Do you think they’re listening to our conversation right now?”
“I’m not sure. My knowledge of spirits isn’t extensive enough to say for certain, but they probably don’t know about the letter yet. They’re likely just paying attention to everyone who enters and leaves the Lennart dojo. And they’re applying pressure to those who head toward the magic tower.”
The two of them were lost in thought.
It was good that they had discovered the cause of the mysterious fainting incidents, but they had no viable means of stopping it.
“Hmm, what should we do? I have a feeling that defeating those spirits by myself would be quite difficult. They seem to be of a different quality, or perhaps a different scale, than the other spirits on the street.”
The bird-shaped spirits weren’t showing any overt hostility toward Adelaide, but their mere presence exuded considerable pressure.
While ordinary spirits were connected to a single mage, these birds felt as if they were linked not to an individual, but to the land itself—specifically, to the Tower of Annihilation.
“Ah, but if you were to help me, Miss Sophia, I think I could handle one of them…?”
Adelaide’s words trailed off into a question because of the peculiar look in Sophia’s eyes.
Huh? Adelaide was momentarily flustered.
“Did… did I say something strange?”
“No, it just made me think that you truly are the Tin Knight’s disciple. Most people don’t immediately think of ‘defeating’ the tower’s guardians just because they’re in the way.”
“Ah.”
Adelaide realized her blunder.
It was the result of her having been unconsciously influenced by the mindset of ‘if something’s in the way, just knock it down.’
“P-Please forget what I just said…”
Adelaide ducked her head, her face flushing red.
On second thought, she was trying to deliver a letter as an emissary of peace. Attacking a spirit managed by the magic tower would defeat the whole purpose.
“For now, we could try to rendezvous with Miss Dorothea and ask for her assistance.”
Adelaide shook her head at Sophia’s suggestion.
“Those two must be busy with the modifications. More importantly, this is a process to prove whether or not I have what it takes to be the heir, so I want to do it on my own if possible.”
“In that case, the only remaining option is a frontal approach. I don’t know how much help I’ll be, but I’ll go with you.”
With their course of action decided, all that was left was to execute it.
Adelaide and Sophia advanced toward the Tower of Annihilation, and the closer they got, the more they felt a great pressure weighing down on their bodies.
However, the pressure wasn’t unbearable.
Adelaide approached the main gate of the tower.
Unlike the Tower of Foresight, the gate was guarded not by a person, but by a spirit whose body was made of sand.
Adelaide bowed her head to the spirit in greeting.
“I have come with a message from the Lennart dojo.”
The moment she uttered those words, the pressure on her body doubled.
Not only the flame spirit, which had been watching her from the start, but also the lightning spirit, which had been feigning indifference, turned its gaze to glare at Adelaide.
Adelaide felt a tingling in her hands and feet. Sophia’s expression remained unchanged, but her breathing had become noticeably shallower.
After about ten seconds of silence, the sand spirit gave a slow nod and dropped one of its arms to the ground.
The detached arm slithered like a sentient thing through the crack beneath the main gate.
And then, the wait began.
Far from getting used to it, the pressure only continued to intensify, but Adelaide did not lose her composure.
The spirits were certainly strong.
In terms of sheer power, they were among the strongest beings she had ever encountered.
But that was all it was.
‘It’s not like I’m being directly attacked.’
No matter how great and intense the pressure was, Adelaide’s journey thus far had not been so easy that she would shrink from this alone.
Something akin to biological instinct was sounding an alarm, telling her to flee, but Adelaide knew better.
This wasn’t a true alarm, but a sensation deliberately induced by the other side.
If she were unaware of her opponent’s identity and constantly on edge, not knowing when an attack might come, it would be a different story. But knowing her opponent’s identity, location, and the fact that they wouldn’t attack, there was no reason she couldn’t endure it.
A short while later.
The main gate opened, and a mage in a robe appeared.
“I was told you were from the Lennart dojo. What is your business?”
His tone was calm, but that only made the competitive spirit and wariness simmering beneath his voice more palpable.
The instant Adelaide tried to open her mouth, the ice spirit from the third watchtower fixed its gaze on her.
KUUUUUUNG!
If the force pressing down on Adelaide were given physical form, it might have carved a massive crater into the ground.
It made her wonder if this was the technique the Tin Knight had tried to teach her, the one that could overwhelm an opponent with fighting spirit alone, which she had yet to learn.
“Hoo.”
Adelaide took a deep breath in and out.
She noticed that Sophia beside her hadn’t been breathing for a while and felt a flicker of concern, but on second thought, there was nothing more pointless than worrying about her.
Adelaide tensed her stomach and, with a smile befitting a noble lady, she spoke.
“I have brought a letter in the name of Norman von Lennart, the representative instructor of the Lennart dojo’s Trudvangar branch. I ask that you please deliver it to the head of the Tower of Annihilation.”
The mage stared at the letter she held out.
Beneath his impassive face, she could see flickers of doubt, agitation, and displeasure. And along with them, a hint of admiration and acknowledgment.
“—I have received it.”