Chapter 207: The Tin Knight and The Forest of Deception
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 207: The Tin Knight and The Forest of Deception
The rank system of the magic towers was standardized across all towers into five ranks. This was to clarify the hierarchy among members and thereby minimize incidents and disputes.
For example, if the Tower of Foresight had three ranks and the Tower of Annihilation had five, then even if two mages were both 3rd rank, their actual standing would be different.
The criteria for ascending to a higher rank—be it academic knowledge, experience, combat prowess, strategic insight, or the number of patents held—varied from tower to tower. But fundamentally, as long as one had the ability, rising to a higher rank was possible.
With one exception: the Tower of Control.
In the Tower of Control, there were fundamentally only two ways to rise to the 4th rank or higher.
Be born into the royal family, or marry into it.
If you were neither, it was impossible to ascend beyond the 3rd rank, no matter how brilliant a mage you were.
Of course, this wasn't codified into law.
The official story was that many 4th rank mages were royals because they were exceptional mages, and if a mage with no background rose to the 4th rank and happened to catch the eye of a royal, it was simply a matter of people of similar standing finding each other. At least, that was the official line.
But the world has its unspoken rules, shared without a word, and ignoring these tacit laws only made one's life more difficult.
Some might wonder: with other magic towers where one could rise through the ranks based on ability alone, why obsess over the Tower of Control? Couldn't they just go to another tower?
It was a reasonable point.
In fact, many mages chose other towers precisely because of this aspect of the Tower of Control.
However, for every mage who left, just as many chose the Tower of Control and knocked on its doors.
While it was the most difficult tower to climb, the rewards for reaching the top were also the sweetest.
In the Magic State, a mage from a magic tower was comparable to a noble from another country. But in truth, the proportion of those who treated commoners with the same disdain as foreign nobles was much smaller.
This was due to the unique characteristics of the mages in each tower.
The mages of the Tower of Foresight were rigid and had a fair bit of elitism, but they were mostly recluses who rarely interacted with outsiders, cooped up in their labs. Naturally, they caused little trouble.
The Tower of Annihilation had a strong culture of revering strength, so its mages spent their time on self-training rather than wasting it on pointless acts like bullying the weak. They were indifferent to civilians.
As for the Tower of Protection, it was a gathering of those who believed magic should be used to benefit people, so there was little more to say. Of course, like most organizations, it had its share of troublemakers.
Those who chose the Tower of Control were the ones who felt uncomfortable with these prevailing attitudes.
They wanted to become powerful, and they wanted to wield that power.
They wanted to indulge in the same pleasures enjoyed by the privileged classes of other nations.
If even insignificant rural nobles and magnates in the borderlands could enjoy such a life, why couldn't the rulers of the Magic State, one of the most powerful nations on the continent?
The Tower of Control understood these desires, which was why its entry requirements were unusually lax compared to other towers.
As long as one had the minimum ability to perceive and handle mana—even if it was just producing a candle-sized flame from their hand—they could be recognized as a member of the tower.
And once they became 1st rank mages, they could lord it over the common folk outside in all sorts of ways.
Even new recruits who initially had no such intentions were gradually stained by it, watching their peers and seniors all act the same way.
The sweetness of power wielded in this way was, in a sense, like seawater.
The more you drank, the thirstier you became.
However, unlike the relatively easy-to-obtain 1st rank, climbing to the ranks above was anything but simple.
Because it was difficult, those who failed to ascend drooled at the fruit hanging just above their heads.
Because it was difficult, those who did ascend wielded their power all the more fiercely, as if to be compensated for the hardships they endured to get there.
And because it was difficult, they did their utmost to maintain the tower's system, to protect their positions and preserve the power they enjoyed.
Some scoffed.
They said it was just like the old noble bloodlines, masters at creating structures where people oppressed other people.
Otto Millian was a mage of the Tower of Control.
The Tower of Control was often considered inferior in quality due to its lax entry standards, but that was only a story for the 1st rank mages at the bottom.
A 3rd rank mage like Otto was valuable, and he was treated with the respect that came with that value.
To say his power was limited to the territory ruled by the Tower of Control might make it sound trivial, but the Magic State was a great power that had swallowed the entire northern continent. Even a quarter of that territory was larger than most powerful nations of the past.
As long as he was careful around the extremely small number of colleagues and superiors within his sphere of influence, he could do almost anything he wanted within that vast domain.
Which was why his current situation—stuck in a forest for days on end, leaving all those pleasures behind—was anything but pleasant.
All he could see were weeds, dirt, bugs, and the mask-like, expressionless faces of his colleagues.
I probably have the same look on my face, Otto thought.
It wasn't because he felt nothing about this job. To be honest, he wanted to throw a fit and curse up a storm.
But he couldn't.
The one leading this operation was a 4th rank mage, Jeras Rognir, who was even mentioned as a candidate for the next Tower Head.
That arrogant royal, with his beautiful silver-white hair, was a big shot who could either lift Otto's life to the heavens or plunge it into the abyss.
If Jeras took a liking to him and introduced him to one of his sisters, Otto too could ascend to the highest ruling class of the tower. But if he fell out of favor, he could lose all his power and be cast down to the very bottom.
The other 3rd rank mages assigned to this mission were likely thinking the same thing.
Revealing his dislike in front of such colleagues? That was tantamount to advertising for a knife in the back.
Whatever his true feelings, he had to carry out his duties perfectly, as if he had no complaints at all.
Ah, fuck. Still, you'd think they'd at least tell us what we're supposed to be looking for.
"Seal off the forest and search it. Report immediately if you find anything suspicious."
That was Jeras's order.
There was no specific description of the target's appearance, whether it was human or an object, nothing.
Worse, the search area was a massive forest that would take hours to cross on foot even by the shortest route.
Normally, this kind of manual labor would be delegated to the grunts below, but everyone assigned to this operation was a 3rd rank mage like Otto.
Even for people accustomed to abusing their power, passing the buck to someone of the same rank was impossible.
Over fifty 3rd rank mages have been deployed for this operation. With the right shields, that's enough power to conquer an Imperial fortress. And we're using this force for a mere search? What in the world for?
The whole thing made no sense.
Of course, any skilled mage would have a detection spell or two, with minor variations, so a small number of people could cover a wide area.
But considering the value of a high-ranking mage, it would be far more cost-effective to just bring in a horde of soldiers and physically throw them into the forest.
The fact that they weren't doing that meant…
Is the 'something' we're looking for better off with fewer people knowing about it? So much so that they have to hide the details even from us?
Just as he was pondering what it could be, something strange flickered at the edge of his vision.
Rustle.
Between the bushes, he caught a glimpse of what looked like the shadow of a small animal.
It was a common enough sight in a forest that he could have ignored it, but the compulsion to succeed in his mission spurred him to action.
He cast a mana detection spell, and a map of the mana distribution in the surrounding area unfolded in his mind, as if viewed from above.
Nothing out of the ordinary.
All he detected were animals, large and small.
Some individuals had slightly higher mana levels, but it was within the range of natural variation.
If it were something magically enhanced, like a familiar, the mana response should have been much stronger.
Sure, a mage more skilled than Otto might be able to conceal it somewhat, but there were clear limits to such deception.
Fed up with the tedious, repetitive work, Otto resumed his search of the forest.
Squeak.
He never noticed the dull-eyed mouse watching his back.
*
"...This one's a winner."
Mulling over the residual images of the past shown by the Chalice of Tuberose, Dorothea turned her eyes toward the distant forest.
To avoid suspicion, she had moved quite far from the forest, but having seen the scenery inside so many times, the view was as clear as if it were right before her eyes.
A cordon was set up around the forest's perimeter to strictly control access. Inside, there were numerous skilled mages.
Individually, none of them were a match for Dorothea, but monitoring them without being detected among so many was another matter entirely.
This was especially true since Dorothea's specialty was overwhelming power using her vast mana, not delicate finesse.
If she hadn't used intact mouse corpses that looked almost normal, instead of her usual bone mice, and hadn't suppressed the traces of mana by stripping away every possible function to the extreme, she would have been discovered immediately.
Without a cheat like the Chalice of Tuberose, this reconnaissance would have been impossible in the first place.
"The ones doing the searching don't seem to know what they're looking for, either."
"How can you tell? None of them are talking."
"You can tell from their eyes and their attitude. It's not a feeling of 'find a specific something,' but more like 'check out anything suspicious.'"
"Hmm."
Dorothea crossed her arms and fell into thought for a moment.
Sophia was exceptionally sharp, but Dorothea was no slouch in the brains department either.
She also had a wealth of experience from dealing with her master's unreasonable errands since she was a child.
The conclusion came quickly.
"Either the one who gave the order doesn't know much about the target either, or they know but have no intention of explaining it to a large group."
"My personal guess is that the latter is more likely. Which means there's something in there that would be troublesome for the tower if many people found out about it."
"In the forest where Adel's father and his army were annihilated. A place where the Empire's and the Magic State's testimonies conflict."
It was truly suspicious.
The stench of suspicion was thick in the air.
"A survivor? No, that can't be right. You said it happened months ago. Even if there was a survivor, there's no way they'd still be in the forest."
"It might be possible if they're not among the living. A spirit, perhaps."
"So what, you're saying they're looking for an earth-bound spirit?"
Dorothea dismissed it lightly, but Sophia's eyes were serious.
"I've read in books that undead aren't only created through necromancy. They can also occur naturally if the right environmental factors are present, like a strong grudge, lingering attachments, and abundant mana. It's also common for there to be a time lag between death and becoming an undead."
"...It does add up, I guess. I didn't feel any trace of necromancy, but I wasn't there in person, so I could be mistaken."
A theory was forming.
But what truly mattered was what came next.
If what was in that forest was indeed an undead of someone who died in that battle, or something similar, they needed to intercept it before the Tower of Control got its hands on it or destroyed it.
The problem was, doing so could mean making an enemy of one of the magic towers.
To antagonize one of the most powerful factions based on an unconfirmed guess, with no guarantee of a reward.
The risk didn't justify the reward.
A rational assessment would be to continue observing the situation as they were now and wait for Gale to return.
A witch had to be cold and rational.
Therefore, the choice she had to make was clear.
"...Hah. Wake the others. It's about time anyway, so they should be fully recovered."
If things go south, we'll just have to bolt for the Tower of Protection's territory, the black-haired witch sighed in resignation.
Sophia smiled quietly and bowed her head.
A witch who wasn't cold and rational, she thought, was precisely why she could be trusted as a leader.