Chapter 79: Advent (3)
Chapter 79: Advent (3)
Just as the tournament's excitement was reaching its peak, someone looked up.
"Why does the sky look like that on such a fine day?"
The spring weather had been clear when the matches began, but dark clouds had suddenly massed overhead.
"It's not going to pour rain, is it?"
"The weather official said it wouldn't rain."
Among the beastkin were some with exceptionally keen senses. Those who completed academy study in astronomy and weather-reading qualified as weather officers.
High-ranking noble houses employed them mainly to choose auspicious dates before important events.
"He's a man who hasn't been wrong in twenty years."
The profession carried great prestige but little demand, making competition ferocious. Naturally, only the most capable survived in it.
Even as the weather rapidly deteriorated, the tournament's fervor did not subside.
NEIGH!
A horse collapsed, and the knight riding it went flying through the air.
CRACK!
Unluckily, he fell headfirst and broke his neck. The horse, having lost its rider, was also dead.
"Aaaah!"
"Oh, dear!"
The crowd screamed at the tournament's first death. His neck had twisted so completely that even from a distance there was no doubt he had died instantly.
Twitch! Twitch!
Even after death, compressed nerves made his limbs twitch grotesquely.
An inexperienced opposing knight had made the fatal mistake of driving his lance into the horse's forehead.
"And you call yourself a knight after that?"
"Booo!"
"Get off the field!"
The commoners did not miss one of their rare legal opportunities to jeer at their social betters. Boos rained in from every direction.
"Damn it."
After disgracing himself so badly, the knight could not even raise his head. It would be difficult for him to show his face anywhere after this, let alone proudly give his name.
"I always wondered why the Church hated tournaments so much. Now that I've seen one myself, I understand."
"Men are killed and injured in droves, yet it is all for mere amusement. It is only natural they would object."
Varda watched the dead knight being carried away, pity in her eyes.
Disease, starvation, natural disasters, monsters, bandits—the world overflowed with tangible and intangible evils. In the eyes of the clergy, humanity was in a precarious state, surrounded by countless enemies.
Even so, the clergy could not understand humans spilling one another's blood and dying merely for pleasure.
"It was an excellent choice not to enter the joust."
Squeeze.
Varda's delicate elven hand closed around the back of Eugene's hand and squeezed it.
"Might's clever distance control, that bizarre flail like a storm, javelins that can break ships, your remarkable hand-to-hand skill—there is no reason to fight somewhere that seals away all your greatest strengths."
After rubbing the back of Eugene's hand a few times, Varda adjusted the hood the wind had disturbed. A scarf covered the lower half of her face, leaving only the bridge of her nose and her eyes exposed.
"You're completely bundled up today."
"Because I have no wish to be entangled in troublesome matters."
Already the next match had ended, and once again the victor and the vanquished were decided.
"My honorable knight. I shall cherish today's glory for the rest of my life."
A noblewoman rewarded the knight who had dedicated his victory to her with a radiant smile.
She presented him with a flower crown she had made herself, and he raised his weapon high. The crowd went wild at the passionate spectacle.
"This must be a familiar experience for you, Varda-nim."
"Humans romanticize my people far too much. Plenty believe that dedicating a victory to me will earn them the blessing of the forest and the fairies."
Noble ladies with flower crowns placed upon their laps were glaring at the arena with burning eyes.
Just as knights wished to be acknowledged as the finest warriors, noblewomen also longed to be celebrated as the most beautiful and beloved of women.
Varda gave a bitter smile. Apparently she had unpleasant memories of this sort of thing.
"I don't want to earn anyone's resentment for no reason."
"I don't think that's your only reason."
Eugene gently lifted a fold of her scarf to peek inside. Hidden beneath it was a face more beautiful than that of any noblewoman in the arena.
By the middle of the tournament, the weather had deteriorated badly. Pitch-black storm clouds slowly churned overhead.
"Weather official. Did you not say it would certainly not rain?"
"It is certain! Rain will not fall!"
At Duke Ismar's question, the dog beastkin weather officer kept twitching his nose.
WHOOOOOSH!
FLAP! FLAP!
The flags hung around the arena whipped violently in the strong wind.
"Aaaah! Noooo!"
A flower crown one noblewoman had stayed up all night making blew away in the wind. She screamed and reached after it.
"I think we may have to suspend the tournament."
At the duke's mutter, the weather officer threw himself flat on the ground.
"I stake my life on it! It absolutely will not rain!"
"That won't be necessary. I can see for myself that this weather is truly strange."
Too much was riding on the tournament. It commemorated the North's victory, recruited new talent, and soothed a public unsettled by civil war and pirates all at once.
Since he had pushed the event ahead despite the strain, the duke wanted to see it through somehow.
Flash!
A huge flash erupted in the sky. A brilliant white bolt struck a mountain some distance from the arena.
"G-good heavens!"
"I've never seen lightning that huge before."
The tournament spectators turned in shock. Among them were the terrorists sent by the Emperor.
"Sir Simon. It is a success."
"For a clear day to change this completely in an instant... Magic really is incredible."
Simon was pleased to see the awe-filled gazes of the knights escorting him, though his own face was full of discontent.
Controlling nature was among the highest powers of magic. A force that even a king would fear had manifested from Simon's own hand.
"Hmm."
His only disappointment was the lack of any sign of rain.
'Darkness and wind aren't enough. To ruin the tournament for good, I need rain or hail.'
Even so, Simon shuddered at the surging tide of mystical power. He had never encountered anything this intense since becoming a mage.
Those who understood magic would be able to feel the astronomical force condensed within the swirling black clouds.
'Was that summoner a fraud?'
The thought made him distrust the summoner in the capital who had appraised the artifact and handed it over.
It had called forth far too much power to be dismissed as a mere weather-spoiling artifact. Using it only to ruin one tournament almost seemed wasteful.
"Let's get moving. We're done here."
Simon led his knights out of the arena. Being an unarmed servant of the Emperor in the heart of the Noble Faction's stronghold made every moment nerve-racking.
Eugene, Varda, and Marbas also perceived that something grave was occurring in the sky.
CRACKLE!
A fierce bolt of lightning struck down again.
"Look at the mystical power raging in the sky! It is as if an invisible hole has been punched open and a dam burst through it. A passage to the Otherworld must have opened."
Marbas stared at the sky with curiosity and fear mingled on his face.
"That ends our spectating."
Eugene knew that remaining still in such a situation was a foolish act.
Even setting aside the lightning, a crowd this large could become a disaster the moment panic made people start trampling one another.
"Homi, send the signal."
WHISTLE!
Homi pursed her pink lips and gave a sharp whistle that carried far across the grounds.
"Captain! You heard that, right?"
Everyone under Eugene's command knew Homi's whistle signals.
"Evacuation signal. I don't know what's happening, but we're leaving. Now."
"A shame to miss a tournament we rarely get to see."
"Enough. Everybody move!"
The mercenaries watching from the common seats shoved through the crowd on their way out. The most important skill in mercenary life was recognizing danger early enough to run from it.
"Is it really all right for only us to leave?"
"What could a mere knight-lord without even a barony possibly do? I'll see to my own people first. There are nobles here far higher in rank than me—surely they can look after themselves?"
Haind nodded. If Eugene handled this badly, he could end up taking all the blame for causing a needless panic.
CRACKLE!
This time, lightning struck somewhere within the city of Rostock.
"Those lightning bolts are definitely magical!"
"Of course they are. All that lightning and we haven't heard a single clap of thunder."
"Now that you mention it..."
Marbas had noticed the anomaly as a mage; Eugene had noticed it from a scientific angle.
Lightning was a mass of energy reaching thirty thousand degrees Celsius. As it passed, the superheated air would burst outward explosively, hammering everything around it.
That should have produced deafening sounds like RUMBLE! or KRA-BOOM! Yet there was nothing. The crackle of released energy was all they heard.
When Eugene explained the principle as simply as he could, Varda and Marbas both stared at him in surprise.
"So that is why lightning and thunder always come paired together."
"Where in the world did you learn something like that?"
Marbas already knew that this young knight possessed an oddly broad range of knowledge.
But what he had just heard felt different, as though Eugene had glimpsed a secret of the world that no one in this age ought to know.
"At any rate, that thing bears the shape of lightning, but it is not lightning. It is something wrought of magic. Let us enter over there."
Eugene left the question unanswered and led the group into a nearby building.
"Sir. The mercenaries have all withdrawn in the other direction."
"That's a relief."
Five people entered the building: Eugene, Varda, Marbas, Homi, and Haind.
CRACK!
FLASH!
CRACKLE!
The spectators, who had initially watched in fascination, finally began screaming as the lightning strikes continued without end.
Meanwhile, Eugene felt he was beginning to understand what the repeated bolts were doing. He read the echoes of magical power spreading across the ground after each impact.
The echoes carried a simple message—one Eugene had never imagined encountering in this world.
A bolt fell over the inland sea.
CRACKLE!
'False.'
A bolt struck the bell tower in the city of Rostock.
CRACKLE!
'False.'
A bolt struck the flat ground beside the road.
CRACK!
'True.'
The lightning was a form of observation, like a scout sent ahead by something in another world before it arrived here.
From the fading echoes of the bolts, Eugene read a message made of zeroes and ones.
The lightning functioned like machine language, sending what it observed back to the Otherworld through the rift in the sky.
'Whether there is sufficient space there.'
'Whether there is anything jutting out.'
'Whether a river flows.'
'Whether it is hard.'
'Whether there is life.'
'Whether there is air.'
Every bolt was both a magical probe and a tentative touch, feeling out a place where something could arrive.
As though ignoring the rule that lightning struck high places, only a few bolts hit the city and mountains. It was as if each strike had already returned the verdict: 'Not here.'
CRACKLE!
At last, an enormous bolt that bleached the world white slammed into the earth.
When the flash faded, a gigantic presence had risen from the once-empty plain. Its shape was difficult to make out clearly.
HISSSSS...
Something streamed endlessly from its surface, impossible to tell whether it was cloud or mist.
White frost instantly spread across the nearby ground. Whatever had appeared seemed to have come from somewhere unimaginably cold.
Tap, tap.
Homi tapped Eugene's arm, her eyes wide.
"Yeah. That's definitely the thing we saw at Bonyard."
Eugene was certain.
The little of its outline he could see matched his memory exactly, as did the immense mystical power radiating from it like the sun.
There could be only one existence in the world that satisfied both conditions.
The legendary Wandering Castle had finally ended its long drift and descended into this world.
Like Eugene's party, Simon had left the arena early and taken shelter in a nearby building.
After seeing a barrage of lightning unlike anything in his life, he had no intention of wandering around outside.
"Good heavens."
The scene before him left Simon aghast. The artifact's unexpectedly powerful effect no longer mattered in the slightest.
"Is—is that not the Wandering Castle that His Majesty so desperately seeks?"
"It truly existed!"
The accompanying knights' eyes went wide. They had been thoroughly briefed on the Wandering Castle in the capital and recognized its appearance.
"This is no time for admiration. Have you forgotten where we are?"
"Ah!"
"Of all places, right in Duke Ismar's backyard..."
He did not know why, but the artifact he had activated was clearly responsible. He had done all the work only to hand the prize to the enemy.
Considering the Emperor's temper, going back like this might get Simon hanged.
"Surely His Majesty would not hold us accountable?"
"The summoner who handed us this thing is definitely a dead man. If that doesn't exhaust His Majesty's fury, it will spill over onto us."
At Simon's words, the knights could not shake their unease.
Whatever else could be said about him, the Emperor became uniquely irrational whenever the Wandering Castle was involved.
"We'll figure out what to do after we're out of the duchy. Which way did we stash our gear?"
"Ten minutes east."
Simon's party had hidden their arms and armor and entered disguised as travelers.
With every imaginable knight and noble gathered at the stronghold of Duke Ismar, the Noble Faction's vanguard, showing themselves as knights would have made discovery far too likely.
CLUNK.
Just then, the door opened.
A huge man and a tall beastkin woman stood in the doorway, looking in at Simon's group.
"I told you there was something unusual here. A thread-thin stream of magical power is shooting up toward that hole in the sky..."
"You can stop now. Marbas-nim was right."
The man and woman entered without hesitation despite the hardened edge radiating from the knights inside.
Simon knew something had gone wrong when the man stared unerringly at the magical artifact hidden inside his coat.
The knights exchanged looks. Simon might treat them as blockheads, but they made their living by the sword and were quick to read situations like this.
Instinct told them their only way out was to take down the two people in front of them and escape.
'Go for the woman.'
Sir Miles lunged without warning. The huge man radiated a terrifying presence, far too dangerous to attack while unarmed.
'Take the woman hostage somehow, then...'
WHAM!
The thought cut off when the beastkin woman's spinning kick struck his temple.
The last thing Miles remembered was the woman's back as she spun, pivoting on one long leg.
It was a beautiful kick, her thick white tail keeping her perfectly balanced.
"..."
The beastkin woman, one leg raised high in a crane stance, regarded the knights with cold eyes.
'If I move, I'm dead.'
Simon could not so much as twitch under the huge man's unwavering stare.
They had apparently already realized he was a mage. The man's entire bearing promised that the slightest trick would get Simon killed on the spot.