Moonrise Flower (2)
Three full days had slipped by.
Eating. Sleeping. Taking in the view. Doing nothing of any consequence at all.
The escorts had handled every meal themselves, so he had quite literally done nothing. If there was any enlightenment to be gained from those days of pure leisure, it was this: loafing around really was the best. He should have lived like this from the start.
"Haa…"
Beneath a clear sky, the Lepiere Mountains stretched out in a vast white expanse. After a long look at the range, Rodeban made his way toward the cliff to check on the Moonrise Flower.
It's almost fully open.
The bud of the Moonrise Flower, which had been bent toward the cold snow, was slowly turning its face toward the sky. As the petals eased apart, the flower settled into that fragile state just short of full bloom—
Thud—
He dropped down in front of it. The flower only yielded its full effect once it had completely opened, and the thought that someone might show up the moment it bloomed and snatch it away had taken root in his mind.
This is an illness. A real illness…
He had wanted to sit here for days already, but had held himself back for fear of earning a reputation as a paranoid misanthrope. Fortunately the escorts had enough sense to keep their distance and wait on their own.
"Mister. What are you doing."
"Standing by."
Of course, Luce had no such sense, and she wandered right up beside him. On the off chance, Rodeban laid down a firm reminder.
"Luce. This is mine. You understand?"
Luce made a rare expression of genuine offense.
"I think I finally get why people say you're so suspicious."
"…All baseless rumors. Don't believe them."
Having just doubted the rumor that he was full of doubt, Rodeban drew his Magic Sword. While he waited, he figured he might as well attempt something that passed for training for the first time in a long while.
Back when he hadn't had a Magic Sword, he wouldn't even have considered trying—but nothing, after all, was more important than health. That was why a man needed to play once in a while.
He dismissed the nonsense floating through his head and set the Magic Sword across his knees. From the side, Luce asked,
"Mister. What's the sword's name?"
Rodeban answered shortly.
"Sword Number Five."
Luce looked distinctly unimpressed.
"…That's way too lazy."
"Magic Swords have always been called by numbers, in the order they appear. Give them too cool a name and people start coveting them."
"So only five of them have shown up so far?"
"Not exactly. Magic Swords kept appearing before this, too, but every time a new emperor takes the throne, they reset the count and start over from the beginning."
"Oh."
Luce eyed the Magic Sword and said,
"Want to try what I asked the knights about yesterday?"
Rodeban nodded.
"Yeah. Might as well pick it up while I have the chance."
Among the escorts were more than a few men who had once served Leuron or Seria. They knew, to a fair degree, how to train the cold energy that was the bloodline gift of the ducal house.
They had shared the information without much wariness—and no matter how he looked at it, he couldn't deny the Grand Duke's hand was behind that. Call it payment in knowledge for the delayed delivery of the Holy Fluid.
—The founding head of the house divided the levels from 1-Star through 9-Star.
It was information that had never appeared when he played the game, which made it rather useful now.
Then Luce raised a more fundamental problem.
"Mister. Once you use up all the magi inside the Magic Eye, the Magic Sword disappears, right? If the Magic Sword is gone, doesn't that mean you can't use the ability anymore either?"
In other words: why train something that was going to vanish anyway?
Rodeban shook his head.
"You're not wrong, but once I drink the Holy Fluid, the Magic Eye changes so that it absorbs the Magic Sword's properties. So it doesn't matter."
Luce's eyes went round.
"Oh… that's neat. How did you know?"
"I just do."
"…"
Faced with that thoroughly unhelpful answer, she withdrew with a sulky look—as if to say she didn't like it, but she would at least leave him alone for his training.
Rodeban gripped the Magic Sword. The blade, a piercing white, glittered in the sunlight. He muttered,
"Doesn't look like a Magic Sword at all."
He ran a hand down the edge of the blade, dredging up yesterday's memories. One of the knights, roasting the deer Luce had brought in, had explained it like this:
—The 1-Star stage is the level at which you can feel cold energy inside your own body. In other words, you become aware of mana that carries cold.
"Moving on."
He was already converting mana into cold through the Magic Sword as a medium, so he skipped ahead to the next part of the explanation.
—2-Star is the stage of infusing that mana into a medium such as a sword and maintaining it there. I still remember how delighted His Grace was when the young lord reached 2-Star at the age of five.
No wonder he always seemed so insufferable.
So he had been like that from childhood. Rodeban clicked his tongue inwardly—and in the same moment, poured mana into the sword.
As the mana converted into cold, a white frost rose along the blade.
Ssss—
Just like that, he had cleared the 2-Star stage as well. A man who could already manifest sword qi was never going to get stuck on mere mana infusion.
—3-Star is the projection of cold energy outward. Channel it through the sword and it becomes sword qi.
From 3-Star onward, things got a little harder. Sword qi, out of nowhere?
—He stalled here for quite a long while. Truthfully, most knights struggle with manifesting sword qi, so it wasn't anything to be particularly shocked about.
Come to think of it, the knight had been rather talkative when he got to this part.
—Around the time the young lord was fifteen, I believe. I still remember him in the rear garden of the lord's castle, wearing the most tragic face, lamenting that his sword qi wouldn't come out. It was honestly absurd. I myself only barely managed it when I was nearly thirty.
Insufferable and greedy, too.
Rodeban shook his head and fed a little more mana into the sword. The blade, saturated with flowing cold, began to gleam with a soft light. If he swung it now, cold-laden sword qi would pour out at once.
Of course, that would also mean Luce and every escort staring at him with startled eyes, so he restrained himself. Drawing the mana back out of the sword, Rodeban gave a single nod.
Three stars broken through in an instant.
With talent like this, he could probably get himself adopted into the ducal house. Having recharged his self-esteem with that bit of nonsense, he happened to glance down at the Moonrise Flower.
The yellow petals that had been folded over one another were fluttering as if they had just opened.
At the sight, Rodeban muttered before he could stop himself.
"…The Moonrise Flower has bloomed."
Nonsense followed by pure gibberish. The side effects of the Magic Sword were this terrifying.
He gave his own cheek a light slap and shook his head.
…Enough of that.
After a dry cough, he harvested the flower on the spot. He plucked only the bud cleanly free and put it straight into his mouth.
It had no taste.
"Bitter."
Still, once the flower settled into his stomach, a faint warmth spread through his gut—the feeling of lying out in high summer with only your belly bare to the sun. A little later, that warmth seemed to flow from his stomach out through his whole body. Rodeban rubbed his midsection and thought,
Finally ate it. After two wasted trips, no less.
The phrase three visits to the thatched cottage flickered through his mind and was promptly discarded. At any rate, his resistance to magi had risen, which meant he had taken one more step toward purifying the Magic Eye. Of course, there were still plenty of other things he needed to obtain, so the road ahead remained long.
Footsteps approached from behind. Luce came up.
"Mister. You already ate it?"
"Yeah."
She asked about the taste.
"How is it."
Rodeban spat out a leaf and said,
"Tastes terrible. Don't you go eating stuff like this."
A rather pointed reply came back.
"You weren't going to give me any anyway."
"…"
Luce shifted her gaze down the hill and said,
"Mister. But it looks like Moonrise Hill already has an owner."
"What?"
Rodeban looked as if he were hearing this for the first time.
"That can't be. The terrain here is so rough the place is half-abandoned. And there's nothing around but mountains."
Who would buy a scrap of land this worthless?
…He swallowed that particular phrasing. A bit lowbrow for a war hero to say in front of the escorts. Not having attended an academy, he still felt a certain need to conceal the poverty of his vocabulary. Even before the possession he hadn't gotten into a particularly good university, so a lingering inferiority complex about education remained.
Luce said,
"I went for a short walk. Some people were coming this way from a distance."
Rodeban's brow furrowed. A bad premonition had just settled over him.
"Was the party fairly large?"
"Yeah. Looked like nobles."
He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment.
Damn it…
He swallowed the curse. Just as she had said, voices were already drifting up from a little way off.
"—Sir Zephyrin. The terrain here is truly treacherous."
"—Indeed. Please take care, young master."
Nobles' conversation, no question. But as far as Rodeban knew, there were no nobles living near Ferngrad. Which meant these people had come from far away.
Looking down the slope of the hill, he thought,
There might still be room to negotiate.
Before long, two men on horseback appeared on Moonrise Hill. One was a well-dressed young noble; the other looked to be his escort knight. Behind them, roughly a dozen soldiers were drawn up in a line.
The moment the nobleman spotted the tents on the hilltop, his face went slack with surprise.
"Huh? B-but I was told this place wasn't known to anyone…"
He wore the expression of a man who had just realized he had been swindled. Even for a noble, his face was an open, simple sort of face—the kind that suggested he got taken often in ordinary life as well.
Rodeban approached them and spoke in a politely courteous tone.
"Good day, young master. My name is Rodeban. Moonrise Hill is currently under temporary occupation by the knight order for the purpose of carrying out a mission. Might I ask what brings you here?"
A false tongue moved with the liquid grace of a snake. Beside the young noble, the knight's pupils jerked hard.
"…!"
He clearly knew who Rodeban was. The young noble, for his part, spoke in a flustered voice—unlike the knight, he did not seem to recognize Rodeban at all.
"I-I am Heron of the Bristol family. I recently purchased Moonrise Hill from an acquaintance, so I don't understand why the Northern Knight Order would be…"
"Ah, I see."
Rodeban nodded. Bristol was a baronial house based in the eastern Empire.
Why would anyone buy land with nothing around it but mountains?
No matter how he turned it over, the only explanation that made sense was that his acquaintance had scammed him. Had someone told him a mana-stone mine was about to be discovered here?
The old saying that physiognomy was a science kept floating unbidden through his mind as an older knight stepped forward.
"Lord Rodeban. What is the matter?"
Rodeban explained Heron's situation. The older knight's brows twitched once; then he spoke in a carefully formal tone.
"My apologies. Young Master Heron will have to wait a little longer, I'm afraid. This is a special mission issued directly from headquarters."
Seniority really was half instinct. Rodeban nodded along in agreement.
"That said, we expect to withdraw by the end of the day, so please don't be concerned. Might I ask what business brought you here…?"
At that, Heron let out a breath of relief.
"Well, you see, I received a report that an altar of the ancient Holy Kingdom lies buried in this area. Moonrise Hill has long been known as a place dense with divine power, has it not? So I came to investigate in person."
Rodeban scratched the back of his head.
There's nothing like that here.
Heron gave his reins a light pull.
"Then I shall return after one night."
"Yes. Thank you for your cooperation."
Once the procession had withdrawn, Luce came up and said,
"Mister. You've gotten better at lying."
She had apparently heard the whole thing from a distance. Rodeban answered shortly.
"Quiet. Just get ready to head down the mountain."
"You're good at changing the subject, too."
He ignored her and headed for the campsite.