Heroes Don't Abandon Their Companions (2)
We walked cautiously into the castle courtyard. In truth, there wasn’t much need for caution. The spores I had released had done their job so perfectly that no one had stirred, even after the recent explosion.
Kadros glanced at the guards sprawled on the ground, snoring loudly, and muttered, “If you can scatter a sleeping agent this effective, wouldn’t it have been fine for you to come alone, Pointy-Ears?”
“Haha, a little elf can put people to sleep, but he can’t pick locks. That’s why you needed me.”
Glazalus’s booming interjection saved me from having to answer. The dwarf wasn’t entirely wrong. If the only goal had been to find Kaira and extract her, there had been no real need for the entire hero party to gather.
But… we had prepared for the worst. No matter how outstanding my abilities were, not every calculation could align perfectly.
Our opponent was a powerful ducal house. If I had attempted to rescue Kaira alone and been caught, the incident could easily have escalated into a conflict between the human empire and the forest folk.
To avoid that burden, we needed a justification compelling enough for the entire hero party to act.
Beyond the expensive glass windows, the duke’s lavish mansion glowed with flickering lights. Only the sturdy, weathered stone keep beside it reminded us that this ostentatious building—devoid of any apparent military function—had once been a fortress guarding the castle courtyard.
We split into two groups. The ogre and I would search the mansion interior, while the dwarf and the saint examined the keep.
Glazalus’s massive frame would have been far too uncomfortable on the narrow spiral stairs of the tower.
Before we parted, the dwarf gruffly tossed me something. It was a key forged from dwarven steel.
“A universal key etched with runes. Unless it’s protected by exceptionally powerful defensive magic, it can open any human lock. Lockpicking is something a brat like you should be doing with magic… That key was crafted by my little brother himself, so don’t you dare lose it, Pointy-Ears.”
I simply nodded once.
We carefully opened the mansion door and slipped inside. The grand hall illuminated by leaded-glass lamps, the countless mirrors, and the violet carpet all spoke of the duke’s immense power.
And of humanity’s empty vanity.
“Glazalus will search here. Body big. Human rooms difficult.”
“Understood. I’ll check the nobles’ and servants’ quarters. I’d appreciate it if you took the spacious areas on the first floor and basement.”
I parted ways with the ogre there. Leaving behind the thunderous sounds of that mountain of muscle ripping something apart, I ascended the ornate marble staircase.
I had not told the others, but I had calculated the timing with meticulous care. There was a reason I had chosen today.
This was the exact night Sophie von Mittenburg was staying in the mansion.
Combining the rumors gathered through vermin with the information network of the saint, it seemed highly likely that she had been the first to recognize the true nature of Kaira’s ability.
After all, the rumor that Kaira had “healed” Sophie after she had collapsed was well-known among the mages who had attended the academy with her.
Most likely, Kaira had not used healing magic at the time, but had rewound time instead.
That had been long before Kaira developed that secret diary magic of hers. The side effects of time rewinding must have been severe.
There was more than enough reason for Sophie to misunderstand Kaira—or to harbor a grudge. Humans were a short-lived race full of contradictions, capable of nursing resentment over even the smallest matters, no matter how high their noble rank.
Though Sophie was the duke’s daughter, she was the youngest, far removed from the line of succession. That was probably why she had entered the magic academy.
Instead, as a talented mage from a noble family who had graduated at the top of her class, she traveled across the empire, mingling with noble society and sometimes even wealthy commoners, acting as a sort of troubleshooter on their behalf.
A young lady from such a grand house would hardly have needed money; she must have taken on those lowly tasks to build the personal connections that would compensate for her weak position.
Unlike the other rooms in the mansion, which had been left wide open, the young lady’s chamber was firmly locked. A fitting precaution for a witch plotting dark schemes.
I inserted the dwarven key into the lock of Sophie’s bedroom. With a strange clicking sound, the door opened.
‘It’s unlikely Kaira is inside this room, but it’s still worth searching while I have the chance.’
Sophie was asleep at her research desk.
Despite belonging to a duke’s daughter, the room’s interior was surprisingly modest.
Instead, a massive research desk covered in neatly bound grimoires and fine-quality paper occupied half the space. That, at least, was very much like a mage.
I recalled that Kaira had often used charcoal for her magic books, but Sophie, true to her noble upbringing, seemed to prefer high-quality ink and quill pens.
On the wall above Sophie’s desk, I discovered a familiar object.
An artifact forged with the techniques of my people—a gracefully curved blade with elegant lines—rested quietly in its sheath.
A sword I could not possibly fail to recognize. It was the companion that had been fitted to my hand alone, the one that had accompanied me through countless hunts and journeys.
The precious sword I had given Kaira as a parting gift was now decorating Sophie’s room like some grand trophy.
‘How insulting…’
Before searching the duke’s daughter’s private chamber, I took the sword down from the wall and fastened it at my waist.
The fact that Kaira’s sword hung here meant the imprisoned mage was indeed Kaira.
After dragging her here and stripping her of her weapons, Sophie must have recognized the blade’s value and claimed it for her personal collection.
Yet no other significant clues appeared in the youngest daughter’s room. I might have gleaned something from the magic she had been researching before falling asleep, but I was not particularly knowledgeable about magic.
Magic research was the sort of thing done by those pathetic desert kin in the far south, who acted as if they would die without it.
I left Sophie’s room and examined the chambers of the other ducal family members one by one, hoping to find Kaira somewhere—mocked and trapped like a bird in a cage.
My hopes were in vain.
I opened the duke’s room, the shabby servants’ quarters, the unoccupied guest rooms, even the attendants’ closets, but found no trace of Kaira.
I descended from the upper floors of the mansion.
The first floor was in chaos.
The culprit behind the mess, Glazalus the ogre, sat heavily on the floor, gnawing loudly on an entire salt-cured ham from a beast’s hind leg. He had even brought up a cask of wine. He must have found them while searching the cellar.
“Did you find anything, ogre?”
“Nothing. Basement only had food. I tore open the storage doors, the barrels, everything. Nothing.”
Which meant Kaira was not imprisoned inside the mansion. Assuming the ogre could be trusted.
I had heard that humans sometimes converted old stone defensive structures into prisons. There was nothing to do but trust the other companions currently searching the keep beside the mansion.
I had hoped Kaira would be inside the mansion. If she were in a place like a prison, she would be suffering far worse than mere confinement.
I wondered whether that child’s mind could endure such harsh imprisonment.
We headed for the keep. Glazalus grumbled that the interior was too cramped, but there was no helping it. The moment we opened the door and entered, two familiar voices drew closer from the stairs above.
“That’s why I said we should search the basement first! Why did you insist on starting at the top of the tower and make us do extra work, Saint?”
“It’s obviously harder to escape from the top of a tower than from an underground level that leads straight outside after just one floor. At least, that’s how it was in the fairy tales I read as a child.”
“This isn’t a children’s story! Ah, ah… You’ve arrived, Pointy-Ears?”
Our eyes met those of the pair descending the tower’s narrow stairs by the light of the holy radiance emanating from the saint’s body. From what I overheard, it seemed they, too, had found nothing.
“Did you find her?”
I shook my head.
“So she’s not in the mansion? You’re certain you searched thoroughly?”
“Correct. I tore open wine barrels and hams alike. I tore everything open to search.”
“Hmm…”
The dwarf’s brow furrowed.
“Nothing here either. The upper levels had no prison at all—just guest rooms converted from old cells and guard quarters. We haven’t searched the underground level yet. Even so, if it continues like this… Oh! Pointy-Ears, that’s your sword!”
Kadros, sharp-eyed as expected of a dwarf, had noticed that I now carried two blades again.
“Then let’s head to the basement. If she’s not there either, we’ll think about what comes next. But my intuition tells me,” I said, fingering the sword, “that she will definitely be there.”
The basement of the keep looked quite different from the mansion’s. Unlike the area beneath the mansion, which had been used for food storage, this place was… rather comfortably furnished.
Teacups and tables, chessboards and card sets. Beds and dressers, glass bottles filled with fine liquor. It looked less like an underground prison or storeroom and more like a space for rest and socializing. I could not understand why the basement of a fortified tower had been decorated this way.
On one side of the room stood a solidly locked iron door. I did not know its purpose, but it did not seem to lead to anything pleasant.
Then—
“Ugh… ah…”
“…!!”
I heard it.
It seemed my companions with their duller hearing had not.
I ran alone to the iron door and tried to peer inside. The interior was hard to make out, but…
“What is it, Pointy-Ears?”
Without a word, I held up the dwarf’s key and unlocked the door.
The moment it opened, my companions froze where they stood. Even their slow ears could hear it now—the pained, sighing moan of a human woman.
From the direction of the sound came a familiar scent. The faint, sweet fragrance of travel cookies baked with the utmost care for three full days over the best forest firewood and the blue flames kindled by spirits.
The other three approached with uneasy steps and stood before the pitch-dark room that held no light at all.
All of us felt a chill run down our spines. An instinctive warning that we should not look inside.
Azalea stepped forward. She was, after all, the bravest among us—and the most reckless.
The saint raised one arm, gathering power into it to summon light. The holy radiance drove away the unpleasant darkness within the room.
“Th-this… what is…!!”
The saint froze on the spot.
We who saw the room illuminated by Azalea’s light could not take a single step.
“Bad. This… really bad…”
We simply stood rooted in place,
“By the gods… Damn it all… I swear on my ancestors’ beards…”
uttering only dazed fragments,
“…Tsk.”
or sighs heavy with shock.
What lay before us was not the small human mage Kaira, the one who had given me rare, honest admiration even across my long life.
Down in the underground storage beneath the keep, there was no trace of that young, inexperienced, clumsy, fearful, and green novice who had nevertheless bravely defeated the six-headed overlord.
It could not be. This… could not possibly be her.
The girl with hair the color of freshly baked cookies, who carried that sweet scent on the wind, who always wore an anxious expression while pondering something deeply yet would beam with joy whenever she realized she had been helpful to us—
She could not possibly be the adorable young mage girl we had known.
“U-uaaah… E-ah…? Uh… Hueh… Pa… paa…?”
Before our eyes…
was nothing but a single living clockwork mechanism.
Both legs and her right arm severed, all teeth pulled out, vacant red eyes staring blankly into space, mouth hanging open helplessly as drool spilled forth, incoherent moans rising from her throat, viscous fluid seeping from between her thighs and pooling on the restraints, her remaining left hand mechanically rewinding the time of whatever it touched, bound so she could not move.