The Gem Losing Its Light
Two days later, we finally arrived at our midway destination, the Einiss Magic Kingdom.
“Bundles of 3rd Circle magic scrolls for just one gold coin!! All of them reusable once you recharge the mana!”
“5th Circle Hellfire scrolls that replicate the hellfire only demons can wield, crafted by human power! Officially certified by the association—no issues whatsoever!”
“A hygiene artifact that activates Clean magic and the lowest-grade purification spell with just a flick of your finger—for a mere five silver coins!!”
The merchants' hawking cries echoed the moment we entered the outskirts of Edela, the capital of Einiss. Unlike Selina, who gazed indifferently at them from the carriage as we rolled along, Raysilla—the girl whose talent had earned even the recognition of great archmages—watched the artifacts and magic scrolls littering the streets with sparkling eyes, utterly captivated.
“Wow… Wow…!!”
“You like them that much? Should we get off and take a look around?”
“R-Really?”
At the suggestion of browsing, Raysilla's eyes lit up like a child's, her body fidgeting as if she might leap from the carriage any second. Suppressing the smile threatening to break free, I said,
“If that's what my little sister wants, big brother can buy her anything.”
“…Yay! Then let's get off and look around a bit!”
“Yeah, let's stop here.”
With that, we parked the capital-exclusive carriage we'd rented for the trip to the royal castle off to the side of the road.
I got off first and extended my hand. Raysilla grabbed it tightly and hopped down with a bounce. Selina followed silently, her large backpack slung over her shoulders, keeping a polite distance.
“Let's go.”
“Yeah!!”
As we properly entered the market, the streets filled with an overwhelming glow of mana lights and the whirring of mechanical devices—far beyond anything we'd glimpsed from the carriage. Raysilla usually shrank back from crowds, but not here. She let out endless gasps of awe at the sparkling mana stones and parchment scrolls etched with intricate runes on the display stands.
“Big brother… look at that one. The light… it's changing colors…!”
“Yeah, that's neat. Want it?”
“Y-Yeah…! No, just looking….”
My dutiful little sister, her desire written plain on her face yet trying so hard to hold back.
I ruffled her hair and tossed two gold coins onto the display. The merchant bowed deeply and wrapped up the small, iridescent orb.
“I've got plenty of money—buy whatever you want.”
“…Okay.”
As we wandered the street stalls one by one, piling Raysilla's arms with assorted minor magic tools like a horse let off its reins, Selina spoke up hesitantly from behind.
“K-Kail…”
“Hm?”
Selina, who had been quietly buying what she needed while trailing us, approached cautiously. In her hands was a thick leather pouch. Raysilla was fiddling curiously with an upper-grade mana recovery potion, and Selina was opening her pouch to pay the merchant—a desperate, shallow attempt to prove her worth and repay even a fraction of her debt to me.
I lightly tapped her wrist to stop her from opening it.
“No need to go that far.”
“…Huh?”
Startled by my sudden intervention, Selina looked up at me, flustered. Her silver cat ears twitched involuntarily, mirroring her emotions beyond her control.
Ignoring her gaze, I pulled out a gold coin and handed it to the merchant, adding indifferently,
“I've got enough saved from my hero days to buy a whole kingdom. Besides, that kind of behavior just makes things awkward.”
“Ah……”
Selina slowly lowered the pouch in her hand. Without another word, she stepped back a couple paces. I took the wrapped items from the shopkeeper and handed them to Raysilla. She was still happily glancing around, arms full.
“So much magic!! I could… research these artifacts…!”
“We'll try it when we get back to Tarnas.”
“Yeah!!”
We walked on for a good while longer when my eyes lingered on one corner of a sizable merchant caravan's display.
A few top-grade leather pouches, exquisitely embroidered with the Einiss royal crest in gold thread, were on offer. They looked like ordinary pouches at a glance, but the mana waves emanating from them marked them as premium sub-space pouches with vast compressed interiors.
I pondered briefly. ‘…Might come in handy for the journey ahead?’
We had the carriage for now, so luggage wasn't an issue, but the road to Dersian would be treacherous. And with the Demon King's fragment to deal with, who knew what variables might arise—better to have them.
More than that, though…
‘Everyone's struggling with their loads… I can buy them now and distribute to the villagers back in Tarnas.’
The rugged villagers who had sheltered me and Raysilla for two years. A sub-space pouch each would be invaluable for foraging in the harsh blizzards of Tarnas Ice Plains.
Decision made, I headed straight to the display.
“How much for the premium sub-space pouches?”
The caravan leader quoted an eye-watering hundred gold per pouch. Steep even for the capital, but I had no interest in haggling.
“I'll take all eight.”
“P-Pardon? All… eight of them?”
I handed over a certified check for eight hundred gold without batting an eye. Confirming I could pay, the leader bowed nearly double and carefully packed the pouches into a luxury case before handing it over.
I tucked them into my robes and turned to the group. From Selina and Raysilla's expressions, they seemed done shopping and browsing.
I gently tugged Raysilla's wrist and started walking.
“Think we've seen enough? Let's head out.”
“Ah… yeah.”
Raysilla gave the displays one last wistful glance but obediently stuck close to my side. Selina, shopping bags in tow, followed quietly behind.
As the sun dipped low over Edela's streets, we made our way toward the royal castle where Adelin Aynis awaited.
“Still no way, then?”
Even as her left arm—now all but useless from the advancing side effects of her Jewel Magic—hung limp, Adelin Aynis struggled to form a new gem and asked her maid. The maid accepted the gems naturally but replied with shadowed eyes.
“…I wanted to help, but the surveillance was too tight.”
“I wanted to go to the Jeres Kingdom one last time, see his face, and apologize… Is even the Creator God turning away from an irredeemable traitor like me…?”
Adelin, her voice thick with deep regret, her unfocused eyes hazy as she murmured at the ceiling—or rather, the heavens beyond. The maid watched her briefly, then bit her lip hard against her mounting guilt and left her side as if turning away.
Creeeak—thud.
With the door shut, perfect—and somewhat eerie—silence descended. Adelin Aynis, still meeting the gaze of the Creator God she felt watching from somewhere, blinked a few times before sinking into deep slumber.
….
Four years old. As she began to grasp the continent's tongue, the illegitimate child no one in the Einiss Magic Kingdom had anticipated—Aadelin Aynis—awakened the supreme talent.
Jewel Magic, a gift unseen in the continent's thousands of years of history. This magic transcended the principle of conventional spells, which merely condensed mana. It performed the miracle of perfectly crystallizing formless mana into the world's hardest, most immutable substance: gems.
Unlike ordinary elemental magic, where flames shot out only to flicker and die, a flame stone forged by Jewel Magic burned eternally as an igniter unless destroyed. An ice-binding stone froze the earth in absolute zero forever.
Mana persistence. Condensed power. Stable form.
Yes… Jewel Magic was an overwhelming superior compatibility that shattered every existing magic system entirely.
And the bearer of that talent was none other than the king's bastard, born of a one-night fling with a lowly maid—a fact that rocked the royal house to its core.
“From this day, I recognize Adelin Aynis as my blood heir.”
The Magic Kingdom's ruler chose not to reject her but to actively exploit her for the kingdom's gain and magic's advancement.
Seven years old. Adelin smashed her bullying half-brother's escort knights into the walls with a mere handful of ruby shards. Their armor melted like candle wax under the crimson gems' intense heat. After that day, even the red-faced princes and princesses dared not openly scorn her lowly blood.
The royal mages, instead, defended her and fawned all the more to study the miracles blooming from her tiny fingertips.
Twelve years old. To quell the massive beast horde threatening the border, young Adelin took the field. Dozens of senior mages had toiled nights away without breaching their lines. But Adelin unfurled a colossal emerald magic circle in the blink of an eye, unleashing tens of thousands of razor-sharp gem shards in a storm that turned the battlefield to a bloodbath in ten minutes flat.
Trembling before that overwhelming feat, the king named Adelin Aynis his sole successor.
Thirteen years old. Every mage in Einiss—from the anti-Adelin faction raging to the end—knelt at her feet. Her ascension to next Magic Queen was a foregone conclusion; the kingdom's power structure realigned entirely around her.
From discarded bastard to the continent's mightiest, greatest mage.
And the supreme leader to usher Einiss Magic Kingdom into its golden age.
Yes… She had thought that brilliant, perfect ascent would last forever.