Reunion (4)
Sasha had watched every moment of it unfold.
At some point, she had found herself inside the Space Rift alongside the three young children.
Truthfully, that was only to be expected.
She had no way of knowing exactly what was happening beyond that wall, after all.
"...Huaaang."
Then, young Shasha burst into tears.
Lloyd hurriedly set Gilli down on the floor and took hold of her shoulders.
"Shh. Vice Tower Master Marlon told us, remember? We absolutely must not make a sound."
"Sniff—b-but I'm scared. What am I supposed to do?"
"Then shall we play a fun little game?"
Lloyd forced a smile.
"From now on, you close your eyes and count to a thousand in your head. How's that?"
"...That's not fun at all. And I don't really feel like playing. Can't I just not?"
"No. You have to."
Shaking his head with firm resolve, he covered both of her ears with his hands.
"There. Begin."
"...One, two."
"Count in your head."
From that moment on, Shasha began counting silently.
One, two, three...
But through the gaps between Lloyd's fingers, every kind of sound began to seep in.
The chairs and tables of the great conference room beyond the wall shattering to pieces. The screams of demons tearing through the air.
The loathsome voices of demons demanding to know where the disciples were.
And then—Vice Tower Master Marlon's voice, laid-back and unruffled, answering that they had already been smuggled out to the Imperial Palace.
Eyes squeezed tightly shut, Shasha spoke through her tears.
"I-I forgot what number I was on..."
"Then start over from the beginning."
The two of them slowly drifted away from her.
Perhaps that was why her memories from afterward were never quite whole.
After all, she had fainted from fear before she could finish counting.
...
Shasha Meist had watched every moment of it.
It was a sight she saw every year, and yet every time, it stirred up a flood of emotions she could never quite contain.
Lloyd Schultz...
If she were pressed to judge, he had been a good senior brother.
Which was exactly why the sense of betrayal had cut so much deeper.
Most of the tower's elders had perished, and the only ones left for her to lean on were her two senior brothers.
But not long after this incident, he had abandoned the White Tower and walked away to the Red Tower.
Gilliot Dominic...
Her second senior brother, who had raged harder than anyone at that betrayal, had then turned around and stolen the recovered high-tier magic of the White Tower before fleeing as well.
Sasha slowly closed her eyes.
'In the end, there is no one in this world you can trust.'
The only thing worth trusting was yourself.
That was the single truth five-year-old Shasha had learned on her way to becoming twenty-five-year-old Shasha.
"...Ngh!"
Then, without warning, the world turned pitch black, and the true torment began.
It was a searing agony, as if something inside her were rending her body apart from the marrow outward.
Clutching herself with both arms, Sasha sank to her knees, tears streaming down her face.
It hurts...
It hurt. It hurt so much.
The fairy bloom she endured every year only grew more brutal with each passing year.
And every time it did, that emotion surged up inside her once more. Resentment.
Resentment toward the parents who had abandoned her. And toward—
Oscar Sage.
Resentment toward her old master, who had once suppressed this suffering in her parents' stead.
The pain swelled far beyond anything she had ever endured before.
Oh.
Maybe she was going to die today.
The thought flickered through her mind just as her vision began to dim—
...Huh?
Like a lie, the pain subsided.
As though something cool had been poured over her entire body, the burning heat faded and the agony settled into stillness.
At the same moment, Sasha surfaced from her hallucination and gazed blearily up at the ceiling.
My room.
The Tower Master's chamber she loved and resented in equal measure.
Only after coming to her senses there did she belatedly realize that someone's hand was resting on her forehead.
Who on earth—?
She turned her head, squinting up at the figure through blurred vision.
But his face was drowned in the harsh backlight pouring down from the ceiling, unreadable.
Only one thing reached her.
So warm...
His mana was unbearably gentle and warm.
It felt as though that mana were cradling every single cell of her body.
And in the same breath, she arrived at one conclusion.
...It seems I'm still hallucinating.
The reason was simple.
She knew this mana far, far too well.
Why did it have to be now, of all times.
The mana of the one she had hated without end, and missed to the point of madness.
Sasha slowly reached her hand toward the figure radiating mana identical to her master's.
But her fingers never quite reached his face; they fell limply to the side before they could.
...
Watching her breathe slow, even breaths as she slipped into sleep, Oscar wore a smile tinged with self-mockery.
There was no more fever left in her body.
The fairy bloom of her twenty-fifth year was fully over.
As he rose slowly from his seat, Vice Tower Master Hamel spoke.
"You've worked hard, Oscar. Two full days devoted to nothing but her treatment..."
"...It was something that had to be done. Something only I could do."
Two days without sleep, without a single meal, devoted entirely to the treatment—yet he felt no fatigue.
If anything, there was a strange sense of release in his voice.
The Vice Tower Master glanced at the wall clock and asked,
"If you don't want to be late for your appointment with the Red Tower, you'd need to leave right now. Will you manage?"
"Yes. I'll manage."
Oscar looked down at Sasha, sleeping with the most peaceful face in the world, and nodded slowly.
"I'll be off, then."
* * *
It seemed Vice Tower Master Hamel had arranged a driver at some point during the treatment.
Thanks to that, Oscar rode in comfort in his own car as it carried him toward the battlefield.
...
With his head resting against the window, he replayed the scenes he had witnessed while treating Sasha.
The sky dyed crimson. People trembling in terror. Screams rising from every direction. Even the demons' assault.
It had exceeded what he'd expected in every way—and fallen short in none.
Vice Tower Master Marlon...
Recalling his final moments, Oscar squeezed his eyes shut.
Marlon Grimoire. The man had been his most devoted supporter.
Had he not stayed at Oscar's side, teaching him this and that, he never would have managed the role of Tower Master at all.
Maybe it's his face. Seeing it today has me missing him.
If there had been some memorial place for them, he would have gone straight there and shared a drink in their honor.
But the White Tower had no culture of mourning the mages who departed.
Those who wielded the wind came like the wind, and left like the wind.
Once I find some spare time, I should visit the families of my old comrades. Pay my respects, one by one.
It struck him anew that ever since vowing to revive the fallen White Tower, he had done nothing but run forward with his eyes locked ahead.
With his eyes closed, Oscar turned his thoughts to the man he was about to meet. Lloyd.
...He'll have changed a great deal, won't he?
Even Shasha, whom he'd assumed would never change, had changed beyond recognition.
The child who had once approached anyone without a hint of wariness now trusted no one at all.
Which made him all the more afraid to learn how Lloyd might have changed.
Because that one... he was like that even back then.
He had never been one to trust people easily.
The only people he'd cherished were his master—Oscar himself—and his younger siblings.
Even Vice Tower Master Marlon found Lloyd the hardest to handle.
In Marlon's own words, there was something about the boy that left a bad aftertaste—like a child, somehow.
As Oscar pictured the first disciple he would soon be meeting, his eyelids drooped halfway shut.
* * *
Zakamunt.
The word encompassed the entire vast desert region in the west of the continent.
Even the dreaded demons had never once attempted to cross this parched land of death.
No—strictly speaking, they had tried.
And every last one of them had died.
One reason was that the desert's brutal environment had proven too much for them.
The other was that beings already ruling that desert existed.
Orcs.
Despite possessing intelligence, they were classified not as a foreign race like elves or dwarves, but as monsters.
The reason was simple: they ate humans.
And not just humans—they devour anything that isn't their own kind.
No, those savage brutes would sometimes eat even fellow orcs.
And yet for all that, their intelligence was high enough that they had built a civilization entirely their own.
Thick gray hide that withstands the desert's blazing sun and sandstorms, absurd fertility, and barely a few years to reach full maturity...
From the Empire's perspective, they were nothing short of a curse on two legs.
If dialogue had been possible with them, humans and orcs might have made for a decent alliance.
We'd provide the food, and they'd need only hold back the demons.
In fact, an emperor had once attempted exactly that kind of negotiation.
But every attempt had ended in failure.
The reason: the amount of food they demanded was utterly abnormal.
And that is something you must never, ever provide.
If given the quantity they asked for, the orc population could triple that of humans within ten years.
Naturally, no fool short-sighted enough to permit that could ever become emperor in the first place.
Even an idiot could guess where the spears of orcs swollen to such a size would eventually point.
Which is why the continent's largest front line stretches across the west to hold them back.
The fabled Grand Line—that was the front in question.
Entry by civilians was strictly forbidden, and it was a military zone under the Empire's total control.
The place Oscar was visiting this time was the very tip of that front: the Red Citadel.
The final line of defense dividing the forces of man and orc—stained red with blood and desert sand.
"Halt."
The man who brought Oscar's vehicle to a stop before the barricade wore the uniform of the Imperial Household's military.
As the driver rolled down the window, the soldier demanded with overbearing authority,
"State the purpose of your visit."
"Ah, I'm merely the driver escorting a mage of the White Tower, sir."
"A White Tower mage?"
The soldier shot a glance at the back seat, then cautiously circled around and knocked on the rear window.
"Forgive me, but there will be a brief identity check."
The soldier confirmed the face of the man who lowered the window and accepted his identification.
Huh? He's awfully young, isn't he?
A fresh face barely past twenty, by the look of it.
And his skin was so pale it clashed even more with this barren posting.
He looked like some noble who ought to be flitting between lavish parties in the capital.
Why would a White Tower scholar come to a hellhole like this...?
The soldier checked the identification with practiced indifference—and then his eyes went round as saucers.
"P-Professor of the White Tower...?"
"Is that sufficient verification?"
"Ah—y-yes, more than sufficient."
Hastily returning the identification, the soldier swallowed hard and asked,
"If I may—might I ask what brings you to this place?"
"I was invited. By the commander here."
"The commander... d-don't tell me you mean Commander Lloyd Schultz?"
"If you mean the Mage of Ashes, then yes."
And not just any guest—a guest of the commander himself.
The soldier bowed at a full ninety degrees.
"P-please proceed! Head straight ahead and you'll reach the citadel."
"Keep up the good work."
The window rolled back up, and the car kicked up a plume of sand as it vanished down the road.