The Bigger Picture (1)
In the eastern reaches of the continent lay Yeon, a vassal kingdom of the Empire ruled by a king all its own.
Through the dense forests of this land, where age-old traditions held fast, a massive monster was tearing a path of destruction.
"Grrrraaaargh!"
One look at its bloodshot eyes rolling wildly in every direction, at the rope of drool swinging from its jaws, was enough to tell that something was terribly wrong with it.
"Hold the line until the imperial reinforcements arrive, and victory is ours!"
"That thing doesn't even scratch to sword-qi! Don't let it get close to you!"
A line of warriors chased after the monster, their ornate robes billowing behind them. They were avoiding any direct engagement, steering its path instead to keep it away from the villages below.
"Grrk... sniff, sniff."
Then, catching the scent of something, the monster abruptly veered from its course.
"Blast it!"
Run another quarter-hour in that direction and it would reach a village of considerable size. The captain of the warriors, his face gone white as chalk, shouted in a rush.
"Deploy the Nine Dragons Cloud Formation at once! We cannot let it go that way!"
"Yes, sir!"
In an instant, sharp auras bloomed from the blades of the warriors surrounding the monster. It was the technique known in the land of Yeon as sword-qi.
The captain of the warriors, Jongcheon, swallowed hard.
Battle formations have been devised since antiquity to pit many warriors against a single foe too powerful for any one of them to face...
And yet why? As he stared at the house-sized monster before him, his heart kept threatening to buckle. A doubt took root—could a formation designed against men truly hold any worth against that?
His fear became reality almost at once.
"Grrraaaaargh!"
"Gahk!"
"Guhk...!"
The formation woven by nine first-rate masters collapsed in a single charge of the monster, as if it had been an illusion all along. It was the difference of overwhelming weight class—and of fundamental, innate nature.
The moment the captain's face was dyed with despair at the bare face of the wild's law—strong devouring weak—a voice cut through it all.
"Found it."
A small woman dropped from the sky, entirely at odds with the urgent tension of the forest. Whether or not she registered the crushing pressure radiating from a monster five times her size, she spoke with perfect calm.
"Even now, it isn't too late. Go back quietly to your own territory."
"Grrrraaargh!"
Roaring back as if in answer, the creature ripped an entire tree out by the roots and hurled itself at her. It moved with a swiftness that should have been impossible for a body that size.
"...If you refuse, then."
The woman murmured it simply, pushing her white hood back off her head.
"I'll have no choice but to return you to the earth."
A soft flutter.
A breeze rose from behind her, stirring through her red hair as it passed.
Innate spell—Surging Wind.
"Grraaaargh!"
The monster, an ogre, registered the oncoming wind but did not stop its charge. It had hide thick and tough enough that even keen blades failed to bite into it. Catching a bit of wind couldn't possibly wound it.
...Or so it believed.
"Grr... guh?"
It realized something had gone terribly wrong the moment its own left arm, meeting the wind, was sliced away like pudding.
Before the ogre could even register the sensation called pain, dozens of strands of wind swept past it. And where all that wind had passed, the only thing left behind was the scattered pieces of what had once composed an ogre.
"..."
"..."
The watching warriors swallowed their breath. Could this truly be called a fight?
They stood rooted, dazed by the overwhelming display of skill—until the woman turned her head.
"You would be Jongcheon?"
"M—my apologies for the late greeting. I am Jongcheon of the Nine Dragons Gate. Might you be from the White Magic Tower...?"
"Shasha Meist. Is that the last of the monsters that have intruded into Yeon?"
For all her youthful face, her tone was that of a office worker ground down by overtime and fatigue.
"Ah—yes! That's correct. Though how in the world did an imperial monster end up crossing the border? To my knowledge, that species never even leaves its own territory."
Jongcheon scratched his head in bafflement, glancing at the ogre's remains. Shasha fell into thought.
...These kinds of things keep happening lately.
For several months now, such inexplicable incidents had been springing up all across the continent. Even the imperial court was scrambling, unable to pinpoint the cause.
"I don't know either. Please deposit the fee to my account at the imperial bank."
"Of course. The transfer will go through by end of day."
Brushing the dust from her white robe, Shasha asked,
"And there was something else I requested from the Lord of the Nine Dragons Gate. Did you bring it?"
"Ah, yes! Right here."
Jongcheon hastily drew an envelope from his breast and presented it with both hands. Inside were the imperial newsletters she had gone without for the past two months.
"The Lord mentioned that the Empire has been abuzz day after day with articles about the White Tower lately."
"I'm sorry—what?"
At those words, Shasha's face darkened in an instant. Given the White Tower's current situation, news articles were more likely than not to be very bad news indeed.
She gazed at the tightly sealed envelope, her heart a tangle.
...I'm afraid to open it.
Worst-case scenarios flashed through her mind in a heartbeat. What if, during the two months she'd spent here, the White Tower had collapsed? What if it had been expelled from the Four Great Magic Towers, permanently?
If that's really what happened, I couldn't face Master even in death.
She swallowed hard, forced her dread down, tore open the envelope, and began to read.
A Spectacular, Unprecedented Windfall for the White Tower — The Cadena Flu Remedy Has Even Captivated the Imperial Court.
"?"
The moment she read the first line, question marks began popping up all over the top of her head.
...Is there, perhaps, a pharmaceutical company called the White Tower?
As if that were possible. As far as she knew, there was exactly one White Tower of Shilin on the entire continent.
Shasha blinked rapidly.
So you're telling me... OUR tower developed a remedy for the Cadena Flu?
Why? No—more to the point, who? And how?
Wearing a deeply perplexed expression, she read the articles closely.
...Ah. Oscar made it?
The boy who had once been hailed as a once-in-a-generation genius, setting the whole continent abuzz. The memory of the day he arrived at the White Tower after losing his family to an accident remained vivid even now.
A child whom the adults had burdened with their expectations against his will, treated one-sidedly as defective goods, and cast aside. And so, perhaps, she remembered the eyes that had lost their color—hollow and empty—despite his young age.
He's finally filled those eyes with color.
A warm smile bloomed at the corners of Shasha's mouth.
I always knew he'd manage it someday. He was always so terribly clever.
She rejoiced in his growth as if it were her own—but as she read on through the follow-up articles, her expression steadily hardened.
...Hm? He revived the fallen herb farming too? And even captured Gunslinger Jack in the process?
He succeeded in potion restoration, not just the remedy. But the Blue Tower will inevitably move to check him, so establishing a foothold will be a hard fight...
Wait—what on earth is a "supplement"? Th-ten million bottles sold in a single month!?
By the time she'd read through everything, she could no longer tell whether she was dreaming or awake. She had known of Oscar's genius from long ago—but honestly, she had never once imagined he'd go this far.
After a moment lost in thought, she turned back to Jongcheon.
"Excuse me."
"Speak freely."
"Is this... a work of fiction by any chance?"
"...I beg your pardon?"
"I'm asking whether these aren't just made-up stories someone wrote down to cheer people up."
Jongcheon shook his head firmly, as if to say the thought was absurd.
"Perish the thought. To my knowledge, these are a genuine collection of recent news from the Empire."
"Hmm."
She mulled over whether she could actually take these reports at face value. And she had reason to hesitate—the very article she was reading claimed that thanks to a spillover effect from the door-to-door sales venture, the delivery business was being reassessed for its usefulness and now sailing smoothly along.
...Why on earth is this business doing so well?
True, she had been the one to start it, but she had never harbored any optimistic belief that the delivery business would succeed.
No—to put it more precisely, she had never intended for it to succeed at this point in time. Within the larger picture painted by the artist named Shasha Meist, the delivery business had a purpose entirely its own.
What in the world is happening at the White Tower right now?
Unable to contain her curiosity any longer, she hurriedly made ready to leave. She wanted to see with her own two eyes exactly what kind of magic that eccentric genius, Oscar Crucian, had wrought.
"I believe it now. You truly are a mage."
At Lena White's words, Oscar's face twisted with displeasure.
"...You come all the way here just to say that?"
"Because this whole situation feels like actual magic to me. How does one interview shake a colossal ship like the Blue Tower? Honestly, I still can hardly believe it."
And it was just as she said—with a single interview, Oscar had backed the Blue Tower into a corner.
Even better, he hadn't built a single ounce of ill will in the process—no belittling his rivals, no cheap showboating. Instead, he'd lifted his opponents up and spoken of them with respect, walking away with the image of a humble newcomer to boot. It was, in every sense, a textbook perfect victory.
"Thanks to you, sales of the recovery potions have opened up as well."
"Good to hear. How are people responding?"
"Inquiries have been pouring in from their cities already, asking when sales will start there. It seems the promise to sell potions at discounted prices for life really struck a chord."
"Just as expected."
Sell potions made from quality ingredients with superior effects, and cheaply besides? There was no reason under heaven for people to keep their wallets shut.
"Also, I quietly floated a supply contract for the potions to the military, but their response is still lukewarm."
"They're thinking, 'we've traded with the Blue Tower without any trouble this long—why bother changing?' aren't they."
Oscar thought for a moment, then spoke.
"Leave the military alone for the time being. There's no need to provoke the Blue Tower any further than we already have."
Even a cornered rat will bite the cat. And this particular cat was a tiger. Pushed any further, there was no telling what madness it might commit.
"And from now on, unless something serious comes up, don't come looking for me. Why do you keep reporting to me of all people?"
"..."
Because you're the head of the potion manufacturing department, that's why...
Struck speechless, Lena asked instead,
"Then what about the performance reports?"
"Once a month will do."
It was a bold call to make, but the potion department had nothing ahead of it but steady growth. And Lena White was a capable enough talent to handle any ordinary problem on her own. He couldn't afford to keep his eyes on the potion department forever.
"So you hand all the work off to me, and go off playing for the foreseeable future?"
"Playing? I happen to be quite busy. I intend to go deeper into theoretical magic."
With the tower's coffers filled, the urgent fire was out. Now came the time to shore up the foundations.
First, I should write the reference books this White Tower doesn't have.
A magic reference compendium packed with every tip and trick imaginable—just the thing for a White Tower mage to read. Among its contents, naturally, would be things like the Oscar Method.
Writing the books themselves isn't all that hard.
All he had to do was transfer the knowledge in his head onto the page. The real question was how to release it.
...Even if little Oscar was a genius, suddenly publishing theories of that caliber feels a bit off, doesn't it?
Turning one possible approach over after another, Oscar heaved a long sigh.
Ugh, isn't there some suitable human being out there somewhere?
He meant a mage with a decent measure of experience, holding both position and reputation, and thoroughly versed in theoretical magic.
At the very moment he was rubbing his chin, sunk deep in thought—
"...Phewww. I hardly remember the last time I saw sunlight."
The third elder of the White Tower.
Schwein Koch emerged from his laboratory, emerging from months of seclusion.