The Free City (1)
Winter came to Shilin, nestled in the northern reaches of the continent, earlier than anywhere else.
It was an afternoon in early November, and snowflakes had been pouring down since the moment the month began, spreading a blanket of white over the entire city.
Oscar sat on the sofa, taking in the beautiful scenery.
I won't need to worry about the potion business for a while.
The nutritional supplement had been a roaring success, and the potion business had settled into a stable rhythm ever since. Even better, Senior Lena was handling most of the day-to-day affairs on her own.
The treasury is comfortably full, too. Which means it's about time I started building up the White Tower's real strength.
Of course, his lecture series on Reinterpreting Basic Magic had already shored up the foundations of the junior mages. But that was only the foundation — the bare floor. The idea that the White Tower's mages would rise to any great height on that alone was absurd.
The real problem is the ceiling that's been blocked off. And that can only be solved by reclaiming our high-tier magic.
Truthfully, the lineage of high-tier magic should never have been broken in the first place. Before carrying out the Night of Purge, he had — as a way of securing the future — entrusted every last document in the White Tower to Edna Sol Laplace. To that dragon.
...But it seems something must have gone wrong.
He had asked her to hand over all the materials to whoever succeeded him as Tower Master of the White Tower. Yet twenty years had passed, and that promise had never been fulfilled.
She's not the type to betray me. Something must have happened that she couldn't help.
After a moment's deliberation, Oscar rose from his seat. If something really had happened to her, it would be right to go looking himself rather than wait around in ignorance.
First, I'll gather information.
And that information could be found in the White Tower's library. There was nothing that place didn't know.
The White Tower's library, preserving hundreds of years of history in its entirety, had once been packed to the rafters with ancient tomes of every description. Each and every one had been hailed as a masterpiece — historical treasures beyond any price.
"...That was certainly true back in the day, wasn't it?"
What filled the shelves now were little more than magic theory textbooks and dissertations one could pick up at any corner bookshop. The empty gaps seemed to embarrass the librarians so much that the odd picture book or trivia volume had been wedged in here and there. Honestly, it looked less like a legendary archive and more like an academy's elementary division library.
They say no flower stays red for ten days... but who knew that centuries spent filling this library could be wiped away in a single day?
He certainly hadn't imagined he would be the culprit, either. A cold sweat trickled down Oscar's spine.
If I hadn't listened to Maziro when he insisted we make copies of everything in the library, I'd be kicking myself right now.
Fortunately, every book and document that had once lived here had been duplicated and entrusted to Edna. Which meant that as long as he found her, all those picture books could be transformed back into masterpieces overnight.
Letting out a sigh of relief, Oscar approached the librarian.
"Excuse me — where might I find materials related to dragons?"
"Follow me."
The librarian led him with complete confidence — to a shelf crammed full of children's storybooks. Pulling one out, she recommended it with great enthusiasm.
The Brave Wizard and the Cowardly Lizards
"This one's genuinely good. It's about Oscar Sage and the dragons — based on a true story, and it's really moving."
"...Is there no actual material about dragons? Beyond fairy tales, I mean."
"Oh, nothing like that here. You'd have to go all the way to the Imperial Capital's library to find anything like that."
Taking the book in hand, Oscar read the title and burst out laughing. Cowardly lizards — well, those creatures certainly had no defense against such an accusation.
The Arbiter of Balance. The supreme race, born with the sacred duty of recording the history of the world.
Beings draped in every holy epithet imaginable — and the moment the Great Emperor appeared, they abandoned the world and fled.
"Ah, but I heard there was one dragon who stayed and fought alongside humans until the very end... what was her name again?"
"Edna Sol Laplace."
"Aah! Right, that was it, definitely. Though seeing as there's been no word from her since the war ended, I suppose she must have followed her kin when they departed."
Edna followed those bastards? Oscar would stake his life that the sky would split in two before that ever happened.
She was the one most bitterly disillusioned by her own kind — the ones who abandoned the world and ran.
Refusing to live as they had, she had remained in this world alone, fulfilling her duty as its final observer. Different in race she may have been, but she had been his comrade, and one of humanity's staunchest allies.
"......"
Oscar stared at the ugly dragons scrawled crookedly across the storybook's cover, and came to a conclusion: if he wanted to find her, he would have to try another way.
These days, the mood in the White Tower was better than it had ever been. Wasn't there a saying that if a problem couldn't be solved with money, it was simply because there wasn't enough of it? Nearly every issue that had once given them headaches had been resolved.
"...And with that, all activity stipends requested by our mages working out in the field have been disbursed in full."
"Truly moving. Not so long ago, all we heard was talk of tearing the tower apart and selling it for scrap."
Even the relationship between Fidelina and Maxim — who had spent years squabbling over scraps like starving dogs — had grown markedly more civil. People, after all, only got sharp-tongued when they were backed into a corner.
The Vice Tower Master, who had been sipping at his tea, spoke up.
"We should make sure we're well prepared, so that such a thing never happens again."
"Wise words, as ever."
"Now then, moving on to the next agenda item..."
As he skimmed through the meeting summary, the Vice Tower Master's eyes softened.
"How have our young ones been holding up lately?"
"...The recruitment offers from outside keep pouring in, but as always, they're holding fast to their loyalty."
"Whew."
The Vice Tower Master let out a long, heavy sigh. It felt as though a stone had been set down in some corner of his heart.
He wished he could repay their faith and their loyalty in kind — but circumstances were not so forgiving. As long as we cannot restore the lost high-tier magic, this situation will go on forever.
He felt too guilty to simply ask them to keep waiting on faith. Reconstructing centuries of magic accumulated by the White Tower's ancestors overnight was, realistically, impossible.
"...I should have trained harder as a youth, and committed more high-tier spells to memory."
Maxim voiced his deep regret, but it was easier said than done. From time immemorial, the Four Great Magic Towers had never taught a single mage more than a handful of high-tier spells.
Only the Tower Master may access every high-tier spell in the tower's archives. Barring extraordinary circumstances, a mage might learn two or three high-tier spells in an entire lifetime. Even the most gifted prodigy needed well over a decade to master a single high-tier spell down to its finest detail.
For that reason, the total number of high-tier spells the White Tower currently possessed in their complete form was a mere six — all of them spells that he himself and the elders had learned.
A shame. A mere twenty years ago, the White Tower held sixty-three high-tier spells.
And every one of them had been acclaimed as a secret art in its own right. That had been the fundamental reason the White Tower had once produced powerful mages without end.
"Hooo..."
The Vice Tower Master sighed once more, then spoke.
"Captain Chester still shows no intention of returning, I take it?"
"...No. Not yet, it seems."
At those words, Vice Tower Master Hamel swallowed his disappointment. Judged on pedigree and ability alone, Chester was a man who could have become the White Tower's fourth elder without raising an eyebrow.
If he came back, the number of high-tier spells we could teach would grow as well... but his mind is made up, and we can hardly force him.
Respecting the man's wishes, the Vice Tower Master turned to the next item.
"Apparently, murderers known as Mage Hunters have recently appeared in the northern territories. Until further notice, White Tower mages are forbidden to leave the grounds after ten o'clock at night. There's no such thing as being too careful."
"Oh, no..."
It was then that Maxim spoke up, his face a picture of dismay.
"First thing this morning, right at dawn, Oscar filed an exit permit and left the tower."
"What? Absolutely not. Tell him to come back at once."
"That's the thing... by now he'll be well beyond Shilin's borders."
The reason stated on his exit permit had been a visit to the Free City of Baran — a destination that took a full fourteen hours of travel even by carriage from here.
"Wait just a moment — Baran? Then surely..."
Recalling who was currently residing there, the Vice Tower Master said urgently:
"Contact the Baran branch immediately. The moment they spot Oscar, they're to send him straight home."
Pop-pop. Pop-pop.
"......"
The driver kept glancing at his rearview mirror, his eyes brimming with wariness. And no wonder — the fare he'd picked up in Shilin was, at a glance, not entirely sane.
"So soft and comfy."
Pop!
The man drummed his fingers on the seat, rolled the window up and down, stuck his hand out into the open air — he fidgeted with everything he could reach.
If he were some country bumpkin fresh off the farm, I'd understand him riding in a car for the first time... but Shilin is a major city — it led the continent's culture once, after all.
Moreover, the man had been picked up right at the White Tower's front gate. Almost certainly a mage, then.
They say plenty of mages go mad from burying themselves in research... But even setting those cases aside, mages who regarded human lives with the indifference of swatting flies were more common than one would like to think.
"Mister, what's this thing?"
The mage asked, gripping the handle mounted above the door — the one people grabbed when the car jolted.
"That's a grab handle, sir."
"What happens if I pull it?"
"It breaks..."
"Ah. I see."
He meekly released the handle, so perhaps he had a decent heart after all. Watching him quietly, the driver even had to admit the man was handsome. Almost like a young noble.
"S-so, what business brings you to Baran, if I may ask?"
"Looking for someone. There's something I need to collect from them."
Their life?
The driver asked with an awkward smile.
"Ha ha. I hope you collect it in full, then."
"Thank you. It shouldn't be too difficult — just a matter of spilling a little blood."
Their life it is, then...
The driver swallowed hard, and from that point on, he didn't open his mouth once until they arrived.
The Free City of Baran.
A cold concrete jungle where money and power were the whole of existence. Arriving there, Oscar was, in all honesty, impressed.
"Wow. Now that's flashy."
The sun was barely setting, and already brilliant colored lights were glittering from every corner of every building. Thirty years ago this had been wasteland, rumored to be getting its first grand casinos — who could have imagined it would flourish into something this dazzling?
Impressive is impressive. But I've got a job to do.
A mage who left his tower with grand ambitions ought to return having achieved them — that much was only proper.
Oscar drew a map from inside his coat and searched it.
The Blood Tower. The Blood Tower's branch... I head that way.
When it came to finding a person, nothing in the world beat the Blood Tower. The only shame was the price — a little blood.
He was just passing through a back alley as the last light was dying when—
"You there. Stop."
A man leaning idly against the alley wall lowered the long pipe clenched between his teeth as he spoke. Hooo. Beyond the exhaled haze of smoke, eyes glinting jewel-red fixed themselves on him.
"We've been waiting for you, Oscar Crucian."
"...For me?"
"Yes. Someone is looking for you."
Judging by the mana he could feel, the man was a mage. And the most likely suspect, needless to say, was the Blue Tower.
Well, they lost no small fortune to the supplement business. No doubt they've been waiting for a chance at revenge.
Still, he hadn't expected them to send someone the moment he'd left Shilin. Petty, wasn't it? Petty indeed.
Drawing his mana up, Oscar asked:
"And if I refuse?"
"...Then we'll simply have to drag you there by force."
Hooo.
The moment the man's thick cloud of smoke filled the alleyway once more, the two of them clashed.