The Mage Hunter (2)
A phone call?
Oscar asked with his mouth alone.
Who is it?
"He says it's Elder Maxim, from the White Tower," the attendant whispered.
Maxim, that guy?
The attendant held out the receiver of the communication device, and Oscar took it and stared at it blankly.
He'd seen Archbishop Baldwin use one before, but this was his first time handling one himself.
"So I just hold it up next to my face and talk? Ah—ah—can you hear me?"
"Um, Lord Oscar? You're supposed to hold it the other way around."
"Ah, so the ear goes on this side."
But the moment he raised the receiver the right way up, a dizzying torrent of nagging came pouring through it.
—Oscar! What in the world kind of dangerous business do you get up to out there? The newspapers are nothing but your name from front to back—
I should've just kept holding it upside down.
Five minutes of listening to his senior scold him while wearing the expression of a man chewing dung.
Maxim finally seemed to calm himself, and a thread of genuine worry crept into his voice.
—So? How's the body holding up?
"Generally fine. Though my ears are burning a little."
—Judging by that cheeky tongue, your mouth is in perfect working order.
"So is the rest of me. But why the sudden call?"
—Because I got to worrying about your trip back. I told Kilian to send you home in the first place because of those criminals prowling the northern territories who target only mages—the so-called 'Mage Hunters.' The last thing you need is to run into the likes of them while you're still recovering.
"……Mage Hunters?"
The information was unfamiliar. Oscar shifted the receiver to his other ear and asked again.
"Are they strong?"
—Over ten victims already, from what I hear. Some of them were 5th-level mages, so we have to assume they're at least that capable.
"……Any victims from our Tower?"
—Thankfully, none yet. But mages from the Four Great Towers—the Red Tower, the Yellow Tower—have fallen to them recently, so we can't sit easy just because they haven't touched us.
It was more troubling news than Oscar had expected. Not for himself, of course, but for the other mages.
The northern continent has been White Tower territory since time immemorial, after all.
Though their numbers had dwindled badly, the White Tower still boasted more mages in the north than anywhere else—and Shilin sat right in the heart of it.
"Thank you for worrying about me. I'll be careful."
—Good. They say the hunters prey only on mages traveling alone, so you move with Kilian at all times. Understood?
When the call ended and Oscar stepped out into the corridor, Kilian, who had been leaning against the wall, looked up.
"Sounded like you were on a call. Elder Maxim?"
"Yeah. He says to watch out—apparently there's a 'Mage Hunter' or something roaming around."
"What a ridiculous pack of bastards."
Kilian clicked his tongue and pushed off the wall.
"So we just head back to the White Tower, then?"
"Before that."
Whip, whoosh.
Oscar waved a thick envelope of money, and every time he did, it whistled through the air like a club being swung.
Inside was the staggering sum of 1.85 million Bel—including the contract payment Klein had returned to him.
"Come shopping with me."
If a city of drink and gambling had one indispensable pleasure beyond the tables, it was shopping.
Proof enough of that: the largest auction house in the world ran its grand sales every single week in Baran City.
Its clientele were mostly magnates and magnificos, so what went under the hammer was always expensive—and always certified for quality.
Unfortunately, the place Oscar intended to visit was not the auction house.
"……Isn't the money problem already solved?"
Kilian said, eyeing a casino whose opulence had been dialed up to its absolute limit.
By nightfall, magical lamps blazed across the building's outer walls, illuminating the whole district. Glowing like a night of festival, the structure was impossible to miss even from a distance.
"Yeah, it's solved."
"Then why have we come to a casino? Gambling is bad."
"Relax. I didn't come here to gamble."
Oscar smiled faintly and approached the entrance, where a dragon carved from gold was set into the wall, with doormen in black suits standing beneath it.
Passing them and stepping inside, they found the two great industries that split this city in half laid out before them.
"Damn it, it's about time I hit a jackpot……"
"Raise."
"Tch, I fold. What a godawful hand."
At the center of the casino stood rows upon rows of slot machines and card tables.
Each machine flaunted its own theme and color scheme, their endlessly spinning reels and clattering noise luring in a fresh stream of customers.
The card tables were draped in luxurious green felt, and dealers in crisp attire worked the guests with practiced hands.
"This way."
Oscar led Kilian toward the cage where the casino exchanged its chips.
The employee who greeted the two of them beamed.
"Hello, and how may I help you today?"
"I'd like to buy some chips. The darkest, dullest color you have."
At those words, something flickered behind the employee's eyes. He produced two murky black chips.
"That will be 20,000 Bel."
Oscar paid, took the chips, and Kilian's brow furrowed.
"You said you weren't gambling. Then why buy chips?"
"These aren't for the games. Think of them as a kind of admission ticket."
"Admission ticket?"
"Explaining is a hassle. Just follow me."
Oscar headed for the emergency stairs and simply began descending, floor after floor.
The building ended at basement level nine, where a burly guard sat on a chair in front of a door.
Judging by the mana he could feel, around 3rd level.
At the arrival of new guests, the guard rose from his seat, wariness plain on his face.
"Two people."
Oscar held out the two murky black chips. The guard examined them, then took out a key and unlocked the door.
The moment they passed through it, a space utterly unlike anything upstairs unfolded before them.
Kilian's sharp eyes went round.
"Oscar, this place……?"
"The black market."
A vast underground cavern, swept by a cool draft.
Stone buildings hewn from rock stood scattered here and there, and the soaring ceiling was densely studded with self-luminous ore crystals that glittered like a field of stars.
"I have never seen such an astonishing place. How in the world did they carve a space like this beneath a city?"
"Dwarven engineering."
Oscar shrugged and kept walking.
"Done sightseeing? Then let's move. Lingering here won't do us any favors."
"Hm? What do you mean—"
At Oscar's words, Kilian glanced around—and frowned.
Gazes were fixed on them from every direction. And not the furtive, sidelong kind, either. People were staring at them outright, bold as brass.
"Unpleasant eyes. Why are they all staring at us like that?"
"Kilian, do you know why the imperial family, holders of absolute power, tacitly acknowledges the black market's existence?"
Shake, shake.
The man shook his head.
"No idea."
"Think of this place as a trash bin."
The bigger and finer the house, the harder it is to clean when garbage is scattered through every corner of it.
So the Empire had decided to simply gather its trash in one place instead.
"Of course, the trash can't be allowed to overflow, so the imperial family manages it too—loosely. In fact, the black market's lords report everything that happens in their territories to the palace."
"……Complicated talk."
"Simply put: our interests align. Even the Empire can't catch or kill every criminal in existence."
Besides, back criminals into a corner with no choices left, and who knew what kind of madness they'd unleash in the cities above ground?
In a word, this was a space where moderately criminal men were tolerated to come and go.
"……Then the stares I found so unpleasant were, in truth, meant unpleasantly after all."
"That'd be the guess. Things like, does that bastard have money? Could I take him in a fight? That sort of thing. But don't fret over it too much. Criminals who cause trouble even down here have nowhere left to run, so they won't make a move easily."
"Hm."
Hearing this, Kilian seemed to arrive at some decision—and roared at the top of his lungs.
"I am Kilian Lockwood, proud warrior of the forest! Let one more bastard lay an unpleasant eye upon us, and I will pluck that eyeball from its socket!"
"……Wow."
That's a forest warrior for you. Unpredictable. Always something new.
Astonishingly, though, the brutish method worked rather well.
Guilty-feeling criminals coughed awkwardly and turned their heads away.
The stares didn't vanish entirely, but at least now they pretended to glance instead of gawking. That was probably the power the epithet 'White Tower's Rising Star' carried.
"Nicely done. Let's move before it gets tiresome."
Leading Kilian into the market proper, Oscar swept his gaze over the vendors' stalls as they walked.
Herbs, elixirs, materials, weapons, bookstalls……
Stalls selling every manner of good lined the cavern, but he checked only one thing: quality.
Most of it's stolen goods, and it shows. The condition is poor.
Wares sold in the black market were usually robbed, pilfered, or looted from someone.
Naturally, they couldn't compare to auction goods kept in immaculate care.
"Oscar. Is there a reason you've come all this way to buy from the black market?"
"There is. The prices are cheap for the value."
Merchants, for their part, had no incentive to hold on to stolen goods for long—if the original owner ever turned up, it was the perfect recipe for trouble.
"I see. Do you have a particular item in mind?"
"Equipment useful for combat."
He'd already decided, deep down, that securing immediate fighting power mattered more than buying herbs.
With Trinity lost, the simple truth was that his combat capability had fallen from before.
But I can't just grab any old thing.
What he sought was equipment worthy of the word masterpiece.
Some liked to say that a true craftsman never blames his tools—but that was the talk of people who understood nothing at all.
Craftsmen are the ones who cherish good tools most of all.
A tool hailed as a masterpiece draws out its wielder's abilities beyond their very limits.
If that weren't true, the word masterpiece would never have been coined in the first place.
"Hm?"
Just then, Oscar's steps halted in front of a shabby little shop.
His gaze locked onto a bracelet displayed on a stall so crooked it wouldn't have passed a level check.
An ordinary-looking thing, radiating no mana whatsoever—the sort of bracelet you could find anywhere.
And that was precisely why it stood out among all the other magic tools.
"Ho ho. The young one has a discerning eye."
A middle-aged man, arms crossed where he sat, launched into his pitch.
"It may not look like much, but this is an artifact recovered from an ancient dungeon. It's so finicky to handle that it's never sold—but by sheer value, it's the finest thing I carry."
"……An artifact, you say?"
Ninety-nine point nine nine percent of goods sold with that word attached were scams.
Even Trinity, which Oscar had put to good use himself, was merely a modified weapon—nothing at all compared to the true artifacts unearthed from dungeons.
And yet something rose from this bracelet. A feeling. A fated pull, you could call it.
"What spells are engraved on it?"
"As far as I know, three: Size Adjustment, Durability Reinforcement, and Avatar Summoning."
The composition wasn't bad at all.
Avatar Summoning in particular was intermediate illusion magic—one could call it the very emblem of the Purple Tower.
But an artifact, for magic on that modest a level?
Oscar tilted his head and asked.
"Mind if I try it once?"
"Ahem. Artifacts are more delicate than you'd think, you know. Handle them carelessly and they could break, and then……"
Oscar drew 10,000 Bel from his envelope and held it out.
"This should more than cover the cost of a single use."
"……Once. Exactly once. If it breaks, you buy it—that goes without saying."
Oscar nodded at the merchant's stern warning and fastened the bracelet around his left wrist.
It had looked a touch too large, but it shrank to fit his wrist perfectly, and a smile slipped out of him unbidden.
Then, the moment he pushed mana into it without thinking, a full 30 percent of his total mana was sucked away in one gulp.
What the—this is insane.
This much mana just to make one avatar?
And his mana capacity could stand toe-to-toe with any average 5th-level mage.
Ordinarily he'd have recoiled from such a monstrous drain and flung the bracelet off—but the result was far too satisfying for that.
"Whoa!"
Even the merchant watching nearby gasped aloud.
Small wonder: a second person, identical to the customer in every detail, had appeared right before his eyes.
At the same instant, Oscar's eyes deepened.
This is supposed to be Avatar Summoning? No chance.
He wouldn't claim to be a master of illusion magic, but he trusted his eyes.
And seen through those eyes, this spell was absolutely not some mere Avatar Summoning.
It's something far greater. It might even be a high-tier spell of the Purple Tower.
But the merchant knew nothing of that, and examined the phantom with a face full of admiration.
"Plenty of mages have tried this thing over the years, but you're the first to produce such a precise copy. Every last one of them summoned a human that looked like a lump of kneaded clay."
"Looks like the bracelet finally found a proper owner."
At that, the merchant's eyes narrowed to slits.
"We'll see. That depends entirely on how much money you're carrying."
He's not biting.
Swoosh—and just then, the avatar dissolved like smoke.
Seeing it, Oscar fired back like lightning.
"Ah, but the duration is terribly short, isn't it?"
"Short or not, it remains a tremendous artifact. I'll make it special—2.5 million Bel, and it's yours."
"Hmm."
Whatever his deliberating pose suggested, he'd already decided to buy.
Just as the merchant said, this was an item that could save your life, depending on how you used it.
"Far too expensive. It's not as if anyone but me could even use it properly."
"That's no concern of mine. Even if I couldn't use the thing to save my life, I need only sell it to whichever fool pays well."
"And since no such customer ever appeared, it's gone unsold until now—hasn't it?"
Oscar asked in a deceptively gentle voice.
"Let's be honest with each other. How long has it been sitting unsold?"
"……Only half a year."
The flow of air around the man trembled, ever so slightly.
"That's a lie. Let's see…… it's been over a year, hasn't it? Hm? Even longer? Two years, then? Wait, don't tell me…… three years?"
At the word three years, the air around the merchant wavered in a shape it hadn't taken before.
Oscar muttered, as if in disbelief.
"No, hold on. You were trying to unload three years of dead stock—for 2.5 million Bel?"
"……It's still an artifact, isn't it?"
Oscar held out his money envelope to the sulking merchant.
"1.8 million Bel. Wait another three years, and I see no guarantee you'll find a customer willing to pay better than I am."
"Nnnggh, this is a piece worth every bit of 2.5 million, I tell you."
"Good luck with that. It's not as if you have a certificate proving it came from an ancient dungeon, is it?"
"Well, no, but……"
Wearing a look of deepest reluctance, the merchant eyed the fat money envelope—and snatched it in a flash.
"Damn it all, fine! Take it! Before I change my mind!"
"Thank you."
Oscar smiled sweetly.
If this bracelet had been a little more ornate, if its engraved spells had been revealed to surpass Avatar Summoning, and if it had come with ironclad proof of its ancient-dungeon origins, it would have traded for at least ten times the price at auction.
Well, it can't manage any of that, which is why it's been rolling around the black market in the first place.
Feeling thoroughly satisfied, Oscar turned around.
"Kilian, let's head back."
Kilian, who had apparently lost all interest in the place some time ago and had been yawning gap after gap, nodded.
They turned around and were retracing their steps exactly as they'd come—
"Hey. Hold it right there."
Two men unlike anyone they'd ever seen blocked their way.
The larger of the two looked them up and down with a contemptuous sneer.
"You two. Mages, aren't you?"
What kind of manners are those, exactly?
Oscar opened his mouth to retort—then caught sight of the badges pinned proudly to their chests like medals.
Golden badges, shaped like a bolt of lightning.
"……."
These bastards are Yellow Tower mages.