Chapter 99

Even when fighting Nodon, Kengo and I had copied small magic circles written in the holy text together.

However, what I spread out before them was on a different level.

It was a gigantic magic circle embodying divine order, displayed above the altar.

It was the key to unraveling the secrets of the world, where some kind of law should exist.

For them, starved as they were for intellectual challenges, there could be no better subject.

“There should be hidden laws within magic circles. I want all of you to find them—”

It happened immediately after I spread the magic circle across the table as if presenting a challenge.

“No way!”

The first one to raise his voice was Falone, who opened his eyes wide and looked around.

Alan looked blank, but Luano and Zezel had clearly shrunk back.

The reason I could not continue speaking was because their reactions were more intense than I had expected.

Alan, who had been born on the island and was a bricklayer, did not seem to understand, but the three who knew the outside world were different.

Gerario’s concerns had not been exaggerated.

“…Is that an order as lord?”

Luano said it with a pained expression, somehow as if he had already resigned himself.

Beside him, Falone had gone pale and was biting four fingernails at once.

Should I have taken Gerario’s concerns more seriously and made preparations beforehand?

I regretted that, but the die had already been cast.

I had no choice but to push forward.

“I-It is not compulsory. However…”

I took a deep breath and rephrased it.

“However, Jirenu’s fate depends on this.”

The four of them were no longer exchanging glances.

Each of them was searching for the meaning of my words through their own life experience.

The one who broke the silence was Falone, leaning forward.

“Yorinobu-dono! I have heard that you returned from the mine and won the lord’s favor through strange achievements. I shall say nothing about your abilities. When rulers change, there is always that sort of minister at their side. I was also impressed by the story of the magic stone workshop. But this… the matter of magic circles themselves is different in nature.”

Falone looked like some kind of vampire and spoke grandly with his chest puffed out, but he may have suffered terribly outside the island.

That was why he knew.

Things related to magic were not to be touched lightly.

“Is the reason that priest bastard hasn’t shown up at the gambling den lately because of this? Because you…?”

“Huh?”

I asked back, not understanding Luano’s question.

After facing Luano’s withdrawn expression for a while, I finally realized what he meant.

“N-No! The priest, well… during the commotion that caused the war with Roran, he was separated from us, and only we escaped back on a different ship. He is alive and well in Roran.”

Probably.

He was still someone connected to Jirenu Territory, but the church organization was surely protecting him.

So I absolutely had not thrown him into the sea because he would get in the way of analyzing large-scale magic circles.

Leaving Alan aside, their reactions were so intense that I decided to speak plainly.

“The Empire’s Ministry of Magic and, of course, the church’s Ministry of Orthodoxy and Heresy have nothing to do with this. To begin with, we rose up in order to seize our own fate with our own hands. You should all know the situation Iiria-san… no, Iiria-sama was in before.”

Alan, who had been born on the island, seemed to know especially well how people had treated Iiria, and awkwardly looked away.

“However, the surrounding environment will not easily allow us to hold our own fate in our hands. In that situation, the source of our strength will be this.”

Those who deliberately came to a frontier land like Jirenu Territory were all people who, for one reason or another, could no longer remain elsewhere.

That was why, even with the war against a powerful force like Roran before them, they did not try to leave this place. Even if they left, there was simply nowhere for them to go afterward.

Moreover, once they fled, they would be branded traitors and would not be able to return so easily.

This island, with its lax, child’s-play-like atmosphere, was that precious of a place.

I wanted them to lend me their strength to protect that place.

It was then, as I looked around at them while they shrank back.

“I want to ask one thing.”

Unexpectedly, the one who opened his mouth was Zezel.

“Is there a way to test that?”

Zezel’s thick finger pointed at the copy of the large-scale magic circle in my hand.

“I know at least the size of magic stones. Does a magic stone large enough to engrave such a magic circle not exist only in legends?”

Luano and Falone also looked startled, but only Alan was moving invisible bricks in his hands, perhaps calculating how much magic stone would be needed to draw the magic circle.

“I cannot reveal it, but there is a way to confirm it.”

The three aside from Alan clearly caught their breath.

Ordinarily, that would mean that an absurdly enormous magic stone had been mined from the mine under Iiria’s control. Otherwise, it meant that we had found a master artisan capable of engraving incredibly minute magic circles into magic stones.

In any case, as they fell silent, I spoke to them.

“Please think about it. For people of your status to be able to openly research grand magic circles, this is the only place in the whole wide world where that is possible.”

My way of thinking was the same as Iiria’s.

If we lost to Roran, there would be nothing afterward, and that would remain true even after defeating Roran.

If we repelled Roran, Jirenu Territory’s name would inevitably spread throughout the world. The aftershocks would create new problems, and the fighting would surely continue until we found a place where our existence could settle.

And until we found that point of balance, we had to keep winning no matter what.

Nodon’s lonely back as he left the harbor was still probably one of the better fates for a defeated general.

I had been taught that, in this world, it was normal to be thrown naked into prison, for the lord to be confined in a tower as a tool for political marriage, and for her attendant to be sold to a brothel.

If we lost to some faction, it would be game over there, and we probably would never be able to recover.

Then before that happened, we had to do everything we could.

“If I help with that research… will my safety be—no.”

The one who muttered that was Luano, and after immediately cutting off his own words, he looked at me.

“No matter how many guarantees I hear, they’re meaningless. I’ve already entered the gambling den and casually sat down at the table. No matter what kind of cheating is involved there, the game has already begun.”

They were quick-witted.

They understood that when researching magic circles, the threats to their safety were not limited to the Empire’s Ministry of Magic or the church’s Ministry of Orthodoxy and Heresy.

Just as I was worried about Luano and the others fleeing, they also had reason to fear that after they unraveled the secret, they might be silenced.

Even at this point, no matter how much I said I had no intention of forcing them to research, from Luano and the others’ perspective, they could not trust me. If they refused to participate and stepped outside through the exit, a baptism of blades might be waiting to silence them.

Most of all, this was an island with nowhere to run, and we had a magician on our side.

“Besides, I’ve got nowhere else to go anymore. Fine, I’ll do it.”

Luano said that and walked up to me.

Then, as if snatching it from my hand, he took the copy of the magic circle and began grinning while stroking his goatee.

There could be no greater mystery to solve.

Just as I felt reassured by that expression, someone tugged on my sleeve.

“…Will you provide the tools necessary for the research?”

It was Falone.

“I… have already piled up quite a lot of debt…”

According to Marks, he was apparently scraping by with suspicious fortune-telling and medical practices that resembled charms.

Gorgon, who treated beastfolk and poor people with his abundant knowledge of medicinal herbs, had reportedly made an annoyed face when he heard Falone’s name.

“Of course. How much do you think we can earn if we unravel the secrets of magic circles? This is a magic stone production site.”

Falone’s eyes flew open, and he pinched the hem of his robe with his hands, lifted it, took a huge bounding step, and leapt at Luano.

“Hey, Luano! Let me see it too! You do not even properly know how to read magic circles!”

Then he started fighting with Luano over the copy.

I turned my gaze from those two to the remaining two.

When Alan’s eyes met mine, he glanced around, then smiled bashfully, hunched his back, passed by my side, and joined Luano and the others.

The only one left was Zezel.

“…”

I understood that Zezel was in a complicated position.

Magic circles were, to beastfolk like him, even a curse.

If it became known that he was involved in magic circle research, then he, who was apparently already seen as an oddball, might finally feel even more out of place in beastfolk society.

However, I had a secret weapon to persuade Zezel.

I approached Zezel, who was looking down, and beckoned for him to lend me his ear.

Zezel, who looked capable of turning a frail human into minced meat with one swing of his arm, rounded his back and lowered his head, looking even more timid than Alan.

“You must know that Kururu-san is a magician, right?”

A girl with beastfolk blood did not necessarily have to side with beastfolk, but for now, if he looked at Iiria’s policies, he should understand that she and the others were on the beastfolk’s side.

Dodol cooperated with us because there was that assurance.

I thought that if I reminded him of that, Zezel might feel relieved… but Zezel stared at me with his mouth half open.

“Th.”

“Th?”

“That… is that true?”

He did not seem to be joking, but then I suddenly realized.

Even though he wrote such beautiful letters and composed such logically ordered writing, Zezel lived modestly as a small-time fisherman.

Without showing off that intellect, he apparently spent endless time at home tying and untying ropes.

Because his physique far surpassed Kengo’s, it was hard to imagine, but in short, perhaps Zezel was an introvert.

So much so that he did not go drinking with the beastfolk who loved alcohol, and he did not even know sensational stories that any beastfolk would know among their own circles.

“I think you will understand immediately once the battle begins. She is disguised, for the time being.”

A beastman could identify someone by smell.

Zezel was taken aback, but I could almost see the wiring inside his head being rearranged.

His half-open mouth closed.

He inhaled so deeply that his back swelled.

“…I also want to know that.”

Then came those small words.

The beastfolk were already in a difficult position, and they had swallowed many words.

I did not know how much courage that single statement from Zezel had required.

I did not know, but I had sufficiently felt a glimpse of Zezel’s talent.

“Please lend us your strength.”

When I held out my hand, Zezel blinked repeatedly again.

And when he looked at my hand, what seemed like a smile was probably because of how small my hand was.

“You are a strange person.”

Zezel gently grasped my hand.

His fur prickled, but his paw pad was soft.

“People do sometimes tell me they can’t understand what I’m thinking.”

Zezel smiled clearly and turned his gaze toward Luano and the others.

And Luano and Falone had probably sensed the flow of events somehow. They were beckoning him as if telling him to hurry over.

“I hope I can be useful.”

Zezel said that and walked heavily away.

He joined Luano and the others’ circle, and lively discussion immediately bloomed.

As I watched their noisy scene from a little distance, I suddenly felt like I might cry.

Perhaps it was because I had seen an illusion of the lively game development club I had dreamed of during university.

However, even if that was a dream that had slipped from my hands back then, the current me had Iiria, Kururu, and the others.

And in the current Jirenu, small happiness like this must surely exist here and there.

I had gained one more reason to protect Jirenu.

Besides, the current me did not really think we would lose the battle against Roran.

The results of the experiment we had tested at the reef were tremendous.

That was why what I entrusted to these four was something farther ahead.

It was a story as distant as what Kururu had seen when she unexpectedly asked me, almost like a child, whether I intended to conquer the world.

I rubbed my face with my palm and looked at them surrounding the copy of the grand magic circle.

If statues were ever built of the Four Wise Men who led Jirenu to glory, they might look something like this.

Thinking that, I laughed alone.