The Doomed Fief’s Dying Lord (42)

Avenger* barely caught me as I was about to fall.*

He skillfully corrected the center of gravity on the horse.

I made a weak sound of admiration.

“Oh… that’s impressive horsemanship. I should’ve asked you to teach me earlier.”

“I will never teach you. If I do, you’ll ride off alone and cause some trouble… No, are you joking right now?!”

“Not a joke. Pure praise. Praise.”

Avenger*, seemingly annoyed, said nothing.*

He turned the reins.

The horse we rode passed several rooms in an instant.

Avenger* pulled the reins.*

He dismounted and expertly pulled me off the horse.

Then he sat me down in that spot.

I lifted my head slightly and glanced around.

An empty room.

It’s probably near the entrance room.

Avenger* pulled out a handkerchief.*

He wiped the nosebleed from my slumped form.

“Thank you.”

“You’re saying that now?”

He said, as if incredulous.

“Young master, you nearly fainted just now. Is this the price of that magic? Is that it? Answer me properly! That magic is consuming your body, isn’t it!”

I answered while still sitting.

“Haha… secret.”

“Young master!”

“It’s nothing, so don’t worry.”

“If it’s really nothing, then you could just tell me!”

“Do you really want to know that badly?”

“If you don’t tell me, I really won’t help you anymore.”

He was resolute.

Heh. Well, I have a way too.

So instead I said this.

“I’ll tell you if you swear you’ll still help me after you hear it.”

A look of embarrassment crossed his face.

The conflict didn’t last long.

“…I cannot make that oath.“

As expected.

Exactly the answer I anticipated.

I chuckled.

“Then I won’t tell you either.”

“Are you really going to do that!”

“Didn’t you know? I’m always like this.”

I tried to stand.

But it didn’t go well.

I still felt dizzy.

“Help support me a bit.”

Avenger* reluctantly helped me up.*

I said.

“Do I get nosebleeds every day? I’m just a bit sleepy… and it’s just motion sickness from riding. It’s not because of magic, so don’t worry. Really.”

“With the young master’s condition like this, how could I not be worried!?”

“If you’re that worried about me, shouldn’t you finish the fight quickly. Where are we?”

“…[-1, 1].“

“Then let’s go on foot. It’s not that far anyway.”

“…“

Avenger* held the horse’s reins in one hand and supported me with the other.*

The [0, 0] room was still noisy.

Liaison officers kept coming and going without stop.

Ronari and the staff around her were like a single computing device.

A computer processing a flood of calculations.

But even a computer gets tired.

If you make it do too much work it overheats.

It needs to be cooled.

“It’s about time.”

My mutter drew Avenger’s attention.

“Time for what, what do you mean?”

“A report about me.”

“A report?”

“Look, O’ne.”

I pointed to the east door.

A liaison officer from Limone rushed into the room.

The first sentence the panting officer blurted out was this.

“Is there a mage under Denabi’s command by any chance?”

“A mage?”

Ronari tilted her head as if she didn’t understand.

The Limone liaison officer shook his head.

“Ah. No, it must have been our cavalry’s mage. Forget it. The east flank 2nd vanguard advanced to [4, -3]. The doors to [5, -3] and [4, -4] are all open, and the unit has fallen back to [3, -3].”

“Hmm… understood. Please wait until the east rear liaison returns. Over and out.”

We overheard that report.

Avenger* said.*

“The young master’s actions are being mistaken for the Limone mage’s work. This is…”

“I rather like that.”

“Huh?”

“This will be attributed to Captain Limone.”

I approached Ronari.

“Young master?”

She turned to look at me.

She was busy.

I whispered only what needed to be said and immediately left.

Then I gestured to Avenger with my eyes.

My gaze pointed to the passage leading to the surface.

As we climbed the stairs, Avenger asked me.

“What did you say to Miss Ronari?”

“I told her to make Vittorio hide what I did. One of Captain Limone’s men was a mage, right? We’ll make it look like he did it. In the meantime I’ll go up to the surface for a bit and pretend to return to the castle. Otherwise the lie would be too easy to uncover.”

“Why go to such lengths? It’s the young master’s achievement, isn’t it?”

“It’s about saving lives. What does credit matter?”

I sighed deeply.

“How would Father react if he found out I’m doing this? I don’t want to repeat the same argument I had with you, Avenger. We’ll be found out soon anyway, but we need to buy time.”

We went up to the surface.

-clop, clop

I crossed the pond and perched on the boundary between the basin and the orchard.

The basin’s water slapped against the low wall with a splash.

Avenger* said.*

“Honestly, I still think the same.”

“You want to tell Father what I did?”

“…I want to.“

“Then tell him when he’s busy. If he’s free he’ll try to stop me by tying me to a tree in the orchard.”

“Young master, you’ve already helped plenty in the fight. Didn’t you take down nearly ten gargantuan enemies?”

“Eight. Count precisely.”

“Young master.”

He took a step closer to me.

The ripple he caused brushed against my boots and rippled.

“I won’t try to stop you anymore.”

“I appreciate that.”

“Then teach me. What’s the cost of that magic? How did you obtain such magic?”

“Would you believe me if I said it’s the fruit of years I spent shut in my room?”

“Even a fool wouldn’t buy that obvious lie.”

“Avenger, I’ll appoint you to something lower than a fool. Play dumb for me.“

Saying that, I grinned faintly.

But Avenger looked like someone who had forever forgotten how to smile.

“Why so serious? Relax your face a bit, will you.”

“I should know too, shouldn’t I?”

“What did you say?”

His fist trembled.

“Young master. I am the Steward. I serve you and protect you. I’m prepared to sacrifice myself for you if necessary. But you act more like the steward of Denabi’s people. I cannot serve or protect a young master who behaves like that.”

“You’ve already helped me enough.”

“That’s not enough for me.”

Avenger* spoke firmly.*

“So at least I must know. If you are taking on the sacrifices I should make, and I cannot stop it no matter what… I need to know what you’re sacrificing. I think that’s my duty.”

Normally I would have joked about it.

Heh. This friend has a truly strong sense of duty.

I really like him.

’…But this isn’t exactly the best mood for that kind of remark.’

Indeed, there’s a limit to how much one can turn things into wit.

I looked up at him.

He was looking back at me.
A steadfast gaze.

I said.

“To be honest, I don’t really know either.”

“…You don’t know?“

“It’s true. I don’t really know. Exactly what happens to my body each time I use the magic.”

“How on earth…”

Avenger* looked utterly unconvinced.*

I looked at the Mana crystal covering my arm.

A Mana crystal engraved with a magic circle.

I stroked its surface.

“This is a magic I learned from my mother.”

“Your mother…? But Lady Astrier was a mage? But she… when you were young…”

“Trastamara Monastery.”

I cut off Avenger’s words.

“There were a lot of my mother’s belongings there. There were magic tomes she hadn’t written herself. It was the first time I learned my mother was a mage. I learned it there. I learned this magic there too.”

I continued.

“It seems my mother researched the magic use of people infected with the Mana Plague. She studied how Mana-crystallized parts of the body can facilitate magic use or function like spell scrolls… that was the gist of her research. At least that’s how I understood it.”

I remembered Beatrice’s research.

A paper written in her handwriting.

‘Correlation between somatic Mana crystal fusion rate and spell–Mana reactivity’

“I read my mother’s paper to the end, but it didn’t describe the direct adverse effects of using magic in this way. It did say this, however.”

“What was that…?”

“It said the blood Mana concentration increases.”

I looked up at Avenger and flashed a grin.

He still wore a look of incomprehension.

Of course.

At this world’s medical level, they wouldn’t understand talk of concentrations in the blood.

These people still don’t even know what blood is made of.

That’s why Beatrice’s magical idea was revolutionary.

She discovered that Dungeon monsters’ blood was composed of Mana.

And she applied the fact that Mana blood that evaporates on the surface coagulates in the Dungeon depths.

She probably asked this question.

‘What if we could make a Dungeon monster’s internal composition like that of the Dungeon depths?’

Then wouldn’t the blood inside the body all coagulate?

That very idea produced this miracle.

The only spell engraved on my arm.

’[Mana Phase Transition: Signal - Coagulation]’.

Liquid Mana that receives the signal sent by this magic exhibits the same phenomenon as when exposed to the Dungeon’s air.

It crystallizes.

Against a Dungeon’s replica monster whose body is made entirely of Mana blood, it causes instant death.

It’s an absurdly overpowered spell.

But there was one thing I was worried about.

Beatrice had warned me.

That the more you use magic in this way, the higher the blood Mana concentration becomes.

What would that cause?

‘Mana won’t be filtered by the liver or kidneys like alcohol, will it…?’

The body periodically makes new blood, so over time it should get diluted.

So using it moderately should pose no problem.

I decided to think that way.

After the break, we descended back into the Dungeon.

“Detonate.”

The ninth spell was cast from my fingertips.

The subsequent sequence was set.

1. Massive Mana thrombosis occurs simultaneously throughout a gargantuan’s body.
2. Explosion.
3. Mana crystals scatter.

Seeing the ninth such spectacle, a thought suddenly passed through my mind.

If I keep using magic like this, and the Mana concentration in my body rises…

Maybe the same thing could happen to my body.

‘And maybe that’s how Beatrice died too?’

A horrific image formed in my head.

I roughly tore it out and threw it away.

“…Get out of my head.“

I can’t stop out of fear of such things.

I swore at that time.

To become the Lord of Denabi.

To become the great lord who rules over the entire empire.

I’d do anything for that.

‘Protect your people!’

I roamed the Dungeon without hesitation, and cast magic without restraint.

“Detonate!”

The nineteenth use of magic.

Explosion, charge.

After that we turned through several rooms and headed to another engagement point.

Alejandro’s unit should be there.

In the revealed room, swarms of gargantuans had gathered.

Alejandro at the front shouted.

“Found! It’s the manticore’s originals…!”

There was a manticore there with noticeably darker coloration than the other gargantuans.

It really was an original.

An original found ten hours into the Dungeon assault.

Alejandro and his soldiers growled like wolves.

-tick, tick

Finally, the time had come.

A real fight to the death stood right before us.