Chapter 64 (2/2)
“I am a magus, you know. There aren’t a lot of us, and they make leaving the country a ha.s.sle too. Just being one is enough to get me a house within the walls.”
She readily told me the truth in response to my thoughtless question. And this area was the magi residential district.
I got that, but I also had questions about why we were having this big get-together in Irene’s home. And the line-up was a mystery too.
But at any rate, being prompted to take a seat, I sat down in a chair. Aira, my hero, brewed tea for everyone. It was a display of her real ability as a maid, but the supposed master of the house, Irene, just sat there.
Don’t tell me she brought Aira over just for this?
“Now then.”
Now then.
Once everyone was seated, Arc looked at each of us in turn. Me, Aira, Palmira, Regnum, Irene. His gaze went around in that order. Come to think of it, Miss Patsy wasn’t here. Even though she’d definitely been around earlier.
“Regnum, put out the sweets.”
“I suppose it can’t be helped.”
Doing as Arc told him, Regnum obediently pulled a long, thin, black box from his breast pocket.
He opened it and pa.s.sed out its contents, one by one. It seemed to be some kind of chocolate. Like a pitch-black cake.
“Hey, wait. Wasn’t there a serious matter to talk about?”
Because his behavior was too natural, I was a bit slow to interject.
Then it hit me. This feeling. Somewhere, I…
I locked eyes with Irene, who was stuffing her cheeks with chocolate.
Ah, that’s it. The same thing happened with Irene in Telaberan.
“…That’s it, right. Arc, you’re Irene’s master, aren’t you?”
Without any lead-up, I voiced my sudden realization.
It did explain a lot of things.
At least, why we were having this meeting at Irene’s home. And why Arc would choose this place. That much was clear.
“Very observant. You know us well.”
“You guys are identical.”
“That’s kind of a shock to hear…”
For some reason, Irene found the idea surprising. From what she said, after leaving Telaberan early with the First Platoon, it looked like she met her master Arc in Brellwandy.
After that, she went ahead to the fortress and waited for us there.
“Well, let’s set aside the matter of my master-disciple relations.h.i.+p with Irene for now. What you want to ask is how I know about you, right? Shall I start, then?”
Abruptly returning to the topic at hand, Arc’s words renewed the tension in the air in an instant. It affected almost everyone aside from himself and Regnum.
Regnum had hardly opened his mouth, but he might’ve already heard pretty much everything.
“Then, I’ll tell you. This — tale.”
And so, with a dramatic flourish, Arc cleared his throat and began to speak in a sonorous voice.
–
–
” — Once upon a time, there was a young girl who had the miraculous affinity for six Attunements. People had great expectations of her future. Her name was Christine Rouelle Felmiran. Nickname, [Chris]. Her ability was truly incredible; it was historically unprecedented. When it became known, everyone around her danced with joy, despite the confusion of the girl herself.”
What’s with this fairy-tale feel?
I thought, but maybe it was Arc’s way of making things easily digestible.
So far, it lined up with the memories I’d dreamed of, and because it was, in fact, easy to understand, I decided to shut up and listen.
“However, while Chris certainly possessed a miraculous apt.i.tude, she was unable to use magic — she could understand it, but not activate it, I should say. There was water in the well — that, people knew. But there was no way to draw it out. You could see it that way. The a.n.a.logy’s a little lacking, I suppose — well, anyway, when they found out, everyone felt very disappointed.”
“Are we going to have the Fairy Tale Hour the whole way through?”
I broke in without thinking.
“No. It’s a more appalling story than you might expect,”
replied Arc, suddenly breaking into a smile. When he put it that way, there wasn’t a thing I could say back to him.
Sure, maybe so. It forced me to recall the dream [Chris’s] memories of anguish and grief.
It’s impossible to understand the entirety of another person’s feelings.
But between [Chris] and me, a great deal can get across. Words will never be able to communicate them perfectly. But me, being able to see it all without the use of an intermediary, I’m practically sharing in the experience.
And it certainly was appalling.
[Chris’s] suffering, seared into my mind. Her despair. Her desire. They already resided within my heart as my own experiences.
Thinking of them, I tightly clenched my teeth.
“When everyone around her abandoned her, a devil whispered in her ear: ‘If you give up your humanity, you’ll be able to use magic.’ She wanted to use magic by any means necessary. So that she could show them all. And so that she could see the people important to her. She asked the devil, ‘What is your name?’ And the devil replied, ‘My name is Arcteur Vanburke.'”
Eh?
At the end of his fairy-tale narration, Arc said something completely unexpected.
His tone was too light, too indifferent, that the sudden name-drop brought my thoughts to a screeching halt.
“…Wha–!?”
I shot to my feet, kicking over the chair in the process, and stared at Arc.
As did Palmira at the same time. She had her hand on the hilt of her sword. A moment later, Aira too. Irene stared at Arc in blank amazement. I guess she hadn’t heard this story.
The only ones who kept their calm were Regnum and Arc himself.
Under those distrustful gazes, Arc lowered his eyes to his teacup and blandly continued.
“…That devil, the head of the Schola Magorum at the time, was engaged in research. Into the invocation stones. As you know, invocation stones are created using life itself. And they’re manufactured as the media for the invocation of magic. This [life] is generally extracted from monsters, and perhaps animals and plants, but not just anything will do in this case. It has to come from something with an Attunement of some kind. Humans aren’t necessarily the only ones to possess Attunements. In a sense, intelligence isn’t a requirement. However, the number of Attunements — that alone is key.”
Smash.
Irene had been staring at her own master in disbelief. When Arc reached this part of his story, she shook violently, knocking her teacup off the table.
Her entire body was trembling. As a magus herself, she must have realized something. A whisper leaked out of her mouth.
‘It can’t be.’
“That’s why the devil thought, ‘In that case, what would happen if I used the lives of people with multiple Attunements?'”
Arc’s eyes grew unreadable.
Almost like the eyes of a corpse. But deeper, darker.
I could feel the hair standing on end all over my body.
Surely, if the devil existed in this world, he would have eyes like those.
Aira and Palmira were the same. Aira let out a small scream and shrank away. Her face paper-white, she seemed ready to faint at any moment.
Who was it that told me before, that invocation stones were created from life? Was it Arc…? No, Regnum.
If I remember correctly, I’d suddenly grown anxious then. It seemed to me that in using life to make invocation stones, stealing that life away was exactly the point. In that case, I had the feeling that it wasn’t all that strange to eventually ask, ‘What would happen if that life were human?’
But the idea was so grotesque it made my stomach turn, and I could tell that it was taboo simply by intuition.
To use human life.
Just that word alone was exceedingly repulsive.
“At first, it was simple curiosity. If it was just an idea, it was no big deal. However, as the research advanced, he took leave of his senses. It became clear that it was possible to crystallize invocation stones. And so, what then? Ethically speaking, could it really be considered the theft of life? Besides, it was right before his eyes — the existence he’d been wis.h.i.+ng for. If she were to generate an invocation stone, she’d definitely develop the ability to use magic, too. Nevertheless, the devil was conflicted. He couldn’t decide whether it was right or not to do so.”
Author’s Notes
It was getting long, so I cut it partway through.
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