Chapter 255 : Chapter 255
Chapter 255. Sapling (4)
Shura's eyes were intuitive.
And she'd had experience.
That Origin saw the substance.
Shura had seen the real faces of Rick the Tunnel-Digger and Isotta the Masker. She'd even seen that Ellen was inside Elaine.
Just as she had once spotted Ellen inside Elaine's heart, this time she had spotted Harad inside Harein's heart.
Jis was a Star.
A Star points to the Sun. That compass was as intuitive as Shura's. Jis had followed Harad to Serzila, even across the Boundary. A fierce pull.
Conversely, Cassion had nothing of the sort.
Ellen's necklace—through which Harad had become Harein—had been used after parting with Cassion.
The information had not been shared, and neither Ellen nor Kubel was present here. Ordinarily, he wouldn't have deduced Harad.
Yet Cassion had somehow arrived at the answer.
Shura clinging, Jis—who should have been with Shura—watching on, Harein's fire resembling the Sun.
And thus, Cassion had seen that Harein was Harad.
A mage-like display, the kind Harad had at times expected from Cassion.
It was splendid deduction.
And the place of that deduction was even more splendid. Here was Laash. And furthermore, the Sapling.
Cassion had procured an invitation, entered the street that not just anyone could enter, and infiltrated—singlehandedly—the Sapling, whose security was stricter still than Laash's.
A thing impossible for any run-of-the-mill Wall knight.
Such a knight would be outside, swinging his sword.
That must have been why Grand Duke Aratus hadn't stopped Cassion from crossing via the Key.
Cassion was the kind of bastard who could do it if told to.
Not merely a 2nd Knights Commander good only at fighting, but a 5th Rank mage who turned his head well too.
So—if there was a problem, it lay with Harad. More precisely, with Harein.
He'd finally reached the right answer, only for the answer to be far too shocking.
So Cassion had gone blank without meaning to.
Cassion had been more distracted by Harein than by Galuer Berrick.
That, Harein could understand.
Harad of the past life had swallowed the Stone of Regression for the same reason as Cassion.
This current form was not a simple disguise.
Something beyond transformation. Ellen's necklace reversed sex. Not a trace of incongruity.
Though the world was full of all manner of vagueness, imagining such a Magical Item existed was close to impossible.
And especially so from one who had been at his side.
As with Harad of the past life, it must have landed on Cassion as an immense shock.
He understood she was disguised as a woman, yet the fidelity was outrageous. And if real, it was equivalent to a filthy taste.
Believing it at a stroke would be the insane thing; Cassion was the normal one.
Harein understood Cassion's feelings plenty.
She just didn't feel like forgiving him.
Of course, put that way, Cassion too had his grievances.
Apart from Harein herself being shocking, several variables were in play.
Parus and Cassion were meeting for the first time.
That Norbu man's presence would have delivered Cassion a shock of its own.
Harad wasn't just disguised as a woman but was traveling with some dark-skinned man rather than with Ellen or Kubel.
'Jis.'
When Cassion had been distracted by Harein.
While Galuer Berrick's life still hung, Harein could have reacted sufficiently. She'd had the confidence to Project him to ash faster than his Manifestation could complete.
But what had been realized was not Projection but Simple Projection. Projection realized in tiny pupils had its limits. She had failed to kill Galuer Berrick.
Because of Shura.
The Sun was an Origin that couldn't distinguish friend from foe.
Having consumed Embers, she was stronger, and Shura was a frail mage without the slightest resistance.
That, Jis should have prepared for.
That was what the Star called Shadow existed for. At least in Harad's thinking. Because a shadow was where fire could not reach.
Jis ought to have wrapped Shura in shadow so the Sun could not touch her.
Had there been any such sign, Harein would not have hesitated and would have realized Projection.
'He didn't.'
Jis had watched on.
When Galuer Berrick attempted Manifestation, when Harein was about to realize Projection, he hadn't reacted.
Jis, whose Origin was Shadow, was a splendid mage. Harad considered his own intuition and Jis's to differ by little.
There had to be a reason.
"There's a fire."
Kadadak! A huge tree was surging upward. Beneath it, Jis whispered. Shura, whom Harein had been holding, was wrapped in shadow and vanished.
"Heard you."
"Came near, then fled. Dug a hole."
The shadow poked Harein lightly.
It meant the fire had fled when she approached. The wall the shadow pointed at was crumbling. Beneath the rubble, a hole of seething stone peeked out.
"Harad is the Sun, though."
Why had the fire fled?
Jis couldn't grasp the intent.
That was why he had been conscious of the fire-mage who'd bored the hole, rather than Galuer Berrick or Harein.
But in the end, the fire-mage had done nothing. He'd merely fled.
"My bad."
"It's fine. No harm in caution."
Thanks to that, Galuer Berrick's Manifestation had completed, but Jis's judgment had been right. The fire-mage had approached Shura deliberately. The most important thing was Shura's safety.
"We'll talk about the fire later."
Now that Shura was secured, judgment was the priority.
As Grand Duke Aratus had ordered.
"Lots of mages have been brought in."
Harein smiled brightly.
Indeed, Jis's intuition was splendid. In a stroke, he had named what Harein was worried about.
Krrrumble! The surged tree twisted and shook its branches. With that alone, the Branch's roof went flying. The ground shook. A Manifestation of tremendous scale.
The Branch building was collapsing like a sandcastle.
But the shadow had already vanished. Like the twelve mages of the sea route. For Jis, rescue would be easy.
"Going to burn quite nicely, that."
The Upside-down Tree.
Looking up at the Manifested baobab, Harein drooled.
***
The Sapling.
The Branch that contained it was a building of enormous size. Low in height, but broader in area than any decent lord's castle.
The trunk of the Manifested baobab matched precisely the building's footprint. Its height was beyond imagination. To see the branches at its crown, one had to tilt one's head back until the neck ached.
Above Laash there was no sky, but a hemispheric ceiling. That ceiling was now obscured. The baobab's branches and leaves had taken the place of Laash's ceiling.
'Not for nothing the one in charge.'
Laash was a precious hideout.
Its overseer, Galuer Berrick, would be a mage the Tower Master of Earthquakes trusted.
"If it collapses, everyone dies."
Perhaps it was just as well.
Grand Duke Aratus wanted judgment. If they could bring it down, that baobab would serve as an enormous guillotine.
The ground was uneven.
Moving roots. What had been Laash's Belt had transformed into roots as thick as tree trunks. They had risen across all of Laash.
Harein stood atop one of the baobab's roots. That root was suddenly sliced cleanly through. Cassion's sword—his presence erased by Point.
"Your fault too."
Cassion came alongside Harein and said abruptly.
"This is a disguise by means of a Magical Item. Call me Harein."
Parus was nowhere in sight.
Gone to rescue the secretary, surely.
"Why is your manner of speech like that?"
Cassion's face crumpled.
The look of someone being forced to witness what he didn't want to see.
"Playing the King of Prophecy."
"Not bad, but a filthy notion."
Cassion was apparently still in mage mode.
He grasped Harein's scheme at a stroke. Still, his eyes stayed narrowed. Whatever the intent, what he disliked, he disliked.
"Does Lady Ellen know?"
"Ellen put me up to it."
"What a knockout notion."
"......"
"Saying it again—your fault too. There was no such discussion beforehand."
Cassion scanned Harein up and down while shifting the blame.
For the sake of his eventual report to Ellen, no doubt.
"But I'll make it up to you. No need to thank me."
Asking her to put in a good word for him then, surely.
"You've got the confidence?"
"Having the superior Origin concept doesn't mean you always win."
A true statement.
Cassion's Origin was a very small Point.
With that small thing, Cassion had taken the 2nd Knights Commander's seat of Serzila. Origin was in the use.
"Origin-superiority theory applies to mages alone."
"......"
"I am the Great Wall, the 2nd Knights Commander of Serzila."
This too was fair to call true.
Cassion fought like a knight. Point. An Origin somewhat outside the superiority theory.
Very small, hence particular.
Point was such an Origin.
"I'll kill that mage."
Kill the Manifestation, or kill the mage.
Cassion was the latter, and a strong one capable of doing it.
But when he'd be able to kill couldn't be known.
Point was absurdly small compared to that baobab.
"Drag it out, and it's bad. The other mages will flee."
Every mage in Laash had to die.
If that was impossible, then at minimum the mages of the Sapling. Only then would she have something to say before Grand Duke Aratus.
'Might be better to let a few from Laash go.'
Then word of Harein, the King of Prophecy, would reach the Otherworld as well.
Harein was curious about the Otherworld's reaction.
"The mages of this building, I've already killed them all. Wiped the bodies too."
Harein's eyes widened.
"When?"
"Before I came after you—after that wench. None of them were anything worth mentioning."
5th Rank. And the 2nd Knights Commander. To Cassion, the necks of ordinary mages were as light as dust.
"And the mages you and that guy sent back—I killed each one as I passed."
It meant the mages whose research had been halted had entered hell, not their own rooms.
Cassion looked more like an assassin than a mage or a knight.
"What? Har—Harein, you said I could kill all of them."
"...... Madman."
Whether to praise, or to curse.
Harein let out a dry laugh. Cassion was a cursed sword. Good capabilities, but considerable side effects.
"Where's Lady Ellen?"
"She's probably in Akuldag. With Kubel."
"No chance of her being snatched from me, then."
Cassion looked up at the baobab and licked his lips.
The drool of a mage, and the distinct fighting spirit of a Serzila knight.
"Enough. Clear off."
Harein kicked Cassion.
Zip. The garment tore slightly.
"What?"
"That tree is mine."
"You go eat the fire. There's a fire that ran, isn't there."
"I will eat both."
"Greedy bastard."
"So what."
Harein spoke like Grand Duke Elaine.
Or perhaps like Ellen.
"Whichever bastard kills first, it's his."
Then Cassion proposed it.
"I'm a bitch."
"...... Crazy bastard."
"Let's do it, the wager."
Kill the Manifestation, or kill the mage.
Harein was a mage capable of both.
The baobab shook its branches.
House-sized white fruits poured down like hail. Some of them were swallowed by something jet-black. Jis's shadow. A signal, too. The signal that the rescue was complete.
"Cheap bastard!"
Cassion suddenly shouted.
Krak. Because the world withered and shriveled.
The sky.
No—on the ceiling, the Sun rose.