Chapter 261 : Chapter 261
Chapter 261: Oddball (4)
Magic has no grounding in reality.
When someone said that, Harad used to laugh and say that was precisely why it was magic. Because magic was a vague thing.
From mage Harad's standpoint, he would even say Aura felt more vague. Another person's thing is always unfamiliar. No matter how accustomed one grew, it remained more foreign than one's own.
To Ellen, mages were like that.
Origin and magical power and magic. No matter how she looked at them, they were alien. Origin is all in the use. Harad said so, but Ellen felt she understood why the Otherworld placed stock in Origin.
Even at the same Rank, the vagueness permitted to each Origin differed. Given the same magical power, the more massive Origin held the advantage. In force, in scale.
To use a knightly comparison: Cassion wielded a dagger, and Harad...... a giant's sword of terrific size.
That was not to say Cassion was weak.
Point was a superb Origin beyond compare. The dagger that had made him 2nd Knights Commander.
But by comparison, it looked paltry.
Even if one somehow matched force through magical-power advantage, the scale.
When the dagger pierced one to death, Harad's sword—larger even than a giant's—would pierce dozens.
When Cassion killed one, Harad would kill dozens. The gap in Origin concept was of that nature.
A knight was powerful as a single entity.
A mage was powerful against the many.
Thus a mage would lose to a knight of equal standing in single combat.
A correct statement.
But there were Origins for which that did not hold. Cassion's Point was one such, Harad had once told her. Cassion, who could mimic a knight, was powerful as a single entity.
The Sun was an Origin that fell into the ordinary category.
Yet simultaneously it was an exception. The Sun was strong against the many. And strong against the few.
That was why the Sun was King.
An Origin powerful against the many. The Sun was ill-suited as an example of that alone.
Then who would serve as an ordinary example?
Kubel and Duke. Smoke and Glacier were good examples, Harad had said.
Avery Aquins's River had been an even better example.
That Origin had been broken by Ellen, a single opponent, yet against the many it would land as a disaster.
Another ordinary disaster was now unfolding before her eyes.
Volcano.
It was an Origin in the ordinary category. Strong against the many—a typical example for a mage.
But Ellen could not call it ordinary. If she could, Jis's shadow would not have swallowed Kubel and Shura.
KRA-KOOM! The roar rolled as though it would burst her eardrums.
The Manifested Volcano was erupting. Lava gushed like a fountain. It poured in every direction and splattered. The sound of something melting mingled with screams.
Would a real volcano be like this?
Ellen did not know. She thought the question meaningless, too. Natural or Origin, each volcano was its own. This was a Volcano that belonged only to Eiga Akker.
Thick ribbons of lava stretched across the ground, and white smoke swallowed the sky. The earth warped, and no small number of trees sprang up. The magic of the Tower of Earthquakes mages. Those were melted or engulfed in volcanic ash and hardened in place.
The mages whose magic had been broken vanished into the thick ash. Ellen's eyes could see them clearly. Several had petrified along with the ash.
And the more they did, the louder the Volcano's cry grew. The surging lava poured like waterfalls. It was predating the dead mages' magic as fuel.
The most common method of sustaining a Manifestation, Ellen had once learned from Harad.
Objects that had erupted from the crater fell like meteors into the small canyon that had been Laash. They looked like boulders, but a closer look revealed fire and lava disguised as rock.
They did not distinguish friend from foe.
They fell toward Cassion, Ellen, and Harad as well.
"Quite the violence."
Harad said, smiling toward somewhere.
Ellen thought he felt a kinship. The Sun, too, could not distinguish friend from foe. Every fire was extreme.
Lava poured down the slope at terrifying speed. It exploded in places and spread like a net. The Earthquake Tower mages were the fish.
Harad's gaze was fixed on the crater. It meant that somewhere inside that scarlet hole and the thick gray smoke, Eiga Akker was present.
Ellen found him without difficulty.
Eiga Akker stood at the summit, looking down, and smiling. The smile of a deranged arsonist.
But the scale surpassed imagination.
Ellen looked back at Harad without meaning to. Cassion's Point had been dwarfed. He excelled at combat. But Volcano and Sun—those would bloom in war. The reason the Otherworld weighed Origin.
"What do you think? Seems like a dangerous fellow."
Harad said this while incinerating a house-sized lump of lava with his finger as it fell like a meteor.
Seeing that, Ellen shook her head.
Then fire merges into one. The Otherworld's supremacy theory was all the more absolute where fire was concerned.
"You seem more dangerous to me."
"Well, I am one body with Serzila."
"I believe you."
"Him, though. Why did you decide to trust him?"
"Because you're too pretty."
"What?"
Harad's brow knit.
He seemed to be recalling Harein.
"Not Harein—you're the one who's pretty."
"That's even harder to understand."
"Too many things are after you."
They had been lucky.
That fact, Ellen too knew well. Had the Moon not intervened, Harein would have been taken to the Otherworld.
This time the Tower of Earthquakes; next, who knew which Tower would target Harad. The more Harad operated at the Boundary, the more the Otherworld would close in.
The Moon, who'd supposedly helped, was already a problem on her own.
That old hag's goal was Harad.
"I decided to trust so I could protect you."
"He'd die if I told him to, you said."
If it looks like you'll die, use Eiga Akker as a shield.
Ellen didn't go so far as to say that. Harad might be needlessly let down.
Of course, it was not purely impure thinking.
Eiga Akker would devote himself wholly to Harad. Ellen wanted more such mages. The more there were, the greater and safer Harad would become.
"You believe that? He's a madman."
"Too valuable to kill. That's why you gave him Postponement."
"......"
Harad paused.
A bullseye, clearly. Harad was certain that if he gave the word, Eiga Akker would kill himself. That was why he considered the man a usable card.
"He tried to put himself above you."
"He moved to alongside. I don't care."
"I care."
"Then care about what I say, too."
So stingy with yourself.
Ellen smiled wryly.
"You need to increase your people."
"Serzila alone is plenty for me."
Just so, Harad placed Serzila first.
Ellen, and that woman.
"I'm not enough."
Ellen hated that.
The fact that Harad put himself behind.
"I'm not. And that woman isn't. We're greedy. With plenty of vanity."
"......?"
"I want lots of guests at the wedding. The most in the world."
Whoever you marry.
Ellen whispered. She wanted Harad to shine immensely, like the Sun.
KRA-BOOM! Explosions raged on every side.
Screams and death rattles threaded between them. A cruel landscape. Perhaps even crueler in sound...... but Ellen did not hear those deaths.
"Continental unification, then."
Harad was smiling broadly.
-Thump!
Harad's heart pounded fiercely.
Sensing it, Ellen returned to reality.
'Come out if you dare.'
Thump, thump! The restraint merely convulsed.
Ellen grinned. As expected. Elaine could not emerge easily.
Whoever you marry.
She had only said it that way because it was in front of Harad.
Ellen considered herself a bad woman.
That was probably why she couldn't even hear the Earthquake Tower mages dying. Stealing a man on top of it.
'Harad is mine.'
Someday.
Ellen would throw the bouquet.
At that woman.
***
"My apologies! I ate them all!"
Eiga Akker shook off the volcanic ash that had covered his whole body like a dog and reported brightly.
The Tower of Earthquakes mages were all dead.
Predated by Eiga in the course of sustaining his Manifestation.
"Still, only one and three were of any value."
One 5th Rank and three 4th Ranks.
Harad grasped Eiga's meaning at once. The acquaintance, the woman, had been the 5th Rank, and the three subordinates directly behind her were the 4th Ranks.
Eiga had targeted those four first, simultaneously with his Manifestation. A bastard who seemed impulsive, yet was clever.
"Weren't you acquainted? You looked quite close."
The woman had called Eiga a crazy bastard.
She'd also said he'd broken the Taboo again. A familiar yet weary voice.
It meant they'd met far more than once or twice.
The Key Eiga held had even been given to him by that woman.
"We were close. Must have known each other ten years?"
"And you killed her without a moment's hesitation."
"Sad, but it was execution."
Eiga's face was not sad in the slightest.
"She was far too irreverent. Didn't even prostrate herself. Deserved to die."
Harad was briefly lost for words.
A bastard worse than Inquisitor Badelots stood before him.
"What if I'd changed my mind midway?"
"Then I'd have stopped."
"If I told you to save the Earthquake mages caught by the Volcano?"
"Then I'd save them?"
Eiga answered instantly.
For Harad, it was answer and time enough.
Worse than Badelots, yet simultaneously better.
So long as Harad was there, Eiga could be controlled.
"Impressive magical reserves."
Eiga Akker looked outwardly like an artless young man.
But Harad guessed his age was considerable. Because the Manifested Volcano's force and duration had been substantial.
"I've broken the Taboo many times."
Eiga scratched the back of his head sheepishly.
It meant he had killed many Otherworld mages. But that would not be the whole of it. Harad didn't press further. For a high-Rank mage, age was just a number.
"Why did you break it?"
"Everyone kept crossing the line!"
A line of Eiga's own, surely.
One that would make no sense.
"Saying the Sun would never be born?"
"Ha! How did you know?"
As expected.
Eiga whipped his head about, eyes wide. He seemed to be looking for Shura.
"A guess. Shura can't see that level of detail."
"As expected of Lord Harad! But where is Shura?"
Now that he looked, Eiga was worried about Shura.
Harad found it absurd. As though the bastard who'd just detonated a volcano wasn't right here.
"Apologies. I should have taken measures first, but being a Volcano and all. It erupts on its own sometimes."
"For someone who says that, you don't seem very worried."
"Well, Lord Harad is so nonchalant."
Clever bastard indeed.
"Shura is somewhere safe. With Kubel."
"So there was one more mage!"
Harad flinched involuntarily.
Eiga seemed to have caught a vague whiff of Jis.
'So that's what it means to be a Volcano.'
The most massive Origin concept of any fire he'd met so far. Proportionally sensitive. The larger the fire, the further it illuminates.
A shadow abruptly rose from the ground.
Jis's will. It meant there was no further point in keeping secret.
Not a threat to his friends.
That was Jis's judgment.
A correct one.
Eiga had killed a friend of ten years. Without the slightest hesitation.
If the plan wasn't to kill Eiga, their side too had to show some good faith toward him.
"Shadow!"
Eiga's eyes gleamed.
"Right. He's a Star. His name is Jis."
"Oh!"
Eiga dropped into a deep bow toward the shadow.
"An honor to behold you, O Star! As expected! True to your shadow nature, attending Lord Harad from concealment!"
"......"
"From now on I shall assist the two of you! On my life!"
Not the attitude befitting a 5th Rank mage.
"If Harad tells him to die, he really will."
Jis said.
A perfect summation of the mage called Eiga Akker.
Eiga's eyes flashed.
"If Lord Harad says execution, O Star, you too must die!"
"I can't die."
"I shall kill you! Without fail!"
"...... I'm scared of him."
Jis put distance between them.
"O Star!"
Eiga followed in his deep-bowed posture.