Chapter 262 : Chapter 262
Chapter 262: Oddball (5)
Same as the way in.
The passage felt like walking through the inside of a tree branch—seemingly long, yet short. Compared to the actual distance, even that was an immense shortcut.
"I was told it's the Tower Master of Earthquakes's magic."
"Did Galuer Berrick say that?"
"A mage named Dihake did."
"I don't know who that is, but how irreverent!"
Eiga Akker's eyes half-rolled.
"Already killed."
"Splendid!"
The eyes settled back at once.
Because the judgment had already been passed.
"Is it not true?"
"Half right. It is the Tower Master of Earthquakes's magic, but not the current Tower Master's. It belongs to the previous one."
"Dead, then."
"Yes, a good while ago. About twenty-two years?"
Meaning dead twenty-two years ago.
For a Tower Master, retirement meant death.
"A mage dead twenty-two years ago and his magic still remains?"
Ellen, who had been listening quietly, widened her eyes.
"A trait of the 6th Rank. Their magic becomes a part of reality. Not just any magic, of course."
"If you reach the 6th Rank, will there be two suns in the sky?"
"That's the Manifestation talking. In my Origin's case, I'd guess it's not something like this but a phenomenon that persists."
Harad said, running his hand along the wall.
In truth, he too could not be certain. It was still a distant topic.
"You never reached the 6th Rank. Right?"
Ellen, who had been gazing steadily at Harad's face, hit the mark.
"Right."
Harad answered with a wry smile.
Cassion and Eiga tilted their heads.
A conversation about that other world, known only to Ellen and Harad.
"You really know a lot. As expected of Lord Harad!"
Eiga admired when their eyes met.
"How it turns out, you only know once you crack it open. Until then, even Lord Harad can only speculate. Because the Origins we hold are only halves."
Eiga spoke as if explaining.
The explanation was for Ellen.
"You believe in the Origin Realm, I see."
The theory that the true Origins exist in that hypothetical world.
What mages hold is merely the shadow of those Origins. Or the Origin's half.
"Yes! Because it's the truth!"
Eiga was certain the Origin Realm existed.
"Have you seen it?"
"No!"
"Been there?"
"Never. But I've found that what I truly believe in truly exists. Like Lord Harad!"
Eiga had denied the Moon's prophecy.
Yet had believed a mage of the Sun would exist, and at last found one. Harad was the kind of existence Dreamers would adore.
"Isn't that awfully flimsy grounds?"
"The flimsier it is, the more desperate it gets."
Eiga spoke like a man with a story.
Only briefly. Eiga smiled as though it had never happened and tried to grab Jis, who was trickling along the floor.
"O Star! Let me inside that...!"
Eiga wanted to enter Jis's shadow.
"Don't come."
"Yes!"
Jis drew a line, and Eiga gave up.
"The mage named Dihake probably lied as a matter of habit."
"Because she was of a different Tower, in the end?"
"Yes. Daring not to follow Lord Harad with pure devotion."
However good the feeling, the Red Tower and the Tower of Earthquakes were not one body in the end.
And Harein, what's more, was from the continent. Dihake had reflexively concealed the Tower of Earthquakes's strength.
"The current Tower Master of Earthquakes's Origin is Aftershock. Thanks to that, the Tower of Earthquakes's mood has been fantastic."
The Tower's very name was Earthquake.
Aftershock—a small earthquake—oozed the nuance of direct succession.
The Tower of Earthquakes must have been reminiscing about its golden age.
Earthquake had been the greatest Origin in their history, and Aftershock, who resembled it, had become King.
'Must be bleak now.'
Aftershock. The Tower Master of Earthquakes was dead.
Killed, at that, by the Moon—a fellow member of the Otherworld.
To tell or not to tell.
Harad deliberated briefly, then spoke.
"The Tower Master of Earthquakes is dead."
No reason not to say it.
Eiga, being Otherworld-born, would offer a fresh perspective.
"Pardon?"
"The Moon killed him."
If Eiga were secretly communicating with the Otherworld, all the better.
The Moon's scheming would come to light.
"The Tower Master of Meteoric Iron is dead too."
"Pardon?"
Eiga tilted his head again.
"The Moon knows I exist. And she wants me."
"Pardon?"
Eiga's eyes bulged until they could bulge no more.
"What sort of person is the Moon?"
"She's a total fucking bitch!"
Eiga cried out.
Harad laughed in spite of himself.
"You know, and you're not saying?"
"In my judgment, execution."
"I'll carry it out!"
Eiga seemed worth trusting, at least tentatively.
"A mere Crescent Moon bitch dares!"
"What?"
Harad frowned at the abrupt outburst.
"Pardon? Is that wrong? As I know it, the current Moon is a Crescent Moon."
Come to think of it, there were types of Moon.
That fact, Harad was only now realizing.
"Not a Full Moon?"
The Village of Embers.
Because what he had sensed there had been a Full Moon.
"Pardon? A Full Moon hasn't risen again since. Rarer now than even the Sun. Since Lord Harad has arrived."
Including Harad.
Throughout history, the Sun had risen twice.
The Full Moon, once.
"The last time I saw the Crescent Moon bitch was about twenty-five years ago?"
Eiga scratched his neck, muttering.
"That aside, it's a surprise. The Crescent Moon bitch and Aftershock were on good terms. Aftershock's Sage was the gentle sort. A benevolent ruler, indeed."
On good terms.
Eiga had killed the woman he'd called close to the Tower of Earthquakes without a second thought.
For such an Eiga to call it "good terms" meant something well beyond ordinary comrades.
'And yet the Moon killed him.'
Meaning that, compared to the Sun, a comrade like that was nothing.
"So the Moon's lifespan is short. That's true?"
"Yes! She'll probably die soon."
That would hold even for a Full Moon.
The old hag herself had once admitted as much.
"Craftier than expected."
The Moon.
She was a Full Moon pretending to be a Crescent Moon.
If a Full Moon was born, it meant there was no other Moon.
'Yet she poses as a Crescent Moon. There must be a reason. Grand Duke Aratus may well know.'
They had to be connected somehow.
Grand Duke Aratus's target was the Moon.
'I don't know why she hides it, but the old hag's Origin was the Full Moon. Grand Duke Aratus must at least know that much.'
Nothing changed.
Crescent or Full, the old hag was desperate.
Or perhaps impatient.
Maybe both.
"She'll come before then."
In other words.
The Moon would soon begin to move in earnest.
Toward Harad.
***
Creeak.
Hemyu, just through the freshly opened door, swallowed hard.
"Wife!"
Because the Lion cried out and pulled her to him.
A firm and broad embrace.
Good. But frightening. At times like these, Hemyu always felt both feelings coexist.
Not because she did not love him.
The seven wives he held all loved him without exception. Enough to follow him in death.
But the fear was something that could not be helped.
For the one who held her was the Lion of Norbu.
"Still scared?"
Parus al Norbu.
He asked with a playful smile. Hemyu burrowed deeper into his embrace.
"Don't fret. I won't eat you today."
That would be fine, though.
Hemyu struggled to swallow the words.
What the Lion decided was decided.
"That woman was not afraid of me. She sneered, in fact."
Hemyu swallowed her jealousy.
Because the Lion had his eye on someone. Whether seven or eight, the number was for the Lion to decide.
"So what. That was her answer when told 'I am a Norbu.'"
Parus laughed heartily.
So merry he seemed on the verge of tears.
Thus the woman called Harein had seized Parus's heart in an instant.
"It's true she's the most precious woman in the world. Body, heart, and station. She was one of the Otherworld's kings. But she does not side with the Otherworld."
Parus's tongue licked his lips.
"A match without peer for me. Harein is mine. Before the Otherworld can take her, I will seize her."
The woman called Harein had become a possession.
Because the Lion had so decided.
"Hemyu, my secretary and my third. Are you prepared to speak?"
Parus did not wait for Hemyu's answer before pulling her from his embrace. Hemyu stepped back and knelt on one knee before Parus.
Seated in an ornate chair, Parus had women fanning enormous cloths on either side of him.
"Speak."
The Lion commanded.
Hemyu opened her mouth.
"The Countess of Akuldag has survived. Her condition is no different from a vegetative state."
A parasitic vine.
Such was the magic. The vine could not be removed from the Countess. To do so would kill her. Leaving it was the best course.
"The Countess periodically coughs up leaves. Tearing one in Laash opens a passage somewhere."
An incomplete Key and invitation.
Hemyu the mage had grasped the mechanism.
"The passages are innumerable, and the exits they connect to are of every variety. Time and manpower are needed to map them."
"Take them."
Hemyu accepted the new assignment.
Henceforth she would have to seize Laash and the passages connected to that space. Laash would become Norbu's domain.
"Next."
The Lion's interest moved on.
Hemyu beckoned with a gesture. A sturdily tanned man approached cautiously. In his meekly folded hands lay a severed head.
"The Margrave of Akuldag."
The Countess's life might have been on the line, but betrayal was betrayal.
Norbu did not tolerate bending. If one bent before their eyes, they broke them the rest of the way.
"Enverque will be grateful."
Even if it was another nation's land.
No—perhaps precisely because it was Enverque.
Long ago, Enverque had been designated as the Lion's prey.
A future that would come to pass without fail.
"Next."
The Lion's interest returned.
In hindsight, it had lasted a good while. From here was the heart of the matter.
"No trace of Harein's movements has been found in Akuldag. Signs that she walked about exist, but no trace of departure."
"Laash!"
Parus cried out as if in a seizure.
"She used Laash's paths. The passages that open when one tears a leaf!"
Thus the Lion was wise.
Hemyu bowed her head deeply.
"Lead the mages. Use as many as you wish. This is my command."
Parus granted the mages their freedom.
Countless desert mages would converge on Akuldag, on Laash. They would find the innumerable passages and the Harein who must be somewhere at their end.
"Harein is mine. And the desert's."
Harein.
Her value did not lie in the mere seat of a wife. She was a woman who possessed fire—no, the Sun.
"Tell His Majesty and the High Priest: the woman who will recover the Eternal Fire has come."
The mage who would find the Eternal Fire that Norbu and its priests had desperately sought for generations—hidden by the desert.
"The day shall come when Norbu brings Enverque to ruin."
The desert that recovered the Eternal Fire would return to being a land of fire.
Norbu would once again become the avatar of fire.
"The Eternal Fire and Enverque. I, Parus al Norbu, shall stand at the vanguard of two histories."
Parus sprang to his feet.
His presence bloated until it seemed to swallow Akuldag's castle.
Because a lion is an alpha.
An alpha. That was the essence of Parus al Norbu. The reason Hemyu and the Norbu people had survived beneath the Sun.
When Harein had Manifested the Sun, Parus had saved Hemyu and those who had been test subjects. He had dashed to the Market first, found the rest, and made them his pack.
Because the larger the pack, the larger the lion becomes.
"Find Harein. And attend to her as you attend to me."
Parus al Norbu.
The Crown Prince of Norbu spoke.
"We obey."
The desert warriors who had seized Akuldag dropped to one knee.
An old lion soon loses its essence.
Crown Prince Parus's will was Norbu's will.