Chapter 266 : Chapter 266
Chapter 266: Baby (4)
"Do you happen to have any mage acquaintances in the area?"
Eiga asked.
Jacks and Metel naturally shook their heads.
"You don't. But there might be some. The most important thing for a mage is one's face. It has to be shameless."
Eiga patted his own face with both hands.
"The younger the child, the harder it is to hide. Because the vessel is sturdy relative to the Origin...... ah, um, in simpler terms, the child is pure and emotional. Fire makes it a bit harder still."
"So......"
"So what to do, you ask? Don't get caught, somehow."
Harad nodded.
Correct.
Fire was harder to hide, and there was no particular trick to it.
One simply had to hide it, by whatever means.
Iagar had failed.
"If something feels ominous, throwing the first punch is a good method too. The way you tried to frame me as a mage earlier."
"W-we're so sorry for......"
"That was a compliment. Keep doing exactly that."
Eiga talked at length.
Every word was advice that cut to the bone.
Eiga was Otherworld-born, yet more versed in the continent than most continental mages.
Proof that his experience exceeded expectations.
In that fashion, the young mages he'd disposed of -- no, protected -- and tucked away somewhere on the continent would number well past dozens.
"Ah. I talked too much for my usual self. This is the first time parents chose not to dispose."
After pouring out advice, Eiga smiled sheepishly.
But his eyes toward Jacks and Metel still gleamed with uncomfortable brightness.
Because, as he'd said, Jacks and Metel were the first parents not to dispose.
The North was the North, but the couple was also special. In the continent, the end of parents who bore a demon was the same as the demon's. Not to dispose was the strange thing.
"Jacks, Metel. I think you're remarkable. If there's anything you need, I'd be happy to help."
Eiga seemed genuinely delighted by the special couple.
"On top of that, you're rather lucky. Lord Harad and Lady Serzila are right here!"
Who's Harad.
Jacks and Metel looked that way and welcomed only Ellen.
To Eiga, Harad ranked above; in the North, Serzila was supreme.
But Jacks and Metel soon shrank.
A natural reaction. Mages were the continent's demons and Serzila's chief enemy. Instinctively, Metel hid the baby behind her hands.
"If I'd meant to touch the child, I'd have done it long ago."
Ellen smiled wryly.
It looked more like admiration than reproach. Despite a Serzila collateral standing before them, Jacks and Metel were acting as though they'd protect the baby first.
They were indeed a daring couple.
The two had tried to frame Eiga as the mage instead of the baby.
"A child is a child. And this is the North."
Demon and child.
The North chose the child. Because Serzila did so.
A young mage would be exiled rather than killed.
Closer to neglect, yet to a continental mage, that alone was tantamount to grace.
"...... Then will you exile us?"
Jacks's point was fair.
The old Serzila might have done so.
"How do you exile a baby? How would it live?"
But Ellen was a woman who could firmly shake her head.
She had by now formed a distinct view on mages. Perhaps even sharper than Harad's.
"Jacks, Metel. Even if you were mages, we wouldn't have exiled you. Because we're not enemies."
Jacks and Metel looked moved.
Though the depth was a shade shallow.
Because the speaker was Ellen. They were moved because she was Serzila, yet unsure how far to trust a collateral's word.
"This is the will of the Grand Duke."
"Ah!"
Only then did the emotion find tears.
Jacks and Metel gingerly held the baby tight.
A spark from the baby's hand singed their skin, but neither let it show.
'Because if they did, the baby would cry.'
Harad smiled wryly.
The same scene as Iagar.
"I'd love to hide the child snugly, but we can't give special treatment. That would look more suspicious."
Jacks and Metel slowly nodded in agreement.
They were ordinary Northerners. If their child received special treatment, that itself would be strange.
"But I will be watching, in secret."
Ellen said, fluttering her garment.
She meant the Intelligence Bureau would be attentive.
"If you can't trust me, trust the Grand Duke and the Grand Heir. Trust the Serzila that has taken in this mage who pretends to be a doctor."
"Eiga Akker!"
Eiga answered playfully.
"Is there anything else to be careful of?"
"Duke would matter."
The baby's Origin was fire.
What sort of fire was unclear, but it wouldn't surpass Glacier. Duke was a promising mage who could even cool Harad, if briefly.
"Besides that."
"Better pray the child isn't a genius. In Origin or in vessel."
"Correct!"
Eiga nodded vigorously at Harad's words.
Ellen tilted her head.
"Isn't it better if the vessel's a genius?"
"It's fire."
A fire-Origin mage being a genius meant being equally fiery.
"The greater the genius, the greater the arsonist."
"That was my childhood!"
Eiga chimed in.
"Quite spectacular."
Eiga had apparently been a famous prodigy.
"I don't think I was that bad."
"As expected of Lord Harad! Your lies are splendid too."
"......"
***
Special treatment was off the table.
So she'd said, but Harad and Ellen couldn't leave at once.
Because the baby born today was special.
Fire, of all things, so sparks intermittently bloomed from the baby's fists.
"We need to suppress that."
Childbirth was a noble affair even on the continent.
In the North, which cherished children, all the more.
In the North, when a baby was born, everyone came to celebrate and bring gifts. Starting tomorrow, Jacks and Metel's visitors would pour in.
And then, sparks would fly from the gift-receiving baby's hands.
Like now.
Fwoosh!
From the hands of the baby Jacks and Metel had named Seran, sparks scattered like smoke.
Harad watched them quietly.
Identifying an Origin's nature was close to impossible. But......
"Considerable."
"Yes."
Eiga nodded.
Not every mage showed signs.
But this baby, Seran, showed them conspicuously. Proof that the innate Origin was of considerable size.
Contrary to everyone's hopes, the Origin seemed promising.
"I was told there was no such phenomenon when I was born."
"That was most likely a lie!"
Eiga dismissed it at once.
"Seems so."
Harad nodded.
In hindsight, it looked like one of Iagar's lies.
"I'm told I shed something like lava instead of tears."
If Seran had produced sparks and Eiga had shed lava, would the terrible Sun have sat still?
"Any method?"
Harad asked, extinguishing a spark rising from Seran's palm before it could ignite the bedding.
Harad had Duke.
But chaining the boy to the baby around the clock was a truly cruel notion.
"I don't have one."
"You don't?"
"Correct! Lord Harad does."
Eiga said something strange.
Harad more or less understood.
He was coming to know the person called Eiga.
Something Eiga once had, and now Harad had.
"You mean this."
From within his robe, Harad drew a dagger whose blade was sealed in shabby cloth.
The Deep Sea Magical Item that Eiga had kept in his trousers.
"You've been carrying it on your person? As expected of Lord Harad."
Eiga was surprised that Harad had held on to the Magical Item all this time.
"Didn't you keep it in your trousers?"
"No volcano erupts every moment."
That was why Eiga had sometimes seemed covert.
A similar logic to Aten, the Extinguished Torch, no doubt.
"That is a Magical Item made long ago by the Deep Sea to extinguish the Sun."
"Did it work?"
"Unknown. By the time it was completed, the Sun was gone."
Harad was the second Sun.
The Deep Sea had completed this dagger in the absence of the first King.
'The Deep Sea.'
That referred to the most formidable mage the Tower of the Deep Sea had produced. Naturally, a 6th Rank.
'A Magical Item crafted by the 6th Rank.'
Whether it would work on the Sun, he couldn't say, but at minimum it would work on Harad.
"Is it activated by cutting?"
"Yes. Even a small nick devours fire. Very greedily."
Eiga pointed to the cloth wrapping the blade.
"That cloth is a Magical Item too. It seals the blade when not in use. Because it's exceedingly sharp."
Harad touched the cloth.
Tougher than it looked. But it seemed easy to unwrap if one wished.
"This cloth is also from the Tower of the Deep Sea."
"Correct!"
"The dagger itself must be a far more important treasure."
A Magical Item left by the mage who lent his name to the Tower, no less.
And such a treasure was in the hands of fire, the sworn enemy of the Deep Sea.
Eiga had said he'd stolen it.
"The Tower of the Deep Sea must be beside itself over you."
"That's fine. I'm more beside myself than they are."
Eiga grinned.
Let the Tower of the Deep Sea come; Eiga had his sights on them.
"How should I use this?"
"It's a powerful Magical Item. Simply keeping it nearby should have an effect."
Harad placed the dagger by baby Seran's head.
The fire on Seran's hands went out.
Hisss! The smoke seeped into the dagger. That was it. No more sparks rose from Seran's hands.
"Indeed. A weak fire gets devoured just by proximity."
The Deep Sea's dagger was a formidable Magical Item.
No need to cut. Just by existing, it threatened Seran's Origin.
That depth -- Harad truly was reminded of the deep sea. A muffled sensation, as though Seran's Origin had plummeted somewhere far below.
"Keeping the dagger in a box should mask it completely."
Anyone who noticed would be a mage.
Then the Intelligence Bureau, watching over Seran, would catch on.
The dagger was both a safeguard and an alarm aimed at mages.
"Under no circumstance must it touch the baby."
Unlike Harad or Eiga.
Seran was newborn and frail beyond measure. If the Deep Sea's Magical Item touched the baby directly, disaster would follow.
"That would likely be irreversible."
"...... U-understood."
Jacks went pale but soon nodded with a steeled face. He realized that the suspicious dagger was Seran's only lifeline.
'The urgent fire is out.'
The next fire would come when Seran grew bigger.
But it wouldn't come.
Harad decided he would see to that.
He would prepare a space where magic could go off without consequence.
...... That was why Harad went to Grand Duke Aratus.
"Give me an advance on my merits."
Rewards required merits.
"I need land."
Harad stated his demand first.
"Have I entrusted it to you?"
Grand Duke Aratus scoffed.
"Yes."
"......"
He wasn't crushed.
"Please."
Because he had brought Ellen.
"There's plenty of spare land."
"......"
"Give the closest, best land. So we can come and go often."
The Grand Duke's lip twitched downward.