Chapter 226 - 225
Chapter 225. A Situation More Serious Than Expected
"Have you lost your mind, Regent?!"
Ureas, who had been unable to get a single word out until then, shouted the moment he stepped out of the tent. His eyes were fixed on Ferda.
"What are you talking about?"
"How dare you proceed with the negotiations however you please and then sit there after settling for 40%?!"
They say brothers resemble each other.
There was a faint resemblance to Alexander in his face.
Ureas genuinely wanted 45%.
But just because you wanted something did not mean everything would go your way.
The Allied Forces had offered 27%.
Even after considering a compromise, it would never have gone beyond 35%.
With Ureas’s personality and diplomatic skills, getting even 30% would have been a miracle.
But Ferda had seized the opportunity and stepped forward, which was why they had managed to get 40%.
Yet Ureas was still unable to let go of that additional 5%, and he was angry at Ferda.
That was why Ferda said:
"Do not misunderstand."
"What?!"
"Raising it to 40% was only done so that the Far East could take 10%."
"Then you’re telling us to take 30% for our share? Even though you brought barely 500 troops?!"
"You are taking 3% more than the original offer. What exactly are you dissatisfied with?"
"This is absurd! Count Rooster! What do you think of this situation?!"
Count Rooster, who had been silently observing, merely glanced over before looking away.
He gave no answer.
Even if it made him look greedy, he had more than enough reason.
Ureas shouted again, this time with embarrassment mixed into his voice.
"Besides, if you fail, we only get 20%! Aren’t we the ones taking on that risk?!"
"If we have to withdraw and end up receiving only a 20% share, you may have all of it. And we will make up the shortfall with the assets of the Far East and give them to you."
When Ferda declared this, Ureas’s expression hardened.
"What do you mean by the assets of the Far East?"
"The magitech weapons that His Highness has been paying close attention to. We will provide His Highness the Second Prince’s army with everything we have been researching up until recently. What do you think?"
His face showed an inability to suppress his delight at the thought of his army becoming stronger.
But an even stronger emotion was greed.
"Even so, don’t we only have 30%? I’d like you to make up for that part a little more."
What a greedy bastard.
But it was exactly what Ferda had expected.
"Very well. Whether we succeed or fail, I will provide you with magitech weapons. However, I will only provide enough to arm the Imperial Guard. How does that sound?"
Ureas liked the exhilaration that came from conquest and displays of military might, so it was not a bad offer.
"That will not do."
Count Rooster, who had been watching the situation, intervened.
"If you are going to provide weapons to the army, then you should provide enough to benefit the Imperial Army as a whole. Receiving such a small quantity that it is only enough to establish a personal guard is of no benefit."
His expression seemed to say:
Do you think the rest of us are fools simply because we do not covet the weapons of the Far East?
Ferda did not respond.
Instead, Ureas stepped forward.
"What exactly is so displeasing to you?"
Count Rooster lowered his head and replied.
"The small-scale support Regent Ferda is offering will do nothing to strengthen the Empire’s national defense."
"The Empire is the Emperor, and I am the one who will become the Empire. If strengthening the Imperial Guard that protects me isn’t strengthening national defense, then what is?"
"....."
"I know you’ve continued to look down on me, but if you insist on dragging this matter out, I will have you punished under military law."
Only then did Count Rooster realize Ferda’s intention.
Therefore, he said nothing more.
His face was filled with anger toward Ferda.
Ureas cleared his throat and left Ferda with one final remark.
"Do not fail. Under any circumstances."
Ureas mounted his horse and returned to the forward base.
He was simple-minded, but he certainly knew how to use both carrots and sticks.
Count Rooster also glared at Ferda displeasingly before going on his way.
"Lord Ferda, it seems like you make more enemies every time you do something."
Luri, standing beside him, said that.
"Even so, they can’t recklessly lay a hand on me, can they?"
"Isn’t that also because you have me?"
While kings and generals traveled with escort knights, Ferda alone moved around with a young girl.
And she was dressed in a maid’s outfit.
The inappropriate clothing created a sense of incongruity, making her seem even more threatening than the knights.
And in reality, she was.
"There is something I’m curious about."
"What?"
"When Count Rooster stepped forward for the sake of the national interest, why did the Second Prince stop him?"
It was a question about what had just happened.
Ferda answered.
"What do you think would happen if everyone else were fighting with their fists while one person alone was holding a sword?"
"It would be an unfair fight."
"Exactly. Ureas likes strength, but what he likes even more is having someone weaker whom he can crush."
The same applied to the other factions within the Empire.
"From Ureas’s perspective, he has no choice but to hope for my success now."
"If that happens, then the Imperial Army will cooperate smoothly as well."
That was why Count Rooster could not easily stop Ferda even after seeing through his intentions.
It was truly a clever strategy.
"Let’s go back now. I don’t want to stay here any longer because of that filthy smell."
"There is one more thing I need to check."
There was another reason Ferda had remained here even though everyone else was leaving.
As Ferda looked around near the tent, he spotted a man.
He was a knight from the Heian Kingdom, gathering the remains of the flesh alongside the soldiers who had come with him.
Ferda walked toward him and asked:
"Are you a knight of the Heian Kingdom?"
The dazed-looking knight was startled and hurriedly nodded.
"Y-Yes."
"May the deceased rest in peace."
"Ah, yes... Thank you."
The knight was bewildered.
The man who had calmly negotiated in that blood-soaked scene had just spoken of praying for the dead.
"I heard you will withdraw once this matter is over."
"That is correct."
"Before you withdraw, I need some information. I want to ask you about your king and the scout who blew himself up, Yuan. Can you answer me?"
The man hesitated.
But soon, he nodded.
"I will tell you as much as I know."
The man answered weakly, and Ferda asked:
"Was that man named Yuan originally capable of using magic?"
The man thought for a moment before shaking his head.
"Not as far as I know. Yuan was a former hunter, so he was skilled at tracking and exceptionally good at concealing his presence, but he had never undergone any magical training."
"Are you certain?"
"Yes. If he had been capable of using such magic in the first place, we would never have used him as an infiltrator."
That was true.
There was no reason to send a talented mage into such a dangerous place.
"Let’s move on to the second question. When did you execute the operation to infiltrate the inner castle?"
"If you mean the day the operation was carried out, that would be the last time I remember seeing Yuan... One week ago. The last thing I heard was that he was being sent into the outer castle, and he disappeared around that time."
"Thank you. You’ve helped me learn a great deal."
"...I sincerely hope justice is served to those filthy members of the Demon Race."
Ferda patted him on the shoulder, and the man resumed gathering the remains with a complicated expression.
As Ferda walked away from him, he muttered:
"That confirms it."
"What does?"
Luri, who could not help but overhear, asked.
Ferda answered:
"The situation is more serious than I thought."
***
Magic was a mysterious and multifaceted power that manifested through various mediums, languages, and shapes.
But when you traced magic back to its origin, there was one common element.
Mana.
Mana was a pure substance capable of taking shape through distortion and transformation according to language and the user’s will.
Mages were beings who housed and produced such a pure substance within their bodies.
In the case of humans, as their Circles increased, their mana became compressed, producing increasingly high-density mana and allowing them to wield more powerful magic.
Because mana was a pure substance that could become anything, it was equally dangerous.
The thing every mage had to be most wary of was Circle Overload.
Circle Overload occurred when the Circles that shaped the pure mana within the body consumed all the body’s nourishment, swelled beyond what the body could withstand, and eventually exploded.
The higher a mage’s Circle stage, the more difficult it inevitably became to control mana, meaning they would live their lives increasingly close to the danger known as Circle Overload.
"That man named Yuan exploded because of Circle Overload."
Ferda said that, but Luri did not understand.
"Circle Overload only happens to mages, doesn’t it? And that man had no connection to magic."
"That’s right."
"Then are you saying he had been hiding the fact that he could use magic all this time?"
"I don’t think so."
As the knight had said, if Yuan had possessed a talent for magic, the kingdom would have noticed it first.
He would then have been made into a mage rather than a special operative used for infiltration.
"I think a Circle must have formed after he entered that castle."
"You mean there is something inside the Heinkel Kingdom’s castle capable of creating mages?"
Luri tried to think it through in her own way.
But since there was no way she could know how to create a mage, she soon gave up.
"A Red Circle could make that possible."
Unlike the Blue Circle, which accumulated mana steadily, mana was created through an upheaval of emotions.
Ferda knew this well because he was the owner of a Red Circle.
"If someone experiences emotions powerful enough to create a Circle and manages to endure them, a Red Circle will be formed."
"Is it really that easy?"
"No. It’s difficult. Continuously dwelling on a single emotion in order to create a Circle is by no means easy."
Continuous joy eventually becomes pain, while continuous sorrow leads to numbness.
And yet, Ferda thought it was possible because the Demon Race possessed one unusual thing.
"Trauma."
When Ferda uttered that word, Luri flinched and trembled.
The memory of that time was still vivid to her as well.
"If you make proper use of it, then it would certainly be possible."
Ferda regretted that object.
The depth of that regret had been so intense that it had driven Ferda to a new level.
"If someone merely creates a Red Circle, can they really become a bomb like that?"
"A First Circle wouldn’t produce that kind of power. Even the strongest explosion from a First Circle would be about enough to cause cardiac arrest. Only upon reaching the Second Circle would it at least take the form of an actual explosion."
"Then are you saying that one had reached the Second Circle?"
Ferda shook his head.
"Judging solely by the explosive power, it was a Third Circle."
Third Circle.
Luri knew how difficult it was to reach that stage.
"Are you saying that he reached the Third Circle in less than a week?"
"I’m certain."
"Is that even possible?"
Even though a Red Circle formed faster than a Blue Circle, reaching the Third Circle in such a short period was extremely difficult.
But it was not impossible.
It simply came at a considerable price.
"Isn’t that why he was so insane?"
He had become a follower of the Demon Race and blown himself up alongside his own king for the sake of their cause.
He was certainly not a normal human being.
Only then did Luri understand what Ferda had meant when he said the situation was serious.
"If Trauma can be used to mass-produce suicide troops like that, then as you said, Lord Ferda, the situation really is serious."
"Yeah. The forces of the kingdoms alone may not be enough for this."
An army of 100,000 had gathered, yet they still could not bring down a single castle.
If one imagined that Third Circle bombs were swarming inside the castle, it felt like an impossibly high wall.
"Then we need additional troops?"
"Yeah."
"Is there somewhere we can request them from?"
"There is someone I’ve been thinking about."
There was one person whom Ferda thought would be the first to come running if something like this happened.
At the same time, Ferda found it strange that this person had not shown up until now.
The reason he had merely been thinking about it was because this was not someone Ferda could casually approach.
Now he wondered what he should do.
That was when it happened.
A chilly wind, completely out of place beneath the scorching sunlight, brushed against Ferda’s skin.
As a mage, Ferda was intimately familiar with that sensation.
It was what happened when a massive flow of magical power shook the surrounding area.
Ferda felt it clearly, and so did Luri.
"Lord Ferda?"
She asked, wondering if Ferda had somehow caused it.
Ferda turned his gaze toward one place and said:
"Apparently, he was curious about it too."
A round portal had opened in the sky above where he was looking.
Terrifying magical power was pouring out from the portal.
At the same time, vibrations rose from the ground.
It was not caused by mana, but by a group of horses galloping toward them.
Ureas and his men, who had been returning earlier, were coming back.
Their expressions looked as though a fire had suddenly been lit under their feet.
"Regent! Turn your horse around and join us immediately!"
Ureas shouted.
"Erdes, that crazy woman is about to go on a rampage!"
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