Translator: Alpha0210
The Magic Planet was the most mysterious and veiled place in all the World of Void. Since the worlds were unified, it was no longer as mysterious as it once was, nor did it shun outsiders with quite the same extremity, but it remained a secretive, closed-off place even now.
Peran Jun had returned to that place.
And now he stood before the structure where most of the mages resided – the 77 Tower.
"Peran. When did you get back?"
At the somewhat brusque voice, he turned his head, and there stood Haike.
The owner of the Magic Tower's 55th floor and a member of the Seven Magicians. In other words, one of the five strongest among all the mages of the Magic Planet – and, of course, Peran's superior.
Peran hurriedly bowed his head.
"I just arrived, Lord Haike. I didn't expect the Magic Tower's reconstruction to be finished already."
"We only restored the exterior as a stopgap. Linking each floor to a different world like before has become impossible. If it's merely a matter of raising a tower of seventy-seven stories, a day is more than enough."
"……"
A single day, enough to raise a structure of this scale.
Peran wore a strange expression. The beings he had met at the 'summit' had at least felt, at a glance, like existences that had left humanity behind or surpassed it entirely – but these people looked like ordinary mages on the surface.
Though of course, they were existences far beyond any mage Peran had ever known.
"Where is my master?"
"On the 77th floor. As it happens, he's been waiting for your report."
"Ah. I see. Thank you."
"Shall I take you there?"
"……"
Peran let his eyes linger a moment on the seventy-seven-story tower soaring as if to touch the sky, then nodded.
"I'd appreciate that."
Snap.
Haike flicked his fingers, and the surrounding scenery changed in an instant.
Books, papers, and writing implements scattered in disarray, the smell of settled dust, dim lighting. This place, like a mage's workshop, was the most familiar thing to Peran in all this unreal land.
"I'll take my leave, then."
Haike spoke in a low voice and vanished, and Peran looked around.
His master was nowhere to be seen. Had he stepped out for a moment? Just as that thought crossed his mind, a rustling sound came from somewhere.
"...Mm."
With a groggy voice, someone raised their upper body from within a burial mound of books.
The strongest of the Seven Magicians, owner of the 77th floor, the de facto leader of the present Magic Planet.
And Peran's master, Harun.
"Master."
"...Peran. When did you arrive?"
"Just now. On the Magic Planet, and on the 77th floor."
"I see. Fetch me a glass of water, would you."
"Yes."
Peran nodded and, carefully picking his way around the haphazardly scattered papers, found the kettle. He poured water into a cup and conjured roughly three cubes of ice, dropping them in.
Harun gulped down the cold water and let out a groan.
"Are you all right? You really should drink cold water slowly..."
"It woke me right up, so it's fine. More importantly, Peran, you've come back alive."
"...You sound almost as if you'd hoped I would die."
"Not so, but I did think the odds of your safe return were slim."
Excessive honesty was one of Harun's facets as well.
Peran was fairly used to it by now, and above all, he didn't dislike this side of his master, so he gave a rough nod.
"Honestly, I feel like I died a few times over. Monsters of every kind were strewn about the place. I swear, a minnow caught in a school of sharks couldn't have been half as pitiful as I was."
"No doubt."
"...I was of no help whatsoever there. Even injured, it would have been far better for you to go, Master. Why did you send me?"
He spoke with a trace of frustration mixed in.
When no answer came readily, he added lightly,
"You said you'd tell me when I returned."
Harun sent him a sunken gaze.
And then said something else entirely.
"Did the Beginning Wizard attend that gathering?"
"Ah, yes."
"And how was he?"
Peran fumbled for words before he could only manage,
"...Very... memorable."
He knew the owner of that body.
A hero he respected, a friend he had wanted to stand equal to, a road that had been anything but smooth –.
But the meeting he had expected to be a reunion became a first encounter. He had thought it was an entirely different being that merely wore a similar face – but in truth, it wasn't. According to what the man said afterward, that body was unmistakably that of the man Peran had known.
Remarkably, a brief conversation with him had followed, but that was all.
Peran was about to recount the matter to Harun in detail, then shook his head. There were things he needed to report first.
"Master, the situation is not good."
"What has happened?"
"Two Destructions have appeared simultaneously. Monstrous entities that emerged to the east and to the west of the King's Castle."
"……"
"The being called the Half King was certain that each of them is stronger than she herself is."
At this, even Harun's expression darkened, and only then did Peran understand that the Half King truly was a formidable existence. To be honest, Peran couldn't clearly gauge the martial strength of those at the summit. That went doubly for the Half King. At a glance, she was nothing but a single frail girl in light clothing.
For such a girl to be stronger than anyone in the summit hall. It wasn't something he could easily accept, but everyone present had acted as though they knew it to be fact.
"What was the Half King's judgment?"
"For now, they're watching the situation, but... she said she would stop one of them herself, whatever it takes."
"And the other is to be stopped by every being except the Half King, combining their strength...... That's the plan, then. Simple, but depending on one's perspective, it could be called the correct response."
"……"
Was it?
Peran had a different thought, but he kept it to himself and stayed silent.
Harun, however, must have sensed something in his disciple, for he slowly opened his mouth.
"Peran, what do you think?"
"Would my thoughts carry any meaning?"
"Your confidence has taken quite a beating, I see."
"……"
"Go on, tell me. The Rulers, the Four Knights, the Twelve Void Lords, even the Half King. If all of them obeyed your commands, what would you do?"
He didn't know what meaning there was in such a hypothetical.
But the Harun that Peran had come to know was a mage through and through. Supremely rational, logical, not the sort of man to propose any course of action without reason.
This time he pondered more deeply before speaking, slowly.
"...First, I don't think I would adopt the Half King's method."
"Why not?"
"Because the risk if one side loses is too great. What we need are chances. We have to learn about Destruction through as many chances as possible. But the Half King's method is an extreme tactic where everything ends the moment one side collapses."
Harun, who had been listening in silence, asked again.
"Then what would you do?"
"...Mm."
Peran let out a short hum of thought, then said,
"...Shouldn't the Half King defend the King's Castle?"
"What do you mean?"
"The two separate Destructions are said to be walking toward the King's Castle, one from the east and one from the west. Smashing everything in their paths. If so, I believe every being other than the Half King should become obstacles that carve even one more scratch into their bodies. And the Half King should watch that entire process from the King's Castle."
"You would have her wait at the King's Castle throughout."
"Yes. No matter how many die, no matter how horrific the calamities that unfold. She must keep holding the throne. If the Half King is truly as strong as claimed, then in the end, she is the only one capable of taking Destruction down."
Peran spoke in a resolute voice.
"She should keep analyzing Destruction from the King's Castle. To raise the odds of victory by even one percent more. If there's any possibility of growing stronger, it would be good to train alongside that as well. But the training must not place a heavy burden on the body. In the final battle against Destruction, she'll need to be in peak condition."
"……"
Peran's words ended, and his master said nothing for a long while.
Harun was ordinarily a man whose thoughts were impossible to read, but that was especially true now. That went for the intent behind the question, and Peran couldn't begin to guess what deliberations his master was weighing at this moment.
Peran kept watching that face with a needlessly tense expression of his own.
At length, Harun murmured with a faint smile.
"Rational, Peran."
"Pardon?"
"It was a compliment. You are talent enough to be a mage of the Magic Planet."
"Ah... thank you."
Harun walked to where the window was and threw it wide open.
The tower's highest floor,
Gazing at the scenery spread out below it, he murmured.
"Then we'll have to divide the forces into two armies first."
"...For a start, I suppose so."
"Good. Geographically, our Magic Planet lies to the south, but it seems best that we be incorporated into the Western Army first."
"Pardon?"
"I mean that the overall formation of the armies would best be divided into southeast and northwest. I will see to the forming of these armies myself, one way or another."
"Ah. Yes."
He kept answering with nothing but dazed nods.
But the most shocking declaration had yet to come.
"And Peran, you will need to take command of the Western Army."
"……"
A shock ran through him as if someone had struck him over the head.
Peran blinked both eyes and asked, in what was probably the stupidest voice of his entire life,
"...Pardon?"
*
Sarman's night market was, it seemed, rather grand.
Residue had just discovered that the meat-and-vegetable skewer he'd devoured was fairly expensive. Well, this was the middle of a desert; meat and vegetables couldn't be easy to come by.
But if food had been scarce to begin with, they'd never have had the luxury of throwing a festival like this.
"The street food and souvenirs here run on the pricey side."
Lukas took in the whole scene of the night market as he continued.
"Crudely put, the prices are a rip-off, but nobody hesitates to buy. What do you think that means?"
"That there's plenty of suckers."
"...Well. Put in extreme terms, yes. In any case, it means the place is crawling with consumers who can pay this much without difficulty."
Even as Residue listened to Lukas's explanation, he couldn't quite understand why he had to hear any of this.
Did the man simply need someone to listen? Or did he have a habit of speaking aloud when organizing his thoughts?
"This is one of the festivals of the Noxstantine faith."
"Given the mood, it seems I'm supposed to ask. The Noxstantine faith?"
"The Four Major Religions, I mean."
Naturally it was the first he'd heard of it, so he just blinked, and Lukas went on.
"The 'Ras Religion'. The 'Savior Religion'. The 'Delatan Religion'. 'Noxstantine'. The ones commonly counted as the four major religions on the continent, though all of them have waned considerably by now."
"Right. And why the sudden dreary lecture in theology?"
"The desert peoples mostly follow Noxstantine. Noxstantine is the name of the absolute god of Amakan mythology, and at the same time she is the Queen of Night. She–."
"Get to the point."
"...At its root, this festival exists to honor Noxstantine's blessing. In the broad sense, it's one of the festivals of the Four Major Religions. Does that explain why the consumers' pockets are so deep?"
Not that he'd particularly wanted to know, but he grasped what the man was getting at.
In other words, these suckers were tourists who had come from across the desert, or from every corner of the continent, to enjoy the festival. The religious were generally a frugal sort, but the moment a god's name was stamped on an item, they became startlingly extravagant spenders.
"But... even accounting for that, it's suspicious all the same."
Lukas murmured as much.
"Why?"
"I told you. Religions have grown much weaker these days. It goes without saying, but holding a festival takes funds. All the more for a festival on the scale of an entire town like this. Honestly, until I came here I had no idea it was being held this grandly."
"Meaning there's someone backing it."
Not that he particularly cared, but Residue went ahead and said aloud what Lukas was thinking.
"And that might be a Demigod?"
"...What do you think?"
"Not interested."
Whatever a Demigod was doing here was no concern of Residue's. The bastards were Lukas's enemies anyway, and their defeat was already a foregone conclusion.
Though from the present point in time, a fair amount of time would still have to pass –.
"...That's enough scouting for now. We have plans tomorrow, so let's head back. And of my companions, you've only met Iris, yes? I'm not sure they'll accept you, but I'll introduce you."
The companions would be Kasajin, Lucid, Anastasia. To think they'd be reunited like this.
Residue asked with an indifferent face.
"What plans?"
"I've arranged to meet this town's priest. He may be a Demigod's underling. I hope not, of course."
"I see."
Residue popped the rest of the steamed potato into his mouth and chewed.
Now. What to do.
Should he keep moving with Lukas? Or would it be better to part ways here?
There was no absolute need to travel with this guy. If anything, moving alone was more convenient for gathering information smoothly.
Holding that brief deliberation, he trudged along the street.
As the night deepened, the lights were going out one by one, and the crowds were thinning. It was still bustling enough, but judging by the flow, things would wind down within an hour or two.
The inn would be coming up soon, so he needed to reach a conclusion before then – and in that moment, Residue suddenly felt someone's gaze.
"……"
Amid the swaying crowd, a figure came into view. Neither the build nor the clothing was particularly striking, but the color of the hair caught his eye at once.
He hadn't imagined the gaze.
The figure stood stock-still in the street, staring straight at him.
"You......"
The instant Residue's lips parted slightly, the figure melted into the crowd and vanished.
"Lukas."
"What?"
"Go back ahead of me."
"Why?"
"I feel like something's about to come to me, and you're in the way."
"……"
Lukas shook his head with a dumbfounded look.
"You know where the lodgings are?"
"I know."
"Fine, then. Take this."
With that curt reply, he flicked something with his finger.
Catching it, Residue found a gold-colored coin. A gold piece, in other words.
"What's this?"
"If there's anything else you want to eat, sort it out with that."
"Generous of you."
"I owe you my life. That much is nothing."
"And is that any way to talk to your big brother?"
Lukas sighed and left.
Left alone, Residue neither followed after Lukas nor went off to buy food; he simply stood there blankly for a while. He flipped the gold coin Lukas had given him into the air and caught it, over and over, then casually turned and headed somewhere.
A damp, gloomy back alley.
As he slipped deep between its walls, the surroundings soon fell quiet.
The clamor and lights of the night market faded into the distance, and only the darkness and the sound of Residue's footsteps grew gradually distinct.
Then an open space appeared.
A children's playground, perhaps. It was a spot where several shabby pieces of play equipment had been set up, and from it one could take in not only the sky but the whole panorama of the town at a glance. It was a view made possible by the town's blunt, cone-shaped structure.
Someone had arrived there before him.
The very one who had drawn Residue to this place, the figure who had stood stock-still amid the crowd.
That figure was leaning against the railing with her back turned, gazing up at the night sky, and upon sensing Residue's presence, she smiled brightly.
"Lovely night, isn't it, Residue?"
A very courteous greeting indeed.
...Of course, it was hardly the attitude the Blue Knight, Pale, would ever show him.
Residue closed his mouth for a moment.
*****
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