Chapter 541 - Pulsation (2)
At the very center of the eastern continent lay three nations──the Kingdom of Estiria, the Duchy of Riviant, and the Republic of Beldirn.
They, considering none other than the mighty Magus Asher alone, spared no small or even vast support for the northern territories, where competition wars were waged over the Ownerless Land.
Each sent delegations, and neatly concluded negotiations with Liam Arein, who on the surface governed the North in Asher's stead.
A fair wind was blowing across the eastern continent.
Roughly thirty years ago, war had erupted between the Kingdom of Estiria and the Republic of Beldirn, and in the midst of that war the Duchy of Riviant had risen in rebellion against the crown and declared independence.
Until only recently, the relations between the Kingdom and those two nations had not only been frigid but utterly rigid, with no sign whatsoever of thawing.
There were many causes, but the greatest weight lay in the fact that the aged King of Estiria himself had spearheaded opposition to any exchange.
But now, the situation had shifted.
The Kingdom had suddenly flung wide the firmly shut borders. And not merely erased the borderlines, but opened even diplomacy and trade.
Upon hearing the news, countless merchants and masses had flooded in, and the checkpoints connecting the Kingdom and the Duchy thronged daily with endless crowds.
Indeed, to the point that even Duke Esperanza, well reputed as the Kingdom's de facto second-in-command, personally visited foreign nations in an effort to improve relations.
Thanks to this, even several councilors of the Republic of Beldirn, who loathed the Kingdom to their core, could not conceal their consternation, and awkward though it was, they managed to extend welcome.
All these changes had begun after the first prince, Valrgna Bain di Estiria, ascended the throne, inheriting the crown from his predecessor.
Of course, to be precise... it was after the first princess, Silis Riven di Estiria, the sole remaining bloodline of the ancient Witch, began manipulating Valrgna's mind from behind the throne.
Regardless.
Though what appeared on the surface might not have been the truth, it did not matter.
For the undeniable fact was that at last the Kingdom of Estiria had shaken off its obstinacy and taken a step forward.
...It was then that the lower-tier Mages began to dream strange dreams.
"Hm, other parts seem fine, but the temperature around your head is noticeably higher than usual. I can see clearly that not only your mana circuits but your body itself is under strain."
"Is, is it dangerous?"
At Edmon Rodliner's diagnosis, Aiden could not hide his unease. The faint throbbing of his forehead felt like a grave illness.
But Edmon shook his head with a kindly smile.
"Not dangerous at all. At most, a day or two of good rest will do. And if you go to the Church to receive a miracle, you'll recover even faster."
"Ah...! What a relief. Thank you, Grandpa Edmon."
"However, just because the current symptoms are mild, you must not take them lightly. If they pile and pile, sooner or later something irreversible will happen. So for now, forget the formula that appeared in your dream. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
Mages by nature were a race overflowing with curiosity, and so they had to constantly strive to restrain and curb that burning desire.
Otherwise, rational judgment born of reason would lose its light.
For Edmon, teaching Aiden magic was closer to a hobby than duty.
Yet, without question, he had never once treated it unseriously.
"Yes, I'll do that, I promise."
"Hoho, such a spirited answer. Asher would be proud to hear it."
After patting Aiden's back, Edmon left with words of caution to take care of himself. As he walked along the road, his consciousness sank deeply into thought.
'What on earth is happening here.'
Without the slightest forewarning, Mages began having the same dream, and found themselves able to cast magic of tiers beyond their current capabilities.
Not only that, but without exception they had all spoken the name Dahit Wethroel... the leader of Black Hour.
'It is doubtless the work of that Transcendent, but that is not the most urgent matter.'
From lower tiers the dreams were spreading swiftly to higher, and within mere months of the magical world taking notice, they had reached mid–Fourth Tier.
'Already Lady Calia's White Crest Knight Order, and His Grace the Duke's Red Conviction Knight Order of the House of Esperanza, are in uproar.'
Though Aiden was but a First-Tier Mage, compared to others of the same tier he had begun dreaming later, yet he too was no exception.
The scale was no trifle.
Black Hour, based in the western continent, would not so suddenly target only the eastern, much less solely the Kingdom of Estiria. The scope surely encompassed the continent entire.
At the rate the dreams were intruding upon realms, they might well surpass the Fourth Tier, reaching the Fifth, and perhaps even beyond Edmon's level, the Sixth, or further still.
He halted.
"...Hm, then does this mean even I could cast Sixth-Tier magic?"
Such a thought did flash across his Mage's mind, but only for a moment.
More pressing was the grave concern of what this phenomenon would ultimately mean for the Kingdom of Estiria.
'But then, I wonder if Her Majesty Silis is still well.'
From the fourth queen she had inherited the Witch's blood, and was in truth a Mage herself.
She could not be free from this crisis.
Yet, when Edmon had last met her in the royal castle alongside His Grace the Duke of Esperanza, she had seemed perfectly fine.
And she herself had said as much.
'Well, so long as she does not employ those formulas, her body should not suffer harm.'
Since then until now, no urgent messages had been sent from the capital, so evidently nothing untoward had happened.
And besides, with capable aides attending Her Majesty Silis closely... excessive worry would only be poison.
So he judged.
Yet there was one thing Edmon had overlooked.
Unlike other Mages, for Silis the problem was not only the formulas of tier breakthroughs contained in the dreams.
It was the dream itself.
***
"...Huff!"
In the deep of night Silis opened her eyes and drew a sharp breath as she stared at the ceiling. Her breathing was rough, the hands clutching the blanket trembling.
Only after she barely calmed herself did she slowly raise her body. Touching the back of her neck, hidden by platinum-blonde hair, she found it drenched in cold sweat.
Twinge.
Her temples throbbed sharply, as though stabbed by a dagger.
'The symptoms are getting worse, and worse.'
Her suffering from inexplicable headaches had begun recently. To be precise, from the moment she first dreamed the dream she had only heard of in words.
At first, like the others, she had received a new formula from Dahit Wethroel, and upon instinctively following her memory to cast magic beyond her tier, she had merely grown dizzy.
But that night had been the beginning.
She dreamed again.
And not just twice.
The next night as well, and the next, and the next, and the next───
It was always the same dream, yet with each repetition the sensations grew clearer. Day by day the fierce stimuli hammered her nerves.
And at the end of the fourth dream, in that fleeting instant, Silis had unconsciously perceived, from the depths of her unconscious, the very basis, the fragments underpinning the dream.
...Clench.
Lowering her head, Silis hugged herself tightly. It was the only way to endure.
The thought of seeking help from Duke Esperanza, Calia, Edmon, Melzard, Adel, Flona, Lorian, Sebas, and others, she had long since discarded.
'It must not be opposed....'
Whoever it was that had wrought this bizarre dream was not something one could dare confront. Being a Witch of Dreams, she could affirm it.
Compared to that existence, even the mad flames of Leonil Bertanas, the former commander of the Royal Court Magicians who had forced an unstable transcendence with the Witch's Heart, were nothing but trifles.
Terror.
The fear that if she resisted the dream she might incur its displeasure gnawed deeply into her reason.
Once, Silis had lived driven solely by vengeance against her father who had used her beloved mother as an experiment and slain her, and against the Kingdom itself.
But now, living beyond vengeance, she had far too much to lose.
"...Mother."
She gently cupped the blue crystal pendant──the Witch's Heart, which Asher had taken back from Leonil and returned to her──and pressed it deeply to her chest.
In the silence, two heartbeats resonated together.
She felt a little more at ease.
She would endure until morning.
Once night passed, the pain born of the dream would vanish without a trace. As long as she endured, again and again, the Kingdom of Estiria would remain safe.
That moment.
"To endure even a fragment of a Transcendent's power with only your mortal flesh? I do not fail to understand your intent, yet still, it is foolish."
"?!"
A strange voice rang out in the bedroom where Silis ought to have been alone. Snapping her head up, she at once invoked mental magic.
Her casting speed was excellent, but even with her unique traits, without using the [Crown of the Witch's Thorn] she had not yet blossomed fully as a Mage.
And even had she borne her exclusive artifact, the result would have been no different.
The gap between Silis's skill and the intruder's mental force was far greater.
"Where... did you come from?"
Beside the bed, a tall man stood with hands clasped behind his back, lofty in posture.
Reddish-golden hair, neatly slicked back.
Dressed in impeccable uniform, wearing a monocle over his right eye, he was clearly no ordinary uninvited guest.
The man spoke.
"From the Ark."
"...Ark?"
"It may be easier to grasp if I say, the group that once annihilated every last Gluttony that rampaged within the Kingdom of Estiria."
Silis's eyes widened.
'Gluttony.'
An unforgettable name.
In the midst of repeated defeats during the war with the Republic, a mysterious man had come to the Kingdom of Estiria and become its new chancellor.
Conducting vast human experiments, he caused countless deaths, and, not content with that, he awakened and dissected the Witch's bloodline slumbering within Silis's mother's body──and slew her. The very group he had belonged to was Gluttony.
By the Witch's bloodline trait, Silis had inherited all the memories of her dying mother. She could not possibly forget.
"...I heard that by some force, everything of Gluttony, including the new chancellor, had been wiped out. Experiments, specimens, research, all of it. That was why the Kingdom at last could not continue the war. And you say that was your doing?"
"Indeed. Though it was another captain, not I, who resolved that matter."
The man extended a hand.
The tip of his index finger brushed Silis's forehead, and the pain tormenting her mind vanished cleanly.
"My headache...."
"Silis Riven di Estiria. Ever since you used the [Crown of the Witch's Thorn] here in the royal capital, Retia, we have observed you. As the only human to inherit the ancient bloodline once extinct in the eastern continent, we sought to judge whether you were fit, or unfit, to stand as one of the Ark's people, those who safeguard humanity."
Ark, humanity, suitability.
Silis did not understand it all at once, but she listened quietly. The man, who stood firm like a solemn wall, bore no malice.
"As a result, through the Watcher, we confirmed your inner self had remained within the standard. Yet, given your royal lineage and its prior entanglement with Gluttony, we resolved to examine more closely. Therefore, under ordinary circumstances, I should never have come to you in person."
"...Then why now?"
"Because otherwise, you would die in the near future."
At the wholly unexpected foretelling of her death, Silis blinked in confusion.
The man continued.
"As you, who have dreamed, already know, the Dark Moon, Dahit Wethroel, has caused Mages to break through their tiers. In other words, a hole has been made in the conditions of tier."
"What does that mean?"
"It means that even without fulfilling the Fifth Tier, a Magus may be born."
The requirements for becoming a Magus were two.
First, attainment of the Fifth Tier or higher.
Second, enlightenment.
Lacking even one, a Mage could never open the path of Magus. Such was the common knowledge and unshakable law of the magical world.
But through these events, the boundary between tiers had grown blurred, and the first condition could now be bypassed.
"Of course, it does not apply to all. Only a very few across the continent bear meaningful possibility. Those with ancient bloodlines or unique traits, for those innate gifts are themselves close to Magus-hood."
However.
"Even so, the probability is vanishingly slim. To attain enlightenment is no simple matter. There is reason why most Mages above the Fifth Tier still fail to open the path. Yet for you, the chance has come too swiftly."
"For me, you mean?"
"A fledgling Witch of Dreams has glimpsed the true illusion spread by a Transcendent beyond the boundary, thus gaining enlightenment was inevitable. That your magical flesh is too frail to endure your own Magus-hood is a grave flaw, however."
Though Silis lacked deep magical knowledge and could not grasp every nuance of his words, she understood the essence.
"So you came to save me, and recruit me to the Ark."
"To save you, first. Recruitment to the Ark is second. Though I intend both, the order matters little. Then, before saving your life and speaking at length... allow me to add one word, for the sake of forming friendly ties."
The man whispered.
"Asher is also of the Ark. His intervention in the Kingdom was his own choice."
"...!!"
Silis's eyes changed.
In that instant, her wariness vanished. Such was the depth of her debt and gratitude to Asher.
Of course, merely invoking Asher's name did not mean she trusted the man before her wholly...
"I will, hear you out. But may I ask one question first?"
"Speak."
"Who are you?"
"Simply call me the Coordinator."
The man who had come to her in person, one of the five Captains who led the Ark──the "Balancer, the Coordinator"──adjusted his monocle with a slight motion.
***
Originally, the Society had spread across the continent, gathering every scrap of information on the magical world, and their intelligence-gathering ability was tremendous.
But this time, they had focused their entire organization solely upon the Bohemirn Magic Tower. Moreover, with communication devices and record golems at their disposal.
Thus the Society, more secretive and nimble, acted all the more boldly. Every gaze was alight with fervor.
Not only because this was the first step toward collapsing the magic tower system, but also because the new Transcendent who had seized Black Hour had given them such a powerful impetus.
The depths of the Grand Hall.
"..."
Grave Rudworth stood in the corridor, awaiting his turn to deliver the periodic eight-day report. Soon the doors opened, and he stepped inside.
Verden.
His blue eyes, having just closed the path of Magus, brimmed with mana. Meeting his gaze, Grave swallowed a tense breath.
'...His rank keeps rising.'
It was as if Dahit's rank and Verden's were fusing into one. Even to stand near was oppressive.
Barely regaining his composure, Grave handed over a thick report.
"This is the fourth report in total, as of today."
"Quite a volume."
"The entire Society is devoting itself to intelligence gathering. I believe this time you will be satisfied."
With a trace of expectation, Verden spread the report wide and scanned through it. His eyes halted at one passage.
Grave asked.
"How is it?"
"Well done."
Within the Society's report were not only the elders of the Bohemirn Magic Tower.
Also included was the third disciple of Balrog, Lucard Maniacs──the very culprit who had once stolen Verden's thesis.
They had succeeded in identifying one fifth of the key figures in the Bohemirn Magic Tower.
Preparations were solid.
***
Meanwhile, both Gluttony and the Bohemirn Magic Tower had begun to move each on their own.