“As I told you, there's only one reason I called you here. To offer a bribe. I'd like for us to get along. For the sake of what's ahead.”
“Hmm... And what should I do if everything you've said turns out to be a lie, Teron?”
“You know the answer to that.”
You just kill me.
He didn't need to say the rest for it to land. Sein's eyes crinkled and he nodded.
“Let's get moving.”
They climbed back up into the snowy mountains and stood before the cave. With two mages leaving footprints, they slipped inside easily. As they kept walking, the surroundings grew steadily darker, and soon came the sound of jewels.
“Wow, incredible.”
From ceiling to floor, gemstones hung in draping cascades. Jewels glittering in every color of the spectrum surrounded them on all sides.
“May I touch them?”
Sein asked in a delighted voice. Teron ignored him and walked ahead.
The surroundings brightened again, and a vicious cold settled over them. However this was even possible, it baffled him, even seeing it for the second time.
Shivering, Teron came to a stop where he stood and threw out a sudden, out-of-nowhere question.
“Don't you think killing an innocent person is an evil thing to do?”
“...What? What kind of nonsense is that, all of a sudden? Creepy.”
Teron Meyer's expression hardened. He was looking at Sein with an attitude oddly different from the flat, detached tone he'd kept up until now.
“I'll say it one more time. Sein, you are committing a sin. But it can still be undone. Can you promise never to use black magic again? And, will you betray your master, stand at my side, and set out to wipe every last trace of black magic from this world?”
Sein's eyes went round, and then the corners of his mouth curled up. A moment later he burst into cackling laughter, as though he'd just heard the most ridiculous thing in the world.
“Pff. Pfhah! Sorry. Teron, are you out of your mind?”
“I'm perfectly sane. This is the last chance God is giving you. You still have time to atone.”
Sein stared idly at his own surging black magic and answered something entirely beside the point.
“I'm trying to figure out how I should kill you. Even if I went and told my master, he wouldn't believe me, so for a brat like you, maybe it's just better to kill you right here and now. Hmm, what to do.”
“So you're refusing?”
Ahaha! A clear, ringing laugh echoed out.
Sein's eyes gleamed red.
“Of course I'm refusing, you traitor. Were you actually planning to kill me?”
“No, not that...”
“There's no way a mere child could be this stupid. If you lured me here to kill me, you made a very bad call. Right now I'm strong enough to blow this whole cave apart. Taking me to the barbarian tribe today was a mistake.”
Sein's black magic turned toward Teron.
Teron Meyer ran at full speed. In an instant he stamped down hard on a small notch in the corner of the cave.
Thud!
A wall of ice came crashing down.
It was a trap mechanism.
Sein was sealed inside.
From beyond it came a shrill shriek, and Teron could feel him trying to break through the wall with black magic.
But it was hopeless. This cave was a powerful space where black magic and the like were utterly useless.
And on top of that.
It'll come soon.
The moment the thought crossed his mind, the cry of a monster rang out.
A monster that dwelled only in the caves of the snowy mountains.
A northern beast that grew docile and returned to its lair once it fed on human flesh, just once a year.
Could Sein win against that?
Teron sank down where he was, trembling in the cold, and simply waited for time to pass. Right about when his whole body was on the verge of freezing over, he stepped on the notch again.
The wall of ice scraped its way back up and vanished without a trace.
Beyond the wall lay scattered crimson blood, gobbets of flesh, and fragments of bone.
The one who'd been alive only moments ago had vanished without a trace, leaving nothing but the remains of a hunk of meat.
Teron murmured.
“I didn't kill him, Leopold. The monster did.”
He walked on, treading over the squelching flesh.
The monster that had fed had already retreated into its own territory, and what remained was.
He looked at the glittering green gemstones. The minerals clinging to the walls were achingly, viciously beautiful.
Teron fired black magic at the minerals, but they didn't so much as chip.
His mood soared, and a smile spread across his face of its own accord.
He pried loose every green gemstone and pocketed them all, and took a generous share of the other jewels as well.
Once he'd made his way out of the cave, Teron wasted no time and immediately cast a teleportation spell. By the time he reached his destination, a full day had passed.
The nosebleed wouldn't stop, and he could taste blood at the corner of his mouth. Even a rough guess told him the internal injuries were serious, but there was nothing to be done. Time was now truly running short.
He arrived at a village where houses were crammed together in a dense tangle, and pulled his robe down firmly over his head. At the edge of the village stood a small, half-collapsed house, and that was where Teron's mother lived.
Feeling his breath catch in a way about on par with when he had to talk to Leopold, he made his way slowly to the door. He drew a breath and yanked it open. Who is it? The frail voice soon turned into a shrill scream.
“What makes you think you can come here?”
Despair filled the eyes of the gaunt woman little by little. Then she screamed like a madwoman, pulled out the paring knife she'd been peeling fruit with, and began swinging it wildly.
“Get out of my sight this instant. You ungrateful wretch! You damned brat, how dare you show your shameless face here...!”
Any other time he'd have tried to reason with her, but Teron was busy.
Unable to bring himself to strike his mother unconscious, he drew a cumbersome magic circle instead.
The woman watched what Teron was doing with a look as though she were seeing something revolting, then once again tried to kill him with the paring knife. Regrettably for her, she collapsed on the spot just before she could carry it out.
Adeline, Teron's birth mother, was not by any generous stretch a person you could call normal. To put it more precisely, mad would be the fitting word.
Tracing back the hazy memories of his early childhood, there had certainly been a time when she was like everyone else.
But by the time Teron was walking and talking and truly growing up, she'd always been just as she was now, so seeing her like this stirred little in him.
Given Adeline's disposition, leaving her here would be the best option, and yet there was the off chance of something. Teron did not want to watch her die a second time.
After everyone was dead. Holed up in the corner of a room, doped up on drugs, Teron had been visited most often by a handful of people, and Adeline was one of them. The reason was probably... that she was one of the few people in his life who had ever treated him well. In his past life he'd put on an unbothered face even after she died, but in the end he regretted it.
There was no chance whatsoever of her ever returning to her right mind, but Teron wanted to hold onto even the trace of it. This was a goal he'd set for himself after coming back to the past.
Taking Adeline with him, he used teleportation magic three more times, and the moment he arrived in the capital, relief washed over him. Urgh. Nausea rose, and he bent over in a corner by the roadside and threw up.
Dragging her along with one hand, he headed for a lodging house on the outskirts of the capital that he'd scouted out in advance. He left Adeline there and pressed a large sum of money on the innkeeper, on the condition that she be properly restrained and cared for.
He fitted Adeline with a protective device, laid protective magic over the inn as well, and by the time he stepped back outside it was already night. The final day of the Founding Festival was drawing to a close.
Inside the capital, the mood was one of savoring the festival's end. Even the commoners were sharing delicious food and gathered in the town square, passing the time. The streets, unusually, were flooded with light.
Teron thought about heading quietly back, but soon gave up on the idea. Even in the middle of the festival, Arnold was diligently at work in the underworld, so Teron went to see him and got an introduction to an architect.
“What business did you have with me?”
“At the entrance to Mount Derin there's an abandoned mansion. Repair it for me. As inconspicuously as possible. I'll pay you generously.”
“...Understood.”
The short architect looked at the gold coins before him and accepted the offer. Teron took several men to the mansion and spent the whole night explaining the direction of the work.
In the meantime, the Founding Festival came to an end. As the architects headed back, the sun began to rise little by little. Not only had the time he'd planned for already passed, but there was a very high chance Leopold was making a fuss looking for him.
Still, having stayed up two full nights and pushed himself to use teleportation magic, his whole body ached as though he'd been beaten.
Blood kept surging back up his throat. If he used teleportation magic any more he might actually die, but...
I have to go back.
With his last shred of concentration, Teron Meyer drew a magic circle.
When he closed his eyes and opened them again, the sight of the Grand Library stretched before him, and along with it, Leopold.
Damn it... A curse slipped out just as dizziness spun through his head.
The dizziness turned into severe vertigo, his vision blurred more and more, and Teron Meyer lost his balance and groped with his hands, searching for something to grab onto.
When his hand caught something, he slumped against it as if leaning in.
A warm embrace wrapped around Teron.
