“You are blessed beings. For you've been given the chance to accomplish this great feat alongside me.”
“Thank you for granting us this opportunity!”
“I'll dedicate this body of mine to you and you alone, my Lord!”
Several voices overlapped, echoing through the cave.
Yuan added his own voice, and found himself smiling without realizing it.
We rule Deluah. They would rule this godforsaken kingdom!
“In order to accomplish the great undertaking that you've envisioned, my Lord, the conquest of the territories was something we absolutely had to pass through.”
Teron Meyer went on in a low voice.
“It wasn't entirely without a sense of being premature, and it was an impulsive thing to do... but the shortcomings can simply be made up for.”
“I've no intention of leaving the Precipice for the time being. Nor do I wish to fill the offerings in any hurry.”
“We uphold your wise words, my Lord. Maintaining the status quo is best. For the time being, it will suffice to halt the provocations.”
“The royal court has dispatched an investigation team?”
“That is correct. Once the investigation team is wiped out, they'll grasp the situation and dispatch a subjugation force as well.”
“It doesn't matter. We can just kill them all, one way or another.”
Teron wisely stopped speaking. The judgment was the Lord's to make regardless. Wagging his tongue any further would be entirely useless.
“Jedner, Klaus.”
“We answer your call, my Lord.”
“Show some restraint. Making the greatness of black magic known to the world is all well and good, but you two are not yet strong enough. Let me ask you. Can you sweep away the entire kingdom's army on your own?”
“...We cannot.”
“In that case, have I filled all the offerings?”
Fear crept into Jedner's crimson eyes.
Not a few seconds passed before the two of them slumped to the floor, drooling and weeping. Their kneecaps had been twisted into a grotesque shape.
“So stop. It's not yet time.”
“...We uphold your command, my Lord.”
“From now on, we will gather in this place at least once every month.”
Yuan turned the red jewel this way and that in his hand.
This jewel, held in the hands of the black mages, was something Teron Meyer had procured.
Magic was contained within the jewel. It was a highly advanced method, one that Yuan, who had learned magic on the streets, could never possibly reproduce.
So the Academy teaches things like this too.
Teron was a student of the Royal Academy. Simply by blending in well there and leaking various pieces of information, he was already playing a very significant role.
And yet he was never satisfied, and always went out of his way to do things like this to earn favor.
“Should there be anyone who fails to show themselves in this place when the jewel gives off its light... I will take their life that very instant. See that you keep this in mind.”
The Lord's serpentine pupils, small yet unmistakably making their presence known as though he'd dwelled in caves since birth, gleamed yellow, and everyone, terrified, trembled faintly at their fingertips.
“Sein. If you don't want to end up like that idiotic wretch, pull yourself together.”
Sein was dead. There was no corpse, nothing at all, yet the fact that he had died was plain and undeniable.
Because the Lord had said so.
The Lord could sense Sein's death. Being no different from a god, he often perceived truths that couldn't be understood through human ways of thinking. Therefore his words were not wrong.
Sein had died a stupid death.
Since the death of a black mage was by no means a common occurrence, the provincial black mages Hirti and Paul tracked Sein's traces for a full month. As a result, they learned that he had died in the north after wiping out a tribe of savages.
At first the Lord thought a black mage had murdered Sein. He summoned all the black mages, who at the time numbered eight excluding Sein, and personally interrogated every one of them.
The Lord was a great being who could see through the truths and lies of his servants with but a single word of conversation. And that Lord, after countless tortures and interrogations, reached a conclusion. The one who killed Sein was not human. The black mages had not killed Sein, therefore what remained was only a monster or some undiscovered ancient magic.
The fact that black magic was not invincible frightened Yuan a little. But come to think of it, the 'Precipice' too was ancient magic of unknown origin.
The same went for the curse laid upon the Lord at the Precipice.
He regains his power only by filling the offerings.
Was it not because of this one dreadful curse that the Lord had yet to fully wield his own strength?
“If you seek to undertake anything, see that you ask my permission.”
The Lord's command was carved into everyone down to the marrow.
The twelve black mages, heads bent to the floor, gave their answers of loyalty. Yuan too knelt with sincerity in his heart.
The loyal and clever young black mage beside him did the same.
Once the Lord's summons had ended, the black mages each used teleportation magic to leave the Precipice.
Ordinarily Yuan would have departed to see to his business without a second thought, but he came face to face with Teron on the hill at the entrance of the Precipice.
Teron closed and opened his eyes against the pain still lingering from the earlier torture, then asked.
“Teron Meyer. How is it that you know that? Did the news that the kingdom's army dispatched an investigation team spread through the entire Academy? Does that much information really flow into a pack of brats?”
“...”
“I'll give you twenty gold.”
“Give it to me now.”
Grinding his teeth, Yuan flung a check at him.
Teron caught the paper, folded it in half, tucked it away, pulled the hood of his robe over his head, and replied.
“What information do you want?”
“Quite a few of the Ruden bloodline survived. That's the result of Jedner cleverly putting his worthless head to use. But not Klaus. He's the sort who can't help wiping out everything and anything. I heard that piled-up mountain of corpses had Rapelle folk scattered here and there throughout it.”
“Edmund Rappel is dead.”
“Seems you know what I'm about to say.”
“I can say it with certainty.”
Teron Meyer answered. Yuan replied in a low voice.
“Looks like you're the one who killed him.”
Why he had killed him was easy enough to predict. That one fact alone, that Edmund had been passing through the doors of the Royal Academy as a commoner, made any further explanation unnecessary.
“It was something I did, caught up in private feelings. Has that been explanation enough?”
“Sure. In that case, what stance are the noble brats taking?”
“Yuan, you're under a great misconception. The information spread to the Academy only at the point when ten days had already passed since the territory's occupation. I doubt whether the kingdom's army is even aware of the existence of black magic at all.”
“I know that too. I make my living selling information, would I not know even that much? All you have to do is tell me what rumors are going around among the brats.”
The boy, his hair tied back short, let out a small sigh.
“They truly know nothing. The students of the Royal Academy are so ignorant there's no need to inform them of anything. What on earth are you expecting from mere children?”
Yuan sneered.
“It's because you're right here in front of me. Thanks to you, I've even taken an interest in mere children.”
“I'm honored.”
When Yuan shot him a sidelong glare, Teron let out a faint laugh. Then he added one generous remark.
“The moment students start returning to their territories, I'll let you know at once.”
“Do as you like.”
Teron Meyer drew a magic circle and vanished.
Yuan gazed at the bloodstained boulder on the hill and sank into thought.
What variables might arise from here on out?
Ancient magic? Monsters? Internal division among the black mages? Or some transcendent, martially powerful human appearing out of nowhere?
Whatever it might be, the odds were slim. First and foremost, the urgent priority was to lie low, at the very least, and then go about killing people.
He'd have to fill at least five hundred before he'd amount to anything, wouldn't he? Only then would he not fall behind those murderous fiends.
And if he was to faithfully serve the Lord beneath him when they one day ruled Deluah, he had to grow stronger.
As luck would have it, the Lord did not inflict black-magic torture upon Teron that day.
Thanks to that, Teron Meyer was able to finish his grueling forced march and teleport safely to the pine forest in front of the Academy.
He had used teleportation magic all day long, crossing the entire kingdom, and on top of that he'd carried out several tasks in succession. Until just moments ago he'd desperately kept his mind gripped tight and pretended to be fine. Only upon entering the familiar space did the tension finally drain out of him all at once.
Teron collapsed face-first onto the ground. As he lay on the earthen floor, moonlight seeped down between the towering pines. As he blankly gazed up at the sky, stray thoughts assailed him whether he wanted them or not.
These days, the kind of stray thoughts that came to Teron Meyer were predictable. They were nothing but the sort that made anger surge up on its own, whether he wanted it or not.
Jedner, Klaus. Especially the moment those two faces surfaced in his mind, he lost his self-control and was tormented by a powerful urge to kill.
Those two godforsaken bastards. Those two wretches, whom tearing limb from limb still wouldn't be enough for, were the ones who had ruined every last one of Teron Meyer's plans, and the culprits who had driven him into dreadful anxiety. In his heart he'd already killed them a hundred times over, but in reality, sadly, he could not.
The reason Jedner and Klaus had suddenly gone berserk and ended up like that was all because of Teron. Because of him.
