Chapter 18 - The Blue Magic Tower (4)

A month had passed since Alon returned from the Blue Magic Tower.

"Whew."

With the Imprint of the Unclean, Alon could now cast magic three times a day—or even four, if he rationed his mana carefully. Today, he had discovered another rule governing the phrases.

'Identical phrases don't stack, but using similar phrases can produce something close to a stacking effect.'

There was one detail he had yet to fully unravel, however. To stack phrases, it seemed each spell had to begin with a particular phrase.

'It does seem to have something to do with their arrangement.'

Alon pondered this briefly.

"... Your magic gets stronger every time I see it, my lord."

Before he could arrive at an answer, however, Evan's voice interrupted his thoughts. Alon set them aside and replied.

"... Does it?"

"What do you mean, 'Does it?' Look at that."

Alon turned his gaze where Evan indicated. A broad depression had formed in the middle of the training grounds.

"Second-tier magic shouldn't have that much power, should it? Granted, your spells never really looked like second-tier magic to begin with, but what you're doing now feels like it's on a different level from a few months ago."

At Evan's words, Alon glanced at the sunken earth.

'True, I've felt my magic growing stronger, though I don't know why.'

The spell Alon had used for this experiment was Gravity, a second-tier spell belonging to gravity magic.

But gravity magic or not, it was still only second-tier. It lacked the power to crush a person to death, and even narrowing its range to increase its output would not produce that much force.

In short, casting Gravity should not have been capable of gouging out the ground like that.

'It's obviously not an increase in power from... proficiency.'

Of course, as Alon earnestly explored magic and honed his proficiency, his spells were improving by the day, their precision increasing rapidly.

But greater proficiency only offered more precise execution and a difference in how faithfully a spell manifested. Equipment beyond that had no bearing on it.

'The phrases certainly increase its power, but that's not it either.'

To investigate this stacking effect, Alon had been consistently casting spells with similar phrases for the past four months. For roughly the last two weeks, he had alternated between phrases that were almost exactly alike.

In other words, he had samples to compare. Judging against those samples, his magic had been steadily growing stronger.

Only by tiny increments, but collecting the samples would reveal a gradual upward trend, like a line on a graph.

'Surely the effect isn't getting stronger just because I'm more accustomed to using the phrases.'

One thing Alon had discovered through years of studying the phrases was that they were closer to activation words.

Repeating them did not increase proficiency or power. Rather, like flipping a switch, they altered a spell's properties into a particular special form or endowed it with one.

An increase in power through greater proficiency with the phrases made no sense either, so he considered various other possibilities.

'The reasons someone might suddenly grow stronger in this world... are either receiving worship or receiving a curse's compensation... Let's rule out the former first.'

He might be a noble, but he was merely a count in a small kingdom. At present, he was even being quietly looked down on in the underworld. The idea that anyone was worshipping him made no sense.

'Then all that remains... is the compensation gained in exchange for suffering a particular loss under a curse.'

Reaching that thought, Alon looked uneasy, but soon shook his head.

In this world, compensation from a curse came in only two forms: a curse another person imposed by sacrificing themselves, or one a person placed upon themselves.

Moreover, curses were rituals practiced only in the East, and none of his current acquaintances were based there.

In short, neither the former nor the latter applied to him... Alon repeated that to himself.

And so, his conclusion was:

"I must simply be in good form today."

"... Is that what it is?"

"It is. There's no reason whatsoever for my magic to grow stronger."

He was refusing to face it.

"... I hear Yutia's letter arrived today. I should go read it."

Taking the opportunity to stop his magical research, he turned toward his office to read Yutia's letter.

####

The Holy Kingdom of Rosario.

Unlike the Holy Theocracy of Bartiakan beyond the empire, it worshipped Shironia as its chief deity—the goddess who represented the moon and peace.

A paladin stood outside a prayer house in the eastern part of its capital, Lionel, known as the Pure White City because every building was white.

His name was Roke. He wore platinum plate armor over his entire body, embodying the same pure white as the capital's epithet. He carefully opened the door and entered.

Before long, at the front of the prayer house, he spotted a white-haired nun standing before a statue of the goddess Shironia.

Dressed in a neat habit, with a gentle smile on her lips, she did not appear to be a particularly high-ranking nun.

She lacked the sacred silver cord worn over the shoulders by everyone of high rank in Rosario.

In other words, the nun before Roke was clearly below him in rank as a paladin.

"Good day, Sister."

Yet the moment he saw her, he bowed and greeted her.

"Hello, Sir Roke. Have you been well?"

The nun smiled as she returned the paladin's greeting.

It was an abnormal situation.

Yet neither Roke nor the nun expressed any doubt about it.

Rather, both seemed to consider it perfectly natural.

"Yes. Thanks to you, Sister, I was once again able to save eight children and twenty-five lives in small villages to the east and west."

"That's wonderful."

"It's all thanks to you, Sister."

"Not at all. You're the one who saved those people, Sir Roke."

The nun's words were gentle.

Nevertheless, Roke spoke with a resolute expression, as though nothing could shake his conviction.

"Certainly, I was the one who saved them. But you were the one who offered me guidance and bestowed strength upon me when I had nothing."

Indeed, as his words suggested, Roke had not originally been a paladin.

Though a devout believer in Shironia and a trainee working toward becoming a paladin, he had been completely unable to wield the divine power every paladin was required to command.

No—he had not even been able to sense it.

Thus, even after all his fellow trainees learned to wield divine power and became paladins, he remained a trainee for many long years.

More than eight years passed. Despairing of the divine power that would not take root within him, he was about to abandon his pursuit of a paladin's strength when he met the woman now standing before him.

The red-eyed woman, who always wore a gentle smile, had first told the despairing Roke to try believing in the "Moon."

At first, Roke had not understood.

He could not see what difference there was between believing in Shironia, who was herself the moon goddess, and believing in the moon.

But Roke had been desperate then. Grasping at any last hope, he believed in the "Moon."

He had been that desperate.

And after several days of repeated prayer, Roke, who had never once obtained divine power in the past twenty years, became able to wield it for the first time. At the same time, he became a paladin.

Roke's joy at suddenly wielding divine power he had thought forever beyond his reach was short-lived. Soon, he began to suspect the nun.

Having been born in Rosario and believed in Shironia all his life, he was truly delighted to be able to wield divine power.

Yet part of him wondered whether he had set foot on a heretical path.

After all, he had only become able to use divine power after worshipping the "Moon," rather than Shironia.

Strangely enough, however, his doubts began to fade as time passed.

The divine power he had obtained through worshipping the "Moon" was no different from that obtained through worshipping Shironia.

Every ability that borrowed the deity's power produced exactly the same effect, without a single exception.

The ritual implements sanctioned in the deity's name also shone brilliantly in Roke's hands, proving his divine power was genuine.

Still, the lingering unease in his heart would not disappear. When he finally asked the nun why she had told him to believe in the "Moon," she explained.

It was neither a complicated explanation, nor one about heresy, nor one about religious faith.

["Faith comes from belief in the unseen, but that takes far too long. Usually, it's much easier to find belief in something that actually exists."]

["That's why I told you. The goddess on high is visible, but the moon is always beside us—and—"]

["—Goddess Shironia is also the moon, after all."]

It was simply about belief.

It was merely an explanation of how people whose hearts were always plagued by suspicion could believe in their deity with a little more certainty.

With that answer, Roke dismissed the doubts in his heart.

And he thanked the nun.

He felt sincere gratitude toward the woman who had enabled him to believe in his deity, despite his heart having been so full of suspicion.

"Oh, if you'd like to express your thanks, would you pray with us? It's almost time for prayers. Many others have already gathered."

"I would be glad to."

As Roke nodded, the nun smiled lightly, passed through the prayer hall's main doorway, and opened the inner door.

Countless people sat inside.

Believers, young children, trainees, ascetics, paladins.

Each had adopted a different posture.

Some stood where they were.

Others sat on chairs.

Some knelt on the floor.

Others simply bowed their heads, holding one another's hands.

Yet they all shared one thing: everyone in the prayer house remained reverently in place.

The faithful bowed their heads and closed their eyes, making not a single sound.

And the nun walked among them, reaching the front of the prayer house—

No.

"Now, then—"

The woman wore a gentle smile.

"Let us all pray."

With her red eyes softly showing and the moonlight streaming through the stained glass at her back, Yutia Bloodia spoke.

"To the Great Moon."