Chapter 38 - Coloni, the City in the Desert (3)

Riyan Agulus did not like lies. No, she went beyond dislike—she loathed them.

As the daughter of the Red Magic Tower's master, she had enjoyed abundant privileges, but had experienced lies and deception in equal measure.

... Lies so devastating that they had left her traumatized.

That was why her aversion to falsehood bordered on an obsession. And because of her childhood trauma, she despised liars all the more if they were mages.

In that sense, Riyan Agulus could not help instinctively loathing Count Pallatio when she first met him. Contrary to the widespread rumor that he had played a crucial part in defeating an Outer God, he was weak.

She had not been born with the “Eye” said to be essential for becoming a high-tier mage, but she had enough talent to see Alon's mana without difficulty.

A paltry amount of mana.

He was certainly a mage, but judging by the quantity, his meager mana seemed barely sufficient to reach the second tier. It reminded her of another rumor she had heard after the claim that Count Pallatio had contributed greatly to stopping the Outer God: that he was the benefactor of Deus Makalian, one of the Master Knights.

The story Riyan Agulus then concocted in her head—that he had stolen credit for Deus Makalian's achievements—swiftly hardened into truth in her mind. That story, which she now regarded as fact, instilled in her a loathing for the count.

Yes. That was certainly how it had been.

'How...?'

Riyan was staring at Alon in astonishment. More precisely, she was staring at the phenomenon he had created: a vast area spreading out from him, cold enough to chill the lungs in the middle of this scorching desert.

When she saw frost even beginning to form on the sand around him, she could not make sense of the situation at all.

This was absolutely not a spell that could be manifested with the amount of mana Alon possessed.

And that was not all. Though Riyan did not know how he had manifested the spell, she could understand its structure.

'Compound magic—and at least three spells...!'

Compound magic.

Explaining the theory would take a very long time, but put simply, it meant exactly what it sounded like: manifesting two spells by linking them together.

Naturally, linking spells was by no means easy.

Manifesting magic required various additional elements, but ultimately, its fundamental arrangement had to be maintained.

In other words, linking worked like this: each spell would fail to manifest if even one part of its structure went awry. To link them, a mage had to be capable of reformulating each spell through their own equations. Consequently, every additional spell linked raised the difficulty to an unimaginable degree.

In short, it was a method only mages of at least the fifth tier could attempt.

And so, as Riyan watched blankly while Alon prepared his next spell—

“!”

—in the next instant, she saw it.

The eyepatched man who had been standing before her just moments ago was suddenly right in front of Alon. It had happened in an instant, before anyone could register it.

The mercenaries, instinctively realizing that protecting Alon gave them the best chance in this battle, belatedly turned around. Riyan, too, instinctively began preparing a spell to help him, but it was already too late.

The eyepatched man had reached him with a sinister smile and was poised to swing his twin curved sabers.

Yet what Riyan saw was not Alon's head being sliced off—

“Freeze.”

CRACKLE!

—but the man who had been about to swing his twin sabers freezing solid in an instant.

Frozen in the act of swinging, he became a statue of ice in that fleeting moment.

“Shatter.”

With that quiet murmur from Alon's lips—

CRACK—CRASH!

—the corpse of the man who had plunged everyone into despair mere moments earlier shattered into pieces with the sound of breaking ice.

Silence.

“Whew...”

Alon released a low sigh, and another cloud of white vapor swept past him. Lowering the hand with which he had formed a seal even Riyan could not fully decipher, he spoke.

“I'll give you a chance.”

As though he had anticipated all of this, his expression did not change. He gazed indifferently at the bandits, whose faces had grown tense at some point.

“Get lost.”

It was a quiet pronouncement, but its intent was clear to anyone who heard it.

Having lost their leader in an instant to a single attack, the bandits murmured among themselves briefly, then turned and fled, every last one of them.

Watching Alon casually dismiss the spell as though nothing had happened, Riyan remained silent.

“...”

Realizing just how ignorant she had been, she continued to stare at him. A small spark of admiration kindled in her eyes.

####

As he watched the hesitant bandits rapidly disappear into the distance, Alon felt relief and bewilderment behind his expressionless face.

'It didn't happen quite the way I expected, but at least it worked out as intended.'

Alon knew about the Bloodsand bandits because they appeared in a side story in the game.

In the game, the other members would scatter once their leader was dealt with. That was why he had intended to take out the leader quickly, and he had managed to do just that.

... Though he had not expected the fellow to charge in and conveniently get himself hit before Alon had even properly manipulated the spell arrangement.

'Did reducing the penalties really make that much of a difference?'

Alon felt the scorching heat seep back into his lungs.

The cold that had spread out from him moments earlier was “Bitter Cold,” a spell he had spent more than half a year devising and creating since his return from Callivan.

This spell, which could only be created by simultaneously using spatial magic, cold magic, and maintenance magic, did nothing more than temporarily alter the surrounding environment to match the north's bitter cold. But that was what mattered to Alon.

“Bitter Cold” could satisfy, albeit in a limited fashion, one of the four constraints he had imposed to kill the Outer God: “When magic is used in a land of bitter cold, it can twist the laws of the world.”

In other words, it reduced the four penalties Alon would ordinarily have to bear to three, making this spell quite important to him. The negative cost of the constraints diminished his magical abilities, after all.

'The spells I made to link with Bitter Cold are manifesting properly, too. There really is a huge difference between having one less penalty and not. The belt has made the magic itself stronger than before... stronger than I originally expected, even.'

That left him bewildered for a moment.

'Well, a good thing is a good thing.'

The feeling soon passed. Alon shrugged and smiled, deliberately moving his hand to fiddle with the ornament at his waist, set with three amethysts: the Belt of the Forgotten.

In the game, it doubled the damage dealt in exchange for doubling the damage received. Its effect was clearly applying even to Alon, who was bearing three penalties.

'... If I can get “that” here as well, I should definitely be able to remove one more penalty.'

With that thought, Alon casually unfastened the belt and put it in his pocket.

'Still, Bitter Cold needs some work. It lasts far too briefly for something that consumes three spells' worth of uses. Even at most, it doesn't seem to last a minute... Should I look into that, too?'

Thinking this, he returned to the carriage.

Beginning that very day and continuing into the next, with their arrival at the desert city now close at hand, Alon experienced two changes.

“Oh, Count Pallatio, this wine is specially produced in Gur. They say it tastes absolutely wonderful. Would you care for a glass?”

“Thank you.”

“Ah, and this is some ham I've brought to sell as a specialty product in the city. Would you like to try some of this as well? It's truly delicious...!”

The first was a complete turnaround in the attitude of Rad, Goldenfoot's caravan leader.

As though willing to give him everything he had, Rad brought Alon all manner of gifts in a single night—more than he had lavished on Riyan over the preceding days.

“If there's anything else you want, please let me know at once!”

He rubbed his hands together so much that Alon wondered whether he might rub them away, then bowed deeply and disappeared.

“He's changed a full 180 degrees—no, 360!”

“... Wouldn't 360 degrees put him right back where he started?”

“That's how much his reaction has changed.”

The second change was—

“Count Pallatio.”

“... Riyan Agulus?”

“Yes. If it isn't an imposition, I've come to discuss magic with you. Would that be all right?”

—Riyan Agulus's attitude toward Alon had transformed completely.

On the night of the bandit attack, Riyan had come to Alon and apologized, bending her head—which had seemed incapable of bowing—to a right angle. From the following day onward, she began visiting him from time to time to ask various questions about magic.

“Ah, so for this part, you arrange the mana as you choose—”

“Yes. To use compound magic, you ultimately have to keep the arrangement intact, so rather than fixing its structure in place, you twist it through rotation—”

Conversations with Riyan Agulus were quite useful to Alon.

Having taught himself magic entirely on his own and used phrases to twist its properties, he found her questions and knowledge quite helpful from an academic standpoint.

Moreover, whenever he explained arrangement structures, an area in which he was slightly ahead of her, her quiet reactions of “Oh...” or “Wow...” were quite satisfying, whether she gave them consciously or unconsciously.

Of course, as their conversations became more frequent, the unnecessarily intense admiration in her gaze became a little awkward.

“Here.”

“This is...?”

“A potion.”

Today, too, Riyan naturally offered him a mana recovery potion as soon as their conversation ended.

They were not top-grade like the ones Penia had given him, but the potions she had been offering for several days were still quite expensive. Behind his expressionless face, Alon felt sheepish.

“... You don't need to bring a gift every day you visit.”

“I'm the one receiving instruction. Please accept it without feeling obligated.”

Since she always practically forced a potion into his hands before leaving, he ended up acquiring about four mana potions by the time they reached the desert city.

####

After a journey of a little over a week, Alon arrived at the desert city and parted ways with Rad, who told him to entrust any task he needed done to him at any time, and Riyan, who promised to visit again and formally apologize.

“... I can understand the merchant, but the tower master's daughter has changed her attitude so much that I can't get used to it,” Evan muttered as he watched Riyan leave.

After that remark, Alon entered the desert city and leisurely looked around.

It rivaled Asteria's capital, differing only in the sandy color of its buildings. Besides its many buildings, the enormous colosseum—visible even from the southern gate where they stood, as though proclaiming itself Coloni's symbol—was overwhelming.

'It could hold more than a hundred thousand people.'

Having offered that silent appraisal of the immense colosseum visible beyond the countless buildings, Alon set off with Evan toward Seollang's location.

Twenty minutes later.

“Well, well, my noble lord. How about having a little chat with us?”

“...”

Someone picked a fight with Alon.

Before him and Evan stood a group of more than ten men, each with “I'm a thug” practically stamped on his face.

Strangely, however, the mercenaries nearby merely watched, taking no action despite the thugs' appearance and their harassment of Alon.

No, some even watched with interest, as though this were a routine occurrence, while others pretended not to notice the situation at all.

It was exceedingly peculiar.

“If our chat goes well, we'll even introduce you to our boss, Maliam. How about it?”

At those words from the thug, however, Alon understood the peculiar situation.

'... These fellows must be Maliam's men.'

Recalling Maliam, one of Coloni's only four Baba Yagas and the holder of the epithet “Grotesque Beast,” Alon realized his mistake.

'This is Maliam's territory.'

Remembering that thugs who extorted money like this also appeared whenever he entered Maliam's territory in the game, Alon sighed resignedly.

'... Do I have no choice but to let them rob me?'

He knew fighting here was the worst option.

Dealing with the thugs blocking his path would be easy, but doing so would put him at odds with one of the four Baba Yagas.

That would impose needless restrictions on Alon, who would have to remain active in Coloni for more than a few days. Just as he was about to reach inside his coat—

TAP.

“Hey, are you sighing in our faces?”

The thug, who had been wearing a crooked grin, tapped Alon's forehead.

His grin twisted as though he were dealing with some insignificant little brat.

Evan instinctively frowned beside him and was about to draw his sword when—

BOOOOM!

—the man who had tapped Alon's forehead was suddenly sent crashing sideways.

It happened in an instant.

As the man flew into the neighboring building, Evan and Alon looked bewildered. The other thugs' sneering faces froze.

“Hey—”

Then—

“What do you think you're doing to my mentor?”

CRACKLE!

“Hmm? Tell me.”

With a flash of lightning—

“What did you do?”

The faces of the thugs who had been sneering just moments earlier began to fill with shock and fear.

“Go on. Tell me.”

Golden eyes blazed.