Chapter 50 - Magic Symposium (3)

Lartania, the labyrinth city.

Countless mercenaries and explorers made their home in this city, whose labyrinth had yet to yield its end and offered ever more treasures and artifacts the deeper one descended. At its pinnacle stood the five great guilds.

Bloody Iron.

Terranomad.

Arcadia.

Seekers of Antiquity.

Kalimadra.

The five great guilds bearing those names possessed greater fighting strength than any other mercenary or explorer guild. The motley lesser guilds were in an entirely different league.

Their guildmasters were so powerful that calling them superhuman rather than human would hardly be an exaggeration.

One of them was Alderic, guildmaster of Bloody Iron, who had earned the epithet Butcher by slaughtering over a thousand monsters alone on the tenth floor. He was currently descending into the labyrinth.

Today, however, he had come not to reach the lowest floor, but to carry out a lucrative commission sent to Bloody Iron.

'Capture a monster alive on the twentieth floor...?'

With an axe as large as his body resting on his shoulder, Alderic wore a peculiar expression.

And with good reason. The request was rather strange.

Every fifth floor of Lartania's labyrinth contained a monster-free space that scarcely suited the name of labyrinth.

Of course, the deeper one ventured, the more these floors at multiples of five—the so-called safety floors, as mercenaries knew them—changed into landscapes of unfamiliar terrain and buildings. Still, as a rule, there were no monsters there.

Yet this lucrative commission specifically mentioned a monster on one of those floors: the twentieth. Naturally, that was odd.

Nevertheless, he had brought his men down to the twentieth floor because the advance payment was enormous.

More importantly, the client had personally stated that they would not demand the deposit back even if he failed the mission.

That was why Alderic was making his way to the twentieth floor now.

'It could be a trap.'

The possibility had crossed his mind, of course, but even if it was a trap, he was not particularly afraid.

He routinely roamed the fiftieth floor, known as the labyrinth's lowest floor. Whatever happened on the twentieth, he was confident he could return at once.

And so, as Alderic descended through the labyrinth with his men...

"The twentieth floor."

They soon arrived at the floor the client had specified. His men surveyed the landscape, where large ruins still stood.

"... What's that?"

"A monster?"

"... Huh. Boss, there really is a monster here."

Amazingly, just as the client had said, they could see a monster there.

"But..."

"Isn't that a goblin?"

"It really is."

And it was a goblin, reputed to be the weakest of all monsters.

"There really is a monster on the twentieth floor?"

"Wow. So all we have to do is catch that thing and go back up, and we get paid as much again as the advance?"

"That's a golden goblin right there."

"It's even dressed up like a golden goblin."

"What's it wearing? Clothes from the East?"

Having spotted the monster, Alderic's men pointed at it and snickered.

As mercenaries who explored the lowest floor alongside him, everyone present had already slain thousands of goblins.

While they were all snickering, the goblin, which until moments ago had been gazing blankly at the ruins, gave a low sigh and turned around.

"Hah..."

"Noisy insects."

It muttered in a voice of unbelievable clarity for a goblin, its gaze more indolent than anything else, and swept a finger through the air.

From left to right.

And then—

"Ah—?"

The mercenaries who had been laughing at the goblin only moments before were cleanly severed at the waist.

That was all it took.

THUD.

With that paltry sound, five mercenaries who had spent years alongside Alderic were killed in an instant.

Instinctively sensing danger at the sight, Alderic raised his axe. The moment he did, he saw the goblin's eyes fixed on him.

There were only two emotions in that gaze, far too intelligent for a goblin.

Arrogance—and

THUD.

—contempt.

... That was the last thing Alderic ever saw.

There was nothing afterward.

His consciousness went dark amid the mercenaries' ensuing horrific screams.

Before long, having disposed of every mercenary who had descended to the twentieth floor, he—no.

The king of all hungry ghosts began moving toward the surface.

####

As a rule, the friendly matches held after the symposium's discussions followed a simple format: the mage scheduled to compete that day would step forward and name an opponent.

In other words, they could challenge any of the mages who had gathered to watch the matches.

Even so, the mage entitled to choose an opponent would not challenge just anyone.

Challenging someone far beneath them could invite accusations of bullying a lower-tier mage.

Conversely, choosing someone far above them could not only prove embarrassing but also offend the other party.

Mages were, by nature, a proud breed.

Thus, common sense dictated that most mages with the right to choose picked someone roughly on their own level. Alon knew that much as well.

'... Baruk was around the fourth tier, wasn't he?'

Feeling the curious gazes gathering on him, Alon recalled Riyan glaring at Baruk with a deep scowl yesterday.

'One tier higher than me.'

In the world of mages, tiers made an enormous difference.

The higher the tier, the wider that gap became. At the seventh and eighth tiers, which would only appear much later, a difference of just one tier meant a staggering disparity in strength.

'... Fourth tier at that age? He may not measure up to Penia, but he definitely qualifies as a genius.'

Despite the impression his face gave, Baruk did not look particularly old. As Alon considered him, Baruk abruptly spoke.

"Surely the mage who contributed so much to defeating that great Outer God hasn't lost his nerve?"

Even the mages watching with interest flinched at the provocation.

Anyone could tell that Baruk's words insinuated the rumors about Alon were false. Alon himself could roughly discern his intent.

'He's trying to screw me over.'

Of course, he did not know precisely what Baruk hoped to accomplish.

But for Alon, understanding that much was enough.

'If someone tries to screw you over for no reason, give them a reason.'

Alon was not mild-mannered enough to go easy on someone trying to humiliate him for no reason—especially someone who did not even look difficult to beat.

'I'll get to try this out in a real fight sooner than I expected.'

Alon quietly slipped the nail guard from his pocket onto his index finger and spoke.

"I accept."

And with that, the duel was agreed upon.

####

'Just as expected.'

Baruk, the Purple Magic Tower master's son, had reached the fourth tier just like Riyan. He smiled, feeling the mages' gazes converging on Alon, who was looking at him impassively from a distance.

Naturally, provoking Alon into entering the arena had all been part of Baruk's plan.

More precisely, a plan to draw more of the spotlight onto himself.

Being the Purple Magic Tower master's son already gave him considerable influence at the symposium, of course.

But he needed the power to wield even greater influence. So when he heard yesterday that Count Pallatio had come to the symposium, he decided to use him.

Count Pallatio, who brought so many rumors in his wake.

"..."

Baruk regarded Alon with a nasty smile.

He knew very well what rumors followed the man.

He had made a major contribution to dealing with the Outer God that appeared in the north.

More recently, in the desert city of Coloni, he had also greatly helped the Golden Flash dispose of two Baba Yagas who had ambushed them.

And since yesterday, the most unbelievable rumor of all had been spreading: that he had made that absolute menace Penia as meek as a lamb.

As a result, the symposium's mages currently held Alon's magic in exceptionally high regard, based on those rumors.

In short, if the rumors were true, Baruk had effectively done something idiotic in an attempt to raise his own profile. But he had not devised this scheme without thinking.

Baruk subtly raised his right hand toward Alon and channeled mana into the plain ring on his finger.

HUM...

With a movement of mana too faint for the mages to notice, the ring gave a soft resonant hum. A number soon began to appear on it.

The number 3.

Baruk's lips curled into a broad, crooked grin as he looked at the 3 on the ring.

The ring he wore was an artifact that projected an extremely faint amount of mana to roughly gauge another person's tier and mana reserves.

'Weak, just as I thought.'

He smiled as he confirmed once again that the ring displayed a tier of 3, just as it had yesterday and when he had checked one last time before issuing his provocation earlier.

This ring was what Baruk had been counting on.

An artifact that let even someone who was not high-tier check another person's tier with only a small projection of mana would ordinarily have been of little use. At the symposium, however, it had plenty of applications.

Thanks to this ring, Baruk could identify mages who deliberately lied to preserve their pride at the symposium and use them as stepping stones.

'And thanks to it, I've landed a big catch like this.'

His faith in the ring was also what had allowed him to provoke Alon without hesitation.

"Are both sides ready?"

"I am."

"Yes."

Answering the question that interrupted his thoughts, Baruk lightly drew up his mana.

'... The rumor about that absolute menace following him like a meek lamb does bother me a little, but the ring is reliable. She probably isn't groveling because of his magical ability.'

Baruk considered how to handle Alon.

'Should I finish him immediately? No. If I end it too quickly, it probably won't make much of an impression. Perhaps I should toy with him slowly?'

'But I can't drag it out too long, either. If it becomes clear that the count's skill is all rumor, my reputation could suffer needlessly instead of rising... Yes, finishing it a little early might be best.'

Already imagining how he would finish Alon off, he gripped his staff.

"As both sides are aware, magic that could threaten your opponent's life is subject to penalties, so please moderate the power of your spells. Now—"

TAP!

"Please begin."

The match began with a light tap of the officiating mage's staff against the ground. Wearing a confident smile, Baruk was about to move when—

"?"

He realized white vapor was escaping his mouth.

Bewildered by something that had happened too suddenly for him to properly register, Baruk soon realized that the air reaching his lungs was cold.

Just as he was about to question it...

"Huh?"

CRACK!

He belatedly noticed that his calves were freezing over.

CRACK-CRACK!

It was not just his calves.

"!"

Now that he looked, the entire arena was freezing over.

The white frost forming on the floor swelled in an instant, expanding its territory in the blink of an eye and turning everything around it into frozen ground.

And in the center of that frozen ground, he saw him.

"..."

A man standing aloof in the arena, expressionless and indifferent, freezing everything while wearing a black nail guard that leaked ominous black mana.

"Ah."

And Baruk realized that something had gone wrong.

But by the time he realized it—

"The Snowy Mountain's Shadow."

—Alon was already uttering the sentence.