Chapter 17

Turan blinked several times, but the words did not change.

Keorn. That familiar name...

Wondering whether it might be someone with the same name, he read the text below. It said the play was set during the Arabion–Zahar War twenty years ago. More specifically, it told of the exploits of Keorn, Arabion's bravest knight.

Seeing him stare at the playbill for so long, Asiz spoke.

"It's a pretty good play. Though the main house had it made to spread the word that we won the war. Want to watch it?"

"I'd like to... But would you rather not, since you've already seen it?"

"Hmm? No, well, seeing it one more time wouldn't hurt. Excuse me, when's the next performance?"

"It starts in just fifteen minutes!"

A little later, Turan and Asiz sat in the two best seats in the theater. Naturally, the seats had belonged to someone else, but paying ten times the ticket price had a way of creating vacancies.

Shortly after they sat down, the play began.

["Our tale begins in the year 2195, when the warriors of Arabion ventured into the desert of those demons—"]

As the rich, resonant voice boomed out, several neatly dressed actors stepped onto the stage. Arriving on a routine trading visit, their characters quarreled with the Zahar knights guarding the desert, and soon came to blows.

Before long, the fight between knights became a fight between nobles, then a war centered on the two houses. Eventually, the House Heads themselves appeared to duel. When the two actors playing them made a show of attacking each other with magic, screams erupted from the audience.

They had a knack for making spells too weak to hurt each other look spectacular.

["Storms by day, death by night. As the war dragged on and the casualties mounted, there was a knight named Keorn."]

Only after that groundwork had been laid did the actor playing Keorn appear. With his fierce eyes and sturdy build, he looked quite unlike the gentle old knight in Turan's memory.

Yet that appearance suited the Keorn of the play better: a warrior who charged first and retreated last, whose wealth of experience and magical skill made even nobles remember his name.

Though one man could play only a small part amid clashes involving dozens of nobles and thousands of knights, Keorn earned everyone's respect as a knight among knights.

Then, on that fateful day, Keorn faced a Zahar noble with no noble of his own to protect him. His opponent mocked him for his utterly insignificant strength.

But through a combination of good fortune portrayed as divine intervention, keepsakes from his comrades, courage, and wisdom, Keorn finally slew his enemy after a desperate struggle.

As the shocking news spread that a noble born to a great house's bloodline had been killed in a duel with a mere knight, one house rejoiced and the other despaired. At last, the bitter two-year war came to an end—

The curtain fell with the narrator's closing words, and thunderous applause filled the theater.

"Well? Was it worth watching?"

"Hmm? Oh, it was very... good."

Turan answered Asiz's question in something of a daze. The first thing that came to mind was something Keorn had said.

Hadn't he claimed he was no particularly capable knight with great achievements to his name?

Really, modesty could go no further.

Turan recalled their trial contest of strength back on Hisaril Hill. At the time, Keorn had possessed roughly a tenth of his mana.

And that was against Turan as a young noble who had absorbed mana only once. Most nobles must have been dozens of times stronger than Keorn.

Such a feat certainly deserved to live on in a play for future generations.

Assuming it was true, of course.

"Did the events in that play really happen?"

"Probably? I was young then, so I don't know the details, but it's a famous story."

Turan chuckled despite himself. Even twenty years ago, Asiz would have been twenty-three—older than Turan was now—yet he spoke as though he had been an infant.

"A knight killing a noble is shocking, certainly, but would it really end a war?"

"Well, I've heard both sides were already looking to end it. Each side had lost hundreds of knights and more than twenty nobles, and even the House Heads had been injured in their duel."

As Asiz understood it, when Keorn killed a noble under those circumstances and Arabion publicized the feat far and wide, Zahar concluded that they had no hope of victory if more knights possessed such hidden strength. They proposed reconciliation, bringing the war to an end.

'That's a little different from what I know.'

Keorn had told Turan that the war between the houses had ended with Zahar holding the advantage. Perhaps there was more to the story.

Or perhaps, since this was Arabion territory, they had adapted it in their own favor.

In any case, he wanted to ask Keorn whether the story was true if they met again someday.

* * *

By the time they had watched three more plays after <Keorn the Hero>, the sun was sinking toward the horizon.

Turan no longer thought actors were something like clowns performing tricks for an audience. They were artists. Just as painters painted with brushes and writers wrote with quills, they used words and actions to recreate people of the past who could no longer be seen...

Delighted by Turan's newfound fascination with theater, Asiz regaled him with stories of plays he had watched over the past several decades, trying to draw him deeper into that world.

They were chatting as they returned to the residence when a bolt of lightning struck within the grounds with a crack of thunder. There was no rain, and scarcely even a cloud in the sunset-red sky.

Asiz looked on with complete composure.

"Maysa must be practicing her magic. She really is diligent."

"That's Arabion's bloodline magic, isn't it?"

"That's right. The Storm Bloodline. I've never disliked my own bloodline, but... I do envy that a little. It makes you look like a real god."

Just as Enchanters revered the limping goddess as their ancestor, Arabion claimed descent from the Thunder Lord of the Freyans. Their bloodline ability to command wind and lightning was indeed renowned for combining formidable offensive power with versatility.

Nor was destructive power its only strength. Their abilities also maintained this region's abundance.

After the harvest, Arabion's nobles would fly over the empty Dakayn Plains, raining down countless bolts of lightning. Strangely enough, this kept the soil from becoming depleted the following year, preserving its fertility.

'I'm curious.'

How skilled was this magical genius whom Asiz considered his equal in talent, the future ruler of Arabion?

He did want to see for himself, but if he were caught spying, he could hardly protest being called an assassin. After all, she had come here for refuge after nearly being assassinated.

"Want to go have a look?"

"I'm curious, but... I don't think it's a good idea for a suspicious outsider like me to approach her."

Asiz laughed and shook his head.

"Why not? You're not an assassin. I can vouch for you! Besides, I'm honestly curious myself. Which of you is better—you or Maysa?"

"That sounds like the real reason you want to take me."

"To be honest, I still have a bit of a grudge from training with Maysa a few years ago. I'd like to see her get frustrated for once."

The motive was so downright childish that Turan nearly let out an incredulous laugh.

"But with my mana reserves, I wouldn't stand a chance."

At a generous estimate, his current mana reserves were average for a great house's wizard—equal to or slightly below those of the House Head of a remote provincial house like Valtas.

Maysa, meanwhile, supposedly possessed power on par with Arabion's core members.

"Wow, so you're saying you could win if mana weren't a factor? That's some confidence."

"You know that's not what I meant."

By the time they reached the inner garden of the Berg residence, what must once have been a well-tended garden had been reduced to ruins by a lightning storm. Amid the scene, made all the more desolate by the bright magic lamps illuminating every corner, the skeletal young lady they had seen yesterday turned toward them.

"Hey, Maysa!"

"Asiz? And beside you..."

"Turan, my lady."

"Oh, yes. Turan. That was your name. So, what brings you two here all of a sudden?"

Surprisingly for someone who had nearly been assassinated, Maysa seemed little concerned by the presence of the exceedingly suspicious Turan.

At her question, Asiz averted his eyes and scratched his head as though he had a guilty conscience.

"Oh, well, it looked like you were practicing magic, so we thought we'd join you. We've done that before, haven't we?"

"Oh... I remember. You ran off crying when I managed in two tries what you'd spent a whole week struggling with."

"Hey."

Watching them bicker, they looked less like the heir to a great house and a member of a vassal house than an ordinary pair of cousins. Like Izella and Marvin of Valtas, perhaps, but with a far brighter, less murky air about them.

Turan couldn't help chuckling, and Asiz shot him a glare.

"Excuse me."

"You're laughing at me too? Anyway, when it comes to magical talent, this Turan here is second to none among the people I've met. Why don't you two have a contest?"

"A contest?"

Maysa tilted her head at Asiz's suggestion, then released her aura.

'Ugh.'

Faced with that pressure, Turan let out a sharp breath.

Three to five times his own power, perhaps even more...

A violent torrent of power lay dormant within that scrawny young woman's body, far beyond anything he could currently contend with.

So this was the strength of a great house's heir.

By the time Maysa withdrew her aura, the interest had already faded from her face.

"I'm sorry to say it, but I don't think you're quite ready to compete with me."

"No, of course he can't match your mana. What's really incredible about him is how quickly he learns magic."

Asiz went on boasting that Turan was a magical genius unlike anyone he had ever seen, that not even Maysa could compare.

A flicker of interest returned to her face.

"He's that good?"

Turan considered modestly protesting that his friend was exaggerating, then held his tongue. If he acted humble now, wouldn't she simply dismiss him as nothing special and leave it at that?

He, too, wanted to experience this illustrious young lady's abilities firsthand.

"How about we each demonstrate a spell the other doesn't know, and whoever succeeds faster wins?"

"That sounds like a good idea. What do you think, Maysa?"

"All right. Come to think of it, I hear you don't even know what your own bloodline magic is, Turan? It would be unfair for me to use wind or lightning magic, then. Let's leave those out."

Having said that, Maysa tilted her head for a moment, then lightly stamped one foot.

Turan thought she might be about to raise spikes from the earth, a spell he had used himself—

"Whoa!"

Asiz let out an odd exclamation as vines burst up from the ground. They did more than simply sprout: moving on their own, they coiled around his arms, torso, and legs as he stood idly nearby, then hoisted him up and swung him about.

"Aaaaaah!"

"Plant creation and control magic. Think you can manage it?"

"Let! Me! Go!"

"Stay there a moment. It's fun."

While Asiz went flying through the air at the mercy of the vines, Turan quietly reviewed what had just happened.

Creating vines out of the ground—that couldn't be what was really happening. According to the laws of nature he had learned, even magic could not create matter.

Fire magic merely manifested the phenomenon of burning, while water-producing magic simply drew invisible moisture from the air.

Therefore, those vines must likewise have come from seeds in the ground that she had made grow rapidly.

Recognizing it as growth rather than creation—whether one understood such principles made an enormous difference when using magic.

"Grow."

Since this was unfamiliar magic, Turan murmured an incantation as he placed his hand on the ground.

A moment later, several vines far spindlier than Maysa's sprouted from the earth. He made them coil around his right hand.

"Oh..."

His display fell absurdly short of Maysa's power, but both onlookers gasped in admiration. They knew how difficult it was to reproduce an entirely unfamiliar spell after seeing it just once, however clumsily.

Of course, Turan had cast it on the assumption that vine seeds remained in the soil, which had kept his wasted power relatively low.

"Since you told them to grow, it seems you worked out what this spell really does right away. Have you seen it somewhere before?"

"This is my first time."

"So there are days when Asiz is right."

Maysa's eyes sparkled as she looked at him. Though her bulging eyes in their sunken sockets made for a grotesque sight, her anticipation was plain to see.

"Then it's your turn to set the challenge. Let's see what you can do."

At Maysa's challenging look, Turan considered which spell to choose. If they were going to do this, he wanted to use something so difficult that she could scarcely hope to copy it, but nothing suitable came to mind.

Using Zahar bloodline magic would be suicide, quite apart from breaking the rules...

Just then, Turan spotted a rat scurrying through a corner of the ruined garden. He summoned it with a light gesture, and Maysa asked in a somewhat disappointed tone,

"Animal control?"

"Of course not. This little fellow is only the material."

Turan lightly gripped the rat by the neck and cast his spell.

Magic that empowered the countless microorganisms within the creature's body, things that had always existed but had once been imperceptible to him...

A moment later, the rat began rotting alive in his hand.

"It's done."

The challenge he had set was Decay, a spell he had developed through the laws of nature taught to him by the librarian.