Chapter 49

At first, Turan thought he had imagined the sound, but it had been far too loud and clear for that. More importantly, the moment he heard it, his body's ability to take in mana began to weaken rapidly.

It was like knowing that one more bite would make him vomit after eating until his stomach threatened to burst. He could sense instinctively that he had reached his limit as a wizard.

Just as a dizzying despair swept over him, his ability to absorb mana returned to normal, as though mocking him. Instead, the growth limit he had felt came upon one of the nobles beside him.

"Oh!"

Pale-green radiance scattered into the air before the noble who had let out that brief cry. It was the same phenomenon Turan had witnessed while hunting with House Valtas's wizards. Kadram clicked his tongue lightly at the sight and asked,

"Your limit, I see. Is this the first time you've reached it?"

"Yes..."

The noble's face twisted as he answered. Every wizard who reached their growth limit was bound to feel that way.

Turan could sympathize. Despite being far stronger than that noble, he himself had felt utterly crushed only moments ago.

"It's all right, Viken."

"Cheer up, you fool. You're still better off than I am!"

While the others clamored to comfort their dejected companion, Turan realized that something had changed within his body.

Had his sense of touch become several times more sensitive? No, it felt a little different. Cloth brushing his body and his hands rubbing together felt no different than usual, but he could sense the flow of wind across his skin far more keenly.

Even the subtle disturbances made by people walking nearby, and the fierce turbulence raging above the canyon—all of it was now within his senses, though he had been unable to feel any of it moments before.

'Could it be...?'

He wanted to test this new sense immediately, but there were too many people in the canyon. Arabion nobles in particular. If his suspicion was correct, testing it here would be far too dangerous.

Putting that aside for later, Turan retrieved his buried Holy Relic with earth-alteration magic and went to find Maysa. She was engrossed in examining a stone tablet.

"Oh, Turan. You didn't have any trouble absorbing the mana, did you?"

"It helped me a great deal, thanks to you. But... may I ask why?"

Keeping his wording somewhat vague in case anyone overheard, Turan asked why she had gone to such lengths to allot him mana. He knew she was not particularly fond of her own house's members, but this went too far. He had already received the High-Capacity Pouch in advance; even if she had set aside no share for him, he would have had no grounds to complain.

"That's a little difficult to explain right now. For the moment, I'd like you to think of it as a personal favor from me. Not from Arabion."

Maysa averted her gaze slightly as she answered. Her rather peculiar tone made him wonder whether she might have romantic feelings for him, but even when he concentrated on his sense of smell, he detected no such scent.

"All right, then. If it's a favor from a friend."

Maysa smiled faintly at that. Turan soon changed the subject, pointing to the tablet in her hands.

"Anyway, what's that?"

"This? It's a Search Magic Tool that locates intelligent beings nearby. I'm checking for any surviving stragglers... Hmm. It seems there aren't any left now."

Just as she said, over a hundred blue dots were moving about on the tablet. Two dots close together in the center seemed to represent Turan and Maysa.

"An excellent tool."

At a glance, its range appeared to span several hundred meters, making it comparable to the capabilities of his Mimic Holy Relic. Of course, there were various differences between an indirect display and being granted the ability to sense things directly, as well as in portability and ease of use. Maysa smiled at his praise and replied,

"From what I hear, it was made using a Zahar noble captured alive during the last war."

Knowing how difficult it was to capture a noble alive, Turan could imagine that its creation had been far more complicated and horrific than her words suggested.

Suddenly, he recalled something Keorn had told him: there were a few top-tier magic tools capable of seeing through Zahar's stealth. Perhaps this was one of them.

While they were talking, a knight approached Maysa to report.

"My lady, the prisoners are ready."

"Lead the way. Would you like to come along?"

"Certainly."

When Maysa turned her head slightly to ask, Turan readily agreed. He, too, was quite interested in the dwarves' relics.

* * *

At their destination, several battered dwarves and Dark Elves huddled together, surrounded. Blood ran all over their bodies; they seemed to have been tortured for some time.

"Devils... shtop... hurts..."

Turan felt a strange discomfort at the sight of the dwarves pleading in their slurred speech. They were nothing more than man-eaters, after all... Was it because he remembered that Armani, the merfolk prince he had met in the North Sea, belonged to another race just as they did?

"Listen carefully. We're going to ask you questions again. If you answer willingly, as you did before, we won't hurt you. But lie or keep your mouths shut, and it'll hurt far worse than it did just now. Understood?"

"Unnershtand... yes, yes!"

The dwarves nodded, answering the noble's threatening words in their clumsy speech.

"Good. First, then, what is this?"

"Ancestors'... Blackie found... showed us how t' use."

"By Blackie, you mean the Wraith King? The Dark Elves' chieftain... their boss."

The dwarf had tilted its head, apparently finding the word 'chieftain' too difficult, but now it nodded. They had explicitly been told earlier to select clever ones. Did that mean this counted as intelligent among dwarves? After slapping the Dark Elf beside it and obtaining the same answer, the noble thrust one of the dwarves' magic tools forward.

"Right. When you pull this, a lump of metal comes out. But not when we use it. Why?"

"It's ours... Blackie can't use... devils can't use... all used up, can't use again..."

Listening to the dwarf's testimony, Turan picked up one of their relics—a magic tool lying nearby. When he shook it lightly, he could feel liquid sloshing inside the round cylinder attached to its side.

Come to think of it, hadn't a great cloud of steam gushed out when he blew up a larger device like this? On a hunch, he pointed the part that discharged metal skyward and pulled the rod on the side, but nothing happened.

"Will it fire if a dwarf just pulls the lever?"

"Let's find out. You there."

When Maysa answered Turan's muttering, a knight immediately dragged over a dwarf and ordered it to pull only the rod on the magic tool he was holding. The dwarf pulled it, and a piece of metal shot out with a burst of steam.

PSSHT!

"Oh."

"It really does only fire when a dwarf pulls it."

"What sort of magic is this?"

"Would it fire if we pulled it with a severed hand?"

Contrary to one creative noble's idea, it could not be fired that way, as though it detected that the hand had been cut off.

They tried various other experiments afterward, but the results were not particularly promising. For one thing, the metal pieces fired by the dwarves' magic tools were not mere lumps of iron, but products of some special manufacturing process. Nor could they examine the internal workings: the moment they tried to take a tool apart, steam exploded out and mangled its components.

After several shots, the liquid inside ran out, leaving the tool unable to fire, and the dwarves said they did not know how to refill it. In other words, the devices were disposable.

"You said the Wraith King gave you these? Where did he get them?"

They tortured and questioned several surviving Dark Elves, but those prisoners knew little of the details either. All they knew was that the Wraith King, originally just one member of the underground kingdom's royal family, had one day acquired a silver crown and tremendous skill in wraith sorcery. While fleeing, he had obtained these magic tools and supplied them to the dwarves, winning them as allies. Hearing this, one noble clicked his tongue regretfully.

"They would have been quite useful if we could make and use them ourselves."

After watching the device being used several times, Turan recalled the laws of nature the librarian had once taught him. Water increased in volume when it became steam, didn't it...?

'Could the liquid inside turn to steam and push out the metal piece?'

He had no idea how pulling a single rod could make that happen, but he suspected that was the principle behind it. A few of the more learned Arabion nobles reached similar conclusions, though none knew how to reproduce it.

Once all the information wrung from the prisoners had been organized, Maysa questioned those returning from their search of the canyon's interior.

"Did you happen to find any books inside?"

"None."

"There were quite a few human bones. Most were old, though."

"Then we can finish up here."

The dwarves and Dark Elves flinched and trembled, as though they understood what her words meant.

* * *

Fortunately, the boulder at the canyon entrance opened on its own whenever someone tried to leave, sparing them a full day's wait. Out in the open, Turan felt his new wind-sensing ability come fully alive.

"Whew..."

"I can finally breathe. It was far too stifling in there."

"You're telling me."

Several Arabion nobles grumbled, apparently feeling much the same. Turan spoke to Maysa, who was walking beside him.

"I'll stop by the barracks to collect Vije, then be on my way ahead of you."

"That sounds best."

Maysa, who was not keen on Turan growing close to the other Arabion nobles, agreed immediately. Then she quietly added a question, leaving the possibility open.

"We'll see each other again, won't we?"

"When we do, I'll be sure to repay what I owe you for this. And..."

Turan hesitated briefly, wondering whether he was being too meddlesome, then spoke. Surely friends who exchanged favors could voice their concern for one another.

"Keeping yourself light for flight is all well and good, but I think you should eat something. I'm worried about you."

Maysa gave him a bitter smile.

"I'll think about it."

Turan was certain she would not listen, but he could not force her if she did not want to.

After parting with Maysa, he walked briskly ahead to the barracks, where he found Vije and Keorn playing some strange game with wingbeats and hand gestures.

"You seem to be enjoying yourself, Elder."

"Oh, you're back! You're not hurt anywhere, are you?"

"I'm perfectly fine. But what..."

[Turan! Keorn is fun!]

Vije had clearly regarded the old knight with disapproval when Turan left, yet now she seemed utterly absorbed in playing with him.

"The subjugation went well, and there were few deaths. I'm afraid I need to leave now."

"Leaving already? At least stay for a meal..."

"Circumstances won't allow it."

When he briefly mentioned what had happened in the canyon, Keorn let out a quiet groan. Indeed, remaining here would only make the atmosphere unbearably unpleasant. There would be more than a few people displeased with Turan right now.

"Then I suppose there's no helping it..."

"What will you do now, Elder?"

"I'll have to think about that once I get back. I'll probably retire and find something to occupy my days. My joints are starting to ache, and I've done enough traveling."

Now that he mentioned it, Keorn did look noticeably older than when they first met. Was it the traveling and the time spent fighting in the campaign?

Turan fell silent for a moment, then offered a wish whose meaning he himself did not quite understand.

"Live a long life."

"I will."

Fortunately, as Keorn smiled in reply, his face looked a little less aged than before.

* * *

On the way back, Turan activated the Holy Relic's senses to check whether anyone was nearby. Vije tilted her head, seeming to wonder why he was not riding her.

"Just a moment. There's something I need to check."

After reassuring her, Turan summoned wind with a light gesture, just as he had once done to sweep away a group of vagrants.

But this wind was entirely different from the one back then. Before, he had only been able to strengthen the wind and adjust its direction slightly. Now he could control it as freely as his own fingers, wrapping it around his body.

The mana it consumed even seemed to be only about a tenth of what it had cost before. Turan was certain: he had gained a bloodline ability to command wind.

"Somehow, I thought it might turn out this way..."

Troubled, he gestured, and wind rose to flatten all the grass around him. In this era, the ability to command wind was the exclusive privilege of Arabion and its Storm Bloodline. In other words, Turan's parents were descendants of two enemy houses: Zahar and Arabion.