A week after the investigation team had returned from the Meuse Desert, King Kurt III of Meltor was having lunch. He usually enjoyed quiet meals, but his schedule had forced him to share this one. Even now, one hand was gracefully handling his cutlery, while the other hand was busy turning a report’s pages.
“Ughh… It’s hurting me just to watch you,” Veronica said from where she was sitting across from him. “Your Majesty, the Annual Magic Contest is over, do you still need to be so busy? You should take it a little easier.”
“It’s okay. My body can handle this much.”
“Still, there’s a reason I brought it up.”
“Hrmm.” Kurt figured she had a point, so he put down the report and his knife. After all, it was rude to work while eating with someone.
“I see. I was too short-sighted. Then let’s hear your story.”
“Okay, it isn’t a long story.” Veronica ate her fifth piece of steak and looked outside the palace. “Your Majesty, are you curious about our guests?”
“Well, of course.”
“Right. One is a high elf, a leader of Elvenheim, and the other is the infamous dragon of the eastern seas. If something goes wrong, it could be fatal.”
Meltor had spaces for state guests, but no one had imagined they would house a high elf and a dragon when the palace was built hundreds of years ago. Kurt III was knowledgeable, but this was also new to him. So, he looked forward to what Veronica had to say. After all, she knew both guests and had the status and power to act as an arbitrator.
Unsurprisingly, Veronica responded casually, “End of the day, there won’t be any problems. Even if there is an unfortunate clash of affinities between them, they won’t fight each other.”
Kurt raised an eyebrow. “What about the atmosphere of the first day?”
“Oh, that’s because the kid was there. If he’s not around, they won’t have a reason to fight. So all we have to do is make sure the kid isn’t around them.”
Her judgment was correct. Ellenoa naturally avoided someone with Aquilo’s nature, while Aquilo kept away from elves who sought a calm life. It was just that their initial encounter involved Theodore Miller. The friction occurred because a high elf was threatened by a sea dragon who coveted other people’s possessions.
This problem would never crop up if Theo wasn’t present.
“If you think about it, it’s definitely good timing that the kid has been out cold.” 𝘦.𝘰𝘳𝑔
“How is he? I assume it’s just the effects of the trip.”
“Uhh, well, that might not be completely the case…” Veronica said with a strange expression. When she’d visited Theo, she’d noticed that his unconsciousness wasn’t due to illness or fatigue.
It was a symptom of a magician transitioning. It occurred when a magician’s body was broken down and reconstructed itself. She didn’t know what was going to happen, but it was clear that Theo had taken a few steps forward after visiting the ruins.
… Fast. It is too fast no matter how I think about it.
Veronica felt a thrill run down her back as she recalled Theo lying in his bed.
The red clan had the strongest battle fervor among dragons. Since she had inherited their bloodline, Veronica had the instinctive ability to grasp another’s strength. So she had seen it. Despite his haggard expression, she had felt Theo’s strength rising. Her blood started to warm as she remembered how potent it had felt.
Dugun, dugun.
By the time Veronica managed to calm her heart, the meal was already over. The servants took away the plates and utensils, and laid out a map of the continent on the table.
Veronica frowned when she saw the map. “Your Majesty, this map?”
“This is what we need to talk about,” Kurt III said. His eyes fell into shadow as he looked down at the map of the continent he had prepared. “The truce is still in effect, but Andras isn’t going to wait for it to expire. There’s going to be a few local wars.”
“Of course. They aren’t the type of people to cower in their yards.”
They shared the same opinion. The dictionary definition of a local war was a war that took place in a constrained area. However, it had a different meaning in the north.
The truce between the northern powers, Andras and Meltor, had always been based on the fact that they wouldn’t invade each other’s territory. It didn’t forbid invading others. In other words, a battle could take place anywhere except in the north. Over the centuries, it had become a routine situation.
“Veronica, where do you think the issue is?”
“”Well, this direction is possible.” Veronica traced a border with her index finger. “Isn’t Kargas growing too influential?”
“It’s turning into a real jewel, but it’s also where the wars are the most frequent. But my thoughts are a little different.”
“Then?”
“Here.” Kurt pointed at the Soldun Kingdom. “According to the secret agents of the White Tower, it seems that Soldun is growing more unstable. The royal family and nobles are gathering their soldiers, and the Lairon government has seemingly started to dabble. The new pope seems to be a fairly aggressive figure.”
Veronica’s eyes narrowed. “Even to the point of becoming involved in a civil war?”
“It seems that the prince has naturalized some Easterners. The Lairon Church don’t recognize people who don’t appear in their bible.”
“… Indeed, they are such people.”
Veronica’s expression turned grim. The Lairon Kingdom didn’t get along with magicians, but they also discriminated against humans who didn’t fit their doctrines. Veronica might be a mixed dragon-human, but she had been treated as a human since she had joined the Magic Towers. It was natural for her to feel an aversion to Lairon, a religious kingdom which discriminated against other species.
However, her thoughts were complicated for another reason. “Damn, this will be annoying.”
“I agree. We need to convene a meeting to discuss it.”
“Eek?”
Kurt agreed with Veronica and rang a bell on the table. When a servant appeared, he said, “Deliver this message to the Tower Masters and ministers of state: I will be holding a meeting in one hour.”
***
Unlike Veronica who had suddenly gotten a lot of work, Theo immediately headed to the training room once he woke. He had awakened his Sorcery, but after having used it several times inside Gluttony, it had taken Theo a week to recover.
He had only managed to walk properly yesterday, and it felt like he could use magic without a problem today.
Master told me to rest a few more days, but…
It was torture for a magician to stop when they had just glimpsed the next step. Theo couldn’t repress his urge to use magic and entered a training room. His Sorcery had even astounded Gluttony, a grimoire from the Age of Mythology. Just how wonderful would it be to use?
Theo first created a flame with two attributes.
Hwaruruk!
It was a combination of heat and cold which couldn’t coexist in nature. However, Theo calmly assessed the value of this flame.
“It is a waste of magic power.”
The hot and cold coexisted due to his Sorcery, but they were constantly grinding away at each other. It was a mediocre spell that couldn’t even kill an ordinary deer. Abraxas had amplified two opposing attributes, but merely coexisting was meaningless. Forced Harmonization didn’t necessarily mean creating a magic which was better than before.
In the end, the true value of Forced Harmonization was making combinations which couldn’t exist. It prevented magic from causing a backlash or repelling each other, and could invalidate some parameters in magic equations. This made it possible to explore fields of magic which hadn’t been possible until now.
Forced Harmonization was the true power of the Sorcery that Theo possessed. Its application was crude right now, but it wasn’t self-taught since he applied Veronica’s teachings to it as well.
“… No, there are exceptions.”
The second time he had applied his Sorcery in Gluttony’s stomach, he had fused his body and magic. The power to transform his body into magic power…
The ability of Forced Harmonization wasn’t meaningful in itself, but it was a different story if he could integrate magic into one’s body. That went straight into the realm of fantasy. For example, was it now possible to integrate lightning into his body and move at the speed of lightning? It was one thing to think of the idea, and another to practice it.
“Lightning Bolt.”
Theo didn’t shoot it out immediately, instead holding it in his hand. Then he focused on Forced Harmonization while imagining the lightning fusing with his body. He imagined his saliva, hair, and blood acting like they were dissolved by lightning.
Then he aimed precisely at a point on the other side of the training room. He made sure he had enough space to stop, even if he made a mistake.
Pajijik!
He felt like he had fused with lightning as he took one step forward—
――――――――――Kwarurung!
Theo blacked out. The next thing he knew, he was on the ground. It felt like he had hit something, but thankfully his bones and organs weren’t damaged.
“W-What… How— What’s happening…?”
The integration with lightning had been a success, since he could feel the after effects of Forced Harmonization on his body. However, when he had taken one step forward, his consciousness had been cut off by a flash of pain. Theo didn’t understand what had happened as he slowly climbed to his feet.
But then he looked up.
“… Crazy.”
Theo saw that the ward over the training room was so riddled with cracks that it now resembled a spiderweb. It seemed that Theo had turned into a lightning bolt and hit the wall. It was incredibly difficult to break through 6th Circle wards. Yet this ward had been overwhelmed by his charge.
The strength is sufficient. The problem is the recoil and side effects.
Theo rubbed his aching temples and left the training room. There was no way he could continue training in a broken training room. He had to pay the cost of repairs and rest until the throbbing in his body was gone. Vince would admonish Theo if he knew about the situation. However, rather than being discouraged, Theo was excited about his new discovery.
“It can’t be combined with Battle Song. After applying the formula to the human body, it becomes magic and is released automatically… This will overwrite any secondary magic…”
It wasn’t unusual to see people muttering to themselves when walking down the corridors of the Magic Tower. In fact, it often prompted people to leave the magician alone. However, someone was forced to break this unspoken rule.
“P-Prime Theo?”
Theo was startled out of his thoughts. “Oh? Aren’t you a clerk from the Magic Society? Did something happen?”
The clerk trembled like he was facing a celebrity and said, “There is a guest from outside applying with Prime Theo’s name as a guarantor…”
“Guarantor?”
“Yes, yes! It wasn’t strange, but I couldn’t just send him away without checking…”
Theo had to think about it for a moment. Who would apply with Theo as a guarantor? It was incredibly disrespectful to apply if one didn’t have a relationship with the guarantor, and every magician knew this. Furthermore, it was someone from outside Meltor?
Theo frowned. The clerk reflexively spewed out all the information, “A-A boy with an eastern appearance! He is young and hasn’t gone through his coming of age ceremony yet!”
“An eastern youth? Ah!” A light went off in Theo’s head.
A boy from the East with a relationship with Theo… There was only one person in the world who met these conditions. It was Baek Dongil of the Baek Family. The boy had finally made his way from the Soldun Kingdom to Meltor.