novelraw Chapter 205 : Chapter 205
Chapter 205 : Chapter 205
Chapter 205: Household Matters (5)
A mage's only durable part is the heart.
That is why Harad had Tempered his body.
An excellent priestess can come back from death.
Seria was proof of that.
A knight's body is resilient. And their lifespan is tenacious.
Knight is the word for it, but it is really a characteristic of Aura.
It was why the Investigator was still improbably alive. KKHK. When Harad pressed down on him, the Investigator — his body half-melted and ruined — wheezed out a labored breath.
'My body needs to be more resilient than this.'
Harad thought of the failed Tempering back in the village and gave a bitter smile.
It was impossible to say whose lifespan was more stubborn until tested — but at minimum, in terms of sheer body, this Investigator was more resilient than Harad.
And even that Investigator had been undone by a fire weaker than what Harad had used for Tempering.
It meant that to endure the Tempering, one would need a body at least at the level of a Sword Master.
'Does that even make sense.'
Even succeeding at the second Tempering wouldn't bring him to that level.
Harad alone could no longer complete the Tempering.
He needed to find another way.
"You're not talking."
Harad nodded slowly.
"Very well. I suppose we kill first and talk after."
A flame bloomed at his fingertip, like a candle.
It was a tiny fire — and yet its presence was overwhelming.
And moreover, it was the same fire that had already brought the Investigator to the brink of death.
The two swiftly tore off their masks.
Both were men of unremarkable appearance.
That was typical of the Intelligence Bureau. They favored the ordinary.
'Not quite top talent.'
He didn't recognize either of their faces.
The Investigator whose mask and face had melted together would likely be the same.
"We are from the Intelligence Bureau."
The two said it almost simultaneously, as if rehearsed.
"I could see that."
They had been in Intelligence Bureau uniforms from the start.
Why they had been wearing masks on top of that was beyond him.
"No, actually. I couldn't be sure of that."
"……?"
"Perhaps you killed Intelligence Bureau agents and took their uniforms."
"Wha, what are you——"
"Never mind. I'll find out myself. After I kill you."
The two's eyes went wide.
"We really are from the Intelligence Bureau."
"There's no reason the Intelligence Bureau would attack me. We belong to the same Serzila."
Harad enlarged the flames.
What had been like a candle grew to the size of a person.
"Anyone can claim anything with words. Truth be told, I am Grand Duke Aratus."
"Do not take that name into your mouth lightly."
The two's eyes flared.
It was anger at the impersonation of the Grand Duke.
"If you keep this up, my magic is liable to slip out carelessly."
"We are from the Intelligence Bureau."
One of them said it again.
Looking at it now, it was not so much an introduction as a threat.
They were warning him that he was attacking the Intelligence Bureau.
"You still haven't grasped the situation, have you."
Harad was openly disappointed.
The only difference was the use of formal address. These two were acting like knights while being Intelligence Bureau agents.
"Your job right now is to answer. I will ask the questions."
"……"
Both made faces of indignation.
Harad found it pathetic.
'Even if I don't kill them, they won't last long.'
The Intelligence Bureau that the returned Harad remembered had been smarter than this.
Perhaps only the smart ones had survived.
His connection with the Intelligence Bureau had come later, after all.
"Who sent you?"
"We were ordered to capture…… to bring the mage Harad in quietly. Those were the Intelligence Bureau Director's orders."
The prediction had been right.
The Director had sent an escort. The method, however, had been aggressive.
"Capture alive is a word that contains multitudes."
Both flinched simultaneously.
That appeared to be the correct answer.
"Who said it?"
Both sets of eyes instinctively moved toward the Investigator.
"Indeed. Well done, cooking him."
"……"
"If you can't kill your ego, you should die."
The escort had been a command, but the method had been an independent decision.
It was the act the Intelligence Bureau Director despised most.
She was famously rigid in her ways.
"So. Where do I need to go?"
"We'll guide you."
"What makes you think I'd trust that."
Harad gave a cold laugh.
"Just tell me the location."
"……"
"Ah. What's this one's name?"
Harad pointed at the Investigator he was standing on.
"……Investigator Ferrard."
"I'll take him with me."
A Hostage had been secured.
He would also serve as an Example.
***
Investigator Ferrard was bald.
Whether he had shaved it for ease of disguise, or whether the fire had done it, was unclear.
What mattered was that he was still alive, and that his resilient body maintained its shape.
Harad grabbed Ferrard by the ankle and walked out of the Inner Fortress.
Ferrard, breathing at irregular intervals, erased Harad's footprints and left a trail in the snow.
Snow was falling vigorously from the sky.
Summer was almost upon them, and yet the Northern sky paid it no mind.
Snow piled up on Ferrard's dragged body. Each time it did, the sound of his breathing grew slightly louder. He appeared to find it welcome.
Unfortunately it melted immediately.
Harad was a mage with no particular affinity for snow.
Thanks to that, Ferrard's ruined, bare skin was exposed to the world.
To the outside eye, it was an impossibly suspicious sight — a man dragging what appeared to be a corpse.
And yet no one found it strange.
"What is that?"
"A suspicious fellow who attacked me."
"Picked the wrong target."
There were quite a few who glanced with interest, clicked their tongues, and moved on.
"Over there, what's that about…… I'll be on my way. Carry on."
A soldier passing by confirmed Harad's face and immediately turned his back. He was from the patrol guard unit Harad had once had a run-in with.
It was all thanks to Ellen.
The territory's people did not know Harad was a mage, but most of them knew he spent time with Ellen.
Ellen was the territory's formidable, beautiful landmark.
The agent who had told him the location had said he would not be able to find it — but Harad had memorized the location of every Safe House in the territory.
The place he arrived at was a Safe House hidden within a civilian residence near the inner side of the fortress wall.
'This isn't a place the Intelligence Bureau Director would be.'
As expected.
When he opened the shabby door, it was not the Director inside but some man. He was dressed in Intelligence Bureau uniform but wore no mask.
On the left chest of the man's uniform was a small, black star.
The same Investigator as Ferrard.
"Harad?"
"That's me."
"Ferrard?"
The Investigator belatedly noticed Ferrard and went wide-eyed.
"What did you do?"
"I've been tolerant enough."
"……He's alive, the pathetic fool."
The Investigator seemed to grasp the situation immediately.
In words, he reproached Ferrard — but his eyes reproached Harad. The hostility in them was muted.
'He hides it well. He'll live long.'
This, at last, was the Intelligence Bureau Harad remembered.
"Ferrard's father was a knight. He died to an Otherworld mage."
"So?"
"I would appreciate if you understood."
"Why should that be my burden to understand?"
Harad gave a cold laugh.
"……Head south."
The Investigator said it as calmly as he could manage.
Harad moved without hesitation.
Dragging, dragging — Ferrard followed the path he made.
***
"Head east."
The Investigator he met at the southern Safe House said.
He showed no particular reaction to Ferrard.
"Head west."
Said the Investigator he had met in the south.
This one showed little reaction either. A fine Investigator.
Intelligence Bureau agents were the exact opposite of knights.
They had to be adept at concealment.
'Was this one the only outlier.'
It was absurd, and yet quite satisfying.
Only Ferrard and his men had been lacking — the current Intelligence Bureau resembled the Intelligence Bureau Harad remembered.
'Still rigid in their ways.'
Harad was circling the territory.
In matters of intelligence, the most important thing was not gathering information, but remaining unseen.
It stood to reason that meeting the head of such an organization — the Director — should be difficult.
More people and more steps made it harder to track.
Tracking Ferrard would only lead to the next Investigator. Even under torture, that Investigator would know only the location of the next one after him.
It was the kind of procedure one used on the continent.
And the Intelligence Bureau Director was observing the exact same procedure here in Serzila, her home territory.
'Nothing to find fault with.'
It was a reassuring method.
It meant she was careful wherever she was, whenever she was.
'It's starting to get annoying.'
But that feeling was inevitable.
The aftereffects were worse than he had thought.
Rather than this, he should have been resting in bed for several days.
"Are you in pain?"
Jis asked through the Shadow.
"Hard to bear."
Harad answered honestly.
Jis was a star and a friend.
"You can't do that. Your Vessel will break."
Jis understood immediately what Harad was saying.
He was the mage who had once given Ellen advice about Predators.
"You have to keep pushing back."
Jis urged.
He was right. Harad knew well that he was a man of fire, and that having taken the Embers, he was even more so now.
He was simply holding back.
The King from the past had wanted Harad to become simpler, but there were already far too many mindless things in Serzila.
Harad could not afford to become one of them.
Harad headed west, and then from west to north.
"Head to the Inner Fortress."
"……Damn it."
"Pardon?"
"That was for this fellow."
The Investigator at the northern Safe House showed no reaction at seeing Ferrard.
By now, the information that Ferrard was half-ruined had likely made its rounds.
"I understand. It's the Intelligence Bureau's way."
"Is this too?"
Harad shook Ferrard.
The Investigator shook his head.
"Investigator Ferrard is the type who acts like a knight."
The Investigator used "knight" like a curse word.
"I'm not saying he's useless. He has his utility sometimes. And he has the ability."
"He didn't seem like it."
"Not all agents can keep their temper in check."
Holding back. Harad felt a strange kinship.
He too was holding back. But Ferrard had not been able to.
"So the mage was his father's enemy?"
"That would be part of it."
"And?"
"He dislikes you."
The Director was inviting Harad.
Because he was on close terms with Ellen.
On the surface, Ellen was the Director's daughter.
Ellen was popular with the knights.
……But only with the knights?
'Is that why he was wearing a mask.'
It was an entirely personal reason.
Harad looked down at the twitching Ferrard.
For some reason, he felt more irritated.
"You'd do well to deal with him before going. The Director is very devoted to her agents."
The Investigator at the northern Safe House added.
"Arika and Ellen seem to like you. That's why I'm telling you."
***
The advice could have been genuine, or it could have been false.
That was proof that the Investigator at the northern Safe House was a capable one. It meant he could conceal his true intentions. It was a required quality for an Intelligence Bureau agent.
But whichever it was, Harad had no intention of following it. He simply didn't want to.
That said, he had no desire to kill Ferrard either.
Ellen would dislike it. The Intelligence Bureau, in the end, was part of the North.
Harad dragged the wheezing Ferrard and made his way toward the Inner Fortress.
The destination was Harad's Annex.
While Harad had been sent circling the territory, the Director had slipped inside Harad's Annex in the meantime.
So then, the Director was inside.
Harad stared blankly at the door of his own Annex. He felt no particular presence. But Jis's Shadow traced a number in Harad's palm.
'Twenty.'
Harad immediately opened the door and stepped inside.
As Jis had said. Nineteen were stationed at various points throughout the room, and one sat alone on the sofa.
Harad perceived them only after he saw them with his eyes.
That was the Intelligence Bureau's characteristic discretion.
The moment he stepped in, gazes fell on him.
All twenty were watching Harad, and the gazes were one of two kinds. Cold, or laden with displeasure.
It was not because of Ferrard.
"Since you said to come if you wanted to see me, here I am."
It was because Harad had once said something to that effect.
The one who had spoken was a woman who appeared to have just passed thirty. Her crossed legs and the two hands resting on her knees were striking.
Those hands resembled weapons more than hands.
Those scar-covered hands were the Intelligence Bureau Director's weapons.
"I feel wronged. This is my home."
Harad tossed Ferrard roughly into a corner and sat down across from the woman who had spoken.
"Do you want a welcome?"
"I'd rather hear an apology. As I said, this is my home."
The Intelligence Bureau Director's eyes flickered.
"Shouldn't I have been the one to receive you? Not the other way around."
The gazes sharpened.
It felt like standing in the heart of enemy territory. It reminded him of the old days.
The knights had disliked Harad too.
Now they acted as if they could not live without him.
The Director waved a hand.
With that, the gazes quieted as if nothing had ever happened.
"For that, I apologize."
The Director glanced briefly at Ferrard, crumpled in the corner.
"It was not intentional."
"I'll refrain from holding a personal grudge."
The attack had been Ferrard's independent decision.
"That's refreshing. I was told you were a slippery man."
The Director was smiling.
At the end of that gaze was Arika. Her expression was apologetic.
'So everything has been found out.'
The Director had not come merely out of idle curiosity.
It was possible that Ellen's identity had been exposed.
She would have heard that news as well.
"Strong-willed, with a forceful temperament. Knows how to conceal it. And the sharpest mind among those I have dealt with. A mage who is a fusion of knight and agent."
The Director looked Harad over appraisingly, then gave a slow nod.
"I like you. I wondered what sort of refined type she had a taste for — but I can see why my daughter would hold you in her heart."
She was behaving as though she were truly Ellen's mother.
"But you are unfit."
"……?"
"You are not suited for my daughter."
For a moment, Harad's mind went blank.
"End things with my daughter."
He had never expected to actually hear those words said to him.
"Being sharp-minded, I'm sure you understand — but refusal is not——"
"I refuse."
Harad answered before he could stop himself.
'She's not even her daughter.'
He felt irritated.
He told himself it was the aftereffects.