"The weather's strangely nice......"
The next morning. People had begun moving briskly, preparing for the search for the Sage.
Some of it was personal readiness, but most were carrying out the tasks Moor had assigned.
"Is nice weather strange?"
Moor, standing beside Ran, drew a cigarette from his coat and set it between his lips.
"It's strange. This is a Great Wild, right? And there's no keeper. So shouldn't the mana be running wild?"
"Oh! Now that you mention it."
It was strange, no question. The ascetic who was this region's keeper had been reported dead. Which meant there was no one to quiet the raging mana of this Great Wild.
Moor was struck by the fact that no one had thought of it. And while he was proud of Ran for catching it, he felt a stab of self-reproach at having caught it later than Ran did.
In that moment, all the hints he had simply walked past despite having them flashed through his mind.
"I've been too naive. Thank you, Ran."
"Hm? For what?"
Ran gave him a puzzled look at the sudden remark. But Moor didn't answer; he left Ran where he stood and moved toward the assembled group.
Once preparations were finished, Moor drilled everyone in the method for tracking a Sage's mana. Ran and Moor then studied the map to set out themselves.
"We'll go with you."
Just before Ran and Moor left, Las and Leo caught them.
"No. You two are precious assets — among the very few able to stand against devil-kin. When the paladins find the devils, you have to answer them. Let's each play to our specialties."
Moor turned to look at Las and Leo. Ran, indifferent to all this, set off ahead.
"And if the Sage and the devils are together, don't try to fight them. Fire a flare and run immediately. Understood?"
The forest was crawling with demons. Powerful devils on top of that. Searching for a Sage in a region that dangerous was risky, so every Order member moved in teams accompanied by a considerable number of paladins.
Only Ran and Moor wanted to move as a pair.
"I don't know about anyone else, but I can't understand the two of you acting separately. Is the reason you won't travel with us — with anyone — that absurd curse you're the only one who believes in?"
Moor's curse.
Nearly every paladin who worked as Moor's partner, or shared a long assignment with him, had died. Of those who had served as his partner, the only one still alive was the current bishop of the Counter-Demon Order.
Whether this was only Moor's own idea, or whether he truly was cursed, no one knew.
Las and Leo were Order members who respected Moor's ability. Which is to say they believed nothing of the rumors or the curse.
Even though a great many of the paladins with them yesterday had died.
"Is that boy someone who may be allowed to die? Or is he someone you trust?"
Leo pointed a finger at Ran, walking away in the distance, as she asked. Moor answered the question with nothing but a smile.
Then he waved and hurried after Ran.
"So where do we go now?"
The two of them left the group behind and entered the forest.
After a long walk down the forest trail, Ran stopped and turned to ask Moor.
"You kept charging ahead — I was wondering when you'd ask."
Moor said it with a faint smile. And began drawing his mana up as he did.
"Weren't we just heading anywhere, to get away from the others?"
Moor's face registered mild surprise at how sharp the observation was. Between the remark about the weather and this, his partner felt like a different person today.
"For now we go straight to the central lake."
And so, using the coordinates he had confirmed on the map, Moor teleported with Ran. Their sight slowly warped, and the trunks and leaves of the trees in front of them began to blend together. Then their vision cleared, and a vast lake lay before them.
"This is the central lake? It's enormous."
The lake before them was beyond comparison to the one they had seen earlier. It stretched past sight, and if not for the surrounding terrain, you could have believed it was the sea. And at its center stood a colossal tree — the one they call the Tree of Life.
"Yes. And it's marked as the part of the lake where the keeper here mostly secluded himself."
Moor spoke as he took in the surroundings. And his eye caught a small cabin. It was a considerable distance off, but with everything else being a part of nature, the sole man-made structure was easy to spot.
Ran spotted the cabin without being told and started toward it.
Splash.
As they walked along the lakeshore toward the cabin, part of the lake began to churn. At the same moment, the trees in the forest to their right began to thrash.
Moor quickly asked a few things of Ran.
"Ran — over to you."
Ran nodded at Moor's short instruction. And began letting out his silver energy, a little at a time. When it had built enough, he walked straight into the lake.
The instant Ran's feet entered the water, the silver energy began spreading out from him. And the lake, churning a moment ago, began to still. Then, under the silver energy, the water began to harden like ice.
It spread fast enough that it looked ready to freeze the whole sea-sized lake.
Leaving Ran to it, Moor walked toward the cabin. And as he went he drew a cigarette in his left hand and a Glock in his right.
"Well, we have a guest. A paladin, I take it...... though the clothes are a little different."
As Moor neared the cabin, its door opened and a person came out.
A distinctly slight-framed man. To anyone's eye, he had the look of an ascetic secluded in the mountains.
Moor leveled the Glock at the man the moment he stepped out. And with his left hand he made a small flame and lit the cigarette between his lips.
"You're the keeper here, aren't you?"
The report had clearly stated that this region's keeper was dead.
A Great Wild that loses its keeper generally turns violent, and yet somehow the wild here was calm.
That was what had let Moor deduce the keeper was alive.
Moor kept the Glock trained and studied the man — or more precisely, the long staff he carried.
'It looks like an ordinary wooden staff...... no, it isn't.'
Moor looked at the sphere set at the staff's tip. Remains, without question.
"Yes, I am. And you seem to know what this is."
Noticing where Moor's eyes had gone, the keeper smiled as he spoke. His own gaze went to the sphere on the staff as well.
"So everything that's happened lately really is your doing. But why...... the keeper?"
Moor sounded genuinely thrown. Ordinarily, in a situation like this, he would have pulled the trigger the moment he confirmed a Sage carrying remains.
But this man was an ascetic acknowledged by a Great Wild. The space might be limited, but within it he could wield power at a Sage's level or beyond.
There was no reason for him to hunger after power.
"You mean why I'm doing this? Well...... love, I suppose?"
"What? Love?"
The answer was so absurd that Moor's cigarette dropped straight out of his mouth in surprise.
"Yes. Love. She gave me this and asked me to run a few experiments. If I succeed, surely she'll come and look at me again."
The keeper looked at his staff again and smiled. Something in his expression looked well past broken.
"Right...... well, at least I've confirmed you're insane. That does put me at ease."
Moor pulled the Glock's trigger. A roar left the muzzle and a mana round flew. Every round vanished before it reached the keeper.
"Yes, I thought it wouldn't come close."
"Oh! You'd take me on knowing I'm the keeper here?"
The keeper — and Sage — lifted his staff slightly and drove it back down into the ground. The trees of the forest began to thrash more fiercely. And from that forest, demons began pouring out.
"Hm?"
The Sage felt his mana refusing to flow smoothly. He turned his head to the right and looked at the lake.
Lake Superia, the source of his power and the heart of this Great Wild, was sheathed in silver, as if it had frozen over.
"What—! What is this?"
"Starting to grasp the situation?"
Moor drew Jaka in the gap the Sage's confusion opened. But the muzzle couldn't point at him.
The demons were closing on Moor fast, so he swung the barrel right and fired at the enemies charging him.
"?!"
In that instant the Sage closed the distance in a blink. And laid the hand not holding the staff on Moor's shoulder.
Depth 6 wind magic came up out of the ground, spiraled, and slammed into Moor.
The force flung him a considerable height into the air before he came back down.
"Your resistance to sorcery is really quite good."
The Sage walked slowly toward where Moor had fallen. He had used that sorcery fully intending to finish Moor, and looked mildly thrown that his opponent was in better shape than expected.
"Using a gun is odd in itself, but you seem to have some confidence in your ability. Though surely you didn't think freezing the lake would let you beat me?"
"Cough, cough."
Moor barely got his upper body up and tried to say something — and what came out of his mouth instead of words was blood.
"I tore you apart from the inside, so don't overexert yourself. Well then."
The Sage thrust his staff toward Moor.
"Wait...... there's one thing I'm curious about."
"Hm? What is it?"
The Sage had been gathering highly concentrated mana at the staff's tip. Moor's sudden question made him release that concentration. Believing he could kill his opponent at any moment, the Sage listened at his leisure.
"Just curiosity. Why summon devil-kin this way?"
Moor, having barely gotten himself up, sat where he was on the ground and drew out a cigarette.
"Ah! I told you already. An experiment."
"Experiment?"
Moor set the cigarette in his mouth, snapped his fingers to make a flame, and lit it. From the Sage's point of view, the man had given up entirely. His staff was still leveled at Moor, but the tension had eased somewhat from his face.
By now, the space around them was packed full of demons.
"Yes. The experiment Angela, the Sage of Perfection, asked of me."
The Sage moved the staff away from Moor and set its other end on the ground.
"What? Angela?!"
At that name, Moor's expression hardened abruptly.
"A Sage must take life without cease because of the remains' curse — and take it personally. She was in torment over it, and I could not bear that sad fact. So I searched for a way to pay the remains' price indirectly. One of those ways is what you see before you."
Unbothered, the Sage spread both arms and lifted his head. And looked around at the devil-kin he had summoned using human beings as the medium.
"I see......"
When Moor managed to speak, the Sage's face twisted hard.
"I've talked far too long. Farewell, then...... urk!"
The Sage gathered mana again to finish Moor. And then, without warning, began coughing up blood.
Startled, he turned by reflex to look at the lake. Only part of it had been sheathed in silver a moment ago — and now the whole thing, right up to the Tree of Life at its center, was covered in silver as though frozen.
And he saw that someone was standing at the top of the tree.
"So it wasn't you doing this after all!"
The Sage spun his whole body around. And flew toward the Tree of Life, where the one he believed responsible stood. At the same moment, beings of various other dimensions fell on Moor.
Silver energy — flight.
Ran, standing atop the Tree of Life, set his stance and leaped. A flash of silver came tearing toward where Moor was.
And collided in midair with the Sage flying toward the Tree of Life.
"What in the—?!"
The collision threw off a great shockwave. But only one of them lost his footing, and it was the Sage.
Ran seized him by the collar, flew to where Moor was, landed, and slammed the Sage into the ground. Between the silver energy and the impact, the Sage was crawling in agony.
Silver energy — release.
Ran immediately let out the maximum silver energy he could manage. With no one nearby but Moor, he had no one else to worry about.
"You're late, Ran."
"Late nothing! That lake is damn big!"
Under Ran's silver energy, the surroundings looked as if winter had come out of nowhere; the whole world was blanketed white, and the beings of other dimensions that had tried to attack Moor crystallized in silver as well.
"Right, can I finish this now?"
"Wait! Not yet!"
Moor hurriedly blocked Ran, who was about to kick the Sage crawling on the ground. He had been using the Benediction Arts while he talked, and his breathing was gradually coming back.
"We need to find out who's behind him."
"Tch!"
Ran scowled, but he didn't follow through. Instead he kicked the demons crystallized by the silver energy beside him, and they crumbled into shards.
"How......"
The Sage began to crawl, his whole body shaking. He seemed unable to accept the situation.
"How? You mean how you were beaten this easily?"
"Yes...... that lake is only a part of the Great Wild. The Great Wild is still...... so why is my power—"
Moor stayed where he sat and set a cigarette between his lips.
"Have you ever thought about why nature grants a keeper power?"
Just as he moved to light it, the Sage drew mana up in a rush.
THUD—!
Ran reacted instantly and kicked the Sage in the head. The gathered mana scattered under Ran's silver energy, and the Sage went rolling again.
"It's power given so you would protect this Great Wild and the plants and animals living in it. Now look around you."
The forest around the lake was, by now, full of the corpses of demons of every kind.
"Your connection to the Great Wild had already weakened. Only that lake, right beside you, was left."
While Moor spoke, Ran walked around shattering the crystallized demons.
The Sage wore a bitter smile, as though he had given up.
"Right. Time to answer. Where is Angela now?"
"Do you imagine I'll tell you?"
"Aagh!"
The moment he heard the answer, Moor drew the Glock with his right hand and pulled the trigger. The round took off the Sage's left hand. With his left hand, meanwhile, Moor used the Benediction Arts to treat his own injuries further.
"I'm busy. Talk, quickly."
BANG—! BANG—! BANG—!
And so it went: question, answer, and gunfire ringing out one after another. Moor kept firing at the Sage, avoiding the vital points that would affect his life, until he got the answer he wanted.
Ran paid the situation no mind at first, but his face slowly hardened at what Moor was doing. He didn't try to stop him.
"She is perfect...... There is nothing more I'll tell you."
"I see...... Then let's leave it there."
Moor set the Glock against the Sage's forehead. And pulled the trigger.
"What? Did you kill him?"
Ran spoke, startled by Moor's sudden action. Struck by the round, the Sage went straight down.
"No. This gun manages Depth 2 at best. A Sage doesn't die from that. He's unconscious."
As he spoke, Moor summoned a black sphere in his left hand. The Sage and his staff were drawn into it. The cigarette in Moor's mouth had burned down at some point to where it could no longer be smoked.
He spat it out without touching it. Then drew a fresh one and set it between his lips.
Ran said nothing to him.