—WHOOOOOSH....
The Blue Magic Tower of the North.
Inside a study where a vicious wind blew through the shattered window, I sat across from Raphael with a luxurious marble table between us.
“The weather is lovely today.”
“Get out.”
“You seem to be in an especially good mood today as well, Master Raphael.”
“I said get out.”
I smiled good-naturedly and nodded.
“Haha, seeing you like this has put me in a fine mood as well.”
“I’ll count to three. One. Two......”
“More than anything, I can only be grateful that you so readily made time for me.”
“Three.”
Raphael grabbed the teacup on the table and hurled it at me.
—WHOOSH!
But the instant it reached me—
—CATCH.
I caught the cup and placed it back on the table.
Then, without missing a beat—
—Clink. Pour....
I expertly poured the tea.
The sight was almost reminiscent of an elegant young noblewoman.
I slid the teacup toward Raphael and gestured gracefully.
“Please, have some.”
“......Good grief.”
Raphael let out a hollow laugh, seemingly dumbfounded, and looked back and forth between me and Lenin beside me.
After some time, he released a deep sigh and rubbed his brow.
“Did you eat something strange while I was not looking, Your Grace?”
Raphael Mashaldor, the Master of the Blue Magic Tower.
He had watched Walter—meaning me—since I was young.
He knew me well.
And the person he had known until now would never have considered suddenly smashing through a window and barging shamelessly into his study.
He asked again.
“Or has overwork brought on a bout of madness?”
The words sounded familiar.
It was the exact same question Lenin had asked me before.
Lenin, who had been standing at my side with her expression perfectly blank, raised a hand.
“Ah, I have already checked that.”
“......”
“Fortunately, he says there is nothing wrong with his mind, so you may rest assured.”
Raphael narrowed his eyes and stared at her.
What is this?
Has she gone mad with him?
But only for a moment.
He forced himself to remain calm.
“Then why is he suddenly acting like this?”
Raphael barely forced the question out.
Lenin tilted her head and answered firmly.
“I do not know. How would I?”
“......”
Silence flowed through the study.
At the same time, Raphael felt an inexplicable stab of pain and clutched the back of his neck.
The instant Lenin saw him—
“......!”
An exclamation mark practically appeared above her head.
She quickly spoke with perfect courtesy.
“Master Raphael. Are you perhaps feeling unwell? If so, please tell us in advance.”
“......What?”
“As you know, the North is treacherous, and it takes a long time to reach a hospital in a major city.”
It was the same answer Lenin had given before.
Snap.
At last, Raphael’s reason broke beneath her words, and he hurled another book.
“You little—! You call yourself a secretary?! If your superior acts like this, you are supposed to stop him! And if you cannot, then just stand there quietly instead of chiming in every single time......!”
Lenin maintained her expressionless face and deftly caught the flying book.
“Am I not standing still?”
“Your mouth! Keep your mouth still!!”
Every time Raphael threw another book, Lenin caught it the instant it flew toward her.
Her performance could only be described as a divine feat.
Watching them, I murmured quietly.
“......She really isn’t normal either.”
Remember this.
In the North, only two kinds of people survived.
Those who had gone mad and those who had already been mad.
In any case, that was enough.
We could not keep doing this forever.
“Now, now, Master Raphael. Please calm yourself.”
I stepped between Lenin and Raphael and tried to settle them down.
But Raphael snorted as though the very idea were absurd.
“Would you be calm in this situation?! No doubt you came to ask me to lend you money again—”
“I didn’t come to borrow money.”
At that moment—
Raphael froze with the book still raised.
Then he whipped his head around and stared at Walter.
“......What?”
Raphael knew the North’s circumstances perfectly well.
If Walter had not come to borrow money, then why had he come all this way?
Before that question could even finish forming—
—THUD.
Walter took a wooden case from inside his coat and placed it on the table.
He spread a hand toward Raphael.
“Today, as the representative of the North—”
“......”
“I have come to request a formal trade agreement between the North and the Blue Magic Tower.”
—Click.
Walter opened the wooden case.
Inside lay a mound of blue crystals.
They were blue like the sea.
And their true identity was Alkein’s Elixir, created by the alchemist whose alchemy had once dominated the world.
***
Alchemist Alkein.
Anyone who walked the path of alchemy—and even those who did not—had heard his name at least once.
He was a legendary alchemist who had once been called the greatest alchemist on the continent, the man who reached the pinnacle of alchemy, the Sage of Life, and many other splendid epithets.
The mark he left upon alchemy was immeasurably great, and his work brought tremendous advancement to modern alchemy.
Even after Alkein died, his legend continued to be told without end.
One such tale concerned his tomb.
Before his death, he had supposedly left all his knowledge within his grave, and whoever found it would gain access to every truth of alchemy in the world.
It was the sort of tired legend everyone had heard before.
It was so famous that it had even been turned into children’s storybooks, and most people dismissed it as nothing more than an absurd tale.
However, roughly five hundred years after his death—
The Hero of the Kingdom discovered Alkein’s tomb, which had lain dormant deep within the North.
The entire continent learned that the legend had been true.
During the process, it was also revealed that the ingredients for Alkein’s Elixir were plants native to the North.
And so, the North enjoyed an unprecedented boom.
‘......As if.’
If that had happened, I would never have died from overwork.
I clicked my tongue as I looked at the white pellet inside the wooden case.
Tch.
Even now, the more I thought about it, the more fucking rotten this world seemed.
‘It is true that once people learned the elixir’s raw ingredients were northern herbs, every bastard imaginable flocked to the North.’
But by then, the North had failed to repay the ducal house’s debt, and most of its buildings and their rights had already been transferred away.
In the end, rather than profiting from the elixir, the North was reduced to handing every herb it gathered over to the Grand Merchant Guild.
At the head of it all had been Rupel of the Grand Merchant Guild, the ducal house’s dog.
Even now, the mere thought of that bastard’s face made me grind my teeth.
Fuck.
That slap last time had not been enough.
I should have beaten him half to death.
—GRIND...!
I ground my teeth as I remembered the dozens of wagons that had left the North for the royal capital, loaded with herbs.
The bastards who already had everything were always the worst.
Whenever I sent official requests asking them to help the North, they came up with every excuse imaginable and fucking ignored us.
And now what?
They were honoring the North’s achievements by granting us the opportunity to work for the kingdom’s glory?
As a result, every citizen of the North—and even I—had been forced to work as an herb gatherer year after year, despite it having nothing to do with our proper duties.
How much money would all those herbs have been worth?
And that was when I realized something.
‘Powerlessness truly is a sin.’
I could only stand there and watch as those herbs were taken from us like a fool.
The rights had been transferred because we could not repay the money.
All of it had happened because I—the North—had lacked power.
That was why, in this life, no matter what—
I would make the North the Best Land.
—CLENCH!
I tightened my fist.
—CRACK... CRUNCH!
Without realizing it, I shattered one corner of the marble table.
I looked at Raphael, realizing my mistake.
Before long—
“You bastard! First the window, and now you are breaking the table too! You son of a bitch who ought to be buried beneath the eternal snow! You are going to destroy every last possession in this Magic Tower!”
“No, that was an accident......”
“Oh, woe is me! Woe is me!”
I awkwardly scratched my head and brushed away the remaining pieces of marble.
Sorry about that.
In any case, after barely managing to calm Raphael down, I continued speaking.
“......So you are saying you only came to show me the product today?”
“I keep telling you. That’s right.”
“You truly are not planning to use this as an excuse to squeeze money out of me?”
Raphael still refused to lower his suspicious gaze as he looked back and forth between me and the wooden case.
Had this man spent his whole life being deceived?
Did he think I was some pyramid-scheme swindler?
Wait.
Now that I think about it, should I have sold it through a pyramid scheme?
No, that was not the point.
I waved a hand.
“Of course, I really am requesting a formal trade agreement with the Magic Tower. But today, I genuinely came only to show you the product.”
“......Then why did a man who came only to show me a product destroy my window and marble table?”
“How many times do I have to tell you the marble table was an accident?”
“......Then what about the window?”
I glanced at the shattered window, which was still letting the cold wind whistle through.
Then I put on my sunglasses and raised a thumb.
“It looks cool.”
“You fucking bastard!”
Raphael raised a book and tried to drive its corner into my head.
“Hey, stop! Stop!”
Books were meant to be read.
They were not meant to crack people’s skulls open.
I caught Raphael’s hand and carefully seated him at the table again.
“Anyway, just consider this a gift and accept it.”
“And why should I trust you?”
“Then throw it away wherever you please.”
I rose from my seat and pushed up my sunglasses with a click.
I gave him a mocking smile.
“You’ll be the one who regrets throwing it away.”
“What kind of gift are you suddenly—!”
Raphael tried to say something, but I turned my back before he could finish.
“I’m not that ungrateful.”
“......What?”
“It is nowhere near enough to repay everything you have done for me, but please consider it a gift in return.”
Raphael Mashaldor.
He spoke harshly, but he had watched over and helped me since I was young.
It had been the same before my regression.
He and Lenin had been the only people who remained until the very end of my father’s funeral.
He had even knelt before other territories and begged for help without telling me.
‘......Did he truly think I would never find out?’
Even though I had been young, I had understood everything that mattered.
He had repaid part of the North’s debt in my place.
He had continued sending letters to the royal capital, pleading for aid.
It had all been him.
No matter how coldly he spoke, the man who cared for me more than anyone from behind the scenes was Raphael, the Master of the Blue Magic Tower standing before me.
Honestly, he could never be straightforward.
I muttered inwardly and bowed politely to him.
“Then I will take my leave.”
—Click.
I closed the study door and left the Magic Tower with Lenin.
Beneath a sky filled with falling white snow—
—FLAP.
I draped my black fur coat around myself and spoke to Lenin.
“Lenin.”
“Yes, Lord Walter.”
“Things will become busy from this point onward.”
I strode forward.
Before long—
“Yes. Understood.”
Lenin bowed her head and answered.
Amid the raging northern snowstorm—
Crunch, crunch.
Only the sound of their footsteps quietly echoed.
***
How much time passed after that?
Deep night descended upon the Blue Magic Tower.
Inside the study belonging to Raphael, the Master of the Magic Tower—
—Creak, creak....
The sound of boards swaying came at regular intervals.
The shattered window could not be repaired immediately, but the cold wind still needed to be blocked.
As a temporary measure, boards had been hastily nailed across it.
“......It is cold.”
Raphael let out a hollow laugh and stared at the swaying boards with unfocused eyes.
Then he reached out and touched the corner of his favorite marble table—
Or rather, what was left of it now that it had been shattered.
That fucking Grand Duke of the North.
But only for a moment.
Raphael clicked his tongue and released a long sigh.
What was done was done.
There was nothing he could do about it.
Walter must have suffered terribly to go that mad.
I should just go to sleep.
With that thought, he rose from his seat.
Or rather, he was about to.
—THUD.
A wooden case fell to the floor.
Raphael bent down, picked it up, and opened it with a click.
Inside was a blue crystal.
It was the item the Grand Duke had left behind as a gift that day.
Had he said to take it before bed?
Raphael recalled Walter’s words and stared intently at the blue crystal.
‘It does not look like anything special......’
In truth, after Walter’s visit, Raphael had inspected it from every possible angle just in case.
Yet he could not even guess its effects from its appearance.
In the end, all he had was Walter’s suggestive statement that it was ‘something good for a middle-aged mage.’
“......”
Raphael stared at the pellet in silence for a long time.
Then he smacked his lips.
Ah, to hell with it.
—TOSS.
He tipped the blue crystal into his mouth.
The instant it touched his tongue—
—MELT....
A faint bitterness spread through his mouth.
Then it gently dissolved and disappeared.
Raphael immediately inspected his body from head to toe, but nothing seemed different at all.
He gave a faint laugh as if to say, Of course.
Then he headed toward his bedroom.
—Step, step.
Yet even at that moment, the dissolved medicine was spreading throughout his body.
He only noticed the changes to his flesh much later, the following morning.
“Mm......”
At around six in the morning, Raphael opened his eyes in bed.
He normally woke early, but today was also the day of the regular Magic Tower meeting, so he had awakened even earlier than usual.
It took quite some time to travel from the North to the place where the meeting was held.
But after a moment, Raphael tilted his head.
‘......Did I wake up to the alarm?’
When he had been young, he could wake in the morning without an alarm.
But since entering middle age, his relentless chronic fatigue made it impossible to wake on time without one.
He touched the clock beside his pillow, which contained an alarm spell.
But the clock had not sounded yet.
That meant he had awakened before the alarm.
Even so, he felt remarkably refreshed that morning.
“Well, this is unusual.”
Raphael muttered and rose without giving it much thought.
Or rather, he was about to.
He flinched and froze as though he had noticed something important.
“......”
Slowly—
Very slowly—
He looked down.
And there—
—STAND.
Something was already standing perfectly erect.
Raphael’s pupils widened.
“......!”
Could it be?!
At the same time, Raphael instinctively drew up his mana.
To his astonishment—
—WHOOOSH...!
Mana raced vibrantly through his body.
His mana circuits were no longer the feeble, sluggish channels through which it had crept until now.
They stretched open and clear, just as they had during the brilliant days of his twenties.
“I-It stood......!”
That thing belonging to the middle-aged mage, which had hung limp—
The middle-aged mage’s pride, which he had believed lost forever—
It stood cock... no, bolt upright.
“It stoooood!!!”
The morning after he consumed the elixir Walter had given him—
Raphael’s joyous roar thundered through the bedroom of the Master of the Blue Magic Tower.