The mansion called to mind a scene from a disaster movie.
The collapsed outer walls of the building. A thick fog mixed with dust, red tree roots.
There were no corpses, but Elise took their place.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah......."
"Where did everyone else go?"
"What about worrying about me?"
"You're fine."
"Fine? This?"
Elise, covered in dirt, looked up at Adam blankly.
Why does she look like a beggar too?
Looking closely, Adam was in a similar state.
"More importantly, explain this situation first."
"I don't know either. I went to the bathroom for a second, and when I came back the wall had collapsed, and everyone had already run off by then."
"So the others are safe."
"Probably? More importantly, isn't it obvious the Imperial Army did this?"
"You see the Imperial Army as some kind of tyrant, huh."
Well, to farmers and slaves, the Empire was a picture of hell, so of course she would.
But the Imperial Army wasn't stupid, so it would never make an enemy of an Archmage.
If they really wanted to fight Aicolman, they'd take the servants hostage first, and if an Archmage could be killed in such a brainless way, all the karma his master had built up would have blown up long ago and the man would already be a corpse.
"It wasn't the Imperial Army. It was probably Aicolman."
"Ahh......."
"Elise, it's dangerous, so go for now."
"Just me? Then what about you?"
"I've got to go in."
Any other servant would have grabbed him by the collar on the spot at the words going into a war zone like that, but since it was Adam, Elise let it go.
"If not you, who's going to stop that man?"
Slowly getting up and staggering toward the entrance, Elise glanced back at Adam.
Seeing the worry in her eyes, Adam spoke.
"Don't go too far, either. You'll have to come back when it's time to clean."
"Yeah......."
Adam roughly brushed the dust off her face and gave her a push on the back.
"Go on......."
After watching Elise's back, Adam hurried to the garden.
***
The garden was even more horrific than the entrance.
A marble statue with its head blown off.
And sculptures tangled grotesquely with tree roots, as if recreating a paradise that had fallen to ruin.
As it happened, the countless Imperial soldiers collapsed in the central garden added a dash of essence to the apocalyptic vibe.
"Hrk, please spare me."
"Spare you? And what about the rudeness you committed and the cost of my ruined mood?"
"I'm sorry."
"If sorry fixed everything, why would the Imperial Army exist?"
Aicolman, his black coat billowing, was strangling an Imperial soldier.
The Imperial soldiers were covered in wounds, but they weren't bleeding, and they hadn't been sucked dry into mummies either.
Seemed he'd held back, in his own way.
"How about sparing them?"
"Ohh, Adam. You came down a good 3 months earlier than I expected."
"What's going on right now?"
Aicolman answered as he tossed the Imperial soldier aside.
"I went a little overboard."
"What a wonderfully detailed and in-depth answer. I feel like I understand the whole situation."
Aicolman let out a hollow laugh.
"If you have any questions, ask them yourself."
"Them?"
He turned his head in the direction where he sensed people.
A fierce lion emblem on old-fashioned red uniforms.
Imperial knights stood in perfectly formed rows.
A knight commander wearing yellow epaulets stepped forward.
"Are you Adam, the disciple of that Archmage?"
A domineering tone in refined Imperial standard speech.
Realizing he was a noble, Adam took a step back.
"I'm not his disciple."
"There's no need to be wary. We haven't come to fight."
The knight commander said hurriedly, then immediately bowed his head.
"Her Highness the Third Princess has invited you both to the Imperial Palace, so please allow us to escort you to the capital."
"Invited?"
The Third Princess?
The Third Princess, as in that Tyrant Princess?
"Dog of the Empire, so why won't you tell me the purpose of this invitation?"
Aicolman's expression twisted, and he took a step toward the knight commander.
"An invitation is simply an invitation."
"I'm asking you what the purpose is!"
With a single step forward, mana spread out all around.
It meant he'd kill them if they said something like 'friendship.'
"We don't know the real purpose ourselves."
"You want me to go without even knowing why?"
Adam found that absurd, too.
"Knight Commander, Aicolman can be unreasonable sometimes, but I agree with him here. Even so, you want us to follow you without knowing what'll be done with us?"
"What'll be done with you? Are you saying Her Highness would harm you two? Even if that were so, you're the only ones among the Empire's people who would refuse a summons from the Imperial Family!"
'Well, that's true.'
If anything, the knight commander's logic was the sound one.
A princess was the Emperor's child.
Even counting the entire continent, there were very few who could refuse a summons from His Majesty the Emperor on the grounds that it felt off.
But Aicolman could.
Because the Archmage was one of the few who held that rare right.
Adam stood side by side with Aicolman.
"Don't tell me you intend to defy the Empire?"
The commander, his eyes turned fierce, asked aggressively.
"Rather than being dragged off to who knows where, it's more rational to side with the person who fed me and put a roof over my head."
"If you're not his disciple, aren't you a slave? To put it bluntly, why is a mere slave loyal to his master?"
"Because I've never thought of myself as a slave?"
"...Hah, fine. Enough."
The commander raised his hand high, pointedly.
At that, half of the unit that had been keeping Aicolman in check turned their swords on Adam.
Adam concentrated mana in the back of his hand as well.
Tzzzt.
Blue electricity flowed out of the back of his hand.
There was no one among the Imperial soldiers gathered here who didn't know that plasma was an Arcanist's magical phenomenon.
The plasma and the glint soon became the doorbell for battle.
An explosive sphere formed.
***
The knights advanced, all in the same horizontal-slash stance.
THUD—!
At a glance it looked like a rigid formation attack, but it was sturdier than he'd expected.
SLASH—!
The trees Aicolman had summoned fell.
SLASH—!
When Adam threw a sphere, the knight at the vanguard cut down the sphere flying straight at him.
SLASH—!
Seeing a ping-pong-ball-sized explosive sphere with the naked eye and slicing it, is that even human?
Adam's jaw dropped on its own.
"Weren't those guys just grunts?"
"Of course not. Most of the Imperial Army are knights who've reached a stage. Every single one of them is a warrior far stronger than you."
Just then, the knight commander raised his hand high and shouted.
"Everyone, break formation and fight on your own skill! Cut any sphere you see, and subdue the disciple first!"
Adam looked around.
Their stances were all different.
A system that formed ranks when needed and otherwise let each man show his own ability, flexible yet firm: that was Imperial swordsmanship.
'Were they sizing us up? They really are the strongest on the continent.'
But that was as far as it went.
"Gyaaaah!"
They weren't the only ones who'd been sizing up the other side's skill.
"Th-that's the famous Archmage's magic?"
"No wonder even the Emperor is impressed."
"Who knew I'd get a chance to face the Archmage......."
Knights who got close were swallowed by tree roots, and the careless were wrapped up by roots hidden in the soil.
Some roots lashed out like whips, and some stems sucked out moisture the instant they touched, turning men into mummies.
Even while getting beaten to a pulp like that, smiles rose on the knights' lips at the fact that they were fighting an Archmage.
'Why are these guys happy about getting beaten up?'
"Guhk!"
The knights fell one by one.
The number of trees gradually grew.
"Gyaaaah!"
But these men were still the backbone of the Imperial Army.
Even inside the thick tangle of trees, there were definitely knights closing in.
CLANG—!
A knight's sword touched Aicolman's cheek.
"I did it!"
The knight who'd scratched the Archmage's cheek smiled in rapture.
"Splendid. Consider it an honor to your family."
A root wrapped around the man's ankle and flung him far away.
"The Emperor's army indeed. It's been a long time since an army got this close to me."
Aicolman dodged a sword by a hair's breadth and fell back.
The other side was starting to get used to it, too.
Adam scanned his surroundings with a wide view.
The gaps in the complex, massive trees.
Knights forcing their way through those gaps.
Two mages dodging by a hair.
But even excellent warriors didn't leap high and cross a forest like something out of a martial arts novel.
"Aicolman, grow a tree under our feet."
Not understanding, Aicolman snapped at him.
"What? What kind of nonsense is that!"
"Let's ride the tree up."
After a moment's hesitation, he immediately understood Adam's idea.
"Okay. Hold on tight."
When Aicolman put his hand on the earth, a tree shot up like Jack's beanstalk, and the two soared high into the sky.
A ripened sunset.
A fierce wind blew, along with a giant flying magic beast drifting across the sky.
"Adam, at this rate our tree will get chopped down by those monster swordsmen in no time. Then we fall to our deaths."
"It's fine. There won't be anyone left down there."
Adam stuffed every mana stone in his coat into the magic circle.
For an instant, his mana surged.
His whole body brimming with mana, Adam generated dozens of explosive spheres from the magic circle.
He scattered those explosive spheres below.
Aicolman's eyes went wide.
The knights stared blankly up at the explosive spheres falling from the sky.
When they flew in sideways, they were easy to cut, but ping-pong-sized balls dropping from above could not possibly be cut down.
Carpet bombing that used points instead of lines was a huge success.
"Waaaaaaagh!"
Screams rang out from beneath the giant tree like Jack's beanstalk.
Pillars of blue fire shot up from the ground.
The picture of the flustered knights getting swept up in the explosions could truly be called a spectacle.
"You're a genius!"
"Honestly, even I have to admit that was genius."
The two lightly bumped fists.
The tree had already soared high into the sky.
A chilly wind blew in the sky above the tall tree.
"So that's the Archmage......."
"How... someone who's still just a disciple......."
A glimpse of overwhelming talent.
A trainee knight looked up at the boy atop the giant tree.
***
Two days after the mansion was wrecked.
A new guest came calling.
"Who is it?"
When Adam opened the door, a large man greeted him, accompanied by even more Imperial soldiers than before.
"I am Caligula, the Prince's Right-Hand."
At this point, it had gone beyond an advance party to an army.
But who did he say had come?
"The Right-Hand?"
Adam's jaw dropped.
"Where is the Archmage?"
"He's asleep right now, but I'll wake him up even if I have to beat him."
The Prince's Right-Hand.
It effectively meant the Prince's other half, the one closest to him.
Just as a prince was guaranteed the right of summary execution over ordinary citizens, the Right-Hand held rights equivalent to it.
Unlike a knight commander, who led one order of knights, a prince's Right-Hand was only ever one person.
'This seems like a really serious situation, doesn't it?'
Adam showed Caligula to the reception room.
Then he immediately ran full speed to Aicolman's bedroom, woke him, and brought him to the reception room.
"I'm sleepy."
Opening the door to the reception room, Aicolman greeted him as usual.
"So, what brings the Prince's Right-Hand here? Come to start a war?"
Adam looked up at Aicolman.
It was an expression that said, please shut up.
"Archmage......."
"What is it?"
After a look passed between the two of them, the Imperial soldiers and the general knelt down all at once.
"I, Caligula, the Prince's Right-Hand, bow my head in apology. Please do not take offense at the discourtesy the Third Princess committed this time, and I ask that you show us your generosity."
Aicolman scratched the back of his neck and spoke.
"Forget it. Honestly, I went too far this time, too."
Adam looked back and forth blankly between the two.
So they didn't come to fight.
"More importantly, is there no token of sincerity?"
"Of course, we've prepared a gift by way of apology."
"Hmm, you know I don't react to money, don't you?"
"Of course. It is a treasure whose value cannot be measured in money."
"I see."
Aicolman glanced at Adam and pointed his finger.
"Then give it to this one."
Adam, flustered, took a step back.
The gazes of the Imperial soldiers and Caligula turned to Adam, but their expressions didn't change much.
If anything, a slight smile rose on their faces.
"Wait a minute. Why me?"
"A reward, a reward. Think of it as a performance bonus."
Caligula stood up and came to stand in front of Adam.
Meeting Adam's eyes, he handed over a package with a smile.
"So you're the one."
Taking the package, Adam quietly looked up at the Right-Hand.